Plain Truth, written by James Chalmers (1727–1806), a loyalist officer from Chestertown, Maryland, was one of the leading written commentaries lambasting Thomas Paine’s Common Sense. Chalmers wrote: “If indignant at the Doctrine contained in the Pamphlet, entitled “Common Sense:” I have expressed myself, in the following Observation, with some Ardor; I entreat the Reader to impute my indignation, to honest zeal against the Author’s Insidious Tenets.”