Beau of the Fifth Column has issued a brief video encapsulation on Paine that is really quite good (see below), 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. Beau, you 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 the following day and guillotined shortly thereafter, making the execution order void. It took a LONG time for Monroe to get him out; close to three months.
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