The Battle of The Press

So much for the unpleasant details which are necessary to the understanding and justification of later events. It is more pleasant to record the manner in which this wife helped in the business, and how well she withstood the assaults of their common enemy. On the whole, and considering that she had absolutely no sympathy with Carlile's aims and ideas, and that her sole idea of a cause was the profits to be made by it, remembering also that she suffered a two years' imprisonment and bore two children to him in prison, that she fought for him as well as at him, also bearing in mind that to be the wife of a reformer one must suffer toil and privation, loss and sorrow of every kind, then we must feel she did her part in the good cause and bore her trials well. Whatever may have been her faults she is entitled to her share of the gratitude and remembrance of those who now enjoy the blessings of a Free Press.

She bore her husband five children in all, only three of whom reached maturity. These were Richard, Alfred, and Thomas Paine Carlile. It cannot be said that any of these sons followed in their father's footsteps. Though they were associated with him, by turns, in the practical part of the publishing business, they seemed not to have inherited either their mother's thrift or their father's talents, and were the source of much uneasiness to him. It would appear as if the uncongeniality of the parents had affected their children unfavorably. Carlile set them up in business several times, but always with unpleasant results; the unpopularity of the name.

Carlile at that time may have had much to do with their non-success, but not all. Carlile was at all times a most patient and kind parent. Always a great lover of little children, he contrived to have one or more of them with him as much as possible during his imprisonment. Again and again did he try them in business as they grew to manhood, and made many sacrifices for them. In a letter addressed to Mr. Thomas Turton, March 6th, 1838, after relating his anxiety and efforts for their welfare, he said:

"I begin to feel that there can never be any advantageous union whatever between me and any portion of that family. I can see no other purpose in them than the aim to get from me whatever they can, without regard to doing themselves or me any good. In this they have been trained by their mother from their infancy, and that training remains in them. Alfred is the best of them, but even he has exhibited too much of that feeling. The whole family has dealt with me as though they had a secret interest to provide for distinct from mine; and I must meet them accordingly, for their own benefit as well as mine."

In another letter to the same gentleman, condoling with him on the loss of a very bright and intellectual son, he writes:

"Be assured of my sympathy and condolence, for indeed 'I mourn with you'. Neither of my own boys promising to be anything, I had pictured yours as being one of my future aids. I had formed high hopes of him, he was one of the brightest youths I had ever met. I had often wished that my boys were like him."

At another date, after some more unpleasant experiences with his own boys, he writes again to Mr.

Turton, who for more than twenty years was his bosom friend and shared all his secrets, if he had any. "The only idea that my boys entertain of a father is that he is a person to be fleeced. They sell my goods and make no return of the money." And then in a burst of feeling he concludes: "Such a family as I have neither God nor devil could manage." But enough of these unpleasant matters, which would not be given but that it is necessary to do so to serve their purpose in the cause of truth. Carlile's patience and forbearance with the unfortunate peculiarities of this wife earned for him the sobriquet of a noted sage. The Rev. Robert Taylor complimented him many a time and oft, and said, "that it was a Xantippe alone who could have made him into such a perfect resemblance in manner and character to Socrates".

Richard, the eldest son, emigrated to America soon after his father's death, and settled in Wisconsin, near Milwaukee; and was elected to the House of Assembly from that State. He died of ship fever on his return to America after paying a visit to London in 1855.

CHAPTER III. THE MANCHESTER MASSACRE

The following account of the memorable and terrible Manchester massacre is given by Carlile himself. It was his escape from this, and his subsequent publishing of the particulars concerning it, that drew down upon him the vengeful malice of the then Prime Minister, Lord Castlereagh, who was thereafter bent on Carlile's undoing.

