actually traveled with the continental army, later became a very scathing critic of washington. he ended up saying washington is treacherous in private friendship and hypocrite in his public life, ended up publishing this very vitriolic open letter to washington. what happened was that tom paine, during the french revolution, was imprisoned and he felt that washington did not make sufficient efforts to free him. paine was an honorary american citizen, and so he thought that washington should have done more. washington was really in a political bind in terms of trying to apply pressure on the french government to release him. so paine goes from one extreme to the other. >> how important was he to the founding? >> i think that he was extraordinarily important. i think that at the time that he published "common sense" there were a lot of people who had not yet been converted to the idea of independence from great britain. and i think that at key moments -- for instance, after the...