a teacher, for she has not the least talent of managing affairs for
herself. She may send Bebia up to me. I will take care of him for his
own sake and his father's, but that is all I have to say.... I am
master of an empty house, or nearly so. I have six chairs and a table, a
straw-bed, a featherbed, and a bag of straw for Thomas, a tea kettle, an
iron pot, an iron baking pan, a frying pan, a gridiron, cups, saucers,
plates and dishes, knives and forks, two candlesticks and a pair of
snuffers. I have a pair of fine oxen and an ox-cart, a good horse, a
Chair, and a one-horse cart; a cow, and a sow and 9 pigs. When you come
you must take such fare as you meet with, for I live upon tea, milk,
fruit-pies, plain dumplins, and a piece of meat when I get it; but I
live with that retirement and quiet that suit me. Mrs. Bonneville was
an encumbrance upon me all the while she was here, for she would not do
anything, not even make an apple dumplin for her own children. If you
cannot make yourself up a straw bed, I can let you have blankets, and
you will have no occasion to go over to the tavern to sleep.
"As I do not see any federal papers, except by accident, I know not if
they have attempted any remarks or criticisms on my Eighth Letter, [or]
the piece on Constitutional Governments and Charters, the two numbers
on Turner's letter, and also the piece on Hulbert. As to anonymous
paragraphs, it is not worth noticing them. I consider the generality of
such editors only as a part of their press, and let them pass.--I want
to come to Morrisania, and it is probable I may come on to N. Y., but I
wish you to answer this letter first.--Yours in friendship."
* I am indebted for an exact copy of the letter from which
this is extracted to-Dr. Garnett of the British Museum,
though it is not in that institution.
It must not be supposed from what Paine says of Madame Bonneville that
there was anything acrimonious in their relations. She was thirty-one
years younger than Paine, fond of the world, handsome. The old
gentleman, all day occupied with writing, could give her little
companionship, even if he could have conversed in French, But he
indulged her in every way, gave her more money than he could afford,
devoted his ever decreasing means to her family. She had boundless
reverence for him, but, as we have seen, had no taste for country life.
Probably, too, after Dederick's attempt on Paine's life she became
nervous in the lonely house. So she had gone to New York, where she
presently found good occupation as a teacher of French in several
families. Her sons, however, were fond of New Rochelle, and of Paine,
who had a knack of amusing children, and never failed to win their
affection.*
* In the Tarrytown Argus, October 18, 1890, appeared an
interesting notice of the Rev. Alexander Davis (Methodist),
by C. K. B[uchanan] in which it is stated that Davis, a
native of New Rochelle, remembered the affection of Paine,
who "would bring him round-hearts and hold him on his knee."
Many such recollections of his little neighbors have been
reported.
The spring of 1805 at New Rochelle was a pleasant one for Paine.
He wrote his last political pamphlet, which was printed by Duane,
Philadelphia, with the title: "Thomas Paine to the Citizens of
Pennsylvania, on the Proposal for Calling a Convention." It opens with a
reference to his former life and work in Philadelphia. "Removed as I
now am from the place, and detached from everything of personal party, I
address this token to you on the ground of principle, and in remembrance
of former times and friendships." He gives an historical account of the
negative or veto-power, finding it the English Parliament's badge of
disgrace under William of Normandy, a defence of personal prerogative
that ought to find no place in a republic. He advises that in the new
Constitution the principle of arbitration, outside of courts, should
be established. The governor should possess no power of patronage; he
should make one in a Council of Appointments. The Senate is an imitation
of the House of Lords. The Representatives should be divided by lot into
two equal parts, sitting in different chambers. One half, by not
being entangled in the debate of the other on the issue submitted, nor
committed by voting, would become silently possessed of the arguments,
and be in a calm position to review the whole. The votes of the two
houses should be added together, and the majority decide. Judges should
be removable by some constitutional mode, without the formality of
impeachment at "stated periods." (In 1807 Paine wrote to Senator
Mitchell of New York suggesting an amendment to the Constitution of the
United States by which judges of the Supreme Court might be removed by
the President for reasonable cause, though insufficient for impeachment,
on the address of a majority of both Houses of Congress.)
In this pamphlet was included the paper already mentioned (on Charters,
etc.), addressed to the people of New York. The two essays prove that
there was no abatement in Paine's intellect, and that despite occasional
"flings" at the "Feds,"--retorts on their perpetual naggings,--he was
still occupied with the principles of political philosophy.
At this time Paine had put the two young Bon-nevilles at a school in
New Rochelle, where they also boarded. He had too much solitude in the
house, and too little nourishment for so much work. So the house was let
and he was taken in as a boarder by Mrs. Bayeaux, in the old Bayeaux
House, which is still standing,*--but Paine's pecuniary situation now
gave him anxiety. He was earning nothing, his means were found to be
far less than he supposed, the needs of the Bonnevilles increasing.
Considering the important defensive articles he had written for the
President, and their long friendship, he ventured (September 30th) to
allude to his situation and to remind him that his State, Virginia,
had once proposed to give him a tract of land, but had not done so. He
suggests that Congress should remember his services.
* Mrs. Bayeaux is mentioned in Paine's letter about
Dederick's attempt on his life.
"But I wish you to be assured that whatever event this proposal may take
it will make no alteration in my principles or my conduct I have been
a volunteer to the world for thirty years without taking profits from
anything I have published in America or Europe. I have relinquished all
profits that those publications might come cheap among the people for
whom they were intended--Yours in friendship."
This was followed by another note (November 14th) asking if it had been
received. What answer came from the President does not appear.
About this time Paine published an essay on "The cause of the Yellow
Fever, and the means of preventing it in places not yet infected with
it Addressed to the Board of Health in America." The treatise, which he
dates June 27th, is noticed by Dr. Francis as timely. Paine points out
that the epidemic which almost annually afflicted New York, had been
unknown to the Indians; that it began around the wharves, and did not
reach the higher parts of the city. He does not believe the disease
certainly imported from the West Indies, since it is not carried from
New York to other places. He thinks that similar filthy conditions of
the wharves and the water about them generate the miasma alike in the
West Indies and in New York. It would probably be escaped if the wharves
were built on stone or iron arches, permitting the tides to cleanse the
shore and carry away the accumulations of vegetable and animal matter
decaying around every ship and dock. He particularly proposes the use of
arches for wharves about to be constructed at Corlder's Hook and on the
North River.
Dr. Francis justly remarks, in his "Old New York," that Paine's writings
were usually suggested by some occasion. Besides this instance of the
essay on the yellow fever, he mentions one on the origin of Freemasonry,
there being an agitation in New York concerning that fraternity.
But this essay---in which Paine, with ingenuity and learning, traces
Freemasonry to the ancient solar mythology also identified with
Christian mythology--was not published during his life. It was published
by Madame Bonneville with the passages affecting Christianity omitted.
The original manuscript was obtained, however, and published with an
extended preface, criticizing Paine's theory, the preface being in
turn criticized by Paine's editor. The preface was probably written by
Colonel Fellows, author of a large work on Freemasonry.
CHAPTER XVIII. A NEW YORK PROMETHEUS
When Paine left Bordentown, on March 1st 1803, driving past placards of
the devil flying away with him, and hooted by a pious mob at Trenton,
it was with hope of a happy reunion with old friends in more enlightened
New York. Col. Few, formerly senator from Georgia, his friend of many
years, married Paine's correspondent, Kitty Nicholson, to whom was
written the beautiful letter from London (L, p. 247). Col. Few had
become a leading man in New York, and his home, and that of the
Nicholsons, were of highest social distinction. Paine's arrival at
Lovett's Hotel was well known, but not one of those former friends came
near him. "They were actively as well as passively religious," says
Henry Adams, "and their relations with Paine after his return to America
in 1802 were those of compassion only, for his intemperate and offensive
habits, and intimacy was impossible."* But Mr. Adams will vainly search
his materials for any intimation at that time of the intemperate or
offensive habits.
* "Life of Albert Gallatin." Gallatin continued to risk
Paine. 360
The "compassion" is due to those devotees of an idol requiring sacrifice
of friendship, loyalty, and intelligence. What a mistake they made! The
old author was as a grand organ from which a cunning hand might bring
music to be remembered through the generations. In that brain were
stored memories of the great Americans, Frenchmen, Englishmen who acted
in the revolutionary dramas, and of whom he loved to talk. What would a
diary of interviews with Paine, written by his friend Kitty Few, be now
worth? To intolerance, the least pardonable form of ignorance, must be
credited the failure of those former friends, who supposed themselves
educated, to make more of Thomas Paine than a scarred monument of an Age
of Unreason.
But the ostracism of Paine by the society which, as Henry Adams states,
had once courted him "as the greatest literary genius of his day,"
was not due merely to his religious views, which were those of various
statesmen who had incurred no such odium. There was at work a lingering
dislike and distrust of the common people. Deism had been rather
aristocratic. From the scholastic study, where heresies once
written only in Latin were daintily wrapped up in metaphysics, from
drawing-rooms where cynical smiles went round at Methodism, and other
forms of "Christianity in earnest," Paine carried heresy to the people.
And he brought it as a religion,--as fire from the fervid heaven
that orthodoxy had monopolized. The popularity of his writing, the
revivalistic earnestness of his protest against dogmas common to all
sects, were revolutionary; and while the vulgar bigots were binding him
on their rock of ages, and tearing his vitals, most of the educated, the
social leaders, were too prudent to manifest any sympathy they may have
felt.**
* When Paine first reached New York, 1803, he was (March
5th) entertained at supper by John Crauford. For being
present Eliakira Ford, a Baptist elder, was furiously
denounced, as were others of the company.
** An exception was the leading Presbyterian, John Mason,
who lived to denounce Channing as "the devil's disciple."
Grant Thorbura was psalm-singer in this Scotch preacher's
church. Curiosity to see the lion led Thorburn to visit
Paine, for which he was "suspended." Thorburn afterwards
made amends by fathering Cheetham's slanders of Paine after
Cheetham had become too infamous to quote.
It were unjust to suppose that Paine met with nothing but abuse and
maltreatment from ministers of serious orthodoxy in New York. They had
warmly opposed his views, even denounced them, but the controversy seems
to have died away until he took part in the deistic propaganda of Elihu
Palmer.' The following to Col. Fellows (July 31st) shows Paine much
interested in the "cause":
"I am glad that Palmer and Foster have got together. It will greatly
help the cause on. I enclose a letter I received a few days since from
Groton, in Connecticut The letter is well written, and with a good deal
of sincere enthusiasm. The publication of it would do good, but there is
an impropriety in publishing a man's name to a private letter. You
may show the letter to Palmer and Foster.... Remember me to my much
respected friend Carver and tell him I am sure we shall succeed if we
hold on. We have already silenced the clamor of the priests. They act
now as if they would say, let us alone and we will let you alone. You do
not tell me if the Prospect goes on. As Carver will want pay he may have
it from me, and pay when it suits him; but I expect he will take a ride
up some Saturday, and then he can chuse for himself."
The result of this was that Paine passed the winter in New York,
where he threw himself warmly into the theistic movement, and no doubt
occasionally spoke from Elihu Palmer's platform.
The rationalists who gathered around Elihu Palmer in New York were
called the "Columbian Illuminati." The pompous epithet looks like an
effort to connect them with the Columbian Order (Tammany) which was
supposed to represent Jacobinism and French ideas generally. Their
numbers were considerable, but they did not belong to fashionable
society. Their lecturer, Elihu Palmer, was a scholarly gentleman of the
highest character. A native of Canterbury, Connecticut, (born 1754) he
had graduated at Dartmouth. He was married by the Rev. Mr. Watt to
a widow, Mary Powell, in New York (1803), at the time when he was
lecturing in the Temple of Reason (Snow's Rooms, Broadway). This
suggests that he had not broken with the clergy altogether. Somewhat
later he lectured at the Union Hotel, William Street He had studied
divinity, and turned against the creeds what was taught him for their
support.
"I have more than once [says Dr. Francis] listened to Palmer; none could
be weary within the sound of his voice; his diction was classical; and
much of his natural theology attractive by variety of illustration.
But admiration of him sank into despondency at his assumption, and his
sarcastic assaults on things most holy. His boldest phillippic was his
discourse on the title-page of the Bible, in which, with the double
shield of jacobinism and infidelity, he warned rising America against
confidence in a book authorised by the monarchy of England. Palmer
delivered his sermons in the Union Hotel in William Street."
Dr. Francis does not appear to have known Paine personally, but had seen
him. Palmer's chief friends in New York were, he says, John Fellows;
Rose, an unfortunate lawyer; Taylor, a philanthropist; and Charles
Christian. Of Rev. John Foster, another rationalist lecturer, Dr.
