Tom Paine
Writer and Revolutionary
By Jill Scholey
28th January 2012
Concluded
Paine, now an old man, was not so able to look after himself.
He wrote imploringly to Jefferson, asking the American Government to reward him financially for his work for the Revolution, but to no avail.
Paine was even refused the right to vote in 1806,officialdom saying that he was not in fact an American citizen. Paine turned increasingly to drink to dull his pain.
However, Paine’s contemporaries noted what brilliant sparkling company he still was on his lucid days.
By 1808, Paine was living in squalor, desperately sick and largely unable to move or converse. In his will, he left the bulk of his estate to Mme Bonneville.
On June 8th ,1809, Thomas Paine breathed his last, and was buried on his farm in New Rochelle.
Tragically, his body was later exhumed and his bones lost; to this day, his final resting place remains unknown. Paine affirmed that “ …my country is the world, and my religion is to do good.”
His legacy lives on in his writings and in his profound influence on citizenship and modern democracy.
End.
