ABSTRACT
The public denial of his citizenship at the polls depressed Thomas Paine enough for him to give up the struggle with his drinking problem and to succumb again to the bottle. At the beginning of June Paine’s friend William Carver, presumably having heard rumours of Paine’s behaviour, went to New Rochelle to take him back to New York. Paine was certainly still capable of writing, publishing several articles in James Cheetham’s American Citizen that autumn. On 4 November the People’s Friend carried ‘a two-column essay signed A Friend to Peace which’, Paine objected, ‘is a bitter invective against the national administration for not fortifying the port of New-York’. On 18 August the Public Advertiser carried an essay by Paine addressed ‘to the people of New York’. Paine’s impatience led him to ask George Clinton Junior, who had presented his memorial to Congress, for an update on its progress.
