The committee of the Quakers refused to receive his body, at which he seemed deeply moved, and observed to me, who was present at the interview, that their refusal was foolish. "You will," said I, "be buried on your farm" "I have no objection to that," said he "but the farm will be sold, and they will dig my bones up before they be half rotten." "Mr. Paine," I replied, "have confidence in your friends. I assure you, that the place where you will be buried, shall never be sold." He seemed satisfied; and never spoke upon this subject again. I have been as good as my word.
Last December (1818) the land of the farm having been divided between my children, I gave fifty dollars to keep apart and to myself, the place whereon the grave was.
Paine, doubtless, considered me and my children as strangers in America. His affection for us was, at any rate, great and sincere. He anxiously recommended us to the protection of Mr. Emmet, saying to him, "when I am dead, Madam Bonneville will have no friend here." And a little time after, obliged to draw money from the Bank, he said, with an air of sorrow, "you will have nothing left."*
* Paine's Will appoints Thomas Addis Emmet, Walter Morton
(with $200 each), and Madame Bonneville executors; gives a
small bequest to the widow of Elihu Palmer, and a
considerable one to Rickman of London, who was to divide
with Nicholas Bonneville proceeds of the sale of the North
part of his farm. To Madame Bonneville went his manuscripts,
movable effects, stock in the N. Y. Phoenix Insurance
Company estimated at $1500, and money in hand. The South
part of the New Rochelle farm, over 100 acres, were given
Madame Bonneville in trust for her children, Benjamin and
Thomas, "their education and maintenance, until they come to
the age of twenty-one years, in order that she may bring them
well up, give them good and useful learning, and instruct
them in their duty to God, and the practice of morality." At
majority they were to share and share alike in fee simple.
He desires to be buried in the Quaker ground,—"my father
belonged to that profession, and I was partly brought up in
it,"—but if this is not permitted, to be buried on his
farm. "The place where I am to be buried to be a square of
twelve feet, to be enclosed with rows of trees, and a stone
or post and railed fence, with a head-stone with my name and
age engraved upon it, author of "Common Sense." He confides
Mrs. Bonneville and her children to the care of Emmet and
Morton. "Thus placing confidence in their friendship, I
herewith take my final leave of them and of the world. I
have lived an honest and useful life to mankind; my time
has been spent in doing good; and I die in perfect
composure and resignation to the will of my Creator God."
The Will, dated January 18, opens with the words,
"The last Will and Testament of me, the subscriber, Thomas
Paine, reposing confidence in my Creator God, and in no
other being, for I know of no other, and I believe in no
other." Mrs. Paine had died July 27th, 1808.
Mr. William Fayel, to whom I am indebted for much
information concerning the Bonnevilles in St. Louis, writes
me that so little is known of Paine's benefactions, that
"an ex-senator of the United States recently asserted that
Gen. Bonneville was brought over by Jefferson and a French
lady; and a French lady, who was intimate with the
Bonnevilles, assured me that General Bonneville was sent to
West Point by Lafayette."
He was now become extremely weak. His strength and appetite daily departed from him; and in the day-time only he was able, when not in bed, to sit up in his arm-chair to read the newspapers, and sometimes write. When he could no longer quit his bed, he made some one read the newspapers to him. His mind was always active. He wrote nothing for the press after writing his last will, but he would converse, and took great interest in politics. The vigour of his mind, which had always so strongly characterized him, did not leave him to the last moment. He never complained of his bodily sufferings, though they became excessive. His constitution was strong. The want of exercise alone was the cause of his sufferings. Notwithstanding the great inconveniences he was obliged to sustain during his illness, in a carman's house [Ryder's] in a small village [Greenwich], without any bosom friend in whom he could repose confidence, without any society he liked, he still did not complain of his sufferings. I indeed, went regularly to see him twice a week; but, he said to me one day: "I am here alone, for all these people are nothing to me, day after day, week after week, month after month, and you don't come to see me."
In a conversation between him and Mr. [Albert] Gallatin, about this time, I recollect his using these words: "I am very sorry that I ever returned to this country." As he was thus situated and paying a high price for his lodgings he expressed a wish to come to my house. This must be a great inconvenience to me from the frequent visits to Mr. Thomas Paine; but, I, at last, consented; and hired a house in the neighborhood, in May 1809, to which he was carried in an arm-chair, after which he seemed calm and satisfied, and gave himself no trouble about anything. He had no disease that required a Doctor, though Dr. Romaine came to visit him twice a week. The swelling, which had commenced at his feet, had now reached his body, and some one had been so officious as to tell him that he ought to be tapped. He asked me if this was necessary. I told him, that I did not know; but, that, unless he was likely to derive great good from it, it should not be done. The next [day] Doctor Romaine came and brought a physician with him, and they resolved that the tapping need not take place.
He now grew weaker and weaker very fast. A very few days before his death, Dr. Romame said to me, "I don't think he can live till night." Paine, hearing some one speak, opens his eyes, and said: "'T is you Doctor: what news?" "Mr. such an one is gone to France on such business." "He will do nothing there," said Paine. "Your belly diminishes," said the Doctor. "And yours augments," said Paine.
* The sentence thus far is struck out by Madame Bonno he had
not seen for a long while. He was overjoyed at seeing him;
but, this person began to speak upon religion, and Paine
turned his head on the other side, and remained silent, even
to the adieu of the person.
When he was near his end, two American clergymen came to see him, and to talk with him on religious matters. "Let me alone," said he; "good morning." He desired they should be admitted no more. One of his friends came to New York; a person for whom he had a great esteem, and whom seeing his end fast approaching, I asked him, in presence of a friend, if he felt satisfied with the treatment he had received at our house, upon which he could only exclaim, O! yes! He added other words, but they were incoherent It was impossible for me not to exert myself to the utmost in taking care of a person to whom I and my children owed so much. He now appeared to have lost all kind of feeling. He spent the night in tranquillity, and expired in the morning at eight o'clock, after a short oppression, at my house in Greenwich, about two miles from the city of New York. Mr. Jarvis, a Painter, who had formerly made a portrait of him, moulded his head in plaster, from which a bust was executed.
He was, according to the American custom, deposited in a mahogany coffin, with his name and age engraved on a silver-plate, put on the coffin. His corpse was dressed in a shirt, a muslin gown tied at neck and wrists with black ribbon, stockings, drawers; and a cap was put under his head as a pillow. (He never slept in a night-cap.) Before the coffin was placed on the carriage, I went to see him; and having a rose in my bosom, I took it out, and placed on his breast. Death had not disfigured him. Though very thin, his bones were not protuberant. He was not wrinkled, and had lost very little hair.