A governor sent from England, or receiving his authority therefrom, ought never to have been considered in any other light than that of a genteel commissioned spy, whose private business was information, and his public business a kind of civilized oppression.
In "The American Crisis," Paine critiques the role of British-appointed governors, portraying them as agents of surveillance and oppression.
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But as religion is very improperly made a political machine, and the reality of it is thereby destroyed, I will conclude this work with stating in what light religion appears to me.
Reason and discussion, persuasion and conviction, become the weapons in the contest, and it is only when those are attempted to be suppressed that recourse is had to violence.
Where these can have the opportunity of acting, opposition dies with fear, or crumbles away by conviction.
But where genuine principles of liberty pervade a people, every thing is restored to order; and the soldier civilly treated, returns the civility.