One of those fatal mistakes which so many men make in their youth, i.e., an unfortunate marriage, was made by Carlile. At the early age of twenty-three he united himself to a woman of thirty. He had been staying at the little town of Gosport for a short time, and there became acquainted with this very good-looking woman, who was capable, well connected, and possessed of a considerable talent for business. After a courtship of only two months' duration, they joined the ranks of those who "marry in haste and repent at leisure". It is an ungrateful task to criticise adversely the character of a woman who did good service (however unwillingly) on behalf of intellectual freedom; but in the cause of truth individuals must suffer, and Truth and Justice should ever go hand in hand.

Carlile had not been married a week before he realised the great mistake he had made, and years after he told of it in this way: —

"I was in a dilemma the very first week of my marriage. I had but two responsibilities in life. The first was to assist my mother, who had now become infirm and poor, the other was to finish the apprenticeship of a son of a real friend. Neither of these engagements could be ignored or set aside. My wife knew of these before marriage and tacitly approved them, but set herself directly against both of them immediately after. I can truly say that as far as mental peace makes happiness I had never one day's happiness during the honeymoon or any other moon during the entire continuation of that marriage. I cannot pronounce her a bad woman, or of being the possessor of any particular vice. She was as variable as the atmosphere, and was in herself a complete 'System of Nature' both as a microcosm and macrocosm. The social as well as the moral evil was that her temper could never be relied on, and was often both terrible and dangerous. I have known her to exhibit for days together such appearances than which none could be more amiable or agreeable, more generous or more affable, and then on the most frivolous grounds – for merely imagined wrongs – become tempestuous to delirium and hysterics. It was her physical rather than her moral properties that were the seat of the disorder. Her violence generally fell on my immediate friends, man or woman, and a mere act of kindness shown to my mother or sisters has endangered my life as far as threats and preparations were appearances of danger. I never considered my life safe, and lived for years in almost daily apprehension of some terrible domestic tragedy. The wonder is that I ever accomplished anything under such a state of feeling, and I confess, what I have often told her, that to me imprisonment was a great relief; and this is part of the secret why I bore it so well. During the whole of my married life I felt the annoying condition of being without a home to which I could proceed in peace, and introduce a friend with the ordinary rites of hospitality and required civility from the mistress of the house. This necessarily drove me from home and caused me to form associations that I otherwise would not have done. As early as-1819, a separation took place (as was always the conversation through every year of our association) and was continued for some time, and during our united imprisonment in Dorchester Gaol – it was a matter of constant and sober conversation and future prospect – it was mutually understood that it was to be whenever I should be in a condition to make a sufficient settlement upon her. It was carried out at precisely that time, the moment at which the annuity of £50 a year, left me by Mr. Morrison, of Chelsea, was cleared of legacy duty. It was not till the month of May, 1832, that the first clear quarterly payment became due, but I anticipated it by the advance of a quarter's money in the February of that year, Mrs. Carlile was allowed to take everything in the way of furniture that she desired, and £100 ($500) worth of books from the stock which was at her mercy when she left. She did take every article of furniture, every bed, table, and chair in the house, even the chairs which had been purchased for the lecture room. She left me nothing but the business, its stock and debts, and she took the nearest shop she could wherein to oppose and injure me. At that time I had not seen her for a year, though I was in prison; nor would she send me so much as a Sunday dinner. We had separated from all pretences of being man and wife for nearly two years before that. She was only fit for what she now possesses, viz., single retirement with a competency to secure her from the cares and turmoils of life."

So much for the unpleasant details which are necessary to the understanding and justification of later events. It is more pleasant to record the manner in which this wife helped in the business, and how well she withstood the assaults of their common enemy. On the whole, and considering that she had absolutely no sympathy with Carlile's aims and ideas, and that her sole idea of a cause was the profits to be made by it, remembering also that she suffered a two years' imprisonment and bore two children to him in prison, that she fought for him as well as at him, also bearing in mind that to be the wife of a reformer one must suffer toil and privation, loss and sorrow of every kind, then we must feel she did her part in the good cause and bore her trials well. Whatever may have been her faults she is entitled to her share of the gratitude and remembrance of those who now enjoy the blessings of a Free Press.

