THE ORSINI ATTEMPT.
The first allusion which I can find to any lecture delivered by my
father after his return from Ireland appears in the _Reasoner_, and
is the briefest possible notice, in which no comment is made, either
upon the speaker or upon his name, although I find the _nom de guerre_
of "Iconoclast" and the subject (Sunday Trading and Sunday Praying)
given. We may, therefore, conclude that by this time[20] he had become
a tolerably familiar figure on the London Freethought platform. The
next reference I come across relates to his first lecture, given on
24th August 1855, on behalf of Mr B. B. Jones, the aged Freethinker
who sheltered him on his first leaving home, and for whose benefit he
afterwards lectured every year during the remainder of the kindly old
veteran's life.
[Footnote 20: July 1855.]
In the latter part of 1856 my father's lectures are referred to in the
reports of meetings with tolerable regularity, and I gather that even
at that time he was lecturing four or five times a month. He lectured
at a little hall in Philpot Street, Commercial Road; Finsbury Hall,
Bunhill Row; at a hall in St George's Road, near the "Elephant and
Castle," afterwards given up by the Freethinkers who were accustomed to
hire it on Sundays, because they did not approve of the uses to which
it was put during the week; at the Hoxton Secular Class Rooms, 101 High
Street; and the John Street Institution, Fitzroy Square.
Amongst his many and varied occupations he yet contrived to make time
for study, for in the same year he was lecturing on Strauss' "Life of
Jesus," and Mahomet and the Koran, in addition to the more general
questions of the Existence of God, Materialism, etc. And here I may
cite a little instance showing that my father's power of repartee was
a very early development. He happened to be lecturing upon "The God of
the Bible," and in the discussion which ensued "a Christian gentleman,
Mr Dunn, ... informed his auditory that it was only by God's mercy
they existed at all, as all men had been tried and condemned before
their birth, and were now prisoners at large." My father in his reply
promptly took "objection to this phrase, as implying that society was
nothing more than a collection of 'divine ticket-of-leave men.'"
In 1856, too, Mr Bradlaugh once more ventured into print. His first
essay in the publishing way, it may be remembered, was the little
pamphlet on the "Christian's Creed," which he dedicated to the Rev.
Mr Packer. This time he issued, in conjunction with John Watts and
"Anthony Collins," a little publication called "Half-hours with
Freethinkers," which came out in fortnightly numbers, and opened on
October 1st with a paper on Descartes from the pen of "Iconoclast."
Two series were ultimately issued, each of twenty-four numbers, but
some time elapsed between the two; in fact, the second did not come
out until 1864, and was edited by my father and Mr John Watts. These
stories "of the lives and doctrines of those who have stood foremost in
the ranks of Freethought in all countries and in all ages" met with a
hearty welcome, and are in demand even to this day; several were at the
time reprinted in America by the _Boston Investigator_.
The new year of 1857 opened with a promise of growing activity by an
address from "Iconoclast" to a party of Secular friends who assembled
in the hall at Philpot Street, to watch the New Year in, and by a
course of ten (or twelve) lectures in criticism of the Bible, which
he commenced on the following day. On the 12th of February, also, was
held his first discussion, or at least the first I can find recorded,
if we except the youthful encounters of Warner Place. The discussion
between "Mr Douglas and Iconoclast" took place at the little Philpot
Street Hall; but who Mr Douglas was I know not, for the report is
limited to a mention of an allusion by the Christian advocate to
Atheists as "monsters, brutes, and fools," which was--as we may well
believe--"severely commented on by 'Iconoclast.'"
