"You have everything to conquer, and you must begin your reform at home and first conquer your own self-command. Patience is not so necessary as a cool methodical warfare. Write such letters as your last to Lord Brougham. Let Lord Melbourne have one such every week. Address the King in every way of matter of fact statement that your case will admit of. You shall have a good specimen in my forthcoming one to Lord Melbourne.
"For the sake of our glorious cause, let nothing come from your pen about the gaol that can be contradicted. You have not been sufficiently careful. It is not a time for joke; your enemies will call your jokes lies, and to the world at large they are lies. Mr. Hibbert made it almost a sine qua non as to his further assistance that your letter to-day for the Morning Chronicle which came to our hands should not go forth to its destination. My taste is to print every word that you write in your present prison; but that taste has been swayed by that virtue (Hibbert's) to anything below which I never would yield my motive of right and mode of action—I mean the virtue of Mr. Hibbert and one other such friend.
"Let me appeal to that portion of your spirit which is reasonable. I know that you care nothing about liquid spirit at this season of the year, other than as it is forbidden you. Now, is it fair, manly, or generous on your part that you should for a mere half-pint or so of brandy expose your friends, your generous friends, their generosity itself, their willingness to die to serve you, to every species of insult; to searching, to generate suspicion as to every other circumstance, to the certain exclusion of many other comforts that might allowably pass the gates of the prison, to such exclusion, and yourself to such excitement as occurred yesterday, to the risk of fine and imprisonment, and subsequent seclusion; in short, to an increase of your own mental anguish and to that of your friends? If you smuggle that which is forbidden, if on that head you glory in violating the law, you have no ground left on which to complain, and our complaints will be as the idle winds that passeth by unheeded. Give your gaol enemies but one real ground of complaint against you, and you give them justification for their worst intentions. I wish I could pour an opiate over your irritability and say, be composed. You want composure, coolness, dignity, patience, fortitude for your present situation; but I know it is not to be commanded. You must reason with yourself, and write down laws for your own government in prison. You will do this coolly and they will keep you cool. Beyond what you print I would have you keep a journal, as you have the taste and application for journal-keeping. I shall have an admirable Prompter this week in your behalf.
"Richard Carlile.
"Thursday morning.—My messenger has gone off to Rath-bone Place.
"You missed a fine lobster yesterday by the exclusion of your friends; but it will come.
"Beware of old Osgood; he is a wicked enemy. The wretch has dared to call on Mr. H. because he found his address in the Prompter. He was at hand yesterday to trumpet forth your alleged indiscretion. I warned him off my holy ground; but if he trespasses I shall most certainly kick his share of the Holy Ghost downstairs; and I expect that his share all lies in the seat of honor rather than in his carib skull."
This letter, though rather lengthy, I have given entire as throwing a light upon the characters of the two men then heading the "glorious cause", as Carlile puts it. The truth of the "wife and children" matter is that Taylor never had been married at that time; this was one of those very foolish tricks of which his friends accused him. Carlile knew Taylor had neither wife nor child, but knowing that his letters were in danger of being read by the gaol authorities, would not give the lie to these foolish statements and so put a weapon in their hands; he trusted to the power of his reasonable arguments in the letter to have Taylor give up such silly stratagems. The Osgood spoken of was, we believe, one of the chaplains of Horsemonger Lane Gaol, and was both meddlesome and treacherous. The letter itself has never been printed, though most of the correspondence of Carlile and Taylor, while they were both in prison, was printed in the Prompter.
On hearing that Julian Hibbert was contemplating the release of one of the imprisoned men by the payment of his fine, Carlile wrote to Hibbert as follows:—
"I think that mischief will be done by any proposition to pay the King a fine in this struggle for the liberty of the press and of speech. I should count that man my enemy who would pay such a fine for me, and set me free against my will. We cannot have too much money, but we can all make a better use of it than to pay fines."