His voice was very strong even to his last moments. He often exclaimed, oh, lord help me! An exclamation the involuntary effect of pain. He groaned deeply, and when a question was put to him, calling him by his name, he opened his eyes, as if waking from a dream. He never answered the question, but asked one himself; as, what is it o'clock, &c.

On the ninth of June my son and I, and a few of Thomas Paine's friends, set off with the corpse to New Rochelle, a place 22 miles from New York. It was my intention to have him buried in the Orchard of his own farm; but the farmer who lived there at that time said, that Thomas Paine, walking with him one day, said, pointing to another part of the land, he was desirous of being buried there. "Then," said I, "that shall be the place of his burial." And, my instructions were accordingly put in execution. The head-stone was put up about a week afterwards with the following inscription: "Thomas Paine, Author of "Common Sense," died the eighth of June, 1809, aged 72 years." According to his will, a wall twelve feet square was erected round his tomb. Four trees have been planted outside the wall, two weeping willows and two cypresses. Many persons have taken away pieces of the tombstone and of the trees, in memory of the deceased; foreigners especially have been eager to obtain these memorials, some of which have been sent to England.* They have been put in frames and preserved. Verses in honor of Paine have been written on the head stone. The grave is situated at the angle of the farm, by the entrance to it.

This interment was a scene to affect and to wound any sensible heart. Contemplating who it was, what man it was, that we were committing to an obscure grave on an open and disregarded bit of land, I could not help feeling most acutely. Before the earth was thrown down upon the coffin, I, placing myself at the east end of the grave, said to my son Benjamin, "stand you there, at the other end, as a witness for grateful America." Looking round me, and beholding the small group of spectators, I exclaimed, as the earth was tumbled into the grave, "Oh! Mr. Paine! My son stands here as testimony of the gratitude of America, and I, for France!" This was the funeral ceremony of this great politician and philosopher!**

* The breaking of the original gravestone has been
traditionally ascribed to pious hatred. A fragment of it,
now in New York, is sometimes shown at celebrations of
Paine's birthday as a witness of the ferocity vented on
Paine's grave. It is satisfactory to find another
interpretation.
** Paine's friends, as we have said, were too poor to leave
their work in the city, which had refused Paine a grave. The
Rev. Robert Bolton, in his History of Westchester County,
introduces Cheetham's slanders of Paine with the words: "as
his own biographer remarks." His own! But even Cheetham
does not lie enough for Bolton, who says: "His [Paine's]
body was brought up from New York in a hearse used for
carrying the dead, to Potter's Field; a white man drove the
vehicle, accompanied by a negro to dig the grave." The whole
Judas legend is in that allusion to Potter's Field. Such
is history, where Paine is concerned!

The eighty-eight acres of the north part were sold at 25 dollars an acre. The half of the south (the share of Thomas de Bonneville) has been sold for the total sum of 1425 dollars. The other part of the south, which was left to Benjamin de Bonneville, has just (1819) been sold in lots, reserving the spot in which Thomas Paine was buried, being a piece of land 45 feet square.

Thomas Paine's posthumous works. He left the manuscript of his answer to Bishop Watson; the Third Part of his Age of Reason; several pieces on Religious subjects, prose and verse. The great part of his posthumous political works will be found in the Appendix. Some correspondences cannot be, as yet, published.*

In Mechanics he has left two models of wheels for carriages, and of a machine to plane boards. Of the two models of bridges, left at the Philadelphia Museum, only one has been preserved, and that in great disorder, one side being taken entirely off. But, I must say here, that it was then out of the hands of Mr. Peale.'

Though it is difficult, at present, to make some people believe that, instead of being looked on as a deist and a drunkard, Paine ought to be viewed as a philosopher and a truly benevolent man, future generations will make amends for the errors of their forefathers, by regarding him as a most worthy man, and by estimating his talents and character according to their real worth.

Thomas Paine was about five feet nine inches high, English measure, and about five feet six French measure. His bust was well proportioned; and his face oblong. Reflexion was the great expression of his face; in which was always seen the calm proceeding from a conscience void of reproach. His eye, which was black, was lively and piercing, and told us that he saw into the very heart of hearts [of any one who wished to deceive him].***

* All except the first two MSS., of which fragments exist,
and some poems, were no doubt consumed at St. Louis, as
stated in the Introduction to this work.
** I have vainly searched in Philadelphia for some relic of
Paine's bridges.
*** Bracketed words marked out. In this paragraph and some
that follow the hand of Nicolas Bonneville is, I think,
discernible.