Chapter 4

12. If Thomas Paine recanted, why do you pursue him? If he recanted he died in your belief. For what reason, then, do you denounce his death as cowardly? If upon his death-bed he renounced the opinions he had published, the business of defaming him should be done by infidels, not by Christians. I ask Christians if it is honest to throw away the testimony of his friends, the evidence of fair and honorable men, and take the putrid words of avowed and malignant enemies? When Thomas Paine was dying he was infested by fanatics, by the snaky spies of bigotry. In the shadows of death were the unclean birds of prey waiting to tear, with beak and claw, the corpse of him who wrote the "Rights of Man," and there lurking and crouching in the darkness, were the jackals and hyenas of superstition, ready to violate his grave. These birds of prey--these unclean beasts--are the witnesses produced and relied upon to malign the memory of Thomas Paine. One by one the instruments of torture have been wrenched from the cruel clutch of the church, until within the armory of orthodoxy there remains but one weapon--Slander.

Against the witnesses that I have produced there can be brought just two--Mary Roscoe and Mary Hinsdale. The first is referred to in the memoir of Stephen Grellet. She had once been a servant in his house. Grellet tells what happened between this girl and Paine. According to this account, Paine asked her if she had ever read any of his writings, and on being told that she had read very little of them, he inquired what she thought of them, adding that from such an one as she he expected a correct answer.

Let us examine this falsehood. Why would Paine expect a correct answer about his writings from one who read very little of them? Does not such a statement devour itself? This young lady further said that the "Age of Reason" was put in her hands, and that the more she read in it, the more dark and distressed she felt, and that she threw the book into the fire. Whereupon Mr. Paine remarked: "I wish all had done as you did, for if the devil ever had any agency in any work, he had in my writing that book."

The next is Mary Hinsdale. She was a servant in the family of Willet Hicks. The church is always proving something by a nurse. She, like Mary Roscoe, was sent to carry some delicacy to Mr. Paine. To this young lady Paine, according to his account, said precisely the same that he did to Mary Roscoe, and she said the same thing to Mr. Paine.

My own opinion is that Mary Roscoe and Mary Hinsdale are one and the same person, or the same story has been, by mistake, put in the mouths of both. It is not possible that the identical conversation should have taken place between Paine and Mary Roscoe and between him and Mary Hinsdale. Mary Hinsdale lived with Willet Hicks, and he pronounced her story a pious fraud and fabrication.

Another thing about this witness. A woman by the name of Mary Lockwood, a Hicksite Quaker, died. Mary Hinsdale met her brother about that time and told him that his sister had recanted, and wanted her to say so at her funeral. This turned out to be a lie.

It has been claimed that Mary Hinsdale made her statement to Charles Collins. Long after the alleged occurrence Gilbert Vale, one of the biographers of Paine, had a conversation with Collins concerning Mary Hinsdale. Vale asked him what he thought of her. He replied that some of the Friends believed that she used opiates, and that they did not give credit to her statements. He also said that he believed what the Friends said, but thought that when a young Roman she might have told the truth.

In 1818 William Cobbett came to New York. He began collecting material for a life of Thomas Paine. In this way he became acquainted with Mary Hinsdale and Charles Collins. Mr. Cobbett gave a full account of what happened in a letter addressed to The Norwich Mercury in 1819. From this account it seems that Charles Collins told Cobbett that Paine had recanted. Cobbett called for the testimony, and told Mr. Collins that he must give time, place, and circumstances. He finally brought a statement that he stated had been made by Mary Hinsdale. Armed with this document, Cobbett, in October of that year, called upon the said Mary Hinsdale, at No. 10 Anthony Street, New York, and showed her the statement. Upon being questioned by Mr. Cobbett she said that it was so long ago that she could not speak positively to any part of the matter; that she would not say that any part of the paper was true; that she had never seen the paper, and that she had never given Charles Collins authority to say anything about the matter in her name. And so in the month of October, in the year of grace 1818, in the mist of fog and forgetfulness, disappeared forever one Mary Hinsdale, the last and only witness against the intellectual honesty of Thomas Paine.

