PREFACE*

AT last Mr. Paine has thought fit to own, with the Psalmist, and with Mr. Locke, that “God hath given the earth to the children of men, given it to mankind in common”

This is a truth so indisputable, and which I always thought of such vast importance for mankind universally to understand and acknowledge, that I have indefatigably embraced every opportunity, from my youth up, to publish it, together with the most consistent plan that I could form thereon.

I am glad that Mr. Paine has, even though late, made this acknowledgement, because his celebrity will procure him many readers, and greatly add both to the investigation of this great fundamental truth, and of such philosophical superstructures as may be built on the same. But as to the plan that he has laid down in his AGRARIAN JUSTICE (where he first acknowledges this principle) it does not appear to me to be in any measure just or satisfactory. The principle is without doubt incomparably grand, and the very first maxim in the law of nature, and in the science of right and wrong, and is fraught with all the blessings that can render mankind happy on earth. But, O dire disappointment! Behold! Mr. Paine, instead of erecting on this rock of ages an everlasting Temple of Justice, has erected an execrable fabric of compromissory expediency, as if in good earnest intended for a Swinish Multitude.

The poor, beggarly stipends which he would have us to accept of in lieu of our lordly and just pretensions to the soil of our birth, are so contemptible and insulting, that I shall leave them to the scorn of every person conscious of the dignity of his nature, not detaining the reader from the perusal of the following little tract on the Rights of Infants, where men who dare contemplate their rights, may see them pourtrayed boldly at full length.

The more I contemplate human affairs, the more I am convinced that a landed interest is incompatible with the happiness and independence of the world. For as all the rivers run into the sea, and yet the sea is not full, so let there be ever so many sources of wealth, let trade, foreign and domestic, open all their sluices, yet will no other but the landed interest be ultimately the better.

In whatever line of business, or in whatever situation the public observe men thrive, thither every one presses, and in competition bid over each other's head for the houses and shops on the lucky spot, 4 thereby raising the rents till the landlord gets the whole fat of their labours. It is the same in respect to the farms; for if a profitable market, foreign or domestic, spring up for the produce of the earth, then farming will be the rage, and every one will over bid another for farms, till they can hardly live by them. Nay, even abolish the tythes, and the rents of the farms will immediately so advance that the whole advantage shall center in the landlords.

Thus all things work together for good to those who love God, which seems to be fully accomplished in the landed interest, who are the visible elect. Yes, for theirs are all things whether the state, the government or the dignities; the principalities, or the powers. All dominion is rooted and grounded in land, and thence spring every kind of lordship which overtops and choaks all the shrubs and flowers of the forest. But take away those tall, those overbearing aristocratic trees, and then the lowly plants of the soil will have air, will thrive and grow robust. Nevertheless, take care you leave not any roots of those lordly plants in the earth, for though cut down to the slump like Nebuchadnezzar, yet if any vestage of the system remain, any fibre of the accursed roots, though ever so small lie concealed in the soil, they would sprout again and soon recover their pristine vigour, to the overshadowing and destruction of all the undergrowth. Thus do philosophy and the purest philanthropy compel us to cradicate this baneful order from human society.

Whether my plan of enjoying man's rights, which I have been publishing in different ways for more than twenty years, be objectionable or no, it is certain it has never been answered; neither have I seen or heard of any arguments on the subject, but what have only more effectually convinced me that no system can be more universally just even to those it seems most to militate against; more easily estab∣lished, because it is the interest of every one not to oppose it; nor of course more likely afterwards to be more peaceful and permanent.

If I am wrong, let me be confuted; and if I am not, let mankind for their own sakes, pay attention to what I say. They ought at least to give me credit for my disinterestedness in this scheme, for according to it I can have no private landed estate, no tenants to work for me, nor claim any privilege above my fellow-citizens. Wherefore, before any be so ungenerous as to condemn me as presumptuous, I hope they will candidly weigh my several arguments which they will find in the various little things I have published, which are neither many nor dear, and in the following Rights of Infants. THO. SPENCE.

