Produced by David Widger
THE BATTLE OF THE PRESS
As Told in the Story of the Life of Richard Carlile By His Daughter,
Theophila Carlile Campbell
By Theophila Carlile Campbell
1899
PREFACE.
In presenting to the present generation of England and America the
comprehensive though necessarily condensed history of the life and work
of the great pioneer in the cause of mental freedom, I am actuated by
two principal motives, the foremost of which is the desirable duty of
presenting to the people of to-day a faithful account of the work done
by Carlile and the enormous sacrifices he made, as well as the terrible
imprisonments he endured in the accomplishment of the task he set
himself to do, namely, to establish for his countrymen a really Free
Press, and the right of free oral discussion, as, up to his time,
neither right had ever been accorded to any of the peoples of Europe by
either Church or State.
In the prosecution of his self-appointed task he was assailed by
the reigning powers with all the malignity and religious fury that
characterised the days of the Inquisition. No lie was too black to be
hurled at him, no motive too low to be imputed to him, the minds of
his countrymen were purposely influenced against him in order that they
might not understand his real object--that of benefiting them--and to
divert attention from his enemies' misdoing. So he was given the horns,
hoofs, and tail of Satan himself, and invested with all the attributes
of this fallen angel. It is not to be wondered at that the majority of
the people at that time were so influenced, when we consider the very
limited resources of the times in regard to information. Almost all
of this was carried and given by word of mouth, and it was naturally
colored by the views or feelings of those who gave it out.
To rescue the name of a true friend of the people from the undeserved
obloquy or silence under which it has been so long obscured, and to
place his memory and name where it truly belongs in the list of the
honored dead of his country, and in the hearts of his countrymen, there
to dwell as long as English history lasts, is the second motive. In
doing this we may turn upon all the evidences, both public and private,
the modern searchlight of critical investigation, and I am satisfied
that when the clouds of malignant abuse and the mass of unsubstantiated
charges that were heaped upon his name and fame by those who were
interested in doing so are cleared away, his name and the record of
his life will stand out from the past as a star of the first magnitude
stands out from the darkened sky of night--bright, clear, and pure.
I therefore, with confidence, commit the record of Carlile, as a man
with the highest aims, unselfish purpose, and finest motives, who gave
the efforts of a noble life and high moral purpose for the advancement
of truth and the benefit of his fellow-men, to an enlightened and
unbiassed generation, not doubting that it will recognise the true
merit of the man and appreciate the value of his accomplishments for the
benefit not only of his countrymen but of the world at large.
THEOPHILA CARLILE CAMPBELL.
THE BATTLE OF THE PRESS, AS TOLD IN THE LIFE OF RICHARD CARLILE
CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY
"Yet shall remembrance from oblivion's veil,
Relieve your scene and sigh with grief sincere,
And soft compassion at your tragic tale,
In silent tribute pay her kindred tear."
We who rejoice in a Free Press to-day can hardly realise the condition
of the Press in Europe at the opening of the nineteenth century.
In England, eighty years ago, he who dared to express opinions in
opposition to the Established Church, or in any way offensive to the
government of the day, rendered himself liable to heavy fines and severe
imprisonment. The following extract will show better, perhaps, than
anything else what a deplorable state the Press was in when Richard
Carlile entered upon his great fight, and the obstacles he had to
encounter:--
"It is difficult to imagine a more degraded and dangerous position than
that in which every political writer was placed in the year 1817. In
the first place, he was subject by a Secretary of State's warrant to be
imprisoned upon suspicion under the suspension of the Habeas Corpus
Act. Secondly he was open to an _ex-officio_ information under which
he would be compelled to find bail or be imprisoned. The power of
_ex-officio_ information had been extended so as to compel bail by an
Act of 1808; but from 1808 to 1811, during which three years forty such
informations were laid, only one person was held to bail."*
* Larned's "Encyclopaedia and Topical History".
This was the time and this the state of affairs which greeted Carlile
when he first entered into public life. He did not then see a man who
had the courage to stand up boldly against such formidable odds. He,
therefore, resolved to raise the standard of an absolutely Free
Press, and be himself the bearer of the colors. This he knew involved
possibilities of imprisonment, of exile, losses and suffering. He
believed that his example would rally the weak and scattered forces
of the writers of the day, and rouse the people to a sense of their
degradation and dangerous condition, and to a recognition of the
oppressive character of the rulers then in power.
In gathering materials for the life of Richard Carlile, I have drawn
freely from his own publications, and also from a mass of correspondence
extending over many years of his life. These letters were in most cases
strictly private, yet every one of them would bear publication as far as
Carlile is concerned. He, however, was the recipient of many confidences
on the part of his friends--their sorrows were always his by sympathy.
The claims of friendship, long since past, still hold good, though
he would profit and not lose by the publication of the whole
correspondence.
Chief amongst his publications were the fourteen volumes of the
_Republican_, a weekly paper of thirty-two pages, ten or more volumes
of which were edited in Dorchester Gaol. The very name of Republican in
those days was a challenge to combat. This publication was the direct
outcome of the Manchester massacre. The name had once before been
adopted, but was withdrawn by Mr. Sherwin, the proprietor, as too
dangerous.
After the rash and brutal conduct of the Government at Peter's
Fields--or "Peterloo", as it came to be called--Carlile took up the
paper, restored the name _Republican_, and, raising the war-cry of "a
Free Press", kept it up through five of his six years of imprisonment in
Dorchester Gaol and for one year after.
The horrors of the French Revolution, and the declaration of
independence of the Colonial States of America, were yet too fresh in
memory for the authorities of the time to see without alarm what seemed
to be the flag of Republicanism flaunted in their very faces, and they
sought to put it down at all hazards. The story of the battle between
the authorities and Carlile will be found in the story of his life.
It lasted for many years, but Carlile lived to come off a victor. The
Government finally declared themselves defeated by him in his mode of
moral warfare in the struggle for the freedom of the Press, pronouncing
him invincible in the course he had taken.
It was said of the _Republican_ that the only section of the British
Press which could be said to be free at that time, was that which was
issued from Dorchester Prison!
Before his six years of imprisonment had expired, Carlile was informed
that it was Lord Castlereagh, the then Prime Minister, who was so
determined to crush him, and also that it was his publication of the
horrors of the Manchester massacre and his open letters to the King and
Lord Sidmouth that gave the offence--Castlereagh himself having given
the order for the massacre, and being solely responsible for it.
The charge of blasphemous libel was decided upon, after much
consultation, as the strongest that could be brought to bear upon
Carlile, as in that case the help and strength of the Church could be
had, and the minds of the people could be turned from the contemplation
of that bloody affair at Manchester. So our hero was marked for
slaughter. The fiat had gone forth! Judge, Attorney-General, and all the
prosecutors were whipped into line and made to try this case and find
this verdict, however reluctant they might have been, and _were_, to do
so.
With this view of the case, which I believe to be the correct one,
the reader will more readily comprehend how those stingingly sarcastic
letters to Gifford must have stung and rankled in the wounds.
Carlile may be said to have travelled his native isle like the champion
of old--always mounted on his charger of fearlessness, and armed
cap-a-pie for the encounter of his enemies. They always knew where to
find him, and he was always ready to do battle for the right and against
wrong. He never skulked nor concealed himself, nor took ship to avoid
his enemies. He wore his colors in his helmet in plain sight of all,
with proud defiance, and if, as sometimes happened, he was for the time
worsted in an encounter, he neither cringed nor fawned, nor asked for
quarter. He nursed his wounds as best he might, and never wavered in his
determination to fight for the right while life endured.
The names of the various publications brought out by Carlile indicated
in a measure the attitude he assumed. They were the _Republican_, the
_Deist_, the _Moralist_, the _Lion_, the _Prompter_, the _Gauntlet_, the
_Christian Warrior_, the _Phoenix_, the _Scourge_, and the _Church_.
Carlile never changed the character of a paper to suit the times, but
always stopped the old paper and started a new one whenever he felt that
the old one had accomplished the purpose for which he had started it.
In the matter of praise and blame Carlile ran the whole gamut, from the
highest _crescendo_ of approval to the _basso profundi_ of malediction.
He was called "the intellectual Saviour" and the "moral regenerator
of mankind" by his friends, and "the great Satan of the day" by his
enemies; and he was equally unmoved by the extravagance of either.
During the whole course of his public life he did not turn aside for one
instant nor stray one foot from the path he had marked out for himself.
Fines, confiscations, or imprisonments could not crush him, and we find
him saying, on entering into the tenth year of imprisonment, that "he
was now well seasoned for the fight"!
He was warned by a faithful friend, previous to his sentence of
imprisonment in 1830, that a measure had been discussed in the private
councils of the Government, that the old law of flogging should be
revived for his suppression, fines, confiscations, and imprisonments
having failed to accomplish it. On hearing that the measure had been
abandoned and a further imprisonment agreed upon, he "confessed to
having drawn a long breath ". He never despaired, however, but was
always confident of success, and never had any misgiving as to the
future outcome of the fight.
And now I come to the close of this introductory chapter, and ask the
readers of the present day to turn over the pages of the life of this
much misrepresented man.
If to map out a plan of duty in youth and to follow it out till death
through good and evil report, unspoiled by praise, unmoved by assaults
the most ferocious; if to endure losses and the sacrifice of all
domestic comforts and apparently unending imprisonment, and never to
lose courage or be cast down in spirit; if to bear every evil unshaken
and to keep his eyes steadily fixed on the object to be attained, though
that object be no selfish one, but for the benefit of down-trodden
humanity; if to stand at the helm through storm and fire, through
adverse winds and tides, and at last to pilot the barque of a noble
purpose to a sure haven--if this be evidence of greatness of mind, then
he was great, for this he _did!_
He was great, too, in his ability to lead the people. He was a great
educator of the people; he taught them to think for themselves. He
started hundreds of young men, taught them to read, to think, to
compare. No man ever did more of this work than Carlile. He taught the
working men to be cleanly in their habits, to shun liquor and tobacco,
and to dress well.
All his followers, at least all the young men he acknowledged as such,
were models of intelligence and upright conduct, and all who survived
him did credit to his teaching, and lent valuable aid in the struggle
for a Free Press. And so he kept on till death came, all too soon;
but not till he had seen above him the bow of promise on the clouds of
ignorance, which promised for all a brighter and more beautiful day--the
day of mental freedom.
"Who noble deeds by noble means obtains,
Or failing, smiles in exile or in chains,
Like good Aurelius let him reign
Or die like Socrates,
That man is great indeed!"--Pope.
CHAPTER II. HIS BIRTH, YOUTH, AND EARLY MANHOOD
R. C. to E. S. C.*
* Eliza Sharples Carlile ("Isis").
"Enfield Highway,
"_December 7th_, 1842.
"Love,--This is calculated to reach you at Ashburton on my birthday. In
the year 1790, fifty-two years ago, I first drew breath at three in
the morning of the eighth day, in an upper room of a large barrack-like
house, the lower corner of Steave-ahead Lane. The manger of Bethlehem
was not more humble. I was born into much the same conditions I now find
my children. With a father much too talented to apply himself to any of
the ordinary business of life, my subsistence depended on the industry
of a mother, and the kindness of relatives. I was in this condition till
five years of age, when a shop at the corner of Lawrence Lane, given up
to my mother by an old uncle, for ten years furnished moderate supplies
for subsistence. In this respect I was brought up, like yourself, on the
side of a mother, save that you had a better father as a family man. I
lost my father at four and a half years old, but I cannot see that he
ever ministered to my subsistence, though he was a man of much talent;
at last he profligately enlisted for a soldier, under which discipline
he soon died at the age of thirty-four. In the chapel of Lawrence Lane,
where, from nine to twelve years of age, I got some Latin, you will
probably find my name cut in the boards, if it be worth looking for. At
'Lads-Well, at the bottom of that lane, you will see the scene of some
early exploits of mine, one of which was, 'Julian like',* with a new
suit of clothes on, trying to jump over this well.
* Carlile's son.
I jumped in! and on a Sunday, too! The stile of the first meadow was a
leaping bar, and in the church-yard you cannot see a tomb or headstone,
forty years old, but I have jumped over it. Should you see the centre of
the town flooded in its drains, you may see my picture as a boy (Julian
like, again) beating through it. I have bathed and fished in every
brook, and stolen apples from every tree within a mile of the town.
Julian is not near as excitable over his paper cap, embellished on and
before the 5th of November, than I was then in scouring the hedges for
miles around, from daylight till dark, to gather a faggot wherewith to
burn the effigy of 'old Tom Paine', my now venerated political father!
I have played at hoop through every crick and corner of the shambles and
market-place, have well pelted both towers with tennis-balls, and the
flagstones of the street with peg-tops, and have often formed one of
the troops of rag-a-muffins of old 'Stoaf Jeffery'. I have hooted Bob
Nicholls because he was a little man; and have 'dabbed' at, instead of
eating, cakes and treacle on Brim Park. As a boy I had neither father
nor master, nor can I bear anything of the kind as a man. With me the
rights of the boys and the rights of men are one and the same thing, and
you know how much I advocate the rights of woman. [At another time he
tells of his early efforts at school, which we will let him do in his
own way, and shall prefer this method throughout the entire history
wherever it is practicable.] My first schoolmistress was old 'Cherry
Chalk', who taught me the alphabet on a horn book, and performed all
sorts of cures without medicine by the potent power of charms. She was
a witch, but much respected as one who performed wonderful cures. There
was another old woman who had the title of 'Witch', and one in a town is
enough on whom Christian ignorance might vent its spleen. It happened
that I escaped all injury from the witch, as I was a favorite boy with
her until I grew old enough to be mischievous to her. Whether old
'Cherry Chalk' perfected me in the alphabet I cannot now say, but I
perfectly well remember that I was taught about Christ, Cross, or
Criss-Cross; now, I dare say that this emblem of the Christian religion
was at the bottom of all her charms and spells. I had two other school
mistresses of a more respectable stamp than old 'Cherry Chalk'. I
believe the first taught for three half-pence a week and the other for
twopence. When I got to a five-penny school it was considered an
extravagant affair, too expensive to be borne, and a successful effort
was made to put me upon the list of free scholars. From the age of six
to nine I was at writing and arithmetic; from nine to twelve at Latin.
But the sum of all this narrative is that though at twelve years of age
I left school, with a knowledge of writing, arithmetic, and the Latin
language, and a pretty good knowledge of words and the tact of spelling
them, I was wholly ignorant of grammar. I remember well when my severe
old writing and ciphering master was told that I was about to leave him
to learn Latin, he said, 'Hi, hi! you had better learn English first'.
This old man never gave me a chastisement without saying, 'There, you
larned rascal, take that! You will thank me for it by the time you are
twenty years old.' For my part, I had no more idea of school education
than that it was a pastime for boys, and I sought an exchange from old
Hanaford's to the Latin school with no idea but that of more play and
less punishment, and because all the better dressed boys _were_ there;
but I found after that this smattering of Latin gave me everywhere an
air of superiority, and among such company as I was able to keep I
passed for a scholar. The very vanity and flattery attached to this
state of mind, I believe, induced me to seek further knowledge. It is a
singular circumstance, but I can trace both the _Quarterly Review_ and
the _Republican_ to the free schools of Ashburton. Wm. Gifford* and Dr.
Ireland, the Dean of Westminster, both received the rudiments of their
education at these free schools, and I came after them to undo, I hope,
all the mischief that they as politicians have done. These free schools
of Ashburton were not so free for the poor as for the rich; one of them
was a school for Latin and Greek wholly, free by endowment, and here
only the children of the richer people were admitted. Here, also, I
followed Dr. Ireland and Wm. Gifford.
* William Gifford was the Attorney-General who entered into
the prosecution of Carlile with such unaccountable and
unusual malignity as to call forth the bitter satire of the
latter, who in return teased and taunted "His Majesty's
Attorney-General", addressing to him the most sarcastic and
open letters; sporting with his name and reputation till he
became to be called his (C.'s) "own Gifford". He most
assuredly deserved all the punishment he received from
Carlile.
Having a knowledge of Latin, Carlile was placed with a chemist and
druggist, a Mr. Lee, of Exeter, but stayed there only four months owing
to the actions of a young man, a brother of Mrs. Lee, who assumed a
mastership over him, and dominated him in a manner that young Carlile
could not endure. The next four months were spent in his mother's shop,
where he occupied himself in drawing and coloring pictures--which were
sold to his mother's customers. Subsequently, to please his mother, of
whom he was very fond, and very much against his own inclinations, he
consented to be apprenticed to a tin-smith for seven years. Of this
apprenticeship he spoke very bitterly in after life. The work was hard
and the hours very long--fifteen or sixteen hours a day--the food was
neither good nor plentiful, nor was his master an agreeable one in any
respect. Carlile however, kept to it until he mastered the trade, and
near the close of the term fought himself free of his home and table. He
succeeded in earning the respect of his master, and later this same
man put himself to considerable trouble, unasked, to go to London from
Exeter, and testify to the excellent moral and personal character of his
former apprentice, at which Carlile was pleasantly surprised. He often
asserted that after such an apprenticeship as he had experienced for
seven years, imprisonment was no punishment. In Exeter, while still in
his apprenticeship, he became acquainted with several young men who were
bookbinders. This led to conversations about books, and in turn to
book reading. Young as these companions were, they avowed themselves
_Deists_; but he received no impression as to the word, and was wholly
ignorant as to what a Deist signified. These young men were Painites,
but they failed entirely in making any impression upon him as to their
principles of religion or politics. He says of himself:--
"My first attraction to politics was in 1816, in consequence of the
general distress then prevalent and the noise made at public meetings.
Then for the first time I began to read the _Examiner, News_, and
independent 'Whig' papers. I was pleased with their general tone, but
thought they did not go far enough with it. I had the same notion of Mr.
Cobbett's papers, his 'twopenny sheets' and of _Hone's Register_, and
indeed of all that were published in 1816. In the manufactories where I
was employed, nothing was talked of but revolution, and I soon became so
far fired as to begin to build castles in the air. My first ambition
was to write something for the papers that should be printed. I tried
several, but from one only could I get a notice. I remember I felt
highly honored with a couple of 'notices to correspondents'--'"A
Half-employed Mechanic" is too violent'; and an answer to 'Cincinnatus'
about the propriety and existence of political tract societies. I wrote
something for Mr. Hone's _Register_ with the motto, 'Gold and silver
have I none, but such as I have I give unto thee'. These were my first
steps toward fame. I was an enthusiast, but with the best intentions,
and with an anxiety to do more good than I saw being done. As soon
as the Habeas Corpus Act was suspended in 1817, I saw nearly all the
political tractsellers of 1816 shrink from the sale of even _Cobbet's
Register_, This was a matter of great astonishment to me, as I looked
upon it as a mere milk-and-water paper compared to the _Black Dwarf_ and
some of the other newspapers. Mr. Cobbett's own writings even exhibited
evident alarm, and this made me indignant. I then resolved to get into
the front of the battle and to set the best possible example. These were
the reasonings of my individual mind, then unconnected with and unknown
to every public man. Of imprisonment I made quite sure, but felt
inclined to court it rather than to shrink from it. Amidst these
thoughts I was delighted to see Mr. William Sherwin start a weekly paper
under the title of the _Republican_. Here, surely, thought I, I can
find a congenial mind, and I at once sought his acquaintance. I was
particularly shy about personal intrusion, though bold enough to run
every risk and kind of danger, and the way I sought an acquaintance was
by offering to carry the publications round to the shops for sale. I did
not put it as a matter of trust, but purchased them for that purpose. I
soon found myself a most welcome hand to Mr. Sherwin and to Mr. Wooler's
publishers, and here I can give a proof of my singular spirit on this
occasion. Though I knew that _Cobbet's Register_ outdid the other
publications beyond all comparison.
I refused to carry it, or did not apply for it, because it was not
strong enough and did not come up to my notions of right. 'Why don't you
bring us _Cobbett's Register?'_ the dealers asked; 'you will make much
more by that than any of the others.' No, I said, I will not touch
it; nor did I till I had a shop of my own. Mr. Sherwin, though a much
younger man than myself, being only eighteen years old, had a better
education, and though unpractised as a public writer, was a fair
grammarian, having aspired to authorship for some two or three years.
He had read Paine's works, avowed his admiration of them, and got turned
out of his situation. Nothing daunted, he wrote a pamphlet and came to
London to find a publisher; but all were afraid of it. Disappointed, but
not discouraged, and having some money, he resolved to get a shop and
print and publish it himself. Thus originated Mr. Sherwin's, who was
most certainly my coadjutor in getting myself fairly before the public.
After Mr. Sherwin had made himself fully acquainted with my temper and
disposition, he came to the manufactory where I spent part of my time,
there not being work enough to occupy it fully, and offered to give up
his shop to me and make me his publisher. This I felt was a great point
gained, and I embraced the offer without hesitation, and henceforth I
saw my way quite clearly. Fairly before the public as a publisher, I
cared less about writing myself, seeing that I was in a fair way to
improvement and ultimate success. During 1817 and 1818 I wrote nothing
but a few papers and placards, and a few articles for Mr. Sherwin's
_Register_. I had not an idea of becoming a regular public writer before
my imprisonment, for publishing the "Age of Reason" and the "Principles
of Nature"; the starting of the _Republican_ was the work of a moment.
Mr. Sherwin, seeing me likely to go to prison, and himself being likely
to be more exposed, and having just been married, was induced to give
up all the most dangerous part of his business to me, and when matters
began to look serious after the Manchester massacre, he came to me to
say that he should give up his _Register_, and I might take it up with
the same title or any other that I might think best. I did not hesitate
a moment, but gave it the title of the _Republican_, I may look upon
myself as the author of all of Mr. Sherwin's bold writings, for it was
always the work of my responsibility, and he was always encouraged by me
to go his full length, under a pledge that I would never give him up as
the author unless he wished it. This fearless responsibility on my part
brought out the 'Gorgons' and led to many other spirited publications;
and I may, I think, without vanity, consider myself the author of all
the excitement of 1819, and verily think that but for my coming forward
as I did in the spring of 1817, none of the previous publishers would
have stood out against Lord Sidmouth's circular letter and suspension
of the Habeas Corpus Act. All would have become as quiet as Castlereagh,
Eldon, and Sidmouth wished. Cobbett had fled to America. Hone had
flinched, and it was a question as to the propriety of strangling the
_Black Dwarf_ at birth."
This brings us to the commencement of the Republican, and also to
Carlile's entrance into the public arena.
One of those fatal mistakes which so many men make in their youth,
i.e., an unfortunate marriage, was made by Carlile. At the early age of
twenty-three he united himself to a woman of thirty. He had been
staying at the little town of Gosport for a short time, and there became
acquainted with this very good-looking woman, who was capable, well
connected, and possessed of a considerable talent for business. After a
courtship of only two months' duration, they joined the ranks of those
who "marry in haste and repent at leisure". It is an ungrateful task
to criticise adversely the character of a woman who did good service
(however unwillingly) on behalf of intellectual freedom; but in the
cause of truth individuals must suffer, and Truth and Justice should
ever go hand in hand.
Carlile had not been married a week before he realised the great mistake
he had made, and years after he told of it in this way:--
"I was in a dilemma the very first week of my marriage. I had but two
responsibilities in life. The first was to assist my mother, who had now
become infirm and poor, the other was to finish the apprenticeship of a
son of a real friend. Neither of these engagements could be ignored or
set aside. My wife knew of these before marriage and tacitly approved
them, but set herself directly against both of them immediately after.
