Boston Post (Jan. 29, 1856): "Calumny has blistered her relentless hand in trying to stamp him as profane, intemperate and mendacious. The real truth appears to be that he was never habituated to profanity, to drunkenness, nor to falsehood; and that his calumniators are unconsciously his eulogists." The Manchester _Guardian_, probably the most influential journal in the British empire, outside of London, says that while the popular conception of Paine is that of a blatant and immoral demagogue he was noted by his companions "for his shyness, his benevolence, and his gentleness." Joel Barlow, who saw much of him, both in London and Paris, as well as in America, says: "He was one of the most benevolent and disinterested of mankind." "He was always charitable to the poor beyond his means." Clio Rickman, most intimate of all his associates, says: "He was mild, unoffending, sincere, gentle, humble and unassuming." Dr. Bond, who was imprisoned with him in the Luxembourg, says: "He was the most conscientious man I ever knew." James Parton says: "He loved the truth for its own sake; and he stood by what he conceived to be the truth when all around him reviled it." Ellery Sedgwick says: "The goal which he sought was the happiness of his fellow-men." Hon. George W. Julian, the first Antislavery nominee for Vice-President, one of the founders of the Republican party, and for many years a distinguished leader in Congress, says: "Paine was a perfectly unselfish and incorruptible patriot; he was a philanthropist in the best sense of the word; he was a man of the rarest intelligence and moral courage." Charles Watts of England says: "Thomas Paine had a generous and affectionate nature, a mind superior to fear and selfish interests; a mind governed by the principles of uniform rectitude and integrity; a mind the same in prosperity and adversity; a mind which no bribe could seduce and no terror overawe." Eva Ingersoll Brown: "Thomas Paine was one of the mental and moral giants of his time. He ranked among the foremost of his age. He was royal in rectitude, kingly in compassion, sovereign in sympathy. His reverence for truth and justice was sublime; his love of mercy and his ardor for liberty were unsurpassed.... His was a religion untainted by touch of dogma or of sect; a thing stainless and pure; of wondrous beauty and grandeur."