He names Thomas Jefferson as one
of the disreputable men who welcomed Paine with open arms. The
testimony of a man who regarded Thomas Jefferson as a disreputable
person, as to the character of anybody, is utterly without value.

Now, Grant Thorburn--this gentleman who was "four feet and a half high,
and who weighed ninety-eight pounds three and one-half ounces"--says
that he used to sit nights at Carver's, in New York, with Thomas Paine.
Mrs. Ferguson, the daughter of William Carver, says that she knew
Thorburn when she saw him, but that she never saw him in her father's
house. The denial of Mrs. Ferguson enraged Thorburn, and he at once
wrote a few falsehoods about her. Thereupon a suit was commenced by
Mrs. Ferguson and her husband against Thorburn, the writer, and
Fanshaw, the publisher, of the libel. Thorburn ran away to
Connecticut. Fanshaw wrote him for evidence of what he had written.
Thorburn replied that what he had written about Mrs. Ferguson could not
be proved. Fanshaw then settled with the Fergusons, paying them the
amount demanded.

In 1859 the Fergusons lived at 148 Duane Street, New York. In The
Commercial Advertiser of New York, in 1830, appeared the written
acknowledgement of this same little Grant Thorburn that he did, on the
22d of August, 1830, at half-past 6 in the morning, take four bottles
of cider from the cellar of Mr. Comstock.

Mr. Comstock says that Thorburn was arrested, and that when brought
before him he pleaded guilty and threw himself upon his (Comstock's)
mercy.

The Philadelphia Tract Society gave Thorburn $100 to write his
recollections of Thomas Paine.

Let us dispose of this four feet and a half of wretch. In October,
1877, I received the following letter from James Parton:

"Newburyport, Mass., Oct 27, 1877.--My dear Sir: Touching Grant
Thorburn, I personally knew him to have been a liar. At the age of 92
he copied with trembling hand a piece from a newspaper and brought it
to the office of The Rome Journal as his own. It was I who received it
and detected the deliberate forgery..... James Parton"

So much for Grant Thorburn. In my judgment, the testimony of Mr.
Thorburn should be thrown aside as utterly unworthy of belief.

The next witness is the Rev. J.D. Wickham, D.D., who tells what an
elder in his church said. This elder said that Paine passed his last
days on his farm at New Rochelle, with a solitary female attendant.
This is not true. He did n