"Early in the month of August, 1819, I was invited by John Knight, in the name of the committee, to attend an open-air meeting in Manchester, to take place on August 16th, 1819, at St. Peter's Field, the object being to meet and discuss their grievances publicly, and to unite upon a plan to be submitted to the House of Commons for the purpose of seeking and demanding the restoration of those political rights of which they had recently been unlawfully deprived by the passage of the Six Acts Bill, and the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act; and to take action with a view or endeavor to procure other reforms from a notably corrupt Parliament. There had been rumors of the military being called out if the meeting should be held as proposed. I wrote the Chairman of the committee saying that as the advocates of reform were threatened with military execution at that meeting, I felt it my duty to be there, as a matter of example, at the post of danger. It was announced in the New Times before I left London that General Byng had reviewed the troops on St. Peter's Plain, and that they were in fine condition for coping with the Radicals, at the coming meeting, on the 16th August. I travelled from Birmingham to Manchester. There was a general expectation of an attack from the military, and some of the leaders were anxious to arm themselves, and there was a proposition afoot that fifteen thousand men should be there armed with pikes as a precautionary measure, but it was vetoed by some one of the leaders. About eleven o'clock in the morning the people began to assemble at the cottage where Mr. Henry Hunt had taken up his residence. At twelve Mr. Hunt, myself, and others entered the barouche that was to convey us to the place of meeting. We had not proceeded far when we were met by a committee of women from the Women's Reform Committee, one of whom bore a standard with the figure of a woman holding a flag in her hand, surmounted by a cap of liberty. She was requested to take a seat on the box of the carriage, which she did, and sat waving her flag and her handkerchief till we arrived at the hustings, when she took her stand at the corner of the hustings in front. Bodies of men were seen everywhere marching in military order with music, and colors flying, and carrying mottoes inscribed on them such as 'No Corn Laws', 'Liberty or Death' 'Taxation without Representation is Tyranny', 'We will have Liberty', etc., etc. Such cheering was never before heard! Women from the age of 16 to 80 years were seen with their caps in their hands waving and cheering, and their hair consequently dishevelled, the whole scene exceeding the powers of description. In passing through the streets the crowds were very great, and word was brought to Mr. Hunt that there were 300,000 people at and about the place of meeting. As the carriage moved along and reached the shops and warehouses of Mr. Johnson, of Smedley, three times three were given, also at the Police Court and at the Exchange. We arrived at the place of destination about one o'clock. Mr. Hunt expressed his disapprobation of the hustings as arranged, and feared that there would be some accident happen, they not appearing to be very secure. After some hesitation he ascended, and the proposition being made that he should be chairman, he was made so by acclamation. There were five women upon the hustings; four of them took a stand in the bottom of the waggons that formed the hustings, the other, who was Mary Fildes, I believe, was elevated on one corner of the front with her banner in her hand and resting on a large chain. A most singular and interesting situation for a woman at such a meeting; Joan of Arc could not have been more interesting. Mr. Hunt had just begun his speech by thanking the people for the favor conferred on him, and made some ironical remarks on the conduct of the magistrates, when a cart or waggon, which evidently took its start from that part of the field where the police and magistrates were assembled in a house, was driven through the middle of the field, to the great annoyance and danger of the people assembled, who quietly made way for it to pass. The waggon had no sooner made its way through, when the Yeoman Cavalry made its appearance from the side on which the waggon had gone out. The meeting at the entrance of the cavalry and from the commencement was most orderly. The appearance of the women on the platform made the occasion particularly interesting, and everyone present wore bright and happy faces; but as the waggon drove out the cavalry made their appearance, and charged upon the defenceless people with the utmost fury, riding down everyone who could not get out of the way, and cutting down men, women, and children, commencing their premeditated attack with the most insatiable thirst for blood and destruction! The police, too, were as expert in applying their clubs to the heads and shoulders of the people as the cavalry their sabres. The brutality of the police equalled in ferocity the blood-thirstiness of the soldiers. On the first appearance of the cavalry I was standing by Mary Fildes, but I found her above everything like fear. I turned to cheer the other four women, and found them too in good spirits. Many people were rushing on the hustings, and many others getting off, and an opening between the two waggons enabled them to pass down through. After many others had done so, and just as Mr. Hunt was arrested, I passed down through the aperture and had a very narrow escape of my life in so doing, for the pressure of the crowd was so great that, just as I jumped down, the two waggons came together with a crash; and I lost my hat by its being jammed off my head, between the two waggons, in such a manner that I could not extricate it. I was no sooner under the hustings than I found the horses' feet up close to me; but the hustings being cleared, they moved around and followed the crowd who were driven from the hustings, and I then walked out without a hat and was seized by the police. Their first question was, 'Who are you? What business have you here?' I told them that if they thought proper to take me in charge I would soon let them know who I was and how I came there. 