THE HISTORY OF THE LAST TRIAL BY JURY FOR ATHEISM IN ENGLAND:

A Fragment of Autobiography

Submitted For The Perusal Of Her Majesty's Attorney-General And The British Clergy.

By George Jacob Holyoake

I was present in the court, to witness the trial of George Jacob Holyoake. I heard Wooler and Hone defend themselves successfully in 1817; but I would prefer to be declared guilty with Holyoake to being acquitted on the ground of Wooler and Hone.—Richard Carlile.

LONDON: JAMES WATSON, 3, QUEEN'S HEAD PASSAGE,
PATERNOSTER ROW. 1850.
TO
WILLIAM JOHN BIRCH, M.A.,
OF NEW INN HALL, OXON.
IN WHOM FREE DISCUSSION HAS FOUND
AN ACCOMPLISHED DEFENDER AND MUNIFICENT FRIEND;
WHO WAS FIRST TO HELP US
WHEN A FRIEND IS TWICE A FRIEND,
WHEN WE WERE UNKNOWN AND STRUGGLING;
THIS HISTORY OF SIX MONTHS IMPRISONMENT

Contents

[ PREFACE. ]
[ THE HISTORY OF THE LAST TRIAL BY JURY FOR ATHEISM. ]

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PREFACE.

The events, more than half of which are newly narrated in this 'History,' are recited from recollection. It is not pretended that all the conversations took place with the brevity with which they are given here. In the lapse of eight years there is much which I must have forgotten; but what I have told I distinctly remember, and the actors living will not, I think, contradict it.

As, by a creditable improvement in English law, the recommencement of prosecutions for (ir)religious opinion can originate with the Attorney-General alone, I have ventured to hope that, if this narrative should fall into the hands of that officer for the time being, it may present some reasons to him why this 'Last Trial by Jury for Atheism' should be the last.

There are some passages in these Fragments over which some will be sad with me. Others will assume them to be written for effect; for such, let me say, they were not written at all. These pages will leave me for the press with much more pleasure if I can believe that no one will connect them with me, but read them as a posthumous record of bygone events. At times I thought I would omit all incidents of feeling; but I felt, that if I did so the narrative would not represent the whole (personal) truth of these proceedings—and, as they stand, they may serve to suggest to some a doubt of the correctness of the oft-repeated dictum of the Rev. Robert Hall, that 'Atheism is a bloody and a ferocious system, which finds nothing above us to excite awe, nor around us to awaken tenderness.'

Whether these are sufficient reasons for the purpose, I know not; but this I know—they are the true ones. As I very much dislike being an object of pity, those will much mistake me who suppose that this narrative has been written to excite it. In my estimation, imprisonment was a matter of conscience. I neither provoked prosecution nor shrank from it; and I am now as far from desiring it as I trust I ever shall be from fearing it. I do not pretend to despise public approval, but I think it should be regarded as a contingent reward, not as the sole motive of action; for he who only works while the public (always fickle in memory) care to remember him, is animated by a very precarious patriotism. As I have once, before said, it is an encouragement to me that others may profit by any public principle I may assist in maintaining: but my interest in it is personal also. Though no one else desired freedom, it is enough for me that I desire it; and I would maintain the conflict for it, as best I could, though no one else cared about it; and, as I choose to make the purchase, I do not higgle about the price. Tyranny has its soldiers, and why not Freedom? While thousands daily perish at the shrine of passion, what is the pain of a sacrifice now and then for public principle or personal freedom?

G. J. H.

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THE HISTORY OF THE LAST TRIAL BY JURY FOR ATHEISM.

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CHAPTER I. BEFORE THE IMPRISONMENT

That day is chilled in my memory when I first set out for Cheltenham. It was in December 1840. The snow had been frozen on the ground a fortnight. There were three of us, Mrs. Holyoake, Madeline (our first child), and myself. I had been residing in Worcester, which was the first station to which I had been appointed as a Social Missionary. My salary (16s. per week) was barely sufficient to keep us alive in summer. In winter it was inherent obstinacy alone which made us believe that we existed. I feel now the fierce blast which came in at the train windows from 'the fields of Tewkesbury,' on the day on which we travelled from Worcester to Cheltenham. The intense cold wrapped us round like a cloak of ice.

The shop lights threw their red glare over the snow-bedded ground as we entered the town of Cheltenham, and nothing but the drift and ourselves moved through the deserted streets. When at last we found a fire we had to wait to thaw before we could begin to speak. When tea was over we were-escorted to the house where we were to stay for the night. I was told it was 'a friend's house.' Cheltenham is a fashionable town, a watering, visiting place, where everything is genteel and thin. As the parlours of some prudent house-wives are kept for show, and not to sit in, so in Cheltenham numerous houses are kept 'to be let,' and not to live in. The people who belong to the apartments are like the supernumeraries on a stage, they are employed in walking over them. Their clothes are decent—but they cannot properly be said to wear them: they carry them about with them (on their backs of course, because that mode is most convenient) but simply to show that they have such things. In the same manner eating and drinking is partly pantomime, and not a received reality. Such a house as I have suggested was the 'friend's house' to which we were conducted till lodgings could be found. We were asked to sit by the kitchen fire on 'the bench in the corner,' and there we sat from eight till one o'clock, without being asked to take anything to eat. Madeline, deprived of her usual rest, continued sucking at the breast till her mother was literally too exhausted to speak. A neighbouring festivity kept my 'friends' up that night till two o'clock—up to which time we saw no prospect of bed or supper. As we entered the house, Eleanor, with a woman's prescience, said 'George, you had better go and buy some food.' 'Buy food,' I replied, in simplicity, 'the people at this fine house will be outraged to see me bring in food.' Retribution was not far off. I repented me of my credulity that night. When at last I clearly comprehended that we were to have nothing to eat, I proceeded to take affairs into my own hands, and being too well assured of the insensibility of my host, I did it in a way that I conceived suited to his capacity, and began as follows:

'We have talked all night about social progress, and if you have no objection we will make some. And if eating,' I added, 'be not an irregular thing in your house, we will take some supper.'

'I am very sorry to say,' he answered, 'we have nothing to offer you.'

'Charge me bed and board while we are with you,' I rejoined, 'but let us have both. You have bread, I suppose?'

'We have some rice bread.'

'Perhaps you will toast it.' 'Will you have it toasted?

'I will. Could you not make coffee?'

'We have no coffee.'

'Tea?'

'We have no tea.' 'Any water?'

'No hot water.'

'Any butter?'

'Yes, we have salt butter.'

'Then put some on the bread,' I added, for he did not even propose to do that. I had to dispute every inch of hospitality with him. My 'friend,' Mr. V., was an instance of that misplacement of which Plato speaks in his 'Republic' What a capital Conservative he would have made! No innovation with him—not even into his own loaf! I was obliged to take the initiative into the 'salt' butter.

After seeing the bread toasted, and buttering it myself, to make sure that it was buttered, I put on my hat and went into the streets, in search of material out of which to manufacture a cordial, for eight hours had then elapsed since Eleanor had had any sustenance, and my good host's choice reserve of cold water did not seem quite adequate to revive her.

When I reached the dark streets, to which I was so absolute a stranger, not knowing where I stood on the slippery ground, made so by frozen rain on a bedding of snow, I had not gone (or rather slipped) far before I was fairly lost. Like the sense in a Rousseauian love-letter, I neither knew whence I came nor whither I was going, and when I succeeded in my errand it was at the last place at which I should wish to be found.

During my absence that voluptuous caterer, 'mine host,' whom I had left behind—whose counterpart Maginn must have had before him when he drew the portrait of 'Quarantotti'—had proceeded so far as to boil some water. The evening ended without inconsistency, and the bed corresponded with the supper.

The next day I took lodgings, where, expecting nothing, I was no longer disappointed. But on this occasion, profiting by the experience of the preceding night, I went provided with a small stock of loaves and chocolate. My stay in Cheltenham was more agreeable than was to be expected after such an introduction; but I remember that I had to pay my expenses back again, and though they only amounted to 12s., I felt the want of them for a long time afterwards. Yet Cheltenham was not without generous partizans, but, as is common in the incipiency of opinion, they were at that time among that class who had fewest means. The experience here recounted was a sample of that frequently recurring, but not exactly of the kind on which vanity is nurtured, as the reader will think as he reverts (from a speech to be recited) to these incidents. He who reads thus far will acquit me of any premeditation of disturbing the peace of the religious inhabitants of Cheltenham, for it is certainly the last town I should have selected as the scene of such an occurrence as the one which I have to narrate.

My next location was in a northern manufacturing town, where I was treated like its iron-ware—case hardened. My salary there of 30s. per week was a subject of frequent discussion by the members of the Branch. For this sum I taught a Day School and lectured on Sunday. And as he who lives the life of a child all the week (as he must do who teaches children to any purpose) finds it hard to live that of a man on Sunday, my duties were wearying and perplexing. Those who grudged my salary made no sufficient allowance for that application necessary for the discharge of my duties—an application which often commenced long before they were up in the morning, and continued long after their mechanical employment was over at night. Not comprehending myself, at that time, that they who work for the improvement of others must not calculate on their appreciation as an encouragement, but as a result, I was thrown into that unpleasant state in which my pride incited me to stop and my duty to go on. It was not till subsequent to my return from Glasgow, four years afterwards, that I mastered the problem thus raised which so many have been ruined in solving. Though an Anti-Priest, my treatment was that of a priest. My congregation, as is the case with most Freethinkers, objected to the pay of the priest, when the true quarrel was with error, and not with payment: for if a man has the truth, it is well that it should be his interest to hold it. But Dissent, objecting to the pay of others, has been left without pay itself—hence its apostles have been reduced to fight the lowest battles of animal wants, when they should have been fighting for the truth. Dissent has too often paid its advocates the bad compliment of supposing, that if placed within reach of competence they would either fall into indolence or hypocrisy. It has acted practically upon the hypothesis, that the only possible way of ensuring their zeal and sincerity was to starve them—a policy which leaves progress to the mercy of accident. For a long period the operation of this policy chilled me. My initiation into affairs of progress was in company with men who estimated, above all other virtues, the virtue which worked for nothing. They would denounce the patriotism of that man who accepted a shilling for making a speech, although it had cost him more to compose it than those who heard it would probably give to save their country. Nine tenths of the best public men and women I have known, have turned back at this point. Not any new conviction—not any bribe of the enemy, but the natural though unwise revolt against being considered mendicants, has forced them back into supineness, indifference, or even into the very ranks of oppression. True, I felt that he who labours with his brains is worthy of his hire as well as he who labours with his hands. As often as I read a book or heard a lecture, which threw new light on the paths of life, I found that it not only relieved me from the dominion of ignorance, but imparted to me the strength of intelligence. I felt indebted to the author and speaker, for I found that knowledge was not only power, but property. I knew all this, but painful years passed over me before I acquired the courage to offer what instruction I had to impart as an article of commercial value. Those who have encountered this kind of experience know that the feeling it engenders is one of indifference, and that an unusual speech would arise in a cold sense of duty, and not in wantonness or wickedness. Thus much will inform the reader of the circumstances under which I spoke the alleged blasphemy in Cheltenham.

A fellow-missionary, Mr. Charles Southwell, had, in conjunction with Mr. Chilton and Mr. Field, set up an Atheistical periodical in Bristol, entitled the Oracle of Reason—which the authorities attempting forcibly to put down, Mr. Southwell was sentenced to twelve months' imprisonment in Bristol Gaol. On a visit to him I walked ninety miles from Birmingham to Bristol, and as my way lay through Cheltenham, I staid a night in that town to deliver a lecture on 'Home Colonisation as a means of superseding Poor Laws and Emigration.' At the conclusion of the lecture I instructed the chairman to make the announcement, which I still make after my lectures, viz., that any of the audience may put relevant questions or offer what objections they consider useful—whereupon a person stood up of the name of Maitland, a teetotaller, and sort of local preacher, and complained that 'though I had told them their duty to man, I had not told them of their duty to God,' and inquired 'whether we should have churches and chapels in community?'

I answered thus: 'I do not desire to have religion mixed up with an economical and secular subject, but as Mr. Maitland has introduced questions in reference to religion I will answer him frankly. Our national debt already hangs like a millstone round the poor man's neck, and our national church and general religious institutions cost us, upon accredited computation, about twenty millions annually. Worship being thus expensive, I appeal to your heads and your pockets whether we are not too poor to have a God? If poor men cost the state as much, they would be put like officers upon half-pay, and while our distress lasts I think it would be wise to do the same thing with deity. Thus far I object, as a matter of political economy, to build chapels in communities. If others want them they have themselves to please, but I, not being religious, cannot propose them. Morality I regard, but I do not believe there is such a thing as a God.* The pulpit says "Search the Scriptures," and they who are thus trepanned get imprisoned in Bristol jail, like my friend Mr. Southwell. For myself, I flee the Bible as a viper, and revolt at the touch of a Christian.'

Perhaps this reply was indecorous, but it was nothing more, and as it was delivered in a tone of conversational freedom, it produced only quiet amusement on the meeting. The next day I continued my journey to Bristol. A day or two after I received the Cheltenham Chronicle, commonly called the Rev. Francis Close's paper, it being the organ of his party, in which I read the following paragraph—written with that exaggerated virulence which Archdeacon Hare has subsequently deprecated as the bane of religious journalism, but which at that time was considered as a holy ornament:—

* I do not remember using this phrase, but as the witnesses
reported it perhaps it was so; but I still incline to the
opinion that it was an expression they fell upon in stating
their impressions of the meeting to their employers, and all
working in one office, they fell into one story, either
through inadvertence or from precaution.

