The complete essay from the TPNHA Collection:

Although pious legends picture Thomas Paine as terrified of death, his only fear was lest he should live too long, and suffer like his parents from helpless age. When at length death was plainly approaching his only dread was excited by the zealous aggressions of proselytizers, whose eagerness for some miraculous manifestations from heaven or hell, at the death bed of the famous deist was likely, he foresaw, to fabricate a fabulous fulfillment. He therefore sent for the widow of friend Elihu Palmer, who had been left in poverty, to watch beside him till his death. His next anxiety was lest fanatics, in their disappointment that he was neither converted nor carried off by Satan, should subject his body to indignities, and, his parents having been Quakers, he requested burial in the Friends’ graveyard in New York. This was refused solely because of his deism, nothing whatever being alleged against his character. He was buried at New Rochelle on the farm presented to him by the State of New York at the close of the Revolution because of his services in that struggle.

And even then Paine entered on his posthumous career. There was no Quaker formula against deism, and the refusal of a grave to Paine, resented by some members of that Society, began a controversy which as I believe resulted twenty years later in a split, and the establishment of the rationalistic Society now known as “Hicksite Quakers”.

A plain headstone was placed at Paine’s grave, but bits of it were chipped away by visitors. A Fragment is sometimes shown at Paine’s celebrations in New York, and the destruction of the headstone ascribed to orthodox vandalism. But Gilbert Vale, who in 1837 edited The Beacon, said in that paper that it was done by “admiring visitors”. In his paper of July 15, 1837, Vale says: “After Cobbett violated the grave, and removed the bones from the remains of Paine, the headstone as broken, and pieces successively removed by different visitors; one large fragment was preserved by a lady in an opposite cottage, in which Mr. Paine had sometimes boarded; but this fragment gradually suffered diminution, as successive visitors begged a piece of what they could no longer steal. To preserve the last remnant the lady has had it plastered up in a wall.” The cottage alluded to is the Bayeaux house, and the lady Mrs. Badeau, who lived there with her mother, the widow Bayeaux, when Paine was a boarder. Her son, Mr. Albert Badeau, whom I visited in New Rochelle in 1891, preserved various relics of Paine. He saw Cobbett’s workmen digging up Paine’s bones about dawn.

In September 1819 Cobbett wrote from America a public letter to Lord Folkstone in which he advised him to read Paine’s “Decline and Fall of the British System of Finance”: “and then blush at the use of the words ‘Lower Orders’; blush to think that this man, born in humble life, knew more than all the ‘higher orders’ put together. Yet while such a fellow as pensioned Johnson, ‘that slave of state’, stands in colossal marble in St. Paul’s, Paine lies in a little hole under the grass and weeds of an obscure farm in America. There, however, he shall not lie, unnoticed, much longer. He belongs to England. His fame is the property of England; and if no other people will show that they value that fame, the people of England will. Yes, my Lord, among the pleasures that I promise myself, is that of seeing the name of Paine honoured in every part of England, where base corruption caused him, while alive, to be burnt in effigy. Never will England be what it ought to be until the marble of Pitt’s monument is converted into a monument to the memory of Paine.”

In the same month the remains were dug up. “Our expedition”, wrote Cobbett, “set out from New York in the middle of the night; got to the place (twenty-two miles off) at peak of day; took up the coffin entire; and just as we found it, goes to England. Let it be considered the act of the Reformers of England, Scotland and Ireland. In their name we opened the grave, and in their name will the tomb be raised.” (Cobbett’s Register xxxv. P.382.) According to The Beacon (Dec. 27,1845) a little finger of Paine was left in America, and was “in the possession of a friend <?Quaker> on Long Island.”

In Manordes’s “Biographical Treasury” it is said, “Many however assert that Cobbett did not take that trouble, but brought over from America the remains of a criminal who had been executed.” There is not however the slightest room for doubt on this point. Not only did Mr. Albert Badeau of New Rochelle witness the removal of the coffin, but the grave itself long bore the like witness. Dr. Clair J. Grece of Redhill has sent me an extract from a diary kept by his uncle Danial Constable while in America, who visited the grave on July 26,1822, and says “The grave is surrounded by a stone wall 16 feet by 12 and l8 inches thick, about 4 feet high. The grave is sunk in about the depth of a coffin. Some of the neighbors aided the three men who came with a wagon a little before day. They say had the proper authorities had known in time they would prevented the outrage.”

An aged Quaker informed me that a number of “Friends” who were on the “Elizabeth” when Cobbett came aboard with the big box, at New York, left the ship on learning its contents; but those who looked for a striking judgment on the vessel were disappointed. Cobbett with his strange freight landed at Liverpool on November 21,1819.

Before relating the adventures of Paine’s bones it may be of interest to record that the project of a monument to Paine at New Rochelle originated in 1837 with Gilbert Vale, who compiled a biography of Paine, and Mrs. Badeau, who, with her mother Mrs. Bayeaux, – both orthodox, – preserved an affectionate memory of the author and his sojourn as a boarder in their home at New Rochelle. The graceful monument was designed by John Frazee, an eminent architect, gratuitously, and was constructed at James’s marble works in New Rochelle. The portrait was cut from a medal of the time, owned by a Mr. Gill and is – or was- a good likeness. The monument is not exactly over the grave but near its head. The farmer into whose hands the surrounding land had passed would not permit the committee to reach the twelve square feet which had been reserved inviolably for Paine’s grave, by Madame Bonneville, so they had to purchase, at a cost of $50, twenty square feet of ground at the corner of the road and the lane leading to Paine’s house. The largest subscription for the monument was that of Hiram Parker, $30, the others having mostly one dollar each. The total cost, including the land, was $1,634. The monument was erected in November 1839, in the presence of about fifty persons, but without any formalities or speeches.

The reaction caused by the French Revolution was beginning to subside when Cobbett brought to England the bones of its famous outlaw, who, the Attorney General had declared in 1792, should never enter the country again except in vinculis. The “Painites” were reviving interest in their hero, and Richard Carlile had just been sent to prison for publishing the “Age of Reason”. And by the way, soon after his arrival Cobbett visited Carlile in gaol: the prisoner said “Ah, had I been in America, they would not have thrown me in prison.” “No”, replied Cobbett, “they would have tarred and feathered you.”

Cobbett’s enterprise was met with mingled wrath and ridicule. Probably most people now have no association with the incident except the four lines of Byron (following an equally cynical epitaph on Pitt) in a letter to Moore, from Ravcuna, Jan. 2,1820

“In digging up your bones, Tom Paine, Will Cobbett has done well: You visit him on earth again, He’ll visit you in hell.”

“Pray”, adds Byron, “let not these versiculi go forth with my name except among the initiated, because my friend H. has foamed into a reformer, and I greatly fear will subside into Newgate.” Even while the poet was writing, his friend H. – John Cam Hobhouse – was already in Newgate. It was for a pamphlet on Lord Erskine, so severely contrasting his earlier with his reactionary position, that it must almost have seemed to summon Paine as a Banquo at the feast of his once noble defender, but afterwards ennobled prosecutor. In fact Byron, in his Southern retreat, interested only in his alter ego Don Juan, was little aware of the political situation in England, and took the laughter over Paine’s bones to be more genuine than it was. The merriment was not that of the Tories, but rather an effort of the old Whigs to hooh-pooh an incident fallen at the most serious crisis since the French Revolution.

In August had occurred the terrible suppression of the mass meeting at Manchester (“Peterloo”). The trials of the Carliles and other heretical publishers and writers were filling the radicals with consternation. The storm was rising concerning Queen Caroline around whom the liberals were gathering with intense wrath against the Prince Regent whose full reign was at hand. Eight days after the arrival of Paine’s bones at Liverpool three different Bills were introduced into Parliament, all heavily loaded guns aimed against the recovery by the people of rights lost during the French revolution – the Seditious Meetings Bill, the Training Prevention Bill, and the Blasphemous Libels Bill. The promoters of these measures were not slow in availing themselves of the Paine-Cobbett incident. On December2 Mr. Wilmot made a strong point of it in the House of Commons:

“Does anybody advocate the principle of these meetings? If such a man exists it can only be in the person of the individual just returned from America, who has dug up the unhallowed bones of the blasphemer, and has brought them to this country for the purpose of creating a frenzied feeling in favour of his projects, and like old John Ziska, who desired that his skin be made into a drum to rouse his countrymen, wished to stir up impiety and disaffection by the exhibition of this mummery to the initated people of this country.”

After that, the Whig ridicule began, as if by mot d’ordre, and on December 17 a leading opponent of the government Bills, Earl Grosvenor, utilized the ridicule to prove them unnecessary:

“To prove still further the feelings by which people are actuated, I beg leave to mention the way in which a posthumous production, the bones of Thomas Paine, has been treated in this country. The person by whom that vile experiment has been tried found that he had a little mistaken the feeling and character of the people of England. Was there ever any subject treated with more laughter, contempt, and derision than the introduction of these miserable bones, – whether the bones of Thomas Paine or not I will not undertake to decide.”

Mr. Edward Smith of Walthamstow, Cobbett’s able biographer, does not share my suspicion that this ridicule was artificial. He says that Paine’s religious heresies had obliterated his political ideas.” In England he was known by his theology; and was branded as an Atheist by the hirelings who could not, or dare not try to refute him.” He reproaches Cobbett for not knowing that such things do not strike or interest the English mind. But two years later the performance was imitated by the importation in a ship of what was left of the bones of Major Andre for burial in Westminster Abbey, and Cobbett wrote: “All the differences between me and the Duke of York is, that I bring home the bones of an Englishman famed throughout the world for his talents and writings; and that the Duke brings home the bones of one who was hanged as a spy.” As for the ridicule, it was, apart from newspaper paragraphs, chiefly represented by some anonymous rhymes written with skill, but with an affectation of rudeness, and printed in the cheapest form. The date of the first effusion in December1 819, about three weeks after the bones were heard of in London, and it was entitled, “The Political House that Jack Built”. In a picture Cobbett is seen in a boat marked “Rights of Man”, seated on a coffin, and rowed by two Negroes.

“B is a boat that used to ply Across the Brooklyn Ferry; To Market Slip that’s called the Fly, A pretty kind of wherry.

“And ’tis constructed on a plan That’s best to cut the waves: The name of it is rights of man, And rowed by Negro slaves.

“This boat Bill Cobb hired for a week, And entered on a trip, A passage over sea to seek In Merchant Brig or Ship

“A coffin with him too he took When Paine’s Bones lay in state, And tried each bark from Sandy Hook, In vain – quite to Hell’s Gate.

“And thither was his utmost scope, Nor farther has he been; The massive door refused to ope Just yet – to let him in.”

Another piece is headed “sketches of the Life of Billy Cobb and the death of Tommy Pain”. The woodcut here shows Cobbett under an apple tree, his hat on the ground full of apples, with Paine’s skeleton on one side seizing him by the throat, and on the other the Devil touching him on the shoulder. The muses tell that when Paine was dying the Devil appeared and said his skull was now to be buried “for ever and ever.”

“One boon and only one I crave”, Said Thomas with a sigh, “Let it be till there pass my grave A caitiff worse than I.”

The Devil thinks it quite safe to agree to this, but when Cobbett touches the grave Paine springs up, and attacks him on old scores, for Cobbett had reproduced “Oldys”‘ libels in America, and was connected to Painism only in after years. The Devil is at first rather pleased with the fight, being afraid that he may be “superceded” on his throne by one of them, but finally he reconciles them in view of the mischief they can do in England. Another woodcut shows Cobbett, coffin on shoulder; and next we see the ship.

“E for Elizabeth doth stand And that’s a vessel’s name, That lately sailed from Yankey-Iand And to the Mersey came.”

Another hand identified in Notes and Queries, Feb. 29, 1868 as Thomas Rodd, Sr., (“John English” is the pseudonym) wrote an “Ode on the Bones of the Immortal Thomas Paine, newly transported from America to England by the no less immortal William Cobbett, Esq. Hic labor hic opus. Great Paine for little trumpery.” (4 to pp 8). This privately printed poem (now very rare) tries at points to be satirical, without much success; it is severe on Paine’s theological negations, but discloses a certain admiration for the arch-heretic. I quote a specimen:

“No Judge or Jury does he fear, Nor e’en the Attorney General’s frown Nor dread lthuriel with his spear Can knock this doughty Champion down.

‘Tis cowardice to strike the slain, ‘Tis cowardice to strike Tom Paine High high in dust the hero lies, And from his narrow box his face defies.

Who shall the great Arch-Flamen be Of this new god? Upon whose shrine Let brass and farthing candles shine; His pen once gain’d the victory,

And still victorious reigns, in spite Of all the Bishop could indite: None but the mighty hand of Law Against this daring Chief the quill could prosperous draw.”

Whether under more auspicious circumstances Cobbett could have received any enthusiasm for Paine can now be only a matter of conjecture. In 1820 George the Third, born in the same year with Paine, gave a fatal blow to all interest in his bones by dying on Paine’s birthday, January 29. Thenceforth popular feeling was entirely occupied with the sufferings of Queen Caroline and the affairs of George IV. Cobbett at once began his efforts to get into Parliament, and Paine’s bones were stored away and forgotten for many a long year. It appears, however, that he occasionally exhibited the bones. The Rev. Gerald Davies, of Charterhouse, wrote to the “Surrey Times”, Feb. 2, 1889, that he was told by the late James Wyatt, of Bedford, geologist, that in boyhood, being at Normandy Farm, Cobbett’s last residence, he said, “Is it true you keep the bones of Tom Paine, the infidel?” Cobbett replied, “What do you know about Tom Paine?” But he took the boy up stairs and showed him the bones. William Cobbett dies June 18, 1835, at Normandy Farm, near Guilford. His son J.P. Cobbett found himself unable to pay off his father’s debts and his own, and the effects were sold by Thomas Piggott at auction in the autumn of the same year, on the premises. This information was communicated to the “Surrey Times”, Jan. 19, 1889,b y D.M. Stevens, who adds:

“My informants, who were present at the sale, told me that a box was pointed out as containing the remains of Paine, and they believed that the box and its contents were described in the catalogue, and that some allusion being made to the fact, the auctioneer refused to bring the lot under the hammer. What eventually became of the box and its contents is an unsolved problem, and, notwithstanding my own efforts to solve it, had better to remain so. The whole subject is a painful one, and I have no doubt that Cobbett, of whom we Surrey men have abundant reason to be proud, often regretted that he had not left the noted Freethinker’s bones to remain in their original American resting-place.”

Gilbert Vale, who was in correspondence with English freethinkers, stated in “The Beacon”, Dec.27, 1845, “The bones fell into the hands of an elderly female, a nurse in Cobbett’s family, and by her given or sold to Lta King’s gardener.'” Lord King, who died two years before Cobbett, was a nobleman who held many opinions in common with Paine. His residence, Ockham, was not far from that of Cobbett.

I have a letter (autograph) written by Gilbert Vale, Aug. 20, 1860, in which he says: “Cobbett did take the bones of Paine to London: they are in the hands of the friends of Paine, who will one day put a monument up to him. I saw some of the parties in charge of them in 1848, and I have a pamphlet on the subject which I suppose I brought from England in that year.”

The pamphlet was: “A Brief History of the Remains of the late Thomas Paine, from the time of their disinterment in 1819 by the late William Cobbett M.P., down to the year 1846. London: J. Watson, 1847” pg.8.

I was acquainted with James Watson, and gave the address at his burial, in 1874. He was an able and exact man, and as he no doubt wrote the pamphlet himself, the following statements in it were undoubtedly those Watson received from Benjamin Tilly, – a tailor, and a factotum of Cobbett in London. According to the pamphlet Cobbett brought the coffin-plate, inscribed “Thomas Paine, died June 8, 1809, aged74 years.” (Both Watson and Tilly would certainly know that laine was- born January 29, 1737, and this pres6rvation of an error as to his age, probably due to Madame Bonneville who ordered the coffin, is a certificate of the genuineness of this plate, which must still be in existence.) Cobbett placed Paine’s remains for a short time “in the keeping of a well known friend of his in Hampshire” (Lord King?), but they were brought to London, and remained in Cobbett’s house, Bolt Court, until January 1833, when Tilly sent them to Normandy Farm. There they remained until Cobbett’s death (June 18, 1835). James Paul Cobbett (his son and executor) inscribed his own name in several places on the skull, and on the larger bones. This gentleman was charged with insolvency by one Jesse Oldfield, who had been his father’s shopman, and the litigation resulted in the appointment of a receiver for the Normandy Farm estate, George West, a neighboring farmer. In January 1836, when Cobbett’s effects were sold at his Farm, the auctioneer refused to offer Paine’s remains, and they were retained by the receiver to await the orders of the Lord Chancellor, who, on the subject being mentioned to him in Court, refused to recognize them as part of the estate, or to make any order. Georgel West’s receivership ended in 1839. After keeping Paine’s remains nine years, he ascertained that Tilly wished to carry out Cobbett’s intentions concerning them, and he therefore, saysW atson, conveyed them in March, 1844, to Mr. Tilly (13 Bedford Square, East, London) “by whom they will in all probability be kept, until a public funeral of them can be arranged.”

In “Notes & Queries”, January 25, 1868, a writer signing “A Native of Guilford” states that in the summer of 1849 he saw Paine’s bones in a box in the house of John Chennell, corn merchant in Guilford, who told him that they had been purchased at the Cobbett sale at Ash by someone ignorant of the contents of the chest. A writer in the “Surrey Times”, January 19, 1889, states that the same merchant, Chennell, possessed a porcelain jar, with parchment cover inscribed “The GreatP aine’s Bones”, but that “only a few bones were inside the jar”. To this the Surrey editor adds: A correspondent from the United States was assured that in 1849 they were lying in the cellar of Mr. Chennell’s house, and inquiries are being anxiously made in the States for any authentic information as to them..” This American correspondent had probably got his information from the “Native of Guilford” in “Notes & Queries”, which can hardly be correct. It does not harmonize with the porcelin jar story, and the latter is inexact; the sale was not at Ash, but on the Normandy Farm premises. Chennell may have kept the remains for some years for the receiver George West, but if any were there in 1849 it could only have been a few of the bones which, as will presently appear got separated from the rest. In that year they were seen in possession of Benjamin Tilly.

About 1860 Tillv died in the house of a Mr. Ginn, wood-merchant, Bethnal Green, and left with him a number of Cobbett’s MMS. and Paine relics, but apparently without careful information. According to a statement made to me by Mr. George Reynolds of 23 Stepney Green, his attention was called to these relics in 1879 by a daughter of Mr. Ginn, who was a member of the Baptist Church of which he (Reynolds) was then minister. He purchased the box of papers and relics which proved to be the MSS. Of Cobbett, and some of the brain and hair of Paine, of which Mr. Reynolds is still in possession. From these papers he ascertained that Tilly had owned Paine’s skeleton, and he at once inquired about it. Mrs. Ginn said that in cleaning the room after Tilly’s death she found a lot of bones in a large bag and sold them to a rag-and-bone collector. Mr. Reynolds says she did not appear to know they were human bones. Mr. Ginn, however, knew they were human, and said it was “a skeleton with the exception of the skull and leg or arm.”

On hearing this story of Mrs. Ginn it struck me that there was an accent of sophistication about it. The rag-and-bone collector must have known they were-human bones, if she did not. She may have expected to gain some credit with the Baptist pastor for having turned the remains of “Tom Paine” into more rubbish and dust. I have since discovered that her story is not true, and also, what Mr. Reynolds did not know, that the skull and right hand of Paine had indeed, before Tilly’s death, been removed and gone on a career of their own.

It is probable that Tilly never. knew that any of the bones had been removed from the box. Mr. Joseph Cowen (of the “Newcastle Chronicle”) tells me that about 1853-54 he was consulted by James Watson concerning the propriety of a public burial of Paine’s bones at Kensal Green. Watson said they were in the possession of a tailor who kept them in a box on which he sat while at work.. Mr. Cowen went with Watson to the shop of the tailor who however was not at home. On his next visit to London he again went to the place, but the tailor had removed without leaving any address. Mr. Cowen says it was in the neighborhood of Red Lion Square, and he does not remember he name; but it was no doubt Tilly, who might have been temporarily working in that neighborhood. Mr. Cowen never heard of the matter again, but he remembers asking James Paul Cobbett about the bones, and finding that he knew not what had become of them, and evidently did not wish to talk on the subject.

In December 1874 I inserted in the “National Reformer” an inquiry concerning Paine’s remains. I received the same week a note from Mr. James Dickens of Denham Vila, Guilford, who said that he had made inquiries there, but could only learn that at the Cobbett sale “there was no bidder” for the box and its contents. My inquiry, however, was taken up, and Mr. J. Darbyshire of Manchester, in a letter of September 18, 1875, to “The Secular Chronicle” (London) suggested that “Messrs. Bradlaugh, Watts, G.L. Holyoake, Foote, Mrs. Law and Mrs. Besant, and others should be requested to look after the remains of Thomas Paine and conduct a public funeral, and that a monument be erected over his grave.” Mr. Darbyshire was “sure that sufficient cash would be obtained for so good an object.” Therein he was no doubt right, but Paine’s remains were not discovered.

Meanwhile, however, a lecture I gave in London in 1876 on Thomas Paine attracted the attention of Edward Truelove, the veteran publisher rationalist literature, who wrote me (Dec. 2,1876) that in 1853 or 1854 the Rev. Robert Ainslie came into his shop in the Strand, and observing Paine’s Works “volunteered the very startling information that he, the Rev. Robert Ainslie – of all men! – had in his possession the skull and right hand of Thomas Paine, but did not say how he came by them, evading my question.”

Mr. Ainslie was not aware that Mr. Truelove knew his name, but the bookseller recognized him as the Secretary of the London City Mission, under whose auspices many years before a course of lectures had been given in Eagle Street Chapel against “Infidel Socialism”. Mr. Ainslie gave one of the lectures, and Mr. Truelove was naturally startled that any remains of Paine should have fallen into such orthodox hands. However, he did not mention to Mr. Ainslie that he recognized him. But on a later occasion, when the minister again entered his shop (removed to Holborn) he asked him what had become of Paine’s bones, and his question was not answered.

Mr. Ainslie probably became the owner of Paine’s skull and right hand before George West brought the box to Benjamin Tilly. His daughter Margaretta (first wife of the late Sir Russell Reynolds) having received an inquiry of mine addressed to her father (1877) who died before it arrived, answered:

“Mr. Thomas Paine’s bones were in our possession. I remember them as a child, but I believe they were lost in the various movings which my father had some years ago. I can find no trace of them, but if I do by more inquiries.”

I heard nothing more from Mrs. Russell Reynolds, and she died in 1880. The late Sir Russell Reynolds had, as he lately wrote me, “an obscure recollection of having seen the bones of a hand a great many years ago.” As Margaretta Ainslie was married in 1852, her childhood recollections probably extended into the years preceding 1844, when Watson says the bones were brought to London. This marriage took place at Fromer House, Bromley, Kent, where Mr. Ainslie resided at the time, and it is not Improbable that his near neighbor, Charles Darwin, inspected the skull of his predecessor in heresy. But it is a more picturesque reflection that eventualities should have brought Paine’s skull back to the vicinity of his favourite haunt, -the so-called “Tom Paine Tree”, an ancient oak in the grounds of the old Bishop’s Palace.

As this tree has not, I believe, been mentioned in any book, it may interest the reader to know that there is such a tree, and that it is said by long tradition to be the favourite resort of Paine while writing the “Age of Reason”. I recently visited the tree, in company of Mr. Coles Childs, present owner of Bromley Palace. The trunk, about 25 feet in girth at the ground, is entirely hollow, but the foliage is ample, and there is hardly a dead branch. As a matter of history Paine did pass some time in Bromley, and a very intelligent watchmaker there, Mr. How, told me that he remembers his aged father pointing out the rather handsome residence, “Church Cottage”, as that in which Paine resided. There is no evidence that Paine wrote any part of the “Age of Reason” at Bromley, but it is not improbable. In my historical introduction to the “Age of Reason”, just published, I have shown that parts were written long before its publication; the subject was always near his heart, and he was fond of discussing it with his neighbors. In the early months of 1792 Paine was residing with his publisher, Clio Rickman, at 7 Upper Marylebone Street (still a bookbinding with the old bookshelves remaining), where the swarming of radicals left too little leisure for writing. “Mr. Paine goes out of town tomorrow to compose what I call Burke’s funeral sermon”, says John Hall in his diary, April 20,1792. This was at Bromley, where, on May l4, he heard of the summons of the publisher of “Rights of Man”, and hastened to London, and claimed the right to stand in the publisher’s place. He then doubtless resumed work at Bromley, and one may indulge the picturesque legend that there in “Church Cottage”, which was ecclesiastical property, and beneath the giant oak on the bishop’s grounds, this heresiarch worked on the book that was to shake temples. From the “Tom Paine Tree” one may almost see Down homestead, where Darwin still more shook the temples, though the most venerable of them became his monument.

