The Battle of The Press

This is an exact copy of the article in No. 3 of the Prompter which was selected for indictment, and which, with a little rough handling of the jury, ended in giving Carlile three years' imprisonment in the Giltspur Street Compter: —

"A list of officers in the King's Household is the most ludicrous and ridiculous thing that can be read. It will not bear mention in the present day, and is of itself an evidence that a constitutional monarchy is a most ridiculous state of government. More than mimicking absolute monarchy and perpetuating all ancient follies and abuses, everything conspires against a king to tell him that he is something more than human, and all that sort of flattery is calculated to unman him and to make him less than a man! We want no mummeries and nonsense wherewith to please savages and fools in the present day. We want public officers who shall really be men of business. We want laboring men to carry on the affairs of government, who shall be paid for their labor and their labor only. Let us see what the Whigs will do to make their constitutional monarchy appear decent to the brightening eye of the public."

The Whigs were supposed to be the Liberal party as opposed to the Tories, and what they did was to immediately proceed against this article and the following, and clap Carlile into prison with heavy fines and sureties: —

"To the Insurgent and Agricultural Laborers —

"You are much to be admired for everything you are known to have done during the last month, for as yet there is no evidence before the public that you are incendiaries or even political rebels. Much as every thoughtful man must lament the waste of property, much as he country must suffer by the burning of the farm produce now going on, were you proved to be the incendiaries we should defend you by saying that you have more just and moral cause for it than any king or faction that ever made war had for making war. In war all destruction of property is counted lawful. Upon the ground of that which is called the law of nations, yours is a state of warfare, and your quarrel is the want of the necessaries of life in the midst of abundance. You see hoards of food and you are starving you see a Government rioting in every sort of luxury and wasteful expenditure, and you, ever ready to labor, cannot find one of the comforts of life. Neither your silence nor your patience has obtained for you the least respectful attention from that Government. The more tame you have grown the more you have been oppressed and despised, the more you have been trampled on; and it is only now that you begin to display your physical as well as your moral strength that your cruel tyrants treat with you and offer terms of pacification. Your demands have so far been moderate and just, and any attempt to stifle them by the threatened severity of the new Administration will be so wicked as to justify your resistance even to death and to life for life. Persevere in your moderate and just demands! Go on as you have begun, and learn – not only in precept, but in your own example – that great political sentiment of Thomas Paine, the greatest political friend of the laboring man that ever put pen to paper for his instruction, that For a nation to be free it is sufficient that she wills it!"

It was only the mildest part of this address that was chosen for the indictment, but we cannot but feel that it was what was left out of the indictment that really gave the offence.

After Carlile was in prison very large meetings were held at the Rotunda and elsewhere to voice the popular indignation at the conduct and outcome of that really disgraceful affair. The very fact that these large meetings were openly attended, and as openly addressed, without any governmental interference, showed a marked progress in the minds of men and the lessened power of those men in authority since the first trial in 1819. Then no one dared openly to say one word in his favor.

Subscriptions began to pour in unsolicited, and one was addressed to him as follows: "This subscription is the spontaneous record of hostility to a corrupt and tyrannical Whig administration, to a corrupt judge, and to a corrupt and slavish jury." The subscriptions amounted to over £100 ($500) per week for many months. Carlile, in writing to a body of friends who had sent him money and their sympathies immediately after his third trial, said: —

"I was cheered by your letter and its fifty-eight names which reached me last night. It seemed an anticipation of that encouragement which some men would require in my present situation, but which is not really necessary to push me forward. It may seem strange, but whether from habit, or what else, it is no less true, that in the course of our great political struggle I like a gaol, and am more happy here than I can possibly be anywhere else, until the time of our final triumph. To me it seems like a place of political enchantment, and that I am made the great political diviner of the State, to whom the reformers will look for encouragement and direction."

July, 1831, found the Rev. Robert Taylor in Horsemonger Lane Gaol for blasphemy, and subjected to the most rigorous treatment. This imprisonment was severely felt by the rev. gentleman, much more so than that of the previous one at Oakham. Carlile had great difficulty in keeping him in reasonable bounds, owing to Taylor's excitability and nervous temperament, which received a great strain by this vindictive punishment. Carlile urged upon Taylor the necessity of some engrossing work. In this situation "The Devil's Pulpit", "The Diegesis," and "The Syntagma" were produced. Had it not been for Carlile these would never have been written. Carlile also moved heaven and earth, to use a common expression, to get Taylor's condition ameliorated. He got the people all through England to send petitions to the House of Commons on his behalf, and kept up such a verbal cannonading that his gaolers could not help but better his condition somewhat. The following (private) letter will show what sort of a task Carlile had in hand: —

"Compter,

"July 20th, 1831.