LONDON, March 19th, 1797.

* The Rights of Infants was wrote in the latter end of the year 1796, but Paine's Agrarian Justice coming to hand before it was published, the following Strictures, by way of Preface and Appendix, were added.

“AND pray what are the Rights of Infants?" cry the haughty Aristocracy, sneering and tossing up their noses.

Woman. Ask the she-bears, and every she-monster, and they will tell you what the rights of every species of young are.—They will tell you, in resolute language and actions too, that their rights extend to a full participation of the fruits of the earth. They will tell you, and vindicate it likewise by deeds, that mothers have a right, at the peril of all opposers, to provide from the elements the proper nourishments of their young. And seeing this, shall we be asked what the Rights of Infants are? As if they had no rights? As if they were excrescences and abortions of nature? As if they had not a right to the milk of our breasts? Nor we a right to any food to make milk of? As if they had not a right to good nursing, to cleanliness, to comfortable cloathing and lodging? Villains! Why do you ask that aggravating question? Have not the foxes holes, and the birds of the air nests, and shall the children of men have not where to lay their heads? Have brute-mothers a right to eat grass, and the food they like best, to engender milk in their dugs, for the nourishment of their young, and shall the mothers of infants be denied such a right? Is not this earth our common also, as well as it is the common of brutes? May we not eat herbs, berries, or nuts as well as other creatures? Have we not a right to hunt and prowl for prey with she-wolves? And have we not a right to fish with she-otters? Or may we not dig coals or cut wood for fuel? Nay, does nature provide a luxuriant and abundant feast for all her numerous tribes of animals except us? As if sorrow were our portion alone, and as if we and our helpless babes came into this world only to weep over each other?

Aristocracy (sneering). And is your sex also set up for pleaders of rights?

Woman 6 Yes, Molochs! Our sex were defenders of rights from the beginning. And though men, like other he-brutes, sink calmly into apathy respecting their offspring, you shall find nature, as it never was, so it never shall be extinguished in us. You shall find that we not only know our rights, but have spirit to assert them, to the downfal of you and all tyrants. And since it is so that the men, like he-asses, suffer themselves to be laden with as many pair of panyers of rents, tithes, &c. as your tender consciences please to lay upon them, we, even we, the females, will vindicate the rights of the species, and throw you and all your panyers in the dirt.

Aristocracy. So you wish to turn the cultivated world into a wilderness, that you may eat wild fruits and game like Indians?

Woman. No, Sophists, we do not want to be as Indians. But the natural fruits of the earth being the fruits of our undoubted common, we have an indefensible right to, and we will no longer be deprived of them, without an equivalent.

Aristocracy. Do you not, in lieu of those wild productions, get bread, and mutton, and beef, and garden stuff, and all the refined productions and luxuries of art and labour; what reason then have you to complain?

Woman. Are you serious? Would you really persuade us that we have no reason to complain? Would you make us believe that we receive these productions of art and culture as a fair compensation for the natural produce of our common, which you deprive us of? Have we not to purchase these things before we enjoy them?

Aristocracy. Sure, woman, you do not expect the fruits of men's labours and ingenuity for nothing! Do not the farmers, in the first place, pay very high rents for their farms; and, in the next place, are they not at great trouble and expence in tilling and manuring the ground, and in breeding cattle; and surely you cannot expect that there men will work and toil, and lay out their money for you, for nothing.

Woman. And pray, ladies and gentlemen, who ever dreamt of hurting the farmers, or taking their provisions for nothing, except yourselves? It is only the privileged orders, and their humble imitators on the highway, who have the impudence to deprive men of their labours for nothing. No; if it please your noblenesses and gentlenesses, it is you, and not the farmers, that we have to reckon with. And pray now, your highnesses, who is it that receive those rents which you speak of from the farmers?

Arist. We, to be sure; we receive the rents.

