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CHAPTER VI. SIR ROBERT GIFFORD AND THE ODIOUS "SIX ACTS"
As briefly set forth in a letter to Sir Robert Gifford, January 14th, 1820, on the new Acts of the Legislature intended to expel even the shade of liberty from this country (England): —
"My Learned Friend,
"I venture to address you by that common epithet so-much in vogue with those who profess to be opposed to each other in courts of law, and I pledge my word to you with just the same feeling. My views are not so confined, nor my mind so narrow, as to imagine that you have inflicted an injury upon me beyond the period of my confinement; on the contrary, I reflect with pleasure on all that is past, and congratulate myself that by your assistance I have sown the seeds of my future prosperity. The prominent part you have taken in bringing forward and supporting the late Acts of Parliament under the auspices of your patron and preceptor, Lord Castlereagh, has induced me to address you on their several bearings, and to show you how far they may be nullified. Let me first premise that, under the present state of public opinion, their nature and character is such as to render them short-lived. I will commence with 'The Traverse Bill', which is admitted on all hands to be the least obnoxious, as one clause of it has enacted a real benefit by taking away from your office that arbitrary and capricious power of suspending prosecutions over the heads of individuals to any length of time. In consequence of this Act, I shall have the satisfaction of making you acknowledge the abandonment of at least four informations that have been suspended over my head ever since the Michaelmas term 1817, or of bringing them immediately to trial. How far I shall succeed in making you give up or proceed with those half-dozen, or dozen others of later date, remains to be seen. I cannot quit this subject without saying that it will give me much pleasure to meet you often in the Court of King's Bench, and hope that your known dissent from the hypocritical professions of the day will further induce you to promulgate those sentiments that you privately and I publicly espouse. With respect to the intended effect of the Traverse Bill. As to accelerating trials for misdemeanors, there is some ground for complaint, because equal justice is not given to plaintiff and defendant to hasten on his trial, and for this the Bill has not provided; whilst on the other hand, he is debarred from the benefit of a delay. The excuse set up for this part of the Bill was, that I had protracted the time of my trial for near twelve months. This, Sir Robert, you know to be false, the delay was on your part, and on the part of your predecessor. I am inclined to believe that prior to the 16th of August, my prosecution was in some measure abandoned. Having been present at the Manchester meeting and narrowly escaped the sabres of the yeomanry, and got better through the truncheons of Nadin and his gang than some of the other attendants of that meeting; and lastly, having eluded the vigilance and search of the magistrates of that lawless town, I came to London and told the plain, unvarnished tale of the massacre committed by the yeomanry at the instigation of the magistrates. The necessity for getting rid of me was immediately resolved upon, that I might not in any instance give evidence on that subject. First, the project of bringing a charge of high treason against me was discussed and as soon abandoned, and the trial for the high-sounding charge of 'Blasphemy' agreed on, for the double purpose of getting rid of me as an evidence and of drawing the public attention from the Manchester affair. The Traverse Bill, considered in its proper character, is merely a clause of 'the Blasphemous and seditious Libel Bill' put into a different shape, to hide the severity of the latter. 'The search for Arms Bill' and the 'Drilling and Training Bill' are enactments of the most hideous character, which nothing but the guilty fears of its projectors could have produced. The latter should have been entitled 'An Act for the encouragement of private malice'. 'The Seditious Meeting Bill' is another of those destructive measures that has brought England on a level with Algiers. The Bills relating to the Press are now to be considered. It is with those, Sir Robert, you have given us a specimen of your disposition to annihilate the liberty of the Press altogether, for we must look on those Bills, not as the act of Parliament, but as the act of the Attorney-General. I shall therefore proceed to make my observations on them, and begin with that which is intended to increase the punishment for whatever you may be pleased to call blasphemous or seditious libel."
After giving the first, second, and third clauses of the Bill, he comes to the fourth clause, which empowers the judges or magistrates who shall preside at the second conviction of the individuals for either blasphemous or seditious libel to use their discretion (!) in fining and imprisoning such individuals or of banishing them from the country.