The Rev. Robert Ainslie had a brother who was an eminent veterinary surgeon, and in his professional or some other capacity was, I am told, connected with the estate of Lord King at Ockham, not far from Cobbett’s place. It was through him that the Rev. Robert Ainslie heard of Paine’s bones. His son. Mr. Oliver Ainslie, tells me that the remains were then in the rooms of the auctioneer Richards( 43 Rathbone Place) “for sale”, and that the skull and right hand were there purchased by his father. It is thus clear that all of the facts were not known to Tilly and Watson. In Watson’s pamphlet it is stated that the bones were brought up to London by George West and given to Tilly, at 13 Bedford Square East. But Benjamin Tilly’s name does not appear at that place in the directories of the time; indeed it does not appear at all until 1852. It seems possible that the tailor had no such fixed residence as would carry as his name into the directory, and that he confided the box of bones to the auctioneer Richards until he had a house of his own. If so Richards, or some subordinate, may have abstracted th e skull and hand and sold them to Mr. Ainslie, Tilly remaining ignorant of the trespass. It is possible, however, that the skull and hand had been sold by West the receiver to Chennell of Guilford before the remains were brought to Tilly, who did not examine them. Mr. Edward Smith tells me that he “interviewed” the son of Chennell in 1877, and heard that Paine’s bones had been sold, and brought 7s 6d. Mr. Truelove says that when he told Watson that Ainslie had the skull he smiled in credulously, yet amid all the tangle of conjectures the certainties are that Tilly had the skeleton without the skull and right hand, a portion of the brain and several pieces of hair, and that Ainslie possessed the cranium and right hand.

Mr. Oliver Ainslie remarked that the smallness and delicacy of Paine’s hand were such that the late Professor John Marshall, of the Royal College of Surgeons, at first thought it the hand of a female. “The head was also small for a man, and of the Celtic type I should say, and somewhat conical in shape, and with more cerebellum than frontal development.” ‘Some little time after his father’s death the skull and hand were brought from 7l Mornington Road, where the Rev. Robert Ainslie had resided, to Mr. Oliver Ainslie’s house 48 Lincoln’s Inn Fields, whence they were taken away by a Mr. Penny, to whom had been confided some arrangements of the room containing them for a new tenant. Mr. Oliver Ainslie became interested in the remains only when too late to save them, and has not been able to find Mr. Penny, nor does he know his full name. He fears that Penny may have disposed of the skull to one of the wastepaper dealers nearby. But this appears to me improbable. Every physician must possess a skull, which is worth more than a wastepaper dealer would pay. This skull of Paine also had the name of J.P. Cobbett written, or perhaps scratched, on it. If an obvious remark may be forgiven, Mr. Penny would hardly be so pound foolish as to dispose of a skull so inscribed as mere rubbish, and it is probable that Paine’s skull is now in some doctor’s office or craniological collection.

The Rev. Robert Ainslie, whom I met at Brighton in 1863, was a man of ability, and my conjecture would be that his purchase of Paine’s skull may have been due to an interest in phrenology, were it not that he bought the hand also. Mr. George Jacob H lyoake tells me that he spoke to Mr. Ainslie about these bones, but that the minister did not wish his name publicly connected with them at the time. There were sufficient reasons for this, but they have long since passed away.

Mr. Ainslie had been, it will be remembered, an official member of the City Mission, which consists of men belonging to different denominations, but has a reputation of being very strict about their orthodoxy. Mr. Ainslie’s orthodoxy was assailed by some of his fellow-labourers in the City Mission, and though he warmly resented this at the time it would appear that his assailants saw the tendencies of some of his views more clearly than himself, for some years after the controversy he became (1860) minister of a liberal chapel at Brighton, where he remained until 1870. Mr. Ainslie had come into possession of Paine’s skull some years before his orthodoxy was called in question, and the hue and cry might have been disagreeably renewed had it reached the public that while Secretary of the City Mission he had the bones of the terrible “Tom Paine” in his house.

It appears certain that when he purchased the skull and hand, Mr. Ainslie was quite unconscious of any heretical symptoms. If it were admissible for Painites to believe in the potency of saintly relics they might point to the fact that Paine’s skull fell into the hands of an orthodox member of the City Mission, and Paine’s brain into those of an orthodox Baptist Minister (Rev. George Reynolds), and that both of these ministers subsequently became unorthodox. And indeed it seems not improbable that these relics may have contributed something to the result, by exciting in the two divines some curiosity to know what thoughts had played through the lamp whose fragments had come into their possession. And it is difficult for one who reads the “Age of Reason” to remain precisely the simple believer he was before.

That Paine’s skull is still somewhere in London is highly probable, and were any found with the name “Cobbett” on it its genuineness could be easily proved by another word or two on it which for the present I reserve. As to the other remains of Paine’s skeleton they were not destroyed, as Mrs. Ginn’s story might imply, for they were seen in by the Rev. Alexander Gordon, now a Unitarian tutor at Manchester, in 1873, and heard of in 1876. Although that gentleman gives no further particulars, the correspondence which has passed between us leaves no doubt on my mind that he was led by his respect for Paine (despite divergences from that author’s religion) to secure for the remains quiet burial, – perhaps near his parents at Thetford. I find especial satisfaction in this belief since reading in the “New York World” (January 26,1896) the following statement:

“Out in the country, somewhere back of New Rochelle, in a lonesome spot, there is a mound with a monument raised over it, and an inscription to the effect that the remains of Thomas Paine lie beneath that stone. If this is not true a great many worthy people are wasting their indignation, for the majority of those who pass the monument and know to whom it is erected, throw stones at it. Thus do Christians show their contempt for those whose opinions do not agree with theirs.”

This stone-throwing ceased, I believe, some years ago; the pious anti-Painites may have found that they were really adding to the author’s cairn by attributing such importance to his writings long after those of his opponents were forgotten.

Of the remains of Thomas Paine exhumed by Cobbett there are now traceable a portion of his brain and two locks of his hair. One of the latter was presented to me by Mr. Edward Smith, biographer of Cobbett. Paine’s hair never became grey. The hair before me (on the old paper wrapping of which is written in Tilly’s hand “Mr. Paine’s Hair”) is soft and dark, with a reddish tinge. The portion of Paine’s brain owned by Mr. George Reynolds is about the size of one’s fist, and quite hard. It is under glass and beside it is a note in Tilly’s writing:

“On Tuesday January 7th 1833 I went to 11 Bolt Court, Fleet Street, and there with Mr. Entrell and Mr. Dean, I saw, at the house of Mr. Cobbett, the remains of Mr. Thomas Paine, when I procured some of his hair, and from his skull I took a portion of his brain, which had become hard, and which is almost perfectly black. – B. Tilly”

There are other personal relics of Paine. During the American revolution Paine wrote the fifth number of his “Crisis” at the house of the Hon. William Henry at Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and his spectacles and shoe-buckles were left there. These were presented by a grand-daughter of Mr. Henry to the National Museum at Washington, where I examined them. The spectacles (silver) have small glasses of extraordinary power. Paine’s arm-chair and his brass and irons are in the possession of Albert Badeau at New Rochelle. It is said that a walking cane of his exists but I cannot discover it. Mr. G.J. Holyoake has a copy of Paine’s portrait (Sharp’s engraving of Romney’s picture) with the author’s presentation to Rickman on it. Claire J. Grece, of Redhill, possesses Paine’s snuff-box presented to his uncle, Daniel Constable, in 1807, by Paine. Edward Truelove possesses the writing-table used by Paine while in Rickman’s house in 1792. Alfred Hammond, of Lewes, possesses imprints of his (portrait) seal while an exciseman in that town, Louis Breeze, Stratford-by-Bow, has a piece of wood from the birthhouse of Paine, at Thetford, now destroyed. Of course there are many autograph letters of Paine, but no manuscript of anything he ever wrote for publication has been preserved.

A considerable number of these relics were among the five hundred articles shown at the Paine Exhibition in South Place Chapel, openedD ecember 2 , 1895.There were also first editions of his works, and many polemical caricatures, books, and pamphlets called forth by these works; there were portraits of famous men – American, English, French – whose swords were unsheathed to maintain or assail the republic of Paine’s vision, with its rainbow flag; but most impressive of all was the darkened bit of brain whence radiated the inner light of that miraculous Thetford Quaker.

If we pass from personal relics to relics of personality, those of Paine are innumerable; and among these the most important are the legends and fictions told concerning him by enemies, unconscious that their romances were really tributes to his unique influence. Nothing concerning Paine seems to have been too marvelous for acceptance, in the past, and even in our own time one occasionally meets with inventions suggesting a certain praeternaturalism in his character. Thus on September 21, 1895,a London journal, “Answers”, gravely published as a genuine autograph letter of Paine’s, in the possession of one of its Dublin readers, the following, said to be addressed to a linendraper at Chelmsford:

“Chapter Coffee House

London, May 8th, 1793

“Sir, – in perusing the Chelmsford paper I see you are a vendor of Fleecy Hosiery, and as you are a man after my own heart, a Leveller and a Talker of Treason, please to send six pair of the above Fleecy Hosierie to me at Chapter, and I will send you the money. Yours, Tom Paine.”

I wrote to the editor asking to be put into communication with the owner of this letter signed “Tom(!) Paine”, and written more than seven months after Paine had left England forever, but he could not do so -of course.

I must venture to repeat here, though it is mentioned in my edition of the “Age of Reason”, a legend told me by Mr. Van der Weyde, the eminent London photographer, who remembers when a boy a sermon in which the preacher said that Tom Paine was so wicked that he could not be buried. The earth would not hold him. His bones were placed in a box and carried about from one place to another, until at last they came into the hands of a button-maker, and now his bones are traveling about the world in the form of buttons! This variant of the Wandering Jew legend recalls to me a verse which William Allingham added with pen to his admirable poem “The Touchstone” in a volume in my possession. The original poem, it will be remembered, closes with burning the formidable man’s touchstone, and strewing the ashes on the breeze, little guessing that each grain of these `conveyed the perfect charm.’ The manuscript addition is:

“North, South, in the rings and amulets, Throughout the crowded world ’tis borne, Which, as a fashion long outworn, Its ancient mind forgets.”

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A response to Dr. Daniel Gomes de Carvalho 

Growing up in New Rochelle, I’ve always been intrigued by Thomas Paine.  As a young student in New Rochelle’s Catholic schools, I enjoyed educational class trips to the Thomas Paine Cottage. These trips reinforced what we were being taught in school that Thomas Paine’s writing of Common Sense  played an important role in the American revolution.   

As I grew older, I wondered why this national historical site did not seem very popular. The cottage grounds were usually empty, and the museum building felt off limits, unlike my childhood tours. I’d recall childhood play on the Paine property beside the stream and lake. I’d ponder why this national historical site wasn’t getting the attention Paine deserved. 

In recent years, I’m delighted to see public interest in Thomas Paine and his contributions to America’s founding is gaining traction.  

I’m also delighted with the academic presentations by the Paine Association, such as the talk by Dr. Carvalho, which stimulated this essay. 

When I heard Carvalho’s ideas, my first impression was that Thomas Paine’s writings remain as pertinent today as in the revolutionary era. Most assuredly, the administration in the White House now would have had Paine arrested for his writings as a foreigner. It seems we have come full circle from the days of the revolution to the modern presidency.  

For instance, many of the debates on voting rights in Paine’s day are relevant in America today.  The same can be said about conversations around the criteria or qualifications to be a citizen.  

Paine says that aristocracy and oligarchy should be rejected.  Likewise, Paine says the worst kind of government is one where decisions are subject to the passions of a single individual.  I advise those in the White House to study Paine’s writings on what a democratic republic should looks like.  

Borrowing from Paul Simon, one might be tempted to ask, where have you gone, Thomas Paine?  

Dr. Daniel Gomes de Carvalho, Professor of Modern History at the University of São Paulo, Brazil, on February 15 spoke at the Paine Building on The Age of Reason. 

“By criticizing the adulterous connection between the church and state,” he said, “by demonstrating the impossibility of the Bible being the word of God, and by proposing the equality of all creatures before God, Paine had devastating effects on the governments using religion to maintain hierarchies and oppression.” As a consequence, “the question of democracy was at the heart of religious debate at the time.” 

The debate continues. 

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By Gary Berton

The Thomas Paine Historical Association will be designating the Paine Monument as the Thomas Paine Monument and Grave. We cannot officially change the name, as the City of New Rochelle has jurisdiction over it ever since TPNHA handed the maintenance of the site in 1905 to it. The rationale for our change in reference is the following. 

As most of you know, the body of Paine was dug up and relocated to England in 1819, ten years after his death, by William Cobbett – a one-time opponent of Paine until he read Paine, and sniffed the winds of the politics brewing around him in favor of Paine’s politics, and became a supporter. He dug up the bones and left an empty grave, taking them back to England. 

Twenty years later, in 1839, after years of raising money and securing the talents John Frazee, the sculptor, Gilbert Vale placed the monument near the original spot of Paine’s grave. It was placed 30 feet due north of the grave site. It is the oldest such monument to a Founder that we know of. More on Gilbert Vale below, but his biography of Paine (on our website) is one of the best, and as accurate as could be at the time. 

In 1905, North Avenue (then North street) was being widened, and the Monument needed to be moved back, which it was, 15 feet straight back from North Avenue. (See article of the time below). In the process of relocating the Monument in 1905, the relic of Paine’s body, obtained by Moncure Conway in England, the brain of Paine, was placed beneath the Monument. This is the only surviving piece of Paine’s body to be interred. That makes it his grave. And a more fitting marker cannot be found, despite Paine’s request for a gravesite, that at this time, cannot be successfully established. He called for a 12’ X 12’ plot with trees planted around it. That was established before Cobbett made his heist, but for now it will have to wait to be recreated.

From the Truth Seeker, January 21, 1905 issue:

“Again the rumor is going around that the Paine monument in New Rochelle, N.Y., is to be removed! The facts are that the city of New Rochelle has taken charge of the monument, and will move it only about fifteen feet. It now stands at the junction of North street and the lane which leads from North street to the old house where Paine lived. North street has been widened to seventy-five feet, and takes in the ground where the monument stands. The lane, which runs at right angle to North street, has been widened to sixty-six feet, and named Paine avenue. The monument is to stand in the center of Paine avenue, guarded by stone posts and chains, and a driveway is to be made on either side of it. The city of New Rochelle is doing the work , and of course paying for it. All of the councilmen of the city desire to preserve the historic landmark, as may be inferred from the naming of the lane through which Paine walked, Paine avenue. The old Paine house, some quarter of a mile from North street, is still standing, occupied by its owner, Mr. See, one of the old settlers. A trolley car runs through North street, and one can now ride to the monument from New Rochelle depot, or from New York by trolley, if that form of amusement is bearable. The monument is now permanently located, or will be when moved to the center of Paine avenue, and the city of New Rochelle will care for it. Our informant is Capt. George W. Loyd, who has lived in New Rochelle since 1853, is over eighty-six years old, was a Copperhead in the civil war, is a Populist now, and has more fire and vitality in his body at the present time than many young men. His wife is ninety- three, and they have both been Paineites so long that the memory of man runneth not to the contrary. When the work is completed we will print a picture of the monument and its surroundings.” 

[Note: the bust on top of the Monument was placed there in 1899. It was created by a noted sculptor George MacDonald who was a Board member of TPNHA.]

Inscriptions on the Monument: Under the profile are the words: 

THOMAS PAINE. Author of “Common Sense.” 

Born in England, January 29, 1737; died in New York City, June 8, 1809. 

The palaces of kings are built on the ruins of the bowers of paradise. 

Erected by public contribution, November 12, 1839. 

Repaired and rededicated May 30, 1881. 

On the north side is inscribed: 

I believe in one God and no more, and I hope for happiness beyond this life. I believe in the equality of man, and that our religious duties consist in doing justice, loving mercy, and endeavoring to make our fellow-creatures happy. – Age of Reason. It is necessary to the happiness of man that he be mentally faithful to himself. Infidelity does not consist in believing or in disbelieving; it consists in professing to believe what he does not believe. – (Age of Reason)

On the East side is inscribed:

It is only in the creation that all our ideas and conceptions of a word of God can unite. The creation speaketh an universal language, independently of human speech or human language, multiplied and various as they be. It is an ever-existing original which every man can read. It cannot be forged· it cannot be counterfeited; it cannot be lost; it cannot be altered; it cannot be suppressed. It does not depend upon the will of man whether it shall be published or not: it publishes itself from one end of the earth to the other. It preaches to all nations and to all worlds; and this world of God reveals to man all that is necessary for man to know of God.

Do we want to contemplate his power? We see it in the unchangeable order by which the incomprehensible whole is governed. Do we want to contemplate his munificence? We see it in the abundance with which he fills the earth. Do we want to contemplate his mercy? We see it in his not withholding that abundance even from the unthankful. In fine, do we want to know what God is? Search not the book called the scripture, which any human hand might make, but the scripture called the creation. – (Age of Reason) 

On the South side is inscribed: 

These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will in this crisis shrink from the service of their country, but he that stands it now deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have the glorious consolation with us that the harder the conflict the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap we esteem too lightly. Heaven knows how to put a price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as freedom should not be highly rated. – (Crisis No. I) 

The times that tried men souls are over —and the greatest and compleatest revolution the world ever knew, gloriously and happily accomplished. 

In the present case — the mighty magnitude of the object — the various uncertainties of fate it has undergone — the numerous and complicated dangers we have suffered or escaped — the eminence we now stand on, and the vast prospect before us, must all conspire to impress us with contemplation. To see it in our power to make a world happy — to teach mankind the art of being so — to exhibit, on the theatre of the universe a character hitherto unknown — and to have, as it were, a new creation intrusted to our hands, are honors that command reflection, and can neither be too highly estimated, nor too gratefully received.

Never, I say, had a country so many openings to happiness as this. Her setting out in life, like the rising of a fair morning, was unclouded and promising. Her cause was good. Her principles just and liberal. Her temper serene and firm. Her conduct regulated by the nicest steps, and everything about her wore the mark of honor. It is not every country (perhaps there is not another in the world) that can boast so fair an origin. Even the first settlement of America corresponds with the character of the revolution. Rome, once the proud mistress of the universe, was originally a band of ruffians. Plunder and rapine made her rich, and her oppression of millions made her great. But America need never be ashamed to tell her birth, nor relate the stages by which she rose to empire. – (Crisis XV)

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2013 marks the 50th anniversary of the publication of one of the greatest works of modern British history, E. P. Thompson’s Making of the English Working Class. While a celebration of the emergence of collective class consciousness, this magnificent study is not without key personalities and individual inspirational figures, not least Thomas Paine of Thetford, an inveterate pamphleteer and veritable ‘citizen of the world’. 

Paine is the key individual catalyst instigating Thompson’s narrative. It was his great gift for communication his ‘intellectual vernacular prose’ – which broke through the elite and gentlemanly conventions of 18th political debate to render the message of natural rights and rational republicanism accessible to ‘members unlimited’, the strapline of the new Corresponding Societies of the 1790s (whose membership extended to those designated by Edmund Burke, Paine’s protagonist, as the ‘swinish multitude’). A great communicator rather than original thinker, it was citizen Paine who opened up the prospect of a new age of reason in which universal and natural rights (at least for men) would no longer be denied by privilege and the past, by spurious argument premised on dubious history, bogus constitutionalism, invented tradition or inherited superstition. 

Thompson’s interpretation underlined Paine’s importance in what was labelled by historians as the ‘Atlantic-Democratic Revolution’. In the 1960s, my undergraduate days, this exercise in comparative history breaking through the constraints of nation state historiography was as fashionable as Thompson’s history from below. In light of events in Syria which have prompted the US to remember France as its ‘oldest ally’, the Atlantic Democratic Revolution might come back into fashion again. 

Paine traversed the Atlantic world, personifying, as it were, the democratic revolution with its universal message, a motif which informed ‘God Save Great Thomas Paine’, the alternative national anthem, as it were, of British republicans. Here, for example, are the first and fourth verses: God save great Thomas Paine, 

God save great Thomas Paine, 

His ‘Rights of Man’ explain 

To every soul. 

He makes the blind to see What dupes and slaves they be, 

And points out liberty, 

From pole to pole. Why should despotic pride Usurp on every side? 

Let us be free: 

Grant Freedom’s arms success, 

And all her efforts bless, 

Plant through the universe 

Liberty’s Tree. 

Having been apprenticed to his father’s trade of corset-making, he tried a number of other occupations (most notably serving as an exciseman in Lewes) before sailing for America in 1774, having recently separated from his second wife. Here he made his name with a pamphlet, Common Sense(1776) which, in advocating complete independence for the American colonies, argued for republicanism as the sole rational means of government the mostly widely distributed pamphlet of the American War of Independence, it has the strongest claim, the Dictionary of National Biography notes, to have made independence seem both desirable and attainable to the wavering colonists. Relishing the freedom of the new world (and its potential for commercial progress) Paine readily cast aside the restrictive and gentlemanly conventions of British politics, not least the exclusive tone of Whig ‘republicanism’, a form of ‘civic humanism’, premised on glorified models of classical antiquity and selective memories of seventeenth century constitutional struggles. Far from democratic, ‘republicanism’ of this order accorded political primacy to independent landowners. Guardians of the constitution, it was their duty to resist imbalance and corruption in the polity through civic virtue, by active participation in political affairs. Paine, however, was altogether more democratic and inclusive. Looking beyond the trivia of piecemeal constitutional renovation, he sought an end to executive tyranny and what we would now call ‘sleaze’ through the ‘virtue’ and common good of representative democratic republican government. Hence his enthusiastic response to the French Revolution, by which time he had returned to England. 

His democratic natural rights republicanism reached its most influential expression in his two-part Rights of Man (1791-2), prompted by the need to refute Edmund Burke’s critical Reflections on the Revolution in France. This was a publication sensation- on the most conservative estimate between 100,000 and 200,000 copies were sold in the first three years after publication. In the frenzied atmosphere of the early 1790s, Paine’s writings rendered a fundamental division between the gentlemanly ‘Friends of the People’ and the plebeian ‘Friends of Liberty’. His insistence on natural – as opposed to historicist or constitutional – rights broke through elite constraints, not least the identification of political rights with property rights. Indeed, his democratic republicanism mediated a genuinely radical value-system, oppositional in all its aspects. In calling for a national convention to elicit the general will and establish a republican constitution, he sought a decisive break from the conventional ways and means of reformers such as petitioning. Regarded as a highly dangerous figure, he was forced to flee to France to avoid arrest for treason in 1792. Having been accorded honorary French citizenship, he gained election to the French National Convention but ceased to attend after opposing (to some surprise) the execution of Louis XVI and the fall of the Girondins, after which he himself soon fell victim of the Terror. During imprisonment, he began work on his Age of Reason (two parts, 1794-5), an ill- timed deist attack on organized religion. 

Thereafter his fame and fortunes declined. According to most accounts, he died in miserable circumstances in New York in 1809, having spent his last years in America often depressed, drunk and diseased – although some responses to my BBC history piece suggest otherwise. Ken Burchell contacted me from an email address, Paineite@gmail, to inform me that Paine’s financial worth at time of death was in the region of $15,000, that with a consumption of a quart of brandy per week he drank far less than either Washington or Jefferson and that he was no more depressed than any other elderly dying person. The fact is, Mr Burchell insisted, ‘prudish, evangelical, pro-temperance and most of all Federalist writers attacked Paine’s personal character in order to blunt his personal influence … just as they do today’. Paine’s legacy has certainly proved controversial and contested. 

Within my working life as an historian, there has been considerable change. There was a marked decline in his historiographical standing as the radical 1960s receded. By the time of Thatcherite Britain, mainstream historians were dismissing Paine and his autodidact artisan audiences in the Corresponding and radical societies as an insignificant minority, accorded disproportionately tendentious attention by Thompson and other ‘marxisant’ practitioners of ‘history from below’, ideologically predisposed to ignore the beer-swilling, male chauvinist, xenophobic, beer-swilling, flag-waving majority. Furthermore, the historical establishment insisted, ‘Painophobia’ the reaction proved by Paine – proved stronger than the radicalism he excited. Compelled to answer the democratic Jacobin challenge, conservative opponents of reform developed a convincing defence of the existing order: indeed, it was the conservatives who won the unprecedented battle for the popular mind in the 1790s, although here it was conceded that rhetorical strategy and propaganda device took precedence over ideology and intellectual argument. Burke had already set the tone, recapturing the language of nationalism for the conservative cause in his Reflections on the Revolution in France. Vindicated by the subsequent course of events in France, Burke’s prescient pronouncements duly confirmed the supremacy of the accumulated wisdom of precedent and prescription over the wild (and un- English) fanaticism of Paineite abstract reason. Two particular aspects of Paine’s un-English fanaticism were seized upon by the conservative spin doctors of the time to telling effect: levelling and infidelism. 

While extolling Paine as a popular communicator, Thompson had also insisted that he provided the programme as well as the language to attract working people to politics. Paine provided the missing link between parliamentary reform and social and economic progress, drawing distressed workers away from spontaneous rioting into organized political agitation. As Thompson saw it, this was the great achievement of Part Two of The Rights of Man, published in February 1792, a volume which confirmed that Paine was much more than a talented populariser of advanced ideas, a megaphone for the enlightenment project against kingcraft, lordcraft and priestcraft. An original thinker far ahead of his time, he sought to redress poverty (seemingly endemic in advanced European societies) through an interventionist programme of welfare redistribution, including old age pensions, marriage allowances and maternity benefits. 