A letter was written to the editor of The New York World by the Rev. A.W. Cornell, in which he says:

"Sir: I see by your paper that Bob Ingersoll discredits Mary Hinsdale's story of the scenes which occurred at the death bed of Thomas Paine. No one who knew that good old lady would for one moment doubt her veracity, or question her testimony. Both she and her husband were Quaker preachers, and well known and respected inhabitants of New York City.

"Ingersoll is right in his conjecture that Mary Roscoe and Mary Hinsdale were the same person. Her maiden name was Roscoe and she married Henry Hinsdale. My mother was a Roscoe, a niece of Mary Roscoe, and lived with her for some time.--Rev. A.W. Cornell, Harpersville, N.Y."

The editor of the New York Observer took up the challenge that I had thrown down. I offered $1000 in gold to any minister who would prove, or to any person who would prove that Thomas Paine recanted in his last hours. The New York Observer accepted the wager, and then told a falsehood about it. But I kept after the gentlemen until I forced them, in their paper, published on the 1st of November, 1877; to print these words:

"We have never stated in any form, nor have we ever supposed, that Paine actually renounced his infidelity. The accounts agree in stating that he died a blaspheming infidel."

This, I hope, for all coming time will refute the slanders of the churches yet to be.

The next charge they make is that Thomas Paine died in destitution and want. That, of course, would show that he was wrong. They boast that the founder of their religion had not whereon to lay his head, but when they found a man who stood for the rights of man, when they say that he did, that is an evidence that this doctrine was a lie. Won't do! Did Thomas Paine die in destitution and want? The charge has been made over and over again that Thomas Paine died in want and destitution; that he was an abandoned pauper--an outcast, without friends and without money. This charge is just as false as the rest. Upon his return to this country, in 1802, he was worth $30,000, according to his own statement, made at that time in the following letter, and addressed to Clio Rickman:

"My dear friend, Mr. Monroe, who is appointed minister extraordinary to France, takes charge of this, to be delivered to Mr. Este, banker, in Paris, to be forwarded to you.

"I arrived in Baltimore, 30th of October, and you can have no idea of the agitation which my arrival occasioned. From New Hampshire to Georgia (an extent of 1,500 miles), every newspaper was filled with applause or abuse.

"My property in this country has been taken care of by my friends, and is now worth six thousand pounds sterling, which, put in the funds, will bring about L400 sterling a year.

"Remember me in affection and friendship to your wife and family, and in the circle of your friends.--Thomas Paine"

A man in those days worth $30,000 was not a pauper. That amount would bring an income of at least $2,000. Two thousand dollars then would be fully equal to $5,000 now. On the 12th of July, 1809, the year in which he died, Mr. Paine made his will. From this instrument we learn that he was the owner of a valuable farm within twenty miles of New York. He was also owner of thirty shares in the New York Phoenix Insurance Company, worth upward of $1,500. Besides this, some personal property and ready money. By his will he gave to Walter Morton and Thomas Addis Emmet, a brother of Robert Emmet, $200 each, and $100 to the widow of Elihu Palmer. Is it possible that this will was made by a pauper, by a destitute outcast, by a man who suffered for the ordinary necessities of life?

But suppose, for the sake of argument, that he was poor, and that he died a beggar, does that tend to show that the Bible is an inspired book, and that Calvin did not burn Servetus? Do you really regard poverty as a crime? If Paine had died a millionaire, would Christians have accepted his religious opinions? If Paine had drank nothing but cold water, would Christians have repudiated the five cardinal points of Calvinism? Does an argument depend for its force upon the pecuniary condition of the person making it? As a matter of fact, most reformers--most men and women of genius--have been acquainted with poverty. Beneath a covering of rags have been found some of the tenderest and bravest hearts. Owing to the attitude of the churches for the last fifteen hundred years, truth telling has not been a very lucrative business. As a rule, hypocrisy has worn the robes, and honesty the rags. That day is passing away. You can not now answer a man by pointing at the holes in his coat. Thomas Paine attacked the church when it was powerful; when it had what is called honors to bestow; when it was the keeper of the public conscience; when it was strong and cruel. The church waited till he was dead, and then attacked his reputation and his clothes. Once upon a time a donkey kicked a lion. The lion was dead. You just don't know how happy I am tonight that justice so long delayed at last is going to be done, and to see so many splendid looking people come here out of deference to the memory of Thomas Paine. I am glad to be here.

