New-York tribune (New York [N.Y.]), October 20, 1877
THOMAS PAINE’S LAST DAYS
COLONEL INGERSOLL’S LETTER
THOMAS PAINE’S LAST DAYS
EVIDENCE THAT PAINE DID NOT RECANT—THE CHARGE OF DRUNKENNESS—HIS WILL—TESTIMONY ON THE OTHER SIDE
Mr. Robert G. Ingersoll has published, in a letter to the editor of The New-York Observer, a statement of the evidence which, in his opinion, shows that Thomas Paine did not die a drunken pauper in agony and fear. Mr. Ingersoll had previously offered a wager of $1,000 in gold—a gift rather he called it—to any person who would substantiate these views of Paine’s character, or that Voltaire “did not pass away serenely as the coming of the dawn.” A tribunal of three men was to be appointed to pass upon the case. The Observer responded that the affirmations set forth by Mr. Ingersoll had never been made by it, but that it had already proved the truth of its accusations. Mr. Ingersoll now takes up the question of Paine’s character and dying opinions, at great length, and a summary of his views may prove interesting. First, as to his religious opinions:
The witnesses to whom I substantiate the fact that Thomas Paine did not recant, and that he died holding the religious opinions he had published are:
First—Thomas Nixon, Captain Daniel Pelton, B. F. Haskin. These gentlemen visited him during his last illness for the purpose of ascertaining whether he had in any respect changed his views upon religion. He told them that he had not.
Second—James Cheetham. This man was the most malicious enemy Mr. Paine had, and yet he admits that “Thomas Paine died placidly, and almost without a struggle.”—[See Life of Thomas Paine.]
Third—The ministers, Milledollar and Cunningham. These gentlemen told Mr. Paine that if he died without believing in the Lord Jesus Christ he would be damned, and Paine replied, “Let me have none of your priest-made stuff. Good morning.”—[See Sherwin’s Life of Paine, page 220.]
Fourth—Mrs. Hedding. She told these same preachers, when they attempted to obtrude themselves upon Mr. Paine again, that the attempt to convert Mr. Paine was useless—that “if God did not change his mind, no human power could.”
Fifth—Andrew A. Dean. This man lived upon Paine’s farm, at New-Rochelle, and corresponded with him upon religious subjects.—[See Paine’s Theological Works, page 305.]
Sixth—Mr. Jarvis, the artist, with whom Mr. Paine lived. He gives an account of an old lady coming to Paine and telling him that God Almighty had sent her to tell him that unless he repented and believed in the blessed Saviour he would be damned. Paine replied that God would not send such a foolish old woman with such an impertinent message.—[See Clio Rickman’s Life of Paine.]
Seventh—William Carver, with whom Paine boarded. Mr. Carver said again and again, that Paine did not recant. He knew him well, and had every opportunity of knowing.—[See Life of Paine, by Vale.]
Eighth—Dr. Manley, who attended him in his last sickness, and to whom he spoke his last words. Dr. Manley asked him if he did not want to believe in Jesus Christ, and he replied, “I have no wish to believe on that subject.”
Ninth—Willet Hicks and Elias Hicks, who were with him frequently during his last sickness, and both of whom tried to persuade him to recant. According to their testimony, Mr. Paine died as he had lived—a believer in God, and a friend to man. Willet Hicks was offered money to say something against Thomas Paine. He was even offered money to remain silent, and allow others to slander the dead. Mr. Hicks, speaking of Thomas Paine, said, “He was a good man—an honest man.” [See Vale’s Life of Paine.]
Tenth—Amasa Woodsworth, who was with him every day for some six weeks immediately preceding his death, and sat up with him the last two nights of his life. This man declares that Paine did not recant, and that he died tranquilly. The evidence of Mr. Woodsworth is conclusive.
Eleventh—Thomas Paine himself. The will of Thomas Paine, written by himself, commences as follows:
“The last will and testament of me, the subscriber, Thomas Paine, reposing confidence in my Creator God, and in no other being, for I know of no other, nor believe in any other,”
and it closes in these words:
“I have lived an honest and useful life to mankind; my time has been spent in doing good; and I die in perfect composure and resignation to the will of my Creator God.”
Twelfth—If Thomas Paine recanted, why do you pursue him? If he recanted, he died substantially 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 you 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?
In answer to the charge that Paine died a drunkard’s death, after giving a great deal of testimony in extenso, Mr. Ingersoll sums up as follows:
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 Purdy, who was a tenant of Paine’s; of Burger, with whom he was intimate; of Thomas Nixon and Captain 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. Haskin, a lawyer, who was well acquainted with him, and called upon him during his last illness; of Walter Morton, a friend; 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 testify to the fact that Mr. Paine 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 you produce the story of Grant Thorburn—the story of the Rev. J. B. Wickham that an elder in a 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 you. Will you have the fairness to admit it? Your 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 morality, 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 newspaper devoted to the defense of chattel slavery upon the ground that it is a divine institution.
Do you really 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 a pamphlet before? Was he a drunken beast when he wrote the “Crisis?”
Were it to a drunken beast, Mr. Ingersoll goes on to say, that letters of friendship, confidence and respect, were written by Washington, Jefferson, Adams and Monroe. These letters Mr. Ingersoll gives, and then further asks:
Was it in consideration of the services of a drunken beast that the Legislature of Pennsylvania presented Thomas Paine with £500 sterling?
Did the State of New-York feel indebted to a drunken beast, and confer upon Thomas Paine an estate of several hundred acres?