Stopping short of socialism, Paine transformed jurisprudential notions of social obligation the ‘soft’ right to charity into a theory of ‘positive liberty’ the ‘hard’ right to welfare, guaranteed by government and financed by redistributive taxation (a programme expanded in his later pamphlet, Agrarian Justice, 1796). Judged over the long term, Thompson was correct: Paine made a decisive contribution to the politicisation of discontent. At the time, however, it was the misrepresentation of his ideas rather than the inspiration they provided – which mattered more. The charge of ‘levelling’ or economic equality, promptly emerged as the crucial factor in the loyalist triumph over the radicals. Where Burke looked back to gothic feudalism and past glories, loyalist popular propagandists celebrated Britain’s commercial progress, the contemporary wealth of the nation threatened by the spoliation and anarchy of republican egalitarianism. In defending inequality and hierarchy, loyalists stood forward to save Britain from the pre-commercial ‘primitivism’ of natural rights republicanism. 

Paine’s inopportune avowal of deism in his Age of Reason (1794-5) enabled loyalists to add infidelism to the charges of primitivism and levelling. Here the propaganda victory of the loyalists over the godless republican levellers should not be attributed to superior argument but to what sociologists call ‘resource mobilisation’. Where loyalists triumphed was in quantity not quality. Untroubled by the authorities or lack of funds, loyalists deployed every medium and resource to spread the patriotic conservative message in popular and homiletic form among the lower orders, from parish pulpit to national organisation – Reeves Association for the Preservation of Liberty and Property against Republicans and Levellers was the largest political organisation in the country. Many of the corresponding societies fell victim to this conservative onslaught, given physical form by Church and King mobs. The surviving societies judiciously excised the offending Paineite vocabulary of rational republicanism with its alien and revolutionary stigma. The violence directed against the radicals was recorded in the second verse of ‘God Save Great Thomas Paine’: 

Thousands cry ‘Church and King’ 

That well deserve to swing, 

All must allow: 

Birmingham blush for shame, 

Manchester do the same, 

Infamous is your name, Patriots vow. 

While radicals struggled to retain a public presence, loyalists chose to treat the crowds to an increasing number of patriotic demonstrations to celebrate royal anniversaries and victories over the French. The success of these free holidays and licensed street festivals at which effigies of Paine were often burnt – was not without irony, as I noted by way of conclusion in my BBC piece. In confronting Paineite democracy through such popular nationalist participation, loyalists had established what the radicals had failed fully to achieve, the extension of politics to a mass public. As subsequent events were to show, this public expressed its loyalty to the nation, not necessarily to the status quo. Patriotism indeed was soon to acquire a radical inflexion, upholding the rights of the freeborn Englishman. 

After the polarization of political rhetoric in the 1790s, the opening decade of the 19th century was a time of considerable flux and confusion as war, patriotism and reform were all reassessed and redefined. Once Napoleon’s imperial ambitions became apparent, the character of the war effort changed. Having previously opposed the war – an aggressive conflict against a neighbouring country which simply wanted to reform its internal system of government – radicals now came forward as ardent patriots at the head of recruiting and volunteering drives. 

Having redefined their role as guardians of national virtue, radicals began to attract a wide audience as a series of scandals suggested a connection between military incompetence and parliamentary corruption. Disaffected loyalists joined the radicals in condemnation of the depredations of the fiscal-military state. Among such converts were William Cobbett, the most prolific and influential radical journalist of the early 19th century, and Henry Hunt, the Wiltshire gentleman farmer turned radical orator. Defiantly independent, these former loyalists injected a mood of impatience and intransigence, insisting on the right of all to engage in constitutional protest, to attend meetings, sign petitions and demand nothing less than universal suffrage, annual parliaments and the ballot. While refusing to compromise their new radical principles in subservience either to the Whigs or to commercial interests, they studiously avoided adherence to Paineite rational republicanism. 

In typically English pragmatic and eclectic manner, natural rights arguments were subsumed or concealed within a patriotic appeal to history and precedent. Major Cartwright devoted a lifetime of study to uncover hallowed Saxon principles and practices of popular sovereignty, an original purity defiled by the ‘Norman Yoke’. Open and inclusive in procedure and programme, the mass platform which emerged after 1815 amidst the transition from war to peace without plenty, deliberately exploited ambiguities in the law and constitution, drawing upon the emotive rhetoric of popular constitutionalism and ‘people’s history’ in demanding restoration of the people’s rights. Radicals proudly claimed descent from ‘that patriotic band who broke the ruffian arm of arbitrary power, and dyed the field and scaffold with their pure and precious blood, for the liberties of the country’. The appeal to the rights of the freeborn Englishman was perhaps best expressed in poetic form: 

Shall Englishmen o’ercome each foe 

And now at home those rights forgo 

Enjoy’d by none beside? 

Degenerate race! Ah! then in vain 

Your birthrights sacred to maintain 

HAMPDEN and SYDNEY died! 

The great hero of the mass platform and advocate of ‘the cause of truth’, Orator Hunt was hailed in the north of England as ‘the intrepid champion of the people’s rights’. ‘The good old character of an independent country Gentleman was surely there in him’, a correspondent wrote to the Manchester Observer. 

I had almost compared him to an English Baron in the time of Magna Charta, but that Mr Hunt’s motives were so much more praiseworthy: he was not there as they met that worthless King at Runnimede, to advocate the rights of a few, but of all. 

Mobilised by Hunt, those without the political nation stood forward to demand radical reform in open constitutional manner and in Sunday best clothes, relying on the proud and disciplined display of numbers (marshalled by demobilised ex-servicemen) to coerce the otherwise inexorable government ‘peaceably if we may, forcibly if we must. The popular format introduced by Hunt constitutional mass pressure from without for the constitutional democratic rights of all continued to inform radical agitation throughout the age of the Chartists. Radicals – renovators as they were initially called – looked to the mass petitioning platform to reclaim their rights, ignoring Paine’s key tactical prescription of a national convention to elicit the general will and establish a republican constitution. 

My work on Hunt and the mass platform thus led me to question Thompson’s claims about Paine and his breakthrough language of universal rational republicanism. As my research demonstrated, natural rights republicanism and conventions of the type prescribed by Paine did not feature in early 19th century radicalism. Instead, the crowds rallied to a populist platform of mass petitioning justified by history, the constitution and the rule of law, a potent blend of patriotic and national notions. While querying Thompson on the language of radicalism, I am not seeking to belittle Paine. Like Thompson, I recognise him as a seminal influence in English radicalism, the inspirational figure in the politicization of discontent. As Thompson noted, it was Paine who supplied the missing link, underlining the importance of politics to those enduring economic hardship. Thanks to Paine, spontaneous, backward-looking rioting was steadily replaced by forward-looking political agitation, a great advance which William Cobbett opined, the nation should acknowledge. 

The implacable opponent of ‘Old Corruption’, Cobbett gained much of his political education about The Decline and Fall of the English System of Finance from Paine’s critical insights into the operation of the ‘system’ (or ‘the Thing’ as Cobbett himself called it) which produced lucrative profits for political peculators and financial speculators at the expense of an intolerable and demand-stifling tax burden on the poor. To honour his mentor, Cobbett reclaimed Paine’s bones from their American grave and brought them back to England (they have since disappeared). 

Educated by Paine, later by Cobbett, 19th century radicals persisted in explaining inequality and exploitation in political terms even as the industrial revolution continued apace. Just as the war-inflated ‘funding system’ had been built on the base of political monopoly so it was political power that underpinned the capitalist system and denied the worker the right to the whole produce of his labour. The ranks of radical demonology grew throughout the age of the Chartists: alongside fundholders, sinecurists, pensioners and other tax-gorgers, there now sat cotton lords, millocrats (note the significant political terminology) and other capitalists, parasitic middlemen whose privileged and tyrannical position of unequal exchange stemmed from their monopoly of political and legal power. Whether directed against tax- eaters and/or capitalists, the radical demand was always the same: an end to the system which left labour alone unprotected and at the mercy of those who monopolized the state and the law. 

Paine’s influence was thus fundamental, albeit not in the way that we might suppose. There were periodic attempts to impose his rational republican formula in purist form, by those disillusioned by the cyclical pattern of mobilisation and collapse of the mass platform, with its vacillating crowds, blustering orators and populist idioms. One such was Richard Carlile, an incorruptible Paineite ideologue who in the aftermath of Peterloo and the collapse of the post-war mass platform subjected himself to a regime of ideological purification and physical Puritanism with comprehensive counter- cultural rigour. A trenchant critic of the empty bluster and personalized style of Hunt’s ‘charismatic’ leadership, Carlile subsequently displayed the worst faults of an ‘ideological’ leader, provoking innumerable schisms among the votaries with his dictatorial pronouncements on doctrine, so different in tone from the eclectic and undogmatic nature of popular radical argument. He insisted on strict conformity to the infidel-Republican Paineite formulary, the exegesis of which (at different times desist, atheist and spiritualist) he reserved for himself alone. In this intensely sectarian and ideological form, rational republicanism failed to engage with the general gut republicanism — the irreverence, scepticism and anti-authoritarianism — which often ran deep in working-class culture. 

No longer committed to the platform, mass agitation and volatile crowds, Carlile looked to the freedom of the press to promote the ‘march of infidelity’, the progress of scientific materialism against superstition, myth and ignorance, but here he found himself in unwelcome alliance with commercial pornographers and the like. Unlike the pornographers, however, Carlile and his ‘corps’ of supporters were libertarians not libertines. In the sanctity of their ‘temples of reason’, these votaries of Paineite republicanism, ‘zetetics’ as they were called, advocated contraception, female equality and free love, a programme of sexual radicalism articulated in the language of the liberal Enlightenment, of individual freedom and moral responsibility. Infidel, republican and sexual radical, Carlile, the doctrinaire individualist, was also the proselyte of orthodox political economy. His pioneer advocacy of birth control was motivated by Malthusianism as much as by feminism, by his conviction that distress was caused by the people themselves through bad and improvident habits and the ‘excess of their numbers in relation to the supply of labour that can employ them’. ‘You cannot be free, you can find no reform, until you begin it with yourselves… abstain from gin and the gin-shop, from gospel and the gospel-shop, from sin and silly salvation’. By the end of the 1820s Carlile stood widely divorced from popular radicalism, culture and experience, a lone opponent of collective endeavour. Interpreted – or rather misinterpreted in this way, Paine plays no part in the making of the English working class. 

Eschewing ideological schisms and the like, mainstream popular radicals never denied the inspiration provided by ‘immortal’ Thomas Paine, but they ensured that his memory was preserved within a patriotic pantheon in which the universal rights of man were subsumed within the historic and constitutional rights of the freeborn Englishman, the charter of the land. The citizens of the world was honoured as British patriot.

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Two Cocks On The Dunghill, William Cobbett and Henry Hunt: Their Friendship, feuds and fights. Penny Young. Twopenny Press, South Lopham, Norfolk, 2009. 384pp Paperback, ISBN 978-0-9561703-0-9. £17.95 

There have been numerous biographies of William Cobbett, but only one of Henry Hunt although Hunt was no less an important and prominent figure in early 19th century Radicalism. And this is out of print. This is not an attempt to write another biography of Cobbett or Hunt. Rather it is an explanation of their often troubled relationship. 

Cobbett was in essence a self-educated ploughboy. Hunt came from the landed gentry, his family owned or rented 3,000 acres. A spell of six weeks imprisonment in 1800 following a dispute over the killing of pheasants brought Hunt into contact with the radical lawyer Henry Clifford. He came out of prison a convinced radical. 

There was continual trouble between Cobbett and Hunt, the cause of much being Cobbett’s wife Nancy. Hunt having married Ann Halcomb, the daughter of a publican in Devizes, had become enamoured of Catherine Vince and eloped with her, while Cobbett was usually highly conventional in such matters. Out of character he made excuses for Hunt. Nancy on the other hand greatly disliked this female aristocrat and referred to her as “the whore on horseback”. The differing personalities of the two women reflected their class origins. When Cobbett first met his wife she was scrubbing out a wash tub, whereas Mrs Vince would have had servants to do her laundry. Nancy was a good cook and could make delicious home-brewed beer. Cobbett urged the English people to abandon drinking stewed tea and return to making home made ale. Mrs Vince would have drunk wine. 

When Hunt and Cobbett first met they didn’t hit it off, but as Hunt contributed to Cobbett’s Political Register they grew closer. Hunt developed into a formidable political speaker being dubbed Orator Hunt, a phrase originating with the radical poet turned Tory Robert Southey. 

In 1816 Hunt was invited by the Spenceans (followers of Thomas Spence who advocated public ownership of land) to speak at a meeting at Spa Bath Fields (today’s Mount Pleasant sorting office) What Hunt wasn’t told was that the aim of the meeting was to spark off a revolution. Hunt spoke from the window of the Merlin’s Cave pub, but despite his efforts to convince the crowd that violence was futile, that evening doting broke out. A second meeting led to the looting of gun shops which the Tory press blamed Hunt and Cobbett. A third meeting passed off without incident. 

However, the government continued with its programme of repression. Hunt spoke in Bristol. ” We want no tumults, no riots, we want only our rights”, he proclaimed. Fearing imprisonment, he had already served two years in Newgate, Cobbett decided his best course of action was to leave for America. In March 1817 he set sail for New York. Hunt was furious that Cobbett had not told him he was going. Other radicals moved to fill the space vacated by him. In his Black Dwarf, Thomas Wooler mercilessly criticised Cobbett, whereas Hunt still chose to defend him. 

Cobbett urged Hunt to come to America. One attraction, he wrote, was the land had no Wilberforces. Both regarded Wilberforce as leader of the “canting saints”, while Wilberforce saw Hunt as “the tool of worse and deeper villains” and Cobbett as “the most pernicious of all.” 

In 1818 there was to be a General Election. Hunt decided to contest the Westminster Seat. At a meeting in Covent Garden his political opponent Thomas Cleary read a letter from Cobbett written ten years earlier which described Hunt as riding round the country with a whore and urged people to have nothing to do with him. Hunt wrote to Cobbett urging him to come home and to deny having written the letter. In the event Hunt came bottom of the poll with just 48 votes. 

In August 1819 at least 60,000 people gathered in St Peter’s Square, Manchester to be addressed by Hunt. Hardly had he started to speak when the Salford and Manchester yeomanry charged the crowd with sabres drawn. At least eighteen people died and over six hundred were injured. Hunt escaped with a cut hand. He was arrested and charged with treason, later changed to seditious conspiracy. In the Political Register, Cobbett began to distance himself from Hunt. 

Relations between the two men (Cobbett was now back in England having brought with him the remains of Thomas Paine, these were lost after his death) continued to cool as Hunt was brought to trial. On May 15 he was sentenced to two and half years in Leicester Prison, which was one of the worst in England and it was clear the government’s aim was to kill him or so ruin him in body and spirit he mould no longer be a threat. Beyond o recording Hunt’s name in the list of the imprisoned Cobbett said nothing about this. In his Memoirs, Hunt expressed bitterness and resentment about Cobbett’s flight to America, about how he had neglected and deserted him since his return, about the role played by Mrs Cobbett, blaming her for the collapse of their friendship. 

From inside the grim walls of lichester, Hunt conducted a campaign against the terrible conditions and the mistreatment of prisoners including the sexual abuse of female prisoners. Beyond advertising Hunt’s A Peep Into Ilohester Goal, Cobbett did nothing to help. Instead he set out on the series of journeys which became known as his Rural Rides. Hunt was released on October 30, 1822, to widespread demonstrations, but Cobbett said not a word about this in the Political Register. Hunt resumed his life with Mrs Vince and set up a business making substitute coffee from roasted rye. 

Towards the end of January, 1823, Hunt appeared again briefly in the Political Register, however, as Ms Young puts it, Cobbett wanted to be “top cock on the dunghill”. This soured his relationships with other radicals referring to them mostly to criticise and undermine them, an exception being Richard Carlile from whose imprisonment Cobbett made political capital. In the Political Register for November 15, 1823 he referred to Peterloo but did not mention Hunt. 

Hunt had taken up the issue of Catholic emancipation knowing that the English government would bribe the Catholic clergy to stop them objecting to the loss of people’s voting rights (the government proposed to raise the property qualification) In the Political Register for April, 1825 Cobbett devoted pages to supporting Hunt’s actions. 

In 1826 Cobbett decided to stand for parliament and organised a meeting to raise funds at The Freemason’s Tavern in Great Queen Street. Crowded to overcapacity, the meeting ended up being held in Lincoln’s Inn Fields. Hunt was there and the crowd demanded he speak. Cobbett was livid and got his own back in court two weeks later. The jury found Cobbett not guilty of libel and Hunt was ordered to pay £25 costs. 

However, following Cobbett’s defeat at an election in Preston the two men again edged towards reconciliation. Both were to meet at a meeting in Covent Garden. Nancy threatened to commit suicide if Cobbett went, but he ignored her threat and when she learned hr had attended she cut her throat with a knife. Although serious the wound was not fatal. 

A political dinner at the Crown and Anchor tavern in the Strand ended in a fist fight but brought Cobbett and Hunt closer together. For the next eighteen months the men were good friends. They set up an organization, the Radical Reform Society to agitate for annual parliaments, universal suffrage and vote by ballot. While Cobbett was willing to compromise and if needs be dilute, Hunt stuck firmly to his principles. Cobbett also objected to Republican speakers like Hunt’s friend John Gale Jones being invited to address meetings. Once more relations between the two men soured. The situation turned bizarre when Nancy Cobbett thought that Cobbett’s secretary had rid himself of his drunken and adulterous wife so he could have a gay affair with Cobbett, an extreme homophobe. The accusation indicates Nancy’s state of mind. 

Both men would achieve their ambition of being elected to parliament, although Cobbett lost his seat for opposing the Reform Bill of 1832 which he thought didn’t go far enough. Having suffered two strokes, Hunt still toured the north including Manchester early in 1834. He died on February 13, 1835. Cobbett some weeks later in June. Had the two been able to overcome their differences, had Hunt led a more regular life and Cobbett been able to address what were undoubtedly his wife’s mental health problems, the course of radical history in the first part of the nineteenth century may have been somewhat different. 

Two Cocks On The Dunghill is illustrated with some very interesting contemporary cartoons and two colour plates. But it suffers from a multitude of typographical errors, proof, if it was needed, that manuscripts should be thoroughly proof read before going to the printers. Nevertheless, it remains a valuable contribution to early nineteenth century political history. 

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We owe a debt of gratitude to Bill Ure, who revealed through his newsletter (No.101, Autumn, 2005) that William Cobbett, the famous polemicist, resided in the winter of 1815-16 at Peckham Lodge, near Rye Lane, as a guest of banker Timothy Brown. As far as I can tell, this episode had previously been noticed only by lain McCalman in 1988,¹ and was not mentioned in the monumental biography of Cobbett by George Spater in 1984.² 

Peckham Lodge, Rye Lane

Peckham Lodge does not appear on any of the early maps of Peckham, but Heaton’s Folly, which lay within its grounds, is marked by a dot on an 1810 map of Camberwell parish on the right hand side of a pathway leading from Peckham to Nunhead, approximately where the grounds of St Mary’s College were later situated, now occupied by Morrison’s car park. The original Lodge was leased from the de Crespignys who had inherited this and other properties from Isaac Heaton, its builder, in 1808. It was left in turn to Brown. 

Bill Ure, who is a relative of Cobbett, has told part of the story, but there is more: 

William Cobbett, a close friend

Cobbett, of course, is famous, particularly for his weekly Political Register, which so got under the skin of the establishment of the Establishment. One of his biographers, Daniel Green, has described him as “one who was hostile to the government and who had dedicated himself to the exposure of corruption and the destruction of the system”.³ Certainly he was perceived as dangerous, particularly in the context of a bitter war against France. Those in authority dearly wished to silence him and saw their opportunity when Cobbett used the Register to comment on what came to be known as the Ely Mutiny. A number of soldiers stationed at Ely unwisely refused to obey orders in response to some fairly minor grievances. Cavalry from the German Legion was called in, a summary court martial held and the reputed ringleaders sentenced to 500 lashes each. It should be understood that the lash, and the fear it was thought to induce, was then seen as the primary means ol maintaining discipline in the miserable ranks of the armed forces. But to Cobbett it was abhorrent, and he railed against both it and the Hanoverian involvement at Ely. It led him to express the hope that those who criticised Napoleon’s harsh discipline might in future be more cautious when they saw our own “gallant defenders not only required physical restraint, in certain cases, but even a little blood drawn from their backs, and that, too, with the aid of German troops”. 

Nowadays, any such level of comment in the media would hardly raise an eyebrow. But in 1809 it was enough for a charge to be filed against Cobbett for sedition, followed by a trial in 1810 when every possible infringement against the interests of the nation were successfully held against him. He was sentenced to two years imprisonment and a fine of £1,000. In addition, he was required to- find two sureties to assure his keeping the peace for seven years after his release, He was committed to Newgate Prison, though this was not quite the calamity it may appear since, as Green puts it, “in those days influence and money could procure almost anything except freedom”. Not only was Cobbett able to live in some style, visited by Timothy Brown and other admirers from all over Britain,⁴ but continued to keep the Register going, every article carrying, beneath his signature, the address, ‘State Prison Newgate’ to rub in his sense of injustice. 

When he was released on 9 July 1812, Cobbett was entertained to dinner by Sir Francis Burdett, joined, it is said, by 600 guests, and hailed as a public hero. As Bill Ure has noticed, Timothy Brown became and remained one of Cobbett’s closest friends. He was one of the sureties for his ‘good behaviour’ and stood to forfeit £5,000 should the released prisoner overstep the mark, a very real risk given Cobbett’s predilection for plain-speaking. One possible reason for Cobbett’s stay at Peckham may simply have been Brown’s generosity. Newgate left Cobbett firmly in the camp of the radicals with a thirst for reform but, as Green shows, his imprisonment had also drained his resources, sales of the Register had declined and he had been for some time reliant on gifts and loans from well-wishers. By 1815 his financial position was precarious. He needed a rich, like-minded friend and a London base, and it appears likely that Timothy Brown came to his rescue. 

‘Equality Brown’, his partnership with Samuel Whitbread II

Brown’s hospitality was entirely in keeping with his reputation. Blanche tells us that he was known as ‘Equality Brown’ and described himself as the “well-known local democrat”.⁵ It is interesting that by 1875 he should be so described, when in his day he might have been thought dangerously radical rather than democratic. Apart from his banking interests, from 1799 to 1810 he was a partner with Samuel Whitbread in the famous brewing company. This was Samuel Whitbread, the son of the founder,⁶ and the partnership agreement between Brown and others contained a most unusual clause which freed Whitbread from attending personally to any business. This allowed him to follow his political aspirations. He had been elected MP for Bedford in 1791, a position he held for the rest of his life, in which he gained recognition as a champion of religious and civil rights and was notably prominent in seeking to improve provision for poor people, the abolition of slavery and attempts to introduce a national education system.⁷ Controversially, he also urged negotiations with France, admiring Napoleon Bonaparte and hoping that his reforms might be introduced in Britain. It would be tempting to suppose that beyond his financial interests, Brown found a synergy with Whitbread’s reformist views. In reality the reverse appears to have been the case as reforms might be introduced in Britain. It would be tempting to suppose that beyond his financial interests, Brown found a synergy with Whitbread’s reformist views. In reality the reverse appears to have been the case. Roger Fulford, Whitbread’s biographer, says that Brown was “noisy, opinionated and reforms might be introduced in Britain. It would be tempting to suppose that beyond his financial interests, Brown found a synergy with Whitbread’s reformist views. In reality the reverse appears to have been the case. Roger Fulford, Whitbread’s biographer, says that Brown was “noisy, opinionated and quarrelsome: he was rich and radical, and revealed to the world a combination which is happily rare – a banker with dangerous views”.⁸ In particular, Brown was “a fervent supporter of Burdett (Sir Francis Burdett), a stance not without embarrassment to Whitbread. In 1810 a dispute arose between the two partners, settled only by Brown being paid off. Whitbread wrote that he had “never been a very pleasant partner to me” and that the difference without him was incalculable”.⁹

Brown’s Association with Home Tooke. 

A happier relationship was that between Brown and another campaigner for radical change, John Home Tooke. Originally a priest, Home Tooke remained a champion of the Church of England throughout his life and had many esteemed, respectable friends. We owe to him the first steps to secure for the public the right of making available an account of parliamentary debates. As such he may be seen as an unlikely revolutionary. Yet he was imprisoned in 1777 for having solicited subscriptions for the relief of relatives of Americans “murdered by the King’s troops at Lexington and Concord”, and in 1769 was prominent in setting up a society to support a Bill of Rights, which he saw as a vehicle to campaign for a radical programme of parliamentary reform. But it was his involvement in The Society for Constitutional Information that most profoundly brought him into conflict with the government. The society, without doubt, enthusiastically supported much of the thinking that had promoted the French Revolution. On 14 July 1790, on the occasion of a first anniversary dinner, a resolution was passed rejoicing in the establishment and confirmation of liberty in France. But even here Home Tooke may be seen as a moderating influence, for he introduced a separate resolution to the effect that to achieve this English people had only “to maintain and improve the Constitution which their forefathers had transmitted to them.¹⁰ Nevertheless, he was one of three radical freethinkers arrested and tried for high treason in 1794. Pitt’s government, dreading an uprising similar to that in France, brought a huge weight of evidence against the defendants, determined to eradicate the radical movement. It was alleged that Home Tooke and his co-defendants had organised meetings seeking to encourage people to disobey the king and parliament. Prominent in the persecution’s massive case was Home Tooke’s support for Thomas Paine’s hugely successful Rights of Man. This had already been the pretext for a successful prosecution for seditious libel, obtained in Paine’s absence, the defendant having hurriedly and wisely fled to France. But in treason trials the public mood was against the establishment. To general rejoicing, after a trial that lasted for six anxious days, all three defendants were acquitted in eight minutes. 