Woman. You, to be sure! Who the D—v—l are you? Who gave you a right to receive the rents of our common?

Arist. Woman! Our fathers either sought for or purchased our estates.

Woman. Well confessed, villains! Now out of your own mouths will I condemn you, you wicked Molocks! And so you have the impudence 7 to own yourselves the cursed brood of ruffians, who by slaughter and oppression, usurped the lordship and dominion of the earth, to the exclusion and starvation of weeping infants and their poor mothers? Or, at the best, the purchasers of those ill-got domains? O worse than Molochs! now let the blood of the millions of innocent babes who have perished through your vile usurpations be upon your murderous heads! You have deprived the mothers of nature's gifts, and farmed them out to farmers, and pocketted the money, as you audaciously confess. Yes, villains! you have treasured up the tears and groans of dumb, helpless, perishing, dying infants. O, you bloody landed interest! you band of robbers! Why do you call yourselves ladies and gentlemen? Why do you assume soft names, you beasts of prey? Too well do your emblazoned arms and escutcheons witness the ferocity of your bloody and barbarous origin! But soon shall those audacious Gothic emblems of rapine cease to offend the eyes of an enlightened people, and no more make an odious distinction between the spoilers and the spoiled. But, ladies and gentlemen, is it necessary, in order that we eat bread and mutton; that the rents should be received by you? Might not the farmers as well pay their rents to us, who are the natural and rightful proprietors? If, for the sake of cultivation, we are content to give up to farmers our wild fruits, our hunting grounds, our fish and game; our coal-mines, and our forests, is it not equitable that we should have the rents in lieu thereof? If not, how can the farmers have the face to sell us again the produce of our own land?

Hear me! ye oppressors! ye who live sumptuously every day! ye, for whom the sun seems to shine, and the seasons change, ye for whom alone all human and brute creatures toil, sighing, but in vain, for the crumbs which fall from your overcharged tables; ye, for whom alone the heavens drop fatness, and the earth yields her encrease; hearken to me, I say, ye who are not satisfied with usurping all that nature can yield; ye, who are insatiable as the grave; ye who would deprive every heart of joy but your own, I say hearken to me! Your horrid tyranny, your infanticide is at an end! Your grinding the faces of the poor, and your drinking the blood of infants, is at an end! The groans of the prisons, the groans of the camp, and the groans of the cottage, excited by your infernal policy, are at an end! And behold the whole earth breaks forth into singing at the new creation, at the breaking of the iron rod of aristocratic sway, and at the rising of the everlasting sun of righteousness!

And did you really think, my good gentlefolk, that you were the pillars that upheld the universe? Did you think that we would never have the wit to do without you? Did you conceive that we should never be able to procure bread and beef, and fuel, without your agency? Ah! my dear creatures, the magic spell is broke. Your sorceries, your witchcrafts, your priestcrafts, and all your juggling crafts, are at an end; and the Meridian Sun of Liberty bursts forth upon the astonished 8 world, dispelling the accumulated mists of dreary ages, and leaves us the glorious blue expanse, of serene unclouded reason.

Well then, since you have compelled, since you have driven us, through your cruel bondage, to emancipate ourselves, we will even try to do without you, and deal with the honest farmers ourselves, who will find no difference, unless for the better, between paying their rents to us and to you.

And whereas we have found our husbands, to their indelible shame, woefully negligent and deficient about their own rights, as well as those of their wives and infants, we women, mean to take up the business ourselves, and let us see if any of our husbands dare hinder us. Wherefore, you will find the business much more seriously and effectually managed in our hands than over it has been yet. You may smile, tyrants, but you have juster cause to weep. For, as nature has implanted into the breasts of all mothers the most pure and unequivocal concern for their young, which no bribes can buy, nor threats annihilate, be assured we will stand true to the interest of our babes, and shame, woe, and destruction be to the pitiful varlet that dare obstruct us. For their sakes we will no longer make brick without straw, but will draw the produce of our estate. If we deprive ourselves of our common, in order that it may be cultivated, we ourselves will have the price thereof, that we may buy therewith, as far as it will go, the farmer's produce. And so far as our respective shares of the rent may be inadequate to the comfortable and elegant support of ourselves and infants, so far will we chearfully, by our honest endeavours, in our several callings, make up the deficiency, and render life worth enjoying. To labour for ourselves and infants we do not decline; but we are sick of labouring for an insatiable aristocracy.

