'"_
The funeral party consisted of Hicks, Mme. de Bonneville and two
negroes, who loyally walked twenty-two miles to New Rochelle to see
the last of the man who had always defended and pleaded for the rights
of their pitifully misunderstood and ill-treated race.
To the end he was active for public service. His actual last act was
to pen a letter to the Federal faction, conveying a warning as to the
then unsettled situation in American and French commerce. Just before
he had made his will.
It is in itself a composition worth copying and preserving. Paine
could not even execute a legal document without putting into it
something of the beauty of spirit and distinction of phrase for which
he was remarkable. He had not much to leave, since he had given all to
his country and his country had forgotten him in making up the
balance; but what he had went to Mme. de Bonneville, for her children,
that she,--let me quote his own words, "... might bring them well up,
give them good and useful learning and instruct them in their duty to
God and the practice of morality.
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