However, Home Tooke had indeed been sympathetic to Paine’s ideas. During his time in London, Pain¹¹ was a frequent guest at Wimbledon Common, where Home Tooke’s famous Sunday dinners attracted many like-minded friends and associates.¹² They included some of the most distinguished men (and I do mean men) of letters, scientists and intellectuals of the day, some of them of a decidedly radical and reformist disposition, including Lord Erskine, Sir Francis Burdett, Gilbert Wakefield and Sir James MacKintosh.¹³ One of the most regular visitors was Timothy Brown, who “frequently rode over on a Sunday from his house at East Peckham, near Camberwell, on purpose to dine at Wimbledon… Tooke must have entertained a high opinion of the character and integrity of Mr. Brown as the latter was his banker for many years”.¹⁴ 

Home died on 18 March 1812 and the following few years it fell to Timothy Brown to continue the tradition of meetings, housing and encouraging radical discussion at his Peckham home. I noticed how Cobbett came to join him there and have suggested a possible explanation for his stay at Peckham. lain McCalman offers an alternative or perhaps additional scenario. He points out that Brown was fascinated with religion and philosophy as well as political radicalism. And that in addition to stimulating debate he had an important role in financing the publication of freethinking publications. One of these was particularly controversial. Early in 1813 Brown learned that a near-destitute Scottish journalist, George Houston, was seeking to secure the publication of a new English edition of Baron d’Holbach’s Ecce Homo!, to be published as A Critical Inquiry into the History of Jesus of Nazareth, being a rational analysis of the Gospels. The title is perhaps misleading. The baron was perhaps the first modem theorist of atheism and one of the most radical philosophers of the Enlightenment. Ecco Homo first appeared, in French and anonymously, in 1770.¹⁵ In a modern edition, Andrew Hunwick explains that d’Holbach regarded all religion as an illusion, based on fear and ignorance. In place of religious morality, which he rejected as socially harmful, he appealed for the establishment of a natural system of ethics, based on the needs of individuals as social beings, arguing that nature urges humanity to seek out its own happiness. The author’s close friend Denig Diderot observed that the text, which sought to demythologise the scriptures, was “raining bombs within the House of the Lord”, Jesus being presented as a normal human being, born normally. Hunwick sums up the contents as “a vehement attack on the Bible, Christian dogma and morality, and all aspects of Christian institutions”. 

When he heard of Houston’s initiative, Brown was, writes McCalman, “rapturous”. He tells us that “Brown threw the full weight of his wealth and influence behind its publication” and “encouraged and entertained Houston ceaselessly – even at ‘his parties for pleasure”, He subsidised the printing and publishing of the work, read and commented on the proofs and worked hard to promote its circulation. Then, in September 1813, a sceptical article in the Political Register, written by another freethinking publisher, George Cannon, inspired Brown to approach William Cobbett to give similar publicity to Ecco Homo. Despite some reservations, Cobbett, who was in favour of free expression, agreed, and he, Brown and other members of the Peckham circle, under various pseudonyms, co-operated in writing letters to the Register and the short-lived Theological Inquirer exploring and defending the arguments in Ecce Homo. It was hazardous territory. The radical publisher Daniel Isaac Eaton had been charged as publisher of d’Holbach’s book in November 1813, the prosecution only being dropped when Eaton revealed Houston as the translator.¹⁶ In November Houston was prosecuted and found guilty of blasphemous libel and sentenced to two years imprisonment and a fine of 200 pounds.¹⁷ Although Cobbett went on to include further articles by Cannon in the Register,¹⁸ both he and Brown knew the game was up. To make matters worse, Houston having served sixteen months in Newgate, provided the authorities with information about Cobbett’s and Brown’s involvement in the publication of Ecce Homo.¹⁹ 

Last years

Brown remained supportive of Cobbett, but by 1820 his friend’s debts were dearly out of control. Spater tells us that Brown, himself “a friendly creditor, urged Cobbett to seek refuge in bankruptcy, and undertook the necessary procedures at his own expense. Typically, from a small house at 15 Lambeth Road where he was permitted to live, Cobbett used the period of his bankruptcy to brilliant effect, campaigning on behalf of the reviled Caroline of Brunswick to claim her place as queen to George IV. He was released from bankruptcy in November 1820, the burden of his debts lifted and his energy unimpaired. Timothy Brown was less fortunate, he died of a stroke on 4 September 1820.

Two Hundred years ago, dissent, including religious dissent, was a dangerous business. Darwin had yet to make his epic voyage on HMS Beagle, and his Origin of Species, with its cool scientific approach, had yet to make its revolutionary mark. Even today there will be many readers who find radical views, or some of them, unacceptable. But I ask them to reflect that these advocates of change began the struggle for human rights, the freedom of speech, for the Enlightenment, for the inclusive franchise, for universal education and for our parliamentary democracy (such as it is). Much that was once considered radical is now orthodox. In my view, nothing more important came out of Peckham.

Endnotes

1. lain McCalman. Radical Underworld. Cambridge University Press, 1988. 
2. George Spater. William Cobbett: The Poor Man’s Friend. Oxford University Press, 1984. 
3. Daniel Green. Great Cobbell, The Noblest Agitator. London, Hodder & Stoughton, 1983. 
4. More than 1,000 according to Cobbett. 
5. William Harnett Blanche. Ye Parish of Camberwell (1875). 
6. I recall that as an Excise Officer I made several visits to the Chiswell Street premises and was eventually sent to check the last brew and finalise the firm’s involvement with the Revenue. The Shire horses and the brewery oozed prosperity. The fermenting room boasted an enormous unsupported roof, second only to that of Westminster Hall. 
7. A contemporary, Sir Samuel Romilly, described him as the “promoter of every liberal scheme for improving the condition of mankind, the zealous advocate of the oppressed, and undaunted opposer of every species of corruption and ill-administration”. He is said to have spoken in the House more often than any other member. 
8. Roger Fulford. Samuel Whitbread, 1764-1815, A Study in Opposition. London, Macmillan, 1967. 
9. ibid. 
10. Alexander Stephens. Memoirs of John Home Tooke. London, J. Johnson & Co., 1813. 
11. A former Excise Officer. 
12. William Hamilton Reid. Memoirs of the Public Life of John Home Took. London, 1812. 
13. See Alexander Stephens. Memoirs of John Home Tooke (1813). 
14. ibid. 
15. It is now available in a critical edition and revision of George Houston’s translation, edited by Andrew Hun wick (Berlin-New York, Walter de Gruyter, 1995). 
16. Daniel McCue Jr. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. It has also been said that his age was a factor. He died in 1814, impoverished and exhausted. 
17. The radical publisher, Daniel Isaac Eaton, had also been previously charged – not far the first time. 
18. As Rev. Erasmus Perkins. 
19. Spater says the files of the Privy Council indicate that Houston sought employment as a government informer.

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A summary of the 2010 Eric Paine Memorial Lecture

Two giants dominated English popular radical politics a couple of centuries ago. The two men were William Cobbett (1763-1835) and Henry Hunt (1773-1835). They fought for justice, human rights and a reformed, democratic House of Commons and went to prison because of their beliefs. Both men came from southern England, shared interests in politics and farming and both became fiercely independent MPs for northern constituencies. Hunt was a member of parliament for Preston during the passage of the Reform Bill of 1832, while Cobbett sat in the first reformed House of Commons as a member for Oldham. 

The life of William Cobbett is well documented. Raised at the plough in Farnham in Surrey, he became the greatest radical political writer of the early nineteenth century, the man the essayist William Hazlitt called ‘a kind of fourth estate in the politics of the country.’ Cobbett’s Political Register was published weekly from 1802 until his death in 1835 and was read by everybody from presidents, kings and emperors to poets, soldiers and farm labourers. The establishment press or the ‘reptiles’, as he called them, loathed him. Governments plotted to suppress him and all his works that challenged them at every twist and turn. When Cobbett spoke out against the flogging of soldiers in Ely under the guard of German mercenaries, he was charged with seditious libel, found guilty and jailed in Newgate Prison for two years from 1810 to 1812. Many biographies have been written about William Cobbett and he is celebrated today. 

By contrast, the name of Henry Hunt remains relatively unknown, although he was the greatest political speaker of his times. Derisively dubbed ‘Orator’ Hunt by his enemies and, like Cobbett, vilified and demonised by the establishment, Hunt was the darling of the people. When he spoke at mass public meetings, he attracted huge crowds. He was the first member of parliament to win a seat (for Preston in 1830) on a ticket of one man one vote. Hunt was the star speaker at the great reform meetings of Spa Fields in London in 1816/1817 and what went down in history as the Peterloo Massacre on St Peter’s Field in Manchester on 16 August 1819. The meeting had been called to support a reform of parliament and the abolition of the Corn Laws. Five minutes after it began, it was brought to an abrupt stop when the Manchester and Salford Yeomanry slashed their way into the crowds to arrest Hunt and the men standing with him on the platform. In his book, The Casualties of Peterloo, Michael Bush estimated that the action by the yeomanry, which was backed up by the 15th Hussars, resulted in the deaths of at least eighteen people, while the number of those injured exceeded seven hundred. The perpetrators were never brought to justice and it was Hunt and his co-defendants who were jailed. Hunt was given the longest sentence in the worst jail. He spent two and a half years incarcerated in a dank cell in Ilchester Prison in Somerset where he wrote his Memoirs. 

There have been only two biographies of Henry Hunt. Robert Huish published one the year after Hunt’s death. The second was written by John Beichem. He launched his academic career with his outstanding, political biography of Hunt, which was published in 1985. Belchem’s book dispelled the myth of the violent, argumentative, vain demagogue, the man who wilfully opposed the so-called Great Reform Act of 1832. This was the image of Hunt that has been copied and repeated by historians and essayists through the ages. Beichem portrayed a very different Henry Hunt, the Wiltshire farmer who became a democratic radical, established a mass platform for parliamentary reform and who, alone in the House of Commons argued, quite correctly, that the planned reform bill was a cheat and a sham. Sadly, John Belchem’s biography is out of print. 

What nobody has written about in any depth before is the unlikely but very real political partnership and close friendship between William Cobbett and Henry Hunt. Their relationship lasted in one way or another for thirty years until the deaths of both men in 1835 just four months apart. Nobody has charted its course from close friendship to deadly enmity with the various peaks and troughs in between. Quite simply, nobody was looking out for the story. 

It was Hunt who began it. He became a fan of Cobbett as soon as the latter returned in 1800 from his first period of exile in the newly independent America. There, Cobbett had become the most well-known and controversial of writers and he set out to repeat the act in England. When he launched his weekly Political Register in 1802, Hunt became a loyal reader. He described in his Memoirs how he longed to become acquainted with this most celebrated writer of the day. In typical Hunt style, he took the bull by the horns and went up to London to call on Cobbett. His visit took place in 1805. It was not a particularly productive meeting. Both men took a dislike to each other. Hunt described it in detail in his Memoirs: 

As I walked up Parliament Street, I mused upon the sort of being I had just left, and I own that my calculations did not in the slightest degree lead me to suppose that we should ever be upon such friendly terms, and indeed upon such an intimate footing, as we actually were for a number of years afterwards. It appeared to me that at our first meeting we were mutually disgusted with each other; and I left his house with a determination in my own mind never to see a second interview with him. 

Hunt was indeed quite right in his assessment of Cobbett’s reaction. Cobbett was suspicious of Hunt and thought he was a bad character. He especially took exception to the fact that Hunt had left his own wife and was living with the wife of another man. In 1808, Cobbett wrote a private letter to his publisher, John Wright, warning him not to associate with Hunt: 

There is one BEI, the Bristol man. Beware of him! He rides about the country with a whore, the wife of another man, having deserted his own. A sad fellow! Nothing to do with him. 

Much to Cobbett’s fury, this letter was used against Hunt in the Westminster election of 1818 when Cobbett was in self-imposed exile in America. 

Despite the initial mutual mistrust, however, Hunt persevered at forging a relationship and, despite his letter to Wright of 1808, Cobbett responded. The two men joined forces at political county meetings, taking great delight in bashing the system and baiting both the Whigs and the Tories, the Ins and the Outs, as they called them. Against all the odds, Cobbett the conservative radical, wily, experienced and fiercely independent, became the closest of friends with Hunt the democratic radical, ten years younger and totally new to the game. He addressed Hunt in his private letters as ‘my dear Hunt’. It was the highest compliment Cobbett could pay. 

It is difficult to understand how it all happened. Cobbett was a busy and famous man. Hunt was a minor dabbler in county politics. What was the attraction? Cobbett possibly answered that question himself in his writings from exile in America the second time round between 1817-1819 when he explained why he liked Englishmen best. 

The loud voice, the hard squeeze by the hand, the instant assent or dissent, the clamorous joy, the bitter wailing, the ardent friendship, the deadly enmity All these belong to the characters of Englishmen, in whose minds and hearts every feeling exists in the extreme. 

Cobbett could have been describing himself. He was also consciously or unconsciously describing Henry Hunt. In many ways, despite the difference in age and temperament, the men were very similar, passionate and extreme in everything they did and the way they lived their lives. They also enjoyed a similar sense of humour.

It is a puzzle why the depths of their collaboration and friendship have never been explored before. The clues for it are all there. They can be found in Hunt’s Memoirs and Addresses and scattered through the numerous volumes of Cobbett’s Political Registers. The material is available, although it tends to be tucked away in dusty boxes, on scratched microfilm or hidden on obscure shelves in places like the British Library, the Library of Nuffield College, Oxford, universities in the USA and county record offices. The relationship can also be traced in contemporary comments, caricatures, lampoons, squibs and poetry as well as in diaries and letters, including those mainly from Cobbett to Hunt. Only two letters from Hunt to Cobbett survived. I believe they are the last two letters Hunt wrote to his old friend and political partner. They are doubly important because they reveal why Hunt severed relations with Cobbett. As far as I know, the two letters have never been made public before. When the two men finally fell out just before the Reform Act of 1832, the radical press sighed in oblique references and subtle hints that if only the pair could make it up, radical politics would be stronger for it. United we stand, divided we fall. Like all good stories, the story of Cobbett and Hunt is of contemporary significance. 

When the pair did terminally fall out, it was like a nuclear explosion. After all the wonderful things Cobbett did with and wrote about Hunt, it is hard to read the tearing biting insults he repeatedly hurled against him. Hunt was the GREAT LIAR, the great impudent and ignorant oaf, a shuffling hulk and a carcase which only deserved to be whipped and beaten. After Cobbett wrote about Hunt’s ‘hackerings, the stammerings, the bogglings, the blunderings and the cowerings down’ of the ‘Preston cock’ in the Political Register of 12 February 1831, Hunt hit back in a public Address to Cobbett on ‘the Kensington Dunghill’. It was written in extreme bitterness: 

This backbiter of every man that ever was acquainted with him, the calumniator of every one who ever rendered him a service has thought proper to put forth his impotent venom and to level his cowardly and malevolent attack upon me in an address to you, the People of Preston, in his last lying Register, I feel it a duty … to state the reasons that have caused the wretched creature thus to assail me. 

Hunt went on to do so in ghastly detail. 

This was a relationship that was conducted in the full glare of the public. The late Georgian and Regency public feasted on what the one wrote about the other. It was all there in black and white for everybody to read. There was Cobbett’s wife, Nancy, with her violent hatred of Hunt and her fury at her Billy’s friendship with that bad man. There was also Hunt’s long-time mistress, his beloved, beautiful Mrs Vince, illegitimate granddaughter of a baronet and part of the reason for Nancy Cobbett’s hatred. The press used Mrs Vince as a stick with which to beat Hunt. Legitimate tactics or press intrusion into private life? Cobbett stoutly defended Hunt, adding to his wife’s fury. Yet, everybody was able to read what Cobbett thought of men who dumped their wives and women who slept outside the marriage bed when he later published his Advice to Young Men. He was particularly severe about the women: ‘Here is a total want of delicacy; here is, in fact, prostitution,” he wrote. 

Nancy’s attempted suicide — provoked by the renewal of her husband’s collaboration with Hunt — and the separation of Cobbett from his family were also common knowledge, as was the unfounded accusation made by Nancy that her husband had a homosexual relationship with his secretary. Cobbett’s biographers have largely avoided these matters, maybe out of a desire to protect his reputation or because they found them of no significance or because they believed the incidents were part of Cobbett’s private life and off limits. (Both George Spater and Richard Ingrams touched on the subjects.) Yet all these events sprang out of the relationship between William Cobbett and Henry Hunt and are of relevance in understanding what happened. None of it diminishes either of the men. We stand on the sidelines and admire them even more, for the men they were, for their integrity and determination to do what they believed in, and for their achievements. 

These two men inspired generations. Two weeks after Cobbett’s funeral on Saturday, 27 June 1835 in Famham, the town of his birth, the deaths of both men were mourned and commemorated in a letter published in the Poor Man’s Guardian, one of the radical penny press newspapers. The letter positively remembered the two men in the heyday of their political struggle. It was a tribute from those who would help to carry the torch of reform into the future. The letter was written by the Bradford radical, Peter Bussey, one of the future leaders of the Chartist movement. It was very singular, he wrote, that within the space of a few months, they should lose two of the most staunch Reformers this country ever produced — Henry Hunt, the consistent and uncompromising advocate of equal rights, and the Member for Oldham.’ The pair had stood the test for years, braving ‘the storm of Whig and Tory vengeance.’ They fought and conquered the ‘demon-like power’ of Castlereagh, which had oppressed the country. ‘The base minions in power trembled beneath their castigations’, and the people were awoken from their slumbers. Cobbett and Hunt raised their ‘gigantic powers,’ and governments turned pale. 

Two Cocks on the Dunghill is an account of the personal and political relationship between two great men at a crucial time in history. It is set against the backdrop of the aftermath of the French revolution, the wars with France and the fear of a Jacobin- style revolution in England and the demands for a reformed House of Commons. The issues, arguments and emotions resonate today. The questions raised are ever relevant. How should a government fight against a perceived foreign and home threat of ‘Terror’? When, if ever, should human rights be suspended? What role does the press play? How much integrity can there be in politics and at what cost? Two Cocks on the Dunghill is a story about corruption and greed, compassion and morality, of love, hate, jealousy and scandal and how human beings deal with them. It is also about the courage of individuals against an oppressive state and the triumph of will power and determination in adversity. On one thing I am resolved, namely that, unless snatched away very suddenly, I will not die the MUZZLED SLAVE OF THIS THING!’ wrote William Cobbett in the Political Register. He did not, and nor did Henry Hunt. 

Two Cocks on the Dunghill – William Cobbett and Henry Hunt: their friendship, feuds and fights is written by Penny Young and published by Twopenny Press. Copies may be purchased either from a bookseller for £20.00, or direct from the author at: 2, The Old School, South Lopham, Norfolk, IP22 2HT for £15.00, postage and packing included. Please make cheques payable to the Two Penny Press.

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The following saga combines the most comprehensive account yet of the fate of Thomas Paine’s remains, the intriguing story of the recent discovery of a vestige of those, and the recounting of a bizarre, scientific endeavour to validate that piece. It is a tale of fact, probability and possibility. It is a personal rendition, not a scholarly work. Space does not here allow the full story, but it is hoped, in time, to elaborate on its historic components in a more substantial form. With the exception of some minor details of some few participants, the research for the extended paper is complete. 

The story began in 1988 with the small circumstance of a newsagent having run out of my husband’s preferred newspaper which, prior to retirement, he always bought on his way to work. He took another paper, and glanced at the front page before settling down to work. Later in the day, he opened the paper and, on reaching the seventh page, a large photograph caught his attention. It was captioned -Thoughts, thoughts … the skull of Thomas Paine …,” and showed a woman behind a table on which a skull had been placed. The story told of the relic being that of Thomas Paine, one of the items on display at a forthcoming antiques fair. The accompanying article read: 

A lot came out of Thomas’s skull, including those great monuments of late 1811 century political and religious thought, The Rights of Man and The Age of Reason. 

But while Mr Paine’s skull is not for sale, a lot of other things are. 

The photograph and short report intrigued us, because my husband, John, has always accepted family tradition that he was directly descended from Paine; he had not read a biography to know that all who wrote of Paine’s life told of his never having fathered a living child. We decided to visit the antiques fair the following weekend to view the skull. There, seeking the exhibitor, we found our way through the large rooms of the early nineteenth-century mansion where the fair was held. The object of our excursion was not visible, but, on asking the owner if we might see the skull of Paine, he reached behind a long-case clock and brought out a splendid, hand-crafted leather box which looked rather like a hat box. He opened it, and unwrapped several intact sheets of newspaper which proved to be from the Sunday Express, 29th May 1966. Beneath that were some torn and crumpled sheets of newspaper which later, after careful ironing, indicated their origin as being from the Diss Express and Norfolk and Suffolk Journal, 14th April 1899. Under the Diss-paper were several layers of yellowed and stained soft tissue paper which, when removed, revealed the skull. It seemed small, and had the name “Thos Paine” inscribed in copperplate, ink writing on the frontal bone. The custodian of the piece explained that the mandible was not the original. Our attention was distracted, and we neither asked for, nor were given, an explanation. 

John asked if he might hold the skull, but the dealer hesitated. My husband told his story, and showed some few possessions of his famous, supposed ancestor which were passed on to him when he was young. At that time, his grandmother had said, “You had better have these. Nobody else will be interested.” The nature and markings of those relics identify them indubitably as having belonged to Paine. The dealer in) fine antiques was fascinated with the story and relics. To our astonishment he said “This belongs to you,” and handed the skull to my husband whose response was to stutter “B-b-b-but, th-th-this b-b-belongs to you. I can’t take it. You paid for it somewhere.” Nevertheless, the serendipitous coincidence of part of the remains of a long-lost “ancestor” appearing in the city where an interested “descendant” lived was too much to resist,- so John offered to pay what the dealer had paid. “Done,” he said. A minor condition of the purchase of the box and contents was that it remain at the exhibition until the following Monday as it had had some publicity, and people were asking to view it over the holiday weekend. 

A few days later, in awe, we collected the prize. Excited and emotionally affected by our acquisition of something we thought to have been irretrievably lost, we opened the box to examine its contents. We gently unpacked the cranium and mandible. We then lifted out two pristine copies of a bicentennial edition of Common Sense. Beneath these was an old, brown envelope which contained a smaller, yellowed envelope within which was a copy of the rare pamphlet, A Brief History of the Remains of the Late Thomas Paine from the Time of Their Disinterment in 1819 by the Late William Cobbett, M.P. Down to the Year 1846; it was printed in London in 1847. There was also an early albumen photograph depicting the tabernacle in the guild oratory of Or San Michele, Florence, possibly a nineteenth century Paine admirer’s idea of a fitting monument to the great writer, the original having been to the Virgin Mary. On the back of the brown envelope, in handwriting yet unknown to me, was written: 

Thomas Paine, died at Greenwich, New York 1809. 

Buried at New Rochelle. Disinterred by William Cobbett in Sept. 1819, his remains were taken back to England by Cobbett in Nov. 1819, & kept by him at his house Normandy Farm near Famham until his death in 1835. Cobbett’s son then inscribed Paine’s name on the skull & various limbs & put them in a tin trunk. Shortly afterwards he was arrested for debt, & the trunk & other Cobbett property was seized by the receiver, who held it until 1844 when the debts were discharged. Payment of these reduced Cobbett junior to become a farm labourer, and Paine’s remains then passed to Mr. Tilly of Bedford Square London, who still had them in 1846. 

The fact that the writer told of Tilly holding file remains in 1846 suggests that he knew of their whereabouts and had probably seen them that year. It is probable that the envelope and contents have been together with the skull since about 1853-54. 

Examination of the skull and information contained in the pamphlet in the box suggested authenticity. Cobbett’s eldest son, William, had “inscribed his name in several places on the skull and on most of the larger bones of the limbs.” As he penned an article entitled “Where are Paine’s Bones?,” Moncure Daniel Conway was under the impression that this meant that Cobbett’s son had inscribed his own name on the bones, but it is more likely that he wrote the name “Paine.” An obvious inscription on the skull we had obtained is that already mentioned. With the aid of digitally enhanced high resolution photography, other markings became visible and worn scratchings, possibly of the name Paine, were discernible. My husband and I were of the opinion that it would be in nobody’s interest to inscribe the name of Paine on a skull if it was not that of the man himself.

Aware of the fact that Paine’s remains had been exhumed by William Cobbett in 1819, and that they had subsequently become lost, it became obvious to us that there was an interesting story for the telling, or rather the writing. I began to research the life, times and posthumous career of Thomas Paine as I had never researched anything before. My findings astonished me, but those are the subject of a larger work than this. Fieldwork led me to many important documents in England and the United States of America, some of which corroborated parts of Conway’s story of the remains. He had managed to purchase documents and relics, some now owned by the Thomas Paine National Historical Association of New Rochelle, New York. There I was shown a note written by Benjamin ‘Tilly, William Cobbett’s secretary, which Conway had acquired: 

Tuesday January 7th 1833 at 1 o’clock at noon I went to 11 Bolt Court. Fleet Street, and there, with Mr Gutsell and Mr. Dean, I saw, at the house of Mr. Cobbett, the remains of Mr. Thomas Paine, (that were brought from America by Mr. C.) when I procured some of his hair, and from his skull I took a portion of his brain which had become hard, and which is almost perfectly , black. 