She bore her husband five children in all, only three of whom reached maturity. These were Richard, Alfred, and Thomas Paine Carlile. It cannot be said that any of these sons followed in their father's footsteps. Though they were associated with him, by turns, in the practical part of the publishing business, they seemed not to have inherited either their mother's thrift or their father's talents, and were the source of much uneasiness to him. It would appear as if the uncongeniality of the parents had affected their children unfavorably. Carlile set them up in business several times, but always with unpleasant results; the unpopularity of the name.

Carlile at that time may have had much to do with their non-success, but not all. Carlile was at all times a most patient and kind parent. Always a great lover of little children, he contrived to have one or more of them with him as much as possible during his imprisonment. Again and again did he try them in business as they grew to manhood, and made many sacrifices for them. In a letter addressed to Mr. Thomas Turton, March 6th, 1838, after relating his anxiety and efforts for their welfare, he said:

"I begin to feel that there can never be any advantageous union whatever between me and any portion of that family. I can see no other purpose in them than the aim to get from me whatever they can, without regard to doing themselves or me any good. In this they have been trained by their mother from their infancy, and that training remains in them. Alfred is the best of them, but even he has exhibited too much of that feeling. The whole family has dealt with me as though they had a secret interest to provide for distinct from mine; and I must meet them accordingly, for their own benefit as well as mine."

In another letter to the same gentleman, condoling with him on the loss of a very bright and intellectual son, he writes:

"Be assured of my sympathy and condolence, for indeed 'I mourn with you'. Neither of my own boys promising to be anything, I had pictured yours as being one of my future aids. I had formed high hopes of him, he was one of the brightest youths I had ever met. I had often wished that my boys were like him."

At another date, after some more unpleasant experiences with his own boys, he writes again to Mr.

Turton, who for more than twenty years was his bosom friend and shared all his secrets, if he had any. "The only idea that my boys entertain of a father is that he is a person to be fleeced. They sell my goods and make no return of the money." And then in a burst of feeling he concludes: "Such a family as I have neither God nor devil could manage." But enough of these unpleasant matters, which would not be given but that it is necessary to do so to serve their purpose in the cause of truth. Carlile's patience and forbearance with the unfortunate peculiarities of this wife earned for him the sobriquet of a noted sage. The Rev. Robert Taylor complimented him many a time and oft, and said, "that it was a Xantippe alone who could have made him into such a perfect resemblance in manner and character to Socrates".

Richard, the eldest son, emigrated to America soon after his father's death, and settled in Wisconsin, near Milwaukee; and was elected to the House of Assembly from that State. He died of ship fever on his return to America after paying a visit to London in 1855.

CHAPTER III. THE MANCHESTER MASSACRE

The following account of the memorable and terrible Manchester massacre is given by Carlile himself. It was his escape from this, and his subsequent publishing of the particulars concerning it, that drew down upon him the vengeful malice of the then Prime Minister, Lord Castlereagh, who was thereafter bent on Carlile's undoing.

