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I published Common Sense anonymously on 10 January 1776. Forty-seven pages. Within three months, 120,000 copies had been sold in a country of three million people — a proportion that has never been matched in American publishing before or since.

The argument was straightforward: monarchy is an absurdity, hereditary succession is an insult to reason, and the American colonies had an opportunity to create a government founded on principle rather than accident of birth. 'The cause of America is in a great measure the cause of all mankind.'

Washington had it read to his troops before the crossing of the Delaware. Franklin and Jefferson were circulating it. Adams, who never liked me, admitted it had more immediate effect on the independence movement than any other document.

I made almost no money from it. I donated the royalties to the Continental Army to buy mittens. This was, in retrospect, characteristic.