Francis says he had a noble presence and great eloquence. Foster's
exordium was an invocation to the goddess of Liberty. He and Palmer
called each other Brother. No doubt Paine completed the Triad.
Col. John Fellows, always the devoted friend of Paine, was an
auctioneer, but in later life was a constable in the city courts. He
has left three volumes which show considerable literary ability, and
industrious research; but these were unfortunately bestowed on such
extinct subjects as Freemasonry, the secret of Junius, and controversies
concerning General Putnam. It is much to be regretted that Colonel
Fellows should not have left a volume concerning Paine, with whom he was
in especial intimacy, during his last years.
Other friends of Paine were Thomas Addis Emmet, Walter Morton, a lawyer,
and Judge Hertell, a man of wealth, and a distinguished member of the
State Assembly. Fulton also was much in New York, and often called on
Paine. Paine was induced to board at the house of William Carver (36
Cedar Street), which proved a grievous mistake. Carver had introduced
himself to Paine, saying that he remembered him when he was an exciseman
at Lewes, England, he (Carver) being a young farrier there. He made loud
professions of deism, and of devotion to Paine. The farrier of Lewes
had become a veterinary practitioner and shopkeeper in New York.
Paine supposed that he would be cared for in the house of this active
rationalist, but the man and his family were illiterate and vulgar.
His sojourn at Carver's probably shortened Paine's life. Carver, to
anticipate the narrative a little, turned out to be a bad-hearted man
and a traitor.
Paine had accumulated a mass of fragmentary writings on religious
subjects, and had begun publishing them in a journal started in 1804
by Elihu Palmer,--_The Prospect; or View of the Moral World_. This
succeeded the paper called _The Temple of Reason_. One of Paine's
objects was to help the new journal, which attracted a good deal of
attention. His first communication (February 18, 1804), was on a sermon
by Robert Hall, on "Modern Infidelity," sent him by a gentleman in New
York. The following are some of its trenchant paragraphs:
"Is it a fact that Jesus Christ died for the sins of the world, and
how is it proved? If a God he could not die, and as a man he could not
redeem: how then is this redemption proved to be fact? It is said that
Adam eat of the forbidden fruit, commonly called an apple, and thereby
subjected himself and all his posterity forever to eternal damnation.
This is worse than visiting the sins of the fathers upon the children
unto the third and fourth generations. But how was the death of Jesus
Christ to affect or alter the case? Did God thirst for blood? If so,
would it not have been better to have crucified Adam upon the forbidden
tree, and made a new man?"
"Why do not the Christians, to be consistent, make Saints of Judas and
Pontius Pilate, for they were the persons who accomplished the act of
salvation. The merit of a sacrifice, if there can be any merit in it,
was never in the thing sacrificed, but in the persons offering up the
sacrifice--and therefore Judas and Pilate ought to stand first in the
calendar of Saints."
Other contributions to the _Prospect_ were: "Of the word Religion";
"Cain and Abel"; "The Tower of Babel"; "Of the religion of Deism
compared with the Christian Religion"; "Of the Sabbath Day in
Connecticut"; "Of the Old and New Testaments"; "Hints towards forming a
Society for inquiring into the truth or falsehood of ancient history,
so far as history is connected with systems of religion ancient and
modern"; "To the members of the Society styling itself the Missionary
Society"; "On Deism, and the writings of Thomas Paine"; "Of the Books
of the New Testament" There were several communications without any
heading. Passages and sentences from these little essays have long been
a familiar currency among freethinkers.
"We admire the wisdom of the ancients, yet they had no bibles, nor
books, called revelation. They cultivated the reason that God gave them,
studied him in his works, and rose to eminence."
"The Cain and Abel of Genesis appear to be no other than the ancient
Egyptian story of Typhon and Osiris, the darkness and the light, which
answered very well as allegory without being believed as fact."
"Those who most believe the Bible are those who know least about it."
"Another observation upon the story of Babel is the inconsistence of it
with respect to the opinion that the bible is the word of God given for
the information of mankind; for nothing could so effectually prevent
such a word being known by mankind as confounding their language."
"God has not given us reason for the purpose of confounding us."
"Jesus never speaks of Adam, of the Garden of Eden, nor of what is
called the fall of man."
"Is not the Bible warfare the same kind of warfare as the Indians
themselves carry on?" [On the presentation of a Bible to some Osage
chiefs in New York.]
"The remark of the Emperor Julian is worth observing. 'If, said he,
'there ever had been or could be a Tree of Knowledge, instead of God
forbidding man to eat thereof, it would be that of which he would order
him to eat the most.'"
"Do Christians not see that their own religion is founded on a human
sacrifice? Many thousands of human sacrifices have since been offered on
the altar of the Christian Religion."
"For several centuries past the dispute has been about doctrines. It is
now about fact."
"The Bible has been received by Protestants on the authority of the
Church of Rome."
"The same degree of hearsay evidence, and that at third and fourth hand,
would not, in a court of justice, give a man title to a cottage, and
yet the priests of this profession presumptuously promise their deluded
followers the kingdom of Heaven."
"Nobody fears for the safety of a mountain, but a hillock of sand may
be washed away. Blow then, O ye priests, 'the Trumpet in Zion,' for the
Hillock is in danger."
The force of Paine's negations was not broken by any weakness for
speculations of his own. He constructed no system to invite the missiles
of antagonists. It is, indeed, impossible to deny without affirming;
denial that two and two make five affirms that they make four. The basis
of Paine's denials being the divine wisdom and benevolence, there was in
his use of such expressions an implication of limitation in the divine
nature. Wisdom implies the necessity of dealing with difficulties, and
benevolence the effort to make all sentient creatures happy. Neither
quality is predicable of an omniscient and omnipotent being, for whom
there could be no difficulties or evils to overcome. Paine did not.
confuse the world with his doubts or with his mere opinions. He stuck to
his certainties, that the scriptural deity was not the true one, nor
the dogmas called Christian reasonable. But he felt some of the moral
difficulties surrounding theism, and these were indicated in his reply
to the Bishop of Llandaff.
"The Book of Job belongs either to the ancient Persians, the Chaldeans,
or the Egyptians; because the structure of it is consistent with the
dogma they held, that of a good and evil spirit, called in Job God
and Satan, existing as distinct and separate beings, and it is not
consistent with any dogma of the Jews.... The God of the Jews was the
God of everything. All good and evil came from him. According to Exodus
it was God, and not the Devil, that hardened Pharaoh's heart. According
to the Book of Samuel it was an evil spirit from God that troubled
Saul. And Ezekiel makes God say, in speaking of the Jews, 'I gave them
statutes that were not good, and judgments by which they should not
live.'... As to the precepts, principles, and maxims in the Book of Job,
they show that the people abusively called the heathen, in the books
of the Jews, had the most sublime ideas of the Creator, and the most
exalted devotional morality. It was the Jews who dishonored God. It was
the Gentiles who glorified him."
Several passages in Paine's works show that he did not believe in a
personal devil; just what he did believe was no doubt written in a part
of his reply to the Bishop, which, unfortunately, he did not live to
carry through the press. In the part that we have he expresses
the opinion that the Serpent of Genesis is an allegory of winter,
necessitating the "coats of skins" to keep Adam and Eve warm, and adds:
"Of these things I shall speak fully when I come in another part to
speak of the ancient religion of the Persians, and compare it with the
modern religion of the New Testament" But this part was never published.
The part published was transcribed by Paine and given, not long before
his death, to the widow of Elihu Palmer, who published it in the
_Theophilanthropist_ in 1810. Paine had kept the other part, no doubt
for revision, and it passed with his effects into the hands of Madame
Bonneville, who eventually became a devotee. She either suppressed it or
sold it to some one who destroyed it. We can therefore only infer from
the above extract the author's belief on this momentous point. It seems
clear that he did not attribute any evil to the divine Being. In the
last article Paine published he rebukes the "Predestinarians" for
dwelling mainly on God's "physical attribute" of power. "The Deists, in
addition to this, believe in his moral attributes, those of justice and
goodness."
Among Paine's papers was found one entitled "My private thoughts of a
Future State," from which his editors have dropped important sentences.
"I have said in the first part of the Age of Reason that 'I hope for
happiness after this life,' This hope is comfortable to me, and I
presume not to go beyond the comfortable idea of hope, with respect to a
future state. I consider myself in the hands of my Creator, and that he
will dispose of me after this life, consistently with his justice and
goodness. I leave all these matters to him as my Creator and friend,
and I hold it to be presumption in man to make an article of faith as to
what the Creator will do with us hereafter. I do not believe, because
a man and a woman make a child, that it imposes on the Creator the
unavoidable obligation of keeping the being so made in eternal existence
hereafter. It is in his power to do so, or not to do so, and it is not
in our power to decide which he will do." [After quoting from Matthew
25th the figure of the sheep and goats he continues:] "The world cannot
be thus divided. The moral world, like the physical world, is composed
of numerous degrees of character, running imperceptibly one into the
other, in such a manner that no fixed point can be found in either. That
point is nowhere, or is everywhere. The whole world might be divided
into two parts numerically, but not as to moral character; and therefore
the metaphor of dividing them, as sheep and goats can be divided, whose
difference is marked by their external figure, is absurd. All sheep are
still sheep; all goats are still goats; it is their physical nature to
be so. But one part of the world are not all good alike, nor the
other part all wicked alike. There are some exceedingly good, others
exceedingly wicked. There is another description of men who cannot be
ranked with either the one or the other--they belong neither to the
sheep nor the goats. And there is still another description of them who
are so very insignificant, both in character and conduct, as not to be
worth the trouble of damning or saving, or of raising from the dead. My
own opinion is, that those whose lives have been spent in doing good,
and endeavouring to make their fellow mortals happy, for this is the
only way in which we can serve God, will be happy hereafter; and that
the very wicked will meet with some punishment. But those who are
neither good nor bad, or are too insignificant for notice, will be dropt
entirely. This is my opinion. It is consistent with my idea of God's
justice, and with the reason that God has given me, and I gratefully
know that he has given me a large share of that divine gift."
The closing tribute to his own reason, written in privacy, was, perhaps
pardonably, suppressed by the modern editor, and also the reference to
the insignificant who "will be dropt entirely." This sentiment is not
indeed democratic, but it is significant. It seems plain that Paine's
conception of the universe was dualistic. Though he discards the notion
of a devil, I do not find that he ever ridicules it. No doubt he would,
were he now living, incline to a division of nature into organic and
inorganic, and find his deity, as Zoroaster did, in the living as
distinguished from, and sometimes in antagonism with, the "not-living".
In this belief he would now find himself in harmony with some of the
ablest modern philosophers.*
* John Stuart Mill, for instance. See also the Rev. Dr.
Abbott's "Kernel and Husk" (London), and the great work of
Samuel Laing, "A Modern Zoroastrian."
{1806}
The opening year 1806 found Paine in New Rochelle. By insufficient
nourishment in Carver's house his health was impaired. His means were
getting low, insomuch that to support the Bonnevilles he had to sell the
Bordentown house and property.*
* It was bought for $300 by his friend John Oliver, whose
daughter, still residing in the house, told me that her
father to the end of his life "thought everything of Paine."
John Oliver, in his old age, visited Colonel Ingersoll in
order to testify against the aspersions on Paine's character
and habits.
Elihu Palmer had gone off to Philadelphia for a time; he died there of
yellow fever in 1806. The few intelligent people whom Paine knew were
much occupied, and he was almost without congenial society. His hint to
Jefferson of his impending poverty, and his reminder that Virginia had
not yet given him the honorarium he and Madison approved, had brought
no result. With all this, and the loss of early friendships, and the
theological hornet-nest he had found in New York, Paine began to feel
that his return to America was a mistake.
The air-castle that had allured him to his beloved land had faded. His
little room with the Bonnevilles in Paris, with its chaos of papers, was
preferable; for there at least he could enjoy the society of educated
persons, free from bigotry. He dwelt a stranger in his Land of Promise.
So he resolved to try and free himself from his depressing environment.
He would escape to Europe again. Jefferson had offered him a ship to
return in, perhaps he would now help him to get back. So he writes (Jan.
30th) a letter to the President, pointing out the probabilities of a
crisis in Europe which must result in either a descent on England by
Bonaparte, or in a treaty. In the case that the people of England should
be thus liberated from tyranny, he (Paine) desired to share with his
friends there the task of framing a republic. Should there be, on the
other hand, a treaty of peace, it would be of paramount interest to
American shipping that such treaty should include that maritime compact,
or safety of the seas for neutral ships, of which Paine had written
so much, and which Jefferson himself had caused to be printed in a
pamphlet. Both of these were, therefore, Paine's subjects. "I think," he
says, "you will find it proper, perhaps necessary, to send a person to
France in the event of either a treaty or a descent, and I make you an
offer of my services on that occasion to join Mr. Monroe.... As I think
that the letters of a friend to a friend have some claim to an answer,
it will be agreeable to me to receive an answer to this, but without any
wish that you should commit yourself, neither can you be a judge of what
is proper or necessary to be done till about the month of April or May."