Atheism and Blasphemy.—On Tuesday evening last a person named Holyoake, from Manchester, (?) delivered a lecture on Socialism (or, as it has been more appropriately termed, devilism), at the Mechanics' Institution. After attacking the Church of England and religion generally for a considerable time, he said he was open to any question that might be put to him. A teetotaller named Maitland then got up, and said the lecturer had been talking a good deal about our duty to man, but he omitted to mention our duty towards God, and he would be glad to know if there were any chapels in the community? The Socialist then replied that he professed no religion at all, and thought they were too poor to have any. He did not believe there was such a being as a God, and impiously remarked that if there was* he would have the deity served the same as government treated the subalterns, by placing him upon half-pay. With many similar blasphemous and awful remarks, which we cannot sully our columns by repeating, the poor misguided wretch continued to address the audience. To their lasting shame, be it spoke, a considerable portion of the company applauded the miscreant during the time he was giving utterance to these profane opinions.

We have three persons in our employ who are ready to verify on oath the correctness of the above statements. We therefore hope those in authority will not suffer the matter to rest here, but that some steps will immediately he taken to prevent any further publicity to such diabolical sentiments.—Ed. Cheltenham Chronicle.*

* This is an interpolation.

Some have censured the openness of my answer to Mr. Maitland as being inexpedient. It is not impossible to justify it on that ground, but I have an aversion to do it. Expediency has nothing to do with what a man shall say. Expediency may close the mouth, but it has no power over the speech if the mouth once opens. A man may keep silence if he chooses, but if he does speak he has no alternative but to speak that which is frank and true. But at that time there were political reasons why I should not evade the question put to me. The Odd Fellow of Mr. Hetherington (under the editorship of W. J. Linton) had shortly before contained an able article beginning thus:—

The world need not be much frightened at the present race of Socialists. However heinous their doctrines may be thought, there need be no fear, they will not act in too close accordance with them. For ourselves, having been among them at various times, we have never yet been able to discover any certain marks, whether of manner, of opinion, or of conduct, whereby to distinguish them from the mass of professing Christians. However heterodox their innermost sentiments, they usually maintain as decent an appearance of conformity with custom as the most worldly and orthodox could desire.

This was a character which no progressive party could live with, and as the hypocrisy here charged upon us was generally believed, and not wholly without reason, it became necessary either to give up the party or refute the accusation. The attack on Mr. Owen's friends, by the Bishop of Exeter in the House of Lords, had been evaded, not met, and a noble opportunity, such as bigotry seldom affords to a rising party, had been suffered to pass away unused. The enemy triumphed. In this very town of Cheltenham a young poet, named Sperry, who betrayed freethink-ing tendencies, had been called upon to recant. He did so, and then he was treated with contempt by those who intimidated him. They first destroyed his moral influence, and then despised him. I had therefore sufficient public reasons for not tempting a similar fate. If I had refused to reply, it would have been said I held opinions too horrible to avow. Had I evaded the answer I should have been considered a time-server, and if I answered frankly there were the legal consequences in prospect. I was not very much skilled in policy, but I knew this much that when a man cannot take care of consequences, he ought to take care of the credit of his cause. A little anticipating this history I may say that the expediency of the course I took, if the expediency must be defended, was shown in the altered tone of the authorities, both in Cheltenham and Gloucester, after my trial. Instead of that contempt with which persons holding Socialist opinions are treated, there was a somewhat respectful recognition of them. However crude might be considered my defence of my views, nothing escaped me that could be distorted into a willingness to avoid any suffering at the expense of my adherence to the principles I had adopted. Many persons who would not have spoken to me before came and expressed regret at what had happened, and I met with many instances of regard from persons who had formerly despised those with whom I acted.

I was indebted to the Odd-Fellow of July 23, then edited by Eben Jones, author of 'Studies of Sensation and Event,' for the fairest statement of my conduct and of the point in question, which the press gave. It was thus expressed:—

We cannot refrain from saying, that under the peculiar circumstances, Mr. Holyoake (presuming his disbelief in a God to be sincere) could not have said other than he did say, and at the same time have continued honest. It is true he was not asked, 'Do you believe in a God?' but a question was put to him which assumed his belief in a God, and had he not testified at once his disbelief, he would have sanctioned the false assumption: and if not a liar, would have been at least the permitter of a lie; between which is no distinction recognised by an honourable man. In arguing thus we would not express any sympathy whatever with Mr. Holyoake's atheism, we are merely concerned to show that it was not Mr. Holyoake's right alone, but absolutely his duty, to say that 'he did not believe in a God.' It was his duty, if it be the duty of man to be honest; he could not have spoken otherwise, unless he had 'lied against his heart,' and lied towards mankind.

The next number of the aforesaid Cheltenham Chronicle brought me this further notice:—

Holyoake the Blasphemous Socialist Lecturer.—In reference to a paragraph which appeared in the last Chronicle regarding this monster, the magistrates read the article alluded to, and expressed their opinion that it was a clear case of blasphemy. In order to check the further progress of his pernicious doctrines, the superintendent of police was ordered to use every exertion to bring him to justice.

On reading this paragraph I lost no time in setting out for Cheltenham, to hold a public meeting and justify myself to the town. Foot-sore and weary—for the journey was more than thirty miles, and the day very hot—I reached Cheltenham on the 1st of June, and proceeded as privately as a 'monster' could to my friends the Adamses. The next night I slid like sleep into the meeting, lest the police should prevent me from addressing it. Mr. Leech, a leading Chartist, presided, and the meeting was addressed by Messrs. Parker, jun., Geo. Adams, W. Bilson, and J. B. Lear. The Chartists of Cheltenham at that time held possession of the Mechanics' Institution, and they were threatened with the loss of it, if they let it to me to speak in any more. But as I required it in self-defence they generously disregarded the menace, and permitted me the use of it. My friends in the distant town of Newcastle-upon-Tyne afterwards gracefully acknowledged this kindness by making a collection for Mrs. Holberry, the wife of a Sheffield Chartist who had perished in prison. Before I had been long in the meeting, Superintendent Russell came in with about a dozen men, who were arranged on each side the door, and their glazed hats formed a brilliant, but a dubious back-ground for a meeting on Free-Discussion. I spoke an hour after they came in. So rare an audience was not to be thrown away, and I thought we might convert some of them. At the conclusion Superintendent Russell, who had the politeness to wait till we had done, intimated that he had instructions to apprehend me. I asked for his warrant. He said he had none. It was in vain that I protested against the irregularity of the proceeding. He replied that his instructions were imperative upon him—and it was thereupon arranged that I should walk down to the station with Mr. Hollis, a well-known gun maker of Cheltenham, and there, the meeting following, we arrived in procession between eleven and twelve o'clock.

To the truth, it is no great proof a posteriori of a man's extravagance, that he should be involved in legal proceedings in Cheltenham on account of freedom of speech. Owing to priestly and conventional influences, that town will furnish a jury who would, under direction, bring in any man guilty of blasphemy who boiled his tea-kettle on a Sunday. Not long before the time now spoken of, a Mormon preacher, holding forth there, happened to say that the Elements of Euclid were as true as the Bible: and for this he was indicted for blasphemy, and was only saved from imprisonment by the grand jury (who must have had infidel tendencies) throwing out the bill.

On the morning after my apprehension I was taken before the Rev. Dr. Newell, R. Capper, and J. Overbury, Esquires, magistrates of Cheltenham. The Rev. Dr. Newell ought to have had the pride, if not the decency, to have kept away.

The Cheltenham Chronicle reported that' George Jacob Holyoake, who was described as a Socialist lecturer, and as the editor of the Oracle of Reason, was charged with delivering atheistical and blasphemous sentiments at the Mechanics' Institution, on the evening of the 24th of May. The prisoner had been apprehended last night, after delivering another lecture at the same place. The affair appeared to have caused great sensation, and several persons attended at the office anxious to hear the examination. Amongst the number were some individuals who, without the blush of shame mantling their cheeks, acknowledged themselves friends of the accused.'

Mr. Bubb, a local solicitor, a particularly gross and furious man, then said—'I attend to prefer the charge of blasphemy, and I shall take my stand on the common unwritten law of the land. There have been a variety of statutes passed for punishing blasphemy, but these statutes in no way interfere with the common unwritten law. (Mr. Capper nodded assent.)* Any person who denies the existence or providence of God is guilty of blasphemy, and the law has annexed to that offence imprisonment, corporal punishment, and fine. I shall give evidence of the facts, and I shall ask that he be committed for trial, or required to find bail for his appearance. The offence is much aggravated by his having put forth a placard, announcing a lecture on a subject completely innocent, and having got together a number of persons, has given utterance to those sentiments which are an insult to God and man.'

* Mr. Bubb took his stand on the common law because his
object was to make it a sessions case, and to take it out
of the statuary law, which (9 & 10 Will. 3, c. 32) would
have required that information of the words spoken should be
laid before a justice of the peace within four days from
their utterance, and would likewise have implied a trial at
the assizes.

The assertion that I had employed duplicity in choosing my subject was quite gratuitous. Addressing the Bench, I asked whether it was legal in these cases to apprehend persons without the authority of a warrant?

Mr. Capper replied, 'Any person in the meeting would be justified in taking you up without the authority of a warrant,' which showed that the Bench were better read in Bigotry than in Blackstone. I said it was customary in other towns, where bigotry existed to a greater degree even than it did there, for information to be laid and a regular notice served.

Mr. Capper said, 'We refuse to hold an argument with a man professing the abominable principle of denying the existence of a supreme Being,' This was not a very legal way of getting rid of my objections, but it answered in Cheltenham.

Two witnesses, James Bartram and William Henry Pearce, both of the Chronicle office, were adduced to report the words that formed the ground of the indictment. Neither of them could recollect anything else but the objectionable words reported in their own paper, and to these they did not swear positively, but only to the 'best of their belief.' Mr. Pearce was not produced at the trial at the Assizes, he having no local reputation but that of a dog-fancier and fighter, which did not render him a creditable authority on matters pertaining to religion. Bartram's sister was a Socialist, and she came to me some years after, in Manchester, to apologise for the disgrace brought upon her family by the weakness or the ignorance of her brother.

Mr. Overbury said he considered the case satisfactorily proved, and added, 'Whether you are of no religion is of very little consequence to us, but your attempt to propagate the infamous sentiment that there is no God, is calculated to produce disorder and confusion, and is a breach of the peace.' This was the remark of an ill-informed politician rather than of a Christian.

Being required to enter into my own recognizances of £100, and find two sureties of £50 each, Mr. Partridge became one, and Mr. Henry Fry, editor of the Educational Circular, offered himself as the other. But the Rev. Dr. Newell objected to Mr. Fry's bail, on the ground that he did not swear positively that he was worth £50 when all his debts were paid. He swore only that 'to the best of his belief he was so. I reminded the Bench that they had accepted the evidence of the witnesses against me on the same ground, namely 'the best of their belief.' Hereupon the Rev. Dr. Newell, with an air of outraged morality, exclaimed 'Come, come! we'll have no quibbling.'

I answered that I did not propose to quibble, for if that had been to my taste I might have avoided standing there at that moment. Mr. Bubb then interjected that he should demand twenty-four hours' notice of bail. Another gentleman then offered himself, whom I desired to sit down and let the Bench take their own course. This indifference with regard to the Bench incensed them very much.

Mr. Capper said, 'Even the heathens acknowledged the existence of a Deity. If you entertain the same pernicious opinion on your death-bed you will be a bold man indeed. But you are only actuated by a love of notoriety.' I only answered, 'Why do you address me thus, since you will not allow me to reply?' and I turned away repeating to myself the words of Sir Thomas Browne—'There is a rabble amongst the gentry as well as the commonalty; a sort of plebeian heads, whose fancy moves with the same wheel as these: men in the same level with mechanics, though their fortunes do somewhat gild their infirmities, and their purses compound, for their follies.'

But I ought to say that during these proceedings the people in the court, of juster feeling than the magistrates, frequently expressed their disapprobation of the speeches made to me.

Mr. Capper's assertion that I was only actuated by a love of notoriety, were just the words to do me injury. The respectable people near, and the intelligent people at a distance, would believe the magistrate and disbelieve the sceptic, who had no friends to rebut the imputation. The vulgar bearing of this brutal old man lingered long in my memory as the most distinct thing of these proceedings. I should have thought less of it had it not come from an old man. The aged always inspire me with reverence, in their kindly aspects. They are the links which nature perpetuates between old time and our time—the human chroniclers of an experience the young can never know. They have followed the hearse of the old world, and are the legatees of Time, who has bequeathed to them his secrets and his conquests, which they in their turn distribute to us. When living at Islington, in 1848, I frequently passed, but not without sadness, nor sometimes without tears, an old man who stood near the Merlin's Cave to beg. He resembled one whom I cannot name. I could see on his brow the fresh traces of a struggle still going on between dignity and destitution. And I often gave him the price of the biscuit intended for my dinner, in the secret hope we all have in a kind act that some one else may repeat it to those we love; and I indulged the hope that others might approach with the same respectful feelings him to whom I have alluded, if ever, with untamed pride and broken heart, he should stand in his grey hairs on the high way to beg—which I have dreaded through so many years.