On either side of the skull’s frontal bone, above the orbit, or eye socket, is evidence of scalping. The first cuts were deep, and left marked lacerations which depleted as the knife proceeded to the posterior of the skull. These markings verify the fact that hair was taken from the biological owner of the Sydney skull. The “portion of brain,” which Conway described as being “about two inches by one, leaden in color, and quite hard,” could only have been removed through the foramen magnum, the hole through which the spinal cord passes. 

Again, on 2nd December 1839, Tilly removed more hair from the skeleton while it was held by the receiver, George West, who had a farm adjacent to that of William Cobbett which, after his death, was leased to a Mr R.D. Thomson. It seems that Tilly intended to fulfill Cobbett’s purpose of Paine himself raising funds to erect his own monument. Fragments of his hair were to be enclosed in gold rings and sold as a means of paying for the memorial and his funeral “in a season, when twenty wagon-loads of flowers can be brought, to strew the road before the hearse.”

Apart from the obvious inscription, the most noticeable feature of the skull is a deep depression on the forehead. The obvious result of an injury, one scientist who examined the piece suggested that it was the result of “a strike from a heavy pointed (but not a sharp) object.” Healing processes have obscured signs of probable “cracking” which would have been evident at the time of the injury. It was thought that the injury occurred at least ten years prior to death, and that it would have shown during life as a “dimple on the skin.” Thomas Paine might have suffered such an injury in 1779 at the height of the Silas Deane Affair, when the former’s loyalty to the American cause was being questioned. 

At that time, as he returned to his Philadelphia lodgings one night, Paine was spotted by some army officers and members of the legislature strolling in the opposite direction on their way home. They had enjoyed a fine dinner with the clothier, Mr Mease. One of the group, Colonel Attlee, on noticing Paine as he approached them in Market Street, announced to the party, “There comes ‘Common Sense’.” Matthias Slough of the legislature remarked, “Damn him, I shall common sense him,” at which the party leaned against the wall. Slough is said to have tripped Paine, throwing him into a filthy gutter where he fell heavily on his back. As it was the antagonists who passed on the story, it is quite possible that the tripping of Paine was in fact a strike. 

The only other known injury to Paine which might have caused such damage to his head was that recorded by James Cheetham; he wrote of Paine, in 1806, returning to stay with the Dean family of New Rochelle where he had spent some weeks in 1804. He was not welcome. He is said to have arrived with a gallon of rum, “and in the evening got so drunk that he fell from his chair, broke his nose, and sprinkled the room with his blood.” It is most unlikely that the striking of Paine by an English army officer in Pads in 1793 or 1794 was vigorous enough to sustain such an injury. 

The nose of the skull is broken, and deflects to the right as it would have done in life. On first sight of a photograph of Paine’s death -mask taken by John Wesley Jarvis, of which there are several in the literature, the most noticeable feature is the deviation of the nose to the right. The mask also shows the sunken upper lip of a man who may have lost his front teeth. All four incisors are missing from the skull as are one canine tooth and one premolar. Another canine is chipped. Two premolars on the left side are sheared off at the gum line. This loss of teeth would account for the sunken appearance of the upper lip in the mask. It has been said that the cast of the nose to the right was a mistake or sloppiness on the part of Jarvis, but, if he was modelling from the head of the skull now in Sydney, his mask was from a true cast. In fact, Jarvis thought the mask his finest work, as did Dr John Francis who had “many opportunities of seeing Paine.” It is worth adding that the face of the mask is pock-marked and the cheeks sunken. 

The death mask exhibited at the Ancient House Museum at Thetford, Norfolk, was taken from the original cast. A fine illustration of it appeared with an article I wrote for Thetford and Breckland Magazine, in 1996. That illustration clearly shows the indentation in the forehead that is obvious on the skull. From physical evidence and the comments of writers. Over the years, there is no reason to doubt the authenticity of the cranium; it is that of Thomas Paine. The same cannot be said for the mandible. Several scientists have examined it, and are unanimous that it is a splendid match in colour and age, but not a practical fit. I have dismissed it as being that of Paine for the simple reason of its having no markings such as those to be found on the cranium. 

The Brighton Herald of 6th February 1909 published an article telling of “a curious letter that had been received by a well- known local antiquarian, a Mr Bartlett. The letter had been written by William van der Weyde, best known for his Life and Works of Thomas Paine. He was preparing that work and, apparently, following up information supplied to him by Moncure Conway shortly before the tatters death. According to the item in the paper, Conway had written that the antiquarian was “believed to know the whereabouts of Paine’s skeleton.” Unable to assist Van der Weyde, Bartlett passed on the request for information to the editor of the newspaper. A fascinating response came within days. Mr George Homewood, of Brighton, wrote of his grandfather, a widower, having married a Mrs Wilkinson, the widow of a Liverpool exciseman. During the exciseman’s tenure, Cobbett landed with the bones of Paine. Mr Homewood wrote of the government not allowing the precious cargo into the country, and of the captain of the ship on which it had travelled having to take it back on board. Extraordinarily, the letter continued, the captain gave Mr Wilkinson the jawbone which came into the possession of Homewood’s grandfather when he married Wilkinson’s widow. It is not true that the government refused entry of the bones into the country, but it is highly likely that, in order to overcome reluctance on Mr Wilkinson’s part to allow them past his examination, the mandible was given to him by Cobbett as a bribe, or Wilkinson himself demanded the relic. 

Mr Homewood’s grandfather became schoolmaster in a village where he and his sister, Margaret Homewood, as children, visited their grandparents. One day, Margaret noticed a grave being dug in the churchyard. She ran home to tell her mother who immediately asked permission of her father to bury the mandible in the open grave. That she did and, within minutes, a body was interred and the grave filled. 

The story was taken from the Brighton Herald of 13th February 1909 by the London Star which, in turn, was read by the Reverend George Reynolds who, it will be shown, played a major role not only in the distribution of Paine’s remains, but also of many Cobbett manuscripts regarding not only the bones, but also the life of Paine. He immediately wrote to the Star refuting Homewood’s story as impossible because he had in his possession a wax mask that Cobbett had taken in 1822. The mask, one of many, was made to prove to his detractors that he had not returned to England, as rumour had it, with the remains of an African or an old woman. The Alexandria Gazette & Daily Advertiser of 11th February 1802 had noted: “It is gravely asserted in the London Courier, that the bones that Gobbet [sic] took to England as the bones of Tom Paine, were the bones of a ‘negro.’

The Homewoods’ story has persisted, and resurfaced at least twice. In 1924, the famous composer Algernon Ashton made enquiries of The Standard regarding the burial of Paine. Margaret Homewood read his letter, and contacted him telling her story of the open grave. He expressed great interest. In April, May, and June of 1951, Miss Homewood wrote several letters to interested people when, once again, Paine was the subject of a news item. In two of those letters, she described the location of the grave where her mother had laid the mandible. From her description, I have managed to locate the churchyard. I have no reason to doubt the Homewoods’ stories, and am convinced that the mandible of Thomas Paine was buried as Miss Homewood recounted. The biological owner of the jawbone that was visible in the corpse mask owned by the Reverend George Reynolds, the same as is now held in Sydney, will never be known. 

On 5th July 1900, a small part of Paine’s brain was sold to Moncure Daniel Conway by Charles Higham, a second-hand bookseller of Farringdon Street, London, who specialised in the trade of theological books. Conway did not personally purchase the prize; a letter held by the Thomas Paine National Historical Association at New Rochelle, addressed to him at the Hotel Strasbourg, Paris, reveals that the piece was bought on his behalf by a representative of the publisher’s GP. Putnam’s Sons. Dated 5m July, 1900, it reads: 

I now enclose herewith a receipt for payment made on your behalf of £5. for the fragment of the Brain of Thomas Paine. I hold this to your order. I do not know at present of anyone crossing the Channel, but in the event of any friend of mine going across, I shall be only too pleased to be the means of conveying this fragment to you. 

The signature is illegible. The enclosed receipt, on the letterhead of Charles Higham, is also dated 5th July 1900: 

Received from Dr Moncure D Conway the sum of Five Pounds in payment for a fragment of Thomas Paine’s Brain this being thq whole of the fragment that I received from Mr George Reynolds and all that exists of Paine’s brain to the best of my knowledge and belief. 

The receipt was signed by Higham over a one penny Postage and Inland Revenue stamp. 

Conway returned to America with his precious cargo and, in 1902, wrote of it being under a glass cover. In 1905 when he learned that the monument to Paine at New Rochelle, which had occupied several positions in the vicinity, was to be moved to the spot where it now stands, he decided that the brain should be interred as close as possible to the original grave site. On 14th October 1905, it was paraded before “thousands of persons who attended the public transfer of the key of the Paine monument to the city of New Rochelle.” A report of the occasion concluded by noting that “the discovery of the brain of Paine leaves little doubt that the story told concerning the theft of his body, that it fell finally into the hands of vandals, who cut it up and sold it for relics, is true”.

George Reynolds, who had sold the portion of Paine’s brain to Higham, acquired it in 1878 from a man named Timothy Ginn, a cabbie of Bethnal Green. At that time, Reynolds was a Baptist minister at Stepney, and Mr Ginn’s daughters attended his chapel. Ginn was head of an extended family consisting of his wife, his mother, his sister, and his six children. It was with them that Benjamin Tilly, Cobbett’s former secretary, boarded, and in their house at 3 Chester Place that he died of stomach cancer, in the presence of Ginn’s wife Caroline, on 31st August 1869. He was possibly nursed by Ginn’s sister, Adelaide, who was a monthly nurse. It is very likely that he left his few possessions to the Ginns, as suggested by Jabez Hunns, in recognition of their kindness in his illness. It is presumable that, apart from the skull and right hand of Paine, which became separated from the rest of his remains about 1853 or 1854 when ‘Tilly became bankrupt, all relics of Paine, of which Tilly had been a diligent custodian for twenty five years, remained in possession of the family until purchased by Reynolds for £25. It will be shown that he bought more than the portion of brain, and withheld information of his ownership of other items when questioned on the matter by Conway and Hunns a few years later. He probably prevaricated in leading Conway to believe that he had been told by Mrs Ginn that she had sold the bones to a rag—rd-bone collector. Conway wrote of that story being untrue, but did not elaborate. It is clear from my own research that stories of Paine’s bones being made into buttons are not true; neither is the report of a rib being in France. 

In either 1853 or 1854, the skull and right hand of Paine were purchased at auction by a Reverend Robert Ainslie. He was a Congregational Minister and writer, whose best known work was the first translation into English of Lobegott Friedricyh Konstantin Tischendotfs Greek text of the New Testament which followed his discovery of the Codex Sinaiticus, a notable manuscript of the Bible. Having been Minute Secretary to the London City Mission, with which he was associated from 1835 to 1844, Ainslie left as a result of having offended fifty four missionaries during one of his Saturday devotional meetings. With the skull and right hand of kine among his belongings, he became Minister of the Unitarian Church at Brighton in 1860. He referred to both his church and himself as “unsectarian.” He resigned in 1874.

It was by chance that Conway learned that Ainslie had been in possession of the Paine items. Soon after Conway had given a lecture on Paine in London in 1876, Edward Truelove, a well- known rationalist bookseller at 256 High Holborn contacted him, and recalled a gentleman who had visited his shop about 1853 or 1854. On noticing Paine’s works on the shelves, the visitor offered the startling information that he was in possession of the great writer’s skull and right hand. Truelove had once attended a lecture given by Ainslie, and recognised him as the former Secretary to the City Mission. .The reverend gentleman refused to offer further information on either himself or his curios. Truelove expressed astonishment that such an orthodox person should take an interest in Paine, but it is now obvious that he did not realise that Ainslie had long left the Mission and set off on a rationalist journey of his own. It is possible that, on the day he told Truelove of his treasures, Ainslie purchased the very rare pamphlet that still rests in the leather box holding the skull. It is also possible that the box was crafted by or for him. 

When Conway wrote to Robert Ainslie in 1877 to make enquiries about Paine’s remains, his letter was answered by Ainslie’s daughter, Margaretta, who informed him that her father had died. She wrote of having vague, childhood memories of the bones being in her father’s possession, but knew nothing of their whereabouts. Conway placed.. some reliance upon j her inhumation, and speculated that her father must have acquired the pieces prior to 1844 when the remains were brought to London from Surrey where they had been kept since Cobbett’s death. It was impossible for Robert Ainslie to have had the bones prior to 1844, when they were forwarded to Tilly, because, as noted by William James Linton who wrote the Brief History of the Remains in 1847, ‘Tilly was able to verify that they were the same that had been in Cobbett’s possession. It seems obvious that the writer of the holograph on the reverse of the envelope containing a copy of Linton’s pamphlet, which my husband obtained with the skull, had seen the remains, and confirmed the fact that they were entire in ‘Tilly’s possession at his abode in Bedford Square. I have compared the handwriting with that of Linton; it does not match. Surely the writer would have written with some anguish if the skull and right hand had been missing; he did not. Margaretta Ainslie’s account of childhood Memories must be dismissed.

The story told by her brother, Oliver, is more acceptable. According to Conway who himself interviewed him, Oliver told of their father, Robert Ainslie, having learned from his brother, a veterinary surgeon with connections to the estate of Lord King not far from where Cobbett had lived in Surrey, that the remains of Paine were at Richards’ auction rooms, 43 Rathbone Place, Lincoln’s Inn Fields, London. It was there that Reverend Ainslie acquired the two pieces, unknown to either Tilly or James Watson, the radical publisher, who kindly bought what he thought to be all of the former’s goods and returned them to him. It seems that Watson might have arrived late at the auction rooms, and did not know that the skull and right hand had been removed from the box in which Tilly kept the remains and some manuscripts by William Cobbett. Nevertheless, it is obvious that Watson was concerned about the near loss of Paine’s remains because in 1853 he spoke with Mr Joseph Cowen, an advocate of reform who became the Member of Parliament for Newcastle in the 1860s, regarding a public funeral and burial for Paine at Kensal Green Cemetery. They decided to call upon Tilly at his workplace where he was employed as a tailor for a Mr Swaine, described as a merchant clothier, who lived near St. Bride’s church, Fleet Street. They found that Tilly had left without leaving an address where he might be contacted. 

It is not surprising that Tilly had disappeared; his wife had died, he was poor, aging, and I suspect, probably did not wish to be found. He had moved from his lodgings in the house of the widow, Anna Prentice, at 13 Bedford Square, to stay with his niece at Norton Folgate, and, from there, to stay with the widow of an old friend, Mrs Ball, and her family. From there he moved to board with Mr and Mrs Ginn at Bethnal Green. His circumstances were reduced, and he would have had to pare down his belongings. In doing so, I think he might have opened Cobbett’s box and discovered that the remains of Paine, of which he had taken great care, were not entire. He certainly knew before he died that the skull, if not the hand, was missing because he left a note telling how to recognise the skull of Thomas Paine. He became lost forever to those interested in carrying out Cobbett’s plan for a monument, or even a humble burial at Kensal Green. Mrs Ball later described Tilly as “a kind, affectionate, and gentle old man; in fact, a perfect English gentleman.” If my suspicion is right, such a man would not easily forgive himself; it is possible that he never did. James Watson died on 29th November, 1874, having sold his publishing business to George Jacob Holyoake, probably believing

that Tilly had disposed of the precious relics in his care.

Conway wrote of some of Paine’s bones having been sighted by the Reverend Alexander Gordon, “a Unitarian tutor at Manchester,” in 1873, who again heard of the bones in 1876. Gordon was a great scholar and fluent in several languages; he contributed to the Dictionary of National Biography, and provided 778 biographies to the original volumes and two following supplements. In the early twentieth century, he became the first lecturer in Ecclesiastical History at Manchester University. Conway was under the impression that Gordon would have wished for a burial of the remains, possibly at Thetford. The bones seen by Gordon in 1873 were probably the skull and the right hand, both of those being in the possession of Reverend Ainslie, still a Unitarian minister at Brighton with whom Gordon would have been acquainted. Gordon’s hearing again of the bones in 1876 was probably in discussion as to their whereabouts after Ainslie died in August that year. Soon after his death, according to Oliver Ainslie, the bones were taken by a Mr Penny. Ainslie’s son claimed to have known no more of Penny than his name, not even his given name. In all probability, Penny was one Edward Penny of Brighton, who might have known Ainslie as the Unitarian minister. Working forward in time, the whereabouts of the right hand, at this stage, can be traced no further. 

In reading Hunns’s 1908 account of the handling of Paine’s remains, it is obvious that he spoke at length with George Reynolds. He wrote of Reynolds being the “chief authority” for his article. Interestingly, Conway also had interviewed Reynolds, but neither he nor Hunns spoke with Timothy Ginn or his wife who, by the time they wrote on the remains, were dead. It is on the word of Reynolds alone that both writers accepted the fact that the bones were either handed over to a rag-and-bone man by Mrs Ginn after Tilly’s death, or disposed of by some other means as intimated by Conway. As he noted, Mrs Ginn’s story had “an accent of sophistication about it.” 

A note from James M. Dow of Liverpool appeared in Notes and Queries of 17th July 1909, in which he briefly told of Hunns’s account of Paine’s remains. He also told of his lately having been informed that part of the skull of Paine was in possession of Dr Stanton Colt, the well known American leader in the Ethical Culture movement and opener of the first settlement house in New York in 1866. Dow’s note brought a response, in the issue of 4th September, from H. Percy Ward, who also gave his address as Liverpool. He was a secularist who had once studied for the Ministry. He quoted Dow’s statement and commented with a succinct “This is incorrect.” He continued: “In May, 1902, the late Mr. G.J. Holyoake wrote to me that Dr. Clair J. Greece [sic] of Redhill has relics of Paine and his friends.” “Relics” does not denote skulls. To have known that Dr Coit did not hold the skull, Ward was either dose to Coit with whom he had discussed the matter, or, he knew the exact whereabouts of the piece… It is tempting to think that he himself had it. It is possible. If he did, he most likely acquired it from the mysterious Mr Penny who relieved Oliver Ainslie of the skull that his father had purchased in 1853 or 1854. If I am correct in thinking Edward Penny was the same person, the 1901 census gave his age as seventy eight years, an age when one holding an extraordinary article would have been considering its destiny. lf, as suggested above, that article changed hands in 1899, it might have gone to H. Percy Ward. A possible problem with this theory is the Diss paper of 1899; the identity of the person who wrapped the skull in the paper is not known. 

On 2nd June 1966, an English newspaper published a story regarding parts of a skeleton which had recently been found buried in a tin trunk at Ash, Surrey. It was thought that its plight had been that of Thomas Paine. Mr Ashton Booth, then Curator of Famham Museum, examined the bones carefully; he was hoping to find traces of ink marking which William Cobbett’s eldest son had placed on the larger bones of Paine’s remains, and would prove that the bones were those of Paine. There were no ink markings, and the bones, dated as being about 150 years old, were dismissed as being part of a skeleton used by a medical student. 

On reading reports of the finding of the bones in 1966, a London man unexpectedly contacted the Curator of Famham Museum telling him that he had the skull of Paine in his possession. The Curator contacted the Chairman of the Thomas Paine Society to whom he had referred the London man. On 10th June 1966, the man visited the Chairman of the Society in London and showed him the skull. The Chairman told the man of his knowledge of a death-mask of Paine; they both thought it would be interesting to compare the two, the mask being in the possession of a member of the Thomas Paine Society. I am not aware of the comparison ever being made, but a search of correspondence and personal records of members of the Society at that time may yield some information. It would seem that the matter faded into oblivion, but the fact that the Sydney skull was wrapped in a London newspaper of that very week suggests that it is the same as that seen in London in 1966. 

Hopes of having found the resting place of Paine’s bones were again raised on 18th July 1976 when a backhoe operator at Tivoli, New York, unearthed a seven-foot obelisk marked “In memory of Thomas Paine who was born at Thetford, England Jan. 29, 1737 Died at New York June 8, 1809 Aged 72 years 4 months And 9 days.” The stone also bore the name of another person, John G Lasher. This find too yielded no clues to the resting place of Paine. The stone had been personally chosen and inscribed on two sides to order by Lasher, who was known as a local “eccentric”; he was an admirer of Paine and wished to honour him on his own memorial. 

Further interest in the remains of Paine was aroused in 1989 with publication of a speculative article suggesting that persistence of a local legend, said to have originated with the Cobbett family, gave some credence to his remains having been discreetly buried by a Cobbett descendant in the churchyard at Ash, Surrey, close to where Cobbett lived and died. That story may well be true, but there is no documentary evidence to support it. As with the mandible, the main skeleton might have been placed in an open grave. Nevertheless, by linking known facts and suggestions, it seems possible that by the end of the nineteenth century it was in possession of a most unlikely gentleman, the seller of theological literature, Charles Higham. To my knowledge, there have been no reported sightings of it since. Until now, with the exception of Ainslie and the man who revealed a skull in 1966, all who have held any of the bones of Paine have kept their ownership secret. 

There are clues relating to the whereabouts of the skull over the last half century, but they remain to be covered in a later work. I managed to make contact with one person in the United Kingdom who had briefly held it in his possession in recent years, but he was reluctant to speak with me. He did tell me that he thought the person who passed it on to him was dead, little more. That is quite understandable in light of the fact that nobody can legally claim ownership of another’s remains. I am not aware, however, of any law against possession of an old box containing harmless contents. 

I have sought diligently for any knowledge I have of the bones. Despite public appeals for information, none has come my way; the silence surrounding them endures. My husband and I have not maintained such silence. At a time when the Rare Books Library of the University of Sydney had an exhibition of material which had been suppressed over the years, we loaned the skull for discreet display in the same glass case as The Age of Reason, and other rare, early-editions df works by Paine. 

Beyond my husband, many people have been led to believe from family stories that they are directly descended from .Paine. It occurred to me that DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) analysis and comparison may clarify the point. I contacted, and have been contacted by, a number of such people, several of whom have drawn up family trees. Beyond a certain point in the first half of the 19th century, none of them has managed to make the link to Paine. 

As a PhD candidate at the University of Sydney, I was recommended by an academic member of staff to approach a scientist at the University of Queensland who he thought would be interested in assisting in my quest. I spoke with him, and he agreed to be involved as an external associate supervisor of my work which was to cross disciplines. He was intrigued with the story of the skull and the fact that he himself might play a part in solving it. a genealogical puzzle. I first met with him in Brisbane in 1996. Dr Tom Loy, whom I initially sounded out in 1995, also of the University of Queensland, had already agreed to take samples from the skull in an effort to extract DNA for comparison with that of living persons. As Dr Loy, best known for having pioneered the field of archaeological residue analysis and his research on the tools of Otzi the Iceman, was overseas at the time, a rather nervous colleague extracted the stump of a broken tooth from the skull and,,a small piece of bone from the nasal septum. The plan at that stage was to try to extract DNA from the samples which would be held until I found people, preferably males, claiming a line of descent from Paine who would be willing to offer blood samples or other material for extraction and comparative analysis.

Of course, the obvious person to test first was my husband, but therein lay a problem. I had talked a little about the processes of DNA profiling, or fingerprinting, and realised that it would be an easier and less expensive process to find another male “descendant” who was directly descended in the male line. I knew that there were in existence some supposed relatives of our family who were still proud to be known by the name of Paine, but over the last eighty years or so they had drifted away and lost touch. Being a descendant of a known line of Burgesses traceable to the eighteenth century, but only four generations down from the wife of one who was a Miss Paine, my husband’s descent was through a woman. For purposes of DNA profiling, that meant, if taking samples from the skull and him, one would have had to work back through Y chromosomes, interrupted by a generation of the X (female) chromosome, and back to Y. Such a procedure was and still is impossible. Women do not possess a Y chromosome so are incapable of passing it to their children. A woman’s chromosomal composition is known as 46XX and a man’s as 46XY, there being twenty-two pairs of autosomes to every sperm and one X and one Y. It is the X or Y chromosome that ensures transmission of hereditary characteristics and determines sex. 

Both jointly with my external supervisor and on my own account, beginning in Australia, and later in England, I made broadcasts on national and local radio appealing for likely “descendants” to contact me. I found such men, but others, like my husband, could only make the connection through a woman. In the early stages of my work, my advisors led me to believe that those men by the name of Paine, who knew of stories in their families of descent from Paine, were the most desirable subjects for sampling. As I learned more about the processes of DNA analysis, I soon came to realise that following that path would be futile. The time may come when it will be possible to trace hereditary descent through the male line, but, at this stage of scientific development, the likelihood of a man even tracing his own father remains a mere matter of probability utterly lacking in certitude. Beyond that, there is the problem of possible lack of marital fidelity; the fact of a surname is not a guarantee of paternity. 

The best way of attempting to match the skull with other material would have been to have had access to further biological relics of Paine or the remains of his mother Frances Pain who was buried at St Cuthbert’s Church, Thetford, on 18th May 1790. I admit to pondering upon the possibility of the latter course, but at no stage did I seriously consider exhumation of the bones of Frances Pain. Beyond my reluctance to disturb an old grave, I learned that the church was rebuilt in 1921 when the tower collapsed. All signs of a churchyard are long gone. Had that option been available, and approval given by church authorities for such an undertaking, it would have been the first time that excavation to obtain DNA material for such a scientific undertaking would have taken place. On making serendipitous finds, I decided to change my course. 