This little dream must also vanish. Paine must face the fact that his
career is ended.
It is probable that Elihu Palmer's visit to Philadelphia was connected
with some theistic movement in that city. How it was met, and what
annoyances Paine had to suffer, are partly intimated in the following
letter, printed in the Philadelphia _Commercial Advertiser_, February
10, 1806.
"To John Inskeep, Mayor of the City of Philadelphia.
"I saw in the Aurora of January the 30th a piece addressed to you and
signed Isaac Hall. It contains a statement of your malevolent conduct in
refusing to let him have Vine-st. Wharf after he had bid fifty
dollars more rent for it than another person had offered, and had been
unanimously approved of by the Commissioners appointed by law for that
purpose. Among the reasons given by you for this refusal, one was, that
'_Mr Hall was one of Paine's disciples_.' If those whom you may chuse to
call my disciples follow my example in doing good to mankind, they will
pass the confines of this world with a happy mind, while the hope of the
hypocrite shall perish and delusion sink into despair.
"I do not know who Mr. Inskeep is, for I do not remember the name of
Inskeep at Philadelphia in '_the time that tried men's souls._* He must
be some mushroom of modern growth that has started up on the soil which
the generous services of Thomas Paine contributed to bless with freedom;
neither do I know what profession of religion he is of, nor do I care,
for if he is a man malevolent and unjust, it signifies not to what class
or sectary he may hypocritically belong.
"As I set too much value on my time to waste it on a man of so little
consequence as yourself, I will close this short address with a
declaration that puts hypocrisy and malevolence to defiance. Here it is:
My motive and object in all my political works, beginning with Common
Sense, the first work I ever published, have been to rescue man from
tyranny and false systems and false principles of government, and enable
him to be free, and establish government for himself; and I have borne
my share of danger in Europe and in America in every attempt I have made
for this purpose. And my motive and object in all my publications on
religious subjects, beginning with the first part of the Age of Reason,
have been to bring man to a right reason that God has given him; to
impress on him the great principles of divine morality, justice, mercy,
and a benevolent disposition to all men and to all creatures; and to
excite in him a spirit of trust, confidence and consolation in his
creator, unshackled by the fable and fiction of books, by whatever
invented name they may be called. I am happy in the continual
contemplation of what I have done, and I thank God that he gave
me talents for the purpose and fortitude to do it It will make the
continual consolation of my departing hours, whenever they finally
arrive.
"Thomas Paine."
"'_These are the times that try men's souls_.' Crisis No. 1, written
while on the retreat with the army from fort Lee to the Delaware and
published in Philadelphia in the dark days of 1776 December the 19th,
six days before the taking of the Hessians at Trenton."
But the year 1806 had a heavier blow yet to inflict on Paine, and
it naturally came, though in a roundabout way, from his old enemy
Gouverneur Morris. While at New Rochelle, Paine offered his vote at the
election, and it was refused, on the ground that he was not an American
citizen! The supervisor declared that the former American Minister,
Gouverneur Morris, had refused to reclaim him from a French prison
because he was not an American, and that Washington had also refused to
reclaim him. Gouverneur Morris had just lost his seat in Congress,
and was politically defunct, but his ghost thus rose on poor Paine's
pathway. The supervisor who disfranchised the author of "Common Sense"
had been a "Tory" in the Revolution; the man he disfranchised was one to
whom the President of the United States had written, five years before:
"I am in hopes you will find us returned generally to sentiments
worthy of former times. In these it will be your glory to have steadily
labored, and with as much effect as any man living." There was not any
question of Paine's qualification as a voter on other grounds than the
supervisor (Elisha Ward) raised. More must presently be said concerning
this incident. Paine announced his intention of suing the inspectors,
but meanwhile he had to leave the polls in humiliation. It was the fate
of this founder of republics to be a monument of their ingratitude. And
now Paine's health began to fail. An intimation of this appears in a
letter to Andrew A. Dean, to whom his farm at New Rochelle was let,
dated from New York, August, 1806. It is in reply to a letter from Dean
on a manuscript which Paine had lent him.*
* "I have read," says Dean, "with good attention your
manuscript on dreams, and Examination of the Prophecies in
the Bible. I am now searching the old prophecies, and
comparing the same to those said to be quoted in the New
Testament. I confess the comparison is a matter worthy of
our serious attention; I know not the result till I finish;
then, if you be living, I shall communicate the same to
you. I hope to be with you soon." Paine was now living with
Jarvis, the artist. One evening he fell as if by apoplexy,
and, as he lay, his first word was (to Jarvis): "My
corporeal functions have ceased; my intellect is clear;
this is a proof of immortality."
"Respected Friend: I received your friendly letter, for which I am
obliged to you. It is three weeks ago to day (Sunday, Aug. 15,) that I
was struck with a fit of an apoplexy, that deprived me of all sense
and motion. I had neither pulse nor breathing, and the people about me
supposed me dead. I had felt exceedingly well that day, and had just
taken a slice of bread and butter for supper, and was going to bed. The
fit took me on the stairs, as suddenly as if I had been shot through the
head; and I got so very much hurt by the fall, that I have not been able
to get in and out of bed since that day, otherwise than being lifted
out in a blanket, by two persons; yet all this while my mental faculties
have remained as perfect as I ever enjoyed them. I consider the scene I
have passed through as an experiment on dying, and I find death has
no terrors for me. As to the people called Christians, they have no
evidence that their religion is true. There is no more proof that the
Bible is the word of God, than that the Koran of Mahomet is the word of
God. It is education makes all the difference. Man, before he begins to
think for himself, is as much the child of habit in Creeds as he is in
ploughing and sowing. Yet creeds, like opinions, prove nothing. Where is
the evidence that the person called Jesus Christ is the begotten Son of
God? The case admits not of evidence either to our senses or our mental
faculties: neither has God given to man any talent by which such a thing
is comprehensible. It cannot therefore be an object for faith to
act upon, for faith is nothing more than an assent the mind gives to
something it sees cause to believe is fact. But priests, preachers, and
fanatics, put imagination in the place of faith, and it is the nature
of the imagination to believe without evidence. If Joseph the carpenter
dreamed (as the book of Matthew, chapter 1st, says he did,) that his
betrothed wife, Mary, was with child by the Holy Ghost, and that an
angel told him so, I am not obliged to put faith in his dream; nor do I
put any, for I put no faith in my own dreams, and I should be weak and
foolish indeed to put faith in the dreams of others.--The Christian
religion is derogatory to the Creator in all its articles. It puts the
Creator in an inferior point of view, and places the Christian Devil
above him. It is he, according to the absurd story in Genesis, that
outwits the Creator, in the garden of Eden, and steals from him his
favorite creature, man; and, at last, obliges him to beget a son, and
put that son to death, to get man back again. And this the priests of
the Christian religion, call redemption.
"Christian authors exclaim against the practice of offering human
sacrifices, which, they say, is done in some countries; and those
authors make those exclamations without ever reflecting that their own
doctrine of salvation is founded on a human sacrifice. They are saved,
they say, by the blood of Christ. The Christian religion begins with a
dream and ends with a murder.
"As I am well enough to sit up some hours in the day, though not well
enough to get up without help, I employ myself as I have always done,
in endeavoring to bring man to the right use of the reason that God has
given him, and to direct his mind immediately to his Creator, and not to
fanciful secondary beings called mediators, as if God was superannuated
or ferocious.
"As to the book called the Bible, it is blasphemy to call it the word of
God. It is a book of lies and contradictions, and a history of bad times
and bad men. There are but a few good characters in the whole book. The
fable of Christ and his twelve apostles, which is a parody on the sun
and the twelve signs of the Zodiac, copied from the ancient religions of
the eastern world, is the least hurtful part. Every thing told of Christ
has reference to the sun. His reported resurrection is at sunrise,
and that on the first day of the week; that is, on the day anciently
dedicated to the sun, and from thence called Sunday; in latin Dies
Solis, the day of the sun; as the next day, Monday, is Moon day. But
there is no room in a letter to explain these things. While man keeps
to the belief of one God, his reason unites with his creed. He is not
shocked with contradictions and horrid stories. His bible is the heavens
and the earth. He beholds his Creator in all his works, and every thing
he beholds inspires him with reverence and gratitude. From the goodness
of God to all, he learns his duty to his fellow-man, and stands
self-reproved when he transgresses it. Such a man is no persecutor. But
when he multiplies his creed with imaginary things, of which he can have
neither evidence nor conception, such as the tale of the garden of
Eden, the talking serpent, the fall of man, the dreams of Joseph the
carpenter, the pretended resurrection and ascension, of which there is
even no historical relation, for no historian of those times mentions
such a thing, he gets into the pathless region of confusion, and turns
either frantic or hypocrite. He forces his mind, and pretends to
believe what he does not believe. This is in general the case with the
Methodists. Their religion is all creed and no morals.
"I have now my friend given you a fac-simile of my mind on the subject
of religion and creeds, and my wish is, that you may make this letter as
publicly known as you find opportunities of doing. Yours in friendship."
{1807}
The "Essay on Dream" was written early in 1806 and printed in May,
1807. It was the last work of importance written by Paine. In the same
pamphlet was included a part of his reply to the Bishop of Llandaff,
which was written in France: "An Examination of the Passages in the New
Testament, quoted from the Old, and called Prophecies of the Coming
of Jesus Christ" The Examination is widely known and is among Paine's
characteristic works,--a continuation of the "Age of Reason." The "Essay
on Dream" is a fine specimen of the author's literary art. Dream is the
imagination awake while the judgment is asleep. "Every person is mad
once in twenty-four hours; for were he to act in the day as he dreams
in the night, he would be confined for a lunatic." Nathaniel Hawthorne
thought spiritualism "a sort of dreaming awake." Paine explained in the
same way some of the stories on which popular religion is founded. The
incarnation itself rests on what an angel told Joseph in a dream, and
others are referred to. "This story of dreams has thrown Europe into
a dream for more than a thousand years. All the efforts that nature,
reason, and conscience have made to awaken man from it have been
ascribed by priestcraft and superstition to the workings of the devil,
and had it not been for the American revolution, which by establishing
the universal right of conscience, first opened the way to free
discussion, and for the French revolution which followed, this religion
of dreams had continued to be preached, and that after it had ceased to
be believed."
But Paine was to be reminded that the revolution had not made conscience
free enough in America to challenge waking dreams without penalties. The
following account of his disfranchisement at New Rochelle, was written
from Broome St., New York, May 4, 1807, to Vice-President Clinton.
"Respected Friend,--Elisha Ward and three or four other Tories who
lived within the british lines in the revolutionary war, got in to
be inspectors of the election last year at New Rochelle. Ward was
supervisor. These men refused my vote at the election, saying to me:
'You are not an American; our minister at Paris, Gouverneur Morris,
would not reclaim you when you were emprisoned in the Luxembourg prison
at Paris, and General Washington refused to do it.' Upon my telling
him that the two cases he stated were falsehoods, and that if he did me
injustice I would prosecute him, he got up, and calling for a constable,
said to me, 'I will commit you to prison.' He chose, however, to sit
down and go no farther with it.
"I have written to Mr. Madison for an attested copy of Mr. Monro's
letter to the then Secretary of State Randolph, in which Mr. Monro gives
the government an account of his reclaiming me and my liberation in
consequence of it; and also for an attested copy of Mr. Randolph's
answer, in which he says: 'The President approves what you have done in
the case of Mr. Paine.' The matter I believe is, that, as I had not
been guillotined, Washington thought best to say what he did. As
to Gouverneur Morris, the case is that he did reclaim me; but his
reclamation did me no good, and the probability is, he did not intend it
should. Joel Barlow and other Americans in Paris had been in a body to
reclaim me, but their application, being unofficial, was not regarded.
I then applied to Morris. I shall subpoena Morris, and if I get attested
copies from the Secretary of State's office it will prove the lie on the
inspectors.
"As it is a new generation that has risen up since the declaration
of independence, they know nothing of what the political state of
the country was at the time the pamphlet 'Common Sense' appeared; and
besides this there are but few of the old standers left, and none that I
know of in this city.
"It may be proper at the trial to bring the mind of the court and the
jury back to the times I am speaking of, and if you see no objection in
your way, I wish you would write a letter to some person, stating, from
your own knowledge, what the condition of those times were, and the
effect which the work 'Common Sense,' and the several members (numbers)
of the 'Crisis' had upon the country. It would, I think, be best that
the letter should begin directly on the subject in this manner: Being
informed that Thomas Paine has been denied his rights of citizenship by
certain persons acting as inspectors at an election at New Rochelle, &c.
