ABSTRACT
The main thrust of Thomas Paine’s final American Crisis was to emphasize the importance of the Union, ‘the great hinge on which the whole machine turned’. Paine accused the assembly of rendering ‘government incompetent to all the great objects of the state’. These included ‘inland navigation, building bridges, opening roads of communication through the state and other matters of a public benefit’. In April 1786 Paine decided to relocate the model of the iron bridge to Bordentown, and invited D. Hall to join him there for the summer. Paine decided to take the model of his wrought-iron bridge with him to France, and then to England, hoping for a more positive reception for it. Paine’s predictions alarmed him sufficiently to write his Reflections on the Revolution in France warning the British about the threat posed by it.