I can truly say that as far as mental peace makes happiness I had never
one day's happiness during the honeymoon or any other moon during the
entire continuation of that marriage. I cannot pronounce her a bad
woman, or of being the possessor of any particular vice. She was as
variable as the atmosphere, and was in herself a complete 'System of
Nature' both as a microcosm and macrocosm. The social as well as the
moral evil was that her temper could never be relied on, and was often
both terrible and dangerous. I have known her to exhibit for days
together such appearances than which none could be more amiable or
agreeable, more generous or more affable, and then on the most frivolous
grounds--for merely _imagined_ wrongs--become tempestuous to delirium
and hysterics. It was her physical rather than her moral properties
that were the seat of the disorder. Her violence generally fell on my
immediate friends, man or woman, and a mere act of kindness shown to
my mother or sisters has endangered my life as far as threats and
preparations were appearances of danger. I never considered my life
safe, and lived for years in almost daily apprehension of some terrible
domestic tragedy. The wonder is that I ever accomplished anything under
such a state of feeling, and I confess, what I have often told her, that
to me imprisonment was a great relief; and this is part of the secret
why I bore it so well. During the whole of my married life I felt the
annoying condition of being without a home to which I could proceed in
peace, and introduce a friend with the ordinary rites of hospitality and
required civility from the mistress of the house. This necessarily drove
me from home and caused me to form associations that I otherwise would
not have done. As early as-1819, a separation took place (as was
always the conversation through every year of our association) and
was continued for some time, and during our united imprisonment in
Dorchester Gaol--it was a matter of constant and sober conversation and
future prospect--it was mutually understood that it was to be whenever
I should be in a condition to make a sufficient settlement upon her. It
was carried out at precisely that time, the moment at which the annuity
of L50 a year, left me by Mr. Morrison, of Chelsea, was cleared of
legacy duty. It was not till the month of May, 1832, that the first
clear quarterly payment became due, but I anticipated it by the advance
of a quarter's money in the February of that year, Mrs. Carlile was
allowed to take everything in the way of furniture that she desired, and
L100 ($500) worth of books from the stock which was at her mercy when
she left. She did take every article of furniture, every bed, table,
and chair in the house, even the chairs which had been purchased for the
lecture room. She left me nothing but the business, its stock and debts,
and she took the nearest shop she could wherein to oppose and injure me.
At that time I had not seen her for a year, though I was in prison; nor
would she send me so much as a Sunday dinner. We had separated from all
pretences of being man and wife for nearly two years before that. She
was only fit for what she now possesses, viz., single retirement with a
competency to secure her from the cares and turmoils of life."
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 L1,500 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",* 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 L800 ($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.
* Parodies on the Book of Common Prayer.
On the 20th of December he was liberated after an imprisonment of
eighteen weeks by entering into recognizances of L300 ($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.
"'Do we want to contemplate his wisdom? We see it in the unchangeable
order by which the incomprehensible whole is governed.
"'Do we want to contemplate his munificence? We see it in the abundance
with which he fills the earth.
"'Do we want to contemplate his mercy? We see it in his notwithholding
that abundance even from the unthankful.'
"Thus by searching has Paine found out God, and I call on all the
priests of Europe to produce, in the same space, quotations from all the
sermons that ever were published, anything like this grand demonstrative
proof of the power, wisdom, goodness and mercy of the great proprietor
of nature. Those are the blasphemers of his name and attributes who
first inflict on mankind all the miseries that human nature can endure,
and then attribute it to an angry, implacable and offended God! The
pulpits of this country are resounding with the assertion that all the
miseries that have been and are now inflicted on the people arise from
their own wickedness. It is a gross falsehood! they arise from the
wickedness of the rulers of this country, who, like a dissolute and
debauched father, squanders everything that can be converted into money,
and leaves his family to starve in misery and wretchednesss. Let us hope
that an honest jury can be found to do justice to the writings of Paine,
and in so doing they will do justice to their fellowmen."
CHAPTER V. THE TRIAL
An article in No. 8, Vol. I, of the _Republican_, written by Mr. William
Sherwin, the partner and friend of Carlile, gives a very good idea of
the status of the case as it appeared to him and his friends. The trial
had then been in progress two days:--
"The Trial of Mr. Carlile.
"Before this number of the _Republican_ is issued to the world the fate
of Mr. Carlile will probably be decided, whether the verdict of the jury
who are to decide upon his case shall consign him to a dungeon for the
next two or three years, or perhaps for life, or whether it will restore
him to his family, his friends, and his business. In either case he will
carry with him the greatest satisfaction an honest man can enjoy--the
consciousness of having done right in the first instance, and of having
bravely defended himself in the hour of trial and difficulty. When
Socrates was about to be deprived of his life, one of his friends
expressed his regret that he should die innocent of the charge against
him. 'What,' said the sage, 'do you wish me to die guilty?' The greatest
consolation a man can receive while suffering beneath the iron rod of
persecution is the confidence which results from his injustice being
undeserved, and should the jury give a verdict against Mr. Carlile,
he will receive this consolation in a great degree. The unprecedented
interest and sympathy which his case has excited is a proof that public
opinion is with him; that the mass of the people are his friends and the
enemies of religious persecution, intolerance, bigotry, and tyranny. The
question with the public is not whether Mr. Carlile is right or wrong in
his opinions, but whether he has acted from purity of motive? whether
he is a malicious person, in short, whether he has published the 'Age
of Reason' with a view to corrupt the morals of society? If the parties
engaged in this prosecution are unable to prove this, their case cannot
be made out, for where there is no bad intention there is no crime. It
is in vain that a servile tool in the garb of a judge declares in the
accustomed jargon of the Bar and the Bench that 'Christianity is part
of the law of the land'. Mr. Carlile has proved over and over again that
the Act of Parliament, usually called Mr. Smith's Bill, has completely
destroyed the protection which the Christian religion received from the
laws of the country. That Mr. Justice Abbott should wish to explain away
the application of the statute is not surprising when it is considered
that the Act authorised any person to deny the existence of the Trinity.
The conduct of the judge and of the Attorney-General has been partial
and malignant in the extreme during the proceedings. The only mode of
defence by which Mr. Carlile could hope to escape the vulture-fangs of
the law was by showing that he had no evil intention in publishing the
work, and he could not do this better than by showing that it contained
nothing immoral, and that the objections which Paine makes to the divine
origin of the Bible were well founded. This was his only defence, and
the only one he could have which would be likely to justify his conduct
to the jury and to the world. He was permitted to read the 'Age of
Reason' through, but the moment he began to comment upon the various
passages of the Bible he was interrupted by the judge, who declared that
he would not suffer any observations to be made that would impugn the
divinity of the Christian religion. By means of this sweeping
declaration he deprived Carlile of the greater part of his defence,
and as the latter very justly observed, showed the determination to
confine him in a dungeon without even the privilege of a hearing! One
of the most arbitrary practices in a trial of this description is the
privilege which the Attorney-General is allowed of interrupting the
defendant when the latter happens to make any observation which may be
considered by the Attorney-General too harsh for the delicate ear of his
opponent. During the first day's proceedings there was no room for the
exercise for this tyrannical mode of annoyance, but to-day has afforded
several opportunities for the harpies of the law to interpose their
malignant objections. Whenever Mr. Carlile was entering upon anything
that was likely to show that he had published nothing that had not been
published many times before without exposing the authors to the notice
of the law officers of the Crown, nay, that several of these authors
themselves had actually been pensioners and parasites of the present
government; whenever Mr. Carlile was attempting to do this he was
immediately interrupted by the Attorney-General, whose appeal was
directly answered by a prohibition from the judge. When we consider the
powerful array of talent and learning that the defendant has to contend
against, when we see three or four of the most dexterous, diligent, and
cunning sycophants the Bar can produce selected to oppose him, and
to watch for any false and faulty step he may make for the purpose of
throwing him into confusion, it is almost impossible that a fair trial
can be expected. Is it not enough that a wily hypocrite in the character
of a judge should be watching for opportunities to interrupt him and
to lead him off his guard, without being exposed to the impertinent
intrusion of men who are officially employed to pursue him to
destruction? But in the English Government of to-day everything is of
a piece, everything tends to despotism. The judge in what should be a
Court of Justice explains the law as he pleases, which is always on the
side of his employers and if the law is in any case doubtful, instead of
allowing a defendant the benefit of the doubt he turns it against him,
by giving an opinion which is at once recorded and observed as a solemn
legislative decision. In such a state of things it is impossible to
look for anything but tyranny from the Bench, and the only chance the
defendant has is the probability that an honest jury will set the dictum
of a wicked judge at defiance. The folly of this prosecution is equal to
its malignity. The proceedings of the trial will make more Deists
than Carlile would have done in selling the 'Age of Reason' during
the remainder of his life. Every interruption he has received will be
considered by the public as a proof that his prosecutors apprehended
that he was going to say something that would be unanswerable. Besides
which there will be the publicity which will be given to the work by
means of the trial, a publicity that will far exceed that of any other
work on the same side of the question that ever was written. In the next
number there will be room for making some observations on the results
of the trial, a result which will be of more consequence than any event
which has ever taken place in the history of the criminal jurisprudence
of this country."
Carlile had reason to believe that Lord Chief Justice Abbott was very
unwilling to have the trial take place in his Court, and had had a
correspondence with Lord Castlereagh on the subject. He opposed the
whole proceeding from the filing of the first information down to the
trials themselves; but he was over-ruled; by what argument or proffered
reward does not appear. Then as to the jury. It was a special jury, but
Carlile was not allowed to challenge the jurors, although even while
in court he received warning that at least five of them had publicly
declared that they would hang him if they could, or give him at least
five years' imprisonment on bread and water, and they went so far as
to say to him in open court "that his defence would not help him".
They were allowed to separate and go to their homes, and mingle with
everybody and anybody the night before the verdict was rendered, which
all goes to show that the case, as Carlile said, was predetermined, and
the whole proceeding on the part of Judge and advocates a travesty and
mockery of justice.
His defence on the second day was momentarily interrupted, and on the
third day was completely suppressed. In this connection may be mentioned
the case of a man who had been summoned on this jury, and who had left a
sick bed to sit with them at the trial. This man was of the same belief
as Carlile, and had said to friends that he had no doubt at all of the
sincerity of heart of the defendant, and that he, the juror, knew that
Carlile would go to the scaffold if need be in defence of those opinions
as _he_ would. This man had left a sick bed to do what he could for
Carlile on the jury, yet at last, and for some unknown reason, he
allowed the verdict to be given without a dissenting word on his part.
At the close of each day's proceedings, Carlile issued a full report and
sold it in twopenny sheets. These sheets were headed, "A Full Account
of Richard Carlile's _Mock Trials_", and were sold with marvellous
rapidity. They were immediately condemned by the authorities as
indictable, and Mrs. Carlile was threatened with prosecution for selling
them in the shop; but the sale kept on, and the trade at the Fleet
Street shop exceeded anything that was so far known in the annals of the
bookselling business.* Besides this, Carlile addressed open letters to
his judge and jury, arraigning them for the illegality of their conduct,
and spread them broadcast. He also continued a series of articles in the
_Republican_--called the "Crisis"--of the most daring character. They
show the indomitable spirit and fearlessness of Carlile even while under
heavy bail and, later, under conviction. Even while in prison he never
faltered, no matter what the consequences to himself. Feeling that he
was _right_ in the position he had taken, he threw caution and diplomacy
to the winds, and dared and defied the enemy to do their worst! One
parallel only can I recall, and one which comes up in memory often as
the daring deeds of this unconquerable spirit are recounted. It occurs
in a little book called "The Bridge of the Gods". It is an Indian story,
and the epoch is also far distant, in William Penn's time, I think.
A scout, a white man, has fallen into the hands of his enemies, the
Indians, and they prepare to torture him to death in their extremely
horrible fashion, but he laughs at their devices, and even as they heap
coals of fire upon his breast, he laughs at and derides them, and taunts
his murderers by reminding them of all he has done against them, some
of which acts they had seemed to forget, and while the coals of fire are
(literally) burning their way to his heart he laughs and jeers them on
to fresh horrors, never flinching, but daring and defying them till the
last moment. Carlile's case was a civilised counterpart of this Indian
story, yet with a happier result. The reader will realise the force of
this comparison better as he reads further of Carlile's many encounters
with his enemies and the enemies of intellectual freedom.
* On the way to and from the scene of the trials Carlile was
followed by multitudes of people, who cheered him lustily.
There was always a large crowd of sympathetic people around
the shop in Fleet Street, and at the close of each day's
proceedings the rush to purchase the prosecuted volumes was
something marvellous. Everything in sight found ready sale.
What would be thought in America of a President, who occupies about
the same relative position as a Prime Minister of England, who would
instruct a judge on the Bench as to his conduct of a case to be brought
before him? The sun would not set before an impeachment committee would
be organised for active work. That is, if a judge could be found base
enough to be dictated to, and we do not think a judge could be found
in either country to-day who would lend himself to such a thing. But in
former days in England things were in such a servile state, that place
and power were freely, almost openly, given for services, menial and
degrading. It was only necessary for an aspiring barrister to relieve
himself of his conscience and place it in a hermetically sealed vault,
and he was ready for any amount of official climbing (by the backstairs)
and the forthcoming reward of promotion.
The second day's proceedings were very interesting, and make excellent
reading, even in this busy age. They will be found in the appendix,
and are copied verbatim from a leading daily paper of the time. Having
copies of all the papers of that date, I choose the _British Press_ for
its more general fairness in its report, although its editorial at the
conclusion of the trial was bitter and severe on the defendant. In those
days it was something gained, as even now, when one could get a fair
report. The other papers were too palpably influenced by fear or
discretion to give anything approaching to an unbiassed report.
Scores, nay hundreds of letters poured in upon Carlile before and after
the sentence. The verdict of guilty shocked many of his friends for
the moment, and made everyone feel unsafe and uneasy, none knowing what
would be the outcome or where these prosecutions might end. But this
state of feeling did not last, and the rebound came, and with it such an
awakening and mental uprising as was never before known in any country.
And though Carlile felt, as he says in his letter to Mr. Morrison,
deserted by some who had been officious enough before the sentence, yet
he was in no way deserted, it was merely that his friends were suffering
from the shock. The circulation soon started, letters and encouragements
and money poured in upon him with the highest encomiums upon his bravery
and fearlessness, and admiration of his wonderful defence, wonderful
indeed when his youth (still in his twenties) and former condition of
life are taken into consideration, and the very short time--only two
years--he had been before the public. It must have taken an immense
amount of nerve and backbone to stand up alone and confront that array
of clever but unscrupulous men! He was entirely unassisted except by
what Mr. Hone prepared for the third day. He had to defend his own case,
for it is doubtful whether any lawyer could have been obtained, or, if
obtained, whether he could have been relied upon to be proof against
all the temptations that would have been thrown in his way to betray his
client. And so great was the amount of prejudice and fear of offending
the powers that were, at that time, that it would have had to be a very
strong lawyer that would dare to risk doing so, and where was such to be
found? The following extract from a letter will show to what an extent
prejudice had been created against Carlile, and how it had separated
even members of the same family from each other, so that many who had
espoused his cause, and were anxious to prove their sympathy, had to do
so in secret from their own nearest relatives:--
"Compassion and justice have been refused to you without the precincts
of the Royal Tribunal; you cannot therefore expect either within the
verge of the modern star chamber, and are no doubt prepared for the
worst, for I am sorry to observe that the hue and cry of Atheism, though
founded on the most malignant calumny and falsehood, has become so
prevalent as to oblige me to write this address to you in stealth from
every individual member of my family and fireside, lest one and all
might tear me to pieces for heaving one generous sigh on your behalf, or
for the ghost of freedom's sake, now vanished from her wonted haunts
in your infidel train which has frightened many foolish reformers into
fits.
"All the papers of the Empire groaned under the load of his humane
Anti-Christian, if not Atheistical principles, at an expense to
Mr. Robert Owen of a thousand pounds including profits to this very
Government, and the whole identical band of editors who are this season
employed in hunting you, a poor plain, upright Deist, to perdition! If
this be fair play, I know not what can be stigmatised as foul, base,
and infamous from every point of view, and if the notice of it in your
pleading does not tend to mollify the oracles of the law into a very
lenient sentence for you, the public will estimate their integrity and
legitimate equity accordingly. You must excuse this long communication,
which as a work of intended mercy has engrossed so completely the Lord's
Day that I have been able to think of nothing else. The truth is, since
it must be out, I have been dreaming about you and your forlorn wife and
children all night, and awoke very early this morning under a species of
impulse which forced me from my bed to take pen and ink in this unequal
contest against the powers and principalities of the darkest ages,
arrayed to annihilate the man with whom they are afraid to argue in
the face of the people. Yesterday, the news of the resurrection and
transmission of the bones of the persecuted Thomas Paine* to their
native soil struck me very forcibly as an extraordinary, almost a
miraculous coincidence with the decree that, in the same breath, will
probably bury you alive amidst your fellow slaves, for promulgating
those same political doctrines for which Paine is on the eve of being
canonised by the brave sons of liberty, returning like giants refreshed
(after a short sleep) from the shores of America to support radical
reform or perish in the attempt. To 'Common Sense' and the 'Crisis',
both written by the intelligent Paine, the free Americans are much more
indebted for liberation from unrepresented thraldom than to the sword
or the genius of Washington, and our posterity may yet owe as precious a
debt to Carlile, Hunt, and Cobbett, should you all suffer the
martyrdom of captivity, either on the score of political or religious
publications, which I think cannot be of long duration, and never will
extend so far as death whatever your enemies may intend shall be the
result."
* William Cobbett disinterred the bones of Thomas Paine and
carried them to England.
One of the most gratifying incidents, if not, indeed, the only one
pleasant to dwell upon at this time, is the manner in which Carlile's
friends, his bodyguard, so to speak, rallied around him. Mr. W. T.
Sherwin and Mr. Julian Augustus St. John assumed the responsibility
of the publication of the _Republican_. Mr. William Hone, who had
been lately acquitted of a similar charge, assisted Carlile in the
construction of the third day's defence, and in this connection the
following letter from the _Morning Chronicle_, October 15th, 1819,
becomes amusing:--
"Sir,--Perceiving in your paper of this morning that my name is
introduced in a manner calculated to lead the public to believe that I
was instrumental in preparing the defence of Mr. Carlile, on his trial
for publishing 'Paine's Age of Reason', I request that you will afford
your readers an opportunity of knowing the true state of the case.
Having been present in court as an auditor, I was earnestly solicited
at the close of the second day, by several friends to the liberty of the
Press, to point out, in conjunction with two literary gentlemen, those
authors who had written the most ably in defence of toleration and
unrestricted freedom of opinion on religious subjects, and to mark the
passages. This I assented to, nor do I apprehend that such a request
would have been refused by a liberal-minded man, or that the most
scrupulous would have found fault with me for so doing. I accordingly
arranged, as well as I could in a few hours the next morning, a
connected series of quotations from Archbishop Tillotson, 'Bishop
Squire', Doctor Furneaux, Bishop Watson, Professor Limborch, Professor
Campbell, Mr. Locke, Doctor Enfield, the Rev. Mr. Wyvil, Rev. Mr.
Aspland, 'the Christian Reformer,' and other authorities of equal
weight and tendency. This was read by Mr. Carlile on the third day
with interpolations of his own, and this with the loan of 'Erasmus ',
Miltosermons and pamphlets, constituted the whole of my exertions on
this n's 'Areopogetica', De Laume on Non-conformity, a volume of
'Blackstone', a tract by Lord Somers, and a few extraordinary occasion.
"Your obedient servant,
"45, Ludgate Hill.
"William Hone."
One would naturally ask what more he could have done. However, what he
did was equally creditable to his heart as to his head. The original
documents are in my possession. Most of them are in Mr. Hone's
handwriting, the rest are in a beautiful text, evidently that of "the
literary gentlemen" who assisted in the hurried task.
At the time of the sentence a threat was conveyed to Carlile that his
wife would be informed against, to which he responded:--
"Your threats, my lords, to file a criminal information against Mrs.
Carlile, cannot change my course, sorry as I am that I cannot take the
responsibility and the consequent pains and penalties on myself. I am
satisfied that my wife possesses sufficient virtue and good sense to
realise my wishes, and pursue my directions, and these are that
she should proceed in the usual manner as I have done, and suppress
nothing."
At the conclusion of the trial and previous to the sentence, a bishop
(name not given) sent a petition, an open petition to the authorities,
to the editor of the _Observer_, a Mr. Clement, accompanied by a hundred
pounds. This paper was published in two or three parts on as many
Sundays, previous to the sentencing of Carlile, and which no doubt had
its effect on the Christian Judge Bailey. One of the recommendations
of that petition was the following: "The patient is maddened by a slow
poison, is below human nature, and beyond human remedy; his language is
raving, and for the common safety of mankind he must be fettered till he
dies." One of the Dorchester clerical magistrates was anxious to proceed
practically with this recommendation. This petition also recommended the
fining of the prisoner L3,000, by way of making the real fine of L1,500
look like a mere trifle.
The Rev. George Somers Clarke, D.D., Vicar of Great Waltham, was
confined in the old jail of Essex for contempt of the Ecclesiastical
Court, and insisted on remaining there the rest of his life. This
gentleman sent Carlile a ten pound note ($50) just before the trial,
and volunteered the following evidence, "That having been the tutor at
college of the Lord Chief Justice Abbott, would testify that he himself
was a Deist; and that as the Bible was now translated and received,
Thomas Paine was justified in writing his 'Age of Reason'." This learned
reverend came into court with rolls of Hebrew, Arabic, and all sorts of
ancient Scriptures, but the wily Chief Justice would not allow him to be
examined.
Carlile's knowledge of the fact that the Attorney-General was himself an
acknowledged Deist gives point to the sarcasm that Carlile addressed to
him which otherwise would be tame; he actually helped to prosecute a man
for professing the same doctrines which he himself held.
"Letters from St. Petersburg to the 30th of November state that the
Emperor Alexander of Russia, apprehensive that the morals of his people
would be injured by their reading the account of Carlile's Trials, had
given directions to the police to prevent the introduction of all the
English newspapers containing it."--_London Times_, Dec. 29th, 1819.
As a straw shows the way the wind blows, so this little report shows the
apprehension of crowned heads that some one or more of their subjects
might see something to admire and follow in Carlile's example. Else why
such measures?
CHAPTER VI. TAKEN TO PRISON
Carlile was sentenced to three years' imprisonment and a fine of L1,500.
Almost as soon as the sentence was passed, Carlile was handcuffed and
taken in the dead of night to Dorchester Gaol, some 130 miles from
London. He was not allowed to see his wife or children, nor to
communicate with his friends. As soon as they had him safely locked up,
the authorities made a descent upon the Fleet Street shop, seized
upon the entire stock and furniture, and closed it from business. This
seizure was made ostensibly to secure the fines, but really to cripple
Carlile so that he could never pay them, and thus they could keep him in
perpetual imprisonment. For if he had been allowed to retain his stock
and profitable business, he could have paid his fine of L1,500 ($7,500)
before his term of imprisonment expired; but the plan was to cripple him
past recovery. The goods seized were mostly books and pamphlets, which
would have brought him L2,000 ($10,000) in the ordinary way of sale.
This confiscation was no part of his sentence, be it remembered, but an
afterthought, and was performed by the power of might over right.