'Damn you!' says one; 'let him go about his business'; and I lost no time in doing so. And I found no further interruption except a few blows from their truncheons. I, being a perfect stranger in that city, made to the nearest houses, which I believe were called Hall's Buildings, Windmill Row. Here I found a number of people sheltered. The place formed a little inlet from St. Peter's Plain, but no thoroughfare. All houses were close shut, and on no account would people open them, until there was one woman who looked out of window, and seeing me, a well-dressed man without a hat, supporting a woman who had received a severe contusion on the breast, she was moved with sympathy, and under the idea that I was a doctor and could assist her, she came down and let us in, when there was a rush of about a dozen persons, mostly young people of both sexes. I could not move from the house till six in the evening, when the husband came home from his work. On his arrival I commissioned him to purchase me a hat, which he had great difficulty in doing, as all shops were closed. He at last succeeded, and then I got him to pilot me through the town to the 'Star' Inn, where I had slept the night before, and left my portmanteau. On coming to the inn and finding it surrounded by the cavalry who had done all the mischief in the morning, I thought it prudent not to enter. I then made my way to Mr. Wroe's house, as he was the only man I knew in Manchester, and on consulting with him I concluded that I could do no good in Manchester, but might do much good in London by an early publication of what I had witnessed. I resolved to leave by the first mail, but my portmanteau was still in the enemies' quarters. A person in Mr. Wroe's house undertook to bring me to a coach stand, and having got into a coach, I ordered the man to drive me to the 'Star' Inn, to the door of which we had great difficulty in getting owing to the pressure of so many mounted yeomanry. I got out boldly, and told the coachman to wait, and went into the travellers' room. I made sure of being known, as we had driven past the inn in the morning in the open barouche, and were seen by all the servants, who did not fail to hiss a little as their house was the rendezvous for the enemy, a circumstance I did not know when I went there. On calling the waiter he was quite sullen, saying they had kept me a bed at a great inconvenience to other customers. I pacified him by telling him to charge for it, but I had to ring again and again before the bill and the portmanteau were brought, and all the time I thought there was something brewing for me. At last a different waiter came, and then my things were soon brought and bill settled. Having pleased the waiter beyond his expectations, I slipped on a great coat and a pair of white gaiters, and he ushered me to the coach with a great deal of ceremony, and the yeomanry in front were requested to make way for one whom they had been sent to kill in the morning. While I had been waiting so long for my bill, etc., my coach had to move on to make way for another, and so I was shown to the wrong coach and drove off to the 'Bridgewater Arms', from whence the mail coach started. I had just got out and paid the man when there was a hue and cry after me by the first coachman I had hired, and unknowingly left behind at the 'Star' door. My first impression was that the police had scent of me, but I soon found my mistake, paid the man, and all was right. At three in the morning the coach left, and great was the terror of the coachman, guard, and passengers that it would be stopped by the Reformers before it got to Stockport. I had nothing to fear on this head, but was not free of apprehension that one of my fellow-travellers was a police officer in disguise set to watch me, or to keep at my heels at any rate. He was despatched from Manchester as an express agent to London, either to the Government or to some mercantile house. There were four of us in the mail, two were friends of the master of the 'Bridgewater Arms', and had been there on a visit, and appeared to be coach-masters themselves living somewhere between Macclesfield and Derby. Those two worthies were well filled with wine, but a bottle was brought to the coach door by the master to have a parting glass, when to every glass was the toast, 'Down with Hunt!' One of them would insist on my taking a glass as a fellow-traveller to join in the sentiment of 'Down with Hunt!' To pacify the fools and disarm suspicion as far as possible, I drank the glass of wine with 'Down with Hunt!' which was considered the proof of my being a good fellow and a fit companion for them. The panic which prevailed in all the towns from Manchester to Northampton can scarcely be conceived, and it fell to my lot to detail the particulars of the massacre at each town we passed through, as nothing but post-horse expresses had passed through till the arrival of our mail coach."