"To Rev. R. Taylor,

"Sir, – My first duty to society is to seek the preservation of your life; your first is to preserve it as far as in your power.

If you die, we shall not fill the chasm for many years, if all the genius of England were to unite its efforts.

"I have just received your letter of this day's date. I heard at twelve o'clock that your friends were excluded for the day; at three o'clock by the medium of the vile old Osgood that there had been a fury between you and your gaoler. You say Walter the gaoler insults you. That is your fault. It is not in the power of man to insult me. The world could not do it if it were to try. Assault is one thing, but insult is another, and there can only be insult where there is a disposition to court it. Human nature is capable of a dignity that will not leave room for the word insult. Unfortunately you have the temperament that encourages villainy to be insolent. Let us try if reason cannot cure you of this disorder, which to you, at this moment, is as bad and dangerous a plague as the cholera morbus. To begin, let me remind you of the question of the Greek philosopher when asked why he did not resent the insolence of a vile fellow? He answered: 'Friend, if a jackass were to kick me, would you have me kick him back again?'

"By the statute law of gaol management the gaoler is required to go into every cell in which a prisoner is confined every day. Let him do so. If he must see you it is no reason why you should see him. I have been placed under much greater difficulties in Dorchester Gaol than those under which you are now placed. My gaoler would have given his fingers to have worked me into such a temper in which you were seen this morning. I never so gratified him; and pray do not you so gratify yours again. I know that reason is one thing and passion another; and that neither one nor the other can at all times be commanded. In the first place, let us have no more tricks. They greatly embarrass your friends and thwart our efforts and means of assisting you. It is now with you no time for poetry, for rhapsody, or for jest. You have and we have for you a serious game to play. At trick, our Christian enemy will beat us. I heard on Sunday that a Surrey magistrate had said: 'Taylor is playing some tricks with us about his pretended wife. We know all about it, and will out-trick him.'

"They will beat us at any game but that of open honesty. I have always seen this. You know my word. No secrets, no smuggling; nothing but that which will be fair and above board. My politics would have hung me twelve years ago if I had been a politician anywhere but through the Press and in the course of such lectures as I have delivered to public companies. No plots; no schemes; no tricks; no purposes but those which are openly avowed. I do not write in the spirit of reproach; but of salvation, of plan of warfare, of a determination to conquer the common enemy; and in this spirit, allow me to say that your friends, Mr. Hibbert, Mr. Prout, Mr. Ewen, and myself, are sorry for much that has been written, spoken, and done during your horrible fortnight past. There has been trick and impropriety in it, and it has not succeeded. It cannot succeed. Yours is a glorious situation if you will but fight your battle well. Having gained the necessaries – the physical necessaries of life – you should now make every shot tell among the enemy, and not allow another shot of theirs to reach you.

"I am more than a brother – I have an estate in your life. I shall lose and not gain an estate in your death. Not one word but a word of comfort should you hear from me did I not think some explanation necessary to the salvation of your life.

"If you were going out of the harbor in a ship to fight an enemy in another ship, would you not put your wife and children ashore if they were aboard? Let it be so now. Don't say to the enemy, 'Don't fire, because my wife and children are aboard,' but let them stay ashore, and you may safely say – 'Damn you, fire away! I will rake you fore and aft, and give you broadsides between wind and water, and you shall not put a shot into me.' You may have it so if you will, and if you will not you will be beaten and die a thousand deaths. Your life is in your own hands, and not in the hands of your enemies. For the means and the disposition for annoyance, you cannot be worse situated than I was at Dorchester Gaol through four years and more of the time; yet I came out through it triumphantly, and I am of opinion that a similar game will never be tried or attempted on me again.

