"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.