The second day's proceedings were very interesting, and make excellent reading, even in this busy age. They will be found in the appendix, and are copied verbatim from a leading daily paper of the time. Having copies of all the papers of that date, I choose the British Press for its more general fairness in its report, although its editorial at the conclusion of the trial was bitter and severe on the defendant. In those days it was something gained, as even now, when one could get a fair report. The other papers were too palpably influenced by fear or discretion to give anything approaching to an unbiassed report.
Scores, nay hundreds of letters poured in upon Carlile before and after the sentence. The verdict of guilty shocked many of his friends for the moment, and made everyone feel unsafe and uneasy, none knowing what would be the outcome or where these prosecutions might end. But this state of feeling did not last, and the rebound came, and with it such an awakening and mental uprising as was never before known in any country. And though Carlile felt, as he says in his letter to Mr. Morrison, deserted by some who had been officious enough before the sentence, yet he was in no way deserted, it was merely that his friends were suffering from the shock. The circulation soon started, letters and encouragements and money poured in upon him with the highest encomiums upon his bravery and fearlessness, and admiration of his wonderful defence, wonderful indeed when his youth (still in his twenties) and former condition of life are taken into consideration, and the very short time—only two years—he had been before the public. It must have taken an immense amount of nerve and backbone to stand up alone and confront that array of clever but unscrupulous men! He was entirely unassisted except by what Mr. Hone prepared for the third day. He had to defend his own case, for it is doubtful whether any lawyer could have been obtained, or, if obtained, whether he could have been relied upon to be proof against all the temptations that would have been thrown in his way to betray his client. And so great was the amount of prejudice and fear of offending the powers that were, at that time, that it would have had to be a very strong lawyer that would dare to risk doing so, and where was such to be found? The following extract from a letter will show to what an extent prejudice had been created against Carlile, and how it had separated even members of the same family from each other, so that many who had espoused his cause, and were anxious to prove their sympathy, had to do so in secret from their own nearest relatives:—
"Compassion and justice have been refused to you without the precincts of the Royal Tribunal; you cannot therefore expect either within the verge of the modern star chamber, and are no doubt prepared for the worst, for I am sorry to observe that the hue and cry of Atheism, though founded on the most malignant calumny and falsehood, has become so prevalent as to oblige me to write this address to you in stealth from every individual member of my family and fireside, lest one and all might tear me to pieces for heaving one generous sigh on your behalf, or for the ghost of freedom's sake, now vanished from her wonted haunts in your infidel train which has frightened many foolish reformers into fits.
"All the papers of the Empire groaned under the load of his humane Anti-Christian, if not Atheistical principles, at an expense to Mr. Robert Owen of a thousand pounds including profits to this very Government, and the whole identical band of editors who are this season employed in hunting you, a poor plain, upright Deist, to perdition! If this be fair play, I know not what can be stigmatised as foul, base, and infamous from every point of view, and if the notice of it in your pleading does not tend to mollify the oracles of the law into a very lenient sentence for you, the public will estimate their integrity and legitimate equity accordingly. You must excuse this long communication, which as a work of intended mercy has engrossed so completely the Lord's Day that I have been able to think of nothing else. The truth is, since it must be out, I have been dreaming about you and your forlorn wife and children all night, and awoke very early this morning under a species of impulse which forced me from my bed to take pen and ink in this unequal contest against the powers and principalities of the darkest ages, arrayed to annihilate the man with whom they are afraid to argue in the face of the people. Yesterday, the news of the resurrection and transmission of the bones of the persecuted Thomas Paine* to their native soil struck me very forcibly as an extraordinary, almost a miraculous coincidence with the decree that, in the same breath, will probably bury you alive amidst your fellow slaves, for promulgating those same political doctrines for which Paine is on the eve of being canonised by the brave sons of liberty, returning like giants refreshed (after a short sleep) from the shores of America to support radical reform or perish in the attempt. To 'Common Sense' and the 'Crisis', both written by the intelligent Paine, the free Americans are much more indebted for liberation from unrepresented thraldom than to the sword or the genius of Washington, and our posterity may yet owe as precious a debt to Carlile, Hunt, and Cobbett, should you all suffer the martyrdom of captivity, either on the score of political or religious publications, which I think cannot be of long duration, and never will extend so far as death whatever your enemies may intend shall be the result."
* William Cobbett disinterred the bones of Thomas Paine and
carried them to England.
One of the most gratifying incidents, if not, indeed, the only one pleasant to dwell upon at this time, is the manner in which Carlile's friends, his bodyguard, so to speak, rallied around him. Mr. W. T. Sherwin and Mr. Julian Augustus St. John assumed the responsibility of the publication of the Republican. Mr. William Hone, who had been lately acquitted of a similar charge, assisted Carlile in the construction of the third day's defence, and in this connection the following letter from the Morning Chronicle, October 15th, 1819, becomes amusing:—
"Sir,—Perceiving in your paper of this morning that my name is introduced in a manner calculated to lead the public to believe that I was instrumental in preparing the defence of Mr. Carlile, on his trial for publishing 'Paine's Age of Reason', I request that you will afford your readers an opportunity of knowing the true state of the case. Having been present in court as an auditor, I was earnestly solicited at the close of the second day, by several friends to the liberty of the Press, to point out, in conjunction with two literary gentlemen, those authors who had written the most ably in defence of toleration and unrestricted freedom of opinion on religious subjects, and to mark the passages. This I assented to, nor do I apprehend that such a request would have been refused by a liberal-minded man, or that the most scrupulous would have found fault with me for so doing. I accordingly arranged, as well as I could in a few hours the next morning, a connected series of quotations from Archbishop Tillotson, 'Bishop Squire', Doctor Furneaux, Bishop Watson, Professor Limborch, Professor Campbell, Mr. Locke, Doctor Enfield, the Rev. Mr. Wyvil, Rev. Mr. Aspland, 'the Christian Reformer,' and other authorities of equal weight and tendency. This was read by Mr. Carlile on the third day with interpolations of his own, and this with the loan of 'Erasmus ', Miltosermons and pamphlets, constituted the whole of my exertions on this n's 'Areopogetica', De Laume on Non-conformity, a volume of 'Blackstone', a tract by Lord Somers, and a few extraordinary occasion.
"Your obedient servant,
"45, Ludgate Hill.
"William Hone."