Within five months of Paine's arrival, however, the precipitating event to his most famous work would occur.

One of his early articles was a scathing condemnation of the African enslaved people trade, called 'African Slavery in America,' which he signed under the name 'Justice and Humanity.' Paine's propagandist ideas were just coming together, and he couldn't have arrived in America at a better time to advance his general views and thoughts on revolution and injustice, as the conflict between the colonists and England had reached a fever pitch. At this time, Paine began writing in earnest, publishing several articles, anonymously or under pseudonyms. Paine arrived in Philadelphia on November 30, 1774, taking up his first regular employment - helping to edit the Pennsylvania Magazine - in January 1775. Luckily, he soon met Benjamin Franklin, who advised him to move to America and provided him with letters of introduction to the soon-to-be-formed nation. In the spring of 1774, Paine was fired from the excise office and began to see his outlook as bleak. It was his first political work, and he spent that winter in London, handing out the 4,000 copies of the article to members of Parliament and other citizens. In the summer of 1772, Paine published 'The Case of the Officers of Excise,' a 21-page article in defense of higher pay for excise officers. To compound his professional hardships, around 1760, Paine's wife and child both died in childbirth, and his business, that of making stay ropes, went under. He did not excel at this job, nor at any other early job, and his life in England was, in fact, marked by repeated failures. He later worked as an officer of the excise, hunting smugglers and collecting liquor and tobacco taxes.

Some sources state he and his father were corset makers, but most historians cite this as an example of slanders spread by his enemies. At the age of 13, he began working with his father as stay maker (the thick rope stays used on sailing ships) in Thetford, a shipbuilding town. Paine received little formal education but did learn to read, write and perform arithmetic. Paine was born in Thetford, England, in 1737, to a Quaker father and an Anglican mother. 'Common Sense,' Paine's most influential piece, brought his ideas to a vast audience, swaying the otherwise undecided public opinion to the view that independence from the British was a necessity. Among them were 'The Age of Reason,' regarding the place of religion in society 'Rights of Man,' a piece defending the French Revolution and 'Common Sense,' which was published during the American Revolution. Thomas Paine was an influential 18th-century writer of essays and pamphlets.

Thomas paine and common sense