To convince your highnesses that our plan is well digested, I will lay it before you. You will find it very simple, but that is the sign of the greater perfection. As I said before, we women (because the men are not to be depended on) will appoint, in every parish, a committee of our own sex, (which we presume our gallant lock-jawed spouses and paramours will at least, for their own interest, not oppose,) to receive the rents of the houses and lands already tenanted, and also to let, to the best bidders, on seven years leases, such farms and tenements as may, from time to time, become vacant. Out of those rents we can remit to government so much per pound, according to the exigencies of the state, in lieu of all taxes; so that we may no longer have taxes nor tax-gatherers. Out of these rents we shall next pay all our builders and workmen that build or repair our houses; pave, cleanse, or light our streets; pay the salaries of our magistrates and other public officers. And all this we women shall do quarterly, without a bank or bank-notes, in ready money, when the rents are paid in; thus suffering neither state nor parish to run in debt. And as to the overplus, after all public expences are defrayed, we shall divide it fairly and equally among all the living souls in the parish, whether male or female; married or single; legitimate or illegitimate; from a day old to the extremest age; making no distinction 9 between the families of rich farmers and merchants, who pay much rent for their extensive farms or premises, and the families of poor labourers and mechanics, who pay but little for their small apartments, cottages and gardens, but giving to the head of every family a full and equal share for every name under his roof.

And whereas births and funerals, and consequent sicknesses, are attended with expence, it seems requisite to allow, at quarter-day, to the head of every family, a full share for every child that may have been born in his house since the former quarter-day, though the infant may be then but a day old; and also, for every person who may have died since the former quarter-day, though the death should have happened but a day after it.

This surplus, which is to be dealt out again among the living souls in a parish every quarter-day, may be reasonably supposed to amount to full two-thirds of the whole sum of rents collected. But whatever it may amount to, such share of the surplus rents is the imprescriptible right of every human being in civilized society, as an equivalent for the natural materials of their common estate, which by letting to rent, for the sake of cultivation and improvement, they are deprived of.

Wherefore, now ladies and gentlemen, you see the glorious work is done! and the rights of the human species built on so broad and solid a basis, that all your malice will not be able to prevail against them! Moreover, when we begin with you, we will make a full end of your power at once. We will not impoliticly tamper with the lion, and pluck out a tooth now and then, as some propose to melt down your strength by degrees, which would only irritate you to oppose us with all the power you had remaining. No; we will begin where we mean to end, by depriving you instantaneously, as by an elective shock, of every species of revenue from lands, which will universally and at once, be given to the parishes, to be disposed of by and for the use of the inhabitants, as said before.

But yet be not cast down, my good ladies and gentlemen, all this is done for the sake of system, not revenge or retaliation; for we wish not to reduce you to beggary, as you do us, for we will leave you all your moveable riches and wealth, all your gold and silver, your rich clothes and furniture; your corn and cattle, and every thing that does not appertain to the land as a fixture, for these, you know, must come to the parish with our estates. So that you see you will still be the richest part of the community, and may, by your chearful acquiescence, be much more happy then you are now under the existing unjust system of things. But if, by foolish and wicked opposition, you should compel us, in our own defence, to confiscate even your moveables, and perhaps also to cut you off, then let your blood be upon your own heads, for we shall he guiltless. It will therefore be your interest and wisdom to submit peaceably, and fraternize chearfully with us as fellow citizens. For, instead of you then having the 10 revenues of the country to carry on war against us, as you have now, the parishes will then have these revenues to carry on the war against you. And as to your moveable property, we are not afraid of it, for it would soon melt away in supporting you in a state of hostility against the strength and standing revenues of the country, unburthened with debts and pensions. So prepare yourselves peaceably to acquiesce in the new system of things, which is fast approaching. And when you shall hear of the blessed decree being passed by the people, that the laud is from that day forth parochial property, join chorus with your glad fellow-creatures, and joyfully partake in the universal happiness.