This stock was thrown into a damp cellar or warehouse, and practically
ruined. His wife and children would have been rendered helpless and
impoverished had not Carlile cautioned his wife some time before to
prepare for the worst, and to reserve a portion of the money resulting
from the large sales during the trials for herself and children. They
would have been reduced to actual want, for the officers even took the
money found in the money-drawer, although not one dollar resulting
from this seizure was ever allowed in mitigation of his fines. The most
trying part of the sentence to Carlile was that he was only allowed to
take exercise in the open air for half an hour each day, or one hour
every other day, at the discretion of the jailer; and even for this
half-hour he was to be taken out by the jailer as an animal might be led
out at a show for outsiders to gaze at. This was too much for the spirit
of Carlile to endure; he absolutely refused to leave his room in any
such a manner, and as a consequence remained in his room for two years
and a half without ever leaving it, rather than submit to such an
insult. This will give the reader an idea of the indomitable spirit of
the man. After this length of time he succeeded in getting this part of
the sentence set aside, and he was allowed to walk out into the prison
enclosure at his pleasure and very much to the improvement of his
health. About a year after his incarceration, on reading of the
treatment of Henry Hunt in Ilchester Gaol, he writes:--
"I have seen enough of gaols to be fully alive to the painful situation
of Mr. Hunt, and since I have read of his present restrictions, I begin
to feel myself in a palace, instead of a prison, or Bastille, as I
occasionally call it. I am the better pleased with my treatment at this
moment, as yesterday I was allowed to see a friend in my room for the
first time, and I may add that now my sisters and my wife and children
are allowed to visit me during the hours of nine to four each day. My
room is large, light and airy, and far excels the state rooms of
the King's Bench Prison. I have a sink and water-pipe and complete
water-closet attached to the room, so that having provided myself
with the necessary apparatus for both hot and cold baths, I have the
enjoyment, nay, the luxury of these at pleasure; but when I mention my
room and my baths, I can go no further, for the way in which I am
locked up seems to me to be ridiculous, and I have had the honor to be
a prisoner in the King's Bench Prison, in Newgate, in Giltspur Street
Compter, and in the houses of the sheriffs officers (not for debt, but
for libel). On entering the prison I told the keeper that as far
as money would go to make me comfortable I would spend, but I was
immediately informed that all money would do for me was to obtain me a
good dinner _from_, not _at_ the Governor's table. I viewed this as a
secondary object, as I was ever careless about my food so that it was
wholesome and sufficient. I also learned that all the fear was that of
my corrupting the inmates of this most respectable place. I resolved
then to economise and to teach temperance by example, and this I
have done to their surprise, for I have shown them that a man with a
contented mind and no labor, has need of but a small quantity of food
to keep fat and in good health. Such has been the solitude of my
confinement in this prison, and so little conversation have I had, that,
on attempting to speak, I have in a manner found my voice gone, and have
been obliged to make a great effort to be heard. I have a couch which
forms a sofa-chair, and on which I consider that I lie sleeping, reading
or thinking on an average sixteen hours a day, and I walk about the room
or sit in a chair as a relief, excepting the few hours I spend at the
writing desk. I am sensible that this is a bad habit, but I have no
alternative. As my situation is at present I am quite comfortable, and I
attribute the closeness of my confinement to the pretended horror which
clerical and fanatical magistrates profess to feel at what they call
sedition and blasphemy."
To add to the sorrows of this time came the news of the death of his
mother. Carlile had always been a most loving and dutiful son, and he
was deeply grieved. He realised fully that her death had been hastened
if not caused by his present situation, and in the following letter one
can trace the deep concern and regret which he felt. "The bravest are
the tenderest. The loving are the daring."
"Dorchester Gaol, March 27th, 1820.
"Mr. A. Morrison,
"Dear Sir,--Soon after I received your parcel, and before I had
determined how or when I should convey an answer to you, the post
brought me the painful intelligence of the death of my mother. I was
in a measure prepared for it, as I felt certain her vital energies were
quite exhausted. On perceiving the letter sealed with black I threw it
aside, and for four hours could not summon resolution enough to open
it. But that painful moment has passed, and I shall only look back to
express my gratitude to you and to Mrs. Morrison for the well-timed
relief and consolation my mother has received at your hands since my
confinement. I had hoped that her life might have extended a few years,
that she might have witnessed the result of my present career, as I fear
that as far as it has gone it has given her nothing but pain. I feel
it to be a duty I owe you to thus publicly, as I have the means, to say
that it is my firm belief that my mother would not have survived the
first shock of my sentence and its consequence had you not poured the
balm of consolation into her bosom. She could see no other source of
dependence than myself, and I do not think she would have survived the
first few hours that were necessary to convince her that all was not
lost. Your kindness to me was more than friendship; you were not of the
many hundreds who came to me in my prosperity to shake hands, to hold
out specious promises, that I might command your services if ever I had
need of them. You, of all my professed friends, you alone held out your
hand to me when in prison, where our first interview took place. When I
fell among thieves you were the good Samaritan. As my prospects began
to look more cheerful, I had hoped that my mother would have lived a
few years longer, that she might have felt the pleasure of that filial
affection I have always felt disposed to extend to her both as my duty
and my pride whenever I have had the means. It gives me pleasure to
know that she fell calmly asleep, untortured by priests or superstitious
notions. I consider it a duty not to look back except for gratitude or
experience, and in doing this I feel that I am rivetted in my esteem of
your friendship, and while we live I shall consider myself your debtor.
"I am, Sir,
"Yours with respect,
"Richard Carlile."
This gentleman and his wife were the first to send a contribution to
Carlile in prison of L10 ($50), and continued their subscription under
the name of "Alexander and Jane Littlehelp". These two most generous
friends helped almost everyone who was persecuted for opinion's sake
in the same bountiful manner. Mr. Morrison and Carlile were still
corresponding as late as 1840, when Mr. Morrison died.
Carlile improved the opportunity of his life, i.e., his prison life, by
a very thorough study of the origin of religions, more particularly that
of the Christian religion. He procured by purchase or loan every known
authority, and made himself the master of the subject. He perfected
himself in grammar and in handwriting, having a complete system of this
sent to him at Dorchester Gaol; and later when he was allowed visitors,
had a writing-master come to the prison to instruct him. Some of his
letters still extant, and which were written before his final illness,
look almost like copperplate engraving. He also studied theology,
political economy, history, phrenology, literature, etc. He turned the
quiet and solitude of the gaol to good account. He conducted two weekly
papers through the greater part of his term, and kept up a large and
varied correspondence, besides making a thorough and critical digest and
condensation of the old and new Testament in reply to the Rev. Thomas
Hartwell Home's pamphlet on "Deism Refuted". This digest is to-day as
useful and time-saving as ever to the student and seeker after truth. It
was during the early year of this, his memorable imprisonment, that the
disgraceful attempt to destroy Queen Caroline was made. This was the
blackest of all the many villainies which were allowed to disgrace the
reign of the Georges 3rd and 4th. Carlile espoused her cause from
the first, not because she was a queen, but because she was a grossly
maligned and persecuted woman. There were few who dared to declare
themselves openly to be her defenders. Carlile used his pen with
fearless vigor in her behalf, and did not hesitate to use the words of
forceful truth against her persecutors. Having the confidence of many
thousands of his own readers, he could, and did, do much to create
the popular feeling and uprising of the people in her defence, to the
everlasting dismay of her enemies, and of whom, next to her husband, the
notorious Castlereagh was at the head. The story of this unhappy Queen
is most pathetic as portrayed from week to week in the _Republican_,
and of itself would, and no doubt has, filled the pages of more than one
book. Yet the open defeat of her enemies and the complete exoneration
of herself from all the villainous charges brought against her, did not
ensure her either a peaceful or a long life. There were more ways than
one of disposing of a person who stood in the way, however innocently,
of designing persons, and she paid the penalty of her position in spite
of her popularity.
The events occurring in Spain at that time, and the attempts that were
then and there made for a free and representative government, gave
subject and opportunity for many lively editorials on Carlile's favorite
subject, "Republicanism", and left him, as he said, "neither an idle
nor a dull moment, nor one to spare". To add to his duties and anxieties
came frequent annoyances to Mrs. Carlile from the authorities in the
form of threats of prosecution. She was frequently arrested, but her
trials were as frequently postponed from time to time, only making
matters more aggravating by their uncertainty. They were finally
brought to an issue, and were laconically announced in the _Republican_
thus:--"Trial of Mrs. Carlile. Verdict, as usual, Guilty!"
All these publications for which she was sentenced had been on sale
for a long time without interference, except the twopenny "Mock Trial"
sheets, and thousands were sold without any complaints being heard
about them. The trouble was that Carlile's persecutors had fondly and
foolishly thought that they had effectually silenced him for ever; and
when the place at Fleet Street was reopened, and the business revived
and carried on as briskly as ever, they were really at a loss to know
what to do at first. It would never do to keep him in prison and allow
the business for which he was punished to go on unmolested; so they
proceeded against the wife as we have seen, and got judgment against
her. Next they proceeded against the shopman, Mr. Davison, and got
a judgment against him and sentence of imprisonment. But now comes
Carlile's sister, Mary Ann Carlile, who had been quietly at work making
herself familiar with the details of the business, so as to be able to
take _her_ place in the list of persecutions for opinion's sake, and
letters began to pour in upon Carlile from scores of young people
offering to supply the place of those removed, and in a very short
time he had a long list of names of volunteers, ready for business or
prosecution, it mattered not which.
CHAPTER VI. SIR ROBERT GIFFORD AND THE ODIOUS "SIX ACTS"
As briefly set forth in a letter to Sir Robert Gifford, January 14th,
1820, on the new Acts of the Legislature intended to expel even the
shade of liberty from this country (England):--
"My Learned Friend,
"I venture to address you by that common epithet so-much
in vogue with those who profess to be opposed to each other in
courts of law, and I pledge my word to you with just the same feeling.
My views are not so confined, nor my mind so narrow, as to imagine
that you have inflicted an injury upon me beyond the period of my
confinement; on the contrary, I reflect with pleasure on all that is
past, and congratulate myself that by your assistance I have sown the
seeds of my future prosperity. The prominent part you have taken in
bringing forward and supporting the late Acts of Parliament under the
auspices of your patron and preceptor, Lord Castlereagh, has induced me
to address you on their several bearings, and to show you how far they
may be nullified. Let me first premise that, under the present state
of public opinion, their nature and character is such as to render
them short-lived. I will commence with 'The Traverse Bill', which is
admitted on all hands to be the least obnoxious, as one clause of it has
enacted a real benefit by taking away from your office that arbitrary
and capricious power of suspending prosecutions over the heads of
individuals to any length of time. In consequence of this Act, I shall
have the satisfaction of making you acknowledge the abandonment of at
least four informations that have been suspended over my head ever since
the Michaelmas term 1817, or of bringing them immediately to trial.
How far I shall succeed in making you give up or proceed with those
half-dozen, or dozen others of later date, remains to be seen. I cannot
quit this subject without saying that it will give me much pleasure to
meet you often in the Court of King's Bench, and hope that your known
dissent from the hypocritical professions of the day will further induce
you to promulgate those sentiments that _you_ privately and I publicly
espouse. With respect to the intended effect of the Traverse Bill. As
to accelerating trials for misdemeanors, there is some ground for
complaint, because equal justice is not given to plaintiff and defendant
to hasten on his trial, and for this the Bill has not provided; whilst
on the other hand, he is debarred from the benefit of a delay. The
excuse set up for this part of the Bill was, that I had protracted the
time of my trial for near twelve months. This, Sir Robert, you know
to be false, the delay was on your part, and on the part of your
predecessor. I am inclined to believe that prior to the 16th of August,
my prosecution was in some measure abandoned. Having been present at the
Manchester meeting and narrowly escaped the sabres of the yeomanry, and
got better through the truncheons of Nadin and his gang than some of
the other attendants of that meeting; and lastly, having eluded the
vigilance and search of the magistrates of that lawless town, I came to
London and told the plain, unvarnished tale of the massacre committed
by the yeomanry at the instigation of the magistrates. The necessity for
getting rid of me was immediately resolved upon, that I might not in any
instance give evidence on that subject. First, the project of bringing
a charge of high treason against me was discussed and as soon abandoned,
and the trial for the high-sounding charge of 'Blasphemy' agreed on, for
the double purpose of getting rid of me as an evidence and of drawing
the public attention from the Manchester affair. The Traverse Bill,
considered in its proper character, is merely a clause of 'the
Blasphemous and seditious Libel Bill' put into a different shape, to
hide the severity of the latter. 'The search for Arms Bill' and
the 'Drilling and Training Bill' are enactments of the most hideous
character, which nothing but the guilty fears of its projectors could
have produced. The latter should have been entitled 'An Act for the
encouragement of private malice'. 'The Seditious Meeting Bill' is
another of those destructive measures that has brought England on
a level with Algiers. The Bills relating to the Press are now to be
considered. It is with those, Sir Robert, you have given us a specimen
of your disposition to annihilate the liberty of the Press altogether,
for we must look on those Bills, not as the act of Parliament, but as
the act of the Attorney-General. I shall therefore proceed to make my
observations on them, and begin with that which is intended to increase
the punishment for whatever you may be pleased to call blasphemous or
seditious libel."
After giving the first, second, and third clauses of the Bill, he comes
to the fourth clause, which empowers the judges or magistrates who
shall preside at the second conviction of the individuals for either
blasphemous or seditious libel to use their discretion (!) in fining and
imprisoning such individuals or of banishing them from the country.
The fifth clause enacts that a person so sentenced to banishment shall
leave the country within thirty days, or in default thereof he will be
seized and sent to such a place as the Government may propose.
The sixth clause makes liable to transportation to Botany Bay, the
Hulks, or to similar penalty the individual who should be found in any
part of the British dominions within the term of his banishment. The
letter continues:--
"The last and most important Act is now to be considered, which is
entitled, 'An act to subject certain publications to the duties of
stamps upon newspapers, and to make other regulations for restraining
the abuses arising from the publication of blasphemous and seditious
libels', but is, in fact, an imposition of a duty on political knowledge
and information, for the better preservation of ignorance amongst the
laboring classes. There are some very unfair exceptions in this Act; for
instance, every pamphlet written in defence of the Christian religion
is exempt from the duty imposed by this Act, whilst every answer coming
within the quantity of paper and price prescribed, is subject to it. For
instance, Dr. Rudge* might address me on the evidences of the Christian
religion in the _Christian Champion_ for fourpence (8 cents), but I
could not answer him in the _Republican_ for less than sixpence (12
cents). These, Sir Robert, are your deeds, and they are worthy of you,
for apostasy is always desperate and vicious in proportion to its former
profession, while consistency at the same time becomes its mirror and
object of attack.
* Dr. Rudge was a clergyman of the Established Church who
sent Carlile Soame Jenyns' "View of the Internal Evidence of
the Christian Religion" shortly before his sentence. A long
correspondence was kept up between Carlile and the Doctor,
which was published in the _Republican_.
What view your former patron had in pushing you forward is not for me
to say, whether he was anxious to find an Attorney-General who should
outstrip him in infamy whilst filling that office is best known to
himself; but certainly, if that was his object, he has succeeded well.
Your profession is certainly one that gives native genius an opportunity
of displaying itself, and with a corresponding degree of spirit to reach
the highest and most important offices of the State. Perhaps there never
was an instance before of so young a man as yourself, or one who has
been so short a time at the Bar, reaching the office you now fill, and
on hearing your name announced for the office of Attorney-General I,
with many others, was astonished at the promotion, knowing you by name
only, as the man who was horsewhipped by Mr. Gurney, of Stannery Court
notoriety, and your bringing a suit against him. In London you certainly
were a briefless barrister. It was supposed that some one had discovered
some lurking talent in you, and had been generous enough to push you
forward. But how great was the surprise to find that you were destitute
of talent as a lawyer, of grace as an orator, and of dignity as an
officer of State. There are those who have affirmed that noble minds
can proceed only from noble birth; as far as you are the object in view,
this maxim is certainly verified, but it must be admitted that history
affords us many exceptions to this rule. You, Sir Robert, in the absence
of talent and of every requisite for your office and profession, have
been fortunate enough to make up the deficiency by the assistance of
a powerful friend. If Sir Vicary Gibbs had possessed no other personal
means of bringing him out of Devonshire, and the western circuit, than
Sir Robert Gilford possesses, both would have remained there to this
day, the one a worn-out barrister, the other an attorney's clerk.
But fortunately for you, your father had the means as a tradesman of
assisting Sir Vicary Gibbs when in a state of penury, and a part of the
contract was that you should be pinned on to his tail.
"R. Carlile.
"Dorchester Gaol,
"Jan. 10th 1820."
In a later letter to Sir Robert Gifford, Carlile says in a postcript:--
"I begin to fear that you and I shall never meet again in Guildhall. I
mean to occupy the whole time of my imprisonment in preparing myself for
the next defence of the 'Age of Reason'. If ever we meet again (in
Court), I shall certainly detain you a month. I had calculated on at
least ten days before, instead of three. But I had not studied my
subject in the slightest degree; I kept everything to my natural
feelings and a few hours' arrangement of books. I suffered myself, and
foolishly, to be brow-beaten by Abbott. But the next time I will either
make my defence or drive him out of Court, or he shall remove _me_ from
Court to finish the case."
Carlile dedicated the second volume of the _Republican_ to Sir Robert in
the sarcastic style which he always used in addressing him. I will give
the dedication complete, as it is short, and so dismiss Sir Robert from
our pages:--
"Dedication to Sir Robert Gifford, Knight, His Majesty's
Attorney-General.
"Gratitude being one of the noblest traits in the character of animals,
both rational and irrational, to whichever you may deem me allied, I
feel that I owe it to you. I therefore embrace the earliest opportunity
of dedicating a volume to you, in which I have had frequent occasion,
most respectfully, to make allusions to your name and office. If I had
followed the old and beaten track of troubling you with an adulatory
application, begging your permission to accept this dedication, I am
certain that it would have excited your ire to such a degree as to
have occasioned a foaming at the mouth; equal to that which I lately
witnessed in the Court of King's Bench. Therefore, considering that the
soil of Devon has nurtured us both; that we sprang up at nearly the
same time and under very similar circumstances, and that our relative
situations in London has united us in an indissoluble tie, assuming
a frank and friendly conduct, I have presumed to inscribe this second
volume of the _Republican_ to you as a token of my esteem and my sense
of the high honor and benefit you have graciously bestowed on me. Should
the Attorney-General be angry and think me over presumptuous, I am
satisfied that Sir Robert Gifford will be pleased to have a volume
dedicated to him which is replete with matter akin to his own feelings.
You, Sir Robert, are amongst those who have taught us that a man, in
office and out of office, forms two distinct beings, opposite both in
nature and in principle; and I should not be surprised if, in the course
of the revolutions of all that is natural, this country should adopt a
representative system of government, or, in other words, a republican
form, to find you filling some office to which your abilities shall be
commensurate on the ground of your former boasted principles. It is
a fact, daily demonstrated, that men who are eager to fill official
situations never make principle a bar to obtaining them. It is but fair
to say that when such men have a principle or attachment to a particular
form of government, they are calculated to fill such a situation or
office under that system with more satisfaction both to themselves and
the public, but they are ever ready to sacrifice principle to interest.
Since, Sir Robert, you cannot lay claim to eminence in this or any other
degree, I am sufficiently charitable to lay aside the weapon of censure,
and grateful to confine myself more to acknowledgment of the utility of
your tergiversation towards him who prays that you may fill the office
of Attorney-General as long as his Majesty or his heirs and successors
shall grace the throne of Great Britain."
CHAPTER VIII. THE VICE SOCIETY
"A letter to the Society for the Suppression of Vice (self-styled, and
by no one else) on their prosecution of the editor and his wife, and the
object they have gained by it, namely, an exhausted fund.
"Lords, Ladies, Gentlemen, Bishops, Priests, and Deacons, composing
the secret society commonly called 'The Society for the Suppression of
Vice'.
"It appears that you and I have come off like all other persons who go
to law for justice: one with a ragged coat, the other with none at all,
only with this difference, that I who am supposed to have been defeated
have got the ragged coat, and you who crow on having defeated me have
none at all. I did not attempt to notice your first advertisement
begging for relief, and the means of proceeding in your warfare, and
setting forth your pretensions and claims to public charity in glowing
colors. I thought it probable from the nervous debility of poor John
Bull that your warfare on what you call blasphemy, and about which you
have made so much noise, might have so far terrified him as to fill your
empty coffers, particularly as your advertisement was not repeated for
the moment; but it now appears that your bait has not taken. To show you
that I am really sensible of the benefit you have conferred on me, and
the community at large, by the circulation of such an immense number
of Deistical volumes and pamphlets, I shall give your advertisement
a gratuitous insertion, and then proceed to compliment you a little
further on your meritorious conduct towards myself and wife.
"'Advertisement.
"'"Society for the Suppression of Vice," Committee Room, January,
1820.--The Committee beg leave to state that within the last four years
they have been compelled, in order to preserve the public morals
from further contamination, to institute no less than eighty-five
prosecutions against offenders of various descriptions, all of which
have led to conviction or to recognizances by the respective parties,
and must prevent the repetition of similar crimes. They have checked
the sale of toys and snuff-boxes with abominable devices, which were
imported from France and other countries, they have caused the whole
stock in trade of some of the most shameless and abandoned traffickers
in obscene books and prints, amounting to some thousands, to be seized,
and have also destroyed no less than fifty extensive copper plates, from
which impressions were from time to time supplied. And lastly, they have
brought to condign punishment that most audacious offender, Carlile,
who, notwithstanding repeated indictments found against him, still
persisted in selling works of the foulest sedition and the most horrible
blasphemy that ever disgraced a free press, or outraged the feelings
and principles of a British public. The necessary expenses attendant on
these measures have greatly exhausted the funds of this Society, but the
Committee, etc., etc.
"'Subscriptions and donations are thankfully received by the treasurer,
Henry Hoare, Esq., 37, Fleet Street, and by the secretary, Mr. George
Pritchard, 31, Essex Street, Strand.'
"It appears that your Society, the names of the members of which you
once published annually and ostentatiously, is now reduced to a mere
cabal whose names you are ashamed to publish, and that all your business
is transacted at the office of your secretary, Pritchard, the lawyer,
who, next to myself, has gained more by your charges than any other
person. It is notorious that all prosecutions emanate from that
office at the instigation of that man, who condescends to drop further
proceedings whenever the victim of the prosecution will pay him about
L30, which is termed _expenses incurred_. It is further known that this
accommodation has taken place more than once with the same individual,
so that the preservation of the public morals is evidently but a
secondary object with this secretary of yours. The first avowed object
of your Society was to seek out the persons who were instrumental in
disseminating obscene books and pictures. Had you confined yourself to
this, no honest or moral man would have complained of or objected to
your conduct as a Society. But you studiously endeavor to connect my
publications with those which are justly termed obscene, for after
enumerating exertions in putting a stop to the sale of those truly
objectionable articles, and while I solemnly swear I never sold anything
of the description or in any way connected with them, you in the very
same sentence add: 'and lastly, they have brought to condign punishment
that most audacious offender, Carlile'. Now what does all this argue?
Why, that I, notwithstanding the indictments you obtained against me,
could put my books fearlessly and openly in my window for sale, and that
the most distinguished and the most virtuous women could come into
my shop and put down their money for the 'Age of Reason' or Palmer's
'Principles of Nature', and publicly express their approbation of my
perseverance. It was no sooner opened by the sheriffs officer to remove
the goods six weeks after the seizure than a gentleman stepped in and
said, 'I will give you twelve guineas for twelve copies of the "Age of
Reason."' Then I ask what part of the British public I have corrupted?
or whose feelings I have outraged? It is your province to war with
obscenity, mine with idolatry. I will now endeavor to show you where the
advantage and disadvantage of your conduct towards me lies. I calculate
that in consequence of the persecution I sold more Deistical volumes and
tracts last year than I should have done in seven years in the ordinary
course of business. The consequence was that I was prepared to meet all
the violence that has been used on my property; and I leave you to
judge whether it is not more than probable that, before the end of seven
years, I or some other person shall be able to renew the publication
of those works which are for the moment suppressed. Where will _you_
be then? You will have to fight the same battle over again at a
considerable expense on your part and a considerable profit on mine;
besides, if once a jury pronounces a verdict of 'not guilty' on this
question--and this requires but one honest man free from superstition
to do this--the principle will spread like wildfire. But even admitting
that none shall venture to publish those two volumes for which I am
at present confined, what do we lose whilst the works of Gibbon, Hume,
Voltaire, Volney, and fifty other authors of similar opinions are in
full and rapid circulation? Your attempt to lay the pruning-hook
to those publications will only redouble the vigor of the roots and
remaining branches. Your attempt to impede the progress of truth and
liberal opinion will have no other tendency than to detract from that
merit and applause you would otherwise have obtained if you had confined
yourself to the objects for which your Society was instituted. But your
efforts to make blasphemy, or what you call blasphemy, a part of your
game will only hold you up to public scorn as bigoted persecutors. In
taking my leave of you I have to advise you not to remain under the
scandal of being a secret society. Why do you not publish your names and
the names of those subscribers of high rank and character you mention in
your advertisement? You make profession of your own utility and laudable
exertions; surely you cannot feel shame in publishing your names? I have
been informed that Mr. Hedgher, who kept that celebrated brothel and
sink of vice in St. George's Fields, for so many years called the 'Dog
and Duck', is endeavoring to expiate his former conduct by becoming one
of the most active and leading members of your Society. I have received
this information from many different persons who are strangers to me,
and who think it strange that such a man should be one of my prosecutors
after living with and encouraging everything that was vicious and vile.