When taken back to the station-house, Captain Lefroy, who was at the head of the police, introduced me to Mr. Pinching, surgeon of the same corps. The captain, in a gentlemanly way, inquired if I would allow Mr. Pinching to reason with me on my opinions? I said, 'Certainly.' Mr. Pinching asked me the irrelevant question 'Did I believe in Jesus Christ?' and began a dry, historical argument to prove that there was the same evidence for the existence of Jesus Christ as for that of Henry the Fourth. I said, 'The argument is unnecessary with me. I do not care to argue whether he existed or not. My inquiry is not whether he lived, but what he said.' Mr. Pinching's next speech was delivered with an air of sharp authority, and he began to address me rather rudely.

He asked me was it not Robert Owen who made me an atheist? I replied, Mr. Owen himself was not an atheist. For myself, I had not become so till after the imprisonment of Mr. Southwell, which had led me to inquire into the grounds of religious opinion more closely than I had before done, and it had ended in my entire disbelief.

Mr. Pinching now became impatient and abusive, allowing me no opportunity of replying, and I said 'Stop! stop! sir, you must not treat me as a prisoner if you intend me to hear you. Unless you converse with me upon equal terms I shall not answer you.' Lefroy laughed, and said, 'Come! come! Pinching, I think you are not quite fair. After this Mr. Pinching became more abusive, and I turned away—when he ended the conversation by saying, 'I am only sorry the day is gone by when we could send you and Owen of Lanark to the stake instead of to Gloucester gaol.'

Not allowed to wait twenty-four hours to see if I could obtain bail, I was soon after sent off to Gloucester, nine miles away, the same afternoon, where the difficulty of negotiating my release was so much increased that it took me a fortnight to do it.

After my conversation with Mr. Pinching I was shut up in a very filthy place with a lousy man. I was handcuffed with small old irons that pinched my wrists, and I begged to have another pair of handcuffs put on, which was done: then I was made to walk through Cheltenham town and suburbs, and afterwards through Gloucester city, with the hand irons on. As I had walked thirty miles to be apprehended, they had no reason to suspect me of making my escape; nor was it customary to handcuff prisoners conveyed to Gloucester on foot. In my case it was done to pain and degrade me.

A memorial of a public meeting, sent from the town of Cheltenham to the House of Commons, on this subject, stated 'That notwithstanding Mr. Holyoake offered no resistance to any officer or procedure, and was at the same time in very delicate health and much exhausted, yet it was deemed necessary to lock both his hands in irons and make him walk to Gloucester—a distance of near nine miles—on a most sultry day, but on the way thither his friends interfered and obtained leave for him to ride, on condition only that they should pay his expenses as well as the expenses of two policemen to accompany him.' And it may be added that though I sat an hour at the station, waiting for the train, my hands were not unlocked.

The same memorial also alleged 'That the conduct of the magistrates during the proceedings indicated a predisposition to punish Mr. Holyoake, independently of any evidence which he might have offered in defence of his own conduct.'

The Member for Bath, to whom this memorial was entrusted, paid to it the most generous attention, and immediately returned the following reply:—

London, June 23rd, 1842.

Sir,—The petition you sent me is of a nature that demands serious inquiry, and I thought I should best discharge my duty towards the petitioners and Mr. Holyoake by at once addressing myself to Sir James Graham. He has very promptly taken up the inquiry, and I have no doubt but that substantial justice will be done. If, however, the petitioners should hereafter deem that justice has not been done, I can present their petition after the inquiry which has been undertaken by the Home Secretary has been closed. I have taken this liberty with the petition on my own responsibility, hoping that the petitioners will here trust to my discretion, and they for the moment will put confidence in my judgment. I will write you word so soon as I hear from the Home Secretary, who has now the petition in his hands for the purpose of immediately instituting a searching inquiry.

I am, sir, your obedient servant,

Mr. H. Fry. J. A. Roebuck.

The committal the police bore with them was to the following effect:—

[Gloucestershire to wit.]—To all and every of the constables and other officers of the peace for the said county, and to the keeper of the gaol at Gloucester in the said county—

Whereas George Jacob Holyoake is now brought before us, three of Her Majesty's Justices of the Peace in and for the said county, and charged, on the oaths of James Bertram and William Henry Pearce, with having, on the twenty-forth day of May last, at the parish of Cheltenham in the said county, wickedly and profanely uttered, made use of, and proclaimed, in the presence of a public assembly of men, women, and children, then and there assembled, certain impious and blasphemous words against God, and of and concerning the Christian religion, to wit, 'That he was of no religion at all,' and 'that he did not believe there was such a thing as a God,' and 'that if he could have his way he would place the Deity on half-pay, as the government of this country did the subaltern officers,' against the peace of our lady the Queen, her crown and dignity. And whereas we, the said justices, have required the said George Jacob Holyoake to become bound in the sum of one hundred pounds, and to find two sufficient sureties in the sum of fifty pounds each, conditioned for the appearance of the said George Jacob Holyoake at the next Quarter Sessions of the peace, to be holden at Gloucester, in and for the said county, and then and there to answer to any bill of indictment that may be preferred against him for his said offence, which he hath neglected to do.

These are therefore in Her Majesty's name to command you, and every of you the said constables, forthwith safely to convey and deliver into the custody of the keeper of the said gaol the body of the said George Jacob Holyoake.

And you, the said keeper, are hereby required to receive the said George Jacob Holyoake into your said custody, and him safely keep until the said next general Quarter Sessions of the peace, to be holden at Gloucester, in and for the said county, or until he become bound and finds such sureties as aforesaid, or until he shall be thence delivered by due course of law. And for your so doing this shall be to you and every of you a sufficient warrant.

Given under our hands and seals the third day of June, in the year of our Lord One Thousand Eight Hundred and Forty-two.

Robt. Capper, J. B. Newell, Joseph Overbury.

Twenty-four hours' notice of bail to be given.

I hereby certify that the above is a true 'copy' of a warrant, by virtue of which the within named George Jacob Holyoake was brought into custody the 3rd day of June, 1842. Witness my hand,

Thomas Moore, Clerk to the county gaol of Gloucester.

Some of the magistrates characterised the speech for which I was committed as 'Felony,' 'a breach of the peace,' etc., and I was told that my committal was made out for 'felony.' Serious comments were made thereupon by the public. Able strictures on the subject were made by 'Philo Publicola,' in the Weekly Dispatch. But the magistrates grew wiser as they grew cooler, and on the copy of the committal subsequently furnished to me, the charge of felony did not appear.

A very curious circumstance deserves mentioning here. The magistrates being censured in the House of Commons for their 'irregularities' in my case (as will be explained in my defence further on) an attempt was made to fix the blame on Mr. Russell, superintendent of the police. This induced me to address the following letter to the editor of the Cheltenham Free Press:—

Sir,—Observing an attempt has been made in Parliament by the Hon. Craven Berkley to fix the blame of my 'harsh treatment' on the constables of your town, and to implicate Superintendent Russell, I beg to say that after my committal I never saw Mr. Russell, and never once said, or suspected, that the harshness exercised towards me, while ostensibly in his custody, originated with him. His courtesy to me on the night of my apprehension, of which I retain a lively sense, forbids such a conclusion.

I shall be glad if you will insert this in your next number. I can never consent to purchase public sympathy by a silence which may unjustly sacrifice any person's interest. I was justified in making the complaints I have, but would rather they were for ever unredressed than that an innocent man should suffer.

Birmingham, July 30, 1842. G. Jacob Holyoake.

Soon after Mr. Russell left the corps, and appears to have been offered up by the magistrates as a sacrifice for the irregularities they had committed.

On my arrival my pockets were searched, and even my pocket-book and letters taken from me. This I felt not only as an indignity, but also as a breach of faith. Before leaving Cheltenham, and when in communication with my friends, I inquired if my papers would be taken from me at Gloucester, and the officers answered 'No,' (but they must have known differently). Trusting their answer, however, I brought with me papers I should not otherwise have brought. Perhaps I was fevered after my walk, but the cell I was put into gave me a new sense. There had been times when I had wished for a sixth sense, but this was not the sense I coveted, for it was a sense of suffocation. The bed was so filthy that I could not lie down, and sat on the side all night. When taken into the general room next morning the prisoners surrounded me, exclaiming,' What are ye come for?' As I made no reply, another observed, 'We always tells one another,' 'Oh! blasphemy,' I replied. 'What's that,' said one. 'Aren't you 'ligious?' said another.

But as these rustics were happily unacquainted with doctrinal piety, they said nothing rude; and seeing my loaf unbroken, and that I could not eat, 'Here,' said four or five at once, 'will you have some of this tea, zir?'—which was mint-tea, the reward of some extra work, and the nicest thing they had to offer.

When the chaplain of the gaol, the Rev. Robert Cooper, came to see me, I told him that before I took anything from him for my soul, I wanted something from him for my defence; and I demanded my note book and papers. Mr. Samuel Jones, a visiting magistrate, brought me a few pencil notes which I had made during my examination in Cheltenham and some private papers, but he withheld many others relating to matters of opinion, saying that he 'did not think them necessary to my defence.' The clergyman has a veto on all books admitted, and of a list which I gave him, which I wanted to read for my trial, he only allowed me thirteen. He said the others 'were of an unchristian character,' and he could not let me have them. 'I told him I was not going to make an orthodox defence. He would not relax, so I would not have any spiritual consolation, and we lived on very indifferent terms.

One day Mr. Bransby Cooper, and Mr. Samuel Jones (just mentioned), both old magistrates, came to visit me. Mr. Jones, I was told, had at one time been a preacher among the Methodists. He told me he would be kind to me, but all his kindness was religious kindness—the worst kindness I have ever experienced. I was then the sole occupant of the Queen's evidence side of the prison, a place I had chosen as I preferred to be alone. I had a large yard and all the cells to myself. In this solitary place these magistrates visited me. After teazing me with Leslie for a long time, Mr. Bransby Cooper concluded thus—'Now! Holyoake, you are a Deist—are you not?' I shook my head. 'You cannot be an atheist,' he continued, 'you don't look like one.' He said this, I suppose, seeing no horns on my head, and no eyes on my elbows, as he expected. I answered that I felt very unpleasantly how much I was in their power, and had therefore some reason to desire to oblige them. Though sorry to say what might outrage them or look like obstinacy, yet out of respect to my own conscience I must say that I was an atheist. Upon these they both flew into indignant revulsions, and shouted 'a fool! a fool!' till the roof rang. Capt. Mason (the governor), who accompanied them, turned away a few paces, with the air of one not caring to be witness of so much rudeness.

* See Report of Gloucester Trinity Sessions in the county
papers of that period.

Before leaving they said of course I should employ counsel to defend me. I answered, 'No, I should defend myself as well as I was able. Barristers were not good at stating a case of conscience.' They urged, they even coaxed me to abandon the idea of defending myself; but finding me not to be deterred, they threatened me that it would aggravate my case—reminded me of Hone and others, and said that the judge would put me down and not hear me. This menace, as will be seen hereafter, did me great harm. They reported my determination at the Trinity Sessions as though it was a matter desirable to be averted.

Mr. Bransby Cooper was a brother of Sir Astley Cooper. He was formerly member for Gloucester, and when he suspected that I did not regard his dignity sufficiently, he would slide in some remark about 'his friend' Sir James Graham, who was then Secretary of State for the Home Department. Bransby Cooper was the senior magistrate at this time—a man of venerable and commanding aspect, generous to a fault in matters of humanity, harsh to a fault in matters of religion. On his way through the city, old women would way-lay him to beg. First raising his stick against them—then threatening to commit them as vagrants—they fled from him in mock terror, but knowing the generous feelings of the man they returned again, and before he reached home he would empty his pockets among them. One minute he would growl at me like an unchained tiger—the next he would utter some word of real sympathy, such as came from no one else, and at the end of my imprisonment I parted from him with something of regret. He had the voice of Stentor, and though at first his savage roar shook me, at last I acquired an artistic liking for it, and his voice was so grand that I came to the conclusion that he had a natural right to be a brute. The old man, after his fashion, laboured very hard for my conversion. His son Robert was chaplain of the gaol, and had I happily been brought over, the old man would have given the credit to his boy. My conversion was thus a sort of family speculation.

Those who sent me to prison in default of bail, took care to make bail impossible to me by intimidating those who would have become my sureties, and after two weeks' anxiety I was obliged to accept the generous offer of two friends in Worcester—James Barnes and John Dymond Stevenson—to come from that city and enter into recognizances for me, and I was indebted to them for my liberation, after sixteen days' imprisonment.

So near was my trial upon my release that I had to return to Gloucester within a fortnight. A great desire of my youth had been to see London. When I found myself suddenly shut up in gaol, in prospect of an indefinite term of imprisonment, which in my then state of health might prove fatal, my sole remorse was that I had never seen that city of my dreams. Once again at liberty I made a short visit to my family in Birmingham, and the next week found me in London.

Chafed and sad, with tremulous heart and irresolute step, it seems but yesterday that I walked through Woburn Place into the city in which I now write. Its streets, its pride, its magnificence enthralled me, and its very poverty fascinated me because nearer to my destiny. Savage and Johnson had walked those squares houseless, and why not I. Chatterton had perished in a garret, and garrets had something sacred in them. Solitary in that two million multitude, I was hardly known to any one in it, yet when I remembered that I was in London I felt an enchanted gladness, and in all vicissitudes of fortune and chequered struggles with fate, I have walked its magical streets with undimmed joy, and it is to me still a fairy land, whose atmosphere of enchantment feels as if it would never leave me.