Another and more important work, however, was begun in the early spring
of 1857. This was "The Bible: what it is: Being an examination thereof
from Genesis to Revelation." This work, advertised by my father as
"intended to relieve the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge
from the labour of retranslating the Bible, by proving that it is
not worth the trouble and expense," it was arranged should be issued
in fortnightly numbers by Holyoake & Co., whose "Fleet Street House,"
situate at 147 Fleet Street, was to a considerable extent maintained
by the Freethought party. After the third number, Mr G. J. Holyoake
declined to publish, on the ground that Mr Bradlaugh would probably
go too far in his mode of criticism, and that by publishing the book
he would be identified with it. This seemed an inadequate reason,
since Mr Holyoake published Spiritualistic works, a "Criminal History
of the Clergy," and other books, with which he was most certainly
not identified. Later Mr Holyoake based his refusal to publish on
the ground that a short passage in the third number referring to
the suggestion that the third chapter of Genesis was intended as an
allegorical representation of the union of the sexes, was obscene.
Mr Bradlaugh was both surprised and indignant, as well he might be,
and wrote a letter to the _Investigator_,[21] explaining his position
fully. He was obliged henceforward to publish his work himself; Mr
Edward Truelove, who then had a bookseller's business at 240 Strand,
generously rendering every assistance in his power.
[Footnote 21: The _Investigator_. A Journal of Secularism, edited by
Robert Cooper.]
By this time also he had become a regular contributor to the
_Investigator_, and his first articles were upon the "Lives of Bible
Heroes"--Abraham, Moses, David, and Cain, each following in turn.
On the 22nd of February 1858 Mr Truelove was arrested by Government
warrant for the publication of a pamphlet written by Mr W. E. Adams,
"Is Tyrannicide Justifiable?" in which was discussed the attempt made
by Orsini upon the life of the French Emperor.
Referring to this, my father wrote some notable words in his
Autobiography of 1873. "I became," said he, "Honorary Secretary to the
Defence, and was at the same time associated with the conduct of the
defence of Simon Bernard, who was arrested at the instigation of the
French Government for alleged complicity in the Orsini tragedy. It was
at this period I gained the friendship of poor Bernard, which, without
diminution, I retained until he died; and also the valued friendship
of Thomas Allsop, which I still preserve. My associations were
thenceforward such as to encourage in me a strong and bitter feeling
against the late Emperor Napoleon. Whilst he was in power I hated
him, and never lost an opportunity of working against him until the
_déchéance_ came. I am not sure now that I always judged him fairly;
but nothing, I think, could have tempted me either to write or speak
of him with friendliness or kindliness during his life. _Le sang de
mes amis etait sur son âme._ Now that the tomb covers his remains, my
hatred has ceased; but no other feeling has arisen in its place. Should
any of his family seek to resume the Imperial purple, I should remain
true to my political declarations of sixteen years since, and should
exert myself to the uttermost to prevent France falling under another
Empire. I write this with much sadness, as the years 1870 to 1873
have dispelled some of my illusions, held firmly during the fifteen
years which preceded. I had believed in such men as Louis Blanc, Ledru
Rollin, Victor Hugo, as possible statesmen for France. I was mistaken.
They were writers, talkers, and poets; good men to ride on the stream,
or to drown in honest protest, but lacking force to swim against, or
turn back, the tide by the might of their will. I had believed too in
a Republican France, which is yet only in the womb of time, to be born
after many pangs and sore travailing."
When Mr Bradlaugh acted as Secretary for the Defence, his duties were
performed in no merely formal way, but with the utmost energy and
enthusiasm. In order to give more time to this work, he suspended the
publication of his Commentary on the Bible, and in issuing the "Appeal"
for the Defence fund wrote in earnest entreaty for his staunch and
fearless friend, saying truly enough, "It would be a stain on us for
years if we left poor Truelove to fight the battle of the press alone."
But my father's sympathies were all his life long on the side of the
weak and oppressed, and in this particular instance he came in personal
contact with the friends and associates of Orsini, if not with Orsini
himself (which, indeed, I am under the impression was the case), so
that the whole tone of his surroundings was anti-Napoleonic. Felice
Orsini must have been personally known to many of the advanced thinkers
in England, for I notice that in the winter of 1856 he was lecturing
at Woolwich (and probably elsewhere) on "Austrian and Papal Tyranny in
Italy." Those who knew him, even those who could not approve his deed,
yet honoured and revered him as a hero and a martyr.
