The pamphleteer's table

Common Sense has made Paine famous almost overnight, and his rooms have become a meeting place for the men pushing the colonies toward independence. Franklin, who brought him to America two years earlier, is pleased and a little astonished at his success.

Jefferson, at work on the declaration, shares Paine's view of natural rights but writes more carefully. Henry needs no persuading and talks about the coming war. Paine, who has no patience for ceremony, serves a plain supper and keeps the talk on the argument that matters: that government by hereditary right is an insult to reason, and that the colonies should be free. They eat hasty pudding, fried oysters, and johnnycake, with apple tart and spruce beer, and Paine promises the next pamphlet before the summer is out.