THE HERALD; A GAZETTE FOR THE COUNTRY, New York, Aug. 17, 1796

• Post-Revolutionary War backlash
• Thomas Paine's "The Age of Reason"

Page 3 has over half a column taken up with a critical report on Thomas Paine and his works. A few bits include: "Tom Paine treats every subject, government, religion, finance, with equal profoundness and knowledge...with absolute shallowness and ignorance. In his Common Sense (the real merit of which work was that it boldly applied the match to a train of combustibles already laid) he attempts to prove that the Sovereign People..." with more on this. Then: "But what has Tom done lately?..." with more critical commentary on Paine, signed: "No-Painite".
Four pages, very nice condition.

Background: This issue of The Herald; A Gazette for the Country (New York, August 17, 1796) offers a rare contemporary glimpse into the severe post-Revolutionary backlash against Thomas Paine following his controversial 1794 treatise The Age of Reason. Writing under the descriptive pseudonym "No-Painite," the Federalist-era columnist delivers a scathing critique on page 3 that dismisses Paine’s intellectual rigor across government, religion, and finance as "absolute shallowness and ignorance." Crucially, the writer captures the complex legacy of Common Sense with a memorable assessment—acknowledging that its true triumph lay not in profound political theory, but in boldly "applying the match to a train of combustibles already laid." Preserved in complete four-page format, this report highlights how quickly Paine transformed from an indispensable champion of American independence into an ideological outcast in the early Republic's partisan press.