The next thing is: Did Thomas Paine live the life of a drunken beast, and did he die a drunken, cowardly, and beastly death? Well, we will see. Upon you rests the burden of substantiating these infamous charges. The Christians have, I suppose, produced the best evidence in their possession, and that evidence I will now proceed to examine. Their first witness is Grant Thorburn. He made three charges against Thomas Paine:

1. That his wife obtained a divorce from him in England for cruelty and neglect.

2. That he was a defaulter and fled from England to America.

3. That he was a drunkard.

These three charges stand upon the same evidence--the word of Grant Thorburn. If they are not all true, Mr. Thorburn stands impeached. The charge that Mrs. Paine obtained a divorce on account of the cruelty and neglect of her husband is utterly false. There is no such record in the world, and never was. Paine and his wife separated by mutual consent. Each respected the other. They remained friends. This charge is without any foundation. In fact, I challenge the Christian world to produce the record of this decree of divorce. According to Mr. Thorburn, it was granted in England. In that country public records are kept of all such decrees. I will give $1,000 if they will produce a decree, showing that it was given on account of cruelty, or admit that Mr. Thorburn was mistaken.

Thomas Paine was a just man. Although separated from his wife, he always spoke of her with tenderness and respect, and frequently lent her money without letting her know the source from whence it came. Was this the conduct of a drunken beast?

The next is that he was a defaulter, and fled from England to America. As I told you in the first place, he was an exciseman; if he was a defaulter, that fact is upon the records of Great Britain. I will give $1,000 in gold to any man who will show, by the records of England, that he was a defaulter of a single, solitary cent. Let us bring these gentlemen to Limerick.

And they charge that he was a drunkard. That is another falsehood. He drank liquor in his day, as did the preachers. It was no unusual thing for a preacher going home to stop in a tavern and take a drink of hot rum with a deacon, and it was no unusual thing for the deacon to help the preacher home. You have no idea how they loved the sacrament in those days. They had communion pretty much all the time.

Thorburn says that in 1802 Paine was an "old remnant of mortality, drunk, bloated, and half asleep." Can anyone believe this to be a true account of the personal appearance of Mr. Paine in 1802? He had just returned from France. He had been welcomed home by Thomas Jefferson, who had said that he was entitled to the hospitality of every American. In 1802 Mr. Paine was honored with a public dinner in the City of New York. He was called upon and treated with kindness and respect by such men as De Witt Clinton. In 1806 Mr. Paine wrote a letter to Andrew A. Dean upon the subject of religion. Read that letter and then say that the writer of it was an old remnant of mortality, drunk, bloated, and half asleep. Search the files of Christian papers, from the first issue to the last, and you will find nothing superior to this letter. In 1803 Mr. Paine wrote a letter of considerable length, and of great force to his friend Samuel Adams. Such letters are not written by drunken beasts, nor by remnants of old mortality, nor by drunkards. It was about the same time that he wrote his "Remarks on Robert Hall's Sermons." These "Remarks" were not written by a drunken beast, but by a clear-headed and thoughtful man.

In 1804 he published an essay on the invasion of England and a treatise on gun-boats, full of valuable maritime information; in 1805 a treatise on yellow fever, suggesting modes of prevention. In short, he was an industrious and thoughtful man. He sympathized with the poor and oppressed of all lands. He looked upon monarchy as a species of physical slavery. He had the goodness to attack that form of government. He regarded the religion of his day as a kind of mental slavery. He had the courage to give his reasons for his opinion. His reasons filled the churches with hatred. Instead of answering his arguments they attacked him. Men who were not fit to blacken his shoes blackened his character. There is too much religious cant in the statement of Mr. Thorburn. He exhibits too much anxiety to tell what Grant Thorburn said to Thomas Paine. He names Thomas Jefferson as one of the disreputable men who welcomed Paine with open arms. The testimony of a man who regarded Thomas Jefferson as a disreputable person, as to the character of anybody, is utterly without value.