"I have put the prosecution into the hands of Mr. Riker, district
attorney, who can make use of the letter in his address to the Court and
Jury. Your handwriting can be sworn to by persons here, if necessary.
Had you been on the spot I should have subpoenaed you, unless it had
been too inconvenient to you to have attended. Yours in friendship."
To this Clinton replied from Washington, 12th May, 1807:
"Dear Sir,--I had the pleasure to receive your letter of the 4th
instant, yesterday; agreeably to your request I have this day written a
letter to Richard Riker, Esquire, which he will show you. I doubt much,
however, whether the Court will admit it to be read as evidence.
"I am indebted to you for a former letter. I can make no other apology
for not acknowledging it before than inability to give you such an
answer as I could wish. I constantly keep the subject in mind, and
should any favorable change take place in the sentiments of the
Legislature, I will apprize you of it.
"I am, with great esteem, your sincere friend."
In the letter to Madison, Paine tells the same story. At the end he says
that Morris' reclamation was not out of any good will to him. "I know
not what he wrote to the french minister; whatever it was he concealed
it from me." He also says Morris could hardly keep himself out of
prison.*
* The letter is in Mr. Frederick McGuire's collection of
Madison papers.
A letter was also written to Joel Barlow, at Washington, dated Broome
Street, New York, May 4th. He says in this:
"I have prosecuted the Board of Inspectors for disfranchising me. You
and other Americans in Paris went in a body to the Convention to reclaim
me, and I want a certificate from you, properly attested, of this fact.
If you consult with Gov. Clinton he will in friendship inform you who to
address it to.
"Having now done with business I come to meums and tuums. What are you
about? You sometimes hear of me but I never hear of you. It seems as if
I had got to be master of the feds and the priests. The former do not
attack my political publications; they rather try to keep them out of
sight by silence. And as to the priests, they act as if they would say,
let us alone and we will let you alone. My Examination of the passages
called prophecies is printed, and will be published next week. I have
prepared it with the Essay on Dream. I do not believe that the priests
will attack it, for it is not a book of opinions but of facts. Had the
Christian Religion done any good in the world I would not have exposed
it, however fabulous I might believe it to be. But the delusive idea of
having a friend at court whom they call a redeemer, who pays all their
scores, is an encouragement to wickedness.
"What is Fulton about? Is he taming a whale to draw his submarine
boat? I wish you would desire Mr. Smith to send me his country National
Intelligencer. It is printed twice a week without advertisement. I
am somewhat at a loss for want of authentic intelligence. Yours in
friendship."
It will be seen that Paine was still in ignorance of the conspiracy
which had thrown him in prison, nor did he suspect that Washington
had been deceived by Gouverneur Morris, and that his private letter to
Washington might have been given over to Pickering.*
* In Chapter X. of this volume, as originally printed, there
were certain passages erroneously suggesting that Pickering
might have even intercepted this important letter of
September 20, 1795. I had not then observed a reference to
that letter by Madison, in writing to Monroe (April 7,
1796), which proves that Paine's communication to Washington
had been read by Pickering. Monroe was anxious lest some
attack on the President should be written by Paine while
under his roof,--an impropriety avoided by Paine as we have
seen,--and had written to Madison on the subject. Madison
answers: "I have given the explanation you desired to F. A.
M[uhlenberg], who has not received any letter as yet, and
has promised to pay due regard to your request. It is proper
you should know that Thomas Paine wrote some time ago a
severe letter to the President which Pickering mentioned to
me in harsh terms when I delivered a note from Thomas Paine
to the Secretary of State, inclosed by T. P. in a letter to
me. Nothing passed, however, that betrayed the least
association of your patronage or attention to Thomas Paine
with the circumstance; nor am I apprehensive that any real
suspicion can exist of your countenancing or even knowing
the steps taken by T. P. under the influence of his personal
feelings or political principles. At the same time the
caution you observe is by no means to be disapproved. Be so
good as to let T. P. know that I have received his letter
and handed his note to the Secretary of State, which
requested copies of such letters as might have been written
hence in his behalf. The note did not require any answer
either to me or through me, and I have heard nothing of it
since I handed it to Pickering." At this time the Secretary
of State's office contained the President's official
recognition of Paine's citizenship; but this application
for the papers relating to his imprisonment by a foreign
power received no reply, though it was evidently couched in
respectful terms; as the letter was open for the eye of
Madison, who would not have conveyed it otherwise. It is
incredible that Washington could have sanctioned such an
outrage on one he had recognized as an American citizen,
unless under pressure of misrepresentations. Possibly
Paine's Quaker and republican direction of his letter to
"George Washington, President of the United States," was
interpreted by his federalist ministers as an insult.
It will be seen, by Madame Bonneville's and Jarvis' statements
elsewhere, that Paine lost his case against Elisha Ward, on what ground
it is difficult to imagine. The records of the Supreme Court, at Albany,
and the Clerk's office at White Plains, have been vainly searched for
any trace of this trial. Mr. John H. Riker, son of Paine's counsel, has
examined the remaining papers of Richard Riker (many were accidentally
destroyed) without finding anything related to the matter. It is so
terrible to think that with Jefferson, Clinton, and Madison at the head
of the government, and the facts so clear, the federalist Elisha Ward
could vindicate his insult to Thomas Paine, that it may be hoped the
publication of these facts will bring others to light that may put a
better face on the matter.*
* Gilbert Vale relates an anecdote which suggests that a
reaction may have occurred in Elisha Ward's family: "At the
time of Mr. Paine's residence at his farm, Mr. Ward, now a
coffee-roaster in Gold Street, New York, and an assistant
alderman, was then a little boy and residing at New
Rochelle. He remembers the impressions his mother and some
religious people made on him by speaking of Tom Paine, so
that he concluded that Tom Paine must be a very bad and
brutal man. Some of his elder companions proposed going into
Mr. Paine's orchard to obtain some fruit, and he, out of
fear, kept at a distance behind, till he beheld, with
surprise, Mr. Paine come out and assist the boys in getting
apples, patting one on the head and caressing another, and
directing them where to get the best. He then advanced and
received his share of encouragement, and the impression this
kindness made on him determined him at a very early period
to examine his writings. His mother at first took the books
from him, but at a later period restored them to him,
observing that he was then of an age to judge for himself;
perhaps she had herself been gradually undeceived, both as
to his character and writings."
Madame Bonneville may have misunderstood the procedure for which she
had to pay costs, as Paine's legatee. Whether an ultimate decision was
reached or not, the sufficiently shameful fact remains that Thomas Paine
was practically disfranchised in the country to which he had rendered
services pronounced pre-eminent by Congress, by Washington, and by every
soldier and statesman of the Revolution.
Paine had in New York the most formidable of enemies,--an enemy with a
newspaper. This was James Cheetham, of whom something has been said in
the preface to this work (p. xvi.). In addition to what is there stated,
it may be mentioned that Paine had observed, soon after he came to New
York, the shifty course of this man's paper, _The American Citizen_.
But it was the only republican paper in New York, supported Governor
Clinton, for which it had reason, since it had the State printing,--and
Colonel Fellows advised that Cheetham should not be attacked. Cheetham
had been an attendant on Elihu Palmer's lectures, and after his
participation in the dinner to Paine, his federalist opponent, the
_Evening Post_, alluded to his being at Palmer's. Thereupon Cheetham
declared that he had not heard Palmer for two years. In the winter
of 1804 he casually spoke of Paine's "mischievous doctrines." In the
following year, when Paine wrote the defence of Jefferson's personal
character already alluded to, Cheetham omitted a reference in it
to Alexander Hamilton's pamphlet, by which he escaped accusation of
official defalcation by confessing an amorous intrigue.*
* "I see that Cheetham has left out the part respecting
Hamilton and Mrs. Reynolds, but for my own part I wish it
had been in. Had the story never been publicly told I
would not have been the first to tell it; but Hamilton had
told it himself, and therefore it was no secret; but my
motive in introducing it was because it was applicable to
the subject I was upon, and to show the revilers of Mr.
Jefferson that while they are affecting a morality of horror
at an unproved and unfounded story about Mr. Jefferson, they
had better look at home and give vent to their horror, if
they had any, at a real case of their own Dagon (sic) and
his Delilah."--Paine to Colonel Fellows, July 31, 1805.
Cheetham having been wont to write of Hamilton as "the gallant of Mrs.
Reynolds," Paine did not give much credit to the pretext of respect for
the dead, on which the suppression was justified. He was prepared to
admit that his allusion might be fairly suppressed, but perceived that
the omission was made merely to give Cheetham a chance for vaunting his
superior delicacy, and casting a suspicion on Paine. "Cheetham," wrote
Paine, "might as well have put the part in, as put in the reasons for
which he left it out. Those reasons leave people to suspect that the
part suppressed related to some new discovered immorality in Hamilton
worse than the old story."
About the same time with Paine, an Irishman came to America, and, after
travelling about the country a good deal, established a paper in New
York called _The People's Friend_. This paper began a furious onslaught
on the French, professed to have advices that Napoleon meant to retake
New Orleans, and urged an offensive alliance of the United States with
England against France and Spain. These articles appeared in the early
autumn of 1806, when, as we have seen, Paine was especially beset by
personal worries. They made him frantic. His denunciations, merited as
they were, of this assailant of France reveal the unstrung condition of
the old author's nerves. Duane, of the Philadelphia _Aurora_, recognized
in Carpenter a man he had seen in Calcutta, where he bore the name of
Cullen. It was then found that he had on his arrival in America borne
the _alias_ of Mac-cullen. Paine declared that he was an "emissary"
sent to this country by Windham, and indeed most persons were at length
satisfied that such was the case. Paine insisted that loyalty to our
French alliance demanded Cullen's expulsion. His exposures of "the
emissary Cullen" (who disappeared) were printed in a new republican
paper in New York, _The Public Advertiser_, edited by Mr. Frank. The
combat drew public attention to the new paper, and Cheetham was probably
enraged by Paines transfer of his pen to Frank. In 1807, Paine had a
large following in New York, his friends being none the less influential
among the masses because not in the fashionable world Moreover, the
very popular Mayor of New York, De Witt Clinton, was a hearty admirer
of Paine. So Cheetham's paper suffered sadly, and he opened his guns
on Paine, declaring that in the Revolution he (Paine) "had stuck very
correctly to his pen in a safe retreat," that his "Rights of Man" merely
repeated Locke, and so forth. He also began to denounce France and
applaud England, which led to the belief that, having lost republican
patronage, Cheetham was aiming to get that of England.
In a "Reply to Cheetham" (August 21st), Paine met personalities in kind.
"Mr. Cheetham, in his rage for attacking everybody and everything that
is not his own (for he is an ugly-tempered man, and he carries
the evidence of it in the vulgarity and forbiddingness of his
countenance--God has set a mark upon Cain), has attacked me, etc." In
reply to further attacks, Paine printed a piece headed "Cheetham and his
Tory Paper." He said that Cheetham was discovering symptoms of being
the successor of Cullen, _alias_ Carpenter. "Like him he is seeking to
involve the United States in a quarrel with France for the benefit of
England." This article caused a duel between the rival editors, Cheetham
and Frank, which seems to have been harmless. Paine wrote a letter
to the _Evening Post_, saying that he had entreated Frank to answer
Cheetham's challenge by declaring that he (Paine) had written the
article and was the man to be called to account. In company Paine
mentioned an opinion expressed by the President in a letter just
received. This got into the papers, and Cheetham declared that the
President could not have so written, and that Paine was intoxicated
when he said so. For this Paine instituted a suit against Cheetham for
slander, but died before any trial.
Paine had prevailed with his pen, but a terrible revenge was plotted
against his good name. The farrier William Carver, in whose house he
had lived, turned Judas, and concocted with Cheetham the libels against
Paine that have passed as history.
CHAPTER XIX. PERSONAL TRAITS
On July 1, 1806, two young English gentlemen, Daniel and William
Constable, arrived in New York, and for some years travelled about the
country. The Diary kept by Daniel Constable has been shown me by his
nephew, Clair J. Grece, LL.D. It contains interesting allusions to
Paine, to whom they brought an introduction from Rickman.
"July 1. To the Globe, in Maiden Lane, to dine. Mr. Segar at the Globe
offered to send for Mr. Paine, who lived only a few doors off: He seemed
a true Painite.
"3d. William and I went to see Thomas Paine. When we first called he was
taking a nap.... Back to Mr. Paine's about 5 o'clock, sat about an
hour with him.... I meant to have had T. Paine in a carriage with me
to-morrow, and went to inquire for one. The price was $1 per hour, but
when I proposed it to T. P. he declined it on account of his health.