The Golden Age, so fam'd by men of yore, Shall now be counted fabulous no more. The tyrant lion like an ox shall feed, And lisping Infants shall tam'd tygers lead: With deadly asps shall sportive sucklings play, Nor ought obnoxious blight the blithesome day. Yes, all that prophets e'er of bliss foretold, And all that poets ever feign'd of old, As yielding joy to man, shall now be seen, And ever flourish like an evergreen. Then, Mortals, join to hail great Nature's plan, That fully gives to Babes those Rights it gives to Man.

CHORUS.—To the Tune of “Sally in our Alley.”

Then let us all join heart in hand,   Through country, town, and city; Of every sex and every age,   Young men and maidens pretty. To haste this Golden Age's reign,   On every hill and valley, Then Paradise shall greet our eyes,   Through every street and alley.

BUT stop, don't let us reckon without our host; for Mr. Paine will object to such an equal distribution of the rents. For says he, in his Agrarian Justice, the public can claim but a Tenth Part of the value of the landed property as it now exists, with its vast improvements of cultivation and building. But why are we to be put off now with but a Tenth Share? Because, says Mr. Paine, it has so improved in the hands of private proprietors as to be of ten times the value it was of in its natural state. But may we not ask who improved the land? Did the proprietors alone work and toll at this improvement? And did we labourers and our forefathers stand, like Indians and Hottentots, idle spectators of so much public-spirited industry? I suppose not. Nay, on the contrary, it is evident to the most superficial enquirer that the labouring classes ought principally to be thanked for every improvement.

Indeed, if there had never any slave, any vassals, or any day-labourers employed in building and tillage, then the proprietors might have boasted of having themselves created all this gay scene of things. But the case alters amazingly, when we consider that the earth has 16 been cultivated either by slaves, compelled, like beasts, to labour, or by the indigent objects whom they first exclude from a share in the soil, that want may compel them to sell their labour for daily bread. In short, the great may as well boast of fighting their battles as of cultivating the earth.

The toil of the labouring classes first produces provisions, and then the demand of their families creates a market for them. Therefore it will be found that it is the markets made by the labouring and mechanical tribes that have improved the earth. And once take away these markets, or let all the labouring people, like the Israelites, leave the country in a body, and you would immediately see from what cause the country had been cultivated, and so many goodly towns and villages built.

You may suppose that after the emigration of all these beggarly people, every thing would go on as well as before: that the farmer would continue to plough, and the town landlord to build as formerly. I tell you nay; for the farmer could neither proceed without labourers nor find purchasers for his corn and cattle. It would be just the same with the building landlord, for he could neither procure workmen to build, nor tenants to pay him rent.

Behold then your grand, voluptuous nobility and gentry, the arch cultivators of the earth, obliged, for lack of servants, again to turn Gothic hunters, like their savage forefathers. Behold their palaces. temples, and towns, mouldering into dust, and affording shelter only to wild beasts; and their boasted, cultivated fields and garden, degenerated into a howling wilderness.

Thus we see that the consumption created by the mouths, and the backs, of the poor despised multitude, contributes to the cultivation of the earth, as well as their hands. And it is also the rents that they pay that builds the towns, and not the racking building landlord. Therefore, let us not in weak commiseration be biassed by the pretended philanthropy of the great, to the resignation of our dearest rights. And if our estates have improved in their hands, during their efficious guardianship, the D—v—l thank them; for it was done for their own sakes, not for ours, and can be no just bar against us recovering our rights.

FINIS.