During my research, I discovered that, apart from the brain, there were still some few physical relics of Paine in existence; the hair taken by Tilly had never been put into gold rings as envisioned by Cobbett. I realised it would be a more viable proposition in validating the skull to attempt to match it with one of these relics rather than seeking descendants. Scientific proof of the identity of the skull would satisfy the sceptics who scoffed at the idea of a vestige of Paine’s remains having found its way to Australia. On sighting two swatches in the United States, at the Thomas Paine Memorial Museum at New Rochelle, I realised they met the criteria for sampling; there was soft tissue attached, roots and scalp, just as obtained by Benjamin ‘Tilly long ago. Despite the wonderful cooperation of some former officers of the Association, similar circumstances to those that led to their departure and setting up of other organisations commemorating Paine, forced me to allow my membership to lapse and search for a similar vestige elsewhere. I had pieced together stories of the hair from various sources and found that there were at least five pieces and possibly up to ten. Two are held by the Museum at New Rochelle, and another is still held at the Thetford Library, Norfolk, in the town where Paine was born. As an interesting aside, when undertaking my research at the Goldsmiths’ Library, University of London, I came across a small bottle containing locks of William Cobbett’s own hair. It bore a typed label: “Mr Cobbett’s Hair,” and marked in the glass of the bottle itself was the following:

B. Keith & Co

Chemists

New York.

The hair was golden in colour. In the same collection were pieces of wood from the house in which Thomas Paine was said to have been born.

Public awareness of the locks of hair that Tilly had removed from Paine’s corpse did not seem to eventuate until 1887 when, in response to an enquiry on Paine’s remains, Edward Smith, a biographer of Cobbett, mentioned that he held a lock of hair which he had acquired some years before. It is probable that Smith acquired this piece and other mementoes of Paine when George Reynolds became involved in “ruinous litigation,” Perhaps he advertised, possibly by word of mouth, that he had such memorabilia for sale because he was contacted by Smith and Mr Kegan Paul. Whether or not the piece, which Smith presented to Conway, was sold to Smith is not clear, but it is known that Kegan Paul advised Reynolds to contact the British Museum regarding several of the pieces he had for sale. Hunns told of the Museum having purchased several of Cobbett’s papers. I sighted these when researching at the British Library in 1996. At the front of the folios containing these papers, a librarian had noted: “Purchased by G Reynolds 13 Dec. 1879.” That was less than two years after his acquisition of the Paine items from the Ginn family. Those other remainders, pieces of hair cut from his head and intended as lasting keepsakes in golden rings, had begun their own separate joumeyings. 

It is probable that Reynolds gave Conway a second piece of hair about 1897 because in a letter dated 6th August 1909, written by Reynolds himself, he told of giving a piece to Smith, Conway and Hunns. (He had, no doubt, read Conway’s Life of Thomas Paine, published in 1892.) Reynolds’s letter told of how he kept a remaining piece of hair found in an oiled paper on which was written “Mr Paine’s hair brought from Normandy Farm on 21st January 1836 by Mr Wm Oldfield.” I have doubts about Reynolds having kept the hair beyond 1879, but he was certainly in possession of it again by 1897. At the time he was suffering his financial problems, all that he had of the Paine relics that he did not sell to Edward Smith, Kegan Paul, the British Museum on Cobbett’s son, James Paul, were sold to a friend, Louis Breeze. It is probably the piece of hair from that collection that is now at Thetford Library in the Thomas Paine Collection. Shortly before Breeze died late in 1897, Reynolds repurchased all that he had sold to him with the exception of some pamphlets and books which he regained at the sale of Breeze’s effects. He did not recover an oil painting of Paine or two portraits of Cobbett.

In 1908, Hunns wrote that Reynolds gave him a piece of hair. Reynolds had obviously treasured his collection and thought about the disposal of items after his death. At the Paine Memorial Museum at New Rochelle, I sighted an envelope bearing the following typewritten note: 

Portion of the hair of the late Mr. Thomas Paine. Taken from an envelope with the following in the handwriting of Mr. B. Tilly: “Mr. Paine’s hair brought from Normandy farm 21 Jan’y, 1836, by Mr. Oldfield.” 

The original packet of hair is in the possession of George Reynolds, Rookstone, Woodford Green. 

The typed signature was Jabez Hunns. I saw the envelope containing the hair and, having seen Tilly’s writing, knew that Hunns was mistaken. The writing on the envelope was not that of Tilly. 

In the previously mentioned letter that Reynolds wrote to the Brighton Star, published 13th February, 1909, he told of having the hair that was removed from Paine’s skull in 1833. Five years later, on the reverse of Hunns’s typed envelope, William Van der Weyde noted, as had Hunns, that the original packet of hair was in the possession of Reynolds. Van der Weyde continued: “Together with the original inscription on packet in Tilly’s writing, and other locks, &c., left by Tilly, has since (in 1914) been purchased from Mr. Reynolds by the Thomas Paine Nat’l Historical Association.” He signed himself as President of the Association, 1924, and did not mention the number of locks. 

George Reynolds retained several of his relics. He led Hunns to believe that, due to failing eyesight and a wish that they should be kept together, he offered them first to a grandson of William Cobbett. He was not interested, so the entire collection was sold to Charles Higham who sold part of Paine’s brain to Moncure Conway in 1900. I have, however, shown that Reynolds still had swatches of hair which were bought by the Thomas Paine National Historic.* Association in 1914. In offering the material to Higham, Reynolds told Hunns, he hoped that Higham would advertise it in his catalogue so that it might capture the interest of a public institution or an interested person. It is clear that the brain had gone to Higham, but Reynolds still held some hair. In my opinion, it is possible that he held more than hair.

The hair now held in the collection at Thetford Library was possibly purchased from Higham at about this time, but it is more probable that it was bought from Reynolds himself about 1914 by Ambrose Barker, a prominent proponent of anarchism and atheism throughout his adult life. Paine’s hair was in his possession up to the time of his death in 1953. 

So much for the dissemination of Paine’s hair. 

As shown above, the late twentieth century rekindled curiosity in Paine’s remains when I embarked on the endeavour to obtain DNA from the skull and hair. There was rather more publicity than I should have liked, but my contacts at the University of Queensland sought and were given press coverage. As frequently happens when stories are passed on to journalists, they were picked up by other journalists and distorted beyond recognition and published beyond Australia. 

The problems of obtaining hair samples from The Thomas Paine Memorial Museum had a rebounding effect. In order that it might be seen that all analyses were fairly practised, I planned to have the American samples tested in the United States. Without funding or wealth, I was dependent upon the benevolence of any scientist willing to undertake the extraction of DNA and compare it with the material already extracted in Australia which would be sent to the States. 

I spoke with many but located only one willing scientist, a man of high profile and an international reputation. However, by then, problems had arisen that made it impossible for me to utilise the hair held in the States. As mentioned earlier, I turned my attention elsewhere, to the United Kingdom. Having learned of the expense that would be involved and the awkward inconvenience of forwarding extracted DNA from Australia to the United Kingdom, I decided to consult again with Dr Tom Loy of the University of Queensland. I was prepared to avail myself of the commercial services his department offered if I could obtain a sample from England. 

The hair at Thetford was not without its own problems; a great deal of time was spent in establishing its ownership and the legalities of sampling it. I was assured by Mrs Sue Holt of the Thetford Library that the items in the Thomas Paine Collection were “available on deposit and available for public consultation and permanently safeguarded.” The planned exercise did not contravene the conditions. The Librarian took great care to make sure that the Library’s legal department and the Thomas Paine Society had full knowledge of the planned procedure, although I soon learned that the piece was in fact privately owned. The venture was to be the first attempt in the world to compare long separated biological relics of an individual figure of history. 

Having established that the owner is the present Secretary of the Thomas Paine Society, he agreed to a sample being taken. He had bought the Ambrose Barker collection, and placed the relic in the Library as part of the Thomas Paine Collection. Dr Loy was happy to do the work, and all I needed to do was to find an interested scientist in England who would take a sample from the hair under the sterile conditions required by Dr Loy. I was extremely fortunate in locating an interested biologist in Professor Godfrey Hewitt of the University of East Anglia, a short trip from Thetford. Professor Hewitt agreed to take the sample and, with Loy’s requirements for the sterile conditions and method of sampling sent to Hewitt, the project was, after several years of negotiations, contact with likely people, and many disappointments, under way. I did not ask Professor Ilewitt to attempt any DNA analyses. The comparison was to be done in Australia. 

Dr Loy advised that a further sample from the skull would be required. The submission date for my doctoral thesis, of which the scientific endeavour was to form a part, was approaching fast, but I was confident of including the results, be they positive or negative, despite Dr Loy’s tardiness in responding to correspondence. When I heard from Professor Hewitt that he had taken the sample at Thetford on 1st February, 2001, I confirmed with Dr Loy that my husband and I would visit his laboratory at the University of Queensland on 7th February. Professor Hewitt had his doubts about the hair. He thought “some dark material adhering” to it might be “blood, dye or other.” He was very surprised to find that the hair was dark. He wrote to Dr Loy, with a copy to me: “Thomas Paine was 73 when he died, and most certainly grey. So the hair is either not his or from earlier times.” Conway had noted that the hair he owned was “soft and dark, with a reddish tinge.”

John and I, together with my external supervisor who had, some time before, resigned from his position with the University of Queensland to set up a private commercial laboratory, met with Dr Loy as arranged. He was fascinated with the skull, photographs of the hair, and documentation on Paine’s remains which I had taken with me. After discussing the enterprise, we donned masks and gowns before entering the sterility of his inner, clean room where the skull had been irradiated with ultraviolet light to remove any contamination from handling since exhumation. Dr Loy had a student to assist him, later described by Loy as a “very sharp paleopathologist.” All being done under strictly sterile conditions, the student held the skull steady on silver foil while Dr Loy drilled a hole through the bone and obtained small fragments of cancellous (porous) bone from within the mastoid process close to the right ear opening. After gently shaking from the skull through the foramen magnum onto the foil, the sample was ground into a powder with a pestle and mortar. 

Having discussed my thesis and research at some length, and how I had moved from seeking people to relics, as we were leaving, Dr Loy’s student asked if he might extract some eyebrow hairs from my husband. I thought to myself that to do that he should have approval of his University’s Ethics Committee, such as I had sought and obtained from the University of Sydney prior to travelling overseas in 19b6, and the written consent of my husband. As I thought about that, I decided it was a good idea as, some time in the remote future, science may develop improved methods of establishing kinship rather than having to rely heavily on mitochondria! DNA, the DNA of each individual inherited intact from his or her mother. The hairs could be stored in the student’s care. Some were taken, and I decided the matter of formal consent could wait until such time as they were subjected to analysis, if ever. So far as we were concerned, that was the end of matters; it remained for Dr Loy to endeavour to extract DNA from the material he had secured. 

The business done, we returned to Sydney. So much had all participants enjoyed the morning that I quite forgot to pay the required deposit. I emailed Dr Loy with an apology’to which he replied not to pay anything until I received an official invoice after receipt of the full report. I anticipated that report with enormous interest. In the meantime, according to Loy, the sample had not arrived from the United Kingdom. I was anxious to thank the English scientists for the part they had played, so after some time and no news from Brisbane informing me of its arrival, I prodded him. In an email of 8th March, he told of the hair having arrived about a week before. He described “a sample of short hairs in a congealed mat of as yet unknown material, ‘perhaps blood or dye or other'” as observed by Professor Hewitt. Loy mentioned that he planned a laboratory day for that very day when he’d look at it and let me know what could be seen under a microscope. He also said he would be able to verify that the hair was human, promising to send the results to both Hewitt and myself. 

I was impressed. I had the report that same evening. It concluded: the hair was human; it was a mixture of colours ranging from light straw yellow to a darker brown, but including a few grey strands; the congealed matter was almost certainly blood C a couple of red blood cells were evident; what appeared to be a fragment of skin was embedded in the blood with the hairs; the sample had come from a deceased person who had been in contact with, or buried in, clay soil (this observation was based on the presence on the skull of vivianite, a dark blue/greenish mineral which occurs as concretions in clay); the sample was covered with a network of waste matter of insects and web silk suggestive of soil mites and indicative of contact with soil particles. In all, Loy concluded that the hair sample was of “some antiquity,” had been in contact with soil or soil particles, and was human. Simple tests to follow would confirm or deny the congealed matter being blood. Only one third to half the sample would be used for DNA analysis and the rest left in case of any future testing being required. 

I heard nothing more.but, knowing how busy and involved Dr Loy was with other matters, dismissed my concerns, although I had been led to believe that analysis time would be in the order of approximately thirty days. I too was busy, finishing off other aspects of my thesis. With the project now understood to be on a commercial basis, and hoping to have results soon, I sent a cheque in the amount of half the full fee to him. I felt the arrangement to be on a more solid basis with a deposit in place. I had heard nothing by December so telephoned Dr Loy. He had some results, but not very useful for our purpose. He did know with certainty that both the skull and hair/blood sample were from the same maternal population group, that being British. He was able to rule out German, Scandinavian, Spanish/Portuguese, Italian, etc. as the maternal population group. He mentioned that the DNA was damaged which prevented the usual testing for identity and sex. However, all-.was not lost, his team had a repair project under way and they hoped to have prepared a methodology in three months or so. The Paine project was second on the list for analysis as soon as a “reliable repair” had been achieved. 

The months went by and I completed my thesis but for the scientific side of the story. I nudged Dr Loy several times, each message more urgent than the last. Eventually, in response to a one-worded message, °TOM!? I received a strange reply in light of the brief of which he had complete understanding. The entire project had changed direction. Loy told of discussing the situation in terms of scalping and “other Paleopatholy [sic],” with the student whose expertise lay in that field, “and further DNA analysis.” It was agreed between them that the student could write a much more detailed pathology report including scalping and the healed depressed fracture” on the forehead of the skull. Also, Dr Loy wanted to have “another crack” at DNA analysis, but he needed further “raw material”? I was asked if it would be possible to travel to Queensland “in the very near future.” The student’s analysis could be done in a day, and DNA sampling would take only twenty minutes or so. It was considered that, with results having been so long in coming and results inconclusive, my payment to date was all that would be charged inclusive of any future analysis. My opinion was sought. 

My opinion was that it was time to ask questions. I queried my being told the previous year of the DNA being damaged and asked if that meant post-sampling or degraded by age. I asked, if it was the latter, would not another sample produce the same results? I asked if the repair had been perfected. If so, would not a little extra time help in making use of the DNA already extracted? I asked if it was possible to work with the DNA extracted in 1996, and mentioned that at the time Dr Loy had concluded that the subject was male. I had been told that some of that sample was held in case any further testing would be required. I quoted his messages with dates and mentioned that, before I would consider anything, I required answers; he had already had two “cracks” ‘at DNA analysis from three samples. I did not want to subject the skull to further impairment, and another trip to Brisbane was more than I could afford. In just over an hour, I had a reply. Yes, Loy still had DNA from the tooth in his freezer, he had forgotten that he had it. And, yes, “it may be possible to attempt to re-extract from the bone sample recently taken.” However, the extraction method was so efficient that it left little behind. As to damage, it happens that during the process of post- mortem drying out of bone and the eventual stabilisation of the DNA, some damage is sustained. This is caused by enzymes present in cells which are part of the repair mechanism in the living cell. Beyond this, water and other compounds change into ruinous “free radicals” which damage the DNA at random, but, once stabilised, there is little further damage until efforts to extract and amplify the DNA. It was hoped that there would be some measure of DNA repair by mid-June, and my samples would be “at the top of the list” once the repair process could be controlled. My response was further questioning regarding the utility of the 1996 extraction and, if it was of sufficient quantity, would not use of that at that stage be a viable option? I did not receive a reply. 

In mid-June, I again wrote to Dr Loy asking if he had managed to achieve a repair process and, if not, was it likely to be achieved in the foreseeable future? I further asked whether anything at all had been done with the DNA extraction taken in 1996, and if it was necessary to wait on achieving “some measure of DNA repair.” It was time to tell him that it was well past time that I had a report of what had been done, what had been impossible to do, or simply what had not been done. It was time to tell him that I had not had my money’s worth (a four figure sum), and to remind him, as he well knew, that journalists were harassing me seeking results. I found it embarrassing to tell them that there was nothing to report. Once again, I did not receive a reply. It was time to take the matter further. 

A few days later, I wrote to the Dean of the School which employed Dr Loy telling the full story and offering him copies of all correspondence. All I asked was a written explanation, completion of the project as far as was then possible, and/or a reasonable refund. All I had received for my money was a collection of contradictory emails. I should have appreciated the expected and promised return, a written report. Copies of my letter were sent to the Head of School, the Director of the commercial arm of the Department, Dr Loy, and to the Chair of the Department at the University of Sydney in which I was working on my thesis. Within four days of writing, I had a reply from the Director of the commercial arm. He was most apologetic, and wrote of having instituted an investigation to determine the state of the consultancy, the causes of the delays, and the best way of bringing the project to a successful conclusion as quickly as possible. He asked for copies of my correspondence with Loy, assured me that he was available to me at any time, and would write again soon. Dr Loy proved to be out of the country. Despite sending reminder emails on 6th and 8th August to the Director, I did not have a reply. Meantime my thesis had been submitted with the scientific details relegated to an inconclusive appendix; all that could be said was that the skull and hair samples were from the same population group, British, and that the matter of my not having been provided with a report was being investigated. 

It was, again, time to go further, to the top, the Vice Chancellor of the University of Queensland. I sent him an email on 15th August with a copy of the self-explanatory letter I had sent to Dr Loy’s superiors. I also sent the same content in a formal letter of the same date. I waited; there was no longer any urgency. Seven weeks on, I had still heard nothing from Queensland. On 26th September, I picked up the telephone, rang the Vice- Chancellor’s office, and asked to speak with him. I was given the expected reply: “He’s not here, he is at a meeting.” I did not mind the lack of confidentiality, so told his secretary that 1 had written to him on 15th August and had not had the courtesy of a reply. I was told that she would check a database and call me back. To my astonishment, she did, informing me that the letter had been forwarded to the Executive Dean and that I would be hearing from the Deputy Vice Chancellor with some “information.” Again, I waited. 

I telephoned the secretary again on 14th October. She assured me she had personally seen a letter written to me by the Deputy Vice-Chancellor on 2nd October. She said she would photocopy it and send it to me. A letter dated 2nd October, processed by Australia Post on 13th October, arrived on 17th October. It was an original signed letter, on letterhead, not from the Deputy Vice-Chancellor, but the Vice-Chancellor. The writer had had an opportunity to investigate the matters raised in my letter. His response was absurd in light of the occasional email reports I had had from Dr Loy. He told how the tooth sample had degraded in storage, but in 2001, was crushed and another extraction taken, but it yielded nothing; the hair sample was entirely destroyed after repeated sub sampling; and the entire sample from the skull was eventually used. The results of the exercise revealed that the skull was from a male person, the skull sample did not share a common maternal lineage with my husband, but, most surprising of all the results, it was found that the hair sample DNA was from a micro organism. I had been informed that it and the skull were from the same maternal population group, that being British. The writer also believed that I had been furnished with a full report on the findings; he understood that no target date was set for the completion of the analyses and report, and that Dr.Loy had explained the difficulties they were encountering. At the same time, he felt that I was justified in feeling that I had had too little information. The scientists, he wrote, had been informed that they must respond in a timely fashion to communications from clients. He understood my disappointment with the results. The entire fabrication was reminiscent of the description of Nanki-Poo’s execution as it unfolded in Gilbert and Sullivan’s Mikado. The letter necessitated a reply. 

In a letter of 25th October, of necessity long and involved, I informed the Vice-Chancellor that he had been misinformed; that I was not disappointed with the results because I had not been informed of any results; and was still waiting for the work to be completed. I asked, if possible, that Dr Loy should continue with the project. So far, as I was aware from our communications, DNA from the tooth wall available, the more recent extraction from the skull might have proved viable, and there should have been sufficient hair to continue. If it was not possible to continue, I asked that I be furnished with a full report from Dr Loy of what had been done, the state of the hair sample, the difficulties encountered, the reasons for discrepancies in the information provided to the Vice-Chancellor and to me, and what, if any, valid conclusions were reached in comparing samples. I sought a refund for services not performed or any unauthorized service; the latter covered misuse of an unapproved sample taken from my husband, and unnecessary pathological observations. I also told of the need to fulfill the request made by the owner of the hair when he approved the project, that I write a summary of it for the journal in which it appears. It was necessary to advise the Vice-Chancellor that his letter did not constitute a report such as might have been expected from reading the summary of services offered, and that it was antithetical to the short “reports” I had received. My letter brought a response by express post in the form of a large plastic envelope, received on 15th November, but of the two letters therein one, unsigned, was dated 15th August. 

The day on which I first emailed the Vice-Chancellor was 15th August. He had not then received my formal letter, but perhaps, or perhaps not, had then stirred the Director of the commercial service. Obviously back-dating his letter, he advised me that all the delays had been due to the diligent work that had been put into the project, the latest being his personal insistence that every possible attempt be made to produce a positive result. Images of the aforementioned description of-execution resurfaced. Enclosed were a report and a CD outlining in brief all the laboratory procedures that were undertaken and possible explanations for the inconclusive results. In light of the delays and the results, I was offered negotiable discussion on the fee I had paid. It was pointed out that it was not normal to reduce the fee on obtaining such results, but due to the lengthy time delays, it seemed “appropriate.” The letter ended with an apology that the institution had not been able to supply the positive results I was seeking. I was quite prepared, at all times, to accept a negative result, but I was not prepared for the astonishing correspondence still to come. I read the report, of which the CD was an exact copy; it was ridiculous. In the opening summary of fourteen lines, which included the conclusion, the brief was described as concerning three separate questions: whether the skull was from a male human; to investigate any population affinity between the skull and my husband; and to report on pathological features consistent with it being that of Thomas Paine. At no time were these questions part of the brief. It was established as early as 1990 that the skull was male, a fact ascertained by examination of muscle attachment (that of a male is more robust than that of a female). My husband was not concerned in the investigation, and all the pathological features had already been noted before Dr Loy was engaged. 

However, the conclusion was that DNA sexing revealed that the skull was from a male; the skull and my husband were not of the same mitochondrial subgroup which indicated they did not share the same maternal lineage; and pathology provided the clearest evidence that the skull is that of Paine. 

The second letter that accompanied the report was dated 13th November; it was from the Deputy Vice-Chancellor. Not surprisingly, as I should have been had I been given the task of dealing with this extraordinary matter, he seemed to find it tiresome. He told me the Vice-Chancellor himself had provided me with a detailed statement of the sequence of events and results, and of his “fear” that the report that was sent to me by the Archaeological Unit on 17th August had not been received. He enclosed a second version, which he hoped I’d find interesting, together with the letter of 15th August. There was further correspondence; I requested the Deputy Vice-Chancellor to seek for me an explanation in writing from Dr Loy of the many inconsistencies in the various “reports,’ the reason for use of material from my husband, and credible clarification of those matters for inclusion in this article, the planning of which Loy was aware. My letter was acknowledged and, I was told, passed to Dr Loy, it being “entirely up to him as to whether he engages in any further dialogue” about this matter. He advised that he himself would not be entering into any further correspondence. By then I was not interested in further correspondence or seeking a refund. 

There, sadly, ended an exciting project that, regardless of positive or negative results, either expected, was a fascinating enterprise which captured the interest of the international press. Unfortunately, the truth of the matter will never be known. It is known, however, that Dr Loy’s work has been called into question on other occasions. That, however, does not necessarily detract from his professional aptitude as a teacher. His knowledge in his field was impressive. 

As mentioned above, I have presented facts briefly, and speculated on possibilities; I have shared the wonder of acquiring an intriguing box and contents; and I’ve faithfully recounted the drawn-out ordeal of an unfathomable business arrangement. The story ends with a tragic twist. When concluding this account, I thought to discover what project Dr Loy was currently engaged in. I was shocked to learn that he died just over a year ago. To my knowledge, his death has never been explained, apart from the fact that foul play was not suspected. He died alone and was not found for some days. He was a personable man who initially showed enthusiasm for the Paine project.

© Hazel Burgess 2007

The post An Extended History of the Remains of Thomas Paine  appeared first on .

First let me say what a great pleasure it is to read the Journal of Radical History (hereinafter JRH). There is always a great deal to ponder and often a good deal of useful information and/or history. Thanks to the Thomas Paine Society for publishing it. 

A recent article by Leo Bressler entitled ‘Peter Porcupine and the Bones of Thomas Paine’ gives pause to consider the nature of history; particularly the nature of good history.

1. Bressler says Paine “died in poverty”. He most certainly did not. His friends visited and sat with him until the end and when he died he left a considerable estate valued at around $7500.00 in liquid assets apart and aside from his 300 acre farm in New Rochelle. According to the Economic History Centre, and depending on how you compute it, that would equate in today’s dollars something like this:

$111,518.92 using the Consumer Price Index.

$109.889.04 using the GDP deflector.

$1,084.791.78 using the unskilled wage.

$2,664. using the GDP per capita.

$110,106.191.02 using the relative share GDP.

Paine was no pauper. The testimony of those who knew him is that he was abstemious in personal habit but with the need to be generous to a fault.

