Talk:Trial of Thomas Paine

Properly sourced but patently absurd?
"he was confronted by a mob who cheered him and shouted 'Damn Tom Paine, but Erskine for ever, and the Liberty of the Press; the King, the Constitution, and Erskine for ever'."

Sometimes one must take even a contemporary source cum grano salis. I think we can be sure no mob in history - not even an Age of Enlightenment English mob - has ever shouted anything quite so belabored. It sounds like an amalgam of several different things that may have been shouted, if indeed the entire thing isn't a narrative invention. Perhaps this would be a case where it would be best to frame the material as, "According to [source], he was confronted by a mob who..."

-J. Conti 108.20.137.173 (talk) 04:17, 20 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Except the sources are several peer-reviewed academic journal articles and books by prominent historians. Given that they felt comfortable incorporating and quoting the primary source, I think we can. Ironholds (talk) 12:16, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

Found guilty but what was his sentence?
He appears to have had business dealings in England soon after being found guilty what was his punishment? Rmhermen (talk) 02:20, 8 July 2019 (UTC)