no longer seemed to him as lovely as when he composed these verses for a Fourth-of-July dinner in Paris.  He claimed compensation for his services in Colonel Laurens’s mission to France in 1781.  For his works he asked no reward.  “All the civilized world knows,” he writes, “I have been of great service to the United States, and have generously given away talents that would have made me a fortune.  The country has been benefited, and I make myself happy in the knowledge of it.  It is, however, proper for me to add, that the mere independence of America, were it to have been followed by a system of government modelled after the corrupt system of the English government, would not have interested me with the unabated ardor it did.”  “It will be convenient to me to know what Congress will decide on, because it will determine me, whether, after so many years of generous services and that in the most perilous times, and after seventy years of age, I shall continue in this country, or offer my services to some other country.  It will not be to England, unless there should be a revolution.”

The memorial was referred to the Committee on Claims.  When Paine heard of its fate, he addressed an indignant letter to the Speaker of the House.  “I know not who the Committee on Claims are; but if they were men of younger standing than ‘the times that tried men’s souls,’ and consequently too young to know what the condition of the country was at the time I published ’Common Sense,’—­for I do not believe that independence would have been declared, had it not been for the effect of that work,—­they are not capable of judging of the whole of the services of Thomas Paine.  If my memorial was referred to the Committee on Claims for the purpose of losing it, it is unmanly policy.  After so many years of service, my heart grows cold towards America.”

His heart was soon to grow cold to all the world.  In the spring of 1809, it became evident to Paine’s attendants that his end was approaching.  As death drew near, the memories of early youth arose vividly in his mind.  He wished to be buried in the cemetery of the Quakers, in whose principles his father had educated him.  He sent for a leading member of the sect to ask a resting-place for his body in their ground.  The request was refused.

When the news got abroad that the Arch-Infidel was dying, foolish old women and kindred clergymen, who “knew no way to bring home a wandering sheep but by worrying him to death,” gathered together about his bed.  Even his physician joined in the hue-and-cry.  It was a scene of the Inquisition adapted to North America,—­a Protestant auto da fe.  The victim lay helpless before his persecutors; the agonies of disease supplied the place of rack and fagot.  But nothing like a recantation could be wrung from him.  And so his tormentors left him alone to die, and his freethinking smiths and cobblers rejoiced over his fidelity to the cause.

He was buried on his farm at New Rochelle, according to his latest wishes.  “Thomas Paine.  Author of ‘Common Sense,’” the epitaph he had fixed upon, was carved upon his tomb.  A better one exists from an unknown hand, which tells, in a jesting way, the secret of the sorrows of his later life:—­