The slight notice that I took last week of one of your right reverend
Presidents must suffice for awhile.
"I remain
"Your grateful protege,
"Dorchester Gaol,
"R. Carlile.
"February 20th, 1820."
CHAPTER IX. THE CATO STREET PLOT
We gather from the published statements of Carlile--statements which
were never denied as far as we have been able to ascertain, and which
were published within a few days of the occurrences having taken
place--an inside view of this "alarming conspiracy", and interested
readers will be able to draw their own conclusions. The story itself
would trench upon the ridiculous were it not that the lives of several
men were sacrificed to give coloring to its pretended genuineness. The
occupation which Carlile found for the spy Edwards was comical when
considered in the light of the supposed cause of Carlile's fines and
imprisonment, i.e., the publication of Paine's "Age of Reason". The
modelling of the statue of Paine was probably the most honorable work
Edwards was ever engaged in. But here is the story as told by Carlile
himself:
"A verdict has been obtained by the law officers of the Crown against
Thistlewood on a charge of high treason arising out of what has been
called the 'Cato Street Plot'. In taking notice of the affair at its
rupture, I observed that the trials would prove that the ministers were
the instigators of the entire business. I think this assertion has
been fully borne out by the evidence adduced on the trial. Here are the
particulars. Lord Harrowby' asserted that 'he had received an intimation
of the projected assassination a month before the time of explosion'. An
annunciation of a grand cabinet dinner appeared in the _New Times_,
and that paper only. Edwards the modeller, who has been the spy and the
agent of the Government, produced this announcement on the day of its
publication to Thistlewood and others of the party, and recommended it
as a good opportunity for their object. This Edwards attended all
their meetings, and was very active in preparing all the weapons of
destruction. Whether Edwards was present in the loft or not at the time
of the capture has not appeared, but it appears that he was the only
individual who knew the retreat of Thistlewood, as he accompanied him
to that retreat, and must have immediately made his communication to the
police. In the list of witnesses Edwards was described as a resident
of Ranelagh Place, whereas he has resided in Fleet Street for over the
twelve months last past, and an apartment there has been taken for no
other purpose than to mislead. The wife and children having continued to
live on the third floor of the bookseller's at the corner of Johnson's
Court,' Fleet Street, where he has resided since midsummer last, while
he and some Bow Street officers have gone to Ranelagh Place in the
daytime and just boiled a few eggs, etc., by the way of keeping
possession of it. However, there is something too black between the
ministers and Edwards to have him produced as a witness. The principal
accomplice produced was Adams, who, it appeared, in conjunction with
Edwards, lodged the weapons and ammunition at the lodgings of Tidd
on the morning after the parties were arrested, and who no doubt were
acting in conjunction with the police officers, as the latter reached
there within a quarter of an hour of them. It appears that Adams
had lately been discharged from the army to follow his business as
a shoemaker the better to adapt him as a spy, or an instigator. Of
Monument I shall say nothing, as it really appears that he was decoyed to
Cato Street ignorant of the object about to be pursued. I am assured that
if the manner in which this Cato Street conspiracy had been made to burst
and to petrify the minds of the people, had not raised such a strong
prejudice against the accused, the juries would have rejected the
evidence adduced by the Crown with indignation. Thistlewood's counsel
himself could not palliate some of his projects, and could give him no
hope of escape from death on one of the indictments, but the charge of
high treason should have required more respectable evidence of the
plans and intentions of the parties. Another circumstance is much to
be lamented, and that is that any other man should fall a victim to
the insanity of Thistlewood. It may not be amiss to give a sketch of
Thistlewood's career, which has been one of folly and madness. In
the early part of the French Revolution he held a lieutenancy in the
militia; from thence he exchanged into some regular regiment and went
to the West Indies. He left the army and went to the United States; from
this time can be dated the origin of those principles which have brought
him to his present hapless state. From the United States he embarked
for France, and remained in Paris during the whole of the career of the
Robespierreian party, and has unfortunately shown himself, ever since,
to be deeply impregnated with all the principles and the worst passions
that disgraced the French Revolution and finally tended to destroy its
benefits. From Paris he returned to London, and being quite a stranger
to the political characters of that day, his return from France formed
a groundwork of an introduction to many of them who were in the habit of
assembling at the shop and house of Daniel Isaac Eaton, a bookseller
in Newgate Street. I have met many of the old friends of Mr. Eaton, but
could never learn anything of the general tenor of Thistlewood's conduct
at that time, so that it appears to me that he was never sufficiently
countenanced by any of them to form any intimacies. From this time up
to the Spa Fields Meeting, I have no knowledge of how he spent his time,
further than that he spent a considerable part of it, and considerable
property, at the gaming table, and reduced himself to a state of
indigence. I now proceed to notice the character of Edwards, and this I
feel capable of doing, because I employed him as a modeller for several
figures in the course of the last year or so. On my entering the house
at 55 Fleet Street, I became the neighbor of Edwards, who previously
held the little shop which Mr. Hone had occupied, and which bore the No.
55 1/2, as being part of 56. Edwards had no sooner become aware that I
had taken 55 than he strenuously applied himself to become a tenant or
lodger of mine, before I had the least idea of letting any part of the
house. I had a strong dislike to his appearance, and gave him no hope of
my receiving him as a lodger. The Attorney-General and the Vice Society
soon enabled me to support the place without any lodgers, and I put Mr.
Edwards off with the assurance that I should not rent any part of it. He
was in the habit of coming into the shop to purchase my pamphlets, and
I soon conceived the idea of having him model for me a figure of Thomas
Paine. He expressed himself as quite anxious for the job, and observed
that, being a great admirer of Paine's principles, he would be satisfied
with a small price for it. On my wishing him to set a price, he proposed
L5, which would just cover the expense he would be at, without including
his time or abilities. This happened in the latter part of February
or March. A few days later Edwards expressed a wish to have the money
beforehand, and observed that it was usual with modellers. I hesitated,
refused, and then offered him L1, which he accepted. A head, or bust,
was soon ready, and I gave him three guineas extra for the copyright;
but I could get him no further with the figure, although I had gone to
the expense of the pedestal and other requisites for it, until the fall
of the year. During the whole of this time he seemed to be in the most
abject poverty, was obliged to give up his shop, and was never to be
found at home. I urged him by continued messages to proceed with the
figure, and in the month of September I got him to finish it, much to my
satisfaction, and that of every other person who loved and revered the
principles of Paine. Edwards was paid for the figure long before it
was finished and set up, and altogether considerably in addition to
the first agreement. From this time he stuck very close to me on one
pretence or another, followed me twice to Blackheath for the purpose
of modelling my likeness on his own account, which he completed in the
King's Bench Prison, without any apparent idea of making anything out of
it. He pleaded great poverty, and twice solicited the loan of money from
me. After finishing the figure of Paine, I as often refused, because
his whole conduct had convinced me that he was both dishonest and
ill-disposed. I had never the smallest idea that he was a spy. And as I
knew him to be in the habit of running after Thistlewood and his party,
I often asked him 'what project they had on foot', by way of a joke. It
was Edwards who informed me that the person who visited me in the King's
Bench Prison, in company with Davidson, was a spy, and that it was he
who conveyed all the information to Lord Sidmouth and the Lord Mayor.
Edwards was the fourth person who entered the room, and it struck me
forcibly that there was a strange coolness and distance between these
three, who had often met before. I never for a moment suspected Edwards
to be anything further than an idle and dissolute fellow. I have some
recollection of being accosted by Adams, the other spy. I was in the
company of a Mr. Watling of the Strand, close by Mr. Sherwin's printing
office, where I had been on business, when a tall shoemaker, with pieces
of leather and other articles in his hand, accosted us, and said that
nothing would afford him as much pleasure as our going to drink a glass
with him, and hoped that his workman-like appearance would not disparage
him in our eyes. I answered him that his appearance was by no means a
disgrace to him, but that I never drank malt or spirituous liquors.
If we would only sit in his company for a few minutes he would be
satisfied. We entered the 'Shakespeare Tavern' at the corner of Smith
Street, Northampton Square, when Adams introduced himself as having
lately left the Horse Guards, and wishing to find out a society of good
fellows, that he was a Yorkshire man, and had learnt of his friends the
distress of the country, and the disposition of the people. He knew
Mr. Watling and myself, but neither of us had ever seen _him_ before.
I should never have recollected the man or the circumstance had these
trials not brought him to light, as we sat with him but a few minutes
and heard what he had to say for himself. I saw him no more."
Carlile writes further on this matter on February 28th, 1820:--
"All that I can hear or collect on this business, for it is not worthy
of being called a plot, is that a number of persons met armed in a
certain hayloft, stable, etc., in Cato Street, St. John's Street,
Marylebone, and that it was intended they should issue from thence and
attack the house of Lord Harrowby in Grosvenor Square, where a Cabinet
dinner was about to take place, and that someone communicated the
particulars to the Earl of Harrowby in the morning of the day on which
it was to have happened. I believe all this and much more. I have
further heard that a party of police and military were ready to cope
with these dreadful conspirators, by which a police officer was killed
and many others wounded on both sides; that a coroner's inquest was held
on the body of the policeman, and a verdict of wilful murder returned
against Arthur Thistlewood and nine others, with many others by name
unknown. I have also learned that one of the party has turned evidence
for the Crown. The first thing which struck me forcibly was the conduct
and character of R. Davidson, the more particularly for what has
transpired between this man and myself. I had not been very many days in
the King's Bench Prison after my trial before I received a letter filled
with strong professions of attachment, the drift of it being an offer of
60 or 70 men of the same mind as the writer to affect my rescue, even
at the hazard and sacrifice of their lives. It was signed 'R. Davidson'.
The writer endeavored to make himself known to me by saying that he
was the man of color who had sat with the committee consisting of
Thistlewood and others for the purpose of managing a public entry for
Mr. Hunt on his return to London from Manchester. This letter I burnt,
and mentioning it to Mrs. Carlile, she immediately said that there had
been such a man to the Fleet Street shop, who had said that no prison
should long confine me. I had previously seen this man for a few short
moments when visiting this committee to hand in a small sum of money
which had been left with me for the purpose of helping to defray the
expenses of the contemplated public entry of Mr. Hunt. I confess
to great suspicion of this man, who claimed to be employed by Lord
Harrowby; while in the room I heard this man say that Lord Harrowby
frequently threatened to discharge him on account of his being 'a damned
seditious fellow'. Not liking the appearance of things, I left the room
as quickly as possible, though pressed to stay by this man and others.
I had never seen this man before, and wondered at it as my situation in
business made me acquainted with every man at all active in reform work
of any kind. He called on me at the King's Bench and asked me what I
thought of the project to liberate me? I told him I thought it was a
very foolish project and no object could be gained by it, and that
he and his companions should reserve themselves for a more useful and
important purpose, and added, 'that if ever a real struggle for liberty
should take place, I would not shrink from taking part in it'. He came
again in company with a ruffianly-looking fellow, who breathed nothing
but the most sanguinary destruction to his enemies or any one else who
did not agree with him in his views. I gave them five shillings towards
the expenses of a meeting to be held in Finsbury the following Monday,
and with an awkward apology for taking money from a prisoner, and on
finding themselves interrupted by someone coming in the room, they
left the room as Edwards entered. The latter expressed his surprise and
suspicion of these visitors after they had gone, and I heard nothing
more of them till this new plot of Cato Street was discovered (?). As
soon as the terror which these things excite has subsided a little, and
the alleged conspirators are put on their trial, the public will begin
to see the whole thing in its proper light. It it well known that the
Ministers had the means of bringing Thistlewood to trial for a seditious
conspiracy fifty times since his acquittal for high treason, but
this would not suit their purpose; they have encouraged him to go on,
continually surrounded by their agents. Mr. Stafford, of Bow Street,
made an observation in 1817 or 1818 to the effect that they could lay
hold of Preston or Thistlewood at any time, but these were not the men
wanted; there were others of more importance and more danger to the
Government. Although I have not the most distant idea that Thistlewood
ever took a farthing from the Government, yet he has made himself just
as useful to them as if he had done so, and the Ministers, by sending
their own instigators amongst these men, have quite directed the conduct
of Thistlewood to suit their own purposes on whatever charge they were
tried. I hope for their acquittal, and any statement made here is
not intended to operate against them, but to show that the Ministers
themselves are at the bottom of all the 'plots' that have lately made so
much noise. Some other facts were brought out at the trials which caused
the case to look dubious, to say the least, one of which was that there
was but one entrance to the place, and that though surrounded by both
police and soldiery, some one or two were permitted to escape, while one
or two others surrendered at once. One man alone was killed, and that
one a policeman who rushed upon a man who had a drawn sword, and who
warned the policeman to keep off."
It is said that Thistlewood himself escaped through the only door;
however, he and seven others were afterwards apprehended and arraigned
for high treason. Thistlewood, Davidson, Ings, Brunt, and Tidd were hung
for their part in the conspiracy, and it is but just to their memories
to say that they met their fate bravely and coolly.
After the unfortunate ending of this miserable affair and the deaths of
the misguided men, Carlile addressed the following letter to the wife of
Davidson, expressing his regret for having possibly wounded her feelings
in his remarks about her husband which were printed in the _Republican_
(Vol. 3, No. 2).
A letter to Mrs. Davidson, widow,
"Madam,--I feel it a duty incumbent upon me to endeavor to make you a
reparation for the painful feelings my late observations on your husband
must have occasioned you. To the person who accompanied your late
husband to me in the King's Bench Prison, I shall address a private
note, as his name has not been made public, I consider it sufficient.
In making the observations for which I now feel the deepest regret, I
mentioned that a fourth person entered the room whilst your husband and
his companion were present, and that this fourth person expressed his
surprise at the presence of my visitors, intimating that they were
strongly suspected of being the spies and agents of the Government. This
fourth person was the infamous Edwards, whose object, no doubt, was to
lay the same trap for me in which he has been but too successful with
others. As your husband was quite a stranger to me, and as I had
noticed his zeal towards me on two former occasions with suspicion, that
suspicion from the suggestion of Edwards became very strong, and led me
to look at him in a very different light to what I now view him in. The
bursting forth of the unhappy affair of Cato Street filled me with the
same surprise and astonishment with which it must have filled every
other person, and I was most anxious, and felt it to be most important,
to avert the stream of horror which flowed from it, and to throw it back
on those who had planned and instigated the whole scheme. I knew Ings
from September last up to the time I left London. The man had unfolded
his distress to me, and I knew at that time that he was totally
unconnected with any political party whatever, and almost a stranger in
London. I was sorry to see him drawn into that hopeless condition, as I
was convinced some friends had taken advantage of his hopeless condition
and despair. But little did I think that villain, Edwards, was the spy,
agent, and instigator of the Government, and Mr. Davidson his victim.
I now regret this error, and hope you will pardon it as an error of the
head without any bad motive. Be assured that the heroic manner in which
your husband and his companions met their fate, will in a few years,
perhaps in a few months, stamp their names as patriots and men who had
nothing but their country's weal at heart. I think as your children grow
up they will find that the fate of their father will rather procure them
respect and admiration than the reverse. Accept the small sum of L2,
as an acknowledgment of my injury to you. It is all that my present
circumstances allow me to offer you. Should it be my lot to fill any
situation in life where I might be able to render any service to you
or your children, you may at all times command my attention. With a due
feeling for your distressing situation,
"I am, Madam,
"Your obedient servant,
"Richard Carlile."
This shows the kindliness of Carlile's heart towards a poor widow, whose
husband, a poor colored man, had really no claim whatever upon him save
that of sympathetic humanity.
CHAPTER X. HOW THE BATTLE WAS FOUGHT
During the imprisonment of the batch of shopmen who volunteered to
enter the service of Carlile and sell the prosecuted works, many letters
passed between him and them. I have, however, only those of Mr. H. V.
Holmes. The correspondence, from which I make extracts, continued long
after the persecution ceased; but here I have to do only with those that
shed some light on the events which were then transpiring. Not one of
these letters was intended for publication, yet every one would bear it
as far as the writer was concerned. Carlile had no secrets of his own,
but was the custodian of many of other people's.
The subjoined extracts show the spirit which animated both chief and
men.
"Dorchester Gaol,
"January 15th, 1822.
"Mr. Holmes,
"Sir,--That your name and former conviction is known to the Bridge
Street gang I have no doubt, and that you will be in the power of the
enemy as to banishment agreeable to their 'Six Acts' is equally certain,
if they get another verdict. Your plan must be the same as Dolby's, to
challenge the whole panel or array of jurymen on the ground that they
were returned by Alderman Garratt, one of your prosecutors. The same
thing must be done on the part of Berkely, Rhodes, and Byerly whenever
the attempt be made to bring them to trial. I admire your spirit, and
will endeavor to support it as matters stand now; but had I known the
peculiar situation of yourself and wife, I should have hesitated before
I accepted your services. My business is precarious and not to be
depended on, considering the strength of the enemy against whom we
fight. I will stand my ground as long as there is another man, woman,
or child to stand by me to be found; but if Castlereagh makes new laws I
can say nothing more till I see what they are. I am stronger now than at
any period of the war, and have no fear but that even under present laws
I shall increase in strength. Respecting your defence, I have only
to say that I like best the open avowal of principle if trial becomes
inevitable. But I have no objection whatever to you pursuing the course
prescribed by your friends if you think it will be more advantageous. If
you are the first banished I shall envy you, as I had made up my mind
to that honor, although I must have two more trials first. If they could
banish me by the first trial, I should be had up immediately, as I have
information that the matter has been canvassed in the enemy's councils.
Whatever way you make your defence let it be bold and energetic. I think
the open avowal of principles will be best for you, as anything short of
that cannot excite the same interest in the public mind. You have a wide
range for defence in the pamphlet, it embraces every topic; if I can
assist you let me know. I am at command, but not upon any principle
called Christian.
"Yours respectfully,
"R. Carlile.
"Mr. H. V. Holmes,
"Newgate, London."
"Respecting your recognizances, if any fee was demanded from me here, I
should refuse to pay it; I successfully refused it when I left Giltspur
Street Compter. It must be that which Stevens alludes to when he says 'I
did not behave like a gentleman', for I paid him 4s. ($1) a day for as
plain a board as I ever saw on table. At that time I was continually
being arrested, and I thought it prudent to spend as little as possible
under such circumstances. He expressed himself as perfectly satisfied
with what I gave him, though I did not give him a gratuity as turnkey; I
saw no occasion for feeing the turnkeys..... Since you have left London,
Griffin has gone to prison, and is shut up in Holborn, and the _Dwarf_,
you will have seen, is dead. We must not die, and as to prison we have
had enough of it. I am fully sensible that you will have to struggle
hard to enlighten the people of Sheffield; I know that the present
generation of them are a dull mass..... I am glad to hear that Mrs. H.
had resolved to brave prosecution had you been again prosecuted. This
is the only way to succeed. Had Mrs. Carlile flinched, my business would
have gone to wreck, for I verily think that there would have been no
volunteers but for Mrs. C. and my sister going one after the other. It
gave a sort of zest to the thing, and everything has gone well since.
"I am afraid you will be prosecuted from the rage carrying on in London.
Young Hassell has gone up from this neighborhood; I understand
the fourth was arrested on Monday last for No. 17, vol. 9, of the
_Republican_. The fifth entered on Tuesday, but I have not yet heard of
his arrest.. On Tuesday a seizure was made for taxes, but the thieves
were soon dismissed with payment. So you see that we shall want a mint
of money to stand against them. The plan we proceed upon in London is
to withdraw the article from sale for which the last (volunteer) was
arrested, so as to make them prosecute each person for a new article.
This is better than having them all prosecuted for the same article,
though three of them are already fixed for Paine and Palmer. If in
Sheffield you have any volunteers to go to London, let me know."
"Dorchester Gaol, March 22nd, 1822.
"I wish to know if any difference is made between your treatment
and that of Rhodes. Hard labor in this gaol means nothing at all,
particularly before they had a treadmill up for grinding corn, and that
is not hard labor in my eyes, as I have seen, and felt, what hard labor
is. I do not think there can be much to do in Giltspur Street Compter,
although I know they have a mill of some sort there. I can only hope
that the doors of your prison will be open to you before 1824. I think
they will; a revolution in France would produce one here immediately to
a certainty. Our friend, the Devil, will work one here. Be so good as to
state what the prison allowance of food consists of for a week with you.
As your work is mere play or pastime, I think it will not be worth while
to complain of it at present. However, I will do it if you wish.... I
return you 'The Solace', I would advise you as I have just advised my
friend Smithson, of Leeds, to check the poetic muse; I do not like to
see good common sense in rhyme. It does not need it. I intend to exclude
all poems from the columns of the _Republican_ after this volume. I
am not a poet and have no taste for it; but I know that it requires
something very good on this head to please the public.... I see by the
papers that Boyle has again refused his name to the Court, and again
been remanded. I cannot get a lawyer to do anything for me on my plan,
and to let them take their own course is the Devil! I even fear I shall
not be able to get a motion made for the sale of that property of mine
by auction which is in the possession of the robbers."
"May 14th, 1822.
"You will see your 'Reasons for Disbelief' in the Republican this week.
I expect to put your name to it, for such a creed, when you speak of
having been a Methodist preacher, will not do without.... Should I
lessen my expenses by the release of George Bere, I shall add two
shillings a week to your, Rhodes, and Boyle's income. I was no party to
the first fixing of it at five shillings, and never thought it enough.
Wedderburn I believe to be a worthy character as far as principle is
concerned, and after such a severe imprisonment as he has had, I feel it
my duty to help him on to some of the comforts of life, if possible.
If I were in London I would act very different to what I do now toward
those who stand by me. I have now others to please as well as myself,
and I find difficulty in doing justice to all and pleasing all at the
same time.... If you were once to look at the weekly mass of writing
that I do, you would never complain of being neglected. I do believe
that your heart is bound up in the cause I am advocating, and you shall
see that I will do everything possible to enable you to act upon those
feelings when a better opportunity arrives."
"July 22nd, 1822.
"Say to Boyle that I am glad he refused to sign the petition.
It was only an intrigue of some individual to acquire a little
_eclat_ in the House of Commons upon the matter. Let them come manfully
forward and move for the release of all prisoners prosecuted at the
instance of the prosecuting association; and then an assistance or
interference would be worth giving. I have often wished that Dr. Watson
would turn bookseller and defend some important work in a Court of Law.
He will never get out of his poverty in this country without some such
step. Gale Jones, who is such a brilliant orator, has dragged through
a life of poverty entirely from the want of resolution to exhibit his
talents where they would serve him. There is something original in your
critique on the '39 Articles', because I am not aware that they were
ever handled in that way before. I have been obliged to notice them
in Mrs. Wright's speech for November, but I have gone on an entirely
different strain to yours. After you have seen that speech it may
induce you to re-write your critique and introduce some of those
contradictions. For instance, the first article says, 'God is without
a body' and composed of a substance, and the indivisible Trinity is
divided twenty ways in the course of the articles. We read of 'parts'
of a partless bodyless body. Such an abuse of language is scarcely to
be found in the Bible as the 39 Articles contain.... This God without a
body, parts, or passions, took flesh, bones, and everything appertaining
to the perfection of man's nature into Heaven, and made a fourth part
of what was before a 'Trinity'. Oh, Christians and Christianity! It
is really, and speaking seriously between you and myself, the grossest
mythology that was ever practised upon the credulity of mankind. A
really free press and free uninterrupted discussion would annihilate it
in one year throughout Europe."
"September 19th, 1822.
"Your chaplain is, I think, taking considerable pains to convert you
back to his creed. There are half-a-dozen of them belonging to this
gaol. They took considerable pains with Mr. Wedderburn, but have been
very shy with me. I have published almost every word that has passed
between us. I shall leave my prison more thoroughly impressed with the
truth and importance of my principles than when I entered it."
"August 26th, 1823.
"Nothing will afford me greater pleasure than to see you all who have
been imprisoned on my account turning out bright men. The first thing
required is a resolution to be strictly moral, the second to fill up
your time well, and be industrious at everything useful. I have no
fear but I shall be able to make quite a change in public opinion about
myself in another year. I am fully determined to write myself out of
prison by my pen, if I do not get out otherwise. I am now carrying on
some pretty work with the parsons. I have written to five since Sunday
morning in answer to different points. I shall let none of them rest."