Mr. Hunt received a sentence of two years' imprisonment in Dorchester Gaol for his part in this affair. The reader is spared the details of the bloody onslaught. The instances which came under Carlile's immediate observation were sickening in the extreme, and drew from him immediately on his arriving in London a spirited letter to Lord Sidmouth, describing the whole affair, and calling on him to call the Manchester authorities to account for their dastardly conduct. The letter itself gave great umbrage, and a council of three, consisting of Lord Sidmouth, Sir John Silvester, Recorder, and John Atkins, Mayor of London, studied over it for several days to see if it could not be made out to be itself a treasonable affair. In the meantime, the Prince Regent had directed Lord Sidmouth to return the magistrates of Manchester, and all the officers and privates concerned in the attack, "Their thanks to them for having so promptly preserved the peace and tranquillity of the country."

This drew from Carlile two more letters of the same kind as the first, but stronger, one to the Prince Regent, George, afterwards George IV, and another to Lord Sidmouth. The boldness of this proceeding was something very unusual and not to be tolerated; but Carlile never knew what fear was when he had a pen in his hand, or indeed at any other time. Moreover, he could not believe that the Prince Regent could have been properly informed, or he would not have done this, and he was boiling with indignation at the treatment of peaceable citizens.

This letter of Sir Francis Burdett on the Manchester massacre was adjudged libellous, and procured for Sir Francis a fine of £1,500 or a year's imprisonment, in the usual manner of those days. (Sir Francis preferred paying the fine.) It ran as follows: —

"To the Electors of Westminster,

"Aug. 18th, 1819.

"Gentlemen,

"This, then, is the answer of the boroughmongers to the petitioning people – this is the proof of our standing in no need of reform – these the practical blessings of our glorious boroughmongers' domination – this the use of a standing army in time of peace. It seems our fathers were not such fools as some would make believe in opposing the establishment of a standing army and sending King William's Dutch guards out of the country! Yet would to heaven they had been Dutchmen or Switzers, or Hessians, or Hanoverians, or anything rather than Englishmen who have done such deeds! What? Kill men unarmed and unresisting, and, gracious God, women too, disfigured, maimed, cut down, and trampled on by dragoons? Is this England? Is this a Christian land? A land of freedom? Can such things be and pass us by like a summer's cloud, unheeded? Forbid it; every drop of English blood in every vein that does not proclaim its owner bastard. Will the gentlemen of England support or wink at such proceedings? They have a great stake in their country; they hold great estates, and they are bound in duty and in honor to consider them as retaining fees on the part of their country for upholding its rights and privileges. Surely they will at length awake and find they have duties to perform. They never can stand tamely by as lookers-on whilst bloody Neros rip open their mothers's womb; they must join the general voice, loudly demanding justice and redress, and head public meetings throughout the United Kingdom to put a stop in its commencement to a reign of terror and of blood, to afford consolation as far as it can be afforded and legal redress to the widows and orphans – mutilated victims of this unparalleled and barbarous outrage. For this purpose I propose that a meeting shall be called in Westminster, which the gentlemen of the committee will arrange, and whose summons I would hold myself in readiness to attend. Whether the penalty of our meeting will be death by military execution I know not; but this I know – a man can die but once, and never better than in vindicating the laws and liberties of his country. Excuse this hasty address. I can scarcely tell what I have written; it may be a libel, or the Attorney-General may call it one, just as he pleases. When the seven bishops were tried for libel, for the support of arbitrary power, the army of James II, then encamped on Hounslow Heath, gave three cheers on hearing of their acquittal. The King, startled at the noise, asked, 'What's that?' 'Nothing, sire,' was the answer, 'but the soldiers shouting at the acquittal of the seven bishops.' 'Do you call that nothing?' said the misgiving tyrant; and shortly after abdicated the Government. 'Tis true, James could not inflict the tortures on his soldiers – could not tear their living flesh from their shoulders with the cat-o'-ninetails – could not flay them alive! Be this as it may, our duty is to meet, and England expects every man to do his duty.