The fifth clause enacts that a person so sentenced to banishment shall leave the country within thirty days, or in default thereof he will be seized and sent to such a place as the Government may propose.
The sixth clause makes liable to transportation to Botany Bay, the Hulks, or to similar penalty the individual who should be found in any part of the British dominions within the term of his banishment. The letter continues: —
"The last and most important Act is now to be considered, which is entitled, 'An act to subject certain publications to the duties of stamps upon newspapers, and to make other regulations for restraining the abuses arising from the publication of blasphemous and seditious libels', but is, in fact, an imposition of a duty on political knowledge and information, for the better preservation of ignorance amongst the laboring classes. There are some very unfair exceptions in this Act; for instance, every pamphlet written in defence of the Christian religion is exempt from the duty imposed by this Act, whilst every answer coming within the quantity of paper and price prescribed, is subject to it. For instance, Dr. Rudge8 might address me on the evidences of the Christian religion in the Christian Champion for fourpence (8 cents), but I could not answer him in the Republican for less than sixpence (12 cents). These, Sir Robert, are your deeds, and they are worthy of you, for apostasy is always desperate and vicious in proportion to its former profession, while consistency at the same time becomes its mirror and object of attack.
What view your former patron had in pushing you forward is not for me to say, whether he was anxious to find an Attorney-General who should outstrip him in infamy whilst filling that office is best known to himself; but certainly, if that was his object, he has succeeded well. Your profession is certainly one that gives native genius an opportunity of displaying itself, and with a corresponding degree of spirit to reach the highest and most important offices of the State. Perhaps there never was an instance before of so young a man as yourself, or one who has been so short a time at the Bar, reaching the office you now fill, and on hearing your name announced for the office of Attorney-General I, with many others, was astonished at the promotion, knowing you by name only, as the man who was horsewhipped by Mr. Gurney, of Stannery Court notoriety, and your bringing a suit against him. In London you certainly were a briefless barrister. It was supposed that some one had discovered some lurking talent in you, and had been generous enough to push you forward. But how great was the surprise to find that you were destitute of talent as a lawyer, of grace as an orator, and of dignity as an officer of State. There are those who have affirmed that noble minds can proceed only from noble birth; as far as you are the object in view, this maxim is certainly verified, but it must be admitted that history affords us many exceptions to this rule. You, Sir Robert, in the absence of talent and of every requisite for your office and profession, have been fortunate enough to make up the deficiency by the assistance of a powerful friend. If Sir Vicary Gibbs had possessed no other personal means of bringing him out of Devonshire, and the western circuit, than Sir Robert Gilford possesses, both would have remained there to this day, the one a worn-out barrister, the other an attorney's clerk. But fortunately for you, your father had the means as a tradesman of assisting Sir Vicary Gibbs when in a state of penury, and a part of the contract was that you should be pinned on to his tail.
"R. Carlile.
"Dorchester Gaol,
"Jan. 10th 1820."
In a later letter to Sir Robert Gifford, Carlile says in a postcript: —
"I begin to fear that you and I shall never meet again in Guildhall. I mean to occupy the whole time of my imprisonment in preparing myself for the next defence of the 'Age of Reason'. If ever we meet again (in Court), I shall certainly detain you a month. I had calculated on at least ten days before, instead of three. But I had not studied my subject in the slightest degree; I kept everything to my natural feelings and a few hours' arrangement of books. I suffered myself, and foolishly, to be brow-beaten by Abbott. But the next time I will either make my defence or drive him out of Court, or he shall remove me from Court to finish the case."
Carlile dedicated the second volume of the Republican to Sir Robert in the sarcastic style which he always used in addressing him. I will give the dedication complete, as it is short, and so dismiss Sir Robert from our pages: —
"Dedication to Sir Robert Gifford, Knight, His Majesty's Attorney-General.