"4th. Friday. Fine clear day. The annual Festival of Independence. We
were up by five o'clock, and on the battery saw the cannons fired, in
commemoration of liberty, which had been employed by the English against
the sacred cause. The people seemed to enter into the spirit of the day:
stores &c were generally shut.... In the fore part of the day I had the
honour of walking with T. Paine along the Broadway. The day finished
peaceably, and we saw no scenes of quarreling or drunkenness.
"14. A very hot day. Evening, met T. Paine in the Broadway and walked
with him to his house.
"Oct. 29 [on returning from a journey]. Called to see T. Paine, who was
walking about Carver's shop."
"Nov. 1. Changed snuff-boxes with T. Paine at his lodgings.* The old
philosopher, in bed at 4 o'clock afternoon, seems as talkative and well
as when we saw him in the summer."
* Dr. Grece showed me Paine's papier-mache snuff-box, which
his uncle had fitted with silver plate, inscription,
decorative eagle, and banner of "Liberty, Equality." It is
kept in a jewel-box with an engraving of Paine on the lid.
In a letter written jointly by the brothers to their parents, dated July
5th, they say that Paine "begins to feel the effects of age. The print
I left at Horley is a very strong likeness. He lives with a small family
who came from Lewes [Carvers] quite retired, and but little known or
noticed." They here also speak of "the honour of walking with our old
friend T. Paine in the midst of the bustle on Independence Day." There
is no suggestion, either here or in the Diary, that these gentlemen of
culture and position observed anything in the appearance or habits of
Paine that diminished the pleasure of meeting him. In November they
travelled down the Mississippi, and on their return to New York, nine
months later, they heard (July 20, 1807) foul charges against Paine
from Carver. "Paine has left his house, and they have had a violent
disagreement. Carver charges Paine with many foul vices, as debauchery,
lying, ingratitude, and a total want of common honour in all his
actions, says that he drinks regularly a quart of brandy per day." But
next day they call on Paine, in "the Bowery road," and William Constable
writes:
"He looks better than last year. He read us an essay on national
defence, comparing the different expenses and powers of gunboats and
ships of war and, batteries in protecting a sea coast; and gave D. C.
[Daniel Constable] a copy of his Examination of the texts of scriptures
called prophecies, etc. which he published a short time since. He says
that this work is of too high a cut for the priests and that they will
not touch it."
These brothers Constable met Fulton, a friend of Paine's just then
experimenting with his steam-boat on the Hudson. They also found that a
scandal had been caused by a report brought to the British Consul that
thirty passengers on the ship by which they (the Constables) came, had
"the Bible bound up with the 'Age of Reason,' and that they spoke in
very disrespectful terms of the mother country." Paine had left his
farm at New Rochelle, at which place the travellers heard stories of
his slovenliness, also that he was penurious, though nothing was said of
intemperance.
Inquiry among aged residents of New Rochelle has been made from time to
time for a great many years. The Hon. J. B. Stallo, late U. S. Minister
to Italy, told me that in early life he visited the place and saw
persons who had known Paine, and declared that Paine resided there
without fault. Paine lived for a time with Mr. Staple, brother of the
influential Captain Pelton, and the adoption of Paine's religious views
by some of these persons caused the odium.* Paine sometimes preached at
New Rochelle.
* Mr. Burger, Pelton's clerk, used to drive Paine about
daily. Vale says:
"He [Burger] describes Mr. Paine as really abstemious, and
when pressed to drink by those on whom he called during his
rides, he usually refused with great firmness, but politely.
In one of these rides he was met by De Witt Clinton, and
their mutual greetings were extremely hearty. Mr. Paine
at this time was the reverse of morose, and though careless
of his dress and prodigal of his snuff, he was always clean
and well clothed. Mr. Burger describes him as familiar with
children and humane to animals, playing with the neighboring
children, and communicating a friendly pat even to a passing
dog." Our frontispiece shows Paine's dress in 1803.
Cheetham publishes a correspondence purporting to have passed between
Paine and Carver, in November, 1806, in which the former repudiates
the latter's bill for board (though paying it), saying he was badly
and dishonestly treated in Carver's house, and had taken him out of his
Will. To this a reply is printed, signed by Carver, which he certainly
never wrote; specimens of his composition, now before me, prove him
hardly able to spell a word correctly or to frame a sentence.*
* In the Concord (Mass.) Public Library there is a copy of
Cheetham's book, which belonged to Carver, by whom it was
filled with notes. He says: "Cheetham was a hypocrate turned
Tory," "Paine was not Drunk when he wrote the thre pedlars
for me, I sold them to a gentleman, a Jew for a dollar--
Cheetham knew that he told a lie saying Paine was drunk--any
person reading Cheetham's life of Paine that [sic] his pen
was guided by prejudice that was brought on by Cheetham's
altering a peice that Paine had writen as an answer to a
peice that had apeared in his paper, I had careyd the peice
to Cheetham, the next Day the answer was printed with the
alteration, Paine was angry, sent me to call Cheetham I then
asked how he undertook to mutilate the peice, if aney thing
was rong he knew ware to find him & sad he never permitted a
printer to alter what he had wrote, that the sence of the
peice was spoiled--by this means their freind ship was
broken up through life------" (The marginalia in this
volume have been copied for me with exactness by Miss E. G.
Crowell, of Concord.)
The letter in Cheetham shows a practised hand, and was evidently written
for Carver by the "biographer." This ungenuineness of Carver's
letter, and expressions not characteristic in that of Paine render the
correspondence mythical. Although Carver passed many penitential years
hanging about Paine celebrations, deploring the wrong he had done Paine,
he could not squarely repudiate the correspondence, to which Cheetham
had compelled him to swear in court. He used to declare that Cheetham
had obtained under false pretences and printed without authority letters
written in anger. But thrice in his letter to Paine Carver says he means
to publish it. Its closing words are: "There may be many grammatical
errours in this letter. To you I have no apologies to make; but I hope a
candid and impartial public will not view them 'with a critick's eye.'"
This is artful; besides the fling at Paine's faulty grammar, which
Carver could not discover, there is a pretence to faults in his own
letter which do not exist, but certainly would have existed had he
written it The style throughout is transparently Cheethan's.
* "A Bone to Gnaw for Grant Thorburn." By W. Carver
(1836).
In the book at Concord the unassisted Carver writes: "The libel for
wich [sic] he [Cheetham] was sued was contained in the letter I wrote to
Paine." This was the libel on Madame Bonneville, Carver's antipathy
to whom arose from his hopes of Paine's property. In reply to Paine's
information, that he was excluded from his Will, Carver says: "I
likewise have to inform you, that I totally disregard the power of your
mind and pen; for should you, by your conduct, permit this letter to
appear in public, in vain may you attempt to print or publish any thing
afterwards." This is plainly an attempt at blackmail. Carver's letter
is dated December 2, 1806. It was not published during Paine's life,
for the farrier hoped to get back into the Will by frightening Madame
Bonneville and other friends of Paine with the stories he meant to tell.
About a year before Paine's death he made another blackmailing attempt.
He raked up the scandalous stories published by "Oldys" concerning
Paine's domestic troubles in Lewes, pretending that he knew the facts
personally. "Of these facts Mr. Carver has offered me an affidavit,"
says Cheetham. "He stated them all to Paine in a private letter which he
wrote to him a year before his death; to which no answer was returned.
Mr. Carver showed me the letter soon after it was written." On this
plain evidence of long conspiracy with Cheetham, and attempt to
blackmail Paine when he was sinking in mortal illness, Carver never
made any comment. When Paine was known to be near his end Carver made
an effort at conciliation. "I think it a pity," he wrote, "that you
or myself should depart this life with envy in our hearts against each
other--and I firmly believe that no difference would have taken place
between us, had not some of your pretended friends endeavored to have
caused a separation of friendship between us." But abjectness was not
more effectual than blackmail. The property went to the Bonnevilles,
and Carver, who had flattered Paine's "great mind," in the letter
just quoted, proceeded to write a mean one about the dead author for
Cheetham's projected biography. He did not, however, expect Cheetham to
publish his slanderous letter about Paine and Madame Bonneville, which
he meant merely for extortion; nor could Cheetham have got the letter
had he not written it. All of Cheetham's libels on Paine's life in New
York are amplifications of Carver's insinuations. In describing Cheetham
as "an abominable liar," Carver passes sentence on himself. On this
blackmailer, this confessed libeller, rest originally and fundamentally
the charges relating to Paine's last years.
It has already been stated that Paine boarded for a time in the Bayeaux
mansion. With Mrs. Bayeaux lived her daughter, Mrs. Badeau. In 1891 I
visited, at New Rochelle, Mr. Albert Badeau, son of the lady last named,
finding him, as I hope he still is, in good health and memory. Seated
in the arm-chair given him by his mother, as that in which Paine used
to sit by their fireside, I took down for publication some words of
his. "My mother would never tolerate the aspersions on Mr. Paine.
She declared steadfastly to the end of her life that he was a
perfect gentleman, and a most faithful friend, amiable, gentle,
never intemperate in eating or drinking. My mother declared that my
grandmother equally pronounced the disparaging reports about Mr. Paine
slanders. I never remember to have seen my mother angry except when she
heard such calumnies of Mr. Paine, when she would almost insult those
who uttered them. My mother and grandmother were very religious, members
of the Episcopal Church." What Mr. Albert Badeau's religious opinions
are I do not know, but no one acquainted with that venerable gentleman
could for an instant doubt his exactness and truthfulness. It
certainly was not until some years after his return to America that any
slovenliness could be observed about Paine, and the contrary was often
remarked in former times.* After he had come to New York, and was
neglected by the pious ladies and gentlemen with whom he had once
associated, he neglected his personal appearance. "Let those dress who
need it," he said to a friend.
* "He dined at my table," said Aaron Burr. "I always
considered Mr. Paine a gentleman, a pleasant companion, and
a good-natured and intelligent man; decidedly temperate,
with a proper regard for his personal appearance, whenever I
have seen him." (Quoted in The Beacon, No. 30, May, 1837.)
"In his dress." says Joel Barlow, "he was generally very
cleanly, though careless, and wore his hair queued with side
curls, and powdered, like a gentleman of the old French
School. His manners were easy and gracious, his knowledge
universal."
Paine was prodigal of snuff, but used tobacco in no other form. He had
aversion to profanity, and never told or listened to indecent anecdotes.
With regard to the charges of excessive drinking made against Paine, I
have sifted a vast mass of contrarious testimonies, and arrived at the
following conclusions. In earlier life Paine drank spirits, as was the
custom in England and America; and he unfortunately selected brandy,
which causes alcoholic indigestion, and may have partly produced the
oft-quoted witness against him--his somewhat red nose. His nose was
prominent, and began to be red when he was fifty-five. That was just
after he had been dining a good deal with rich people in England, and
at public dinners. During his early life in England (1737--1774) no
instance of excess was known, and Paine expressly pointed the Excise
Office to his record. "No complaint of the least dishonesty or
intemperance has ever appeared against me." His career in America
(1774-1787) was free from any suspicion of intemperance. John Hall's
daily diary while working with Paine for months is minute, mentioning
everything, but in no case is a word said of Paine's drinking. This was
in 1785-7. Paine's enemy, Chalmers ("Oldys"), raked up in 1791 every
charge he could against Paine, but intemperance is not included. Paine
told Rickman that in Paris, when borne down by public and private
affliction, he had been driven to excess. That period I have identified
on a former page (ii., p. 59) as a few weeks in 1793, when his dearest
friends were on their way to the guillotine, whither he daily expected
to follow them. After that Paine abstained altogether from spirits, and
drank wine in moderation. Mr. Lovett, who kept the City Hotel, New York,
where Paine stopped in 1803 and 1804 for some weeks, wrote a note to
Caleb Bingham, of Boston, in which he says that Paine drank less
than any of his boarders. Gilbert Vale, in preparing his biography,
questioned D. Burger, the clerk of Pelton's store at New Rochelle, and
found that Paine's liquor supply while there was one quart of rum per
week. Brandy he had entirely discarded. He also questioned Jarvis, the
artist, in whose house Paine resided in New York (Church Street) five
months, who declared that what Cheetham had reported about Paine and
himself was entirely false. Paine, he said, "did not and could not drink
much." In July, 1809, just after Paine's death, Cheetham wrote
Barlow for information concerning Paine, "useful in illustrating his
character," and said: "He was a great drunkard here, and Mr. M., a
merchant of this city, who lived with him when he was arrested by order
of Robespierre, tells me he was intoxicated when that event happened."
