'Hence your memorialist earnestly hopes that you will direct that his papers, seized as before mentioned, be immediately restored to him, and also that he be allowed free access to such works and papers as he may deem necessary for his defence, and that without further delay.

'(signed) George Jacob Holyoake.

'County Gaol, Gloucester, June 14, 1842.'

The papers were afterwards returned; but, had it not been for friends in the House of Commons, and in various parts of the country, I should have been deprived of the materials for my defence. Public opinion did for me that which Christian charity refused.*

* At the Gloucester Trinity Sessions, Mr. R. B. Cooper
stated, in contradiction of the prayer of this memorial,
that 'as soon as I mentioned that my papers were necessary
for my defence they were returned to me.' Mr. S. Jones said
he 'took my papers home, and every one I wanted for my
trial on the morrow I had given to me.' Both these
statements were untrue, and I stated so at the time in the
Cheltenham Free Press, and my assertion was never
impugned.

Strong prejudices exist against me as being a Socialist. Your local newspapers have denounced me on this ground. To show that I deserve no condemnation on this account I shall draw your attention to the nature of Socialism. I have here a little book, stated to be published by the 'Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge.' If it had been stated to be a 'society' for disseminating 'malicious knowledge' the title-page would have been correct—for a more gross series of misrepresentations were never strung together. If what it says of Socialism were true, then I might be abused; but Socialism as I have learned or explained it, would never lead to the injury of peace or the disturbance of public order. The first paragraph of Godwin's 'Political Justice' is an epitome of Socialism as developed in this country hitherto s it is 'an investigation concerning that form of political society, that system of intercourse and reciprocal action extending beyond the bounds of a single family, which shall be found most conducive to the general benefit—how may the peculiar and independent operation of each individual in the social state most effectually be preserved—how may the security each man ought to possess as to his life, and the employments of his faculties according to the dictates of his own understanding, be most certainly defended from invasion—how may the individuals of the human species be made to contribute most substantially to general improvement and happiness.' But I shall not content myself with one authority; and to avoid the charge of presumption, I have gathered much of my defence from other men's writings, and shall make them speak for me.

Socialists have been declared to have dangerous metaphysical notions. The whole question has been expressed by the poet-philosopher Goethe in four lines, translated by Ebenezer Elliott, thus—

How like a stithy is this land!
And we lie on it, like good metal
Long hammer'd by a senseless hand;
But will such thumping make a kettle?

Meaning that senseless hammering and senseless legislation could neither make the dull iron into a kettle, nor a vicious people into an enlightened nation. Socialism says, all men have in them the true metal—the elements of goodness, which all governments are responsible for moulding. Socialism proposes to substitute other means than punishments for the prevention of crime, and that you may not think these chimeras of my own, I will read you the opinion of a Lord Cardinal to a certain High Chancellor of England, Sir Thomas More, who, in his 'Utopia.' says, 'When I was in England, the king depended much on his councils....

One day when I was dining with him there happened to be at table one of the English lawyers, who took occasion to run out in high commendation of the severe execution of justice upon thieves, "who," as he said, "were then hanged so fast that there were sometimes twenty on one gibbet!" and upon that he said, "he could not wonder enough how it came to pass, that since so few escaped there were so many thieves left, who were still robbing in all places." Upon this, I (who took the boldness to speak freely before the cardinal) said, "there was no reason to wonder at the matter, since this way of punishing thieves was neither just in itself nor good for the public; for as the severity was too great, so the remedy was not effectual; simple theft not being so great a crime, that it ought to cost a man his life: no punishment, how severe soever, being able to restrain those from robbing who can find no other way of livelihood. In this (said I) not only you in England but a great part of the world, imitate some ill masters, that are readier to chastise their scholars than teach them. There are dreadful punishments enacted against thieves, but it were much better to make such good provisions by which every man might be put in a method how to live and so be preserved from the fatal necessity of stealing, and of dying for it."' Socialism would try to obtain a remedy for the evils which judges go round year by year lamenting; Socialism would suggest a means of affording employment, and thus mitigate the crime which judges and juries are called to punish.