2. Bressler describes Madame Bonneville as “a French Catholic whom Paine had befriended along with her children, when she was widowed”. That statement is just as inaccurate as the previous. To the contrary, Paine resided with Madame Bonneville and her husband Nicholas and their family in Paris, from approximately 1797 to 1802. Nicholas was a prominent publisher, freemason and at the centre of the Cede Social… and a very close friend and associate of Paine’s. He was placed under surveillance and virtual house arrest, his safety compromised and his press suspended under Napoleon’s regime. Paine welcomed his wife and sons to shelter in America. He supported them and his Last Will and Testament provided for the boys’ education upon his death. Conway has it about right when he describes how Nicholas rejoined his wife in America after he was “relieved of his surveillance, hastened to New York, where he and his family were reunited, and enjoying the happiness provided by Paine’s self- sacrificing economy” (Moncure Conway. The Life of Thomas Paine. Putnam & Sons, 1908). 

3. Bressler’s statement that “Cobbett had come first to the United States in 1792” is technically correct, but he leaves the wrong impression since Cobbett came to America for the first time seven years earlier in 1785 when he served in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick with a military regiment. He lived in America about four years on that occasion. 

4. The editor of this journal has already properly observed that, contrary to Bressler’s assertion, Cobbett was never flogged. 

5. Bressler says that Cobbett “had become almost as much a crusader for human rights as Paine had been”. There is no wish on my part nor would it be possible to detract from the influential and amazing career of Cobbett, but to compare him to Paine is a stretch. Even in his later more radical phase (he was a hidebound and antagonistic Tory apologist in his early years) Cobbett never achieved anything near the democratic perspective or influence of Thomas Paine. Cobbett ever looked to the somewhat chimerical “English Constitution” or the mythical Saxon one for precedent. Paine’s radically democratic conception repudiated the Constitutionalism of Cobbett and others, has never yet been achieved, and still electrifies the mind today: 

“There never did, there never will, and there never can exist a parliament, or any description of man, or any generation of men, in any country, possessed of the right or the power of binding and controlling posterity to the “end of time”, or of commanding for ever how the world shall be governed, or who shall govern it; …Every age and generation must be free to act for itself, in all cases, as the ages and generations that preceded it. The vanity and presumption of governing beyond the grave, is the most ridiculous and insolent of all tyrannies…It is the living, and not the dead, that are to be accommodated…That which a whole nation chooses to do, it has a right to do”. (Thomas Paine. Rights of Man, Part 1).

6. Bressler says that Cobbett “requested permission to disinter Paine’s bones. After encountering some difficulty, he was granted permission in 1819”. No such thing ever happened. First of all, no civil or statutory authority had the power to give that permission. With the provisio that, like Paine, I shall be happy to be proven wrong (and thereby learn and profit by experience). I should like to know where Bressler came up with this bit of fantasy; perhaps the grave robber’s own self-serving account? Factually, Cobbett desecrated Paine’s grave in the early hours before sunrise and fled to New York City with a Westchester deputy in pursuit. 

7. Bressler states that “it too a great deal of courage for Corbett to bring the remains of Paine to England”. Courage? More like a shameless self-serving gall. Cobbett may be said to have violated every landmark of honour and propriety through his actions and additionally to have violated the last wish of the man he claimed to admire. Paine’s Last Will and Testament stated unequivocally that he wished to be interred on his farm in New Rochelle and he never gave the slightest inkling of any desire that his remains remain anywhere else but in America. 

8. Bressler cites Cobbett’s complaint that “Former friends shrugged their shoulders and looked hard in my face, as if in wonder”. No doubt. They were doubtless shocked to find themselves in the company of a grave robber. As such, he was lucky any friends kept by him whatsoever. Many believed him mad; it seems reasonable to observe that he showed signs of derangement. 

9. Bressler refers to “Cobbett’s noble project”. The phrase is shocking and bereft of common sense. 

10. Bressler says that “three years after Cobbett’s death the United States belatedly erected a monument to Paine in New Rochelle”. Nothing of the sort. The modest marble column was erected through the efforts of publisher Gilbert Vale and a relatively small group of radical reformers and freethinkers with connections in the Working Men and Loco Foco/Equal. 

Cobbett’s grim folly not only fell predictably on its face, it resulted in the scattering and loss of Paine’s remains. Beilby Porteus (1731-1809) 

The author concludes by saying “in some sense the monument was also a tribute to William Cobbett”. If the essay’s conclusions follow from its premises, we may well question the author’s judgement.

Coeur d’Alene,

Idaho, USA.

© Kenneth W. Burchell, 2005. All rights reserved. Non profit users may reprint with author’s copyright cited as above.

The post Correspondence: Leo Bressler on ‘Peter Porcupine and the Bones of Thomas Paine’ appeared first on .

During The American Revolution the name of Thomas Paine was almost as well known to Americans as that of George Washington. His pamphlet Common Sense was directly responsible for bringing on the Declaration of Independence. The first number of The Crisis, which begins the famous sentence “These are the times that try men’s souls”, stirred the colonists from New England to Georgia. Written in December, 1776, when the cause of the colonies was at its darkest hour and American troops were deserting, The Crisis gave renewed hope and courage to Washington’s ragged army. Succeeding numbers of The Crisis made Paine the official propagandist of the American cause and truly one of the Founding Fathers of the nation. 

The fame which these writings brought to Thomas Paine during the Revolution is known to every school boy. Not so well known are the pathos and tragedy of the closing years of his life. A national hero at the end of the war, Paine saw his reputation swept away by the currents of reactionary politics and evangelistic religious enthusiasm. Once hailed as the “father of American Independence”, his friendship cherished by the great figures of the Revolution — Washington, Jefferson, Samuel Adams, Lafayette, and many others — he spent his last days in obscure poverty, shunned by former friends and reviled by his enemies as an atheist! He was denied the right to vote because he was not a citizen. The government refused him the paltry pension he had been promised. And, finally, when he realised that death was approaching and he asked to be buried in the Quaker cemetery at New Rochelle, New York, even this request was denied.¹ 

Paine died in Greenwich Village on June 8, 1809. A cortege composed of six persons accompanied the body to the grave in a field on Paine’s farm near New Rochelle. And yet the small group of mourners was in many ways a fitting one. In the processions were Madam Bonneville,² a French Catholic whom Paine had befriended, along with her children, when she was widowed. Madam Bonneville’s two young sons, a Quaker minister Willett

Hicks, and two Negroes, who walked the twenty-five miles from New York to the burial place. To Paine, who had devoted his life to the cause of human equality and freedom, who had said, “The world is my country, and to do good is my religion”, these attendants would have been eminently satisfactory. And he would no doubt have been gratified by Madam Bonneville’s words, pronounced as the earth fell on the coffin, “Oh, Mr. Paine, my son stands here as testimony of the gratitude America, and I for France”.³ 

Paine’s isolated grave was neglected and all but forgotten until 1819. Then, by a strange irony, the man who had once been Paine’s bitterest enemy, an Englishman by the name of William Cobbett, came to cry shame upon the United States for its shabby treatment of its great Revolutionary hero. 

Cobbett had first come to the United States in 1792. He was then twenty-eight, a tall, heavy set man with a florid complexion and a tendency toward corpulency, characteristics which later prompted Carlyle to call him “the pattern John Bull – of his century”.⁴ He brought with him a letter of introduction to Thomas Jefferson from William Short, the American Ambassador at The Hague; but this gained him only. an indefinite promise of future help from Jefferson. After working as a teacher and gardener at Wilmington, Delaware, for several years, Cobbett came to Philadelphia and soon became embroiled in political strife. Writing under the name of “Peter Porcupine”, he became perhaps the most widely read pamphleteer of his time and was one of the founders of our party press. 

Although he hoped to become an American citizen and to establish himself here, he remained an extremely loyal Englishman. Thus, when Britain was violently denounced in Philadelphia newspapers and effigies of Pitt, the British prime minister, were burned in the public square, he rushed to the defence of England. Allying himself with pro-British Federalists, he published scores of pamphlets and two newspapers, The Political Censor and Porcupine’s Gazette, in which he defended the monarchy and lashed out at those who supported democratic ideas. His dear, direct, idiomatic style and his genius for nicknames and vituperation soon made him one of the foremost political journalists in the young republic. 

Showing no respect for person or office, Peter Porcupine hurled his poisoned quills at random. Thomas Jefferson, Samuel Adams, Joseph Priestley, Benjamin Franklin, Benjamin Rush, and a host of other notable public figures were the victims of his gifted and abusive pen.⁵

At various times he called Franklin a quack, a hypocrite, an infidel and a whoremaster. Frequently he referred to him as “Old Lightning Rod”. In a venomous attack upon Benjamin Franklin Bache, grandson of Franklin and editor of the Republican Aurora, Porcupine called Franklin “a lecherous old hypocrite of a grandfather, whose very statue seems to gloat on the wenches as they walk the State House yard”.⁶ He called Dr. Rush, among other things, “Dr. Death” and “Dr. Quack”, accusing him of having killed more people with his purging and blood-letting during the yellow fever epidemic than Samson slew Philistines. 

But Porcupine directed his most vicious attacks against Thomas Paine and even wrote an abusive, slanderous biography of him.⁷ As no single epithet served to describe “the infamous Tom Paine”. he called him a hypocritical monster, a sacrilegious monster, a seditionist, a rascal, a blasphemer, a wretch who beat his wife. ‘Like Judas”, wrote Porcupine, “he will be remembered by posterity. men will learn to express all that is base, malignant, treacherous, unnatural, and blasphemous. by the single monosyllable, Paine”. 

Cobbett finally overreached himself and was sued for libel by Dr. Rush. After being ordered to pay $5,000 damages — a very heavy penalty in those days — he decided that the United States had become too hot for him. With a final blast at Americans, democracy, and the government in a bitter farewell address, he sailed for England on May 30, 1800. Philip Freneau celebrated Cobbett’s departure with a bit of doggerel that seems to have just a touch of regret in it:

Alack, alack, he might have stayed

And followed here the scribbling trade,

And lived without royal aid.

But democratic laws he hated,

Our government he so be-rated,

That his own projects he defeated.

He took his leave from Sandy Hook,

And parted with a surly look

That all observed and few mistook.

Back in England,. Cobbett led a quiet life for-a time, continuing his newspaper work. But he soon became disillusioned with the Tory class he had so staunchly defended in America. He saw the upper classes getting rich while the great mass of workers lived in poverty. He noted widespread political corruption. He saw British seamen brutally flogged in public. He saw hungry men not and saw the riots cruelly put down. With characteristic vigour and fearlessness, Cobbett turned his pen against the evil and injustice about him. And when the Tory government refused to do anything to right these wrongs, he became a Radical and appealed to the labouring classes. 

For his efforts Cobbett was fined, flogged, (There is no evidence that Cobbett was flogged — Editor) and thrown into prison. But nothing silenced him. He was determined to better the condition of the workingman, whom he saw helpless before a growing industrial and financial power. Through pamphlets and through his cheap newspaper, the Political Register, he rallied the labouring classes to their own defence. His “two-penny trash”, as his enemies called his newspaper, was read avidly in every workingmen’s club and meeting place; and from it the workingmen got courage and a sense of strength. 

As the popularity of Cobbett’s writings grew, so did the wrath of his aristocratic and wealthy enemies. Feeling that he might incite a revolt among the workers, they assailed him from all sides until his very life was in danger. Thus, early in 1817, Cobbett was once more in flight — this time to America. 

The Cobbett who returned to the United States in 1817 was not the Peter Porcupine who had denounced this nation and all democratic ideas. He now came in sackcloth and ashes, singing the praise of this country, its government, and its people. Here, said Cobbett, one saw no “hang-dog face of a tax-gatherer”, no “long-sworded and bewhiskered Captains”. The people were “the most moral and happy in the world”; nowhere else were people “so well-behaved, so orderly, so steady …. So obedient to law”.⁸ 

Cobbett had changed his mind not only about the United States, but “also about Thomas Paine. Indeed, he had become almost as much a crusader for human rights as Paine had been. During his stay in England he had read Paine’s Decline and Fall of the English System of Finance, a treatise which had correctly predicted the suspension of cash payments by the Bank of England. This completely changed his opinion of the man he had once pictured as a devil.⁹ Convinced that he had done Paine a great injustice in the slanderous biography he had written, Cobbett resolved to make amends. 

Proclaiming that the United States had too long neglected the remains of Thomas Paine, he requested permission to disinter Paine’s bones. After encountering some difficulty, he was granted permission in 1819. An account of the disinterment was published in Cobbett’s Political Register. 

‘I have just done here a thing, which I have always. since coming to this country vowed that I would do: that is, taken up the remains of our famous countryman, Paine, in order to convey them to England. The Quakers. even the Quakers. refused him a grave! I found him lying in the corner of a rugged barren field! Our expedition set out from New York, in the middle of the night; got to the place (twenty-two miles off) at peep of day; took up the coffin entirely; brought it off New York; and just as we found it, it went to England. Let it be considered the act of the Reformers of England, Scotland, and Ireland. In their names we opened the grave and in their names will the torn be raised.”¹⁰ 

After the bones had been put on a ship sailing for England, Cobbett wrote to an American friend: 

“I have just performed a duty which has been too long delayed: you have neglected too long the remains of Thomas Paine. I have done myself the honour to disinter his bones…. 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 these bones will effect the reformation of England in Church and State.”¹¹

The news of Cobbett’s venture caused a great stir in the United States, but the excitement here was nothing compared to that in England when the bones arrived there on November 21, 1819. The town crier of Bolton was imprisoned for nine weeks for proclaiming the arrival of Thomas Paine’s remains. Even the halls of Parliament echoed with loud denunciations of. Cobbett and Paine. English newspapers launched bitter attacks against Cobbett. One paper carried a cartoon picturing Cobbett seated on Paine’s coffin, in a boat named, ‘Rights of Man’, rowed by Negro staves. A pamphlet containing a cartoon of Cobbett carrying Paine’s coffin on his back and copies of Peter Porcupine’s The Blood Buoy and of his Weekly Register¹² in his pocket was so popular that it went into at least eight editions. Written in derisive doggerel, it imputed the basest of motives to Cobbett’s bringing the bones of Thomas Paine to England:

This is

WILL COBBETT

With Thomas Paine’s bones

A bag full of brick-bats, and

one full of stone,

With which he intends to discharge

the long Dept.

He owes to his friends, and Sir Francis Burdet: 

Tis Cobbett. the changeling,

the worthless and base.

Just arrived from New York.

with his impudent face.

Who comes to dispel our

political fogs,

And to add one more beast to

our Hampshire Hogs.

Totnix with the RADICALS-

Friends of Reform.

Devising new Plots, for

Exiting a Storm….¹³

It actually took a great deal of courage for Cobbett to bring the remains of Paine to England. As a near contemporary of Cobbett’s stated, Paine’s reputation “among the governing and conventionally respectable classes … was an abhorred thing”.¹⁴ At about this time, Richard Carlile, a Rationalist publisher, spent nearly ten years in prison for publishing Paine’s works. “To have brought home the bones of Pine amidst such a state of things was to put the public to the severest test. The Times and Courier newspapers attacked Cobbett with every species of vindictive scurrility…. ‘Former friends’, writes Cobbett, ‘shrugged their shoulders and looked hard in my face, as if in wonder’.¹⁵

But courage was one thing Cobbett had never lacked, and he had long been accustomed to public abuse. Thus, soon after his arrival in England he announced plans for honouring the memory of Thomas Paine; “If it please God to give us life, we will have a funeral worthy of the remains that are to be buried. I do not say when this will take place; but it shall be, if I live, in a season when twenty wagon-loads of flowers can be brought to strew the road before the hearse.”¹⁶ He proposed to build a splendid mausoleum to house the bones of Paine. Funds for this project, he said, would be raised by public subscription. However, his idea was so poorly received that Cobbett never made any effort to collect the money. 

He next announced plans for a great dinner to be held on Paine’s birthday. But once again no one would take him seriously and the idea was abandoned. Finally, he had locks of Paine’s hair soldered up in rings. which he hoped to sell — presumably to raise money for some memorial to Paine. But Cobbett found no buyers; he succeeded only in producing a great deal of amusement.¹⁷ 

Cobbett’s noble project to honour the memory of Thomas Paine finally collapsed under a barrage of insult and ridicule.¹⁸ Hack writers and distinguished poets had an equal share in jeering at “Cobbey’s Dream”, as one versifier called it. Even Lord Byron contributed a quatrain to the general fun:

In digging up your bones, Tom Paine,

Will Cobbett has done well; .

You visit him on earth again,

He’ll visit you in hell.

Or, Byron suggested, these alternative lines might be used:

You come to him on earth again,

He’ll go with you to Hell.¹⁹

Thus the mortal remains of Thomas Paine found no resting place in England. For a number of years they were shunted about Cobbett’s house in Bolt Court, Fleet Street, London, where Cobbett had taken up residence. In January 1833, the bones were packed into a box and sent to Normandy Farm, Surrey, where Cobbett had taken up residence. A Mr. Benjamin Tilly, who served as Cobbett’s secretary and companion in his last years, removed part of the brain from the skull as he was preparing the bones for shipping. Years later the following note from the souvenir-hunting Tilly was found among the Cobbett family papers: “On Tuesday, January 27, 1833, I went to 11 Bolt Court, Fleet Street, and there in the company of Mr. Antsell and Mr. Dean, I saw at the house of Mr.Cobbett the remains of Mr. Thomas Paine, when I procured some of his hair. and from his skull I took a portion of his brain. which has become hard, and is almost black. — B. Tilly.²⁰

Upon Gobbets death, on June 18, 1835, Cobbett’s oldest son and sole executor took possession of the farm and also the remains of Paine, which had been packed into an old trunk.²¹ When Cobbett’s effects were sold at auction in January 1836, the bones were not listed in the catalogue of the sale. Mr. Oldfield, Cobbett’s publisher, requested that they should be sold, but his appeal was denied by the Lord Chancellor, who refused to regard the bones as part of Cobbett’s estate. For a time the bones were in the possession of a day labourer by the name of George West. In 1844, West turned them over to Tilly, who had expressed his determination that Cobbett’s intentions regarding the bones be carried out.²² From here the records are vague. In 1854, Robert Ainslee, a Unitarian clergyman, maintained that he owned the skull and right hand of Paine, but he refused to answer further inquiries.²³ Some time later, according to one source, a man by the name of Ginn told a visitor that he had the bones in a bag, but that he couldn’t find them at the moment because his wife wasn’t home. When Mrs. Ginn returned, she said that she had let the bones be carried away with some rubbish • when she cleared out the room where BenjaminTilly had died.²⁴ What eventually happened to the mortal remains of Thomas Paine — whether they were buried or whether they were simply knocked about until they crumbled to dust — no one knows.²⁵ 

The bones of Paine thus ended their long, restless journey in oblivion. And yet, William Cobbett’s strange enterprise was perhaps not entirely a failure. As late as 1847 a society was formed in London for the purpose of collecting funds for raising a monument to the memory of Paine.²⁶ Three years after Cobbett’s death the United States belatedly erected a monument to Paine at New Rochelle. In a sense his monument was also a tribute to William Cobbett, who first took Americans to task for failing to honour the memory of Thomas Paine. 

Legend has it that when Cobbett took the bones of Paine to England, Paine’s little finger was left in the United States.²⁷ This, as one biographer has written, is probably only a nicely contrived fable of Paine’s “one small movement, now stronger than the loins of bigotry that refused him a vote or a grave in the land he so greatly served.

References and Notes

1. William Cobbati described the Quakers refusal of Paine’s request with characteristic rashness, but also with essential truth: “Mr.Paine was the only man of distinguished talent produced•amongst- the Society of Quakers. His wish was to be buried in the Quaker burying ground in New York. This wish was expressed, I believe, to Mr. Willett Hicks, of that city. And what was the reason on which the Quakers founded their objection? Why this, that there were many who accused them of deism already; if they buried him in their ground, the accusation would have a circumstance to rest on. The reason was very mean, to say the best of it; and all the Quakers I have talked with on the subject, in America, will acknowledge that I reproached them with their cowardice; and their want of all feeling of honour, and with their casting from them the only great man their sect has ever produced”. Quoted in, J. Watson, A Brief History of the Remains of the Late Thomas Paine from the Time of Their Disinterment in /8/9 by the late William Cobbett, M.P. down to the Year 1846. London, 1847. p.2. 

2. Mother of Capt. B.L.E.Bonneville, whose journal recounting his travels in the northwestern territory and his activities in the fur trade was published by Washington Irving under the title, The Rocky Mountains in 1837. 

3. Quoted in William Cobbett’s Sketch of the Life of Thomas Paine, which was written , in collaboration with Madam Bonneville The Sketch is appended to Moncure D. Conway’s, The Life of Thomas Paine (New York, 1909. pp.433-559. 

4. Clark, M.E. Peter Porcupine in America: The Career of William Cobbett, 1792-1800. New York, 1939. p.5. 

5. Cobbett’s Observations on the Emigration of Dr. Priestley, was tremendously popular, going through four editions. Even more widely read was his pamphlet The Bloody Buoy, a piece of anti-revolutionary propaganda. This was read as late as 1825 and was even translated into German and published in Reading as Die Blut Fahne. 

6. Porcupine’s Gazette, July 13, 1797. See also the issue for Sept. 23,1797. 

7. ‘Life of Thomas Paine’ in Political Censor, September 1796. 

8. Cobbett, W. A Year’s Residence in the United States. Boston, Nd. pp.25, 154, 169, 181 and passim. 

9. In Paper Against Gold, and Glory Against Prosperity, published in 1815, Cobbett wrote as follows: “In principle of finance, Mr. Paine was greatly skilled; and to his very great care and rare talents as a writer he added an uncommon degree of experience in the concerns of paper money, the rise and fall of which he witnessed in the United States and in France…. Events have proved the truth of his principles on the subject, and to point out that fact is no more than an act of justice, due to his talents, an act more particularly due at my hands, I have been one of his most violent assailants. Any man may fall into error, but a fool or a knave will seldom acknowledge it. Quoted in Watson, 4. See also William Reitzel, ed. The Autobiography of William Cobbett. London, 1933. pp.129-130.

10. Vol.XXXV, London, 1920. p.382. 11. From a letter to J.W.Francis published in Lewis Melville, The Life and Letters of William Cobbett in England and America. New York, 1913. 

11. P.116. 

12. Cobbett’s paper underwent many changes of title, Political Register is the most familiar title. 

13. The Real or Constitutional House That Jack Built. London, 1819. 

14. ‘Thomas Paine’s Bones and their Owners’, South Place Magazine. XIV. December, 1908. p.40. One piece of satirical versifying, in twelve stanzas, Ode on the Bones of the ray-mortal Thomas Paine, newly transported from America to England by no less lm-mortal William Cobbett, Esq. London, 1819, attacked Paine’s Deism and those who supported it. Now let a thousand cat-squalls sound To tell the neighbouring kingdoms round: Let England, Ireland, Scotland Ring, • Whilst Paean hosts of Deists sing, “The bones of our Apostle PAINE “Revisit England’s happy shores again!” 

15. ‘Thomas Paine’s Bones and their Owners’. P.40. 

16. Quoted in Watson, p.7. 

17. Melville. II. P.118. 

18. Cobbett did not give up his project easily or immediately. In September 1821, he wrote: “as to the bones of Paine, they shall have their honourable burial and monument. There must be suitable preparation for this. The healing hand of time is working for his memory. The memory is in the care of the wise, the just, and the generous of mankind. His bones are ‘in my care, and in due time they shall be deposited in a place and in a manner that are suitable to the mind that once animated the body, and set those bones in motion. If I shall die before this is accomplished, those who will be alive that will perform the sacred duty in my stead. Quoted in ‘Thomas Paine’s Bones and their Owners’, p.24. 

19. Melville. II. P.116. 

20. ‘Thomas Paine’s Bones and their Owners’, p.39. This article is based on statements made by a Mr.George Reynolds, who was at one time a Baptists minister at Stepney. Reynolds stated that he obtained a collection of manuscripts formerly belonging to Cobbett through a family named Ginn. These manuscripts, according to Reynolds, formerly belonged to Benjamin Tilly, who had given them to the Ginns for kindnesses they had paid him during the last days of his life. Reynolds maintained that he bought the manuscripts from the Ginns for twenty-five pounds, including the fragment of hair and Tilly’s note. 

21. According to one source, Cobbett’s son inscribed Cobbett’s name “in several places on the skull and on most of the larger bones of the limbs, in order, we suppose, to the more easy verification of them in case of dispute…” Watson, pp.5-6. 

22. Ibid. p.7.

23. See Conway, p.427 (note). 

24. See reference 19. 

25. For further unverified reports of the later history of Thomas Paine’s bones see, ‘Thomas Paine’s Bones and their Owners’. 

26. Watson, p.2. 

27. In an article published in the New York Sun, May 25, 1902, Moncure Conway wrote that, according to an item in the New York Beacon, for December 7, 1845, “a little finger of Paine was in the possession of a `Friend’, a Quaker of Long Island”. In the same article Conway related how he had bought the fragment of Paine’s brain from a London bookseller for five pounds and brought it to the United States for burial. 

28 Conway, p.428.

This paper was originally published in the Pennsylvannia Magazine of History and Biography. 82. 1958, and more recently in Cobbett’s New Register, the journal of the William Cobbett Society, from which we have reprinted it.

The post Peter Porcupine And The Bones Of Thomas Paine appeared first on .

