Your 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 475 Columbia street. The story of the Rev. J. D. Wick- ham, D.D., is simply false. The next competent false witness is the Rev. Charles Hawley, D.D., who proceeds to state that the story of the Rev. J. D. Wickham, D.D., is cor- roborated by older citizens of New Rochelle. The names of these ancient residents are withheld. Ac- cording 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--with Mr. Dean--with Captain 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 his "loathsome particulars" existing only in his own mind. The next gentleman you bring upon the stand is W. H. Ladd, who quotes from the memoirs of Stephen Grellet. This gentleman also has the mis- fortune to be dead. According to his account, Mr. Paine made his recantation to a servant girl of his by the name of Mary Roscoe. To this girl, accord- 476 ing to the account, 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, but this point I shall notice hereafter. These are your witnesses, 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 a Mr. 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 Mr. Cheetham was held by Mr. Paine, I will give you a copy of a letter that throws light upon this point: October 28, 1807. "Mr. Cheetham: Unless you make a public apol- ogy for the abuse and falsehood in your paper of Tuesday, October 27th, respecting me, I will prose- cute you for lying." Thomas Paine. In another letter, speaking of this same man, Mr. Paine says: "If an unprincipled bully cannot be re- formed, 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." 477