"I remain, Gentlemen,

"Most truly and faithfully

"Your most obedient servant,

"Francis Burdett."

CHAPTER IV. RECORD OP PERSECUTION

Under the administration of Lords Liverpool, Castlereagh, Canning, Sidmouth, etc., Richard Carlile, of Fleet Street, London, publisher, was arrested on the 14th of August, 1817, on three warrants granted by Mr. Justice Holroyd on the oath of one Griffin Swanson, a common informer, for publishing a book called "The Parodies",[5 - Parodies on the Book of Common Prayer.] the sale of which had been suppressed by Mr. William Hone, but for which Mr. Hone was afterwards put on three several trials and as often acquitted, to the great joy of the people, to the great grief of the administration and Sir Samuel Shepherd, Attorney-General, to the acceleration of the death of the then Chief Justice (Ellenborough), and to the mortification of the succeeding Chief Justice, who saw his great prototype defeated as well as himself. On the 15th Carlile was committed to the King's Bench prison by Mr. Justice Holroyd in default of bail to the amount of £800 ($4,000) on three several warrants. On the 13th of November, being called to plead, he was surprised with a fourth information by the aforesaid Attorney-General, founded on the 18th No. of Vol. I of Sherwin's Political Register.

On the 20th of December he was liberated after an imprisonment of eighteen weeks by entering into recognizances of £300 ($1,500) without either of the four informations being submitted to a jury then or ever afterwards. On the 16th day of January, 1819, he was informed that "The Society for the Suppression of Vice" had presented a bill to the Grand Jury, then sitting at the Old Bailey, on a charge of blasphemous libel for the publication of Thomas Paine's theological works. Bail was immediately presented and the arrest prevented. The indictment was removed by a writ of certiorari to the Court of King's Bench at the instance of the Society, and further bail required on the first day of Hilary term, when an information was also filed and presented to the court by the Attorney-General (Shepherd) against the same publication. To both the indictment and information the defendant imparled under an order to plead within the first eight days of Easter term. On the 11th day of February a warrant was granted by Chief Justice Abbott against the defendant, on an oath made by George Pritchard and Thomas Fair, that the defendant had continued the sale of Paine's works, and that the said George Pritchard intended to prosecute. The warrant was put in force at 8 o'clock in the evening, and by 10 o'clock defendant was lodged within the walls of Newgate. On the 15th day of February, he was brought from Newgate by a writ of habeas corpus to the chambers of Mr. Justice Bailey, and bail was tendered and taken a third time to appear and answer to the charge against the same publication. On the first day of Easter term, Carlile pleaded to an information and indictment, and in addition to these had presented to him another information at the instance of the Attorney-General, founded on No. 6, vol. 4, of Sherwin's Weekly Political Register, and another indictment at the instance of the Society for the Suppression of Vice founded on that part of the 1st vol. of the Deist entitled "Palmer's Principles of Nature". To these last two he again imparled, and on the first day of Trinity term he prayed the court to stay this accumulation of informations and indictments until those to which he had already pleaded and was prepared to defend were disposed of. But the lenient and impartial judges of the Court of King's Bench could see no need of this, and he must stand prepared to defend five or perhaps nine informations and indictments at the same time, should it be the pleasure of the Attorney-General. The sittings after the terms of both Easter and Trinity had been allowed to pass without bringing the question to an issue, whilst the publications had been invariably kept on sale.