"Gratitude being one of the noblest traits in the character of animals, both rational and irrational, to whichever you may deem me allied, I feel that I owe it to you. I therefore embrace the earliest opportunity of dedicating a volume to you, in which I have had frequent occasion, most respectfully, to make allusions to your name and office. If I had followed the old and beaten track of troubling you with an adulatory application, begging your permission to accept this dedication, I am certain that it would have excited your ire to such a degree as to have occasioned a foaming at the mouth; equal to that which I lately witnessed in the Court of King's Bench. Therefore, considering that the soil of Devon has nurtured us both; that we sprang up at nearly the same time and under very similar circumstances, and that our relative situations in London has united us in an indissoluble tie, assuming a frank and friendly conduct, I have presumed to inscribe this second volume of the Republican to you as a token of my esteem and my sense of the high honor and benefit you have graciously bestowed on me. Should the Attorney-General be angry and think me over presumptuous, I am satisfied that Sir Robert Gifford will be pleased to have a volume dedicated to him which is replete with matter akin to his own feelings. You, Sir Robert, are amongst those who have taught us that a man, in office and out of office, forms two distinct beings, opposite both in nature and in principle; and I should not be surprised if, in the course of the revolutions of all that is natural, this country should adopt a representative system of government, or, in other words, a republican form, to find you filling some office to which your abilities shall be commensurate on the ground of your former boasted principles. It is a fact, daily demonstrated, that men who are eager to fill official situations never make principle a bar to obtaining them. It is but fair to say that when such men have a principle or attachment to a particular form of government, they are calculated to fill such a situation or office under that system with more satisfaction both to themselves and the public, but they are ever ready to sacrifice principle to interest. Since, Sir Robert, you cannot lay claim to eminence in this or any other degree, I am sufficiently charitable to lay aside the weapon of censure, and grateful to confine myself more to acknowledgment of the utility of your tergiversation towards him who prays that you may fill the office of Attorney-General as long as his Majesty or his heirs and successors shall grace the throne of Great Britain."
CHAPTER VIII. THE VICE SOCIETY
"A letter to the Society for the Suppression of Vice (self-styled, and by no one else) on their prosecution of the editor and his wife, and the object they have gained by it, namely, an exhausted fund.
"Lords, Ladies, Gentlemen, Bishops, Priests, and Deacons, composing the secret society commonly called 'The Society for the Suppression of Vice'.
"It appears that you and I have come off like all other persons who go to law for justice: one with a ragged coat, the other with none at all, only with this difference, that I who am supposed to have been defeated have got the ragged coat, and you who crow on having defeated me have none at all. I did not attempt to notice your first advertisement begging for relief, and the means of proceeding in your warfare, and setting forth your pretensions and claims to public charity in glowing colors. I thought it probable from the nervous debility of poor John Bull that your warfare on what you call blasphemy, and about which you have made so much noise, might have so far terrified him as to fill your empty coffers, particularly as your advertisement was not repeated for the moment; but it now appears that your bait has not taken. To show you that I am really sensible of the benefit you have conferred on me, and the community at large, by the circulation of such an immense number of Deistical volumes and pamphlets, I shall give your advertisement a gratuitous insertion, and then proceed to compliment you a little further on your meritorious conduct towards myself and wife.
"'Advertisement.
"'"Society for the Suppression of Vice," Committee Room, January, 1820. – The Committee beg leave to state that within the last four years they have been compelled, in order to preserve the public morals from further contamination, to institute no less than eighty-five prosecutions against offenders of various descriptions, all of which have led to conviction or to recognizances by the respective parties, and must prevent the repetition of similar crimes. They have checked the sale of toys and snuff-boxes with abominable devices, which were imported from France and other countries, they have caused the whole stock in trade of some of the most shameless and abandoned traffickers in obscene books and prints, amounting to some thousands, to be seized, and have also destroyed no less than fifty extensive copper plates, from which impressions were from time to time supplied. And lastly, they have brought to condign punishment that most audacious offender, Carlile, who, notwithstanding repeated indictments found against him, still persisted in selling works of the foulest sedition and the most horrible blasphemy that ever disgraced a free press, or outraged the feelings and principles of a British public. The necessary expenses attendant on these measures have greatly exhausted the funds of this Society, but the Committee, etc., etc.