My father spoke of him as "the noble, the brave, the true-hearted
Orsini." In 1859, writing of him: "One year since and his blood was
scarce dry! Bernard was a prisoner; Allsop a fugitive. Now Orsini
lives: the spirit of his greatness passed into a hundred others, and
the dead hero lives. Priests in their masses say, 'Pray for the memory
of the dead;' we say, 'Work for the memory of the dead!' Orsini needs
a monument o'er his grave. He is buried in the hearts of the freemen
of Europe, and his monument should be indestructible Republicanism
throughout France, Italy, Hungary, and Poland." Alas! for my father's
dreams of a Republic for those striving and oppressed nations. Poland
still lies at the feet of Russia, Hungary is held in the iron grasp
of Imperial Austria, and but a year or so ago Republican France and
Monarchical Italy were ready to fly at one another's throats.
The result of the prosecution of Mr Truelove, which is told more
fully at the end of this chapter by an abler pen than mine, was the
abandonment by the Government of all proceedings on certain conditions;
and although Mr Truelove, as well as his friends, would have preferred
a trial and acquittal to a withdrawal on the conditions accepted by his
counsel, nevertheless it was an undoubted triumph for the principle
of the liberty of the press and free discussion. When at length the
struggle ended it was proposed to raise a sum of money to compensate Mr
Truelove for the loss he must have sustained in his business, but this
Mr Truelove, with true public spirit, chivalrously refused.
Dr Bernard, in the conduct of whose defence Mr Bradlaugh was also
associated, seems to have been personally a most lovable man. I do not
think that I myself recollect him, but he was so often spoken of in
our family, and always with affection and regret, and his photograph
so proudly kept, that he seems a familiar figure in my early memories;
there was a tradition, of which as a child I was immensely proud (as
though I had played a conscious and important part in the matter!)
that the evening on which I was born, the 31st of March, my father
was delivering an oration upon Orsini in some Hall in London; at the
conclusion he was followed home by the police, and, being aware of the
fact, he led his pursuers a pretty chase. The notes of this address
were afterwards written out on thin paper and ironed, by an expert
laundress attached to my father and mother, into the folds of Dr
Bernard's shirt and conveyed to him in prison. In a notice which he
wrote of a meeting of the Political Reform League in the October of
the same year, Mr Bradlaugh alludes to the presence of "Simon Bernard,
who with his frank and good-humoured bearing seems quite unlike a
conspirator." He not infrequently took the chair at Dr Bernard's
meetings at St. Martin's Hall, Long Acre, and elsewhere, returning home
on one occasion with sundry rents in his coat, the result of Catholic
objections to Dr Bernard's strictures on the Pope, aided by the rancour
of persons friendly to Louis Napoleon.
Mr Headingley[22] says that when Dr Bernard was tried, great anxiety
was felt as to the verdict; and when it was known that one of the
jurymen was a friend, he was sent into the jury box with his pocket
full of sandwiches, so that he should not yield for want of food. But
this proved a needless precaution, for the jury returned with a verdict
of _Not guilty_ after a consultation of less than an hour-and-a-half.
Amongst other exciting incidents of the time, which he learned from my
father's own lips, Mr Headingley relates that--
[Footnote 22: Biography of Charles Bradlaugh.]
"Before the trial, and while Bernard lay in prison awaiting his fate,
considerable fear was entertained lest he should be surreptitiously
given up to the French authorities. A watch was therefore instituted
over the prison; communications, in spite of all regulations to
the contrary, were established with the prisoner; and the Defence
Committee kept informed as to everything that happened within the
walls. Had Bernard been removed, there were friends ever close at
hand, both night and day, ready to give the alarm. A riot would very
probably have ensued, and an attempt made to rescue Bernard in the
confusion."
