"I was much surprised at my reception at Exeter. I had not intended to stop there but a day, just to show myself to some of my old acquaintances, that they might see that I had not been metamorphosed into the old dragon about which they had heard so much. I find it impossible to get away as soon as I expected. This town is rapidly improving in knowledge, yet I mark with sorrowful emotion the hideous, unsocial, uncheerful and unhappy faces which religion generates, and I see anew the importance of what I have done, and what I intend to do for the improvement of the female mind. It is knowledge alone that can give real beauty to the face, as merely fair outline without knowledge to give it expression is but a cold and lifeless statue, and can charm none but weak minds; nor can dress make up for the deficiency which an ignorant face exhibits. It heightens them and forms a double deception. It deceives the wearer and he who is attracted by it, and decoys both into a snare that inevitably generates an unhappy life for which no external appearance can atone."
This sudden and unexpected liberation gave rise to some erroneous ideas. Some of Carlile's weaker-kneed friends did not hesitate to accuse him of some unworthy truckling to those in power in order to gain his liberty. This was his reply to these accusations:
"I gather from the correspondence of friends in various parts of the country that some wild notions are current as to the cause of my liberation. I answer all queries on the subject by referring friends to my past conduct, to that which has been visible, and by desiring them to listen to no tales about changes in my conduct. My path has been long marked out and straightly walked in; I shall neither go back nor turn aside after so complete a success as that which I have brought about."
At this time it became quite the fashion to impute to Carlile the blame of everything, almost, that happened in the way of misfortune of whatever character. For example, when shortly after his liberation there was a collapse in certain stocks, and consequently a panic in the money market, there were many who openly imputed the cause to "Carlile's liberation"! Another example was that of a man condemned to be hung for forgery, and some one or two others who had committed some brutal crimes. The judge, in pronouncing sentence, said "they had no doubt been reading some of Carlile's pamphlets "!
During the last half of the year 1826, Carlile had been contemplating and arranging for a new weekly publication, with Richard Hassell as editorial assistant and manager. He had also arranged for an extended tour throughout the country, lecturing and speaking to the people everywhere, but unfortunately he was taken ill in November, and was prostrated for an entire year with rheumatism and asthma. Every one who saw him predicted his early demise. This was the after effect of his six years' close confinement. His system made sensitive and unused to the changes of temperature, gave way to the damps and fogs of the English November, and made the year 1827 the only unprofitable one of his life.
It would seem as though the effects of these severe confinements were not always felt at once, but slowly and insidiously undermined the constitution, rendering it unfit to cope with changes of temperature unnoticed by those accustomed to out of door life. There was probably never a man who bore imprisonment so well as Carlile on the whole, still it killed even him at last. It killed Richard Hassell and Thomas Davison, both much younger men than Carlile, and it most certainly affected the mind of Robert Taylor during those horrible months in the Horsemonger Lane Gaol, for on a close reading of this grand orator's masterly efforts, a disparity is surely noticed between those which followed his second imprisonment and those which preceded it. An over-straining of his fine mentality, as it were, leading to much that was erratic and unlike his former self. Carlile, though able to return to the encounter again and again, became so used to the prison life as to be obliged to imprison himself afterwards in his bedroom most of the winter, and, while mentally unaffected, suffered severely from the contact of cold air upon his lungs. This year's illness was a great drawback to Carlile's prosperity, for immediately upon quitting Dorchester Gaol he had taken premises at 62 Fleet Street, and fitted it up as a "Temple of Reason" which should be worthy the name. This new shop was also to be the headquarters of the Joint Stock Book Company, formed to further the object of printing and publishing Liberal works, under Carlile's supervision. In this enterprise he was ably assisted by his friends, amongst whom Julian Hibbert was the foremost. A great deal of money was expended in fitting up this place, some of which had to be borrowed, and which, with the added interest, impoverished Carlile to repay. To add to his troubles, his wife also was seriously ill during this year, and so they were both incapacitated from attending to the business. However, this state of things cleared up at the end of the year, and Carlile recommenced active life in good earnest. It was in 1827, on the 10th of February, that Carlile received notice that he had been bequeathed an annuity of fifty pounds a year by a Mr. Morrison, a surgeon of Chelsea, who had just died; a man whom Carlile had never seen but once, when he called on him quite suddenly, and in a very few words and with great difficulty—for he seemed in very bad health—said, "I have come to tell you, Mr. Carlile, that I have been very attentive to your conduct since the time of your trial; that I am very much pleased with it, and that in consideration of what you have gone through, I have made a provision for your family in my will". Carlile having thanked him, he added, "I shall not now give you my name and address; but I have some manuscripts which I wish you to see and to publish, and I will see you again". He never came again, as he was too ill to leave the house, but he had done as he had said, and in due time Carlile benefited by the bequest, which he appropriated to the purpose spoken of in a previous chapter. The executors were Henry (afterwards Lord) Brougham* and James Evans. The will was very curiously constructed, the bequest to Carlile being put in the following words:—
* Lord Brougham declined to serve, and the will was
administered by the widow.
"Bequest 7th: I give and bequeath to Richard Carlile, of Fleet Street, London, bookseller, his wife and present family or the survivor of them, the annual sum of fifty pounds, by quarterly payments, for the term of their natural lives, as an approving testimony to the character of correct morals, given of the said Carlile on his late trial, holding as I sincerely do that such a character is of infinitely more utility to man, and consequently more creditable, than the profession of any creed whatsoever, since all religions have hitherto rather tended to debase than to improve good morals; and also in testimony of my abhorrence of persecution for opinion, so contrary to the tolerant spirit of a free constitution."
At the 10th clause the testator says:—
"And finally I give and bequeath to the Church, Pagan, Jewish, Christian, and Mahommedan, my anathema for the horrible murders, cruelties and crimes committed thereby in all ages, under the color of religion. And if this anathema against the abuses of religion should raise the spleen of a selfish hierarchy and impel them to refuse my mouldering carcass a cemetery in the usual way, I will that my executors buy the fee simple of a rod of earth (no matter where), therein to deposit the same, and there may the standard of Infidelity, as it is contemptuously called, that is, the standard of Truth, Benevolence, Virtue, and Philosophy, be raised to the final extirpation of bigotry and superstition."