"September 8th, 1823.
"I should have no objection to buy Burnett's History if you can assure
me against one thing: that they are the real property of the person who
sells them, that is to say, if they are honestly come by. This is a
necessary caution, as no bargain would induce me to deal with a man who
had been sent to the Compter for theft.... Respecting the new prison
act, I am sure that my savage keepers cannot alter my treatment for the
worse. I am harassing them to make it better. I sent an invitation to
Peel to come and see how I was treated; I also sent an invitation to old
Eldon to bring the Bishop of the Diocese with him, or any clergyman he
liked, that I might give him proofs that no man could defend the
Christian religion as a matter of morality or law. They are both in this
neighborhood. I will soon publish a heap of the squibs that I have
thrown at the priests and others in this neighborhood. Some of them are
quite amusing. I feel myself master of them, and they tacitly
acknowledge it.... I have been informed that some one has been fishing
for more prosecution, but I doubt whether they will take more after
Frost and Jones are tried. The gangs are evidently sickened, and now
they talk of writing me down. I wish they might be resolute enough to
attempt the matter. I think a great deal about Reig; sometimes that he
will be destroyed, again that he will not be. But if he is, some of the
Faith men will pay dear for it on a future day."
"December 9th, 1823.
"I have not a doubt but that the smuggler Waters was purposely sent to
London with a report of my madness. A viler gang of villainous
aristocrats is nowhere to be found than this country produces. I very
much desire to know who carried this tale among the prisoners, as the
rule in this gaol is to keep everything secret, not to let the prisoners
of one yard know what is doing or being done in the others.... I am
sorry to hear from Boyle that Mrs. Holmes did not like going to
Sheffield. This will be the D------l if she continue in the same mind,
for you can only succeed by both pulling hard in one way------ Mrs.
C------ has often opposed my projects; but I will say this for her--that
when she saw I was determined, she would assist after her fit of anger
was over."
"I expect to hear every day that you are arrested in Sheffield; but it
is possible this London battle may be decisive. Rather than give in I
will send for you and Mrs. Holmes too, as if I cannot stand in London
there will be dire persecution throughout the country. I have sent your
last to print in a most daring address to the old Chancellor, but such
as becomes him and me to offer him. Excuse haste; I am writing defences"
[for the shopmen then under arrest].
"June 5th, 1824.
"Enclosed is what Mrs. Ellison wished. I have now a fine head of
hair--it has been growing all winter--and I can supply a hundred such
locks if they are worth anything, or gratifying to anyone. I never set
my mind on trifles like these."
"August 2nd, 1824.
"Mrs. T. R. Perry is now in the shop, and after her is another female
ready, with men in abundance."
In speaking of a placard about him that had been posted up in Norwich to
advertise a tract against him, he says:--
"The author found that he had sold 14 in a fortnight. There is nothing
in it that impeaches my conduct. My little egotistical vagaries are
only matters to be laughed at, and, as I have just been telling our High
Sheriff Garland, are put forth theatrically, to produce an effect upon
the audience."
Holmes wants to become a printer of liberal works, and Carlile tells
him how to go about making himself one; then, speaking of the _Newgate
Magazine_, he writes of applying some money sent to him for the purchase
of paper for this magazine, and says:--
"This work is to be wholly their own. Hassell will make a prime
fellow with the pen. Clark is an animated Bible. He has compiled the
'Scripturious creed', which I will give to you to print the moment you
have types. Another pamphlet I have for you is the 'Life of Paine'. In
addition to what others give you to do, I will fill up the time of a
journeyman until you are a perfect printer. I sent Sheriff Garland and
Abbott (Chief Justice) a _Republican_. Garland came with his niece and
daughter and sat down with me for half an hour, the gaoler remaining in
the back-ground all the time unnoticed. Garland wanted me to get out by
making some little formal apology; but I told him, 'No! I was determined
to fight it out'. 'Well,' said he, 'I suppose we must consider you a
political Luther.' I thought the gaoler would have spit fire at me this
morning for my compliment of last week. Such a look for Cruikshank!"
Speaking of his printer and the difficulties he finds in getting the
_Republican_ and other work done, he says:--
"I have a tickler in this week's for a visiting magistrate, only Moses
(his printer) generally accommodates me with about forty errors to an
issue."
This Moses was a man whom Carlile taught or had taught in his own
office, and he it was who printed the whole of the _Republican_, though
his name never appeared. So in view of the good work he helped on
through his printing of the prosecuted volumes, we must forgive him the
small (!) matter of "forty errors to an issue", though it must have been
a fearful and most aggravating annoyance to Carlile.
November 25th 1824.--Carlile says in a letter of this date:--
"We have had a hurricane on this coast such as never was known before.
I felt quite comfortable at being in such a strong building. Parson
Richman, the chaplain of the Dorchester Gaol, and his wife were killed
in bed by the falling in of the roof and chimney. The damage done to
the houses immediately before the sea is incalculable. It has nearly
destroyed every beauty of Weymouth. Several hundreds of people killed
by falling houses or drowned, and yet the Christians call this a
dispensation of Providence. I am glad that I am out of such a concern.
But we are on the wrong side of good luck at 84 Fleet Street, though
the Christians are quite savage that we are not nearly so bad off as our
neighbors. I fear we shall be jostled out of 84. The City Surveyor is
set to work to condemn our house as unsafe. The second I conjecture was
a Christian fire....
That second fire was certainly planned for the purpose, because the fire
engine belonging to the office in which our house has its insurance had
left, and as soon as it had left the fire broke out. I really think the
house is in danger, as long as it stands alone as it now does.... I have
very little hope of keeping 84. The Saints are trying every scheme to
get the house down, and I fear they will succeed; if so, we shall be out
of the shop by the New Year."
"May 4th, 1825.
"I have just had an interview with my gaoler to witness my signature to
an agreement about my house and liberation.
He is the most foul fellow that I ever looked upon. He ought not to have
been born outside of the pale of the Inquisition."
"June 14th, 1825 [On the Rev. Robert Taylor.]
"I noticed the Vice Society advertisement, sent and bought their book,
and am about to print it in the _Republican_. Rumor says they are
consulting about prosecuting Taylor (Rev. Robert). He is a handsome
fellow, a first-rate orator, and bewitches by his face and his tongue
some very smart ladies. His meetings are crowded with fashionable
ladies, and he is doing a deal of good."
"October 3rd, 1825.
"I doubt you being indicted at the Sessions. If so, you can traverse to
Epiphany, and perhaps for a pound or two remove it to the Bench, that is
to your county assizes. This would be better than being confined at
present; you should not have admitted the law as being against, to the
curate. There is no such law. It is all a fiction. There cannot be a law
for anything of the kind, for it is not an offence against public
morals. Should you come to trial, don't forget to say that the British
Government in India sanctions all such exhibitions. I saw an account of
some speechifying at a missionary meeting lately where they begged money
because Indian children made images of clay, etc., and cried them about
as 'Gods' a penny apiece. We have proofs that Haley has sent in a crying
recantation to Peel. I see plainly there is nothing too base for this
fellow to do. If Peel liberates him we shall have a pull upon both by
showing that no one but a rascal can find Christian mercy and grace."
October 11th 1825.--In this letter we can get an idea of how Carlile
kept things stirred up in the gaol for both the inside and outside
authorities, for this reason I give a little longer extract than usual.
"I shall be very glad to see Mrs. H. at Dorchester, yet I doubt if I
could get her free admission. I had a hard fight to get Mrs. Wright
admission. The gaoler tried to interrupt it. I wrote to a magistrate,
he to the gaoler saying he saw no impropriety in it, but left it to the
gaoler. The fellow yielded after saying, 'It was not to be a precedent'.
He would not let her write her name to me in the office of the gaol, she
had to go back to town to do so; I don't believe you yet when you say he
was civil to you. He is the greatest ruffian I ever saw in any kind
of office. There is war and rumor of war in the gaol just now. This is
session week, and I am about to make a report to the magistrates against
the gaoler. I sent up the complaints of the smugglers to the Lords of
the Treasury in August. I found out on Saturday that it had made a noise
all around, and back, and forward. Their lordships sent it to Peel,
and he down to the Magistrates. Mine was a most curious letter to the
Treasury; if I make any more noise out of it, I will print it. To be
revenged they turned away my favorite turnkey and his wife; they told
them they might thank me for it. I was sorry to see them go, but they
have been going on their own account for a long time, and I know they
would not have stayed after I left. After it was known that he was going
the goaler would not let them come to see me, out of his sight. To-day
I sent out an open letter calculated to mortify the fellow if he looked
into it, inviting the turnkey and his wife to visit me as friends and
visitors.
"There are about twenty _Republicans_ a week well read in this town now,
which I consider a smart circulation for such a place. This is a great
mortification to the enemy, but not a word of complaint is heard of it,
though the turnkeys have to deliver several of them.... There is a great
deal of difference between moral and physical courage; I consider myself
a hero on the former ground, but never having been tried, I hardly know
what I should be as one storming a breach, and yet sometimes I think in
a good cause I could raise enthusiastic courage. I certainly never felt
anything more than prudent fears or the fears of prudent caution; but
circumstances often form courage as well as the other qualities of the
man."
CHAPTER XI. FIRE AND INSANITY
Some time after Mrs. Carlile's release, while living at 84, Fleet
Street, a fire broke out next door to them, and communicated to their
shop and warehouse. Mrs. Carlile and children were taken out of the
house from the second storey window, and escaped injury except the
fright and nervous shock. The stock of books and pamphlets, though
injured by water, were mostly saved and carried into St. Dunstan's
Churchyard near by. The fire spread all around them, but their building
was left standing, and after the excitement subsided, Mrs. Carlile moved
back again. It was almost the only building left standing on the street.
As soon as the fire engine had left the scene a deliberate attempt was
made to burn Carlile's house down; a fire was actually kindled on the
floor of the warehouse, but was discovered in time to prevent further
damage. His enemies seemed to be enraged that his house should escape
when so many others were destroyed. This seemed to be one of those
occasions when Divine Providence was on Carlile's side. However, they
did finally succeed in getting him out of his quarters by getting
the house condemned as unsafe, as, indeed, Carlile himself deemed it.
Standing alone that way, they were in great danger from some fanatical
incendiary setting fire to it in the night. So that in the beginning of
the year they leased new quarters.
The last effort that was made by Carlile's enemies to destroy his power
was to send out a report of his having gone raving mad, and while this
attempt was as futile as the rest, the report caused terrible anxiety on
the part of his friends. Carlile had more than once warned the readers
of the _Republican_, his family and his friends, that in case he were
found dead in his room never to believe any report of suicide, for on
no account would he take his own life. In this way he headed off any
villainy of this kind that might be contemplated. This ruse of violent
insanity was an after-thought on the part of the officials.
During the latter half of Carlile's term of imprisonment he received
many private warnings of plots which were hatching to dispose of him
quietly, and so relieve his enemies of his charge. The most notable one
was that of Francis Place, who becoming aware that the subject of his
removal by poison had been canvassed, wrote to Dorchester Gaol and
begged Carlile to eat nothing that was not prepared by himself or in his
presence. Carlile rather scouted the warning at first, saying that
the prison authorities would not dare to do such a thing, and deeming
himself too strong a man with the public for his persecutors to defy
them, and attempt his assassination. Francis Place in the next letter
asked Carlile significantly if he thought himself a stronger man than
Napoleon, or stronger in public favor than Queen Caroline, thereby
intimating his opinion of the cause of the deaths of these two
celebrated characters. Mr. Place begged him to procure a pint of
antimonial wine, and to take a dessert spoonful on the least sign of
anything in the way of distress or pain in the stomach. Carlile did
this, and also prepared all his food with his own hands. The precautions
made it difficult for such a measure to be carried out even if
attempted. This, however, was not the only danger of the kind which
Carlile had to incur. There was a conviction abroad that measures to
finally dispose of him were canvassed in the secret councils of the
Government, and that a volunteer for this dastardly purpose was called
for and found. The failure of the attempt was due solely to the coolness
and calmness of the intended victim. Carlile had been always prepared
for destruction in some way, and knew also that the importance to the
authorities of his destruction was such that they could not fail to
reflect upon it. A very slight pretext was found to be sufficient on
which to make a very bold attack upon his life. It was carried out in
the following manner. In the first place the reader must be informed
that the rules of the prison were that every prisoner should have
sufficient "air and exercise"; and again confinement to their own cells,
with permission to walk in some courtyard singly, is the degree of
solitary confinement the _most severe_ in the ordinary discipline of the
prison. But Carlile's imprisonment was more severe than this most severe
discipline through a period of four years. In making an effort to get
these unlawful severities modified, Carlile, in a letter to Robert Peel
(afterwards Sir Robert), made use of the following expression: "Unless
my treatment is changed in this gaol, I must make war," which simply
meant in his case that he would appeal to those higher in authority, or
else to the people at large through the medium of the _Republican_,
for it is not to be supposed that he was going to kill the turnkeys who
waited upon him, with whom he was on the best of terms; and, too, the
expression itself was a common one with him, "making war" meant with him
attacking, exposing, and denouncing unjust men or measures publicly, by
his pen only, and it was out of the question that it could mean anything
else. The only thing beside this that he could do would have been to set
fire to his own room, which would probably have only resulted in his own
death; he would indeed have been insane to do this. However, his words
were fastened upon to serve the purpose of his enemies. The next day
word was sent up to London and the report was printed in all the morning
papers that "Carlile had gone raving mad", and had to be put in irons
for his own safety and that of others, thus preparing the minds of the
people for any account of his death that might be likely to follow. It
was a pretty scheme, and struck terror to the hearts of his family and
friends, but the details show that he was more than a match for his
persecutors and their wiles. On November 24th, 1823, Carlile was visited
by the chaplain and a visiting magistrate, who told Carlile that the
sole object of their visit was to get him to make some suggestions as
to what he considered a proper place to be allowed to walk in in
the daytime. Carlile told them he would be content with the smallest
courtyard in the place. The chaplain commended the reasonableness of his
expectation, and assured him that the sheriff was coming to satisfy it.
The next day the gaoler entered Mr. Carlile's room accompanied by the
high sheriff, Henry Charles Sturt, in manners and appearance a mere
boy--a "strutting puppy", an "ignorant aristocrat" as Carlile described
him--who, after the customary "How d'ye do?" turned to Carlile and said,
"You would have been liberated long ago, Carlile, if you had submitted".
"Submit to what?" asked Carlile. There was no reply, but the Sheriff
showed signs of rising choler. He drew a chair and sat down; the gaoler
sat himself down on the sofa-bed, while Carlile sat at the side of the
table opposite to the Sheriff. The Sheriff began by remonstrating about
what Carlile had been saying outside and inside of the gaol about his
treatment. He grew warm as he proceeded, expressed offence at every
observation made to him by Carlile, and soon made him aware that he had
come on anything but an amicable errand. Carlile kept his temper and
sat perfectly cool and collected, and calmly awaited the storm that was
about to break. Sturt, after proceeding gradually to his object, drew a
paper from his pocket in which was an extract of Carlile's from a letter
written to one of the officials. He then asked Carlile if he considered
his life in danger, and if he would act upon the threat there made
of "making war as a consequence of that treatment ". Carlile replied,
"Yes!" that was his resolution. Then he saw the arrangements which had
been made. The Sheriff nodded to the gaoler, saying, "Call them in!" Two
turnkeys entered. The Sheriff then ordered them to "secure Mr. Carlile,
and put handcuffs upon him ". The turnkeys did this, Carlile offering
no resistance, merely saying, "I see your object, so shall not resist; I
know you cannot keep me long in irons". He knew that their object was
to irritate and urge him on to some unguarded act of violence. Carlile
never moved from his chair, but sat calmly eyeing them, and altogether
unruffled. The order was given to search the prisoner and the room. The
gaoler, Andrews, was now in his element, and everything was ransacked.
Nothing was found but what every prisoner of state might be supposed to
have about him. The Sheriff and gaoler were evidently disappointed,
even to confusion. Carlile sat calmly looking on; he expressed his
satisfaction at what they were doing, saying that it was the villain
alone who trembled to have his designs investigated. Saucepans,
coffee-boiler, frying-pan, snuffers, hearth-brush, tin oven,
pie-irons, penknives, tableknives and forks, dumbbells, razors, nearly
everything--even to the veriest trifle--was taken away. Carlile pointed
out to them, as a proof of their purposes, that the iron fender and
fire-irons were left, which were the only really offensive weapons
in the room. This occupied three hours, and after all was done the
handcuffs were removed. During these three hours the gaoler spent the
first and third hour in the room; the second hour was devoted to the
burial of his mother, who was lying dead at the time. This shows
the character of the man quite sufficiently, and lends a ludicrous
appearance to a very solemn matter. The rest was simply fun for Carlile,
and served to lighten the monotony of prison life. He declared the
excitement did him good. Determined, as he said, to make the fellows
look the greatest fools possible, the next morning he set to work and
got a bill of fare for the turnkey: beefsteaks, onions, pepper, mustard,
potatoes, raisins, flour, suet, and eggs-He ordered them to bring him
those things, and bring them uncooked; he had been living on bread and
water as an experiment after his sister had left him, but he wanted to
try if the gaoler would refuse him the means of cooking. The turnkey
brought the things with his letters and newspapers as usual. The
chaplain came up to pump him a bit as to what he was going to do,
and recommended "a light wire broiler to dress his steak". "No!" said
Carlile, "the gaoler shall send me the cooking utensils again ", and he
did one by one, the turnkeys bringing them and standing guard while he
used them. He told them he must have all the saucepans, for hereafter he
was going to live like a gentleman and have half-a-dozen meals a day,
at least as long as this game lasted. Nothing was said about a knife
and fork. The saucepan from lying unused had grown rusty, so one of
his guards was dispatched to get it mended, while the other watched the
frying-pan. He set about making a plum-pudding, chopping the suet with
an ivory paper-cutter and mixing the ingredients on a plate; but he had
no pudding-cloth, and had to choose between a night-cap and a shirt.
The night-cap was preferred, and he claimed that no one could object
to eating a piece of that plum-pudding. The process of cooking occupied
three hours, during which time he had two guards in attendance. Had he
not been afraid himself of over-eating, he said he would have kept them
twenty-four hours. He kept up this amusement for a week or so; it was
fun for him and aggravation to the gaoler and Sheriff, and yet strictly
within the rules of the prison.
The report sent to London gave out that Carlile had gone raving mad, and
that the Sheriff, Magistrates, gaoler, and turnkey were gone to his room
with ropes to tie him down; even stating afterwards the particulars of
how the ropes were placed in the tying down process. Carlile anticipated
this rumor of insanity, by a sort of instinct, and walked out early
next morning through the gaol yards, and showed himself to the other
prisoners, so that they could testify to the falseness of the report.
It so happened that the smuggler who carried the report to London was
housed at the Newgate prison, where the shopmen of Carlile were serving
their various terms. They were almost panic-stricken at first at the
terrible fate of their chief. But a characteristic letter from himself
to his wife was speedily forwarded to London, and allayed their fears.
After a day or so, not receiving his cooking utensils back, he addressed
a burlesque petition in behalf of the various articles seized, and
addressed it to Henry Charles Sturt.
This petition was written in order to make the authorities look foolish,
as they no doubt felt after the fiasco just enacted.
CHAPTER XII. FREE DISCUSSION.
Simple as is the sound of the words "Free Discussion", there is not in
our language, or in any other language, an expression that has so
many important relations. It embraces everything that comes under
the denomination of reform, and indicates everything in the way of
improvement, or desire to improve the condition of mankind. If there be
any talisman applicable to the question of reform it must consist in the
words "Free Discussion". It is of necessity the initiative principle of
all genuine reforms, and the neglect to obtain that right first has been
the main cause of non-success in all the reforms hitherto attempted. It
must be the focus of all genuine morality, as well as all the advantages
which man possesses over other animals; for human speech is nothing
but human discussion, and free discussion is nothing more than complete
liberty of speech. Upon what fair and honest principle can one man, or
set of men, claim the right to restrain and suppress the power of speech
in another, or even the power of speaking upon paper, whatever that
other may think right? If such a practice there be, it is the practice
of tyranny; yet very few people seem to have any idea of the importance
of free discussion. Few speak of it, and many do not think of it all,
yet it is a simple point which every one should understand, if he have
any idea at all of the utility of speech. Every man ought to openly and
boldly advocate it, and there is scarcely a possibility that any one
would so far expose himself to public shame and ridicule as to rise in a
public assembly and deprecate the claim in plain words. Yet it was often
urged on Carlile himself by the clergy and others that he could think
what he liked on the subjects of government, or religion especially; but
he had no right to make his thoughts public either by speech or pen. To
the fact that he did so was due the whole of his various imprisonments.
Where there is no law there can be no transgression, and there was no
law to cover his case. He simply set the pace of liberty of speech,
both oral and written, for others to follow, and to use the words of
a prominent gentleman of Chicago in a recent letter, "Richard Carlile
established the Freedom of the Press and the Liberty of Speech for more
countries than one ".
He said of himself in this relation:
"In maintaining the war of discussion to accomplish its freedom, I
confess that I have often had to resort to personalities. My case
was peculiar, and I cannot see that I was wrong in so doing. I was
personally assaulted with all the venom that religious fury could apply.
The Society for the Promotion of Christian (!) Knowledge has frequently
designated me as a wretch! Almost every Christian has paid me the
same compliment. Instead of calling me a wretch, the Christian should
acknowledge that I am a bold, fair, open, and generous enemy, ready to
converse in the most polite manner with any of them, utterly incapable
of being the first to give a personal affront in conversation; always
desiring to be instructed or to instruct, and ready to conciliate
wherever it can he honorably done. Christians! I am not a wretch."
Never in the history of the world was there an imprisonment so fruitful,
so productive of knowledge of almost every kind. The opportunity never
before offered of a thorough and free discussion of every subject
calculated to educate and instruct mankind. It gave an impetus to
desire on the part of the learned to teach, and great inducement and
encouragement on the part of the people to learn. The extent and breadth
of the character of the studies entered upon were surprising, and the
eagerness with which they were seized upon no less so. It showed that
there was a great amount of intelligence lying dormant in the populace,
which only needed the coming of the awakener to be aroused to permanent
activity. To this day, and even to America, can be traced small
settlements and many individual followers of Carlile, who hold to his
teachings and honor his memory with a constancy and tenacity which is
immovable. It is a matter of gratification to be able to say that these
are all intelligent, highly moral, strictly temperate, and in every way
model American citizens.
CHAPTER XIII. LIBERATION AND AFTER
At the end of the sixth year of his imprisonment Carlile was most
unexpectedly set at liberty, and the following humorous account of the
circumstance, as given in the columns of the _Republican_, is in his
characteristic vein:--
"November 25th, 1825.
"To the Republicans of the Island of Albion.
"Citizens,--The sixth anniversary of my entrance to Dorchester Gaol, the
18th, has brought me outside its walls. The King in council on the 12th
was advised to remit so much of my fines as were unpaid, and on the
16th he was further advised (_mirabile dictu_) from some favorable
circumstances reported of me to him (God knows from whom, for I do
not) to remit that part of my sentence which required me to find
recognizances during my natural life, of one thousand pounds ($5,000)
and of two hundred pounds on that of other persons. On the 18th inst.
I first heard of my good fortune in the sight of a King (?) and in case
any of my friends suspect that something unknown to them might have
passed between me and the King or his advisers, I pledge my word, never
wilfully mispledged, that nothing has passed on my part but that which
has appeared in the _Republican_, and the favorable report, if anything
more than official verbiage, has astounded me! To be sure I did tell
his Majesty lately that he was my only idol, but that to him I would
not pray nor offer flattery. This remission of that part of my sentence
which required me to find recognizances during life must mean one of two
things: either that on my part free discussion is fully established, or
that on the part of the King's Government it means to renew prosecutions
and to pursue me to expatriation. I am, of course, ignorant of State
secrets, but my own course is determined. Onward! My future behavior
will be precisely what the past has been with this one exception, that
if prosecutions cease, I shall war with systems and not with persons. I
shall conduct all discussions in future with a mild firmness and with an
absence of all personal offence where none is given, still resolved to
pursue redress for the past. When I heard that my recognizances had been
abrogated, I acknowledge that I felt and pronounced it a finish to
my triumph, but in every other respect my quitting the gaol was to me
mentally but as a change of lodging. Yet I am fully alive to what I have
done and what I intend to do. If free speech be accomplished in this
country it will be a point gained toward human improvement, of which the
history of man in no country maketh mention-.