He goes on to say that "the organization of all these precautionary
measures involved a great deal of labour, and required much tact. The
presence of French police spies was supplemented by the interference
of English spies; and against these it was necessary for Bernard's
friends to be on the alert. On one occasion some mounted police
followed Bradlaugh to his home in Cassland Road, Hackney. At another
time he entered a restaurant near Leicester Square with Dr Bernard
and Mr Sparkhall, an old and trusty friend, who subsequently joined
and helped to organize the English legion that fought so well for
Garibaldi. While they were discussing a French spy came in, and
sitting down in the next compartment, soon pretended to be asleep.
Bradlaugh, recognising the individual, leaned over the compartment,
took a long spill, as if to light a cigar, and held the burning paper
under the spy's nose. As the man was only pretending to be asleep,
this treatment did not fail to awake him most promptly. Further, this
manner of dealing with him left no room for doubt as to his having
been recognised, and he therefore simply rose and quietly left the
restaurant, without even protesting against the burn inflicted on
his most prominent feature. So numerous were the foreign spies in
London at that time, that popular irritation was excited, and once
Bernard himself was mistaken by a mob in the Park, and attacked as a
French spy. His friends had great difficulty in shielding him and in
persuading his aggressors that they were mistaken."
Thomas Allsop,[23] mentioned by Mr Bradlaugh in the same sentence with
Bernard, was also present at the Reform League meeting, and he is
described by my father as "a straightforward old gentleman, carrying
his years well, and apparently untroubled by the late harassing events;
his head gives you an idea of power and dogged determination--it
is worth more than £200." These last words refer, I believe, to a
reward of £200 which was offered for the apprehension of Mr Allsop in
connection with the Orsini matter. Apart from the striking personality
it represents, the name of Thomas Allsop will always bear a peculiar
interest to admirers of Charles Bradlaugh, for it was he who bestowed
upon the, even then, "strong man and strenuous fighter" the motto
"Thorough," which his after life so amply justified, and of which he
was so proud, saying, "When my work is over, and the stone covers the
spot wherein I lie, may I be entitled to have the word 'Thorough'
carven upon its face."
[Footnote 23: Mr Allsop will be known to the English public as the
author of the "Recollections of Samuel Taylor Coleridge." He died a few
years before my father, and he lies near his friend at Brookwood.]
It was during these years of political excitement that my father became
acquainted with Mazzini, Crispi, de Boni, Ledru Rollin, Louis Blanc,
and W. J. Linton.
The author of the "Tyrannicide" pamphlet has been so good as to
write for me his "Recollections of Charles Bradlaugh;" and as the
references to this period are very interesting, I cannot do better than
incorporate them here just as he sent them to me:--
"It was in 1858," Mr W. E. Adams tells us, "that I first made the
personal acquaintance of Charles Bradlaugh. Mr Bradlaugh was at that
time known only as 'Iconoclast,' the general public having, I think,
a very indistinct idea what his real name was. I had heard him as
'Iconoclast' at the old John Street Institution, where many another
dead and gone controversialist had won plaudits from the listening
crowd: Dr Mill, Henry Tyrrell, Samuel Kydd, Robert Cooper. There, too,
the veteran Thomas Cooper had recited 'Paradise Lost,' or told the
eloquent story of the cause of the Commonwealth. Iconoclast, then a
tall, slender, yet powerful young man, with a face stern enough for
an adjutant, and a carriage equal to that of an Elizabethan hero, was
beginning to claim admission to the ranks of the leaders of advanced
thought.