Now, Grant Thorburn--this gentleman who was "four feet and a half high, and who weighed ninety-eight pounds three and one-half ounces"--says that he used to sit nights at Carver's, in New York, with Thomas Paine. Mrs. Ferguson, the daughter of William Carver, says that she knew Thorburn when she saw him, but that she never saw him in her father's house. The denial of Mrs. Ferguson enraged Thorburn, and he at once wrote a few falsehoods about her. Thereupon a suit was commenced by Mrs. Ferguson and her husband against Thorburn, the writer, and Fanshaw, the publisher, of the libel. Thorburn ran away to Connecticut. Fanshaw wrote him for evidence of what he had written. Thorburn replied that what he had written about Mrs. Ferguson could not be proved. Fanshaw then settled with the Fergusons, paying them the amount demanded.

In 1859 the Fergusons lived at 148 Duane Street, New York. In The Commercial Advertiser of New York, in 1830, appeared the written acknowledgement of this same little Grant Thorburn that he did, on the 22d of August, 1830, at half-past 6 in the morning, take four bottles of cider from the cellar of Mr. Comstock.

Mr. Comstock says that Thorburn was arrested, and that when brought before him he pleaded guilty and threw himself upon his (Comstock's) mercy.

The Philadelphia Tract Society gave Thorburn $100 to write his recollections of Thomas Paine.

Let us dispose of this four feet and a half of wretch. In October, 1877, I received the following letter from James Parton:

"Newburyport, Mass., Oct 27, 1877.--My dear Sir: Touching Grant Thorburn, I personally knew him to have been a liar. At the age of 92 he copied with trembling hand a piece from a newspaper and brought it to the office of The Rome Journal as his own. It was I who received it and detected the deliberate forgery..... James Parton"

So much for Grant Thorburn. In my judgment, the testimony of Mr. Thorburn should be thrown aside as utterly unworthy of belief.

The next witness is the Rev. J.D. Wickham, D.D., who tells what an elder in his church said. This elder said that Paine passed his last days on his farm at New Rochelle, with a solitary female attendant. This is not true. He did not pass his last days at New Rochelle, consequently, this pious elder did not see him during his last days at that place. Upon this elder we prove an alibi. Mr. Paine passed his last days in the City of New York, in a house upon Columbia Street. The story of the Rev. J.D. Wickham, D.D., is simply false.

The next competent false witness was the Rev. Charles Hawley, D.D., who proceeds to state that the story of the Rev. J.D. Wickham, D. D., is corroborated by older citizens of New Rochelle. The names of these ancient residents are withheld. According to these unknown witnesses, the account given by the deceased elder was entirely correct. But as the particulars of Mr. Paine's conduct "were too loathsome to be described in print," we are left entirely in the dark as to what he really did.

While at New Rochelle, Mr. Paine lived with Mr. Purdy, Mr. Dean, with Capt. Pelton, and with Mr. Staple. It is worthy of note that all of these gentlemen give the lie direct to the statements of "older residents" and ancient citizens spoken of by the Rev. Charles Hawley, D.D., and leave him with the "loathsome particulars" existing only in his own mind.

The next gentleman brought upon the stand is W.H. Ladd, who quotes from the memoirs of Stephen Grellett. This gentleman also has the misfortune to be dead. According to his account, Mr. Paige made his recantation to a servant girl of his by the name of Mary Roscoe. Mr. Paine uttered the wish that all who read his book had burned it. I believe there is a mistake in the name of this girl. Her name was probably Mary Hinsdale, as it was once claimed that Paine made the same remark to her.