"'Subscriptions and donations are thankfully received by the treasurer, Henry Hoare, Esq., 37, Fleet Street, and by the secretary, Mr. George Pritchard, 31, Essex Street, Strand.'
"It appears that your Society, the names of the members of which you once published annually and ostentatiously, is now reduced to a mere cabal whose names you are ashamed to publish, and that all your business is transacted at the office of your secretary, Pritchard, the lawyer, who, next to myself, has gained more by your charges than any other person. It is notorious that all prosecutions emanate from that office at the instigation of that man, who condescends to drop further proceedings whenever the victim of the prosecution will pay him about £30, which is termed expenses incurred. It is further known that this accommodation has taken place more than once with the same individual, so that the preservation of the public morals is evidently but a secondary object with this secretary of yours. The first avowed object of your Society was to seek out the persons who were instrumental in disseminating obscene books and pictures. Had you confined yourself to this, no honest or moral man would have complained of or objected to your conduct as a Society. But you studiously endeavor to connect my publications with those which are justly termed obscene, for after enumerating exertions in putting a stop to the sale of those truly objectionable articles, and while I solemnly swear I never sold anything of the description or in any way connected with them, you in the very same sentence add: 'and lastly, they have brought to condign punishment that most audacious offender, Carlile'. Now what does all this argue? Why, that I, notwithstanding the indictments you obtained against me, could put my books fearlessly and openly in my window for sale, and that the most distinguished and the most virtuous women could come into my shop and put down their money for the 'Age of Reason' or Palmer's 'Principles of Nature', and publicly express their approbation of my perseverance. It was no sooner opened by the sheriffs officer to remove the goods six weeks after the seizure than a gentleman stepped in and said, 'I will give you twelve guineas for twelve copies of the "Age of Reason."' Then I ask what part of the British public I have corrupted? or whose feelings I have outraged? It is your province to war with obscenity, mine with idolatry. I will now endeavor to show you where the advantage and disadvantage of your conduct towards me lies. I calculate that in consequence of the persecution I sold more Deistical volumes and tracts last year than I should have done in seven years in the ordinary course of business. The consequence was that I was prepared to meet all the violence that has been used on my property; and I leave you to judge whether it is not more than probable that, before the end of seven years, I or some other person shall be able to renew the publication of those works which are for the moment suppressed. Where will you be then? You will have to fight the same battle over again at a considerable expense on your part and a considerable profit on mine; besides, if once a jury pronounces a verdict of 'not guilty' on this question – and this requires but one honest man free from superstition to do this – the principle will spread like wildfire. But even admitting that none shall venture to publish those two volumes for which I am at present confined, what do we lose whilst the works of Gibbon, Hume, Voltaire, Volney, and fifty other authors of similar opinions are in full and rapid circulation? Your attempt to lay the pruning-hook to those publications will only redouble the vigor of the roots and remaining branches. Your attempt to impede the progress of truth and liberal opinion will have no other tendency than to detract from that merit and applause you would otherwise have obtained if you had confined yourself to the objects for which your Society was instituted. But your efforts to make blasphemy, or what you call blasphemy, a part of your game will only hold you up to public scorn as bigoted persecutors. In taking my leave of you I have to advise you not to remain under the scandal of being a secret society. Why do you not publish your names and the names of those subscribers of high rank and character you mention in your advertisement? You make profession of your own utility and laudable exertions; surely you cannot feel shame in publishing your names? I have been informed that Mr. Hedgher, who kept that celebrated brothel and sink of vice in St. George's Fields, for so many years called the 'Dog and Duck', is endeavoring to expiate his former conduct by becoming one of the most active and leading members of your Society. I have received this information from many different persons who are strangers to me, and who think it strange that such a man should be one of my prosecutors after living with and encouraging everything that was vicious and vile. The slight notice that I took last week of one of your right reverend Presidents must suffice for awhile.
"I remain
"Your grateful protege,
"Dorchester Gaol,
"R. Carlile.
"February 20th, 1820."