"In some countries all public discussion is suppressed; in this country
[England] the maxim has been for two centuries to punish the foremost.
I saw this eight years ago, and resolved to make war with it. I also saw
that by my going to extremes with discussion and speech, I should remove
all fears as I removed all danger of prosecution from those who had been
foremost, or who might be disposed to follow me at a safe distance. On
this ground every free-minded literary man ought to have given me
his support, for my long imprisonment was in fact a sort of penal
representation for the whole.
"I confess that I have touched extremes which many thought imprudent,
but which I saw to be useful with the view of habiting the Government
and the people themselves to all extremes of discussion, so as to remove
all idea of impropriety from the media which were most useful. If I find
I have done this I shall be a most happy man. If not I shall
have the same disposition, unimpaired, with which I began
my present career, a disposition to suffer fines, imprisonment, or
banishment rather than that any man shall hold the power and have the
audacity to say and to act upon it, that any kind of discussion is
improper and publicly injurious.
"I was in a manner swept out of the gaol bag and baggage. The gaoler
being in London sent word that I was to be got out with all speed, which
would have been done had I not in a measure been built up in my room so
as to leave no passage-way for my sofa-bed without taking it to pieces.
This and this alone gave me time to send a notice to London on the day
of my discharge. An hour or so after the chaplain had brought me the
news, and the clerk had shown me the warrant for my release, the gaoler
returned after having driven from Salisbury to Dorchester in a gig to
get back in time. The gaoler entered my room with all his servants (as
he called them) and said, 'Now I have your discharge, and the sooner you
go the better'. He then bid the men clear the room, and he scarcely lost
sight of me till I was outside the gaol in a shower of rain. I did not
give him any opportunity to witness any kind of emotion on my part at
the sudden liberation from a six years' imprisonment under as detestable
a gaoler as ever filled that office in England. In Dorchester my
reception was decidedly good, and many persons expressed their good
wishes who had been systematic in their abuse of me while I was in the
gaol. Up to this moment I have not received the slightest insult, and
I flatter myself that there is a growing spirit for what is called
religious toleration in this country superior to that which is to be
found in any country at this time."
On his journey to London he met with the following amusing incident:--
"The weather being fine, I preferred the outside to the inside of
the coach; but was sent inside by a shower of rain before we reached
Bridgeport. Here I found two ladies, both travellers, and both
intelligent; the one young, the other old. It appeared that they had
not heard my name at the stopping-place of the coach; and the old lady,
though she subsequently protested that she was not a politician, and
that as to Republicanism she had not an idea of it, made a fair trial
upon my seditious qualities by endeavoring to call them forth in
reprobating the conduct of the King and Ministers in not giving the
uncultivated land to those who left the country to seek such land
elsewhere. I assured the lady that the King was better than his
Ministers, and that the Church more than he kept the land uncultivated
and expatriated its children to seek a cheaper land free from tithes and
other enormous taxes. This was assented to, but the old lady, determined
that I should not defend the character of the King, brought up the case
of the late Queen (Caroline), and made me so seditious as to confess
that it was bad. I had a friend with me at this my first motion on top
of the earth after my new birth, my new regeneration, my salvation, my
being born again with fire and water and inspired with the spirit of
the Logos--as we first-class Christians can say, as well as those of
the inferior classes--and I informed him that I had met with a lady
more Republican than myself, to whom I intended to make myself known.
On re-entering the coach, the most Liberal and most agreeable political
conversation took place. I was all perfection in my views, and by the
apparent excitement and attention of both ladies I supposed myself
a most charming companion to both. But lo! the fatal moment came, my
ambition induced me to announce my name, really thinking that I had
found friends and supporters; but alas! I found my mistake--one face
went up at one window of the coach, the other to the other, and it
appeared to be a question of propriety with them as to their going
further with me. All that I could do in the way of compliment for their
correct political views availed me nothing. The old lady protested that
she was not a politician, thought it very wrong for ladies to meddle
with politics, and as to attacks on Religion, she abhorred them.
"A long silence followed, though I endeavored to look most humble and
explanatory. At length the elder lady began a sort of indirect lecture
on the impropriety of shocking religious impressions. I appealed to her
impressions of me before I announced my name, and it required all the
art I was master of to redeem an atom of good grace before we arrived at
Exeter. Every attempt to defend or explain what I had done sent the old
lady's face up to the window; but by the next morning, on her leaving
the inn, she sent her compliments to me by my friend.
"I was much surprised at my reception at Exeter. I had not intended
to stop there but a day, just to show myself to some of my old
acquaintances, that they might see that I had not been metamorphosed
into the old dragon about which they had heard so much. I find it
impossible to get away as soon as I expected. This town is rapidly
improving in knowledge, yet I mark with sorrowful emotion the hideous,
unsocial, uncheerful and unhappy faces which religion generates, and I
see anew the importance of what I have done, and what I intend to do for
the improvement of the female mind. It is knowledge alone that can give
real beauty to the face, as merely fair outline without knowledge to
give it expression is but a cold and lifeless statue, and can charm
none but weak minds; nor can dress make up for the deficiency which an
ignorant face exhibits. It heightens them and forms a double deception.
It deceives the wearer and he who is attracted by it, and decoys both
into a snare that inevitably generates an unhappy life for which no
external appearance can atone."
This sudden and unexpected liberation gave rise to some erroneous ideas.
Some of Carlile's weaker-kneed friends did not hesitate to accuse him of
some unworthy truckling to those in power in order to gain his liberty.
This was his reply to these accusations:
"I gather from the correspondence of friends in various parts of
the country that some wild notions are current as to the cause of my
liberation. I answer all queries on the subject by referring friends to
my past conduct, to that which has been visible, and by desiring them
to listen to no tales about changes in my conduct. My path has been long
marked out and straightly walked in; I shall neither go back nor turn
aside after so complete a success as that which I have brought about."
At this time it became quite the fashion to impute to Carlile the
blame of everything, almost, that happened in the way of misfortune of
whatever character. For example, when shortly after his liberation there
was a collapse in certain stocks, and consequently a panic in the money
market, there were many who openly imputed the cause to "Carlile's
liberation"! Another example was that of a man condemned to be hung
for forgery, and some one or two others who had committed some brutal
crimes. The judge, in pronouncing sentence, said "they had no doubt been
reading some of Carlile's pamphlets "!
During the last half of the year 1826, Carlile had been contemplating
and arranging for a new weekly publication, with Richard Hassell as
editorial assistant and manager. He had also arranged for an extended
tour throughout the country, lecturing and speaking to the people
everywhere, but unfortunately he was taken ill in November, and was
prostrated for an entire year with rheumatism and asthma. Every one who
saw him predicted his early demise. This was the after effect of his six
years' close confinement. His system made sensitive and unused to the
changes of temperature, gave way to the damps and fogs of the English
November, and made the year 1827 the only unprofitable one of his life.
It would seem as though the effects of these severe confinements were
not always felt at once, but slowly and insidiously undermined the
constitution, rendering it unfit to cope with changes of temperature
unnoticed by those accustomed to out of door life. There was probably
never a man who bore imprisonment so well as Carlile on the whole,
still it killed even him at last. It killed Richard Hassell and Thomas
Davison, both much younger men than Carlile, and it most certainly
affected the mind of Robert Taylor during those horrible months in the
Horsemonger Lane Gaol, for on a close reading of this grand orator's
masterly efforts, a disparity is surely noticed between those which
followed his second imprisonment and those which preceded it. An
over-straining of his fine mentality, as it were, leading to much that
was erratic and unlike his former self. Carlile, though able to return
to the encounter again and again, became so used to the prison life as
to be obliged to imprison himself afterwards in his bedroom most of
the winter, and, while mentally unaffected, suffered severely from the
contact of cold air upon his lungs. This year's illness was a great
drawback to Carlile's prosperity, for immediately upon quitting
Dorchester Gaol he had taken premises at 62 Fleet Street, and fitted it
up as a "Temple of Reason" which should be worthy the name. This new shop
was also to be the headquarters of the Joint Stock Book Company, formed
to further the object of printing and publishing Liberal works, under
Carlile's supervision. In this enterprise he was ably assisted by his
friends, amongst whom Julian Hibbert was the foremost. A great deal of
money was expended in fitting up this place, some of which had to be
borrowed, and which, with the added interest, impoverished Carlile to
repay. To add to his troubles, his wife also was seriously ill during
this year, and so they were both incapacitated from attending to the
business. However, this state of things cleared up at the end of the
year, and Carlile recommenced active life in good earnest. It was in
1827, on the 10th of February, that Carlile received notice that he had
been bequeathed an annuity of fifty pounds a year by a Mr. Morrison, a
surgeon of Chelsea, who had just died; a man whom Carlile had never seen
but once, when he called on him quite suddenly, and in a very few words
and with great difficulty--for he seemed in very bad health--said, "I
have come to tell you, Mr. Carlile, that I have been very attentive to
your conduct since the time of your trial; that I am very much pleased
with it, and that in consideration of what you have gone through, I have
made a provision for your family in my will". Carlile having thanked
him, he added, "I shall not now give you my name and address; but I have
some manuscripts which I wish you to see and to publish, and I will see
you again". He never came again, as he was too ill to leave the house,
but he had done as he had said, and in due time Carlile benefited by the
bequest, which he appropriated to the purpose spoken of in a previous
chapter. The executors were Henry (afterwards Lord) Brougham* and James
Evans. The will was very curiously constructed, the bequest to Carlile
being put in the following words:--
* Lord Brougham declined to serve, and the will was
administered by the widow.
"Bequest 7th: I give and bequeath to Richard Carlile, of Fleet Street,
London, bookseller, his wife and present family or the survivor of them,
the annual sum of fifty pounds, by quarterly payments, for the term
of their natural lives, as an approving testimony to the character of
correct morals, given of the said Carlile on his late trial, holding as
I sincerely do that such a character is of infinitely more utility to
man, and consequently more creditable, than the profession of any creed
whatsoever, since all religions have hitherto rather tended to debase
than to improve good morals; and also in testimony of my abhorrence of
persecution for opinion, so contrary to the tolerant spirit of a free
constitution."
At the 10th clause the testator says:--
"And finally I give and bequeath to the Church, Pagan, Jewish,
Christian, and Mahommedan, my anathema for the horrible murders,
cruelties and crimes committed thereby in all ages, under the color of
religion. And if this anathema against the abuses of religion should
raise the spleen of a selfish hierarchy and impel them to refuse my
mouldering carcass a cemetery in the usual way, I will that my executors
buy the fee simple of a rod of earth (no matter where), therein to
deposit the same, and there may the standard of Infidelity, as it is
contemptuously called, that is, the standard of Truth, Benevolence,
Virtue, and Philosophy, be raised to the final extirpation of bigotry
and superstition."
At the close of the year 1826 the __Republican was stopped, Carlile
thinking it had accomplished the purpose for which it was commenced.
This was, as the dedication shows, solely to maintain a periodical
devoted to establishing a Free Press in England despite the opposition
of its enemies, and the desperate efforts made by them for its
extinguishment. It was kept up till there was no further effort made
against it. This was the principle on which Carlile acted throughout his
whole career, and that was never to suspend a publication of any kind
while a threat was heard against it, at any cost. It was not till the
beginning of 1828 that Carlile commenced his weekly periodical, which
he named the _Lion_, and which proved a worthy successor to the
_Republican_. This was not allowed to go on unmolested however, for
before the first volume was completed a notice was served on Carlile to
appear by counsel in his Majesty's Court of Exchequer and defend himself
against some trifling charges under the penalty of a fine of L100
($500). Says Carlile:--
"I should have danced with joy--the server of the process would have
thought me mad--had Mr. Attorney-General sent me a notice that he had
filed an information against me for blasphemy in the Court of King's
Bench, but an information in the Court of Exchequer! (The words devil,
hell, are very commonly and very properly associated to convey some
ideas.) What is to be done now? _Nil desperandum!_ The cause of free
discussion cannot fail; Babylon must fall before it! So I wrapped myself
in my much worn philosophical temperament, and walked to Somerset House
to see my new friend, Godfrey Sykes, for though he had honored me with
several letters, he never gave me an invitation to call on him before,
and even now he forgot to ask me to dine, though he made himself very
pleasant. I cannot conceive of a more comfortable state of mind than
that of a man who is about to pick your pocket according to law, without
any fear of gallows, transportation, imprisonment, or whipping. And I
presume that if his Majesty and his Parliament would extend the same
sort of protection to the pickpockets in the street that is extended
to the royal public officers, the former as well as the latter would do
their business in the most polite and most civil manner; there would
be no acts of violence committed on the person, nor an unpleasant word
offered beyond 'Stand or take this!' meaning the contents of a pistol,
which is also the royal mode of doing the business."
The complaint was based upon about one inch of paper, more or less,
which gave ground for a quibble as to whether it was liable to stamp
duty or not. This was the ostensible reason given, but in reality the
paper gave offence, though they did not dare say so outright. It was
an old and useless statute which had never been enforced, but was now
unearthed for his benefit. Carlile openly defied the authorities, and
threw down the gauntlet, saying, "If another six years of imprisonment
be necessary for the furtherance of the great and good cause which I
am advocating, I shall bear it with patient fortitude." The prosecution
was, however, abandoned, and Carlile went on his way rejoicing for a
while longer.
"INFIDEL MISSIONARIES."
Very shortly after the Rev. Robert Taylor's release from Oakham Gaol,
he and Richard Carlile started to tour the country as missionaries
together. Though not entertaining the same ideas of Deity, they were
both of the same mind in regard to the errors of the Established Church,
and the need of educating the people to think for themselves. They
visited all the leading towns in England, as Carlile had done before,
challenging the-ministers of every denomination to meet them in friendly
conflict, which challenge was seldom if ever accepted. Taylor's strong
point lay in his great knowledge of astronomy, and his demonstrations
that all mythology was fabricated upon astronomy and all religion upon
mythology. He was also a fine scholar, proficient in ancient languages,
and a gifted orator. His renderings of poetical passages from Shelley,
Shakspere, and other poets were fine beyond description. The name
"Infidel Missionaries" was given to them and accepted by them as good as
any other appellation.
CHAPTER XIV. THE "PROMPTER" AND THE ROTUNDA
On the 12th of November, 1830, a new publication was issued which
Carlile called the _Prompter_, because, as he said, "THE NATION NEEDED A
PROMPTER". It had also for its object to make known the work of the
Rotunda--
"A capitol of public virtue, the nucleus for a reformation of abuses,
the real House of Commons--in the absence of a better--the palladium of
what liberty we have, phoenix that is immortal and pregnant of more, the
birth-place of mind, and the focus of virtue's public excitement. This
establishment affords the most rational and cheapest way of spending an
evening that has yet been presented to the public of any country, and
since threats are held out against it, State warrants and indictments
talked of, and plots--vile plots--planned, but foiled, the _Prompter_
summons the Press to its aid and pledges a brave and glorious
struggle and a successful war under its tri-colored banner against the
aristocratical or clerical despotism, corruption, and ignorance of the
whole country."
"THE ROTUNDA.
"This establishment is at No. 3, Blackfriars Road or Great Surrey
Street, the third house from the bridge on the right hand side coming
from the City. It was built by Sir Ashton Lever as a museum of natural
history and curiosities. It is a curious coincidence that the Museum
Tavern at No. 1 takes its name from the original institution. It is also
a curious coincidence that the Museum Tavern should also bear the sign
of the Cross Keys or St. Peter's Keys, and that the first purpose of the
present occupation of the Rotunda should have been the possession of a
theatre in which the Rev. Robert Taylor should pursue an interpretation
of the sacred writings of Christendom upon the important allegory of
those two keys--the keys of the mysteries of the physical and moral
nature. Why the building was discontinued as a museum we are not
informed, but there succeeded that which was called the Surrey
Institution, being an institution for literature and science, which
contained a good library and in which many eminent men lectured. The aim
of the present occupant is to bring it back to that character, with
the addition of freedom of speech and discussion in political and
theological matters. The Surrey Institution is supposed to have failed
for want of funds, and a thousand pounds a year will now be required to
support it, with its attendants, as a generally useful and respectable
establishment. The founders of the Mechanics' Institute in Southampton
Buildings applied for its terms, but found it too heavy for its now (it
is hoped) thriving establishment. Failing to let it for any literary or
scientific purpose, the proprietors yielded it up as a place of public
entertainment, having a coffee-room, wine, and concert-room, and
afterwards an amphitheatre for Cook's equestrian performances, to which
succeeded a panorama."
This change from that which was really an honor to the neighborhood,
gave great offence, and opposition was carried on till the parties were
all ousted and the premises thrown on the hands of the assignees. They
had been some time vacant and in a state of dilapidation when Carlile
entered into possession of the buildings, which then consisted of a neat
dwelling-house, two large billiard-rooms, with apartments, a vestibule
or extensive bar, a coffee-room, a long room, or that which was the
library; a small circular hall, which was originally the theatre, having
a gallery supported by marble pillars and balustrades, and a dome on
which the Signs of the Zodiac were painted, as illustrations of the Rev.
Mr. Taylor's theologico-astronomical discourses. The theatre was used
also for political meetings.
Hither came all the public speakers of the day, and here every man could
express his opinions upon any subject so that it was done in an orderly
manner. The Rotunda was the first place in Europe where this could
be done, and it is interesting to note the names of the speakers or
lecturers.*
* Among them Henry Hunt, Wm. Cobbett, Daniel O'Connor,
Feargus O'Connor, Gale Jones, Julian Hibbert, Rev. Robert
Taylor, Robert Owen, Rowland Detrosier, Richard Carlile, and
later on "Isis ".
It is needless to say that this place was an eyesore to the Government,
and was watched with suspicion. Spies and informers were constantly on
the ground, and many were the attempts made to break up the place.
Many attempts also were made to draw the supporters of the Rotunda into
premature and naturally abortive schemes of revolution, from which they
were saved only by their own good sense.
The last effort to raise a tumult occurred on the 9th of November, 1830.
It was a regularly planned effort, and all the parties received their
instructions early in the day on the condition of nothing else turning
up. The civil force, with a military reserve, was directed to attack
the Rotunda; but all turned upon one point, and on that point the whole
scheme failed.
News came to the Rotunda that the place was to be attacked that night,
and the manner in which it was to be done was so accurately stated
that everything was afterwards found to correspond with the information
given. Mr. Carlile took his measures accordingly; first, by barricading
the door of the theatre through which the charge was to have been
made, and beyond which everything was cleared for action; secondly,
by lecturing on such a subject and in such a way as to bid defiance to
magisterial interference. At eight o'clock the theatre was filled. Among
the company were the magistrates of Union Hall, with a body of officers,
and Sir Richard Birnie described himself as having been in attendance at
the theatre. Partitioning boards were torn away from another entrance,
for which there could have been no other reason than the projected
attack. No policemen were seen about the building or doors of the
theatre; the mob and its orators were allowed to collect, and to make
what noise and to do what mischief they pleased until the whole plot
was found to be frustrated. Then at twelve o'clock that night the police
came to disperse the crowd, after a whole hour's effort had been made
to break into the passages of the Rotunda and to get out the
proprietor. Mr. Carlile entered the theatre at eight o'clock, and
took as the subject of his lecture Sir Robert Peel's explanatory
speech in the House of Commons on the Monday previous. The effect
of his lecture was universal conviction on the part of the
audience, and their declaration that the Ministers had been
plotting against the people and that the people had not plotted
against the Ministers. There was not a sentence in the lecture of
which the Union Hall magistrates could make a handle for a warrant to
arrest the speaker; and they must have sneaked away in utter confusion
at the temper of the audience and the frustration of their plot. The
company left the theatre at ten o'clock, and a few minutes afterwards
the doors of the Rotunda were closed and everything quiet. This was a
matter of intense astonishment to the concealed forces that were
impatiently waiting to be brought into action. Rumors had been spread
through the City that a tumult was to begin at the Rotunda at eleven
o'clock. Mr. Carlile had been challenged out just before that time by a
young man with a moustache, apparently an undressed military officer,
"to head the insurrection" and to lead the mob! But he smiled and shut
the door, to the great annoyance of the plotters outside. He retired to
bed soon after eleven, but was aroused by what seemed to be an effort to
break into the premises by a mob, and by a succession of harangues of a
most violent kind. This was the disappointed crowd of plotters who tore
down the bell of the house and would have forced the doors if they had
not been more than ordinarily strong. Mr. Carlile was prepared for their
entry, and allowed them to waste their vengeance on the doors and the
knocker--a war upon which was kept up for an hour. All hopes of the
desired tumult being over, the policemen began to order the accumulated
passengers to walk on, and Sir Richard Birnie, if he stopped until two
o'clock, must have spent an hour and a half in the agony of
disappointment after the whole scheme had become hopeless. The
calculation was that, as Mr. Hunt's meeting on the night before lasted
till half-past eleven, the meeting on that night would not break up
before eleven. In case of failure to arrest Mr. Carlile on the platform,
the plot was to have been completed at eleven. The subject of the
evening and the breaking up of the meeting at ten frustrated that step
which, more than the votes of the House of Commons on the 15th instant,
was the death-blow to the Wellington Administration. The last hope of
all their little schemes for a premature insurrection among the people
had been vanquished, and from that moment they felt that they could no
longer hold office.*
* See Prompter, Nov., 1831.
This is an exact copy of the article in No. 3 of the _Prompter_ which
was selected for indictment, and which, with a little rough handling
of the jury, ended in giving Carlile three years' imprisonment in the
Giltspur Street Compter:--
"A list of officers in the King's Household is the most ludicrous and
ridiculous thing that can be read. It will not bear mention in the
present day, and is of itself an evidence that a constitutional monarchy
is a most ridiculous state of government. More than mimicking absolute
monarchy and perpetuating all ancient follies and abuses, everything
conspires against a king to tell him that he is something more than
human, and all that sort of flattery is calculated to unman him and to
make him less than a man! We want no mummeries and nonsense wherewith to
please savages and fools in the present day. We want public officers who
shall really be men of business. We want laboring men to carry on the
affairs of government, who shall be paid for their labor and their labor
only. Let us see what the Whigs will do to make their constitutional
monarchy appear decent to the brightening eye of the public."
The Whigs were supposed to be the Liberal party as opposed to the
Tories, and what they did was to immediately proceed against this
article and the following, and clap Carlile into prison with heavy fines
and sureties:--
"To the Insurgent and Agricultural Laborers--
"You are much to be admired for everything you are known to have done
during the last month, for as yet there is no evidence before the
public that you are incendiaries or even political rebels. Much as every
thoughtful man must lament the waste of property, much as he country
must suffer by the burning of the farm produce now going on, were you
proved to be the incendiaries we should defend you by saying that you
have more just and moral cause for it than any king or faction that
ever made war had for making war. In war all destruction of property
is counted lawful. Upon the ground of that which is called the law of
nations, yours is a state of warfare, and your quarrel is the want of
the necessaries of life in the midst of abundance. You see hoards of
food and you are starving you see a Government rioting in every sort of
luxury and wasteful expenditure, and you, ever ready to labor, cannot
find one of the comforts of life. Neither your silence nor your
patience has obtained for you the least respectful attention from
that Government. The more tame you have grown the more you have been
oppressed and despised, the more you have been trampled on; and it is
only now that you begin to display your physical as well as your moral
strength that your cruel tyrants treat with you and offer terms of
pacification. Your demands have so far been moderate and just, and
any attempt to stifle them by the threatened severity of the new
Administration will be so wicked as to justify your resistance even to
death and to life for life. Persevere in your moderate and just demands!
Go on as you have begun, and learn--not only in precept, but in your own
example--that great political sentiment of Thomas Paine, the greatest
political friend of the laboring man that ever put pen to paper for his
instruction, that _For a nation to be free it is sufficient that she
wills it!_"
It was only the mildest part of this address that was chosen for the
indictment, but we cannot but feel that it was what was left out of the
indictment that really gave the offence.