How sweetly, how gratefully to me (as words never read before) came the notice the Weekly Dispatch gave of my first lecture in London. All the night before I had sat up with Ryall, answering correspondence and concerting my defence. When I reached the Rotunda it was more fitting that I should have found a bed there than a rostrum, for when I rose to speak I was weak as well as timid. To succeed in any way in London was more than I ventured to expect, and the nature of the report in the Weekly Dispatch inspired me with the hope of at least being tolerated.

I hastened back to Gloucester. Either a Secretary of State's order, or a Bill had come into operation, I was never correctly informed which, removing my trial from the Sessions to the Assizes, which gave me an impartial Judge to determine my case. At a Sessions' trial the parties who had caused my imprisonment, and the magistrates who had shown themselves my personal opponents, would have sat on the Bench to try me. Though unable to proceed with my trial after having committed me, they put me to the expense of bringing my bail from Worcester, and charged me £1 9s. for renewing my sureties.

My arrest caused a demand for atheistical publications in Cheltenham, which Mr. George Adams, partly as a friend to the free publication of opinion and partly from personal friendship to me, undertook to supply. In this he was joined by his wife, Harriet Adams, a very interesting and courageous woman. On Monday evening, June 13th, at a public meeting called to consider the grounds of my own apprehension, Mr. George Adams was arrested for selling No. 25 of the Oracle, and forthwith conveyed to the station-house. As soon as a knowledge of the arrest came to the ears of Mrs. Adams, she went to the station-house to see her husband, when she, likewise, was served with a warrant for selling No. 4. Mrs. Adams says, (the account cannot be better rendered than in her own words) 'I went to see my husband at the station-house, when I was detained; a policeman was sent home with me to fetch my infant, and I had to leave four at home in bed. The man that went with me to the station was a rude fellow; he was quite abusive to me, telling me I should be locked up from my husband; saying, it was quite time such things were put a stop to. When we arrived at the station-house he would have locked me in a cell with drunken women, had I not sat down in the yard and insisted on seeing the superintendent, who then allowed me to sit up in a kitchen, where policemen were coming in and out all night. My husband was much troubled on my account.' The four children were left locked up in the house alone.

Mr. Bubb's speech, when Adams was brought up, is so curious a relic of provincial barbarism that I preserve it, or those who are told of it in time to come will regard the story as some malicious fiction. Mr. Bubb opened the charge by justifying himself and clients—'It has been said that we are prosecuting here for the entertaining of opinions merely. That proposition I deny. The entertaining of opinions is not opposed to law if people keep them to, themselves. If they step out of the way, and seek to propagate them by undermining the institutions of the country, by denying the existence of a God, by robbing others of "the hopes set before them," without offering the flimsiest pretext, it is the duty of all to prevent this. Such is the opinion of those gentlemen who set on foot these proceedings, and no clamour of persecution will prevent them from doing what they believe to be their duty. And if there are any here present disposed to take up this unfortunate trade, I would assure them that as long as the law punishes, and the magistrates uphold the law, so long will they bring offenders to justice. So long as men say there is no God, or that the religion of the state is a farce and a fallacy, these gentlemen will not be deterred by any clamour.' If this threat were carried out the magistrates on every Bench would have constant employment—especially if they would undertake, as Mr. Bubb appeared to promise, to ascertain whether or not we had the 'flimsiest pretext' to offer in defence of the course we took.

Adams and his wife were committed to take their trials at the Sessions—in the wife's case it was purely vexatious, as there was no one bound over to prosecute her. Yet Adams, nearly blind from an inflammation of the eyes, and his wife with her child in her arms, were kept several days in attendance at Gloucester—though the same law which prevented the court proceeding in my case, prevented the court from trying the Adamses. In further aggravation of loss, £1 17s. 6d. were demanded for discharge of bail and entering new sureties—nor was time allowed to fetch the bail (after they were demanded) from Cheltenham, the clerk announcing that they would be estreated at once. Upon this I directed Mr. and Mrs. Adams to go into court and say they were prepared to take their trial then, and there was no occasion to estreat the property of their friends. Time was then allowed.

Mrs. Adams was never tried. Mr. Adams's trial took place at Gloucester assizes, immediately before my own.

The passage from No. 25 of the Oracle, for which Adams was indicted, was written by my friend Mr. Chilton, who was outraged at my imprisonment, and ran as follows:—

What else could be expected of men who deify a real or imaginary individual, a compound of ambition and folly, of mock humility and rampant tyranny; who, though called the 'Prince of Peace,' declared he came to bring a sword in the world? This hellish mission he performed to perfection, for never since his time has blood and misery ceased to flow from his dogmas and mysteries.

As I was very anxious to save Adams from consequences which he incurred through friendship to me, I advised him to let Mr. Thompson defend him. This gentleman began by sympathising with all the disgust invented by the counsel who opened the prosecution, and he ended by expressing Adams's sorrow and contrition for what he had done—a contrition which he did not feel, and would rather have undergone much imprisonment than have had it said that he did. During the whole of the trials arising out of the Oracle, Mr. Ralph Thomas, barrister, was the only counsel who defended us in court without sacrificing us. Taking warning by Mr. Thompson's example, I made it a rule to advise all our friends to defend themselves, and where unaccustomed to public speaking, to write a brief defence in their own language, and after some legal friend had revised it, to read it to the court. We do not want lawyers to defend our opinions, those opinions not being their own, but we want them simply to maintain our right to publish what are to us important convictions. Instead of this they commonly agree with the crown that we are criminal for having a conscience, and then, in our name, recant with 'contrition' the opinions which we go into court to maintain.

Adams's sentence was delivered in the following words by Mr. Justice Erskine:—'George Adams, you have been convicted of the offence of publishing a blasphemous libel, and the libel which was proved to have been published by you was one of a most horrid and shocking character. Whatever a man's opinions may be, he can have no right to give vent to them in that language. If there was evidence to prove that you were the author, or that you were engaged as an active disseminator, I should have thought it my duty to have inflicted on you a very serious imprisonment. Although by the law of this country every man has a right to express his sentiments in decent language, he has no business to make use of such shocking language as this. But you have expressed, through your counsel, contrition; and trusting that this is the general feeling of your mind, I shall not think it necessary to pass on you a severe sentence this time. But if you ever offend again, it will then be known that you are determined to persevere, and it will be seen whether the law is not strong enough to prevent it. The sentence of the court is, that you be imprisoned in the Common Gaol of this county for one calendar month.

I was with Adams during the term of his imprisonment, and although his losses and the privations of his family were great, he never uttered a murmuring word. From first to last he behaved well, and Mrs. Adams, as women usually do, behaved better.

It is worthy of remark that when a gentleman deposed that the character of Mr. Adams 'was a pattern of morality,' Mr. Justice Erskine told the jury that 'had Adams committed a robbery such a character might have weight, but in extenuation of religious offence it was of no service.'

[ [!-- H2 anchor --] ]

CHAPTER II. THE TRIAL

The Assizes opened on the 6th of August, 1842, but my case did not come on till the 15th, Mr. Knight Hunt (the author of the 'Fourth Estate') was the gentleman engaged to report my trial. As the judge was informed that I intended to defend myself he resolved to take my case last. This caused the assizes to extend into a second week. Saturday came before the calendar was exhausted, and as there was no knowing whether my trial could be gone through in a day, the fear of trespassing on Sunday led to the court's being ordered to open on Monday, to the annoyance of javelin men kept there unexpectedly, to jury men who had left tills, ploughs, and orange baskets unprotected—and not least to my prosecutors, who saw with some consternation some £200 added to the county expenses, for in Cheltenham bigotry is greatly preferred when it is cheap.

If ignorance would look upon its own degradation, let it spend a few hours in an assize court. One trial I witnessed was of two men for an offence which indeed arose out of depravity, but the depravity arose out of bad training and vicious circumstances. The oldest man, between forty and fifty, was sentenced to transportation for life to Norfolk Island, the most ferocious sentence an English judge can pronounce. When the man heard it, he bowed in genuine and awkward humbleness, and said, as he made a rustic bow to the bench, 'Thank'ee, my Lord!' Such abject humiliation of spirit I had never conceived before. Ignorance never appeared to me so frightful, so slavish, so blind, as on this occasion. Unable to distinguish a sentence passed upon him from a service done him, he had been taught to bow to his pastors and masters, and he bowed alike when cursed as when blessed. The measured contempt with which the words were spoken by the judge which blasted the man's character for ever—the scorn with which he was thrust out of the pale of society, never again to know freedom or reputation, made no impression on his dark and servile soul. That appalling weight of infamy falling on his head and on the heads of his children—for which he might justly have cursed society—only elicited from him a 'Thank'ee, my Lord!' If ignorance would see its own degradation, would feel the incalculable depth of its abjectness, let it sometimes sit for instruction in an assize court.

The preliminary proceedings at the trial I shall render as Mr. Hunt gave them, in the third person—adding what, from various causes, was omitted at the time.

On the morning of the trial the Court-house at Gloucester was very crowded. Many ladies were present from all parts of the county: the wives of clergymen, and some of the nobility, were among them, attracted by curiosity, and by the opportunity which might never occur to them again of hearing, without loss of caste, a little heresy defended in person. The audience continued undiminished till ten o'clock at night.

As the name of George Jacob Holyoake was called, he advanced and entered the dock. Mr. Ogden, the turnkey in charge of prisoners, directed him with the usual air of official impatience to take his place at the bar.

Mr. Holyoake. Do not be in a hurry. First hand me my books.

Mr. Ogden. (Looking indignantly at a large corded box lying outside the dock.) You can't have that box here. You must go to the bar and plead.

Mr. Holyoake. Nonsense. Hand me the box.

It being reluctantly handed up, Mr. Holyoake applied to the judge, Mr. Justice Erskine, for the use of a table.

Mr. Justice Erskine. There is one. (He referred to some boarding behind the bar), and there Mr. Holyoake proceeded to arrange his books and papers—although the situation was not advantageous, it being lower than the bar where the prisoners usually stand. Mr. Holyoake employed twenty minutes in this operation, and when he had done, the dock resembled, a young bookseller's stall. Mr. Holyoake then advanced to the bar and bowed to the court.

Mr. Justice Erskine (who had waited with great patience). Are you ready?

Mr. Holyoake replied affirmatively, and the clerk proceeded to read the indictment as follows:—

[Gloucester to wit.]—The Jurors for our lady the Queen, upon their oath, present that George Jacob Holyoake, late of the parish of Cheltenham, in the county of Gloucester, labourer,* being a wicked, malicious, and evil-disposed person, and disregarding the laws and religion of the realm, and wickedly and profanely devising and intending to bring Almighty God, the Holy Scriptures, and the Christian religion, into disbelief and contempt among the people of this kingdom, on the twenty-fourth day of May, in the fifth year of the reign of our lady the Queen, with force and arms, at the parish aforesaid, in the county aforesaid, in the presence and hearing of divers liege subjects of our said lady the Queen, maliciously, unlawfully, and wickedly did compose, speak, utter, pronounce, and publish with a loud voice, of and concerning Almighty Gog, the Holy Scriptures, and the Christian religion, these words following, that is to say, 'I (meaning the said George Jacob Holyoake) do not believe there is such a thing as a God; I (meaning the said George Jacob Holyoake) would have the Deity served as they (meaning the government of this kingdom) serve the subaltern, place him (meaning Almighty God) on half-pay'—to the high displeasure of Almighty God, to the great scandal and reproach of the Christian religion, in open violation of the laws of this kingdom, to the evil example of all others in the like case offending, and against the peace of our lady the Queen, her crown and dignity.

* It was pure invention that described me as a' labourer.'
It was a term of degradation in the county, and therefore
employed—my profession was that of a Mathematical Teacher.

Mr. Holyoake pleaded Not Guilty, and applied to have the names of the jury called over singly and distinctly.

Mr. Alexander, counsel for the prosecution, said the offence being only a misdemeanour, the defendant had no right to challenge.

Mr. Justice Erskine. Of course not, unless reasons are given in each case.

Clerk. The name of John Lovesey is first.

Mr. Holyoake. I object to Lovesey. He sat on the bench when I was before the magistrates at Cheltenham, and approved the proceedings against me. He is not disinterested in this matter.

Mr. Justice Erskine said that was not sufficient reason for challenging.

Loresey declared he 'shuddered at the crime of the prisoner,' and after some further conversation, the judge having observed it was 'as well to go,' Lovesey left the box.

Mr. Holyoake. In the case of Mr. Southwell he was allowed to challenge.

Mr. Justice Erskine. I am not bound by the Recorder of Bristol.

The names of the other jurors having been called over, Mr. Holyoake objected to one on the ground of his being a farmer, and from his profession not likely to be acquainted with the nature of the question at issue.*

Mr. Justice Erskine said he could not sit there to listen to such objections. Mr. Holyoake saying he had no objection to urge which his lordship would allow, 'seven farmers, one grocer, one poulterer, one miller, one nondescript shopkeeper, and one maltster, were then impaneled to ascertain whether one George Jacob Holyoake had had a fight with Omnipotence, whether he had done his utmost to bring the Deity into contempt, whether he had fought Omnipotence with force of arms, and had spoken against it or him with a loud voice.'**

* A poulterer is called upon, under oath, to decide this
great theological and philosophical question that has
agitated the world for so many hundred centuries.......To
make a poulterer a sovereign judge of theology is on a par
with making the Archbishop of Canterbury a judge of
poultry.—Weekly Dispatch, August 18. 1842. [It has been
objected to this that very likely his Grace of Canterbury is
a very good judge of poultry.]
** 'Publicola's' second letter to Judge Erskine.—Weekly
Dispatch, Sep 18, 1842

The following is the list of the jury:—

Thomas Gardiner, grocer, Cheltenham, Foreman.