"The year 1858 was the year of Felice Orsini's attempt on the life
of Louis Napoleon. I was at that time, and had been for some years
previously, a member of a Republican association, which was formed to
propagate the principles of Mazzini. When the press, from one end of
the country to the other, joined in a chorus of condemnation of Orsini,
I put down on paper some of the arguments and considerations which I
thought told on Orsini's side. The essay thus produced was read at a
meeting of one of our branches, the members attending which earnestly
urged me to get the piece printed. It occurred to me also that the
publication might be of service, if only to show that there were two
sides to the question 'Tyrannicide.' So I went to Mr G. J. Holyoake,
then carrying on business as a publisher of advanced literature in
Fleet Street. Mr Holyoake not being on the premises, his brother
Austin asked me to leave my manuscript and call again. When I called
again Mr Holyoake returned me the paper, giving among other reasons
for declining to publish it that he was already in negotiation with
Mazzini for a pamphlet on the same subject. 'Very well,' said I, 'all
I want is that something should be said on Orsini's side. If Mazzini
does this, I shall be quite content to throw my production into the
fire.' A few days later, not hearing anything of the Mazzini pamphlet,
I left the manuscript with Mr Edward Truelove, with whom I have ever
since maintained a close and unbroken friendship. Mr Truelove seemed
pleased with the paper, offered to publish it, and proposed to get it
printed. The essay, as I had written it, was entitled 'Tyrannicide,
a Justification.' Mr Truelove, however, suggested that it should be
called 'Tyrannicide: is it Justifiable?' Then there was no name to the
production, which, I need not say, bore many marks of the immaturity
of the author. Mr Truelove said it would be as well to adopt a _nom
de plume_. But if any name was to appear to the pamphlet, I said I was
disposed to think that it should be my own. And so it came to pass that
the pamphlet appeared with the title--'Tyrannicide: is it Justifiable?
by W. E. Adams. Published by Edward Truelove, 240 Strand, London.' Two
or three days after the announcement of the publication, when only a
few hundred copies had been sold, Mr Truelove was arrested, brought
before the Bow Street magistrate, and held to bail for publishing a
seditious libel on Louis Napoleon. As a matter of course, nobody knew
the author. It was suspected indeed that the name attached to the
pamphlet was a fiction, and that the essay was the production of a
French exile.
"The arrest of Mr Truelove was regarded as an attack upon the liberty
of the press--an attempt to restrict the right of public discussion.
So regarding it, a number of gentlemen, prominently identified with
advanced opinions, formed what was called a 'Truelove Defence Fund.'
Mr Bradlaugh, who was among the first to volunteer assistance, was
appointed secretary of the committee; the late James Watson accepted
the office of treasurer; and contributions and other help were
received from John Stuart Mill, W. Cunningham, M.P., Dr Epps, Arthur
Trevelyan, Professor F. W. Newman, W. J. Fox, M.P., Jos. Cowen,
junr., Abel Heywood, P. A. Taylor, Harriet Martineau, etc. Six months
after Mr Truelove had been arrested, the whole affair came to a most
'lame and impotent' conclusion. It was at the instance of Sir Richard
Bethel, Attorney-General under Lord Palmerston, and probably at the
instigation of the Government of Louis Napoleon, whom the pamphlet
was alleged to have libelled, that the prosecution was commenced.
The case was withdrawn by Sir Fitzroy Kelly, Attorney-General under
the Government of Lord Derby, on the understanding that Mr Truelove
would sell no more of the pamphlets. Down to the evening preceding the
day fixed for the trial, Mr Truelove, though he had doubts as to the
result, fully expected that the matter would be fought out. On that
evening, however, when it was too late to instruct other counsel, Mr
Truelove was informed that the counsel already retained for the defence
announced that the affair would have to be compromised. So it came to
pass that Chief Justice Campbell, six months after the prosecution had
been instituted, dismissed Mr Truelove with many words of caution.
It need not be said that Mr Bradlaugh was as much disgusted with
this termination of the case as Mr Truelove himself. The secret of
the collapse, I think, was this:--Edwin James, who was retained for
the defence, and who had political ambitions which were never fully
realised on account of misdeeds which compelled him to retire from
public life and from his own country, practically sold his client in
order that the Government might be relieved from a distasteful and
unpleasant position."