The Life Of Thomas Paine, Vol. 2. (of 2): With A History of His Literary, Political and Religious Career in America France, and EnglandConway, Moncure Daniel
History
The Life Of Thomas Paine, Vol. 2. (of 2): With A History of His Literary, Political and Religious Career in America France, and England
Conway, Moncure Daniel
Paine, Thomas, 1737-1809
* The bones of Thomas Paine were landed in Liverpool
November 21, 1819. The monument contemplated by Cobbett was
never raised. There was much parliamentary and municipal
excitement. A Bolton town-crier was imprisoned nine weeks
for proclaiming the arrival. In 1836 the bones passed with
Cobbett's effects into the hands of a Receiver (West). The
Lord Chancellor refusing to regard them as an asset, they
were kept by an old day-laborer until 1844, when they passed
to B. Tilley, 13 Bedford Square, London, a furniture dealer.
In 1849 the empty coffin was in possession of J. Chennell,
Guildford. The silver plate bore the inscription "Thomas
Paine, died June 8, 1809, aged 72." In 1854, Rev. R. Ainslie
(Unitarian) told E. Truelove that he owned "the skull and
the right hand of Thomas Paine," but evaded subsequent
inquiries. The removal caused excitement in America. Of
Paine's gravestone the last fragment was preserved by his
friends of the Bayeaux family, and framed on their wall. In
November, 1839, the present marble monument at New Rochelle
was erected.
"A singular coincidence [says Dr. Francis] led me to pay a visit to
Cobbett at his country seat, within a couple of miles of the city, on
the island, on the very day that he had exhumed the bones of Paine, and
shipped them for England. I will here repeat the words which Cobbett
gave utterance to at the friendly interview our party had with him. 'I
have just performed a duty, gentlemen, which has been too long delayed:
you have neglected too long the remains of Thomas Paine. I have done
myself the honor to disinter his bones. I have removed them from New
Rochelle. I have dug them up; they are now on their way to England. When
I myself return, I shall cause them to speak the common sense of
the great man; I shall gather together the people of Liverpool and
Manchester in one assembly with those of London, and those bones will
effect the reformation of England in Church and State.'"
Mr. Badeau, of New Rochelle, remembers standing near Cobbett's workmen
while they were digging up the bones, about dawn. There is a legend that
Paine's little finger was left in America, a fable, perhaps, of his once
small movement, now stronger than the loins of the bigotry that refused
him a vote or a grave in the land he so greatly served. As to his bones,
no man knows the place of their rest to this day. His principles rest
not. His thoughts, untraceable like his dust, are blown about the world
which he held in his heart. For a hundred years no human being has been
born in the civilized world without some spiritual tincture from that
heart whose every pulse was for humanity, whose last beat broke a fetter
of fear, and fell on the throne of thrones.
APPENDIX A. THE COBBETT PAPERS.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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