Beau of the Fifth Column on Thomas Paine

But the Adams misattribution gets a repeat

Beau of the Fifth Column has issued a brief video encapsulation on Paine that is really quite good, despite a couple of small and common errors. It was NOT John Adams who wrote the line that " “Without the pen of Paine, the sword of Washington would have been wielded in vain.”" The passage appears nowhere in the writings or recorded words of John Adams. It was written by the American poet and diplomat Joel Barlow and appears in a 1792 London edition of Paine's Common Sense with introduction by Barlow. Overall, though, he did a fine job on Thomas Paine. The error can be easily forgiven because there is so much MISinformation on Paine and this one is repeated incessantly and often by authors who OUGHT to know better.

And Monroe did not rescue Paine in that short interval of three days. The key thing that happened was that Robespierre was himself arrested and guillotined the following day, I believe, making his execution order void. It took a LONG time for Monroe to get him out; close to three months.