Description:Is this really the last dying confession of Tom Paine, executed before thousands of spectators at Stoke-on-Trent in 1793?
A controversial figure
Paine was a Republican and supported the French revolution. His views were unacceptable in Britain at the time, but helped shape his 1791 best-seller, the Rights of Man.
Sensibly, Paine saw the danger and left England for revolutionary France.
Meanwhile the British government sought to charge him with "seditious libel," basically attempted treason.
A mock execution?
Although Paine was safe and sound across the sea, this notice seems to describe a mock execution carried out in his absence.
Liar
He opens:
"Ye numerous Spectators gathered around, pray give Ear to my last Words, I am determined to Speak the Truth in these my last Moments, although I have written, and spoke nothing but Lies all my Life; and nothing can be truer than what I now say of myself, viz. that I have always been a notorious Liar."
Wretch
He admits:
"I have lived a dishonest and shameful life, and shall die like a Wretch who has been the Pest of Society; and the Interrupter of public Peace."
Vain politician
He continues:
"I had always had a false Pride united to my Poverty, and Pride, and Poverty are too often united; This Pride led Me to commence Politician ... and forsooth I must be so vain, as to think a Taylor, had a Right to write the Rights of Man."
Dev'lish tricks
Readers are warned to "never follow the wicked Devices of me THOMAS PAINE for tricks have been dev'lish and I am afraid, I am now going to the Devil for them."
Regrets
"Stand up for your King and Constitution; This is the only Way to die happily, and to die comfortably ; this is the Way to avoid the End I am here come to, Oh! that I had stuck to my stitching, and for these cursed Politics never had an itching."
More about this document
Burslem pottery manufacturer Enoch Wood collected this document, and it is now among the collections of Stoke-on-Trent Museums.
Wood's notes suggest that he may have acted as a prosecutor in a mock trial, perhaps scripting his judgment in dramatic fashion:
"What contemptible stuff comes from thy brain! What an assemblage of vulgar expressions! Aspertions with proofs and absolute falsehoods are jumbled together."
Today, Tom Paine is remembered as a founding father of the United States and an important democratic thinker.
He died in New York in 1809. Only six people attended his funeral, two of whom are said to have been black slaves who admired his hatred of slavery.
Admirers later attempted to bring his bones back to England, but the remains were lost in transit.