Thomas Paine at age 37 immigrated to the American colonies. He was an English pamphleteer, revolutionary, radical, inventor, and intellectual. His principle works were the pamphlet Common Sense (1776), advocating colonial America's independence from Great Britain, and The American Crisis (1776-1783), a pro-revolutionary pamphlet series. The original work in French, by the Abbe Raynal discussed the Revolution of North America. Because Abbe was far from the war, he occasionally was in error of the facts, or misconceived the causes or principles by which they were produced. Thomas Paine wrote this pamphlet in order to set the record straight.