Common Sense

"Should affairs be patched up with Britain, and she to remain the governing and sovereign power of America, (which as matters are now circumstanced, is giving up the point entirely) we shall deprive ourselves of the very means of sinking the debt we have, or may contract. The value of the back lands, which some of the provinces are clandestinely deprived of, by the unjust extension of the limits of Canada, valued only at five pounds sterling per hundred acres, amount to upwards of twenty-five millions, Pennsylvania currency; and the quit-rents at one penny sterling per acre, to two millions yearly.…"
-Paine is saying that if Britain maintains its role as governing body of the US, then the colonists will lose their possible land towards Canada, and thus, depriving themselves of possible money to solve the debt.

"To which I reply, that our military ability at this time, arises from the experience gained in the late war, and which in forty or fifty years time, would have been totally extinct.…"
-Paine is stating that the experience from the French and Indian war will be lost if the colonists do not rise up and fight for what they believe in.

"But if you say, you can still pass the violations over, then I ask, hath your house been burnt? Hath your property been destroyed before your face? Are your wife and children destitute of a bed to lie on, or bread to live on? Have you lost a parent or a child by their hands, and yourself the ruined and wretched survivor? If you have not, then are you not a judge of those who have. But if you have, and can still shake hands with the murderers, then are you unworthy the name of husband, father, friend or lover, and whatever may be your rank or title in life, you have the heart of a coward, and the spirit of a sycophant."
-Paine is stating that the Loyalists or Tories, should not pass judgment upon the rebels because they have not suffered what they have. This appeals to the colonists because it helps favor the colonists' reason to rebel.

Links
Questions 1 and 2: http://www.answers.com/topic/excerpt-from-common-sense-1776-by-thomas-paine
(This has the excerpt not the answers to Paine's Pamphlet-Common Sense)
Question 3:www.bradenshistory.com/US/Unit%201%20-%20Revolution/Common%20Sense%20by%20Thomas%20Paine.doc -
(This is a download for the Pamphlet)