James Reeve, farmer, Chedworth.

William Ellis, farmer, Chedworth.

Avery Trotman, farmer, Chedworth.

William Mathews, poulterer, Cheltenham.'

Simon Vizard, shopkeeper, Oldland. Isaac Tombs, farmer, Whitcomb. William Wilson, maltster, Brimpsfield. Edwin Brown, farmer, Withington. Bevan Smith, farmer, Harescomb. William Smith, miller, Rarnwood. Joseph Shipp, farmer, Yate.

Mr. Holyoake. Can I have a copy of the indictment?

Mr. Justice Erskine. I had one made for you in consequence of your application to the court last week.

Mr. Holyoake. Yes, my lord, but after I had thanked you for your courtesy in so doing, I was asked 8s. 6d. for it by (not being able to call him by his name, Mr. Holyoake said) that sour looking gentleman there, (pointing to the clerk of the court, an individual as dusty and as forbidding as an old penal statute, and who always spoke to Mr. Holyoake like one. The court laughed, the judge frowned, the clerk looked indignant, but before censure could fall, Mr. Holyoake escaped into the next sentence, adding), after the numerous exactions I was subjected to at the sessions, after being brought here by the magistrates and then not tried, I did not think myself justified in paying any more, and the clerk refused it me.

Mr. Justice Erskine. I ordered a copy to be made for you, but did not think it necessary that you should have it on any other than the usual conditions.*

Mr. Holyoake. Can I be allowed to read the indictment against me?

Mr. Justice Erskine. Certainly.

The clerk then handed a copy to Mr. Holyoake, who on observing the counsel for the prosecution rise, left the bar and placed himself where he could face Mr. Alexander, with a view to take notes. The judge very courteously asked if Mr. Holyoake desired note-paper and pens, which he accepted, and:

Mr. Alexander said—Gentlemen of the jury: The defendant at the bar is indicted, not for writing, but for speaking and uttering certain wicked and blasphemous words. This person is not, as in the case previously brought before your attention,** the vendor, but he is the author of the blasphemy. From the coincidence of words, he is the editor-Mr. Justice Erskine. You must not proceed in that way. You must not assume—

* This copy of Indictment occupied not quite one sheet of
paper, for which eight shillings and sixpence were asked!
**That of George Adams.

Mr. Alexander. I am aware, my lord, that I may not assert the identity of the defendant with the work alluded to—I was only going to draw the attention of the gentlemen of the jury to the coincidence of the words. But I will proceed with my case. The defendant, on the 24th of May last, issued placards for a lecture to be delivered in Cheltenham. In these placards he announced, not the diabolical, the dreadful topics which he descanted upon, not anything which would lead the reader to imagine or expect what really took place—but he gave out his subject as a lecture upon Home Colonisation, Emigration, and the Poor Laws. Mark this, gentlemen of the jury. Had he given in his announcements any hint of what was to take place, his end might have been defeated, and no audience attracted to listen to the blasphemous expressions you have heard set out in the indictment. But he did obtain an audience, a numerous audience, and then declared that the people were too poor to have a religion—that he himself had no religion—that he did not believe in such a thing as a God; and—though it pains me to repeat the horrible blasphemy—that he would place the Deity upon half-pay. I shall call witnesses to prove all this, and then it will be for you to say if he is guilty. It may be urged to you that these things were said in answer to a question, that the inuendoes must be made out. Inuendoes! I should think it an insult to the understandings of twelve jurymen—of twelve intelligent men—to call witnesses to prove inuendoes: but I shall place the case before you, and leave it in your hands. I am sure I need not speak, I need not dilate upon the consequence of insulting that Deity we are as much bound, as inclined, to reverence. He then called James Bartram—who said: I am a printer at Cheltenham, employed upon the Cheltenham Chronicle; attended the lecture of defendant, just after nine o'clock; there were about one hundred persons present of both sexes; the placard announced 'Home Colonisation, Emigration, Poor Laws Superseded;' heard a man put a question to Mr. Holyoake; he said,' The lecturer has been speaking of our duty to man, but he has said nothing as regards our duty towards God.' Prisoner replied, 'I am of no religion at all—I do not believe in such a thing as a God. The people of this country are too poor to have any religion. I would serve the Deity as the government does the subaltern—place him on half-pay.' He was the length of the room off; I heard him distinctly; he spoke in a distinct voice.

Cross-examined by Mr. Holyoake. You say I said the people were too poor to have any religion; will you state the reasons I gave? Witness. I can give the substance, if not the words; 'you said, 'The great expense of religion to the country.'

Mr. Holyoake. I will thank you to state the other reasons?

Witness. I don't recollect any other reason*

Mr. Holyoake. Now, you have sworn the words are blasphemous—

Mr. Justice Erskine. No, he has not.

Mr. Holyoake. Will you state if the words are blasphemous?

Mr. Justice Erskine said such a question could only be put through him. He then put the question—do you consider the words blasphemous?

Witness. I do.

Mr. Holyoake. Why do you think them blasphemous?

Witness. Because they revile the majesty of heaven, and are calculated to subvert peace, law, and order; and are punishable by human law, because they attack human authority.

Mr. Holyoake. Who has instructed you to define blasphemy thus?

Witness. I have not been instructed, it is my own opinion.

Mr. Holyoake. At Cheltenham, during my examination before the magistrates, you did not appear to have these notions. Will you swear you have not concocted that answer for this occasion?

Witness. I did not expect such a question would be put; I did not expect to be catechised.

Mr. Holyoake. Who advised you to attend as a witness? Witness. The magistrates sent for me.

Mr. Holyoake. Did you not know before the day of my commitment something of this matter?

Witness. There was some 'chaff' in the office about it; that's all I heard of it; a policeman was sent from the magistrates for me to give the names of witnesses who were to appear. Don't know why the policeman came to me; don't know his name; no clergyman has spoken to me, that I recollect, upon the subject of this prosecution; not sure of it; several persons have spoken to me, cannot say they were clergymen; I do not know the parties who got up the prosecution, or sent the policeman to me; the report was furnished to the paper I work on by another person; I saw the reporter's notes, but not the editor's observations till the galleys were pulled. Mr. Justice Erskine. What do you mean by galleys pulled? Witness. Brass slides, my lord.

Mr. Justice Erskine. You mean, I suppose, till all the types were up?

Witness. Yes, my lord.

Cross-examination resumed. Do not know of my own knowledge who made the report; have been ten years in employment at Chronicle office; know it was said in that paper that three witnesses from that office could prove what had occurred at the lecture; the name of reporter of our paper is Edward Wills; I heard your lecture, you said nothing against morality. Mr. Holyoake. Will you state your opinion of morality? Mr. Justice Erskine. The question is irrelevant. Mr. Holyoake. Did you think I spoke my honest convictions? Witness. I thought you spoke what you meant; you spoke straightforwardly.

The judge here interposed, to stop Mr. Holyoake from asking as to witness's opinions.

Cross-examination resumed—Witness. I should not have lost my situation if I had not come forward in this case; in my opinion you spoke wickedly, as stated in indictment; I did not notice that you spoke contemptuously when using the word thing, but you used the word; there were other words between those used in indictment; they did not, is in that document, follow one another; I do not remember the words; you spoke of the enormous sums of money spent upon religion, and the poverty of the people, and afterwards, and in connection with that, said you would place Deity as government did the subalterns—on half-pay; I have been a preacher.

Re-examined by Mr. Alexander. I have been uninterruptedly ten years in the same employment; do not give evidence from fear or reward; but from a sense of duty.

Mr. Alexander. That is the case for the prosecution, my lord.

Mr. Justice Erskine. Now is the time for your defence.

Mr. Holyoake. I am not a little surprised to hear that the case for the prosecution is closed. I have heard nothing, not one word, to prove the charge in the indictment. There has been adduced no evidence to show that I have uttered words maliciously and wickedly blasphemous. I submit to your lordship that there is not sufficient evidence before the Court.

Mr. Justice Erskine. That is for the jury to decide.

Mr. Holyoake. I thought, my lord, as the evidence is so manifestly insufficient to prove malice, you would have felt bound to direct my acquittal.

Mr. Justice Erskine. It is for the jury to say whether they are satisfied.

Mr. Holyoake. Then, Gentlemen of the Jury, it now becomes my duty to address you on the nature of the charge preferred against me, and of the evidence by which it is attempted to be supported. When I stood in this court a week ago, and saw the grand jury with Mr. Grantley Berkeley at their head as foreman—when I heard his lordship, surrounded by learned counsel, deliver his charge in the midst of persons distinguished for learning, for eloquence, for experience, and for literary attainments—

I then thought, as I now do, that this court could find nobler means than the employment of brute force to counteract anything I could attempt—which I never have done—to bring the truly sacred into contempt. I thought I never should be called upon to stand in this dock, with all its polluting and disgusting associations, to answer for mere matters of speculative opinion. I did think that such persons possessed a sense of the powers of the human mind that would have prevented the interposition of penal judges upon such subjects.

But to Mr. Grantley Berkeley, as foreman of the grand jury who found a true bill against me, I beg to draw your attention. Mr. Grantley Berkeley, as you are aware, is brother to the member, Mr. C. Berkeley, who attempted to vindicate the conduct of the Cheltenham magistrates from the allegations against them by Sir James Graham in the House of Commons. In the recent case of Mr. Mason, who was taken from a meeting, as I was at Cheltenham, by a policeman, illegally, without a warrant, the doctrine was laid down by a cabinet minister, in the House of Commons, that if the person so arrested was subsequently found guilty by a jury, the illegal apprehension was justified. See how this applies to my case. I was taken from a public meeting a week after the objectionable words were spoken; was taken by a policeman at near midnight; without a warrant. This was justly deemed illegal. I sat in the gallery of the House of Commons when the Hon. Member for Bath brought forward my case, and when Sir James Graham, in reference to the correspondence which had taken place with the magistrates, had the frankness to say, 'there had been serious irregularities and unnecessary harshness used in the case of Holyoake.' In this country four thousand applications are annually made to the Secretary of State for the Home Department, and out of that four thousand my case is spoken of as one in which serious irregularities had occurred, and unnecessary harshness been employed. And that amid the numerous affairs of this great empire it should have received this distinct notice is presumptive evidence that it contained much that should be corrected. On Thursday, July 21, the Hon. Mr. C. Berkeley, addressing the Speaker of the House of Commons, said, 'I wish to ask the Right Hon. Baronet the Secretary for the Home Department a question, but in order to make it intelligible to the House, it will be necessary for me to refer to what took place on Tuesday last. It appears that upon that day the Hon. member for Bath stated, "that as a person named Holyoake had been committed to prison, at Cheltenham, in an improper manner, he wished to know whether the Right Hon. the Secretary for the Home Department had any objection to produce the correspondence which had taken place upon that subject"—to which the Right Hon. Baronet replied that, "he felt called on in the discharge of his duty to inquire into the circumstances of the commitment in question—he found that serious irregularities had been committed, and he expressed his opinion to that effect—but as legal proceedings were likely to result out of what had occurred, he did not think it would be judicious in the Hon. and learned Gentleman to press for the production of the correspondence."...

...The Right Hon. Baronet knows, or at least ought to know, that no such imputation could with propriety be cast upon the magistrates, for by the 3rd section of the 2nd and 3rd of Victoria, commonly called the County Constabulary Act, no magistrate or magistrates, in petty sessions assembled, can interfere with or control the chief constable, or any sub-constable, in the discharge of their duties, as the rules and regulations for these all emanate from the office of the Right Hon. Baronet. It therefore was exceedingly unfair that these imputations should go forth, and I have therefore now to ask, on behalf of the magistrates, whether the Right Hon. Baronet objects to the correspondence being printed and circulated with the votes of the house, and in case he should object I shall offer it for the perusal of the Hon. Member for Bath.' Sir James Graham, in reply, said, 'I had no intention whatever to cast any imputation on the gentlemen, who that day formed the Petty Sessions. My observation more properly applied to the capture of Holyoake, and the unnecessary harshness used in his conveyance from the magistrates' office. At the same time I shall object to the printing of the correspondence with the votes, as no good result would come from it. Of course the hon. member is at liberty to offer it to the Hon. Member for Bath if he chooses—but I repeat, that as legal proceedings were pending, I think such course not advisable.'

This is a most flagrant attempt at justification. The Act the hon. member quoted related to Petty Session magistrates, before whom he knew my case had never come, and of whom, therefore, no complaint could have been made. But Mr. Berkeley had a friendly purpose to serve. The magistrates and their friends have the strongest motives for finding a true bill against me—and they have motives equally powerful for desiring that your verdict should be 'guilty,' inasmuch as that verdict will justify all these 'irregularities'—all the 'unnecessary harshness'—will remove from their shoulders all the responsibility which they incurred by the course they have pursued towards me. Bear in mind, gentlemen of the jury, if the rights are to be enjoyed about which we so much glorify ourselves, cases of this kind must not be allowed to pass unnoticed. 'Serious irregularities' demand serious notice. Arbitrary infraction of the liberty of the subject must not receive the sanction of a jury. Recollect that the same course may be pursued towards any one of you, and that if it receives your sanction it will be made a precedent of law—and pernicious may be its influence.

