"Poh, poh, it is not true. You were not sent with any such impertinent message. Jarvis, make her go away. Pshaw, he would not send such a foolish ugly old woman as you are about with his messages. Go away, go back, shut the door." The old lady raised her hands and walked away in mute astonishment.
Another instance of the kind happened about a fortnight before his death. Two priests, of the name of Milledollar and Cunningham, came to him, and the latter introduced himself and his companion in the following words, "Mr. Paine, we visit you as friends and neighbours. You have now a full view of death: you cannot live long, and 'whosoever does not believe in Jesus Christ will assuredly be damned.'"-"Let me," replied Mr. Paine, "have none of your Popish stuff. Get away with you. Good morning, good morning." Mr. Milledollar attempted to address him, but he was interrupted with the same language. A few days after those same priests had the impudence to come again, but the nurse was afraid to admit them. Even the doctor who attended him in his last minutes took the latest possible opportunity to ask him, "Do you wish to believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God?" to which Mr. Paine replied, "I have no wish to believe on the subject." These were his last words, for he died the following morning about nine o'clock, about nine hours after the Doctor had left him.
Mr. Paine, over and above what might have been expected of him, seemed much concerned about what spot his body should be laid in some time before his death. He requested permission to be interred in the Quaker's Burial Ground, saying that they were the most moral and upright sect of Christians; but this was peremptorily refused to him in his life-time, and gave him much uneasiness, or such as might not have been expected from such a man. On this refusal he ordered his body to be interred on his own farm, and a stone placed over it with the following inscription:
DIED JUNE 8, 1809, AGED 72 YEARS AND FIVE MONTHS.
Little did Mr. Paine think when giving this instruction, that the Peter Porcupine who had heaped so much abuse upon him, beyond that of all other persons put together (for Porcupine was the only scribbling opponent that Mr. Paine ever deigned to mention by name) little did he think that this Peter Porcupine, in the person of William Cobbett, should have become his second self in the political world, And should have so far renounced his former opinions and principles as to resent the indifference paid to Paine by the majority of the inhabitants of the United States, and actually remove his bones to England. I consider this mark of respect and honest indignation, as an ample apology for all the abuse helped upon the name and character of Paine by Mr. Cobbett. It is a volume of retractation, more ample and more convincing than his energetic pen could have produced. For my own part whilst we have his writings, I should have felt indifferent as to what became of his bones; but there was an open retractation due from Mr. Cobbett to the people of Britain, for his former abuse of Paine, and I for one am quite content with the apology made.