Barlow, recently returned from Europe, was living just out of
Washington; he could know nothing of Cheetham's treachery, and fell into
his trap; he refuted the story of "Mr. M.," of course, but took it for
granted that a supposed republican editor would tell the truth about
Paine in New York, and wrote of the dead author as having "a mind,
though strong enough to bear him up and to rise elastic under the
heaviest hand of oppression, yet unable to endure the contempt of his
former friends and fellow-laborers, the rulers of the country that had
received his first and greatest services; a mind incapable of looking
down with serene compassion, as it ought, on the rude scoffs of their
imitators, a new generation that knows him not; a mind that shrinks from
their society, and unhappily seeks refuge in low company, or looks for
consolation in the sordid, solitary bottle, etc."! Barlow, misled as he
was, well knew Paine's nature, and that if he drank to excess it was not
from appetite, but because of ingratitude and wrong. The man was not a
stock or a stone. If any can find satisfaction in the belief that Paine
found no Christian in America so merciful as rum, they may perhaps
discover some grounds for it in a brief period of his sixty-ninth year.
While living in the house of Carver, Paine was seized with an illness
that threatened to be mortal, and from which he never fully recovered.
It is probable that he was kept alive for a time by spirits during the
terrible time, but this ceased when in the latter part of 1806 he left
Carver's to live with Jarvis. In the spring of 1808 he resided in the
house of Mr. Hitt, a baker, in Broome Street, and there remained
ten months. Mr. Hitt reports that Paine's weekly supply then--his
seventy-second year, and his last--was three quarts of rum per week.
* Todd's "Joel Barlow," p. 236. The "Mr. M." was one
Murray, an English speculator in France, where he never
resided with Paine at all.
After Paine had left Carver's he became acquainted with more people.
The late Judge Tabor's recollections have been sent me by his son, Mr.
Stephen Tabor, of Independence, Iowa.
"I was an associate editor of the _New York Beacon_ with Col. John
Fellows, then (1836) advanced in years, but retaining all the vigor and
fire of his manhood. He was a ripe scholar, a most agreeable companion,
and had been the correspondent and friend of Jefferson, Madison, Monroe
and John Quincy Adams, under all of whom he held a responsible office.
One of his productions was dedicated, by permission, to [J. Q.] Adams,
and was republished and favorably received in England. Col. Fellows
was the soul of honor and inflexible in his adherence to truth. He was
intimate with Paine during the whole time he lived after returning to
this country, and boarded for a year in the same house with him.
"I also was acquainted with Judge Hertell, of New York City, a man of
wealth and position, being a member of the New York Legislature, both
in the Senate and Assembly, and serving likewise on the judicial bench.
Like Col. Fellows, he was an author, and a man of unblemished life and
irreproachable character.
"These men assured me of their own knowledge derived from constant
personal intercourse during the last seven years of Paine's life, that
he never kept any company but what was entirely respectable, and that
all accusations of drunkenness were grossly untrue. They saw him under
all circumstances and _knew_ that he was never intoxicated. Nay, more,
they said, for that day, he was even abstemious. That was a drinking age
and Paine, like Jefferson, could 'bear but little spirit,' so that he
was constitutionally temperate.
"Cheetham refers to William Carver and the portrait painter Jarvis. I
visited Carver, in company with Col. Fellows, and naturally conversed
with the old man about Paine. He said that the allegation that Paine was
a drunkard was altogether without foundation. In speaking of his letter
to Paine which Cheetham published, Carver said that he was angry when
he wrote it and that he wrote unwisely, as angry men generally do;
that Cheetham obtained the letter under false pretenses and printed it
without authority.
"Col. Fellows and Judge Hertell visited Paine throughout the whole
course of his last illness. They repeatedly conversed with him
on religious topics and they declared that he died serenely,
philosophically and resignedly. This information I had directly from
their own lips, and their characters were so spotless, and their
integrity so unquestioned, that more reliable testimony it would be
impossible to give."
During Paine's life the world heard no hint of sexual immorality
connected with him, but after his death Cheetham published the
following: "Paine brought with him from Paris, and from her husband in
whose house he had lived, Margaret Brazier Bonneville, and her three
sons. _Thomas_ has the features, countenance, and temper of Paine,"
Madame Bonneville promptly sued Cheetham for slander. Cheetham had
betrayed his "pal," Carver, by printing the letter concocted to
blackmail Paine, for whose composition the farrier no doubt supposed
he had paid the editor with stories borrowed from "Oldys," or not
actionable. Cheetham probably recognized, when he saw Madame Bonneville
in court, that he too had been deceived, and that any illicit relation
between the accused lady and Paine, thirty years her senior, was
preposterous. Cheetham's lawyer (Griffin) insinuated terrible things
that his witnesses were to prove, but they all dissolved into Carver.
Mrs. Ryder, with whom Paine had boarded, admitted trying to make Paine
smile by saying Thomas was like him, but vehemently repudiated the
slander. "Mrs. Bonneville often came to visit him. She never saw but
decency with Mrs. Bonneville. She never staid there but one night, when
Paine was very sick." Mrs. Dean was summoned to support one of Carver's
lies that Madame Bonneville tried to cheat Paine, but denied the whole
story (which has unfortunately been credited by Vale and other writers).
The Rev. Mr. Foster, who had a claim against Paine's estate for tuition
of the Bonnevilles, was summoned. "Mrs. Bonneville," he testified,
"might possibly have said as much as that but for Paine she would not
have come here, and that he was under special obligations to provide for
her children." A Westchester witness, Peter Underbill, testified that
"he one day told Mrs. Bonneville that her child resembled Paine,
and Mrs. Bonneville said it was Paine's child." But, apart from the
intrinsic incredibility of this statement (unless she meant "god-son"),
Underbill's character broke down under the testimony of his neighbors,
Judge Sommerville and Captain Pelton. Cheetham had thus no dependence
but Carver, who actually tried to support his slanders from the dead
lips of Paine! But in doing so he ruined Cheetham's case by saying that
Paine told him Madame Bonneville was never the wife of M. Bonneville;
the charge being that she was seduced from her husband. It was extorted
from Carver that Madame Bonneville, having seen his scurrilous letter to
Paine, threatened to prosecute him; also that he had taken his wife to
visit Madame Bonneville. Then it became plain to Carver that Cheetham's
case was lost, and he deserted it on the witness-stand; declaring that
"he had never seen the slightest indication of any meretricious or
illicit commerce between Paine and Mrs. Bonneville, that they never were
alone together, and that all the three children were alike the objects
of Paine's care." Counsellor Sampson (no friend to Paine) perceived that
Paine's Will was at the bottom of the business. "That is the key to this
mysterious league of apostolic slanderers, mortified expectants and
disappointed speculators." Sampson's invective was terrific; Cheetham
rose and claimed protection of the court, hinting at a duel. Sampson
took a pinch of snuff, and pointing his finger at the defendant, said:
"If he complains of personalities, he who is hardened in every gross
abuse, he who lives reviling and reviled, who might construct himself
a monument with no other materials but those records to which he is a
party, and in which he stands enrolled as an offender*: if he cannot sit
still to hear his accusation, but calls for the protection of the court
against a counsel whose duty it is to make his crimes appear, how does
she deserve protection, whom he has driven to the sad necessity of
coming here to vindicate her honor, from those personalities he has
lavished on her?"
* Cheetham was at the moment a defendant in nine or ten
cases for libel.
The editor of Counsellor Sampson's speech says that the jury "although
composed of men of different political sentiments, returned in a few
minutes a verdict of guilty." It is added:
"The court, however, when the libeller came up the next day to receive
his sentence, highly commended the book which contained the libellous
publication, declared that it tended to serve the cause of religion, and
imposed no other punishment on the libeller than the payment of $150,
with a direction that the costs be taken out of it. It is fit to remark,
lest foreigners who are unacquainted with our political condition should
receive erroneous impressions, that Mr. Recorder Hoffman does not belong
to the Republican party in America, but has been elevated to office
by men in hostility to it, who obtained a temporary ascendency in the
councils of state." *
* "Speech of Counsellor Sampson; with an Introduction to
the Trial of James Cheetham, Esq., for a libel on Margaret
Brazier Bonneville, in his Memoirs of Thomas Paine.
Philadelphia: Printed by John Sweeny, No-357 Arch Street,
1810." I am indebted for the use of this rare pamphlet and
for other information, to the industrious collector of
causes celebres, Mr. E. B. Wynn, of Watertown, N. Y.
Madame Bonneville had in court eminent witnesses to her
character,--Thomas Addis Emmet, Fulton, Jarvis, and ladies whose
children she had taught French. Yet the scandal was too tempting an
illustration of the "Age of Reason" to disappear with Cheetham's defeat.
Americans in their peaceful habitations were easily made suspicious of a
French woman who had left her husband in Paris and followed Paine; they
could little realize the complications into which ten tempestuous years
had thrown thousands of families in France, and how such poor radicals
as the Bonnevilles had to live as they could. The scandal branched into
variants. Twenty-five years later pious Grant Thorburn promulgated that
Paine had run off from Paris with the wife of a tailor named Palmer.
"Paine made no scruples of living with this woman openly." (Mrs. Elihu
Palmer, in her penury, was employed by Paine to attend to his rooms,
etc, during a few months of illness.) As to Madame Bonneville, whose
name Grant Thorburn seems not to have heard, she was turned into a
romantic figure. Thorburn says that Paine escaped the guillotine by the
execution of another man in his place.
"The man who suffered death for Paine, left a widow, with two young
children in poor circumstances. Paine brought them all to this country,
supported them while he lived, and, it is said, left most of his
property to them when he died. The widow and children lived in
apartments up town by themselves. He then boarded with Carver. I believe
his conduct was disinterested and honorable to the widow. She appeared
to be about thirty years of age, and was far from being handsome."*
* "Forty Years' Residence in America."
Grant Thorburn was afterwards led to doubt whether this woman was
the widow of the man guillotined, but declares that when "Paine first
brought her out, he and his friends passed her off as such." As a myth
of the time (1834), and an indication that Paine's generosity to
the Bonneville family was well known in New York, the story is worth
quoting. But the Bonnevilles never escaped from the scandal. Long years
afterward, when the late Gen. Bonneville was residing in St. Louis, it
was whispered about that he was the natural son of Thomas Paine, though
he was born before Paine ever met Madame Bonneville. Of course it
has gone into the religious encyclopaedias. The best of them, that of
McClintock and Strong, says: "One of the women he supported [in France]
followed him to this country." After the fall of Napoleon, Nicholas
Bonneville, relieved of his surveillance, hastened to New York, where
he and his family were reunited, and enjoyed the happiness provided by
Paine's self-sacrificing economy.
The present writer, having perused some thou-sands of documents
concerning Paine, is convinced that no charge of sensuality could have
been brought against him by any one acquainted with the facts, except
out of malice. Had Paine held, or practised, any latitudinarian theory
of sexual liberty, it would be recorded here, and his reasons for
the same given. I have no disposition to suppress anything. Paine was
conservative in such matters. And as to his sacrificing the happiness of
a home to his own pleasure, nothing could be more inconceivable.
Above all, Paine was a profoundly religious man,--one of the few in our
revolutionary era of whom it can be said that his delight was in the law
of his Lord, and in that law did he meditate day and night Consequently,
he could not escape the immemorial fate of the great believers, to be
persecuted for unbelief--by unbelievers.
CHAPTER XX. DEATH AND RESURRECTION
The blow that Paine received by the refusal of his vote at New Rochelle
was heavy. Elisha Ward, a Tory in the Revolution, had dexterously
gained power enough to give his old patrons a good revenge on the first
advocate of independence. The blow came at a time when his means were
low, and Paine resolved to apply to Congress for payment of an old debt.
The response would at once relieve him, and overwhelm those who were
insulting him in New York. This led to a further humiliation, and one or
two letters to Congress, of which Paine's enemies did not fail to make
the most.
* Paine had always felt that Congress was in his debt for
his voyage to France for supplies with Col. Laurens (i., p.
171). In a letter (Feb. 20, 1782) to Robert Morris, Paine
mentions that when Col. Laurens proposed that he should
accompany him, as secretary, he was on the point of
establishing a newspaper. He had purchased twenty reams of
paper, and Mr. Izard had sent to St. Eustatia for seventy
more. This scheme, which could hardly fail of success, was
relinquished for the voyage. It was undertaken at the urgent
solicitation of Laurens, and Paine certainly regarded it as
official. He had ninety dollars when he started, in bills of
exchange; when Col. Laurens left him, after their return,
he had but two louis d'or. The Memorial sent by Paine to
Congress (Jan. 21, 1808) recapitulated facts known to my
reader. It was presented by the Hon. George Clinton, Jr.,
February 4, and referred to the Committee of Claims. On
February 14th Paine wroth a statement concerning the $3,000
given him (1785) by Congress, which he maintained was an
indemnity for injustice done him in the Deane case.