Of Moses the great lawgiver of Israel we read that, “no one knoweth of his sepulchre”. The same may be said of Thomas Paine, who was a mighty potent force in advancing a better system of government, human rights and much else in America, Britain and France. It took time for his message to be heard but the history of the spread of democracy cannot be written without it.Yet why do the people of Britain generally know more about Pepys of the 17th century than Paine of the 18th. century? 

It was William Cobbett who dug up Paine’s bones in the dead of night in 1819 and brought them back to England with the intention of building a mausoleum in his honour. Appropriately the ship carrying his remains was the ‘Hercules’. Earlier Cobbett had written misguidedly in the USA, “How Tom gets a living or what brothel he inhabits I know not. He has done all the mischief known to man in the world and whether his carcass is the last to be suffered to rot in the earth or to be dried in the air is of little consequence”. Yet after Paine died he changed his opinion, writing in his Register, “We will honour this noble of nature, his memory, his remains, in all sorts of ways. The tomb of this noble of nature will be an object of pilgrimage with all people”. But what actually happened? 

Upon opening the coffin at the Liverpool Customs House, Cobbett said, “These, gentlemen, are the mortal remains of Thomas Paine’. True to form the plate on the coffin bore the wrong date of death, seventy-four instead of seventy two years. The coffin went to Cobbett’s London home and two years after his death to his farm near Farnham, Surrey. Soon after their arrival a Bolton town crier was imprisoned for announcing this. The Times and The Courier attacked Cobbett for bringing Paine’s remains back with great vindictiveness. Former friends shrugged their shoulders and Members of Parliament ridiculed him, so he rather furtively kept them until his death, making it rather late as an MP. 

A few years before death Cobbett became permanently estranged from his family and a Mr. Tilley became his secretary and constant companion. After Cobbett’s death his son engraved Paine’s name on his skull and other bones, but when his effects were sent for auction the auctioneer refused to put Paine’s remains up for auction. The Lord Chancellor’s was appealed to but declined to consider them as part of Cobbett’s estate and refused to make any order concerning them. The box was taken by a Mr. West, one of Cobbett’s trustees, but when he subsequently failed as a farmer he sent them to Mr. Tilley, who in 1847 was living in Stepney. 

In 1818, a Stepney Baptist minister named Reynolds said he had purchased for £25 some manuscripts and other items of Cobbett’s via a family named Guin, among these being Paine’s brain, or part of it, that had been removed from the skull by Tilley. He also said that following Tilley’s death a bag containing Paine’s bones had been thrown out. 

Moncure Conway in an article he contributed to the New York Sun in 1892, said that he had purchased a small portion of Paine’s brain for £5, which he buried below the Paine monument at New Rochelle in 1839. There are also reports of Paine’s jaw having been buried in Wales and his bones having been buried at Ash near Farnham.

Now who should we blame for this dastardly treatment of the remains of one of mankind’s greatest benefactors? First in line of censure must be the New Rochelle Quakers for refusing Paine burial in their graveyard. This would have been most appropriate in view of the strong Quaker beliefs of his father, which he had instilled into his son. 

The Lord Chancellor of Britain must also be held culpable for not ordering a proper burial, but most of the blame rests with that great agitator and enigma, William Cobbett, and perhaps later with his son. If financial problems were the main difficulty in Cobbett’s failure to provide his planned mausoleum, then he could have appealed for financial assistance from his Liberal minded friends, or did he fail to do this because he feared it would effect his chance of election to the House of Commons? 

In the circumstances it would have been better, perhaps, for Cobbett to have left Paine’s remains at New Rochelle, where he had been buried with only five people present, two being Negroes who stood as witnesses to his efforts to end slavery, the others being Mrs. Bonneville, long time platonic friend of Paine’s from France, her son, and a Quaker, Willett Hicks. Had his remains been left they would have lain for ever in the land granted him by New York State in gratitude for his services to American independence. 

However, Cobbett unwittingly did the right thing for the wrong reason, for the first real Citizen of the World belongs to no one country. Paine’s memory is part of the cultural history of all peoples and we should be proud of that fact. 

Editor’s note: This unpublished article by the late Eric Paine appears to have been prepared initially as a lecture given to the William Cobbett Society on April 25, 1992

The post The Bare Bones Of Thomas Paine appeared first on .

MANY YEARS AGO when Gifford Pinchot was Governor of Pennsylvania he honored me by requesting that I accept an appointment to a high position in his administration. Knowing nothing whatsoever about politics, I sought a confer- ence with him. I inquired, “What makes one successful in politics?” 

The astute Governor replied, “The main ingredient of success in politics is to restrict yourself to endorsing very few worthwhile projects. It would be best if you identified yourself with only one. For,” as he explained, “no matter how beneficial a project may be to the general community, it neverthe- less hurts quite a few persons, sometimes important in politics and finance. If you succumb to espousing every good cause, you keep building up the number of your enemies. Soon they reach such proportions that you cannot possibly be re-elected, and become generally disliked.” 

No one illustrates this form of committing political suicide better than Thomas Paine. He did not hesitate a moment to rush in to promote every good cause and to expose every injustice, and he ended up being generally despised, with virtually everyone his enemy for one reason or another. 

Two hundred and twenty-two years ago, when Thomas Paine was born in Thetford, Norfolk, England, nearly all governments were hereditary monarchies, despotic or benign. Opportunities for free education for the workingman’s children were either scarce or non-existent. Paine’s first thirty-seven years were of little significance. They included a formal education through the Thetford Grammar School, which was all his family could afford, and two brief marriages. He tried to earn a decent livelihood, but failed or was unhappy in every job he tried. When working for the government as an exciseman, he discovered that his meagre pay was insufficient to include upkeep for a horse, which was a necessity. Graft was rampant and the government was cheated to make ends meet. Seeing injustice to both sides, Paine organized the excisemen into a kind of union and wrote for them a plea for an increase in their pay, which he addressed to each member of Parliament. The result was foregone: he was dismissed. 

Benjamin Franklin had at this same time been dismissed from his position as Postmaster for North America, and the two of them met in London at scientific lectures and became friends. Franklin must have been favorably impressed by Paine’s methods of reasoning, because he sent him with letters of introduction to his son-in-law Richard Bache, a prosperous wine merchant in Philadelphia, and apparently also to his natural son William Franklin, then royal Governor of New Jersey (See letter from Paine to Franklin, March 4, 1775). 

The best way to correct an injustice, Paine thought, was to publicize it. When he found a slave market opposite his lodgings in Philadelphia, he immed- iately wrote for the newspaper (Pennsylvania Journal, March 8,1775) an article against slavery so powerful that it not only attracted attention, but also gained him important friends, such as the Philadelphia physician, Dr. Benjamin Rush. Perhaps it is only coincidental, but the first association against slavery in America was organised in Philadelphia shortly after Paine’s article appeared. 

A month later when blood was spilled in the Battle of Lexington (April 19, 1775), Paine felt so strongly against this outrage by the British Government that he thought the newspapers would not give sufficient space to do justice to his carefully worked-out arguments. The article, more than eighty pages long, he called Common Sense. Dr. Rush introduced Paine to a fearless liberal print named Robert Bell, who was willing to take the risk of publishing it. Its clear portrayal of the reasons for independence spread like wildfire throughout the colonies. As a direct result, the Declaration of Independence was signed, and Paine became a famous man. 

Paine enlisted in the war as a common soldier. After the long, disheartening retreat across the Jerseys, the war appeared lost, and it became necessary for Paine to pick up his pen. He wrote The American Crisis, opening with the words: “These are times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman” – words which were never to be forgotten. The pamphlet provided the needed lift. The result: Washington crossed the Delaware and the first American victory at Trenton followed. At each subsequent crisis Paine’s pen was called on for assistance, and he never failed to respond effectively, thirteen times in all. During the war his fiery arguments drove the Tories from positions of influence. He attacked profiteers, inflationists and counterfeiters as well. He revealed confidential data in order to expose the crooked dealings of the influential Silas Deane. When politicians considered taking the supreme command of the Army away from George Washington, Paine hastened to defend him. When funds were needed to feed and clothe the soldiers, he founded the first bank in this country and defended it from all attacks. He freely printed his opinions on every controversy. Not having Governor Pinchot as an adviser, he did not realize the growing number of enemies he was making. 

Although his pen had contributed as much to the success of the war as Washington’s sword, Paine was disappointed that he failed to receive any reward for his patriotic writings. To gain the widest circulation these had been sold by the hundreds of thousands, purposely without any recompense to the author. He was nearing fifty years of age and wished to retire to write a history of the War. His friends found, however, that he had trod on so many toes that they only succeeded with difficulty in securing for him a farm in New Rochelle from the State of New York, £500 from the State of Pennsylvania, and $3000 from Congress. This was but a fraction of what he deserved. 

His well known prejudice against slavery, his conviction that every adult should vote, landowner or not, prevented him from being considered as a delegate to the forthcoming Constitutional Convention. No one could have con- tributed more toward a liberal constitution than Paine. The Civil War might have been averted had Paine attended the Convention. 

Now Paine turned his attention to something useful in peace. He had invented the first large bridge to be made entirely of iron, designed to cross the broad Schuylkill River near Philadelphia in a single arch, without the use of piers. Franklin advised Paine that no one in America would dare build so novel a bridge without first getting the approval of the French Academy of Science. 

So, once again we find Paine, armed with appropriate letters of introduction from Franklin, setting sail for Paris. 

When he arrived there he conferred with our Ambassador, Thomas Jefferson, and these two great liberals saw everything eye to eye. The success of the American Revolution and the setting up of a republican form of government were making deep inroads in the minds of the downtrodden masses, both in France and in England. Paine’s dream of a world revolution seemed likely to come true. To Paine a revolution meant a change from. hereditary government to a representative democratic system with universal suffrage and safeguards for the inherent rights of the little people, who owned no land. 

While he was in Paris, the treacherous flight of Louis XV1, King of France, took place. Paine thought it was good riddance to bad rubbish, and was astound- ed that the people wanted their runaway King to return. As he had first sparked independence for America, he was now the first one to spark a republic for France. His printed Manifesto demanding a republic was posted all over Paris. Like the famous Theses of Martin Luther, it was audaciously nailed to the very door of the National Assembly, where it could not fail to receive attention. But with the capture of the King and his return to Paris, Paine’s republican “bubble” burst, though not without planting a seed that was to grow rapidly. 

He now returned to England, where a large-scale model of his iron bridge was being built. He fomented republican clubs, which exchanged sentiments of friendship with those in Scotland and Ireland, as well as those in France. Paine’s revolution seemed to be brewing in Great Britain, Edmund Burke, whose friendly actions during the American Revolution had endeared him to Paine, made Paine’s acquaintance. They visited together and corresponded. Suddenly, Burke changed sides and assailed the principles of the French Revolution. Paine accused Burke of being a pensioner in a fictitious name, and hinted this might have been the real reason he changed his mind. Paine gloried in the task of publicly answering him, which he did in his monumental work the Rights of Man. It first appeared on February 22, appropriately dedicated to George Washington. Praising Washington’s “exemplary virtue” he prayed that he would see the “new world regenerate the old.” At this time Paine was at the height of his popularity, and he felt certain that Rights of Man would do for England what Common Sense had done for America. Unfortunately for his cause, it was at just this time that dreadful massacres of innocent people in France took place. England, horrified at this kind of revolution, took warning and went to the other extreme, and for a while England was the least free spot on earth. The National Guard was called out. A royal proclamation was issued for the purpose of suppressing Paine’s book, and by court action Paine was declared an outlaw. Publishers, printers, and sellers of Paine’s work were jailed for libel as fast as they could be tried. Yet Paine’s book seems mild enough for us today. Paine said of the libel: 

If to expose the fraud and the imposition of monarchy, and every species of hereditary government-to lessen the oppression of taxes-to propose plans for the education of helpless infancy, and the comfortable support of the aged and distressed-to endeavor to conciliate nations to each other-to extirpate the horrid practise of war-to promote universal peace, civilization, and com- merce-and to break the chains of political superstition, and raise degraded man to his proper rank-if these things be libellous,let me live the life of a Libeller, and let the name of LIBELLER be engraved on my tomb. 

The polished rhetoric of Burke could not refute the blunt logic of Paine’s arguments. The government resorted to a smear campaign of unprecedented proport- ions. It had published a Life of Paine, which maliciously purported on its title page to be “A Defense of Paine’s Works” and then was filled with lies and slander. According to this Life, the death of Paine’s first wife was due to ill usage and a premature birth; the cause of legal separation from his Second wife was said to be his refusal to cohabit with her through the three and one-half years of their marriage; and the claim was made that he had swindled many, including his own mother. 

In contradiction, consider the treatment Paine received when he went to France. Four Departments had vied with each other to elect Paine to the French National Convention. Paine accepted a seat from the Department of Calais and henceforth embraced and defended the French Revolution. He worked on a new democratic Constitution for France. Unfortunately, it was never activated, and as a result chaos reigned. This proved to be disastrous to France. The murderous course now taken by the Revolution alienated the entire world, and Paine had to take full share of responsibility for all actions coming from a government established according to the form he had so strongly advocated. Yet Paine tried to prevent bloodshed and went further than anyone else to save Louis XV1 from the guillotine. Paine, the hater of kings, cried, “Kill the King, but not the man, for he remembered that this same French King had courageously given vital aid to the struggling American colonies in their darkest hour. Robespierre, smashing all who opposed him, considered Paine’s humanitarianism a drawback, and ordered this “arch rebel” of England and America jailed, ironically, as a dangerous conservative. 

The tenets of Christian religion had troubled Paine from the time he was seven years old, but although he kept making notes on this subject, he purposely delayed publication of his beliefs until late in life, for then, being closer to the next world, he would be more concerned. But the reign of terror in France so threatened Paine’s life with early extinction that he resolved to bring his work to a close and publish it. So well had Paine estimated his remaining freedom that only six hours after he had finished his writing, the dreaded knock came on the door; the police had arrived and he was arrested. He contrived by a subterfuge to stop on the way to prison at the lodging of Joel Barlow, who was doing the proof-reading. He handed to Barlow the remainder of his manuscript, called The Age of Reason, and asked him to publish it at once. He had dedicated it to his fellow Citizens of America: 

I put the following work under your protection. It contains my opinion upon religion. You will do me the justice to remember that I have always strenu- ously supported the right of every man to his own opinion, however different that opinion might be to mine. He who denies to another this right, makes a slave of himself to his present opinion, because he precludes himself the right of changing it. 

The most formidable weapon against errors of every kind is reason. I have never used any other, and I trust I never shall. 

He refused to believe that the orders to commit crimes, which he found in the Bible, were the words of God. He called them mythical. He would not accept any of the miracles, for he considered them based solely on hearsay evidence. 

However, it is difficult to find any logical reason for branding Paine an atheist, when his expression of faith is so unmistakably written in The Age of Reason: 

I believe in one God, and no more; and I hope for happiness beyond this life. I believe in the equality of man, and I believe that religious duties consist in doing justice, loving mercy, and endeavouring to make our fellow-creatures happy. 

Paine’s book failed in its purpose to save France from atheism, and was fiercely denounced in all other countries as the work of the devil. In England, Thomas Williams, who reprinted it, was thrown into jail and the work suppressed as blasphemous. Punishment as severe as fourteen years in a penal colony, like Botany Bay, was inflicted. Even speaking favourably of the work might earn one the pillory. Nevertheless, The Age of Reason continued to circulate surreptitiously. 

In his French prison Paine expected early release through intercession of President Washington. He was an American citizen against whom no charge had been made. But month by month he waited in vain and became dangerously ill as a result of his confinement in a damp cell. Robespierre finally condemned him to death, but before the busy guillotine could chop off Paine’s head, Robespierre had lost his own. Months later Paine’s release was obtained by the American Ambassador James Monroe on his own responsibility, but Paine’s grievance against Washington mounted. 

While being nursed back to health in Monroe’s home, he wrote Washington two identical letters, asking him to explain why he had ditched his old friend, and sent them by different vessels to guarantee their receipt. Washington received both. When a year had passed without a reply, Paine, feeling betrayed, hotheadedly published in America a bitter attack on Washington. This accomplished little more than to complete Paine’s fall from public favour, particularly in his own country. 

Paine’s next great work was Agrarian Justice. Here he outlined his plan for really ameliorating the conditions of the poor and aged. By leveling a tax on the landowners, he would create a national fund in every nation, to pay every person reaching twenty-one years of age a sum of money to enable him or her to begin the world. When one reached the age of fifty (the considered old) a sum would be given annually, sufficient to enable him to go on living without wretchedness, and to go decently out of the world. Paine’s excellently thought-out social security programme was unfortunately considered too advanced to receive the attention it deserved. 

Now Paine became one of a group in Paris to organise a new religious society called “The Theophilanthropists,” a compound word meaning “Lovers of God and Man.” Paine’s religion consisted only in belief in “one God” and “doing good. The French government at first supported this religion and allowed its followers to use Notre Dame and three other church edifices in Paris; but after a few years’ growth, Napoleon, who had made peace with the Pope, crushed the society. 

Paine’s battle for freedom in the Old World had come to a grinding halt. Paine, however, refused to give up. He now decided to return to the New World. He would go to his farm in New Rochelle, hoping to find freedom and tolerance there. Thomas Jefferson, the first real Democrat, who had steadfastly remained a friend of Paine, was President of the United States. He was bold enough to offer a frigate (today’s equivalent a battleship) to bring Paine safely through any British blockade back to America. However, Paine took an ordinary vessel. 

Much to Paine’s dismay, from the moment of landing in Baltimore he was outrageously attacked as a blasphemer. This continued unrelentingly for the remaining five years of his life. The Federalists, taking umbrage at Paine’s attack on their idol, Washington, pulled out all the stops in fiery denunciation of Paine the Infidel. Even on a stage coach, the driver, learning that Paine was a passenger, refused to proceed until Paine got out, fearing that such a defiler of God would invite retribution by lightning, at least. So whipped up was this hatred, that the City of New Rochelle stopped him from voting when he went to cast his ballot, on the grounds that he was no longer a citizen. How ungrateful could his country be? 

Many of Paine’s friends shunned him, except disciples like Elihu Palmer, or the fearless democrat, President Jefferson, and a few others. Paine, past seventy, still continued to publish powerful essays, furthering both his religious and political principles and assailing his enemies. Since his name was no longer an asset, they were mostly anonymous. 

All this controversy might have been expected to end in 1809 when Paine died at the age of seventy-two, one hundred and fifty years ago; but this was not to be the case. He had requested in his will to be buried in a Quaker burying ground, provided the authorities would admit a person who did not belong to their Society. Otherwise, he desired to be buried on his own farm in New Rochelle. 

His obituary, written by his enemy, James Cheetham, editor of the (New York) American Citizen, appeared on June 10 and was widely copied. It read: 

Died on Thursday morning, the 8th of June. Thomas Paine, author of the Crisis, Rights of Man, The Age of Reason. Mr.Paine had a desire to be interred in the Quaker burying ground, and some days previous to his demise, had an interview with some Quaker gentlemen on the subject, but as he declined a renunciation of his deistical views, his anxious wishes were not complied with. He was yesterday interred at New Rochelle, Westchester county, perhaps on his own farm. I am unacquainted with his age, but he had lived long, done some good, and much harm. 

The obituary written by his friend, Jacob Frank, editor of the (New York) Public Advertiser, had appeared the day before, June 9, but seems not to have been copied by any other paper. 

With heartfelt sorrow and poignant regret, we are compelled to announce to the world that Thomas Paine is no more. This distinguished Philanthropist, whose life was devoted to the cause of humanity, departed this life yesterday morning. But if ever a man’s memory deserved a place in the breast of a freeman, it is that of the deceased, for: 

Take ’em all in all 

We ne’er shall look upon his like again! 

The friends of the deceased, are invited to attend his funeral, at nine o’clock, from his late residence at Greenwich, from whence the corpse will be conveyed to New Rochelle, for interment. 

William Cobbett, an ultra-Tory during his first. American sojourn, printed in the (Philadelphia) – Political Censor, September 1796, thirteen years before Paine died, this unfriendly prediction: 

He has done all the mischief he can in the world, and whether his carcass is at last to be suffered to rot on the earth, or to be dried in the air is of little consequence. Whenever and wherever he breathes his last he will excite neither sorrow nor compassion; no friendly hand will close his eyes, not a groan will be uttered, not a tear will be shed. Like Judas he will be remembered by posterity; men will learn to express all that is base, malignant, treacherous, unnatural and blasphemous, by the single monosyllable, PAINE. 

Who would believe that only a few years after Paine’s death Cobbett would retract every vile word he had written about Paine? Having the opportunity to study Paine’s writings during a long confinement in Newgate Prison for expressing some liberal sentiments, Cobbett became a convert. Doing a complete about-face, he started to expound Paine’s principles to the British masses. Later he was forced to flee once more to America. After a two-year sojourn there, in an act of unusual penance he exhumed Paine’s bones from their resting place in New Rochelle and brought them to England in order to give them a new funeral worthy of so great a man. The British, however, now despising Cobbett almost as much as Paine, ruined the plan by ridicule. Paine’s bones have now disappeared, giving circulation to a weird tale used by a preacher, denouncing Paine: “Thomas Paine was so wicked that he could not be buried; his bones were thrown into a box which was bandied about the world until it came to a button manufacturer, and now Paine is traveling around in the form of buttons.” 

Suppression of Paine’s work in England had the opposite effect desired and increased the demand for them. New printers, like W.T. Sherwin and Richard Carlile, were found who would take the risk of publication. Arrested or not,they continued battling for the freedom of the press, even from their cells in jail. Over the years such freedom was finally won and Paine’s works have been regul- arly reprinted since then. For instance, nine editions of Rights of Man have been published in London since World War 1. The Age of Reason, now a Bible for Freethinkers, this year (1959) was reprinted in New York in an edition of 100,000 copies. Today people are not ostracized who refuse to take their Bible literally.

Succeeding generations have seen the smoke screen of personal abuse around Paine gradually disappear, allowing him to stand forth as the greatest advocate of democracy, social security, and freedom of thought the world has yet seen. 

Public appreciation of Paine is mounting. In England, his birthplace at Thetford, Norfolk, is marked in bronze, and at Lewes, Sussex, all places associated with him are marked. In London his portrait hangs in the National Portrait Gallery, and there is another portrait and bust in the South Place Ethical Society. In France, a great statue by Gutzon Borglum of Paine pleading for the life of Louis XV1 stands facing the dormitories of the University of Paris, In America he has been elected to the Hall of Fame in New York, where his bust stands next to that of his great friend Thomas Jefferson. There is another bust in the New York Historical Society, and his last home in Greenwich Village is marked by a bronze plaque. If you visit Jefferson’s home in Monticello, the guides will point out to you the miniature portrait of Paine painted from life by John Trumbull. In the National Gallery, Washington, D.C.; there is a portrait painted from life by John Wesley Jarvis. In Philadel- phia, his portrait hangs in Independence Hall. There is a small portrait in our American Antiquarian Society. In New Jersey, at Bordentown, his little house is marked with bronze, while in Morristown, there is a large statue which is gold-plated, carrying out the suggestion once made by Napoleon that every city in the world should erect a statue of gold to Paine, Napoleon also said he never went to bed at night without a copy of Paine’s Rights of Man under his pillow. New Rochelle has also repented, for the original burial place is graced by an imposing monument; the home is preserved as a historic shrine; and there is a beautiful museum building nearby which is devoted to an exhibition of his works. They even gave him back his citizenship by an official act a few years ago. Next Tuesday the Library of Yale University opens a comprehensive exhibit of his works and manuscripts. 

Paine has influenced nearly all our Presidents, particularly Abraham Lincoln. Woodrow Wilson’s “League of Nations” may have been indebted to Paine, who conceived an “Association of Nations” under a rainbow-coloured flag, who would maintain their neutrality by an economic blockade of any aggressor. In the Rights of Man, which with his other works, the Soviet Union has this year tran- slated into Russian, appears his plan of disarmament. Let me read to you what Paine wrote in 1792: 

It is, I think, certain, that if the fleets of England, France, and Holland were confederated, they could propose, with effect, a limitation to, and a general dismantling of all the navies in Europe, to a certain proportion to be agreed upon. 

First, That no new ship of war shall be built by any power in Europe, themselves included. 

Secondly, That all the navies now in existence shall be put back, suppose to one-tenth of their present force. 

If men will permit themselves to think, nothing can appear more ridiculous and absurd, exclusive of all moral reflections, than to be at the expense of building navies, filling them with men, and then hauling them into the ocean, to try to sink each other fastest. Peace, which costs nothing, is attended with infinitely more advantage, than any victory with all its expense. 

…the above confederated powers, together with that of the United States of America, can propose, with effect, the independence of South America…. …nations will become acquainted, and the animosities and prejudices formented by the intrigue and artifice of courts,will cease. The oppressed soldier will become a freeman; and the tortured sailor,no longer dragged along the streets like a felon, will pursue his mercantile voyage in safety. It would be better that nations should continue the pay of their soldiers during their lives, and give them their discharge and restore them to freedom and their friends, and cease recruiting, than retain such multitudes at the same expence, in a condition useless to society and themselves.

These were Paine’s words, taken from Part 11 of the Rights of Man. 

Do you suppose that Khrushchev, before he presented his plan of disarmament to the United Nations last month, had read Paine’s plan? 

I think there has been a resurgence of Thomas Paine. 

Reprinted from the Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society. 

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