After Carlile was in prison very large meetings were held at the Rotunda
and elsewhere to voice the popular indignation at the conduct and
outcome of that really disgraceful affair. The very fact that these
large meetings were openly attended, and as openly addressed, without
any governmental interference, showed a marked progress in the minds
of men and the lessened power of those men in authority since the first
trial in 1819. Then no one dared openly to say one word in his favor.
Subscriptions began to pour in unsolicited, and one was addressed to him
as follows: "This subscription is the spontaneous record of hostility to
a corrupt and tyrannical Whig administration, to a corrupt judge, and
to a corrupt and slavish jury." The subscriptions amounted to over
L100 ($500) per week for many months. Carlile, in writing to a body of
friends who had sent him money and their sympathies immediately after
his third trial, said:--
"I was cheered by your letter and its fifty-eight names which reached me
last night. It seemed an anticipation of that encouragement which some
men would require in my present situation, but which is not really
necessary to push me forward. It may seem strange, but whether from
habit, or what else, it is no less true, that in the course of our great
political struggle I like a gaol, and am more happy here than I can
possibly be anywhere else, until the time of our final triumph. To me
it seems like a place of political enchantment, and that I am made the
great political diviner of the State, to whom the reformers will look
for encouragement and direction."
July, 1831, found the Rev. Robert Taylor in Horsemonger Lane Gaol
for blasphemy, and subjected to the most rigorous treatment. This
imprisonment was severely felt by the rev. gentleman, much more so than
that of the previous one at Oakham. Carlile had great difficulty in
keeping him in reasonable bounds, owing to Taylor's excitability and
nervous temperament, which received a great strain by this vindictive
punishment. Carlile urged upon Taylor the necessity of some engrossing
work. In this situation "The Devil's Pulpit", "The Diegesis," and "The
Syntagma" were produced. Had it not been for Carlile these would never
have been written. Carlile also moved heaven and earth, to use a common
expression, to get Taylor's condition ameliorated. He got the people all
through England to send petitions to the House of Commons on his behalf,
and kept up such a verbal cannonading that his gaolers could not help
but better his condition somewhat. The following (private) letter will
show what sort of a task Carlile had in hand:--
"Compter,
"July 20th, 1831.
"To Rev. R. Taylor,
"Sir,--My first duty to society is to seek the preservation of your
life; your first is to preserve it as far as in your power.
If you die, we shall not fill the chasm for many years, if all the
genius of England were to unite its efforts.
"I have just received your letter of this day's date. I heard at twelve
o'clock that your friends were excluded for the day; at three o'clock by
the medium of the vile old Osgood that there had been a fury between
you and your gaoler. You say Walter the gaoler insults you. That is your
fault. It is not in the power of man to insult me. The world could not
do it if it were to try. Assault is one thing, but insult is another,
and there can only be insult where there is a disposition to court it.
Human nature is capable of a dignity that will not leave room for the
word insult. Unfortunately you have the temperament that encourages
villainy to be insolent. Let us try if reason cannot cure you of this
disorder, which to you, at this moment, is as bad and dangerous a plague
as the cholera morbus. To begin, let me remind you of the question of
the Greek philosopher when asked why he did not resent the insolence of
a vile fellow? He answered: 'Friend, if a jackass were to kick me, would
you have me kick him back again?'
"By the statute law of gaol management the gaoler is required to go into
every cell in which a prisoner is confined every day. Let him do so.
If he must see you it is no reason why you should see him. I have been
placed under much greater difficulties in Dorchester Gaol than those
under which you are now placed. My gaoler would have given his fingers
to have worked me into such a temper in which you were seen this
morning. I never so gratified him; and pray do not you so gratify yours
again. I know that reason is one thing and passion another; and that
neither one nor the other can at all times be commanded. In the first
place, let us have no more tricks. They greatly embarrass your friends
and thwart our efforts and means of assisting you. It is now with you no
time for poetry, for rhapsody, or for jest. You have and we have for you
a serious game to play. At trick, our Christian enemy will beat us. I
heard on Sunday that a Surrey magistrate had said: 'Taylor is playing
some tricks with us about his pretended wife. We know all about it, and
will out-trick him.'
"They will beat us at any game but that of open honesty. I have always
seen this. You know my word. No secrets, no smuggling; nothing but
that which will be fair and above board. My politics would have hung
me twelve years ago if I had been a politician anywhere but through the
Press and in the course of such lectures as I have delivered to public
companies. No plots; no schemes; no tricks; no purposes but those which
are openly avowed. I do not write in the spirit of reproach; but of
salvation, of plan of warfare, of a determination to conquer the common
enemy; and in this spirit, allow me to say that your friends, Mr.
Hibbert, Mr. Prout, Mr. Ewen, and myself, are sorry for much that has
been written, spoken, and done during your horrible fortnight past.
There has been trick and impropriety in it, and it has not succeeded. It
cannot succeed. Yours is a glorious situation if you will but fight your
battle well. Having gained the necessaries--the physical necessaries of
life--you should now make every shot tell among the enemy, and not allow
another shot of theirs to reach you.
"I am more than a brother--I have an estate in your life. I shall lose
and not gain an estate in your death. Not one word but a word of comfort
should you hear from me did I not think some explanation necessary to
the salvation of your life.
"If you were going out of the harbor in a ship to fight an enemy in
another ship, would you not put your wife and children ashore if they
were aboard? Let it be so now. Don't say to the enemy, 'Don't fire,
because my wife and children are aboard,' but let them stay ashore, and
you may safely say--'Damn you, fire away! I will rake you fore and aft,
and give you broadsides between wind and water, and you shall not put a
shot into me.' You may have it so if you will, and if you will not
you will be beaten and die a thousand deaths. Your life is in your
own hands, and not in the hands of your enemies. For the means and the
disposition for annoyance, you cannot be worse situated than I was at
Dorchester Gaol through four years and more of the time; yet I came out
through it triumphantly, and I am of opinion that a similar game will
never be tried or attempted on me again.
"First, then, I advise respectfully, regard fully and in the most
friendly and brotherly spirit, that you send your wife and children
ashore and say not one word more about them while the battle rages. Too
much has been said, but my mouth has been sealed until I received your
letter this evening. I will communicate the spirit of that letter by
the first messenger that I can command to-morrow, and will, while I can,
protect and comfort your family. But I will not, till I see a better
reason for so doing, permit one more word about them. Too much has
already been printed. Your friends--those whom I know to be your
friends--are grieved, doubly grieved by that circumstance which doubly
grieved you. It has been hitherto your fault to present your weak
side to your enemy. You have in you the spirit of a divinity that is
invincible. You have the spirit of humanity also that is weak and to be
conquered--now which will you present to your enemies? They are not to
be subdued by appeals to their sympathy or by any moral force. You must
subdue them by making them afraid. They will beat you at any game that
is wrong, they will be powerless if you avail yourself of your best and
fairest means of warfare.
"If I could tell you of my motives, my feelings, my calculations, my
every action in Dorchester Gaol, it would be a useful lesson for you.
Blackguard, vile and wicked as was that gaoler, I made him fear me,
simply by looking at him; yet I never expressed myself toward him
that he could describe it as an insult or a threat, I conquered him by
virtue. Leigh Hunt was once confined in your gaol and was much illused
at first, but afterwards he obtained something approaching to decent
treatment, and had his wife and children with him and free admission for
his friends.
"You have everything to conquer, and you must begin your reform at home
and first conquer your own self-command. Patience is not so necessary
as a cool methodical warfare. Write such letters as your last to Lord
Brougham. Let Lord Melbourne have one such every week. Address the King
in every way of matter of fact statement that your case will admit of.
You shall have a good specimen in my forthcoming one to Lord Melbourne.
"For the sake of our glorious cause, let nothing come from your pen
about the gaol that can be contradicted. You have not been sufficiently
careful. It is not a time for joke; your enemies will call your jokes
lies, and to the world at large they are lies. Mr. Hibbert made it
almost a _sine qua non_ as to his further assistance that your letter
to-day for the _Morning Chronicle_ which came to our hands should not go
forth to its destination. My taste is to print every word that you write
in your present prison; but that taste has been swayed by that virtue
(Hibbert's) to anything below which I never would yield my motive of
right and mode of action--I mean the virtue of Mr. Hibbert and one other
such friend.
"Let me appeal to that portion of your spirit which is reasonable. I
know that you care nothing about liquid spirit at this season of the
year, other than as it is forbidden you. Now, is it fair, manly, or
generous on your part that you should for a mere half-pint or so of
brandy expose your friends, your generous friends, their generosity
itself, their willingness to die to serve you, to every species
of insult; to searching, to generate suspicion as to every other
circumstance, to the certain exclusion of many other comforts that might
allowably pass the gates of the prison, to such exclusion, and yourself
to such excitement as occurred yesterday, to the risk of fine and
imprisonment, and subsequent seclusion; in short, to an increase of
your own mental anguish and to that of your friends? If you smuggle that
which is forbidden, if on that head you glory in violating the law, you
have no ground left on which to complain, and our complaints will be as
the idle winds that passeth by unheeded. Give your gaol enemies but one
real ground of complaint against you, and you give them justification
for their worst intentions. I wish I could pour an opiate over your
irritability and say, _be composed_. You want composure, coolness,
dignity, patience, fortitude for your present situation; but I know it
is not to be commanded. You must reason with yourself, and write down
laws for your own government in prison. You will do this coolly and
they will keep you cool. Beyond what you print I would have you keep a
journal, as you have the taste and application for journal-keeping. I
shall have an admirable _Prompter_ this week in your behalf.
"Richard Carlile.
"Thursday morning.--My messenger has gone off to Rath-bone Place.
"You missed a fine lobster yesterday by the exclusion of your friends;
but it will come.
"Beware of old Osgood; he is a wicked enemy. The wretch has dared to
call on Mr. H. because he found his address in the _Prompter_. He was at
hand yesterday to trumpet forth your alleged indiscretion. I warned him
off my holy ground; but if he trespasses I shall most certainly kick his
share of the Holy Ghost downstairs; and I expect that his share all lies
in the seat of honor rather than in his _carib skull_."
This letter, though rather lengthy, I have given entire as throwing
a light upon the characters of the two men then heading the "glorious
cause", as Carlile puts it. The truth of the "wife and children" matter
is that Taylor never had been married at that time; this was one of
those very foolish tricks of which his friends accused him. Carlile knew
Taylor had neither wife nor child, but knowing that his letters were in
danger of being read by the gaol authorities, would not give the lie to
these foolish statements and so put a weapon in their hands; he trusted
to the power of his reasonable arguments in the letter to have Taylor
give up such silly stratagems. The Osgood spoken of was, we believe, one
of the chaplains of Horsemonger Lane Gaol, and was both meddlesome and
treacherous. The letter itself has never been printed, though most
of the correspondence of Carlile and Taylor, while they were both in
prison, was printed in the _Prompter_.
On hearing that Julian Hibbert was contemplating the release of one of
the imprisoned men by the payment of his fine, Carlile wrote to Hibbert
as follows:--
"I think that mischief will be done by any proposition to pay the King
a fine in this struggle for the liberty of the press and of speech. I
should count that man my enemy who would pay such a fine for me, and set
me free against my will. We cannot have too much money, but we can all
make a better use of it than to pay fines."
Lines written by Carlile.
(On the 4th month, 29th day, of imprisonment, 1831.)
"I, in this sweet retirement, find
A joy unknown to Kings,
For sceptres to a virtuous mind
Seem vain and empty things.
Tumultous joys, and restless nights,
Ambition ever knows,
A stranger to the calm delights
Of study and repose."
Response of Julian Hibbert.
"Well pleased, I read, and reading must commend Man's true and honest,
persecuted friend. Nor you refuse the praise my muse bestows, Free from
an uncorrupted heart it flows. Oh! would mankind but pause awhile and
think, From persecution as from sin they'd shrink, Such simple reasoning
must their souls awake, And from their thoughts blind superstition shake
The empty dreams that filled their mind before, No more should fight
them or disturb them more. Sweet heartfelt pleasure should their fears
succeed, Sweet tranquil pleasure, sweet the thought indeed. Write always
thus, Carlile. Oh! may your tyrants yet repent and save Man's truest
friend from living in the grave."
In 1833 Carlile's prison doors were almost unexpectedly opened and
he passed out into the open air once more a free man--that is free
corporally, he was always free as to mind and pen. He was not daunted
or dismayed by threats, or the little matter of a year or two's
imprisonment. As in the case of Dorchester Gaol, he had turned his room
into a bookshop and warehouse, edited various papers from the prison,
and carried on a large business by messengers and correspondence, and
had accumulated such a mass of stuff in the way of letters, books
and papers, etc., as to require a large van to remove them. The facts
relating to his release were very amusing. His sentence required two
years' imprisonment, two sureties in L250 each, and a heavy personal
fine. In the first place a warrant was sent down to the governor of the
prison to release Carlile, and remitting _one_ part of the sureties.
This Carlile would not accept. A month later a warrant came down for his
release and remittal of the fine. Carlile sent word back that that would
not do yet, as the fine was remitted on condition that he put in
his personal recognizances of L500. He instantly wrote back to Lord
Melbourne that "he would do nothing of the kind". Then a third warrant
came down; nothing was left but the personal recognizances, and this
third warrant removed that, so that Carlile had everything he stood out
for at last, and left the Compter in triumph. As he said: "I came out
with flying colors without yielding a single point". Carlile met a large
congregation of 2,000 people on the following Sunday at the Rotunda,
and was given a fine, hearty greeting. Here, too, the Rev. Robert Taylor
made his reappearance, and met with great enthusiasm. This was Carlile's
last appearance on the floor of the Rotunda, for the very next day it
was leased to Mr. Davidge, an actor, who was to open it up once again
for theatrical purposes. Mr. Davidge, in his announcement to the public
of the change in its management, "hoped that they would congratulate
themselves on the remarkable advantage a first-class theatre would be
to them over this sink of profligacy, etc., etc., which had been a focus
for the concentration of the worst characters, from whence had emanated
the most demoralising and destructive doctrine both in religion and
politics, etc., etc., operating at once as a shock to the good sense,
good feelings, and as a serious detriment to the interests and comforts
of the entire neighborhood, etc., etc.," then, privately, penned the
following note:--
"5, Charlotte Terrace,
"August 29th, 1833.
"To Mr. Carlile.
"Sir,--If you are disposed to purchase the lease of the City Theatre
(once Mr. Fletcher's chapel) I will sell it to you for L600. The
rent L200 a year--about sixteen years unexpired--with immediate
possession.
"I am, sir,
"Your most obedient servant,
"C. B. Davidge."
Carlile printed both the announcement and the private letter in the
_Gauntlet_, without comment. Davidge evidently was not afraid to lease
any property of his to Carlile, for all of his high sounding charges
in the public announcement. So it was in almost all the affairs of
Carlile's life--publicly enemies, privately friends.
CHAPTER XV. SCATTERED THREADS
ON WOMAN.
"An amiable woman is one of Nature's perfect works, unspoiled and
uncorrupted by man. Any number of men brought together without women
could not be kept together in any other character than as slaves or
under military discipline. Therefore, as women form the groundwork
of society and civilisation, their presence and influence must be
beneficial in the same ratio as the civilised is preferable to the
savage state. All history gives us proof that the degree of virtue and
amiableness in women is in proportion to the freedom they enjoy or the
degree in which they can move and act independently and uncontrolled.
The freedom and independence of woman is the best proof and guarantee
for the freedom and independency of man. A despotism never exists in one
degree alone, it is expansive and dangerous. If it exists in the head of
a family, every member of it will be despotic according to the degree
of power of some other member or members. With women there is no
medium; they are neuter in nothing. It is, then, the duty of man to make
virtuous the soil where woman treads, and she will be found to blossom
in purity and Nature's most splendid and perfect work--a radiant
and unclouded constellation, illuminating all within her sphere.
Philosophers in general have not paid that deference which is due to the
female in society; in speaking or writing for the improvement of society
they have passed by woman as a secondary or insignificant object,
whereas she forms the most important channel through which virtue can be
propagated and the social state be rendered peaceable, prosperous, and
happy. Every impression that is attempted to be made on the female mind
that she is an inferior being, every step that is taken to degrade her,
is a bar to virtue, an inlet to vice. It interesteth the welfare of
society to raise the female character to the highest possible pitch in
the scale of intellect, even to a competition with the male in all
the fine arts, science, and general literature. A free and unlimited
discussion on all the merits of this and all subjects is the sure
harbinger of improvement. When we reach this climax the age of virtue
as well as the age of reason will approach. Let them make themselves
acquainted with the science of government upon the simple basis
of republicanism or the representative system of government, and
particularly to examine and weigh well the dogmas and pretensions of all
priests.
"If I have read history correctly the best of women have been most
virtuously bold and have been seen as public teachers. All public
reforms are moral proceedings. All useful public teachings are moral
proceedings, and in all such proceedings women, while their manners are
mild and becoming, can never be wrong. The propriety of the thing will
rest upon the way of doing it. The great fault I find in woman is that
inanity in character which places them below the line of equality with
men. Alive to female influence in the propagation and maintenance of
opinion, I find my reason in paying them every proper compliment and
attention, and I hold in contempt that contracted mind that would so
narrow their sphere of usefulness as to represent them as criminals in
publicity, or make it a crime to appear in public with them. This state
of things has partly arisen from the circumstance that past politics
have consisted of an advocacy of men rather than of principles, that
there has not been in reality any code of morals existing, and that
religion hitherto has been a prevailing and epidemic disease among the
human race. It is impossible to describe what the high state of man and
woman will be without religion, with a good code of morals, with good
laws, with good and cheap government; and when party contentions are
swallowed up in the advocacy of good principles. Female efforts can
never be more usefully applied than toward the improvement of the
human race. And nothing can be effectually done in the way of moral
and physical improvement without the assistance of women.* I feel the
necessity of a constant appeal on this point, and am not for treating
women as the mere breeding machines for the human race, and men as the
directing lords of the aggregate machinery. There is no kind of equality
more deniably advantageous for the welfare of the human race than the
equality of the sexes. The present (1828) general character of woman is
that of a gaudily dressed doll, a toy made up as a plaything rather than
as a companion for man. In the aggregate there exists no such a quality
as female mind. There are men who think this is the most fit state for
the female race to be kept. I think differently, knowing that woman is
the mother, the nurse, the general instructress of the man, knowing that
the mind of the man is in a great measure formed by that of the woman.
I would have the woman most perfect as an essential preliminary to the
greater perfection of man. I know no proper regulation with relation to
the principle of knowledge, but that of the most unlimited acquirement
that is possible to the acquisition of either sex. To say that this and
the other point of knowledge is improper for the attention of woman, is
to assume a tyrannical judgment and to put her below the pale of human
equality. For a woman to be content under that pale of equality is to
exhibit mental degradation."
* This is pretty nearly the state of America at the
present day.--Ed.
FREEDOM AND FRANCHISE OF WOMEN.
"Will the new Reform Bill allow women who are householders to vote for
members of the House of Commons? I have just thought of this matter. If
no express exception be made, female householders will be entitled
to vote. And what existing law is there to reject a woman if she were
returned to Parliament? I have no such high opinion of men as to think
them intellectually superior to women. There are not a hundred men in
England to be matched with Frances Wright;* and I know none superior.
That woman is qualified to be a member of the House of Commons. We shall
not make this leap at once, but I am sure we shall come to this: women
will claim and exercise the elective franchise and sit in Parliament. In
ancient times such was the case in this country. I can see no evil in a
Parliament of women or in the mixing of men and women in public
affairs and offices; I would have them put on a perfect equality with
men.
"The ladies may be assured that whenever they will stir to assert the
rights of women I will assist them; and be assured that the rights of
man will be best secured in the maintenance of the rights of women."**
* Madame D'Arusmont, who was then lecturing in America.
** The Prompter, April 9th, 1831.
Prejudice. "Like all others I am most interested about myself, but as
I am made up altogether of public politics, in some cases myself is the
public. Here is a note to correspondents from the editor of the _Times_
about which I shall have a few words to say of myself in the only
space left to me in this week's issue of the _Gauntlet_: 'To
Correspondents.--As the letter of Richard Carlile would do him injury we
decline to publish it. His stupidity and ignorance cannot fail to make
him an object of contempt with all reasoning people, but we have too
much generosity to turn the man's folly against him. He is what Mr. Coke
called Mr. Joseph Hume--'a muddle-headed fellow.'"*
* The Gauntlet, London, April 21,1833.
In answer, Carlile said he had borne injuries enough of this kind, and
the _Times_ had shouted--"'At him, give it to him, spare him not,
kill him, crucify him, away with him, he is a pestilent fellow'; but
I sometimes steal a march upon the editor of the _Times_ by getting
a friend to copy an article, and then it passes, and brings me the
compliment of being a talented correspondent. No correspondent that it
has had, has been more complimented for talent by this editor than I
have been when unknown to him; but if he discovers the writer's name is
Carlile, then he condemns, rants, swears and curses." We have abundant
evidence that this was true in other cases besides that of the _Times_.
A most prolific writer, Carlile contributed many leading articles
and editorials to the Press of the country, and was for many months a
regularly paid contributor to the _Durham Chronicle_ and other papers.
Over the _nom de plume_ of "Theophilus Clay" or the "Hermit of Enfield",
he did a vast amount of miscellaneous writing, and towards the end of
his life supported his family almost entirely in this way. But it was
the name--Carlile.
"The name, the name's the thing,
To catch their venom and their sting."
If we may take the liberty of paraphrasing the lines of the immortal
bard.
SECRET ORDERS.
Carlile, with his constitutional dislike to everything secret, exposed
all secret societies and orders from Freemasonry down. The members of
the various orders who had outgrown or grown tired of the ceremonies of
these different associations, furnished all the information to Carlile.
These books were on sale for many years and attracted widespread
attention. As usual Carlile was inundated with both praise and abuse, as
the feelings of his critics leaned to one side or the other.
The Rev. Richard Carlile
The fact of Carlile's adding the title of Reverend to his name came
from the efforts made by the authorities to prevent him speaking to
the people on Sundays in the open air, claiming that none but licensed
clergymen were entitled to that privilege; Carlile met with this
objection throughout England. This led him to the examination of the
necessary qualifications for this privilege, and he found that a belief
in God and an English half-crown (about sixty-two cents, of American
money) would purchase the title of Reverend and give him the right to
address the people on Sunday in the parks as well as everywhere else.
This cheap honor was easily procured, and stopped all opposition on that
head. So, as the _Reverend Richard Carlile_ he could speak anywhere
and at any time, and, as he said, "With the Bible in my hand I can
go anywhere and preach without the slightest diminution of my former
principles". The transaction was simply a _ruse de guerre_ to gain an
advantage over the enemy, which he did; yet it took a long time and many
explanations to make people see why this was done, and to convince them
that he had not gone over to the enemy.
"PUFFENDORF."
In the course of one of his lecturing trips he tells the following story
of himself:--
"My visit to Buxton was one of retirement. The only great man whom I met
there, or rather took with me, was 'Puffendorf'. Having read much of the
House of Commons debates in which there has been copious mentionings of
Grotius, Vattel, and Puffendorf, I bought the great man for a couple
of shillings in Manchester, and intended to study him in Buxton. To my
surprise, I tried but could not read him; I tried again and again, but
my perseverance failed me here, and I threw the book aside resolved
to take no more books upon the recommendation of the House of Commons
members. By reading 'Puffendorf' I thought I might qualify myself to
be a member of the great council of the nation; but if nothing but
Puffendorf will do I shall never get among them. I found this author,
like Dugald Stewart since, deducing his theory of morals from the theory
of the superstition of the age in which he lived, and exacting some most
outrageous observances as moral and national law. It is but fair to say
that my copy was translated by an English priest and was a professed
abridgement, so that it is possible that the real original Puffendorf
might still be as Macintosh, Burdett and others would have him to be."
Carlile went to Buxton at the solicitation of Miss Burnett, the writer,
who was an invalid, and wished to see and converse with him. She was
greatly interested in his work, and had for him personally the highest
respect and esteem. Her letters to him are still preserved, in one of
which she writes of his "fine, expressive face", and declared it would
have been a great privilege to have been present at his trial in the
Recorder's Court and listen to his noble defence.
