The extraordinary legal licence of disordered and offensive imputation
has been limited since 1842. In those days, officers of the law, who
always professed high regard for morality and truth, had no sense of
either, when they were drawing up theological indictments. In the affair
at Cheltenham I delivered a lecture on Home Colonies (a proposal similar
to the Garden Cities of to-day), to which nobody objects now. As
I always held that discussion was the right of the audience, as
self-defensive against the errors of lecturer or preacher, an auditor,
availing himself of this concession, arose in the meeting and asked:
"Since I had spoken of duty to man, why I had said nothing of duty
to God"? My proper answer was, that having announced one subject, the
audience would have a right to complain that I had trepanned them into
hearing another, which they would not hear willingly. Such a reply would
have been received with outcries, and the Christian auditor would have
said, "I dare not answer the question--that I held opinions I was afraid
to disclose." All the while the questioner knew that an honest answer
might have penal consequences, which he intended to invoke. Christians
in those days lacked winning ways. I gave a defiant answer, which caused
my imprisonment. There was no imputation in my reply, which merely
produced merriment.
Yet my indictment said I "was a wicked, malicious, evil-disposed
person," and that I "wickedly did compose, speak and utter, pronounce
and publish with a loud voice, of and concerning the Holy Scriptures, to
the high displeasure of Almighty God, and against the peace of our Lady
the Queen." Every sentence was an outrage, and nearly every word untrue.
I was not wicked, nor malicious, nor evil-disposed. I did not compose
the speech--it was purely spontaneous. I never had a loud voice. I never
referred to the Holy Scriptures, and I only disturbed the peace of our
Lady the Queen by a ripple of laughter.
I carried no arms. I was known as belonging to the "Moral Force Party"
in politics, and was entirely unprepared to attack any person, let alone
one Omnipotent with "force of arms." The imputations in the indictment
were not only untrue, but contained more blasphemy than was in the mind
of any one to utter. I called the Judge's attention to the atrocity
of the language of the indictment He did not say there was anything
objectionable in it, which showed that the morality of the Bench was
not higher at that time than the morality of the magistrates. In the
_Cheltenham Chronicle_, known in the town as the Rev. Francis Close's
(afterwards Dean of Chichester) paper, I was described as a "miscreant"
for the answer I had given to my auditor. Mr. Justice Erskine had no
word of reproof for the infamous term applied to me.
As I have elsewhere said, I spoke in my defence upwards of nine hours.
The length was owing to the declaration of one of the magistrates (Mr.
Bransby Cooper) that the Court would not hear me defend myself. Why I
defended myself at all, was from a very different reason.
No barrister in those days would defend any one charged with dissenting
from the Christian religion. The counsel always apologised to the jury
for the opinions of his client, which admitted his guilt. This was done
at that very assizes at which I was tried. A Mr. Thompson, a barrister
in Court, who we mistook for a son of General Perronet Thompson, also
at the Bar, was engaged to defend George Adams, charged with an act
of heresy. The false Thompson expressed contrition for Adams, without
knowing or inquiring whether it was true that he felt it. Neither
counsel nor magistrate nor judge seemed to think it necessary that what
they said should be true.
Thus my justification of the seeming presumption of defending myself was
the fact that no counsel would defend us without compromising us. I
had no taste for martyrdom. I did not want martyrdom; I did not like
martyrdom. Martyrdom is not a thing to be sought, but a thing to be
submitted to when it comes.
This narrative shows that, in one respect, legal taste and truth have
improved in my time.