11. Thomas Paine himself. The will of Mr. Paine, written by himself, commences as follows: "The last will and testament of me, the subscriber, Thomas Paine, reposing confidence in my Creator, God, and in no other being, for I know of no other, nor believe in any other," and closes with these words: "I have lived an honest and useful life to mankind. My time has been spent in doing good, and I die in perfect composure and resignation to the will of my Creator, God."
12. If Thomas Paine recanted, why do you pursue him? If he recanted he died in your belief. For what reason, then, do you denounce his death as cowardly? If upon his death-bed he renounced the opinions he had published, the business of defaming him should be done by infidels, not by Christians. I ask Christians if it is honest to throw away the testimony of his friends, the evidence of fair and honorable men, and take the putrid words of avowed and malignant enemies? When Thomas Paine was dying he was infested by fanatics, by the snaky spies of bigotry. In the shadows of death were the unclean birds of prey waiting to tear, with beak and claw, the corpse of him who wrote the "Rights of Man," and there lurking and crouching in the darkness, were the jackals and hyenas of superstition, ready to violate his grave. These birds of prey—these unclean beasts—are the witnesses produced and relied upon to malign the memory of Thomas Paine. One by one the instruments of torture have been wrenched from the cruel clutch of the church, until within the armory of orthodoxy there remains but one weapon—Slander.
Against the witnesses that I have produced there can be brought just two—Mary Roscoe and Mary Hinsdale. The first is referred to in the memoir of Stephen Grellet. She had once been a servant in his house. Grellet tells what happened between this girl and Paine. According to this account, Paine asked her if she had ever read any of his writings, and on being told that she had read very little of them, he inquired what she thought of them, adding that from such an one as she he expected a correct answer.
Let us examine this falsehood. Why would Paine expect a correct answer about his writings from one who read very little of them? Does not such a statement devour itself? This young lady further said that the "Age of Reason" was put in her hands, and that the more she read in it, the more dark and distressed she felt, and that she threw the book into the fire. Whereupon Mr. Paine remarked: "I wish all had done as you did, for if the devil ever had any agency in any work, he had in my writing that book."
The next is Mary Hinsdale. She was a servant in the family of Willet Hicks. The church is always proving something by a nurse. She, like Mary Roscoe, was sent to carry some delicacy to Mr. Paine. To this young lady Paine, according to his account, said precisely the same that he did to Mary Roscoe, and she said the same thing to Mr. Paine.
My own opinion is that Mary Roscoe and Mary Hinsdale are one and the same person, or the same story has been, by mistake, put in the mouths of both. It is not possible that the identical conversation should have taken place between Paine and Mary Roscoe and between him and Mary Hinsdale. Mary Hinsdale lived with Willet Hicks, and he pronounced her story a pious fraud and fabrication.
Another thing about this witness. A woman by the name of Mary Lockwood, a Hicksite Quaker, died. Mary Hinsdale met her brother about that time and told him that his sister had recanted, and wanted her to say so at her funeral. This turned out to be a lie.
It has been claimed that Mary Hinsdale made her statement to Charles Collins. Long after the alleged occurrence Gilbert Vale, one of the biographers of Paine, had a conversation with Collins concerning Mary Hinsdale. Vale asked him what he thought of her. He replied that some of the Friends believed that she used opiates, and that they did not give credit to her statements. He also said that he believed what the Friends said, but thought that when a young Roman she might have told the truth.
In 1818 William Cobbett came to New York. He began collecting material for a life of Thomas Paine. In this way he became acquainted with Mary Hinsdale and Charles Collins. Mr. Cobbett gave a full account of what happened in a letter addressed to The Norwich Mercury in 1819. From this account it seems that Charles Collins told Cobbett that Paine had recanted. Cobbett called for the testimony, and told Mr. Collins that he must give time, place, and circumstances. He finally brought a statement that he stated had been made by Mary Hinsdale. Armed with this document, Cobbett, in October of that year, called upon the said Mary Hinsdale, at No. 10 Anthony Street, New York, and showed her the statement. Upon being questioned by Mr. Cobbett she said that it was so long ago that she could not speak positively to any part of the matter; that she would not say that any part of the paper was true; that she had never seen the paper, and that she had never given Charles Collins authority to say anything about the matter in her name. And so in the month of October, in the year of grace 1818, in the mist of fog and forgetfulness, disappeared forever one Mary Hinsdale, the last and only witness against the intellectual honesty of Thomas Paine.
A letter was written to the editor of The New York World by the Rev. A.W. Cornell, in which he says:
"Sir: I see by your paper that Bob Ingersoll discredits Mary Hinsdale's story of the scenes which occurred at the death bed of Thomas Paine. No one who knew that good old lady would for one moment doubt her veracity, or question her testimony. Both she and her husband were Quaker preachers, and well known and respected inhabitants of New York City.
"Ingersoll is right in his conjecture that Mary Roscoe and Mary Hinsdale were the same person. Her maiden name was Roscoe and she married Henry Hinsdale. My mother was a Roscoe, a niece of Mary Roscoe, and lived with her for some time.—Rev. A.W. Cornell, Harpersville, N.Y."
The editor of the New York Observer took up the challenge that I had thrown down. I offered $1000 in gold to any minister who would prove, or to any person who would prove that Thomas Paine recanted in his last hours. The New York Observer accepted the wager, and then told a falsehood about it. But I kept after the gentlemen until I forced them, in their paper, published on the 1st of November, 1877; to print these words:
"We have never stated in any form, nor have we ever supposed, that Paine actually renounced his infidelity. The accounts agree in stating that he died a blaspheming infidel."
This, I hope, for all coming time will refute the slanders of the churches yet to be.
The next charge they make is that Thomas Paine died in destitution and want. That, of course, would show that he was wrong. They boast that the founder of their religion had not whereon to lay his head, but when they found a man who stood for the rights of man, when they say that he did, that is an evidence that this doctrine was a lie. Won't do! Did Thomas Paine die in destitution and want? The charge has been made over and over again that Thomas Paine died in want and destitution; that he was an abandoned pauper—an outcast, without friends and without money. This charge is just as false as the rest. Upon his return to this country, in 1802, he was worth $30,000, according to his own statement, made at that time in the following letter, and addressed to Clio Rickman:
"My dear friend, Mr. Monroe, who is appointed minister extraordinary to France, takes charge of this, to be delivered to Mr. Este, banker, in Paris, to be forwarded to you.
"I arrived in Baltimore, 30th of October, and you can have no idea of the agitation which my arrival occasioned. From New Hampshire to Georgia (an extent of 1,500 miles), every newspaper was filled with applause or abuse.
"My property in this country has been taken care of by my friends, and is now worth six thousand pounds sterling, which, put in the funds, will bring about £400 sterling a year.
"Remember me in affection and friendship to your wife and family, and in the circle of your friends.—Thomas Paine"
A man in those days worth $30,000 was not a pauper. That amount would bring an income of at least $2,000. Two thousand dollars then would be fully equal to $5,000 now. On the 12th of July, 1809, the year in which he died, Mr. Paine made his will. From this instrument we learn that he was the owner of a valuable farm within twenty miles of New York. He was also owner of thirty shares in the New York Phoenix Insurance Company, worth upward of $1,500. Besides this, some personal property and ready