Out of doors much is said against passive resistance, but in prison it is the only resistance possible, and is often very effective, If you speak or act, you are at the mercy of those in whose power you are. Take any aggressive step and your gaoler knocks you down, or locks you up in a moment. But if you simply will not do a thing, if without bluster or bravado you leave it to them to make you do it, or to do it themselves, they often find it of rather awkward accomplishment. To carry me to prayers or to dress me every morning was far more offensive and troublesome to them than breaking my head, so they left me alone.
Old Mr. Jones, the magistrate, paid me frequent visits. One day he took me to the door, and pointing upwards, asked, 'did I not see there proofs sufficient of the existence of a God?' I answered, that 'when the boundless expanse of the skies had been before me I had been unable to think so, and now the few square feet, which the high walls of the gaol permitted me to see, were still less likely to inspire me with that conviction.'
A little reflection ought to have shown these gentlemen, who made these appeals to me, that the time and place were both inauspicious in which to address to me such interrogatories. Indeed it was offensive, and on more than one occasion I told them, that having undertaken to compel my acquiescence with them by imprisonment, I could never divest myself of the conviction that it was superfluous to pretend to win me by argument.
The last visit Mr. Jones paid was to read me a psalm. As on my trial I had complained of the discourtesy of their calling me a fool, the old man was particularly anxious to justify himself. He found what seemed to him a favourable opportunity in the circumstance that a German scholar had at this time published a new translation of the Psalms of David. As I had spoken favourably of German theologians, he concluded that this one would have weight with me. He brought down the book, summoned the whole class of prisoners, and we stood twelve or eighteen in a row. Proclaiming attention, he said he wished to read to us, and particularly to me, the 14th Psalm. Reading aloud the first verse where David observes 'the fool hath said in his heart there is no God,' Mr. Jones said, 'Now, Holyoake, you complained that we called you a fool—you see David says you are a fool.' The old man looked round with an air of triumph, which was considerably moderated when I gently but distinctly observed that 'I no more liked rudeness in the mouth of David than in the mouth of a magistrate.' My fellow-prisoners glanced around in consternation at my audacity, and expected to hear me ordered into the dark cell, but old Mr. Jones turned round, shut up his book, and walked away without saying a word, and I never saw him afterwards.
The next day I wrote to the Board of Magistrates to say that 'if visiting magistrates continued to question me before other prisoners, where the discipline of the gaol forbade adequate reply, I should refuse to answer.' In future I was always called out by myself and spoken with alone.
Before my trial the same Mr. Jones told me that my friend, Mr. Richard Carlile, had died in London a very horrible death, recanting all his principles before he expired, and urged me to take warning by his example and do the same. Shortly after Mr. Jones was surprised to meet Mr. Carlile in the corridor of the gaol bringing me refreshments, which his experience assured him I needed. And it was not the least part of my pride on the day of my trial that he sat near me from morning till night, encouraging me by his presence, and assisting me by his wisdom. After my conviction he vindicated me assiduously through the press, addressed to me public letters, and wrote to Justice Erskine and Sir Robert Peel, threatening to renew his former war against the Church if my situation was not ameliorated—a very curious species of recantation it must be confessed, but a fair sample of the usual death-bed 'scenes' which the pulpits relate.
My company as a prisoner was not of a very agreeable kind, I had to listen to recitals of depravity such as I never heard before, and do not wish to hear again. But this was not all. Sometimes a companion was filthy as well as wicked. One man sent in among us had the itch, and before I found it out he had held me by the wrists in some accidental wrestle—which misfortune might have subjected me to a taste of prison discipline which few will be able to imagine.
When the surgeon finds that a prisoner has this disease he makes no remark, but shortly after, the man is called out by the turnkey, whom he has to follow through various corridors to remote cells at the top of the gaol, near the gallows. Upon entering one, he is told to take off his clothes. As soon as he is in a state of nudity, his clothes are taken away, and locked up. He is then shown a cask filled with brimstone, grease, and other mixture, of the consistence of pitch, and quite as offensive to the sight. With this he is made to smear his entire person over; when this is done, he is left locked up in the place. All he finds about him is a bed on which are two blankets, in which hundreds, smeared as he is, have lain before. When no longer able to endure the cold, he may lie in this place. Thick and chilly, these disgusting coverings adjust themselves to the body when softened by the warmth, where, without caution, the liquid will run into the eyes and the mouth. Here he remains some days and eats the uncut food which is brought to him as well as he can with his filthy fingers.
Such is the description of a process of cure (as I gathered from several whose experience I heard narrated), to which I might have been subjected, if, when I discovered pustules on my wrists similar to those on the infected man, I had not kept from the observation of the surgeon while they remained. My habit of daily ablution, and some medicine I procured, saved me from more than temporary discomfort. I need scarcely add, that had such a cure been attempted on me, I should have had to be carried to the place, and the application must have been effected by force.
After some weeks' imprisonment, and when I had had sufficient opportunity of noticing the disposition of the authorities, and estimating the treatment to which I was to be subjected, I addressed the following, slightly abridged—