Did the Congress of the United States thank him for his services because he had led a drunken and beastly life?
Was he elected a member of the French Convention because he was a drunken beast?
Was it the act of a drunken beast to put his own life in jeopardy by voting against the death of the King?
Was it because he was a drunken beast that he opposed the “Reign of Terror”—that he endeavored to stop the shedding of blood and did all in his power to protect even his own enemies?
Mr. Ingersoll next takes up the question: Did Thomas Paine die in destitution and want?
He says that Paine, on returning to this country, was worth £30,000, according to his own statement; that when he made his will he bequeathed a valuable farm, thirty shares in the New-York Phœnix Insurance Company; and that he gave several legacies.
Mr. Ingersoll, in conclusion, adds:
“From the persistence with which the orthodox have charged, for the last sixty-eight years, that Thomas Paine recanted, and that when dying he was filled with remorse and fear; from the malignity of the attacks upon his personal character, I had concluded that there must be some evidence of some kind to support those charges.
Even with my ideas of the average honor of believers in superstition—the disciples of fear—I did not quite believe that all these infamies rested solely upon poorly attested lies.
I had charity enough to suppose that something had been said or done by Thomas Paine capable of being tortured into a reason for these calumnies.
And I was foolish enough to think that even you would be willing to fairly examine the pretended evidence said to sustain these charges, and give your honest conclusion to the world.”
“I supposed that you, being acquainted with the history of your country, felt under a certain obligation to honor Paine for the splendid services rendered by him in the darkest days of the Revolution.
It was only reasonable to suppose that you were aware that in the midnight of Valley Forge, the ‘Crisis,’ by Thomas Paine, was the first star that glittered in the wide horizon of despair.
I took it for granted that you knew the bold stand taken and the brave words spoken by Thomas Paine in the French Convention, against the death of the King.
I thought it probable that you, being an editor, had read ‘The Rights of Man;’ that you knew that Thomas Paine was a champion of human liberty; that he was one of the founders and fathers of this Republic; that he was one of the foremost men of his age; that he had never written a word of injustice; that he was a despiser of slavery; that he abhorred tyranny in all its forms; that he was in the widest and highest sense a friend of his race; that his head was as clear as his heart was good, and that he had the courage to speak his honest thought.
Under these circumstances I had hoped that you would for the moment forget your religious prejudices, and submit to the enlightened judgment of the world the evidence you had or could obtain, affecting in any way the character of so great and so generous a man.
This you have refused to do.
In my judgment you have mistaken the temper of even your own readers.
A large majority of the religious people of this country have, to a considerable extent, outgrown the prejudices of their fathers.
They are willing to know the truth, and the whole truth, about the life and death of Thomas Paine.
They will not thank you for having presented to them the moss-covered, the maimed and distorted traditions of ignorance, prejudice and credulity.
By this course you will convince them, not of the wickedness of Paine, but of your own unfairness.”
The Paine controversy continues to widen.
The Cincinnati Gazette prints a considerable amount of documentary evidence, some of which by no means supports Mr. Ingersoll’s view of Paine’s sobriety.
The following extracts are interesting:
We shall first quote Mr. Joel Barlow, whose letter is reproduced by both Cheetham and Vale.
It declares Paine to have fallen into drunken habits while in France.
Mr. Vale does not attempt to deny this, except by saying that if Barlow was not mistaken, Paine had reformed by the time he returned to this country.
Mr. Barlow, in writing to Cheetham, says:
“You ask what came of him—he always frequented the best society in England. In France, till he became the object of calumny in certain American papers (echoes of the English Court journals) for his adherence to what he thought the cause of liberty in France, till he conceived himself neglected and slighted by his former friends in the United States.
From that moment he gave himself very much to drink, and consequently to companions less worthy of his better days.”
Joel Barlow, the well-known author of The Columbiad, and eminent as a public man, was a skeptic at this time of his life and had translated Volney’s Ruins into English. He had no pious frauds to support.
In the Salmagundi papers, of which Washington Irving and J. K. Paulding were the principal authors, we find in the first issue, that of January 24, 1807, while Paine was in or near New-York, the following reference to him. It must have been a marked feature, else the illustration would have had no pertinency:
“I was, however, much pleased (at a public assembly) to see that red maintains its ground against all other colors, because red is the color of Mr. Jefferson’s * * * [breeches in a note.—ED.] Tom Paine’s nose, and my slippers.”
Dr. J. W. Francis says:
“Paine clung to his infidelity until the last moment of his natural life. His death-bed was a spectacle. He who, in his early days, had been associated with, and had received counsel from Franklin, was, in his old age, deserted by the humblest menial; he, whose pen had proved a very sword among nations, had shaken empires, and made kings tremble, now wielded up the mastery to the most treacherous of tyrants, King Alcohol.”
These extracts may be concluded with the following statement, made to himself by one of Paine’s personal followers, in a letter written during a temporary estrangement:
“A respectable gentleman from New-Rochelle called to see me a few days back, and said that everybody was tired of you there, and no one would undertake to board and lodge you.
I thought this was the case, as I found you at a tavern in a most miserable situation.
You appeared as if you had not been shaved for a fortnight, and as to a shirt, it could not be said that you had one on. It was only the remains of one, and this, likewise, appeared not to have been off your back for a fortnight, and was nearly the color of tanned leather; and you had the most disagreeable smell possible; just like that of our poor beggars in England.
Do you remember the pains I took to clean you? That I got a tub of warm water and soap and washed you from head to foot, and this I had to do three times before I could get you clean?”
(We spare the reader further details.)