But I would draw your attention to a printed report of remarks, made by his lordship, in his charge to the grand jury upon my case, I do not for a moment believe that his lordship had other than fair intentions, but, unfortunately, his remarks will have a contrary effect on those who have to judge my case. I have in my hand the Cheltenham Chronicle, of Wednesday last, August 10th, from which I will read. 'These offences,' he said, referring to the cases of blasphemy, 'lay at the root of all the crime which prevailed, and a consideration of the causes out of which they sprung pointed to the only efficient remedy for their removal. In the case of Holyoake, his lordship observed that a work called the Oracle of Reason had been printed and circulated containing language which he did not think it right to repeat; language in which the writer traced all the evil which existed in the world, not to the real cause—the evil passions of the human heart—but to the existence of Christianity itself. This was followed by the most opprobrious language'—

Mr. Justice Erskine (interrupting). I never said anything of that kind—that printed report is entirely incorrect.

Mr. Holyoake. I will read some notes of your lordship's charge, taken at the time of its delivery by a reporter. But whether the report in the Chronicle is correct or incorrect, it has had its influence in leading the public, and probably this jury, to a prejudgment of my case.

'There are other charges which seem at once to lead the mind to the consideration of the root of all the evil which forms the subject of our present consideration. I allude to two charges of blasphemy. In one the accused is said to have sold and published a paper called the Oracle of Reason containing language which I shall not think it right to read, in which the writer traces the evils at present existing, not to the evil passions of man, but to the existence of Christianity, and follows it up with the most opprobrious language to the Saviour and his system, charging him with being the occasion of all the crime and misery which prevail. The second charge is against a man who gave a lecture, in the course of which he discussed the proper way of teaching man his duty to his neighbour. A person suggested that he had said nothing about teaching man his duty to his God. That led to a statement which shows the folly of the person; and he followed it up by making use of such language that, if you believe it was intended to have destroyed the reverence for God, he has subjected himself to punishment. There is another thing—he does not appear to have intended to discuss this; but if you are convinced that, by what he has said, he intended to bring religion into contempt, he is guilty of blasphemy. If such addresses had been directed to the educated classes, it might have been thought they would remedy themselves; but when they are delivered among persons not educated, the greatest danger might be expected. It is not by the punishment of those who attempt to mislead the ignorant that we can hope to cure the evil. If we feel that it is from the ignorance of those persons to whom the addresses are delivered that the danger is to be apprehended, it becomes our imperative duty to teach those persons. Some persons have said, "Instruct the poor in reading and writing, but leave them to learn religion at home." But what would you say to a man who would manure his land, and leave it to find seed for itself? It would produce nothing but weeds. I know there is great difficulty in arranging any national schools; but, as we are all individually sufferers, I hope we shall join in extending a national religious education, so that all may learn to do right, not from a fear of punishment, but from a far nobler motive—the knowledge that offences against the laws are contrary to the precepts of the word of God, and hostile to the best interests of society.'

I fear his lordship may not give me credit for sincerity; but I do assure you, gentlemen of the jury, no one heard some of those sentiments with more pleasure than I did. I did not expect so much liberality. If such advice had been followed, I should not now be standing here to defend points of a speculative nature. Such errors should be corrected by argument, in the arena of public opinion. Where I uttered these words, they should have been refuted. The witness against me says he is a preacher; had he no word in answer? could he say no word for his God? No; he, and those who employ and abet him, shrink from the attempt, and seek to punish in this dock opinions they cannot refute. Is this a course becoming those who say they have truth on their side?

His lordship said 'emissaries are going about.' I am no emissary, and the term as applied to me is unjust. I might, even by the admission of Mr. Bubb, 'undermine' men's religion, go about secretly disseminating my opinions, without danger of standing here. But I spoke openly; and you who usually have to punish dishonesty, are now called upon to punish its non-committal, for a little lying would have saved me from this charge. I have infringed no law, injured no man's reputation, taken no man's property, attacked no man's person, broken no promise, violated no oath, encouraged no evil, taught no immorality—set only an example of free speaking. I was asked a question, and answered it openly. I am not even charged with declaring dogmatically, 'There is no God.' I only expressed an opinion. I should hold myself degraded could I descend to inquire, before uttering my convictions, if they met the approval of every anonymous man in the audience. I never forget that other men's opinions may be correct—that others may be right as well as myself, I have put forth my own opinions openly, from a conviction of their truth; and the sentiments I cannot defend I should scorn like my prosecutors to invoke an attorney-general to protect. I seek a public place, where any man may refute me if he can, and convict me as wilful or ignorant. I should think myself degraded if I published secretly. What can we think of the morality of a law which requires secret inquiry, which prohibits the free publication of opinion?

Mr. Justice Erskine. You must have heard me state the law, that if it be done seriously and decently all men are at liberty to state opinions.

Mr. Holyoake. Whatever the law says, if an informer can carry the words to persons interested in their suppression—if policemen can be sent to apprehend, without warrants, the man who publicly expresses his opinions—if he can be handcuffed like a felon, and thrust into a gaol—if indictments can be brought against him, and he be put to ruinous expenses and harassing anxieties, however honest the expression of opinion may be—then, I say, this 'liberty-law' is a mockery. But by the word 'decent' is meant 'what those in authority think proper.' There should be no censorship of opinions; but I am told that because I spoke to ignorant people, I am criminal. To educated persons, then, I might have said what I did with impunity—

Mr. Justice Erskine. I only, after speaking of education, said that an honest man, speaking his opinions decently, was entitled to do so.

Mr. Holyoake. There is no evidence to show that my audience were unable to distinguish decency and propriety. But it must be already clear enough to you, gentlemen of the jury, who have been employed during the past week determining violations of the law, that I am placed here for having been more honest than the law happens to allow. I am unaccustomed to address a jury, and I hope to avoid the charge of presumption or dogmatism. I have no wish to offend the prejudices of any man in this court, and have no interest in so doing, when his lordship is armed with the power of the law to punish it. But, while I profess respect for your opinions, I must entertain some for my own. There are those here who think religion proper, and that it alone can lead to general happiness—I do not, and I have had the same means of judging. You say your feelings are insulted—your opinions outraged; but what of mine? Mine, however honest, are rendered liable to punishment. I ask not equality of privileges in this respect; I seek not the power of punishing those who differ from me—nay, I should disdain its use. Christianity claims what she does not allow, although she says 'All men are brothers.'

It is from no disrespect to the bar that I did not give my case into the hands of counsel, but because they are unable to enter into my motives. There is a magic circle out of which they will not step; they will argue only what is orthodox; and you would have had no opportunity from them of learning my true motives, or seeing the real bearings of this case.*

* From what subsequently appeared in the Cheltenham Free
Press, I learned that some of the bar took offence at these
remarks; and one revenged himself by describing me, in the
Morning Chronicle, as 'a wretched-looking creature,
scarcely emerging from boyhood, whose wiry and dishevelled
hair, "lip unconscious of the razor's edge," and dingy
looks, gave him the appearance of

The author of the paragraph which led to this day's proceedings applied to me the epithets of 'wretch,' 'miscreant,' 'monster'—represented me as one who discoursed 'devilism.' The Gloucester Chronicle laboured to prove that I was a malicious blasphemer, a low German student, is evidently, from his pronunciation and language, a most ignorant and illiterate character, and no doubt courted the present prosecution tor the sake of notoriety.'

The Cheltenham Examiner—the editor of which, I understand, is Mr. Jelinger Symons—draws a parallel between me and the reputed regicide, who has recently shot at the Queen. These are the words:—'Akin to the offence for which Holyoake has been committed is the crime for which Francis, also a mere stripling, is likely to forfeit his personal liberty, if not his life. The crimes of blasphemy and treason have many points of great similarity, and frequently result from the same causes; and it would not be an uninstructive task to trace out the progress of those causes which lead the minds of the unguarded to the extreme points when they become dangerous to society. Holyoake, the bold assertor of the non-existence of a God, did not become an infidel at once; and Francis, the would-be regicide, did not level his pistol at oar beloved sovereign without his mind having been acted and prepared by previous circumstances.... In both cases a morbid imagination, an affectation of superiority, a contempt for and a dissatisfaction with existing institutions, and a craving after notoriety, are the primary incentives to action,' This ungenerous and offensive parallel was drawn out through a long leading article. The effect, if not the object, of all this is to prejudge my case, to awaken all the bitter prejudices which lurk around religion, and to secure my condemnation before my trial.

Another paper,* in which justice was done me in some respects, called me a 'bigot.' I am not a bigot. I do not assume that I alone am right; nor did I speak of Deity, declaring dogmatically his non-existence. I spoke only of my own disbelief in such an existence. Of all isms I think dogmatism the worst. I do not judge other men by the agreement of their opinions with my own. I believe you consider Christianity a benefit. I regret that I feel it is not so, and I claim the privilege of saving what is true to me. I have ever been ready to acquire correct notions. I have publicly called upon parties whose duty it was to teach me—and who were well paid for teaching—to assist me in sifting out the truth. But they have chosen the strong arm of the law rather than strong argument. Jean Jacques Rousseau says in his 'Confessions,' 'Enthusiasm for sublime virtue is of little use in society. In aiming too high we are subject to fall; the continuity of little duties, well fulfilled, demands no less strength than heroic actions, and we find our account in it much better, both in respect to reputation and happiness. The constant esteem of mankind is infinitely better than sometimes their admiration.' As the world goes there is much good sense in this, and I have read it to show how fully I accord with these sentiments. I am not aiming at sublime virtue, but rather at the continuity of little duties well fulfilled. It is enough for Me if I can be true and useful.

* The National Association Gazette.

I was greatly surprised to find the learned gentleman engaged as prosecuting counsel had so-little to say in reference to the case entrusted to his charge, but I presume it must be attributed to the fact that little could be said upon the subject. All his ingenuity, all his legal skill could not discover an argument at all tenable against me. I certainly expected to hear him attempt to prove to you that these prosecutions were either useful or necessary, but he could only tell you that my sentiments were very horrible, without adducing proof that his assertions were true. He dealt liberally in inuendoes, particularly in reference to the placards exhibited previous to the lecture, and the motive for issuing them. But you have been able to glean from his own witness the truth of the matter. I had completed my discourse, which was of a secular character, and was preparing to return home, when one Maitland questioned me on the subject of my opinions. I did not get up a meeting under one pretence to use it for another. I employed no scheme to allure an audience to listen to what I did not openly avow, although it has been unfairly insinuated that I did so.

When I was first apprehended my papers were taken from me. They would not even leave me the papers necessary for my defence, and I do not know what use was made of them, or that this day the information thus unfairly obtained may not be employed against me. I will read the memorial on this subject, which I forwarded to the Secretary of State.

'Memorial of the undersigned George Jacob Holyoake, prisoner in Gloucester County Gaol, on the charge of Blasphemy, to Sir James Graham, Her Majesty's Secretary of State,

'Shewith,—That your memorialist was committed to this gaol from Cheltenham, on the vague charge of blasphemy, on June 3rd.

'That in consequence of representations made to him by the police authorities in Cheltenham, your memorialist brought with him to the gaol some private papers, hastily selected, for his defence—and that, on arriving here, the said papers were seized, and the visiting magistrate refused to allow your memorialist the use of them, or to give them up to his friends to be used for his advantage.

'That, as these papers were brought in confidence that your memorialist would have been allowed to consult his own thoughts in his own defence—and as they are no man's property but his own—and, also, as without them your memorialist will not have a fair chance of defence,—he trusts you will order them to be restored to him without delay.

'The offence with which your memorialist stands charged occurred as he was journeying homeward, in a town where he was a comparative stranger. Consequently, and owing to great bigotry on religious subjects, your memorialist has been unable to obtain bail, and has suffered fourteen days' imprisonment, which time he has spent in fruitless applications to the authorities here for proper books and papers to prepare his defence. Out of a list of thirty-one books submitted for that purpose only thirteen are allowed.

'That, as the trial of your memorialist is to take place at the next sessions of this county, to be holden on the 28th inst., and he is without the means of defence or hope of justice, and has a wife and two children dependent on him for support, he is placed in circumstances of peculiar anxiety.

'Hence your memorialist earnestly hopes that you will direct that his papers, seized as before mentioned, be immediately restored to him, and also that he be allowed free access to such works and papers as he may deem necessary for his defence, and that without further delay.

'(signed) George Jacob Holyoake.

'County Gaol, Gloucester, June 14, 1842.'

The papers were afterwards returned; but, had it not been for friends in the House of Commons, and in various parts of the country, I should have been deprived of the materials for my defence. Public opinion did for me that which Christian charity refused.*

* At the Gloucester Trinity Sessions, Mr. R. B. Cooper
stated, in contradiction of the prayer of this memorial,
that 'as soon as I mentioned that my papers were necessary
for my defence they were returned to me.' Mr. S. Jones said
he 'took my papers home, and every one I wanted for my
trial on the morrow I had given to me.' Both these
statements were untrue, and I stated so at the time in the
Cheltenham Free Press, and my assertion was never
impugned.

