I ask my readers to notice these clear and emphatic sentences, for we shall recur to them in the next chapter.
The jury retired at twenty minutes past twelve. At three minutes past five they were discharged, being unable to agree. It was a glorious victory. Acquittal was hopeless, but no verdict amounted practically to the same thing. Two juries out of three had already disagreed, and as the verdict of Guilty by the third had been won through the scandalous partiality and mean artifices of a bigoted judge, the results of our prosecution afforded little encouragement to fresh attacks on the liberty of the press.
I have since had the pleasure of conversing with one of the jury. Himself and two others held out against a verdict of Guilty, and he told me that the discussion was extremely animated. My informant acted on principle. He confessed he did not like my caricatures, and he considered my attacks on the Bible too severe; but he held that I had a perfect right to ridicule Christianity if I thought fit, and he refused to treat any method of attacking opinions as a crime. Of the other two jurors, one was convinced by my address, and the other declared that he was not going to assist in imprisoning like a thief "a man who could make a speech like that."
The next day I asked Lord Coleridge not to try the case again for a few days, as I was physically unable to conduct my defence. His lordship said:
"I have just been informed, and I hardly knew it before, what
such imprisonment as yours means, and what, in the form it has
been inflicted on you, it must mean; but now that I do know of
it, I will take care that the proper authorities know of it also,
and I will see that you have proper support."
His lordship added that he would see I had proper food, and he would take the defence whenever I pleased. We fixed the following Tuesday. During the interim our meals were provided from the public-house opposite the prison gates. My diarrhoea ceased at once, and I so far recovered my old form that I felt ready to fight twenty Giffards. But we did not encounter each other again. Feeling assured that if Lord Coleridge continued to try the case, as he obviously meant to until it was disposed of, they would never obtain a verdict, the prosecution secured a nolle prosequi from the Attorney-General. It was procured by means of an affidavit, containing what his lordship branded as an absolute falsehood. So the prosecution, which began in bigotry and malice, ended appropriately in a lie.
CHAPTER XV. LOSS AND GAIN.
Our victory in the Court of Queen's Bench was an unmitigated loss to Sir Henry Tyler and his backers, for it threw upon them the whole costs of the prosecution. It was also a loss to ourselves; for I have it on the best authority that, if we had been found guilty, Lord Coleridge would have made his sentence concurrent with Judge North's, and shifted us from the criminal to the civil side of the prison, where we should have enjoyed each other's society, worn our own clothes, eaten our own food, seen our friends frequently, received and answered letters, and spent our time in rational occupations. To the Freethought cause, however, our victory was a pure gain. As I had anticipated, the press gave our new trial a good deal of attention. The Daily News printed a leading article on the case, calling on the Home Secretary to remit the rest of our sentence. The Times published a long and admirable report of my defence, as well as of Lord Coleridge's summing-up, and predicted that the trial would be historical, "chiefly because of the remarkable defence made by one of the defendants." A similar prediction appeared in the Manchester Weekly Times, according to which "the defendant Foote argued his case with consummate skill." Across the Atlantic, the New York World said that "Mr. Foote, in particular, delivered a speech which, for closeness of argument and vividness of presentation, has not often been equalled." Even the grave and reverend Westminster Review found "after reading what the Lord Chief Justice himself characterises as Mr. Foote's very striking and able speech, that the editor of the Freethinker is very far from being the vulgar and uneducated disputant which the Spectator appears to have supposed him." Other Liberal papers, like the Pall Mall Gazette and the Referee, that had at first joined in the chorus of execration over the fallen "blasphemer," now found that my sentence was "monstrous."
So true is it that nothing succeeds like success! I did not let these compliments turn my head. My speeches at the Old Bailey were little, if anything, inferior to the one I made in the Court of Queen's Bench. There was no change in me, but only in the platform I spoke from. The great fact to my mind was this, that given an impartial judge, and a fair trial, it was difficult to convict any Freethinker of "blasphemy" if he could only defend himself with some courage and address. This fact shone like a star of hope in the night of my suffering. As I said in one of my three letters from prison: "For the first time juries have disagreed, and chances are already slightly against a verdict of Guilty. Now the jury is the hand by which the enemy grasps us, and when we have absolutely secured the twelfth man we shall have amputated the thumb."