Thomas Paine A Success Or A Failure

In Thetford, England, on January 29, 1737, Thomas Paine, a future Founding Father of the United States, was born. He received a small education and had failed school by the age of twelve. However, he acquired the knowledge to read, write, and do arithmetic. Paine began working as an apprentice to his father at the age of thirteen, but failed once more. Life in England was dismal for Thomas Paine. While being known as a failure was miserable, Paine suffered from even more trauma. In 1960, his wife and child both died during childbirth. Paine then served as an excise officer in 1768, but the outcome again left him in disappointment. Over the course of the summer of 1772, he published his first official work of writing, “The Case of the Officers of Excise,” in which he insisted a raise in pay for officers. That winter, Paine passed out copies of his article, but was later fired from the job in 1774. The future looked bleak for Thomas Paine, but he was surprised later that year when he met Benjamin Franklin in London, who encouraged him to make a bold budge, and move to America. Things had finally started to look hopeful.
When he first arrived to the colonies, he worked as an editor of the Pennsylvania Magazine. During this time, he wrote and anonymously published several short articles based on his thoughts about the revolution and independence. Paine then wrote Common Sense, ensued from the battles of Lexington and Concord. In this pamphlet, Thomas Paine demanded that the thirteen colonies declare independence. He convinced the colonists that independence was practical and the solution to a bright future. It was printed in January of 1776, and within a few months more than 120,000 copies were