Strong prejudices exist against me as being a Socialist. Your local newspapers have denounced me on this ground. To show that I deserve no condemnation on this account I shall draw your attention to the nature of Socialism. I have here a little book, stated to be published by the 'Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge.' If it had been stated to be a 'society' for disseminating 'malicious knowledge' the title-page would have been correct—for a more gross series of misrepresentations were never strung together. If what it says of Socialism were true, then I might be abused; but Socialism as I have learned or explained it, would never lead to the injury of peace or the disturbance of public order. The first paragraph of Godwin's 'Political Justice' is an epitome of Socialism as developed in this country hitherto s it is 'an investigation concerning that form of political society, that system of intercourse and reciprocal action extending beyond the bounds of a single family, which shall be found most conducive to the general benefit—how may the peculiar and independent operation of each individual in the social state most effectually be preserved—how may the security each man ought to possess as to his life, and the employments of his faculties according to the dictates of his own understanding, be most certainly defended from invasion—how may the individuals of the human species be made to contribute most substantially to general improvement and happiness.' But I shall not content myself with one authority; and to avoid the charge of presumption, I have gathered much of my defence from other men's writings, and shall make them speak for me.

Socialists have been declared to have dangerous metaphysical notions. The whole question has been expressed by the poet-philosopher Goethe in four lines, translated by Ebenezer Elliott, thus—

How like a stithy is this land!
And we lie on it, like good metal
Long hammer'd by a senseless hand;
But will such thumping make a kettle?

Meaning that senseless hammering and senseless legislation could neither make the dull iron into a kettle, nor a vicious people into an enlightened nation. Socialism says, all men have in them the true metal—the elements of goodness, which all governments are responsible for moulding. Socialism proposes to substitute other means than punishments for the prevention of crime, and that you may not think these chimeras of my own, I will read you the opinion of a Lord Cardinal to a certain High Chancellor of England, Sir Thomas More, who, in his 'Utopia.' says, 'When I was in England, the king depended much on his councils....

One day when I was dining with him there happened to be at table one of the English lawyers, who took occasion to run out in high commendation of the severe execution of justice upon thieves, "who," as he said, "were then hanged so fast that there were sometimes twenty on one gibbet!" and upon that he said, "he could not wonder enough how it came to pass, that since so few escaped there were so many thieves left, who were still robbing in all places." Upon this, I (who took the boldness to speak freely before the cardinal) said, "there was no reason to wonder at the matter, since this way of punishing thieves was neither just in itself nor good for the public; for as the severity was too great, so the remedy was not effectual; simple theft not being so great a crime, that it ought to cost a man his life: no punishment, how severe soever, being able to restrain those from robbing who can find no other way of livelihood. In this (said I) not only you in England but a great part of the world, imitate some ill masters, that are readier to chastise their scholars than teach them. There are dreadful punishments enacted against thieves, but it were much better to make such good provisions by which every man might be put in a method how to live and so be preserved from the fatal necessity of stealing, and of dying for it."' Socialism would try to obtain a remedy for the evils which judges go round year by year lamenting; Socialism would suggest a means of affording employment, and thus mitigate the crime which judges and juries are called to punish.

Such objects may be declared chimerical, but surely it is not criminal to hope that they can be carried out, and to feel that they ought. I could read many other passages to show that under no circumstance Socialism merits that character which has been ascribed to it But I do not deem it necessary, as I think I have said enough to prove that. Nor do I want to instil my sentiments, but merely to disabuse your minds of a prejudice which has been disseminated to my disadvantage.

My assuming the right of free expression inculcated by Mr. Owen, and when asked a question, refusing to equivocate, are opposed, it would appear, to the laws of this country. But this I have learned from Socialism, that there can be no public or private virtue, unless the foundation of action is the practice of truth. Passing through Cheltenham to pay a visit to a friend, I delivered a lecture. After which the words were uttered which are here indicted. When I had read the Cheltenham Chronicle, in the city of Bristol, I returned to Cheltenham. If I had been conscious of guilt, should I have returned? On the night of my apprehension marks of kindness were shown me by the people. If I had acted disgracefully, would the people of Cheltenham have met a stranger and showed him marks of esteem and friendship? I went to the station-house and remained there all night. When taken before the magistrates, Mr. Capper told me I was not fit to be reasoned with, because I did not believe in a God, and that it was from a love of notoriety that I acted: but from the love of mere notoriety I have never uttered any sentiments, for I hold such conduct in contempt. After I was taken from the magistrates' office, I was treated with contumely at the police-station. Surgeon Pinching, finding me completely in his power, said he was sorry the days were gone by when I could hold up my head, and wished the inquisition could be put in force against such persons as myself. I was thrust into a filthy cell, and my hands were bolted together and the skin pinched off. I was brought to Gloucester on a sultry day, and should have been made to walk had not some friends interfered and obtained permission for me to ride, on paying my own fare and that of two policemen. There was no indication from my manner that I wished to make my escape, and the company of two policemen was sufficient to prevent it. It was thought if I was chained like a felon and dragged through two towns, it would wound my feelings. If these are the ways in which the truths of Christianity are to be taught, I leave you to judge of them. Two of your magistrates conversed with me, and shouted with much rudeness that I was a fool for holding my opinions. I never could have said this to any man, and yet such treatment I received from magistrates old enough to be my grandfathers.

Here Mr. Bransby Cooper, who sat upon the left of the Judge, was so moved by this remark, that he rose and ejaculated something in Court; but the Judge peremptorily commanded him to sit down.

Mr. Holyoake then read the memorial of the public meeting of the inhabitants of Cheltenham, before quoted, referring to the conduct, at the examination, of Joseph Overbury, Robert Capper, and the Rev. T. B. Newell, D.D., magistrates.

Mr. Justice Erskine. You ought not to read any statement not authenticated by evidence, which reflects on any person.

Defendant. This is a petition of a public meeting.

Mr. Justice Erskine. It is not evidence.

Defendant continued. I have never been anxious under any circumstances to obtrude my opinions on the public. I confined myself strictly to the subject on which I lectured, and should not have introduced my sentiments on religion, should not have spoken another word after my lecture, if I had not been publicly questioned. I have held various situations, and in all secular ones I have strictly kept religious opinions out of view. It is known that I have taught that and that only which I have been employed to teach. In proof of this I may cite testimonials given me upon the occasion of my applying for the situation of collector at the Birmingham Botanic Gardens. They are from magistrates and gentlemen of Birmingham, and the post was one requiring a person of trust, as considerable funds would have to pass through his hands in a year.

Mr. Holyoake here quoted from numerous testimonials. One of them, from a magistrate, F. Lloyd, Esq., stated that Mr. Holyoake obtained the first prize at the Mechanics' Institute, some years ago, for proficiency in mathematics, a proficiency attained, too, under most discouraging circumstances.' Another of the testimonials was from the Rev. S. Bache, one of the ministers of the New Meeting House congregation. Having read these documents, Mr. Holyoake resumed.

During one of those commercial panics, which a few years ago passed over this country like a pestilence, my parents were suddenly reduced from a state of comparative affluence to one of privation. At one of these seasons my little sister became ill. While she was so the Rev. Mr. Moseley, M.A., Rector of St, Martin's, Birmingham, sent an order to us for his Easter due of fourpence. On previous occasions this demand had been cheerfully and promptly paid; but now, small as the sum was, it was sufficient materially to diminish the few comforts our house of illness unfortunately afforded; and it was therefore discussed whether the demand of the clergyman should be paid, or whether it should be expended in the purchase of some little comforts for my sick sister. Humanity decided; and we all agreed that it should be devoted to this latter purpose. It was; but, I think, the very next week, a summons came for the Easter due, and two shillings and sixpence were added, because of the non-payment of "the fourpence". The payment of this could now no longer be evaded, for in a few days a warrant of distraint would have rudely torn the bed from under her, as had been the case with a near neighbour. Dreading this, and trembling at the apprehension, we gathered together all the money we had, and which was being saved to purchase a little wine to moisten the parched lips of my dying sister, for at this time her end seemed approaching. My mother, with a heavy heart, left home to go to the Public Office. The aisles there were cold and cheerless like the outside this court, and there, all broken in health and spirits, worn out with watching, and distracted by that anxiety for her child a parent, under such circumstances, only could feel, she was kept from five to six hours waiting to pay the two shillings and ten-pence. When she returned all was over—my sister was dead. Gentlemen, will you wonder if, after this, I doubted a little the utility of church establishments?* and if, after the circumstances I have related, I did not think so highly of church 'as by law established' as before, can you be surprised? Can you punish me for it? [At this point many ladies wept, and the Court manifested considerable attention.]

* I have since learned that Mr. W. J. Fox read this passage
in a Sunday morning lecture on the events of the month,
delivered at South-place in the September following my
trial; and I take this opportunity of acknowledging that Mr.
Fox was the only occupant of a pulpit from whom I received a
friendly line during my entire imprisonment.

I have been told to look around the world for evidences of the truth of the Christian religion; to look upon the world and draw different conclusions. It is well for those who enjoy the smiles of fortune to say so. For them all shines brightly—for them all is fair. But I can see cause of complaint, and I am not alone in the feeling. Mr. Capel Lofft had said, 'the sours of life less offend my taste than its sweets delight it.' On this Kirke White wrote:—

Go to the raging sea, and say
'Be still!' Bid the wild lawless winds obey thy will;
Preach to the storm, and reason with despair—
But tell not misery's son that life is fair.

Thou, who in plenty's lavish lap hast roll'd, And every year with new delight hast told—Thou, who, recumbent on the lacquer'd barge, Hast dropt down joy's gay stream of pleasant marge, Thou may'st extol life's calm, untroubled sea—The storms of misery ne'er burst on thee. Go to the mat where squalid want reclines; Go to the shade obscure where merit pines; Abide with him whom Penury's charms control, And bind the rising yearnings of his soul—Survey his sleepless couch, and, standing there, Tell the poor pallid wretch that life is fair!

Lo! o'er his manly form, decay'd and wan, The shades of death with gradual steps steal on; And the pale mother, pining to decay, Weeps, for her boy, her wretched life away.

Go, child of fortune! to his early grave, Where o'er his head obscure the rank weeda wave; Behold the heart-wrung parent lay her head On the cold turf, and ask to share his bed. Go, child of fortune, take thy lesson there, And tell us then that life is wondrous fair.

As I grew up I attended missionary meetings, and my few pence were given to that cause. When told of heathen kings who knew not God, and caged their miserable victims, I shuddered at their barbarity and prayed for their conversion. O waste of money and prayers that should have been employed on Christian men. O infantile fatuity! Do I not reap the whirlwind for my pains? I learned the accents of piety from my mother's lips. She was and still is a religious woman. Whatever may be the dissent I entertain, I have never spoken of her opinions in the language of contempt. I have always left her (as she to her honour has left me), to enjoy her own opinions. In early youth I was religious. I question whether there is any here who have spent more time than I did as a Sunday school teacher. I have given hours, which I ought to have employed in improving myself, in improving others. It is not without giving to Christianity time and attention—without knowing what it was—that I have given it up. Some lines I contributed to a religious publication at that time, will show the tone of thought which inquiry has subsequently changed:—

THE REIGN OF TIME.
The proudest earthly buildings show,
Time can all things devour;
E'en youth and beauty's ardent glow,
And manhood's intellectual brow,
Betray the spoiler's power:
How soon we sink beneath his sway—
He glances, and our heads turn gray.
Though, over all this earthly ball,
Time's standard is unfurled,
And ruins loud to ruins call
Throughout this time-worn world—
Yet from this wreck of earthly things,
See how the soul exulting springs.
And after the archangel's wand
Has wav'd o'er earth and sea,
And Time has stopped at his command,
The soul will nourish and expand
Through all eternity.
Religion—lovely, fair, and free—
Holds forth this immortality.
By all the glories of the sky,
To mortals yet unknown—
And by the worm that ne'er shall die,
The fires that always burn—
By all that's awful or sublime,
Ye sons of men improve your time.*
* 'Baptist Tract Magazine.' Vol. ii., p. 341.

It was stated by one of the magistrates that my being of no religion was no crime. I may conclude from what I heard this morning that I am not to be punished for not being religious. It was argued in, the Cheltenham Chronicle that my expressing my opinions was no crime, and I was at some loss to know what my crime was. The charge stated I was guilty of blasphemy. In the depositions made against me, it is stated that I was brought before the Cheltenham magistrates on a charge of felony. I believe now what I have to answer is the accusation of uttering certain words offensive to the Cheltenham Chronicle.

This paper stated that 'three persons were ready to give evidence on the matter.' And yet the witness says he knew nothing of it till the policeman came for him. He says they were 'chaffing' about my remarks in the office—that is, joking upon them. It does not say much for his seriousness—reporting these 'horrid sentiments' at night, and the next morning 'chaffing' about them. If it was an aggravation of my crime to have chosen an innocent subject, what would the learned counsel have said if I had chosen a guilty one? It has been sworn by the witnesses that I said I did not believe there was such a thing as a God, and an attempt has been made to make you believe that I used the term 'thing' contemptuously, but the witness admits that I did not use it in a contemptuous sense. The same word occurs in some lines by Thomas Moore:—

Man, in the sunshine of the world's new spring,
Shall walk transparent like some holy thing.

I must have used the word 'thing' in some such sense as it is used in these lines.