Laurens had long been dead. The Committee consulted the
President, whose reply I know not. Vice-President Clinton
wrote (Mardi 23, 1808) that from the information I received
at the time I have reason to believe that Mr. Paine
accompanied Col. Laurens on his mission to France in the
course of our revolutionary war, for the purpose of
negotiating a loan, and that he acted as his secretary on
that occasion; but although I have no doubt of the truth of
this fact, I cannot assert it from my own actual knowledge."
There was nothing found on the journals of Congress to show
Paine's connection with the mission. The old author was
completely upset by his longing to hear the fate of his
memorial, and he Wrote two complaints of the delay, showing
that his nerves were shattered. "If." he says, March 7th,
"my memorial was referred to the Committee of Claims for the
purpose of losing it, it is unmanly policy. After so many
years of service my heart grows cold towards America."
The letters are those of a broken-hearted man, and it seems marvellous
that Jefferson, Madison, and the Clintons did not intervene and see that
some recognition of Paine's former services, by those who should not
have forgotten them, was made without the ill-judged memorial. While
they were enjoying their grandeur the man who, as Jefferson wrote,
"steadily laboured, and with as much effect as any man living," to
secure America freedom, was living--or rather dying--in a miserable
lodging-house, 63 Partition Street. He had gone there for economy; for
he was exhibiting that morbid apprehension about his means which is
a well-known symptom of decline in those who have suffered poverty in
early life. Washington, with 40,000 acres, wrote in his last year as if
facing ruin. Paine had only a little farm at New Rochelle. He had for
some time suffered from want of income, and at last had to sell the farm
he meant for the Bonnevilles for $10,000; but the purchaser died, and at
his widow's appeal the contract was cancelled. It was at this time that
he appealed to Congress. It appears, however, that Paine was not anxious
for himself, but for the family of Madame Bonneville, whose statement on
this point is important.
The last letter that I can find of Paine's was: written to Jefferson,
July 8, 1808:
"The british Ministry have out-schemed themselves. It is not difficult
to see what the motive and object of that Ministry: were in issuing
the orders of Council. They expected those orders would force all the
commerce of the United States to England, and then, by giving permission
to such cargoes as they did not want for themselves to depart for the
Continent of Europe, to raise a revenue out of those countries and
America.' But instead of this they have lost revenue; that is, they
have-lost the revenue they used to receive from American imports, and
instead of gaining all the commerce they have lost it all.
"This being the case with the british Ministry it is natural to suppose
they would be glad to tread back their steps, if they could do it
without too much exposing their ignorance and obstinacy. The Embargo
law empowers the President to suspend its operation whenever he shall be
satisfied that our ships can pass in safety. It therefore includes the
idea of empowering him to use means for arriving at that event. Suppose
the President were to authorise Mr. Pinckney to propose to the british
Ministry that the United States would negociate with France for
rescinding the Milan Decree, on condition the English Ministry would
rescind their orders of Council; and in that case the United States
would recall their Embargo. France and England stand now at such a
distance that neither can propose any thing to the other, neither are
there any neutral powers to act as mediators. The U. S. is the only
power that can act.
"Perhaps the british Ministry if they listen to the proposal will want
to add to it the Berlin decree, which excludes english commerce from the
continent of Europe; but this we have nothing to do with, neither has it
any thing to do with the Embargo. The british Orders of Council and the
Milan decree are parallel cases, and the cause of the Embargo. Yours in
friendship."
Paines last letters to the President are characteristic. One pleads for
American intervention to stay the hand of French oppression among the
negroes in St. Domingo; for the colonization of Louisiana with free
negro laborers; and his very last letter is an appeal for mediation
between France and England for the sake of peace.
Nothing came of these pleadings of Paine; but perhaps on his last stroll
along the Hudson, with his friend Fulton, to watch the little steamer,
he may have recognized the real mediator beginning its labors for the
federation of the world.
Early in July, 1808, Paine removed to a comfortable abode, that of Mrs.
Ryder, near which Madame Bonneville and her two sons resided. The house
was on Herring Street (afterwards 293 Bleecker), and not far, he might
be pleased to find, from "Reason Street." Here he made one more attempt
to wield his pen,--the result being a brief letter "To the Federal
Faction," which he warns that they are endangering American commerce by
abusing France and Bonaparte, provoking them to establish a navigation
act that will exclude American ships from Europe. "The United States
have flourished, unrivalled in commerce, fifteen or sixteen years. But
it is not a permanent state of things. It arose from the circumstances
of the war, and most probably will change at the close of the present
war. The Federalists give provocation enough to promote it."
Apparently this is the last letter Paine ever sent to the printer. The
year passed peacefully away; indeed there is reason to believe that
from the middle of July, 1808, to the end of January, 1809, he fairly
enjoyed existence. During this time he made acquaintance with the worthy
Willett Hicks, watchmaker, who was a Quaker preacher. His conversations
with Willett Hicks--whose cousin, Elias Hicks, became such an
important figure in the Quaker Society twenty years later--were
fruitful.
Seven serene months then passed away. Towards the latter part of
January, 1809, Paine was very feeble. On the 18th he wrote and signed
his Will, in which he reaffirms his theistic faith. On February 1st
the Committee of Claims reported unfavorably on his memorial, while
recording, "That Mr. Paine rendered great and eminent services to the
United States during their struggle for liberty and independence cannot
be doubted by any person acquainted with his labours in the cause, and
attached to the principles of the contest." On February 25th he had some
fever, and a doctor was sent for. Mrs. Ryder attributed the attack
to Paine's having stopped taking stimulants, and their resumption was
prescribed. About a fortnight later symptoms of dropsy appeared. Towards
the end of April Paine was removed to a house on the spot now occupied
by No. 59 Grove Street, Madame Bonneville taking up her abode under
the same roof. The owner was William A. Thompson, once a law partner
of Aaron Burr, whose wife, _nee_ Maria Holdron, was a niece of Elihu
Palmer. The whole of the back part of the house (which was in a lot, no
street being then cut) was given up to Paine.*
* The topographical facts were investigated by John Randel,
Jr., Civil Engineer, at the request of David C. Valentine,
Clerk of the Common Council, New York, his report being
rendered April 6, 1864.
Reports of neglect of Paine by Madame Bonneville have been credited by
some, but are unfounded She gave all the time she could to the sufferer,
and did her best for him. Willett Hicks sometimes called, and his
daughter (afterwards Mrs. Cheese-man) used to take Paine delicacies. The
only procurable nurse was a woman named Hedden, who combined piety and
artfulness. Paine's physician was the most distinguished in New York,
Dr. Romaine, but nurse Hedden managed to get into the house one
Dr. Manly, who turned out to be Cheetham's spy. Manly afterwards
contributed to Cheetham's book a lying letter, in which he claimed
to have been Paine's physician. It will be seen, however, by Madame
Bonneville's narrative to Cobbett, that Paine was under the care of
his friend. Dr. Romaine. As Manly, assuming that he called as many did,
never saw Paine alone, he was unable to assert that Paine recanted, but
he converted the exclamations of the sufferer into prayers to Christ.*
* Another claimant to have been Paine's physician has been
cited. In 1876 (N. Y, Observer) Feb. 17th) Rev. Dr. Wickham
reported from a late Dr. Matson Smith, of New Rochelle, that
he had been Paine's physician, and witnessed his
drunkenness. Unfortunately for Wickham he makes Smith say it
was on his farm where Paine "spent his latter days." Paine
was not on his farm for two years before his death. Smith
could never have attended Paine unless in 1803, when he had
a slight trouble with his hands,--the only illness he ever
had at New Rochelle,--while the guest of a neighbor, who
attests his sobriety. Finally, a friend of Dr. Smith is
living, Mr. Albert Willcox, who writes me his recollection
of what Smith told him of Paine. Neither drunkenness, nor
any item of Wickham's report is mentioned. He said Paine
was afraid of death, but could only have heard it.
The god of wrath who ruled in New York a hundred years, through the
ministerial prerogatives, was guarded by a Cerberean legend. The
three alternatives of the heretic were, recantation, special judgment,
terrible death. Before Paine's arrival in America, the excitement on
his approach had tempted a canny Scot, Donald Fraser, to write an
anticipated "Recantation" for him, the title-page being cunningly
devised so as to imply that there had been an actual recantation. On his
arrival in New York, Paine found it necessary to call Fraser to account,
The Scotchman pleaded that he had vainly tried to earn a living as
fencing-master, preacher, and school-teacher, but had got eighty dollars
for writing the "Recantation." Paine said: "I am glad you found the
expedient a successful shift for your needy family; but write no more
concerning Thomas Paine. I am satisfied with your acknowledgment--try
something more worthy of a man."*
* Dr. Francis' "Old New York," p. 139.
The second mouth of Cerberus was noisy throughout the land; revivalists
were describing in New Jersey how some "infidel" had been struck blind
in Virginia, and in Virginia how one was struck dumb in New Jersey.
But here was the very head and front of what they called "infidelity,"
Thomas Paine, who ought to have gathered in his side a sheaf of
thunderbolts, preserved by more marvellous "providences" than any
sectarian saint. Out of one hundred and sixty carried to the guillotine
from his prison, he alone was saved, by the accident of a chalk mark
affixed to the wrong side of his cell door. On two ships he prepared
to return to America, but was prevented; one sank at sea, the other was
searched by the British for him particularly. And at the very moment
when New Rochelle disciples were calling down fire on his head,
Christopher Dederick tried vainly to answer the imprecation; within a
few feet of Paine, his gun only shattered the window at which the author
sat. "Providence must be as bad as Thomas Paine," wrote the old deist.
This amounted to a sort of contest like that of old between the
prophets of Baal and those of Jehovah. The deists were crying to their
antagonists: "Perchance he sleepeth." It seemed a test case. If Paine
was spared, what heretic need tremble? But he reached his threescore
years and ten in comfort; and the placard of Satan flying off with him
represented a last hope.
Skepticism and rationalism were not understood by pious people a hundred
years ago. In some regions they are not understood yet. Renan thinks
he will have his legend in France modelled after Judas. But no educated
Christian conceives of a recantation or extraordinary death-bed for a
Darwin, a Parker, an Emerson. The late Mr. Brad-laugh had some fear that
he might be a posthumous victim of the "infidel's legend." In 1875, when
he was ill in St Luke's Hospital, New York, he desired me to question
the physicians and nurses, that I might, if necessary, testify to his
fearlessness and fidelity to his views in the presence of death. But he
has died without the "legend," whose decline dates from Paine's case;
that was its crucial challenge.
The whole nation had recently been thrown into a wild excitement by
the fall of Alexander Hamilton in a duel with Aaron Burr. Hamilton's
world-liness had been notorious, but the clergymen (Bishop Moore and the
Presbyterian John Mason) reported his dying words of unctuous piety and
orthodoxy. In a public letter to the Rev. John Mason, Paine said:
"Between you and your rival in communion ceremonies, Dr. Moore of the
Episcopal church, you have, in order to make yourselves appear of
some importance, reduced General Hamilton's character to that of a
feeble-minded man, who in going out of the world wanted a passport from
a priest. Which of you was first applied to for this purpose is a matter
of no consequence. The man, sir, who puts his trust and confidence in
God, that leads a just and moral life, and endeavors to do good, does
not trouble himself about priests when his hour of departure comes, nor
permit priests to trouble themselves about him."
The words were widely commented on, and both sides looked forward,
almost as if to a prize-fight, to the hour when the man who had unmade
thrones, whether in earth or heaven, must face the King of Terrors.
Since Michael and Satan had their legendary combat for the body of
Moses, there was nothing like it. In view of the pious raids on Paine's
death-bed, freethinkers have not been quite fair. To my own mind, some
respect is due to those humble fanatics, who really believed that Paine
was approaching eternal fires, and had a frantic desire to save him.*
* Nor should it be forgotten that several liberal
Christians, like Hicks, were friendly towards Paine at the
close of his life, whereas his most malignant enemies were
of his own "Painite" household, Carver and Cheetham. Mr.
William Erving tells me that he remembers an English
clergyman in New York, named Cunningham, who used to visit
his (Erving's) father. He heard him say that Paine and he
were friends; and that "the whole fault was that people
hectored Paine, and made him say things he would never say
to those who treated him as a gentleman."
Paine had no fear of death; Madame Bonneville's narrative shows that his
fear was rather of living too long. But he had some such fear as that of
Voltaire when entering his house at Fernay after it began to lighten.
He was not afraid of the lightning, he said, but of what the neighboring
priest would make of it should he be struck. Paine had some reason to
fear that the zealots who had placarded the devil flying away with him
might fulfil their prediction by body-snatching. His unwillingness to be
left alone, ascribed to superstitious terror, was due to efforts to
get a recantation from him, so determined that he dare not be without
witnesses. He had foreseen this. While living with Jarvis, two years
before, he desired him to bear witness that he maintained his theistic
convictions to the last. Jarvis merrily proposed that he should make a
sensation by a mock recantation, but the author said, "Tom Paine never
told a lie." When he knew that his illness was mortal he solemnly
reaffirmed these opinions in the presence of Madame Bonneville, Dr.
