By Eric Paine  

Thomas Muir was one of the seven Scottish martyrs sentenced to Botany Bay in 1793 for sedition. The charges included circulating Rights of Man. He met Thomas Paine in Paris and the seven martyrs are commemorated by an obelisk erected in 1851 at Nunhead cemetery,  Rye Hill Estate, London.  

After being arrested in January 1793 for his so-called seditious  activities; Muir was released on bail and then he went to France to warn  the French that the execution of the monarch would be counter  productive to the reform movement. He came back via Ireland and was  arrested again at Stranraer. Being a barrister he defended himself at his  trial.  

This intrepid character escaped captivity en route to Botany Bay in  the Friendly Isles and after many adventures, including being badly  wounded when the Spanish ship he was on was attacked by a British  warship, he got back to France, where he was feted on his arrival in Bordeaux and Paris. 

He eventually died at Chantilly, a suburb of Paris,  having succumbed to the wounds he had received coupled with the  effect of his other ordeals.  

The Thomas Paine Society hope to be associated with the friends of Nunhead Cemetery in commemorating the 200th anniversary of the  sentencing of the Scottish martyrs.  

A recent copy of a Norfolk paper reveals a fitting coincidence in that a Thomas Muir is now manager of the Thomas Paine Hotel in Thetford,  which stands on the traditional site of Paine’s birthplace.