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 sentence thus far is struck out by Madame Bonno he had
not seen for a long while. He was overjoyed at seeing him;
but, this person began to speak upon religion, and Paine
turned his head on the other side, and remained silent, even
to the adieu of the person.
When he was near his end, two American clergymen came to see him, and
to talk with him on religious matters. "Let me alone," said he; "good
morning." He desired they should be admitted no more. One of his friends
came to New York; a person for whom he had a great esteem, and whom
seeing his end fast approaching, I asked him, in presence of a friend,
if he felt satisfied with the treatment he had received at our house,
upon which he could only exclaim, O! yes! He added other words, but
they were incoherent It was impossible for me not to exert myself to
the utmost in taking care of a person to whom I and my children owed
so much. He now appeared to have lost all kind of feeling. He spent
the night in tranquillity, and expired in the morning at eight o'clock,
after a short oppression, at my house in Greenwich, about two miles from
the city of New York. Mr. Jarvis, a Painter, who had formerly made a
portrait of him, moulded his head in plaster, from which a bust was
executed.
He was, according to the American custom, deposited in a mahogany
coffin, with his name and age engraved on a silver-plate, put on the
coffin. His corpse was dressed in a shirt, a muslin gown tied at neck
and wrists with black ribbon, stockings, drawers; and a cap was put
under his head as a pillow. (He never slept in a night-cap.) Before the
coffin was placed on the carriage, I went to see him; and having a rose
in my bosom, I took it out, and placed on his breast. Death had not
disfigured him. Though very thin, his bones were not protuberant. He was
not wrinkled, and had lost very little hair.
His voice was very strong even to his last moments. He often exclaimed,
oh, lord help me! An exclamation the involuntary effect of pain. He
groaned deeply, and when a question was put to him, calling him by his
name, he opened his eyes, as if waking from a dream. He never answered
the question, but asked one himself; as, what is it o'clock, &c.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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