On Saturday, the 21st of August, Carlile was arrested on a warrant issued by John Atkins, Lord Mayor of the City of London, and lodged in the Giltspur Street Compter. The warrant set forth that defendant had published a malicious, seditious, and inflammatory libel, tending to create disaffection in the minds of his Majesty's subjects, and breaches of the peace. On the Monday he was conducted to the Mansion House and brought before the Lord Mayor, who, on finding bail ready, said that he should require twenty-four, if not forty-eight hours' notice of bail. This was evidently for the purpose of annoyance and to gratify a malicious caprice, for the names tendered were unexceptionable. On the Tuesday he was again brought before the Lord Mayor, and was committed for want of sureties. The person objected to was a Mr. Wooler, who owned several large houses and offices in the City, and who was as wealthy a man as the Lord Mayor himself. A Mr. Lindsay then offered to deposit the amount of bail required at once, when Lord Mayor Atkins refused and committed Carlile for want of sureties! On Thursday Carlile was again brought before him, and not being able to carry his caprices any further, he at length accepted the bail, but with the threat that if he continued the sale of the letters (to Sidmouth and the Prince) he would do so at his peril. Thus the reader will see that it was not the articles mentioned in these indictments and informations that were the real cause of these persecutions, but the letters to the Prince Regent and the Home Secretary, which Carlile had so indignantly and fearlessly addressed to them, immediately after he reached London, on his return from the scene of the Manchester massacre. He not only dared to write them such letters in which he appealed to and arraigned them, as man to man, but he published them and they were read. That was the sore that smarted and rankled and would not heal, though they dare not make this the ground of these indictments.

On the 16th of September, 1819, Carlile addressed the following letter to Attorney-General Sir Robert Gifford.

"Sir, – As the adjourned sittings of the Court of King's Bench are near at hand, I beg leave to enquire whether it is your intention as his Majesty's Attorney-General to prosecute in the ensuing sittings in the month of October those informations filed against me by the late Attorney-General, Sir Samuel Shepherd, and should such be your intention, which of them you will be pleased to take up first? Flattering myself that I shall find in you a generous opponent, I would entreat the earliest notice that might possibly be given, as it is my intention to serve with subpoenas several persons of rank and distinction, eminent in the theological, literary and scientific world, for whose convenience and accommodation I am solicitous to obtain the earliest notice, as many of them are resident in distant parts of the country, and would wish at least a week's notice for attendance. "I am, Sir,

"Your obliged and obedient servant,

"Richard Carlile."

To which he received the following reply.

"Sir, – In answer to your enquiry, I have to state that it is certainly my intention that the informations against you, which stand for trial at the adjourned sittings in October, should be tried at those sittings, and that the informations against you for publishing a blasphemous libel which stands prior in order in the list of causes, will first come on for trial.

"I am, Sir,

"Your obedient servant,

"R. Gifford

"Lincoln's Inn, September 7th, 1819."

This made the publication of the theological works of Thomas Paine the first cause to be tried, and one of the first persons to be subpoenaed was the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the following letter was written after receiving one from the Archbishop's lawyers signifying his willingness to be present at the trial.

"Fleet Street, September, 1819.

"My Lord, – I feel it my duty to express to you the warmest approbation I felt on receiving the candid reply from Messrs.

Foster, Cooke, and Frere, where your grace may be found in the month of October, should the presence of your grace be required on my trial. I beg to assure your grace that my motive for serving your grace with a subpoena was neither idle nor frivolous, and shall deem the presence of your grace to be of the highest importance, not only to my own interest, but in the interest of Truth and Justice, and consequently the interest of mankind in general. In conjunction with your grace, it is also my intention to serve with a subpoena those persons in this country most eminent in theology, astronomy, and oriental literature. I beg leave to assure your grace that such questions for such evidence as I may find necessary to elicit shall be put by me with a due impression of the importance and rank of those to whom I shall be addressing myself. I beg leave to subscribe myself,

"Your grace's most obliged and most obedient servant,

"Richard Carlile."

