The American Crisis

While Paine’s essay directly addresses Lord Richard Howe (who was brother to British General William Howe), his confident, morally charged prose also persuades his fellow Americans to agree with his anti-monarchy views. Paine argues that serving a king or queen is undignified and servile as it “can so completely wear a man down to an ingrate and make him proud to lick the dust that kings have trod upon” (17-18). Paine contrasts the King’s “sword of war,” which Paine says threatens, frightens and insults common people, with the writer’s “sword of justice,” which instead gives people courage. Paine claims that King George III is seeking revenge against American revolutionaries and doesn’t care about deaths and casualties; he informs Lord Howe that he serves a “monster.” He also strongly condemns American “Tories” who support the British monarchy and empire. Yet, Paine also suggests that any “sensible man” should be ashamed to see a common Tory cruelly punished or ostracized, since Paine argues they have been manipulated by bribery or flawed arguments.

Another continuing theme in Paine’s work is his analysis of the two countries’ military strategies. Paine accuses Britain of overestimating its own power, since it has not won a war without foreign assistance in many years. Paine points out the British necessity of paying German troops, or “Hessians,” to fight the French in North America, and their continued reliance on these Hessians. He observes the differences in waging war in Britain, a smaller country, than in America because of the immense geographical differences. Paine claims that the British are at a tactical disadvantage, telling Lord Howe, “You cannot be so insensible as not to see that we have two to one the advantage of you, because we conquer by a drawn game, and you lose by it” (24). He reminds Howe that he is facing both an army and a country and claims that American troops have broad support from the American public. He then tries to rattle Howe’s strategy by describing how American colonists could sail to England and ignite a revolution there while Howe remains unaware in America.

Paine also criticizes the British military’s lack of moral character, claiming that “You[r] avowed purpose here is to kill, conquer, plunder, pardon, and enslave” (31) and calls the British policy of killing armed Americans “barbarous.” The author notes the British empire’s domination in India, Africa, and the Caribbean, where British forces “inflicted misery” and “butcherly destruction” (32-33). Paine condemns these actions and wishes that the British empire will face a day of sorrow and reckoning, suggesting Paine has forward-thinking views on colonialism, whether they purely serve his argument or truly align with his values. We see in his negative descriptions of Indigenous peoples that his “values” here are contradictory