"First, then, I advise respectfully, regard fully and in the most friendly and brotherly spirit, that you send your wife and children ashore and say not one word more about them while the battle rages. Too much has been said, but my mouth has been sealed until I received your letter this evening. I will communicate the spirit of that letter by the first messenger that I can command to-morrow, and will, while I can, protect and comfort your family. But I will not, till I see a better reason for so doing, permit one more word about them. Too much has already been printed. Your friends – those whom I know to be your friends – are grieved, doubly grieved by that circumstance which doubly grieved you. It has been hitherto your fault to present your weak side to your enemy. You have in you the spirit of a divinity that is invincible. You have the spirit of humanity also that is weak and to be conquered – now which will you present to your enemies? They are not to be subdued by appeals to their sympathy or by any moral force. You must subdue them by making them afraid. They will beat you at any game that is wrong, they will be powerless if you avail yourself of your best and fairest means of warfare.

"If I could tell you of my motives, my feelings, my calculations, my every action in Dorchester Gaol, it would be a useful lesson for you. Blackguard, vile and wicked as was that gaoler, I made him fear me, simply by looking at him; yet I never expressed myself toward him that he could describe it as an insult or a threat, I conquered him by virtue. Leigh Hunt was once confined in your gaol and was much illused at first, but afterwards he obtained something approaching to decent treatment, and had his wife and children with him and free admission for his friends.

"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."

Lines written by Carlile.

(On the 4th month, 29th day, of imprisonment, 1831.)

     "I, in this sweet retirement, find     A joy unknown to Kings,     For sceptres to a virtuous mind     Seem vain and empty things.     Tumultous joys, and restless nights,     Ambition ever knows,     A stranger to the calm delights     Of study and repose."

Response of Julian Hibbert.

"Well pleased, I read, and reading must commend Man's true and honest, persecuted friend. Nor you refuse the praise my muse bestows, Free from an uncorrupted heart it flows. Oh! would mankind but pause awhile and think, From persecution as from sin they'd shrink, Such simple reasoning must their souls awake, And from their thoughts blind superstition shake The empty dreams that filled their mind before, No more should fight them or disturb them more. Sweet heartfelt pleasure should their fears succeed, Sweet tranquil pleasure, sweet the thought indeed. Write always thus, Carlile. Oh! may your tyrants yet repent and save Man's truest friend from living in the grave."

In 1833 Carlile's prison doors were almost unexpectedly opened and he passed out into the open air once more a free man – that is free corporally, he was always free as to mind and pen. He was not daunted or dismayed by threats, or the little matter of a year or two's imprisonment. As in the case of Dorchester Gaol, he had turned his room into a bookshop and warehouse, edited various papers from the prison, and carried on a large business by messengers and correspondence, and had accumulated such a mass of stuff in the way of letters, books and papers, etc., as to require a large van to remove them. The facts relating to his release were very amusing. His sentence required two years' imprisonment, two sureties in £250 each, and a heavy personal fine. In the first place a warrant was sent down to the governor of the prison to release Carlile, and remitting one part of the sureties. This Carlile would not accept. A month later a warrant came down for his release and remittal of the fine. Carlile sent word back that that would not do yet, as the fine was remitted on condition that he put in his personal recognizances of £500. He instantly wrote back to Lord Melbourne that "he would do nothing of the kind". Then a third warrant came down; nothing was left but the personal recognizances, and this third warrant removed that, so that Carlile had everything he stood out for at last, and left the Compter in triumph. As he said: "I came out with flying colors without yielding a single point". Carlile met a large congregation of 2,000 people on the following Sunday at the Rotunda, and was given a fine, hearty greeting. Here, too, the Rev. Robert Taylor made his reappearance, and met with great enthusiasm. This was Carlile's last appearance on the floor of the Rotunda, for the very next day it was leased to Mr. Davidge, an actor, who was to open it up once again for theatrical purposes. Mr. Davidge, in his announcement to the public of the change in its management, "hoped that they would congratulate themselves on the remarkable advantage a first-class theatre would be to them over this sink of profligacy, etc., etc., which had been a focus for the concentration of the worst characters, from whence had emanated the most demoralising and destructive doctrine both in religion and politics, etc., etc., operating at once as a shock to the good sense, good feelings, and as a serious detriment to the interests and comforts of the entire neighborhood, etc., etc.," then, privately, penned the following note: —

"5, Charlotte Terrace,

"August 29th, 1833.

"To Mr. Carlile.

"Sir, – If you are disposed to purchase the lease of the City Theatre (once Mr. Fletcher's chapel) I will sell it to you for £600. The rent £200 a year – about sixteen years unexpired – with immediate possession.