These letters being published in the Republican gave the authorities an inkling of the elaborate defence he intended to prepare for his trial. Such presumption and boldness amazed them, and was such as they never had to cope with before Carlile's time. William Cobbett escaped to America when he saw danger of prosecution, and Mr. Hone, though thrice tried and thrice acquitted, yet had given up the publication of the book of contention as a matter of general policy. But in Carlile's case the authorities encountered a man who had no idea of yielding a single point in the cause he felt to be just. He prepared to fight them on their own ground. He knew before he entered the court that the verdict would be against him; no matter how strong a defence he might make, conviction was, in his mind, a foregone conclusion. Those letters to Sidmouth and the Prince were not to be forgotten or forgiven. They must not be allowed to become a precedent for some future occasion.

Carlile resolved to do all that could possibly be done to set the subject of establishing the freedom of the Press fairly and squarely before the thousands that would read the account of the trials. He hoped by this means to reach a large body of thinking people, and arouse them to a sense of the danger of allowing to go unchallenged such actions on the part of the authorities as the last two years had witnessed. The simple reading of the newspaper accounts of his trial and defence would of itself, he argued, educate people and make them cognisant of his ends and aims, therefore he set himself to do what he could do for himself and the cause at this momentous epoch of his life.

The following article appeared in the 7th No., Vol. I, of the Republican, October 8th, 1819, written by Carlile.

"To the Public.

"The important moment has arrived when the trials which have attracted so much of the public attention and curiosity have been determined upon, and before another issue of this publication will be entered upon. The general expression of feeling that has been displayed on both sides of the question evinces that these trials are looked forward to with more than usual anxiety. I feel myself but as an insignificant being at this crisis, the mere instrument with which despotism in the back-ground is playing its game. I should not feel anxious for, or value my personal liberty, did I not know that its preservation by an upright and inflexible and discriminating jury is of the utmost importance at the present eventful moment A verdict of guilty will be hailed by the ministers as a cloak and sanction of all their late actions. They will triumph and go on in their destructive career; they will assume that an unlimited confidence has been placed in them, and there will be no bounds to their already frightful oppression. A verdict of not guilty will stagger and shake them from their holds, will destroy the remains of ignorance and superstition, and establish the liberty of the Press and free discussion with all its valued influence. Every stratagem will be used by my persecutors and by that portion of the Press which adheres to them to excite a feeling of prejudice against me. I was informed nearly a month ago that a loyal declaration would be ready for signatures in the City of London expressive of its abhorrence of seditious and blasphemous publications, about a week or ten days before my trial would take place. This declaration has been made, and however directly it may have been levelled at me, I cannot plead guilty to being its object, but do most heartily concur in its premises, and consequently I attended at the London Coffee House on Ludgate Hill and placed my name and address to it, which I shall expect to see published with the list of signatures. To such sentiments as are there set forth no honest man would hesitate to subscribe, but it becomes a question as to which part of the community they are applicable; I feel no connection with them. Because I have witnessed the existing privations and sufferings of certain classes of my fellow countrymen with the feelings of deepest concern, and because I feel sensible that all the treasonable and turbulent attempts to subvert the wholesome laws and regulations of the country emanate from the Cabinet, these are the reasons for my placing my signature to this declaration, and I would recommend everyone who is prominent for reform to go and do the same. As many persons and perhaps many of the readers of the Republican are ignorant of the contents of the 'Age of Reason', and led away by the general clamor of blasphemy against its author, I will give them a specimen of what is the subject of this false and absurd charge.

"'On the Deity.

"'Do we want to contemplate his power? We see it in the immensity of the Creation.