HIS RULING PASSION.
The ruling passion was so strong in Carlile that he invariably sized-up
every man or woman that he was brought into contact with to see if they
had the stuff in them of which martyrs are made, or if they had a taste
for philosophy, or capacity for the construction of a lecturer or an
orator in the cause to which he himself was devoted. His influence on
people of all classes with whom he was brought into contact was simply
marvellous. His gentle affability and the genuine interest he displayed
in other people's troubles and difficulties won all hearts. Privately
he had not an enemy. It was wonderful too how the tradesmen he employed
stood by him through thick and thin, his landlord especially never
failed him through all his seizures and other troubles.
ELIZA SHARPLES CARLILE ("ISIS"). From a Crayon Copy of an Oil Painting.
[Illustration: ISIS--crayon copy]
PART II.
CHAPTER I. "THE STORY OF ISIS" THE LADY OF THE ROTUNDA
In the town of Bolton in Lancashire, England, early in the present
century, lived a family named Sharples. It was a tradition in this
family that a Richard Sharples, or Sharpie, came into England in the
train of William of Normandy, and was given considerable land in the
neighborhood of Bolton, in consideration of the services which he
rendered to William at the time of the Conquest. However, we will leave
the verification of this to those who care more about such things than
does the writer. Our Richard Sharples was a manufacturer of quilts,
bed-quilts, a peculiar kind of heavy white quilt with little white tufts
or knots on them which were in the early days in almost universal use,
and will be recollected by many of the mothers of to-day. They were
called then "counterpanes", and lasted a lifetime or longer. Richard
Sharples and his wife Ann were very much respected by their neighbors
and lived in very comfortable, even affluent circumstances. They brought
up and educated a family of four girls and two or three boys. Of the
girls--Sarah, Anne, Eliza, and Maria--Sarah, the eldest, died from a
decline in her young womanhood; Anne was married to a Mr. Tunnah, and
Eliza became the "Isis" of our story. Maria was younger than Eliza by
some seven years. Of the boys we have but little account except that one
was drowned in his youth while swimming, and that another one, William,
is mentioned by Carlile and Isis in some of their letters. Mrs. Ann
Sharples was herself a very beautiful woman, and was described as a
beauty by one who saw her at eighty years of age. Her hair then was
snow-white, her eyes blue, her cheeks rosy and her complexion like a
baby's. Our informant adds that she looked like "a Dresden china
doll". It is possible that Eliza, who was the beauty of the family, was
indebted to her mother for her good looks, but took her height and
her disposition from her father. She was indeed, her father's favorite
child, to whom also she was an anxiety on account of her beauty. He kept
this daughter at a boarding school till she was more than twenty years
of age, thinking that it was the safest place for her, and when he could
keep her there no-longer she spent most of her time in the seclusion of
her own room, sewing and reading. Her first sorrow was the loss of her
father, to whom she was deeply attached, and it is probable that had he
lived a few years longer there would not have been this story to tell.
During one of the school vacations she was invited to visit a younger
school-mate, who was the daughter of a banker of Liverpool. Whilst there
this gentleman, whom we shall designate as Mr. A., told the young ladies
that they would have to dine in their own room that day as he had a
friend coming to dine with him and to discuss various matters, and
wished to be alone with him for that purpose. In some way or other the
name of Carlile leaked out, and this name Miss Eliza knew to belong to
a very notorious man of whom she had heard dreadful things. The plans
of the girls were soon laid, for their curiosity was greatly excited. So
when the gentlemen had dined and the servants absented themselves, the
young ladies sought positions where they could hear and see everything
that was said and done. The dining room was in communication with both
front and side parlors by a door in each, and kneeling down on the rug
at each door, with first their eyes then their ears at the keyholes,
they heard every word and gazed their fill at the awful guest, who
proved to be a very mild and amiable person, apparently quite harmless,
and certainly handsome. I have nothing to say as to the dignity of
the proceeding on the part of the young ladies, being content with
certifying it to be the truth as told by Miss Eliza in after days. About
a year after this, while calling on a cousin, she was surprised to find
her reading a volume of Carlile's _Republican_. She remembered him as
the gentleman she had seen in Liverpool. She then conceived an immediate
desire to read some of his writings. The library which contained them
was pointed out to her, and she began reading them with avidity, unknown
to the family. She had seen the author under peculiar circumstances. His
person and his manners were before her mind as she read his writings.
She read with instructive astonishment. In those writings the ignorance
and the errors of her past life were told to her as by a magician. We
find her after a while making regular weekly visits to the bookseller
who dealt in his works, and entering into conversation with that
gentleman, a Mr. Hardie. At that time it was a rare thing for a
young and beautiful girl to be interested in philosophical reading,
particularly where that reading tended to freethinking, and Mr. Hardie
in one of his business communications to Carlile made mention of the
case. By this time both Carlile and Rev. Robert Taylor were in prison,
and it looked as though freedom of speech had seen its best days. On the
5th of December, 1831, Mr. Hardie wrote again to Carlile saying:--
"You are requested to address a letter to Miss Sharples, care of A.
Hardie. N.B.--She is a most amiable young woman, expects to be in London
shortly, and will call and explain her views to you. I can say so far,
that they are in the missionary line, and her _debut_ will create a
sensation, as she is really a very beautiful girl. Do not, I beseech
you, neglect this part of the business."
This aroused Carlile's curiosity, and he wrote her the following
letter:--
"To Miss Sharples,
"Care of Mr. Hardie
"Madam,--I, a bachelor,* locked up in prison, and requested to write
to a young lady to whom I have had no other introduction than that of
having been informed that she is young, amiable, beautiful, and has a
mind to become a Messiah. I will believe in this case without seeing,
having more faith than St. Thomas. The Devil tempts me almost to doubt
the good tidings; but I am so much interested in the first English lady
who will publicly advocate those truths, which are a light needed to
remove the present Cimmerian darkness, that I swear eternal fealty to
her before I see her. I had much rather have answered a letter from Miss
Sharples than to write comparatively in the dark; and if it be a serious
request that I should write as the opening of an acquaintance, I hope to
be favored with a letter by first post in return. My unabating zeal to
encourage any lady that shall aim at the character of Hypatia and of
Frances Wright, shall wait on every effort made. Such a lady shall be my
daughter, my sister, my friend, my companion, my sweetheart, my wife,
my everything. I should become a poet if my wishes on this head should
become realised. Blessings will crown that head, and virtue's essence
swell that bosom with noble dignity, when a woman shall be found bold
and open enough to publicly instruct mankind in philosophical truths.
* By this time Carlile had been formally separated from his
wife for two or three years by mutual consent. He had
settled an annuity of L50 a year upon her for life, and had
given her books enough to start her in business for herself
as well as all the furniture belonging to them mutually,
leaving himself nothing but the "debts and the business".
This arrangement was final and perfectly satisfactory to the
first Mrs. Carlile, who was tired of the uncertainties of a
reformer's life. Had there been a possibility of legal
divorce they would eagerly have availed themselves of its
benefits, but failing this they made as definite and
satisfactory arrangements as could be done for the honor and
satisfaction of all parties concerned.
"Richard Carlile. London, December 8th, 1831."
To this he received the following reply:--
"To Mr. R. Carlile,
"Giltspur Street Compter, London.
"Sir,--Your esteemed favor I duly received, and am extremely sorry that
I have only time to acknowledge the receipt, and thank you for the ready
compliance with my request In consequence of a severe indisposition
under which my mother now labors, and my being her sole nurse, my time
is very much restricted. I trust, in my next, that circumstances will
allow me to be more communicative. In the first place I must undeceive
you as to an error into which you have been led in regard to my personal
appearance. I am neither young nor beautiful, merely an every-day sort
of a person. My age is upwards of twenty-five, my height rather above
the middle size. However, be this as it may, you in a very short time
will have an opportunity of judging, it being my intention to be in
London in a very few weeks on a visit. I am a strenuous advocate of your
cause and will do everything in my power to support and assist the Rev.
Robert Taylor and yourself. I feel exceedingly sorry for that
gentleman, and sigh when I reflect upon his situation, and think of the
deprivations to which he is subject. How often have I wished that it was
in my power to soothe, cheer and comfort him. Do you, I pray, endeavor
to stimulate him. Tell him not to let his noble courage fail, it will
be such a triumph for his persecutors. If my abilities were upon an
equality with my inclination, I should indeed make a shining figure in
the world, or if my researches into philosophical truths had equalled my
instruction in gospel errors, many years of unhappiness had been spared
me; but more of this hereafter. I look anxiously forward to the time
when we shall become better acquainted. Let me hear from you through the
medium of A. Hardie, and with your permission
"I will reply.
"Farewell,
"E. Sharples.
"Bolton, Dec. 10, 1831.
"P.S.--Surrounded as I am by strict religionists, I have no one to whom
I may impart my thoughts. If you will condescend to be my instructor,
I shall feel proud in being selected by you as an object worthy your
attention. You tell me that I should be everything to you. So be it. I
once had the pleasure of seeing you in Liverpool and you have seen me,
but you have no doubt forgotten it. Adieu."
This letter being written hurriedly, was followed by one more at length,
and explanatory of her views. It was dated from Bolton, December 11th,
1831.
"Mr. Richard Carlile,
"Giltspur Street Compter, London.
"My Dear Sir,--Excuse the appellation. I have in some of your works read
of your antipathy to such an expression from man to man, yet a lady
may be allowed to make use of a term of endearment, when it flows
spontaneously from her heart, to express in some degree her approbation,
preference, or attachment, without creating sentiments of indifference
in your bosom. My scrawl of yesterday would intimate my readiness to
enter into a correspondence with one on whom my thoughts have for a long
time been fixed, and having just now a few moments to spare, I think
I cannot do better than to devote them to improvement. Your extreme
penetration will easily perceive my ignorance in letter writing, but if
you will only condescend to be my instructor and make allowance for my
weakness and errors, you will find me anxious to learn and to make
some progress in philosophy. Believe me, my dear sir, I am very much
interested in the cause. Although educated in the Church, I never felt
so happy as now with regard to my principles, now that I am purified
by a little knowledge from some of the errors of my education. Twelve
months ago I had not even read or seen a critical work on Theology.
Since then I have obtained and perused them as often as opportunity
would permit, but, surrounded as I am by friends who are strict
adherents to the Church, and being destitute entirely of friends to whom
I may impart my thoughts and whose participation in them would elevate
my enjoyment, my wish to form an acquaintance with yourself over-rules
every other consideration; yet still I wish to act with discretion.
While at home I am under the absolute necessity of acting the hypocrite,
indeed I am becoming quite an adept. Circumstances oblige me to act
contrary to my wishes, consequently my situation in that respect is not
very enviable. I have, however, thrown off the fetters of superstition,
and begin to find it as difficult to disguise my real sentiments as to
assume those I do not feel. You may form a faint idea of my character
and disposition when I tell you I have thought for myself for about
three years; previously I had adhered as much as possible to the
doctrines of the Church. In fact, I was quite an evangelical being,
sang spiritual songs and prayed myself into the grave, almost. Accident
brought me into acquaintance with A. Hardie. I have since perused your
_Republican_. I cannot express to you the pleasure I enjoyed in
meeting in every page sentiments exactly my own, but infinitely better
expressed. I am sorry to be under the necessity of addressing this
letter to a prison. Do not allow his Satanic Majesty to gain an
ascendency over you! It was my intention to have spent Christmas in
London, but in consequence of my mother's severe indisposition I must
defer it. I am anxious to see, converse, and to become better acquainted
with you. Give my kind respects to the Rev. Robt. Taylor if you have an
opportunity. Tell him he has one female admirer, one female friend,
and although a Deist, which in this place is a most dreadful word,
particularly for a lady, yet one who never encouraged a thought inimical
to virtue and honor. Hoping to hear from you very soon and with best
wishes for your health, happiness and prosperity,
"I subscribe myself, my dear sir,
"Yours truly,
"Eliza Sharples."
Many other letters passed between Carlile and this lady, who became
fired with the enthusiasm to become a volunteer in the good cause, and
devote herself and whatever talent she might possess to the work under
the direction of Carlile. The last, or the last but one of these Bolton
letters was written on the last Christmas Day she was ever with her
mother and her sisters, and we must pause for a moment in sympathy
for that poor mother who was so soon to lose her brightest and best
daughter. The time was close at hand when she would mourn this beloved
daughter as one lost to her for ever. For, sad to say, she was one of
those marble-hearted Christians who could forgive anything but unbelief;
and though our sympathy goes out to her for her sorrow at that time,
it is restricted by the fact that she never forgave Isis for the step
taken. No, not even to death itself nor to the children of Isis after
their mother's death. Here is the letter written on old-fashioned
foolscap paper that feels like parchment, and is to-day in most
excellent preservation, though all these letters (of which only the
preceding ones have been before printed) have travelled many thousand
miles and been exposed to many vicissitudes for more than sixty years.
This next letter was written to Carlile on Christmas Day, and we can see
how quickly the idea of helping in the work of reform had taken root and
was carrying her on to the new and unknown life, and how her quiet and
peaceful past was falling away from her, like loosened garments from her
shoulders, to be left behind her as she steps into the new life.
"Bolton, December 25th, 1831.
"ISIS POSTOPHORI--MY POSTOPHORI OMNIA,--
"My dear sister having just left me to attend her devotions at church,
reminded me of my obedience to you. Under this impression my thoughts
are committed to paper and transmitted to London; her thoughts are
wandering--God knows where? Words are inadequate to express my feelings
in being allowed to correspond with one who possesses such an exalted,
noble, and generous mind. Would that our acquaintance had taken place
years ago. I should not have been the ignorant girl I am. My aim in
future will be to make up for time lost by strict application to study.
Do you think I can be of any service when I come to town? You may depend
upon my perseverance and attention. Nevertheless, I am fearful of being
found dull and stupid, because deficiency and imperfection are natural,
at least constant attendants upon all my undertakings. Oh! that my
humble endeavors may be crowned with success. Every exertion shall
be called forth, every effort, every attempt made to enlighten myself
first, and then to diffuse that knowledge and instruction to mankind
which is so universally wanted. I am an enemy to every kind of
subordination and persecution. I am an enemy to 'kings and priests
and lords'. I am a female reformer; but a consistent one. I am also
a philanthropist, in an eminent degree an admirer of Carlile's and
Taylor's characters. The opportunities that have been offered me in
making my enquiries into theological truths were exceedingly limited.
Those opportunities were not lost; I am convinced that all religion is
vice; experience has taught me to believe so, and it is not in the power
of even the Archbishop himself to convince me to the contrary. I feel
proud in being called an Infidel, and wish that all mankind felt as
I do. What a reformation, what a glorious reform we should have! If I
remember rightly it was I that retired from the room into which you were
shown at Mr. A------'s? Had our introduction taken place at that time,
what years of happiness had been mine; my desire to be introduced was
very great, and I particularly requested the favor, but all in vain. I
am greatly indebted for the interest you are making in my behalf; assure
those friends that their kindness and attention will not be bestowed
upon an ungrateful object-The inducement to my conduct in this
correspondence proceeds from an unquestionable nature, an inducement to
render myself useful to society generally. My pretensions to knowledge
are at present very few indeed, but under such a master I am sure to
improve rapidly. Mother and sister are quite ignorant of the particulars
of my journey to town. I have an antipathy to everything connected
with intrigue, but under the present circumstances am obliged to act
cautiously in consideration for my mother's feelings, for which I have
a very great regard. I am quite at your service, so you may appoint any
time you think proper for my departure. Everything relative to my family
and friends shall be made known to you verbally; they are respectable.
My dependence is entirely upon my mother, but she being very feeling and
considerate, gives no reason for dissatisfaction. My anxiety to commence
my new career grows stronger every day. My wishes to prove the sincerity
of my assertions are equally so-Will you add to your kindness by
pointing out the best method of conveyance? My travelling has been
rather confined, so the least information will be very gladly received.
This letter is quite unconnected. I think if I have been called off
once, I have been called off twenty times. Sunday is generally a
gossiping day, and more particularly being Christmas Day. I must
conclude by wishing you the compliments of the season. My kind wishes
to Mr. Taylor. Grant me the indulgence of a letter very soon. I quite
expected sending you a very long letter very closely written, but am
disappointed. Ere your next arrives you will have come to a decision,
perhaps, as to the time of my leaving here. I went up to Hardie's
yesterday to meet my letter, which came safe to hand, and took
opportunity of sending you a few lines (which have been or will be
received ere you receive this) from there. May you be blessed with
health, happiness and prosperity, and continue to increase in knowledge,
and may you have every succeeding day an opportunity of defeating your
oppressors and of imparting your sentiments to mankind, and be able
to induce them to turn their thoughts on that which conduces to their
happiness, their honor, and their prosperity.
"Eliza or Isis."
The summons she awaited was not long in reaching her, and so we find
her on the 11th January, 1832, starting for London, which she reached
safely, and lost no time in getting into active service. She called on
Carlile in the Giltspur Street prison, and after a lengthy consultation
with him, set about opening up the Rotunda again. It is needless to say
that Carlile was more than pleased with the beauty and intelligence as
well as the courage displayed by the young lady, and he accepted her as
a veritable Joan of Arc for the cause to which he was devoted. Almost
her first act was to go to Lord Melbourne and procure his permission to
reopen the Rotunda on her promise that while she was in charge of it,
there should be nothing but philosophic lecturers and discussions
take place there. To Lord Melbourne she made known her name and family
connections, as also her object, viz., to assist as much as possible to
support both Carlile and Taylor while they were in prison. It is fair to
say that the gentleman treated her kindly and granted her request. Isis
delivered her first lecture at the Rotunda on the 29th of January,
a little over two weeks after her arrival from Lancashire. From
consideration for the feelings of her family, her mother most
particularly, her name and connections were carefully concealed from
the public, and she became known as the "Lady of the Rotunda". Isis, the
name Carlile had given her in his letters, was adopted as the name of a
weekly publication which was started in February and kept up for about
two years. Naturally, the novelty of the proceeding, combined with the
beauty and talent of the lady, and the mystery surrounding her, drew
many hearers. She was the first woman to take the platform as an
independent thinker and public speaker in England. Almost, as a matter
of course, she was inundated by letters of adoration, curiosity,
approbation and so on, and proposals of all kinds. Any of these that
seemed to carry a double purpose in it were answered publicly in the
columns of the _Isis_. She preserved her _incognita_ completely so far
as the public was concerned, and also kept herself free from all private
calumny. On Sunday and two or three times a week she lectured at the
Rotunda and various other places by invitation. The study necessarily
incident to these frequent lectures occupied the whole of her time, and
except for her visits to Carlile in prison in Giltspur Street, and the
Rev. Robt. Taylor in Horsemonger Lane Gaol, she had no diversion of
any kind. There is no doubt at all but that Carlile outlined all her
lectures for her, for it would have been impossible for an inexperienced
country girl with the ordinarily narrow education of her time and class
to have been able to have pleased a metropolitan audience of reading and
thinking men and women. As it was, she delivered the lectures in a
very quiet and dignified manner, and at their close quietly left the
platform, leaving to others the task of discussing or defending
the arguments used or the merit or demerit of the discourse itself.
Frequently her exit had to be made through a long double-lined passage
of admirers. Flowers were offered in profusion. She would sometimes
accept a few simple ones with an inclination of the head or a "Thank
you", but never stayed her steps for an instant. She busied herself in
procuring for Mr. Taylor a modification of his sentence, or at least
some mitigation of the severities practiced upon him. Writing to Carlile
from Horsemonger Lane Gaol, January 12, 1832, the Rev. Robt. Taylor
says:--
"I am much delighted with your 'new born hope'. 'Isis' is the very name.
The Goddess, I am already an idolator. My eager adoration anticipates
her ephiphany! She is indeed Isis Omnia to our cause. If she should
realise your description and my fancies, the path of immortality is open
before her."
He adds a postscript:--
"I have just seen Isis, who beyond all I had dreamed makes me happy.
She will, she must succeed. I have seen her star in the East, and am her
worshipper."
A little later she addressed a petition to Lord Melbourne in Taylor's
behalf, wherein she makes mention of his "proneness to jest" on what
are considered sacred subjects, and that his best friends regretted that
tendency of the rev. gentleman, who was really the finest orator and
deepest student in the country, and a man of wonderful genius, ect.,
ect. But the prisoner took great umbrage at this, and would have no
pardon of this getting. The petition itself was innocent enough and
was really of Carlile's framing, and Taylor had no better friend than
Carlile. But the rev. gentleman was very much of a spoilt child, and it
was always difficult to keep him in good humor. It was two or three of
Taylor's jokes which gained him the two years' imprisonment he received
on the last trial. A little note in Mr. Taylor's handwriting, but
without date, showed how keenly he felt the reflection on his good
sense.
"Mr. Taylor begs to be spared the superfluous pain of seeing a person
who has injured him so grievously, and has made the pretence of
presenting a petition on his behalf a means of insulting him more
than his bitterest enemy could have done. Mr. Taylor would have rather
terminated his existence, with his own hand, than have accepted his
deliverance upon that degrading and atrociously insulting promise and
condition with which Miss Sharples has taken upon herself to implore
it. Mr. Taylor has written to Lord Melbourne to counteract as much as
possible the mischievous and scandalous falsehood of which Miss Sharples
has been the instrument. Mr. T.'s only hopes of a lessening of his term
of imprisonment rested in the doubt that existed in Lord M.'s mind as
to the nature of the alleged offence. Miss S. has removed that doubt and
justified the imprisonment to any extent.
"To Miss Sharples,
"Editress of the _Isis_."
Following this, in a few days, after Carlile had written to Taylor
telling him that "he ought to apologise to Isis on his knees for
grieving her thus, when she was turning every stone to do him good ".
Taylor replied:--
"Ah, Lord! you talk of romance and recommend wisdom and reason. Nobody
loves wisdom and reason more than I do; but my knees are now too stiff
to undergo the operation you recommend. I would rather and better
support the consciousness of being altogether in the wrong, than to
rescue even my life itself by kneeling. If you should find me as I
intend you shall, on good terms with Miss Sharples, they will not have
been achieved by kneeling. Mark! I will achieve my peace without you.
Humiliations never yet healed grievances,
"Yours affectionately,
"R. Taylor."
Later still we find him lamenting from the bottom of his heart that he
should ever have been the cause of bringing tears to those lovely violet
eyes, and asks forgiveness for whatever has seemed excessive in the
expression of his grief, which has indeed been intense, and "assure
Miss Sharples that I am sorry in my soul for the weight which my mental
anguish has thrown upon her".
Several months passed away and the further acquaintance and constant
daily interviews of Miss Sharples with Richard Carlile, which were
necessary to the business and the cause in which they were both so
earnestly engaged, developed a very strong attachment between them. It
would seem, almost, as though Miss Sharples had been reserved for this
union, it being more than singular that she should have arrived at the
age of twenty-six without having met anyone who had made any impression
upon her heart. Yet she had many admirers, and indeed, one would think
that so beautiful a girl had been formed for love alone. We cannot find,
however, a single instance in her history which would show that her
heart had ever been touched before she met Carlile. It seemed as though
she was waiting for the summons to take her part in the allotted task,
and when he wrote to her in his delight at hearing of a young and
beautiful woman who wanted to wield a sword in the battle of free
thought, saying that such a woman should be everything to him, she was
not surprised, but expressed her complete willingness in her simple "so
be it". But when she was brought into close relationship with Carlile
and had the opportunity of seeing the genuine superiority of his
character, the generosity, the unselfishness, the amiability of his
temper, his kindness to everybody in his employ, his great love and
patience with his children, and his unfailing sense of justice in all
the relations of life, she found one who was worthy of all the love and
appreciation she had to bestow, and he received it: a love that filled
the measure to overflowing. Unfortunately, Carlile had been and was
still paying the penalty of the mistake of his early manhood, his
unhappy marriage, although after twenty years of unhappiness he was as
free as he could be when no divorce was possible. So, in this state of
affairs, Carlile did all that was left to him to do, and that was to
explain every particular of his situation to her, for her consideration
and reflection.