These are the witnesses of the church, and the only ones you bring forward to support your charge that Thomas Paine lived a drunken and beastly life, and died a drunken, cowardly, and beastly death. All these calumnies are found in a life of Paine by James Cheetham, the convicted libeler already referred to. Mr. Cheetham was an enemy of the man whose life he pretended to write. In order to show you the estimation in which this libeler was held by Mr. Paine, I will give you a copy of a letter that throws light upon this point:

"Oct. 27, 1807.--Mr. Cheethan: Unless you make a public apology for the abuse and falsehood in your paper of Tuesday, Oct. 27, respecting me, I will prosecute you for lying.--Thomas Paine"

In another letter, speaking of this same man, Mr. Paine says: "If an unprincipled bully can not be reformed, he can be punished." Cheetham has been so long in the habit of giving false information, that truth is to him like a foreign language. Mr. Cheetham wrote the life of Mr. Paine to gratify his malice and to support religion. He was prosecuted for libel--was convicted and fined. Yet the life of Paine, written by this liar, is referred to by the Christian world as the highest authority.

As to the personal habits of Mr. Paine, we have the testimony of William Carver; with whom he lived; of Mr. Jarvis, the artist, with whom he lived; of Mr. Purdy, who was a tenant of Paine's; of Mr. Buyer, with whom he was intimate; of Thomas Nixon and Capt. Daniel Pelton, both of whom knew him well; of Amasa Woodsworth, who was with him when he died; of John Fellows, who boarded at the same house; of James Wilburn, with whom he boarded; of B.F. Haskins, a lawyer, who was well acquainted with him, and called upon him during h is last illness; of Walter Morton, President of the Phoenix Insurance Company; of Clio Rickman, who had known him for many years; of Willet and Elias Hicks, Quakers, who knew him intimately and well; of Judge Hertell, H. Margary, Elihu Palmer and many others. All these testified to the fact that Mr. Paige was a temperate man. In those days nearly everybody used spirituous liquors. Paine was not an exception, but he did not drink to excess. Mr. Lovett, who kept the City Hotel, where Paine stopped, in a note to Caleb Bingham declared that Paine drank less than any boarder he had.

Against all this evidence Christians produce the story of Grant Thorburn, the story of the Rev. J.D. Wickham, that an elder in his church told him that Paine was a drunkard, corroborated by the Rev. Charles Hawley, and an extract from Lossing's history to the same effect. The evidence is overwhelmingly against them. Will you have the fairness to admit it? Their witnesses are merely the repeaters of the falsehoods of James Cheetham, the convicted libeler.

After all, drinking is not as bad as lying. An honest drunkard is better than a calumniator of the dead. "A remnant of old mortality drunk, bloated, and half-asleep," is better than a perfectly sober defender of human slavery. To become drunk is a virtue compared with stealing a babe from the breast of its mother. Drunkenness is one of the beatitudes, compared with editing a religious paper devoted to the defense of slavery upon the ground that it is a divine institution. Do you think that Paine was a drunken beast when he wrote "Common Sense," a pamphlet that aroused three millions of people, as people were never aroused by words before? Was he a drunken beast when he wrote the "Crisis?" Was it to a drunken beast that the following letter was addressed:

"Rocky Hill, September 10, 1783.--I have learned, since I have been at this place, that you are at Bordentown. Whether for the sake of retirement or economy, I know not. Be it for either, or both, or whatever it may, if you will come to this place and partake with me, I shall be exceedingly happy to see you at it. Your presence may remind Congress of your past services to this country; and if it is in my power to impress them, command my best exertions with freedom, as they will be rendered cheerfully by one who entertains a lively sense of the importance of your works, and who, with much pleasure, subscribes himself your sincere friend.--George Washington"

Do you think that Paine was a drunken beast when the following letters were received by him:

"You express a wish in your letter to return to America in a national ship. Mr. Dawson, who brings over the treaty, and who will present you with this letter, is charged with orders to the Captain of the Maryland to receive and accommodate you back, if you can be ready to depart at such a short warning. You will, in general, find us returned 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. That you may live long to continue your useful labors, and reap the reward in the thankfulness of nations, is my sincere prayer. Accept the assurances of my high esteem and affectionate attachment.--Thomas Jefferson"