"I am, sir,

"Your most obedient servant,

"C. B. Davidge."

Carlile printed both the announcement and the private letter in the Gauntlet, without comment. Davidge evidently was not afraid to lease any property of his to Carlile, for all of his high sounding charges in the public announcement. So it was in almost all the affairs of Carlile's life – publicly enemies, privately friends.

CHAPTER XV. SCATTERED THREADS

ON WOMAN.

"An amiable woman is one of Nature's perfect works, unspoiled and uncorrupted by man. Any number of men brought together without women could not be kept together in any other character than as slaves or under military discipline. Therefore, as women form the groundwork of society and civilisation, their presence and influence must be beneficial in the same ratio as the civilised is preferable to the savage state. All history gives us proof that the degree of virtue and amiableness in women is in proportion to the freedom they enjoy or the degree in which they can move and act independently and uncontrolled. The freedom and independence of woman is the best proof and guarantee for the freedom and independency of man. A despotism never exists in one degree alone, it is expansive and dangerous. If it exists in the head of a family, every member of it will be despotic according to the degree of power of some other member or members. With women there is no medium; they are neuter in nothing. It is, then, the duty of man to make virtuous the soil where woman treads, and she will be found to blossom in purity and Nature's most splendid and perfect work – a radiant and unclouded constellation, illuminating all within her sphere. Philosophers in general have not paid that deference which is due to the female in society; in speaking or writing for the improvement of society they have passed by woman as a secondary or insignificant object, whereas she forms the most important channel through which virtue can be propagated and the social state be rendered peaceable, prosperous, and happy. Every impression that is attempted to be made on the female mind that she is an inferior being, every step that is taken to degrade her, is a bar to virtue, an inlet to vice. It interesteth the welfare of society to raise the female character to the highest possible pitch in the scale of intellect, even to a competition with the male in all the fine arts, science, and general literature. A free and unlimited discussion on all the merits of this and all subjects is the sure harbinger of improvement. When we reach this climax the age of virtue as well as the age of reason will approach. Let them make themselves acquainted with the science of government upon the simple basis of republicanism or the representative system of government, and particularly to examine and weigh well the dogmas and pretensions of all priests.

"If I have read history correctly the best of women have been most virtuously bold and have been seen as public teachers. All public reforms are moral proceedings. All useful public teachings are moral proceedings, and in all such proceedings women, while their manners are mild and becoming, can never be wrong. The propriety of the thing will rest upon the way of doing it. The great fault I find in woman is that inanity in character which places them below the line of equality with men. Alive to female influence in the propagation and maintenance of opinion, I find my reason in paying them every proper compliment and attention, and I hold in contempt that contracted mind that would so narrow their sphere of usefulness as to represent them as criminals in publicity, or make it a crime to appear in public with them. This state of things has partly arisen from the circumstance that past politics have consisted of an advocacy of men rather than of principles, that there has not been in reality any code of morals existing, and that religion hitherto has been a prevailing and epidemic disease among the human race. It is impossible to describe what the high state of man and woman will be without religion, with a good code of morals, with good laws, with good and cheap government; and when party contentions are swallowed up in the advocacy of good principles. Female efforts can never be more usefully applied than toward the improvement of the human race. And nothing can be effectually done in the way of moral and physical improvement without the assistance of women.12 I feel the necessity of a constant appeal on this point, and am not for treating women as the mere breeding machines for the human race, and men as the directing lords of the aggregate machinery. There is no kind of equality more deniably advantageous for the welfare of the human race than the equality of the sexes. The present (1828) general character of woman is that of a gaudily dressed doll, a toy made up as a plaything rather than as a companion for man. In the aggregate there exists no such a quality as female mind. There are men who think this is the most fit state for the female race to be kept. I think differently, knowing that woman is the mother, the nurse, the general instructress of the man, knowing that the mind of the man is in a great measure formed by that of the woman. I would have the woman most perfect as an essential preliminary to the greater perfection of man. I know no proper regulation with relation to the principle of knowledge, but that of the most unlimited acquirement that is possible to the acquisition of either sex. To say that this and the other point of knowledge is improper for the attention of woman, is to assume a tyrannical judgment and to put her below the pale of human equality. For a woman to be content under that pale of equality is to exhibit mental degradation."