Romaine, Mr. Haskin, Captain Pelton, and Thomas Nixon.* The nurse
Hedden, if the Catholic Bishop of Boston (Fenwick) remembered accurately
thirty-seven years later, must have conspired to get him into the
patient's room, from which, of course, he was stormily expelled. But the
Bishop's story is so like a pious novelette that, in the absence of
any mention of his visit by Madame Bonneville, herself a Catholic, one
cannot be sure that the interview he waited so long to report did not
take place in some slumberous episcopal chamber in Boston.**
* Sec the certificate of Nixon and Pelton to Cobbett (Vale,
p. 177).
** Bishop Fenwick's narrative (U. S. Catholic Magazine,
1846) is quoted in the N. Y. Observer\ September 27, 1877.
(Extremes become friends when a freethinker is to be
crucified.)
It was rumored that Paine's adherents were keeping him under the
influence of liquor in order that he might not recant,--so convinced,
at heart, or enamoured of Calvinism was this martyr of Theism, who
had published his "Age of Reason" from the prison where he awaited the
guillotine.*
* Engineer Randel (orthodox), in his topographical report to
the Clerk of the City Council (1864), mentions that the
"very worthy mechanic," Amasa Wordsworth, who saw Paine
daily, told him "there was no truth in such report, and that
Thomas Paine had declined saying anything on that subject
[religion]." "Paine," testifies Dr. Francis, "clung to his
infidelity to the last moment of his natural life." Dr.
Francis (orthodox) heard that Paine yielded to King Alcohol,
but says Cheetham wrote with "settled malignity," and
suspects "sinister motives" in his "strictures on the fruits
of unbelief in the degradation of the wretched Paine."
Of what his principles had cost him Paine had near his end a reminder
that cut him to the heart. Albert Gallatin had remained his friend, but
his connections, the Fews and Nicholsons, had ignored the author they
once idolized. The woman for whom he had the deepest affection, in
America, had been Kitty Nicholson, now Mrs. Few. Henry Adams, in his
biography of Gallatin, says: "When confined to his bed with his last
illness he [Paine] sent for Mrs. Few, who came to see him, and when they
parted she spoke some words of comfort and religious hope. Poor Paine
only turned his face to the wall, and kept silence." What is Mr. Adams'
authority for this? According to Rick-man, Sherwin, and Vale, Mr. and
Mrs. Few came of their own accord, and "Mrs. Few expressed a wish to
renew their former friendship." Paine said to her, "very impressively,
'You have neglected me, and I beg that you will leave the room.' Mrs.
Few went into the garden and wept bitterly." I doubt this tradition
also, but it was cruelly tantalizing for his early friend, after
ignoring him six years, to return with Death.
If, amid tortures of this kind, the annoyance of fanatics and the
"Painites" who came to watch them, and the paroxysms of pain, the
sufferer found relief in stimulants, the present writer can only reflect
with satisfaction that such resource existed. For some time no food
would stay on his stomach. In such weakness and helplessness he was for
a week or so almost as miserable as the Christian spies could desire,
and his truest friends were not sorrowful when the peace of death
approached. After the years in which the stories of Paine's wretched
end have been accumulating, now appears the testimony of the Catholic
lady,--persons who remember Madame Bonneville assure me that she was a
perfect lady,--that Paine's mind was active to the last, that shortly
before death he made a humorous retort to Dr. Romaine, that he died
after a tranquil night.
Paine died at eight o'clock on the morning of June 8, 1809. Shortly
before, two clergymen had invaded his room, and so soon as they spoke
about his opinions Paine said: "Let me alone; good morning!" Madame
Bonneville asked if he was satisfied with the treatment he had received
in her house, and he said "Oh yes." These were the last words of Thomas
Paine.
On June 10th Paine's friends assembled to look on his face for the last
time. Madame Bonneville took a rose from her breast and laid it on that
of her dead benefactor. His adherents were busy men, and mostly poor;
they could not undertake the then difficult journey (nearly twenty-five
miles) to the grave beyond New Rochelle. Of the _cortege_ that followed
Paine a contemptuous account was printed (Aug. 7th) in the London
Packet:
"Extract of a letter dated June 20th, Philadelphia, written by a
gentleman lately returned from a tour: 'On my return from my journey,
when I arrived near Harlem, on York island, I met the funeral of Tom
Paine on the road. It was going on to East Chester. The followers were
two negroes, the next a carriage with six drunken Irishmen, then a
riding chair with two men in it, one of whom was asleep, and then an
Irish Quaker on horseback. I stopped my sulkey to ask the Quaker what
funeral it was; he said it was Paine, and that his friends as well as
his enemies were all glad that he was gone, for he had tired his friends
out by his intemperance and frailties. I told him that Paine had done
a great deal of mischief in the world, and that, if there was any
purgatory, he certainly would have a good share of it before the devil
would let him go. The Quaker replied, he would sooner take his chance
with Paine than any man in New York, on that score. He then put his
horse on a trot, and left me.'"
The funeral was going to West Chester; one of the vehicles contained
Madame Bonneville and her children; and the Quaker was not an Irishman.
I have ascertained that a Quaker did follow Paine, and that it was
Willett Hicks. Hicks, who has left us his testimony that Paine was "a
good man, and an honest man," may have said that Paine's friends were
glad that he was gone, for it was only humane to so feel, but all
said about "intemperance and frailties" is doubtless a gloss of the
correspondent, like the "drunken Irishmen" substituted for Madame
Bonneville and her family.
Could the gentleman of the sulky have appreciated the historic dignity
of that little _cortege_ he would have turned his horse's head and
followed it. Those two negroes, travelling twenty-five miles on foot,
represented the homage of a race for whose deliverance Paine had pleaded
from his first essay written in America to his recent entreaty for
the President's intervention in behalf of the slaughtered negroes of
Domingo.* One of those vehicles bore the wife of an oppressed French
author, and her sons, one of whom was to do gallant service to this
country in the War of 1812, the other to explore the unknown West.
Behind the Quaker preacher, who would rather take his chance in the next
world with Paine than with any man in New York, was following invisibly
another of his family and name, who presently built up Hicksite
Quakerism, the real monument of Paine, to whom unfriendly Friends
refused a grave.
* "On the last day men shall wear On their heads the dust,
As ensign and as ornament Of their lowly trust."--Hafis.
The grand people of America were not there, the clergy were not there;
but beside the negroes stood the Quaker preacher and the French Catholic
woman. Madame Bonneville placed her son Benjamin--afterwards General in
the United States army--at one end of the grave, and standing herself at
the other end, cried, as the earth fell on the coffin: "Oh, Mr. Paine,
my son stands here as testimony of the gratitude of America, and I for
France!"
No sooner was Paine dead than the ghoul sat gloating upon him. I found
in the Rush papers a letter from Cheetham (July 31st) to Benjamin Rush:
"Since Mr. Paine's arrival in this city from Washington, when on his way
you very properly avoided him, his life, keeping the lowest company,
has been an uninterrupted scene of filth, vulgarity, and drunkenness. As
to the reports, that on his deathbed he had something like compunctious
visitings of conscience with regard to his deistical writings and
opinions, they are altogether groundless. He resisted very angrily, and
with a sort of triumphant and obstinate pride, all attempts to draw him
from those doctrines. Much as you must have seen in the course of your
professional practice of everything that is offensive in the poorest
and most depraved of the species, perhaps you have met with nothing
excelling the miserable condition of Mr. Paine. He had scarcely any
visitants. It may indeed be said that he was totally neglected and
forgotten. Even Mrs. Bournville (sic) a woman, I cannot say a Lady, whom
he brought with him from Paris, the wife of a Parisian of that name,
seemed desirous of hastening his death. He died at Greenwich, in a small
room he had hired in a very obscure house. He was hurried to his grave
with hardly an attending person. An ill-natured epitaph, written on him
in 1796, when it was supposed he was dead, incorrectly describes the
latter end of his life. He
"Blasphemes the Almighty, lives in filth like a hog,
Is abandoned in death and interr'd like a dog."
The object of this letter was to obtain from Rush, for publication, some
abuse of Paine; but the answer honored Paine, save for his heresy, and
is quoted by freethinkers as a tribute.
Within a year the grave opened for Cheetham also, and he sank into it
branded by the law as the slanderer of a woman's honor, and scourged by
the community as a traitor in public life.
The day of Paine's death was a day of judgment. He had not been struck
blind or dumb; Satan had not carried him off; he had lived beyond
his threescore years and ten and died peacefully in his bed. The
self-appointed messengers of Zeus had managed to vex this Prometheus who
brought fire to men, but could not persuade him to whine for mercy,
nor did the predicted thunderbolts come. This immunity of Thomas Paine
brought the deity of dogma into a dilemma. It could be explained only
on the the theory of an apology made and accepted by the said deity.
Plainly there had to be a recantation somewhere. Either Paine had to
recant or Dogma had to recant.
The excitement was particularly strong among the Quakers, who regarded
Paine as an apostate Quaker, and perhaps felt compromised by his desire
to be buried among them. Willett Hicks told Gilbert Vale that he had
been beset by pleading questions. "Did thee never hear him call on
Christ?" "As for money," said Hicks, "I could have had any sum." There
was found, later on, a Quakeress, formerly a servant in the family of
Willett Hicks, not proof against such temptations. She pretended that
she was sent to carry some delicacy to Paine, and heard him cry "Lord
Jesus have mercy upon me"; she also heard him declare "if the Devil has
ever had any agency in any work he has had it in my writing that book
[the 'Age of Reason']."* Few souls are now so belated as to credit such
stories; but my readers may form some conception of the mental condition
of the community in which Paine died from the fact that such absurdities
were printed, believed, spread through the world. The Quaker servant
became a heroine, as the one divinely appointed witness of Tom Paine's
recantation.
* "Life and Gospel Labors of Stephen Grellet." This
"valuable young Friend," as Stephen Grellet calls her, had
married a Quaker named Hinsdale. Grellet, a native of
France, convert from Voltaire, led the anti-Hicksites, and
was led by his partisanship to declare that Elias promised
him to suppress his opinions! The cant of the time was that
"deism might do to live by but not to die by." But it had
been announced in Paine's obituaries that "some days
previous to his demise he had an interview with some Quaker
gentlemen on the subject [of burial in their graveyard] but
as he declined a renunciation of his deistical opinions his
anxious wishes were not complied with." But ten years later,
when Hicks's deism was spreading, death-bed terrors seemed
desirable, and Mary (Roscoe) Hinsdale, formerly Grellet's
servant also, came forward to testify that the recantation
refused by Paine to the "Quaker gentlemen," even for a much
desired end, had been previously confided to her for no
object at all! The story was published by one Charles
Collins, a Quaker, who afterwards admitted to Gilbert Vale
his doubts of its truth, adding "some of our friends believe
she indulges in opiates." (Vale, p. 186).
But in the end it was that same Mary that hastened the resurrection
of Thomas Paine. The controversy as to whether Mary was or was not a
calumniator; whether orthodoxy was so irresistible that Paine must needs
surrender at last to a servant-girl who told him she had thrown his book
into the fire; whether she was to be believed against her employer, who
declared she never saw Paine at all; all this kept Paine alive.
Such boiling up from the abysses, of vulgar credulity, grotesque
superstition, such commanding illustrations of the Age of Unreason,
disgusted thoughtful Christians.*
* The excitement of the time was well illustrated in a
notable caricature by the brilliant artist John Wesley
Jarvis. Paine is seen dead, his pillow "Common Sense," his
hand holding a manuscript, "A rap on the knuckles for John
Mason." On his arm is the label, "Answer to Bishop Watson."
Under him is written: "A man who devoted his whole life to
the attainment of two objects--rights of man and freedom of
conscience--had his vote denied when living, and was denied
a grave when dead!" The Catholic Father O'Brian (a
notorious drunkard), with very red nose, kneels over Paine,
exclaiming, "Oh you ugly drunken beast!" The Rev. John
Mason (Presbyterian) stamps on Paine, exclaiming, "Ah, Tom!
Tom! thou 't get thy frying in hell; they 'll roast thee
like a herring.
"They 'll put thee in the furnace hot,
And on thee bar the door:
How the devils all will laugh
To hear thee burst and roar!"
The Rev. Dr. Livingston kicks at Paine's head, exclaiming,
"How are the mighty fallen,
Right fol-de-riddle-lol!"
Bishop Hobart kicks the feet, tinging:
"Right fol-de-rol, let's dance and sing,
Tom is dead, God save the king--
The infidel now low doth lie--
Sing Hallelujah--hallelujah!"
A Quaker turns away with a shovel, saying,
"I 'll not bury thee."