It is laid down by the Common Law, that a person denying the existence of a God is a blasphemer. It has not been shown that I did this. I merely stated my disbelief—and disbelief is not included by the law. There is a great difference between denial and disbelief. If I had said distinctly 'there is no God,' it would have been stating that I was quite sure of it. I could not have said that, because I am not sure of it. I saw reasons for disbelief, but did not assert denial. Disbelief is all I profess. Those dogmatise who affirm, rather than those who deny a proposition. Mr. Southwell put this point in its proper light:—

'If God had never been affirmed, he could not have been denied. It is a rule of logic, and a very sensible rule, that the onus probandi, that is the burthen or weight of proving, rests on those who affirm a proposition. Priests have affirmed the existence of a God, but who will maintain that they have complied with the rule of logic?'*

We can only, I think, arrive at a conviction of the existence of a God by the following modes:—

1. By the medium of innate ideas, which we are said by some divines to possess, and which intuitively lead us to entertain the idea of a God.

2. By the senses, the sole media by which all knowledge is acquired.

3. By conjecture.—This is employed by those who suppose there must be a God from their inability otherwise to account for the existence of the universe, and are not willing to allow it to be inexplicable.

4. By analogy.—Comparison is the basis of this argument. Analogy is the foundation of natural theology.

5. By revelation.—In this country the Bible is said to contain the revelation of a God.

Of these it may be remarked:—

1. Innate ideas.—With regard to these, very conclusive reasons have been advanced by eminent philosophers for disbelieving that we have any. And human experience confirms this conclusion. Some nations, as the people of the Arru Islands, have no idea of a God. So this source of knowledge concerning one is, to say the least, dubious.

2. Senses.—'No man hath seen God at any time,' is a sufficient reply to this—for the same may be affirmed of every other sense, which is here affirmed of sight.

3. Conjecture.—This defies us. We only prove our own inability and multiply difficulties. For when we suppose a God, we cannot suppose how he came, nor how he created something out of nothing, which is held by the learned to be plainly impossible.**

* Oracle of Reason, No. 31, p. 251.
** Since this time Mr. Francis William Newman has put this
argument unanswerably in these words; 'A God uncaused and
existing from eternity, is to the full as incomprehensible
as a world uncaused and existing from eternity'—'The Soul,'
p. 36. Second edition.

4. Analogy will not inform us. A small pivot or wheel cannot infallibly indicate to us the mechanism to which it belongs, nor anything conclusive as to whether the whole had only one or more makers. So of the universe, no part can shadow forth the whole of that, nor inform us conclusively whether it had a creator or creators. And here it is to be observed the difficulty is greater than with machines—for a pivot or wheel is a finite part of a finite whole, and both comprehensible; but with the universe, all we can take cognisance of is but a very finite part of an infinite whole, and that whole to all men acknowledged incomprehensible. Moreover, creation can have no analogy—no one ever saw or can conceive of anything being created. So that this mode of learning the existence of a God fails. The Rev. Hugh M'Neile, M.A., minister of St. Jade's Church, Liverpool, in a lecture delivered to above four hundred of the Irish clergy, at the Rotunda in Dublin, said in reference to this part of the question, 'I am convinced, I say, that, from external creation, no right conclusion can be drawn concerning the moral character of God. Creation is too deeply and disastrously blotted in consequence of man's sin, to admit of any satisfactory result from an adequate contemplation of nature. The authors of a multitude of books on this subject, have given an inadequate and partial induction of particulars. Already aware (though perhaps scarcely recognising how or whence) that "God is love," they have looked on nature for proofs of this conclusion, and taken what suited their purpose. But they have not taken nature as a whole, and collected a conclusion fairly from impartial premises. They expatiate on the blessings and enjoyments of life, in the countless tribes of earth, air, and sea. But if life be a blessing, death is a curse. Nature presents the universal triumph of death. Is this the doing of a God of love? or are there two Gods—a kind one, giving life; and an unkind one taking it away; and the wicked one invariably the victor? In external creation, exclusively and adequately contemplated, there is no escape from Manichæism. It is vain to say that the death of the inferior creatures is a blessing to man; for why, in the creation of a God of love, should any such necessity exist? And how would this account for the death of man himself?' So far the argument of analogy.

5. Revelation.—We have none. If others ever had, we can only determine it by human reason, and for this purpose Leslie has furnished his well-known rules. Therefore, as revelation means something superadded to reason, we cannot be said to possess it, for reason has to determine what is, and what is not revelation, and therefore is superior to it. Also, it is contended by divines that, but for the Bible we should know nothing of a God, which shows the unsatisfactory nature of the four methods of learning his existence we have gone through. And Lord Brougham contends that but for natural theology, or the analogy argument, which has been shown to be no argument at all, the Bible would have no other basis than mere tradition.

So you see, gentlemen, the philosophical difficulties besetting the path of a young inquirer into sacred things. These difficulties are to me insuperable, and hence I find myself incapable of employing language you are more fortunate in being able to adapt to your conscience.*

* The object of this passage was to show the jury the
intellectual difficulties belonging to this subject, and the
passage formed but an episode among the moral issues I
raised. A friend of mine asking an eminent divine at one of
Dr. Elliotson's seances, and who afterwards entered
parliament, what he thought of my defence. 'Oh it turned
upon that eternal conundrum the existence of God,' was the
answer. But I hope the reader will see something more in my
defence than the frivolity that employs itself on riddles.

But it has been stated I said I would put the Deity on half-pay. After first stating that I did not believe there was a Deity, is it likely I should say I would put him on half-pay? Would you put a servant on half-pay whom you never hired or had? All my expressions went to prove that I referred to the expenses of religion. I could not suppose that there is a being capable of governing the world, and consider him good and kind, and yet have any intention of bringing him into contempt. I had no personal reference to the Deity. I made use of that figure of speech because I thought they would understand it better, and they did understand it. I was saying we had many heavy burdens to pay to capitalists and others, and that I thought it hung like a millstone round us. Sir R. Peel said, when he introduced the income-tax, that the poor man could bear no more. I said there were twenty-four millions taken from us for the support of religion, and that they would do well to reduce that one-half. Suppose, gentlemen, that I did refer to the Deity, was my notion a dishonourable one? What man of you who had enough and to spare, and seeing the people around him in poverty, would not willingly relinquish part of his income to give them a bare subsistence? Who will deny that in England there are honest, industrious, hard-working men, honourable women, and beautiful children, who have not the means of obtaining food? Did I do him a disgrace if I thought he, who is called our Father, the Most High, would have dispensed with one-half of the lip-service he receives in order to give his creatures necessaries!

[It being nearly four o'clock the Jury asked leave to retire, to which Mr. Holyoake consenting, they left the Court for a short time. Some ladies who represented themselves as wives of clergymen, came round the dock offering Mr. Holyoake confections and refreshment, and expressing their regret at the treatment he had received, and the position in which he was placed.]

Mr. Holyoake, on resuming, said—According to a calculation that has never been disputed, the

'Pay to their Clergy.

Catholics, numbering... 124,672,000... £6,106,000
Protestants " ... 54,046,000... 11,906,000
Greek Church " ... 41,000,000... 760,000
Total of Christians 219,718,000 £18,762,000

'Of which England, for twenty-one millions of people, pays more than one-half.'* Thus the English pay five times more according to their numbers—I proposed a reduction of only one-half.

* 'Cheap Salvation.' By Henry Hetheringten.

Mr. W. J. Fox has told us—'If the government of the country disposed of the mismanaged funds of the clergy, they would have sufficient for their annual needful expenditure.'

Mr. Justice Erskine. If you can convince the jury that you only meaning was that the incomes of the clergy ought to be reduced, and that you did not intend to insult God, I should tell the jury you ought not to be convicted. You need not go into a laboured defence of that.

Mr. Holyoake. It was stated by one of the witnesses at Cheltenham that I said Christians are worshippers of Mammon. I thought it necessary for me to refer to it.

Mr. Justice Erskine. There is no evidence of that.

Mr. Holyoake. Then turn to the question What is blasphemy? In the case of Mr. Southwell, one of the witnesses for the prosecution stated his opinion that the crime was 'bringing a scandal on the religion of the magistrates.' Perhaps this is as correct a definition as can be given. It has been said to be 'an injury to God,' Men who could not string six sentences together grammatically, have told me they would defend God—men whom I should be ashamed to have defending me. But blasphemy is impossible in the sense of annoyance to God. Jonathan Edwards says—'The following things may be laid down as maxims of plain truth and indisputable evidence:—

'1. That God is a perfectly happy being, in the most absolute and highest sense possible.

'2. It will follow from hence, that God is free from everything that is contrary to happiness: and so that in strict propriety of speech there is no such thing as any pain, grief or trouble in God.

'3. Where any intelligent being is really crossed and disappointed, and things are contrary to what he truly desires, he is less pleased, or has the less pleasure, his pleasure and happiness are diminished, and he suffers what is disagreeable to him, or is the subject of something that is of a nature contrary to joy and happiness, even pain and grief.

'From this last maxim it follows, that if no distinction is to be admitted between God's hatred of sin, and his will with respect to the event and existence of sin, as the all-wise determiner of all events, under the view of all consequences through the whole com pass and series of things; I say, then, it certainly follows, that the coming to pass of every individual act of sin is truly, all things considered, contrary to his will, and that his will is really crossed in it, and that in proportion as he hates it. And as God's hatred of sin is infinite, by reason of the infinite contrariety of his holy nature to sin; so his will is infinitely crossed in every act of sin that happens. Which is as much as to say:—he endures that which is infinitely disagreeable to him, by means of every act of sin he sees committed—and so he must be infinitely crossed and suffer infinite pain every day, in millions of millions of instances, which would be to make him infinitely the most miserable of all beings.'*

But blasphemy is an antiquated accusation. In a work** by Col. Feyronnet Thompson, it is remarked—'what a turmoil, what a splutter, was in this land, when men first announced that they would not eat fish, they would not bow down, they would not confess but when they liked, and this because the secret had got wind that these things were either not in the priests' own rule, or were against it! What threats of hell flames, what splashing about of fire and brimstone, what registration of judgments on men choked with a beef-steak on Friday! Look at one of those simple men in the present day, who shock themselves with the barouches, the cigars, the newspapers, and the elephants of a London Sunday, and occasionally digress to Paris, for the keener excitation of seeing Punch upon the Boulevards, and wondering where heaven reserves its thunder. And put the parallel case; that a good Austrian or Navarrese Catholic came here, and grieved his heart with our weekly doings on a Friday, to say nothing of our more wholesale offences for forty days together in Lent. "Such frying; such barbecuing; in no place did I see anybody having the smallest notion of a red herring! All are involved in one flood of sin and gravy! How fathomless the patience of heaven, that such an island is not swallowed up of the deep!" We have looked into the rule he professes to go by; and we declare it is not there, but the contrary. We know we must appear in the next world with all our mutton on our heads. But we have done our best to look at the rule with the light that God has given us; and in spite of Austria or Navarre, we will take the risk of His not being angry with us, for seeing no prohibition of mutton there.' Thus we see that mutton-eating was at one period blasphemous.

* Quoted from 'A Commentary on the Public Discussion on the
subjects of Necessity and Responsibility,' &c By Jonathan
Jonathan, late of the United States.
** 'The Question of Sabbath Observance, tried by the
Church's own rule,' &c. By Col. Peyronnet Thompson, F.R.S,
of Queen's College, Cambridge.

Mr. Sergeant Talfourd told the jury, in the case of Hetherington v. Moxon, that if the government were consistent in carrying out prosecutions for blasphemy—Shakspere, Milton, Byron, Shelley, Southey—might be prohibited. This perhaps would be an agreeable result to a reverend gentleman well known in this court and county, who says all science should be destroyed; but I trust you entertain no such feelings, and that if I can show that my sentiments cannot be productive of harm, you will feel called upon to acquit me. I claim no inherent right of expressing my opinions, I only contend for liberty of expression because required for the public good. A doctrine was laid down by Lord John Russell upon the occasion of the presentation of the National Petition, which I will quote as a view of the subject of human rights well expressed.

'I am aware,' he said, 'that it is a doctrine frequently urged, and I perceive dwelt upon in this petition, that every male of a certain age has a right, absolute and inalienable, to elect a representative to take his place among the members in the Commons' House of Parliament. Now, sir, I never could understand that indefeasible right. It appears to me that that question, like every other in the practical application of politics, is to be settled by the institutions and the laws of the country of which the person is a native. I see no more right that a person twenty-one years of age has to elect a member of parliament than he has to be a juryman. I conceive that you may just as well say that every adult male has a right to sit upon a jury to decide the most complicated and difficult questions of property, or that every man has a right to exercise the judicial functions, as the people did in some of the republics of antiquity. These things, as it appears to me, are not matters of right; but if it be for the good of the people at large, if it be conducive to the right government of the state, if it tend to the maintenance of the freedom and welfare of the people, that a certain number, defined and limited by a reference to a fixed standard of property, should have the right of electing members of parliament, and if it be disadvantageous to the community at large that the right of suffrage should be universal, then I say that on such a subject the consideration of the public good should prevail, that legislation must act upon it as on every other, and that no inalienable right can be quoted against that which the good of the whole demands.'

If Lord Russell did not, I do see a difference between the claim of an elector and the right of a juryman. The elector is chiefly concerned with his own interests, the juryman with other people's—one is simple, the other complex. But with the measure of right laid down by his lordship in the sentiments I have quoted, I perfectly accord, and if it could be shown that freedom of expression produced public harm, then I would give it up. But I believe such a right would produce good, and therefore I claim it at your hands upon the ground of public good.