Mrs. Adams was never tried. Mr. Adams's trial took place at Gloucester assizes, immediately before my own.
The passage from No. 25 of the Oracle, for which Adams was indicted, was written by my friend Mr. Chilton, who was outraged at my imprisonment, and ran as follows:—
What else could be expected of men who deify a real or imaginary individual, a compound of ambition and folly, of mock humility and rampant tyranny; who, though called the 'Prince of Peace,' declared he came to bring a sword in the world? This hellish mission he performed to perfection, for never since his time has blood and misery ceased to flow from his dogmas and mysteries.
As I was very anxious to save Adams from consequences which he incurred through friendship to me, I advised him to let Mr. Thompson defend him. This gentleman began by sympathising with all the disgust invented by the counsel who opened the prosecution, and he ended by expressing Adams's sorrow and contrition for what he had done—a contrition which he did not feel, and would rather have undergone much imprisonment than have had it said that he did. During the whole of the trials arising out of the Oracle, Mr. Ralph Thomas, barrister, was the only counsel who defended us in court without sacrificing us. Taking warning by Mr. Thompson's example, I made it a rule to advise all our friends to defend themselves, and where unaccustomed to public speaking, to write a brief defence in their own language, and after some legal friend had revised it, to read it to the court. We do not want lawyers to defend our opinions, those opinions not being their own, but we want them simply to maintain our right to publish what are to us important convictions. Instead of this they commonly agree with the crown that we are criminal for having a conscience, and then, in our name, recant with 'contrition' the opinions which we go into court to maintain.
Adams's sentence was delivered in the following words by Mr. Justice Erskine:—'George Adams, you have been convicted of the offence of publishing a blasphemous libel, and the libel which was proved to have been published by you was one of a most horrid and shocking character. Whatever a man's opinions may be, he can have no right to give vent to them in that language. If there was evidence to prove that you were the author, or that you were engaged as an active disseminator, I should have thought it my duty to have inflicted on you a very serious imprisonment. Although by the law of this country every man has a right to express his sentiments in decent language, he has no business to make use of such shocking language as this. But you have expressed, through your counsel, contrition; and trusting that this is the general feeling of your mind, I shall not think it necessary to pass on you a severe sentence this time. But if you ever offend again, it will then be known that you are determined to persevere, and it will be seen whether the law is not strong enough to prevent it. The sentence of the court is, that you be imprisoned in the Common Gaol of this county for one calendar month.
I was with Adams during the term of his imprisonment, and although his losses and the privations of his family were great, he never uttered a murmuring word. From first to last he behaved well, and Mrs. Adams, as women usually do, behaved better.
It is worthy of remark that when a gentleman deposed that the character of Mr. Adams 'was a pattern of morality,' Mr. Justice Erskine told the jury that 'had Adams committed a robbery such a character might have weight, but in extenuation of religious offence it was of no service.'
CHAPTER II. THE TRIAL
The Assizes opened on the 6th of August, 1842, but my case did not come on till the 15th, Mr. Knight Hunt (the author of the 'Fourth Estate') was the gentleman engaged to report my trial. As the judge was informed that I intended to defend myself he resolved to take my case last. This caused the assizes to extend into a second week. Saturday came before the calendar was exhausted, and as there was no knowing whether my trial could be gone through in a day, the fear of trespassing on Sunday led to the court's being ordered to open on Monday, to the annoyance of javelin men kept there unexpectedly, to jury men who had left tills, ploughs, and orange baskets unprotected—and not least to my prosecutors, who saw with some consternation some £200 added to the county expenses, for in Cheltenham bigotry is greatly preferred when it is cheap.