The removal and mystery of Paine's bones appear like some page of Mosaic mythology.* An English caricature pictured Cobbett seated on Paine's coffin, in a boat named Rights of Man, rowed by Negro Slaves.
* The bones of Thomas Paine were landed in Liverpool
November 21, 1819. The monument contemplated by Cobbett was
never raised. There was much parliamentary and municipal
excitement. A Bolton town-crier was imprisoned nine weeks
for proclaiming the arrival. In 1836 the bones passed with
Cobbett's effects into the hands of a Receiver (West). The
Lord Chancellor refusing to regard them as an asset, they
were kept by an old day-laborer until 1844, when they passed
to B. Tilley, 13 Bedford Square, London, a furniture dealer.
In 1849 the empty coffin was in possession of J. Chennell,
Guildford. The silver plate bore the inscription "Thomas
Paine, died June 8, 1809, aged 72." In 1854, Rev. R. Ainslie
(Unitarian) told E. Truelove that he owned "the skull and
the right hand of Thomas Paine," but evaded subsequent
inquiries. The removal caused excitement in America. Of
Paine's gravestone the last fragment was preserved by his
friends of the Bayeaux family, and framed on their wall. In
November, 1839, the present marble monument at New Rochelle
was erected.
"A singular coincidence [says Dr. Francis] led me to pay a visit to Cobbett at his country seat, within a couple of miles of the city, on the island, on the very day that he had exhumed the bones of Paine, and shipped them for England. I will here repeat the words which Cobbett gave utterance to at the friendly interview our party had with him. 'I have just performed a duty, gentlemen, which has been too long delayed: you have neglected too long the remains of Thomas Paine. I have done myself the honor to disinter his bones. I have removed them from New Rochelle. I have dug them up; 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 those bones will effect the reformation of England in Church and State.'"
Mr. Badeau, of New Rochelle, remembers standing near Cobbett's workmen while they were digging up the bones, about dawn. There is a legend that Paine's little finger was left in America, a fable, perhaps, of his once small movement, now stronger than the loins of the bigotry that refused him a vote or a grave in the land he so greatly served. As to his bones, no man knows the place of their rest to this day. His principles rest not. His thoughts, untraceable like his dust, are blown about the world which he held in his heart. For a hundred years no human being has been born in the civilized world without some spiritual tincture from that heart whose every pulse was for humanity, whose last beat broke a fetter of fear, and fell on the throne of thrones.
APPENDIX A. THE COBBETT PAPERS.
In the autumn of 1792 William Cobbett arrived in America. Among the papers preserved by the family of Thomas Jefferson is a letter from Cobbett, enclosing an introduction from Mr. Short, U. S. Secretary of Legation at Paris. In this letter, dated at Wilmington, Delaware, November 2, 1792, the young Englishman writes: "Ambitious to become the citizen of a free state I have left my native country, England, for America. I bring with me youth, a small family, a few useful literary talents, and that is all."
Cobbett had been married in the same year, on February 5th, and visited Paris, perhaps with an intention of remaining, but becoming disgusted with the revolution he left for America. He had conceived a dislike of the French revolutionary leaders, among whom he included Paine. He thus became an easy victim of the libellous Life of Paine, by George Chalmers, which had not been reprinted in America, and reproduced the statements of that work in a brief biographical sketch published in Philadelphia, 1796. In later life Cobbett became convinced that he had been deceived into giving fresh currency to a tissue of slanders.
In the very year of this publication, afterwards much lamented, Paine published in Europe a work that filled Cobbett with admiration. This was "The Decline and Fall of the English System of Finance," which predicted the suspension of gold payments by the Bank of England that followed the next year. The pamphlet became Cobbett's text-book, and his Register was eloquent in Paine's praise, the more earnestly, he confessed, because he had "been one of his most violent assailants." "Old age having laid his hand upon this truly great man, this truly philosophical politician, at his expiring flambeau I lighted my taper."
A sketch of Thomas Paine and some related papers of Cobbett are generously confided to me by his daughter, Eleanor Cobbett, through her nephew, William Cobbett, Jr., of Woodlands, near Manchester, England. The public announcement (1818) by Cobbett, then in America, of his intention to write a Life-of Paine, led to his negotiation with Madame Bonneville, who, with her husband, resided in New York. Madame Bonneville had been disposing of some of Paine's manuscripts, such as that on "Freemasonry," and the reply to Bishop Watson, printed in The Theophilanthropist (1810). She had also been preparing, with her husband's assistance, notes for a biography of Paine, because of the "unjust efforts to tarnish the memory of Mr. Paine"; adding, "Et l'indignation ma fait prendre la plume." Cobbett agreed to give her a thousand dollars for the manuscript, which was to contain important letters from and to eminent men. She stated (September 30, 1819) her conditions, that it should be published in England, without any addition, and separate from any other writings. I suppose it was one or all of these conditions that caused the non-completion of the bargain. Cobbett re-wrote the whole thing, and it is now all in his writing except a few passages by Madame Bonneville, which I indicate by brackets, and two or three by his son, J. P. Cobbett. Although Madame Bonneville gave some revision to Cobbett's manuscript, most of the letters to be supplied are merely indicated. No trace of them exists among the Cobbett papers. Soon afterward the Bonnevilles went to Paris, where they kept a small book shop. Nicolas died in 1828. His biography in Michaud's Dictionary is annotated by the widow, and states that in 1829 she had begun to edit for publication the Life and posthumous papers of Thomas Paine. From this it would appear that she had retained the manuscript, and the original letters. In 1833 Madame Bonneville emigrated to St. Louis, where her son, the late General Bonneville, lived. Her Catholicism became, I believe, devout with advancing years, and to that cause, probably also to a fear of reviving the old scandal Cheetham had raised, may be due the suppression of the papers, with the result mentioned in the introduction to this work. She died in St. Louis, October 30, 1846, at the age of 79. Probably William Cobbett did not feel entitled to publish the manuscript obtained under such conditions, or he might have waited for the important documents that were never sent. He died in 1835. The recollections are those of both M. and Madame Bonneville. The reader will find no difficulty in making out the parts that represent Madame's personal knowledge and reminiscences, as Cobbett has preserved her speech in the first person, and, with characteristic literary acumen, her expressions in such important points. His manuscript is perfect, and I have little editing to do beyond occasional correction of a date, supplying one or two letters indicated, which I have found, and omitting a few letters, extracts, etc., already printed in the body of this work, where unaccompanied by any comment or addition from either Cobbett or the Bonnevilles.