"Early in the month of August, 1819, I was invited by John Knight, in the name of the committee, to attend an open-air meeting in Manchester, to take place on August 16th, 1819, at St. Peter's Field, the object being to meet and discuss their grievances publicly, and to unite upon a plan to be submitted to the House of Commons for the purpose of seeking and demanding the restoration of those political rights of which they had recently been unlawfully deprived by the passage of the Six Acts Bill, and the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act; and to take action with a view or endeavor to procure other reforms from a notably corrupt Parliament. There had been rumors of the military being called out if the meeting should be held as proposed. I wrote the Chairman of the committee saying that as the advocates of reform were threatened with military execution at that meeting, I felt it my duty to be there, as a matter of example, at the post of danger. It was announced in the New Times before I left London that General Byng had reviewed the troops on St. Peter's Plain, and that they were in fine condition for coping with the Radicals, at the coming meeting, on the 16th August. I travelled from Birmingham to Manchester. There was a general expectation of an attack from the military, and some of the leaders were anxious to arm themselves, and there was a proposition afoot that fifteen thousand men should be there armed with pikes as a precautionary measure, but it was vetoed by some one of the leaders. About eleven o'clock in the morning the people began to assemble at the cottage where Mr. Henry Hunt had taken up his residence. At twelve Mr. Hunt, myself, and others entered the barouche that was to convey us to the place of meeting. We had not proceeded far when we were met by a committee of women from the Women's Reform Committee, one of whom bore a standard with the figure of a woman holding a flag in her hand, surmounted by a cap of liberty. She was requested to take a seat on the box of the carriage, which she did, and sat waving her flag and her handkerchief till we arrived at the hustings, when she took her stand at the corner of the hustings in front. Bodies of men were seen everywhere marching in military order with music, and colors flying, and carrying mottoes inscribed on them such as 'No Corn Laws', 'Liberty or Death' 'Taxation without Representation is Tyranny', 'We will have Liberty', etc., etc. Such cheering was never before heard! Women from the age of 16 to 80 years were seen with their caps in their hands waving and cheering, and their hair consequently dishevelled, the whole scene exceeding the powers of description. In passing through the streets the crowds were very great, and word was brought to Mr. Hunt that there were 300,000 people at and about the place of meeting. As the carriage moved along and reached the shops and warehouses of Mr. Johnson, of Smedley, three times three were given, also at the Police Court and at the Exchange. We arrived at the place of destination about one o'clock. Mr. Hunt expressed his disapprobation of the hustings as arranged, and feared that there would be some accident happen, they not appearing to be very secure. After some hesitation he ascended, and the proposition being made that he should be chairman, he was made so by acclamation. There were five women upon the hustings; four of them took a stand in the bottom of the waggons that formed the hustings, the other, who was Mary Fildes, I believe, was elevated on one corner of the front with her banner in her hand and resting on a large chain. A most singular and interesting situation for a woman at such a meeting; Joan of Arc could not have been more interesting. Mr. Hunt had just begun his speech by thanking the people for the favor conferred on him, and made some ironical remarks on the conduct of the magistrates, when a cart or waggon, which evidently took its start from that part of the field where the police and magistrates were assembled in a house, was driven through the middle of the field, to the great annoyance and danger of the people assembled, who quietly made way for it to pass. The waggon had no sooner made its way through, when the Yeoman Cavalry made its appearance from the side on which the waggon had gone out. The meeting at the entrance of the cavalry and from the commencement was most orderly. The appearance of the women on the platform made the occasion particularly interesting, and everyone present wore bright and happy faces; but as the waggon drove out the cavalry made their appearance, and charged upon the defenceless people with the utmost fury, riding down everyone who could not get out of the way, and cutting down men, women, and children, commencing their premeditated attack with the most insatiable thirst for blood and destruction! The police, too, were as expert in applying their clubs to the heads and shoulders of the people as the cavalry their sabres. The brutality of the police equalled in ferocity the blood-thirstiness of the soldiers. On the first appearance of the cavalry I was standing by Mary Fildes, but I found her above everything like fear. I turned to cheer the other four women, and found them too in good spirits. Many people were rushing on the hustings, and many others getting off, and an opening between the two waggons enabled them to pass down through. After many others had done so, and just as Mr. Hunt was arrested, I passed down through the aperture and had a very narrow escape of my life in so doing, for the pressure of the crowd was so great that, just as I jumped down, the two waggons came together with a crash; and I lost my hat by its being jammed off my head, between the two waggons, in such a manner that I could not extricate it. I was no sooner under the hustings than I found the horses' feet up close to me; but the hustings being cleared, they moved around and followed the crowd who were driven from the hustings, and I then walked out without a hat and was seized by the police. Their first question was, 'Who are you? What business have you here?' I told them that if they thought proper to take me in charge I would soon let them know who I was and how I came there. 'Damn you!' says one; 'let him go about his business'; and I lost no time in doing so. And I found no further interruption except a few blows from their truncheons. I, being a perfect stranger in that city, made to the nearest houses, which I believe were called Hall's Buildings, Windmill Row. Here I found a number of people sheltered. The place formed a little inlet from St. Peter's Plain, but no thoroughfare. All houses were close shut, and on no account would people open them, until there was one woman who looked out of window, and seeing me, a well-dressed man without a hat, supporting a woman who had received a severe contusion on the breast, she was moved with sympathy, and under the idea that I was a doctor and could assist her, she came down and let us in, when there was a rush of about a dozen persons, mostly young people of both sexes. I could not move from the house till six in the evening, when the husband came home from his work. On his arrival I commissioned him to purchase me a hat, which he had great difficulty in doing, as all shops were closed. He at last succeeded, and then I got him to pilot me through the town to the 'Star' Inn, where I had slept the night before, and left my portmanteau. On coming to the inn and finding it surrounded by the cavalry who had done all the mischief in the morning, I thought it prudent not to enter. I then made my way to Mr. Wroe's house, as he was the only man I knew in Manchester, and on consulting with him I concluded that I could do no good in Manchester, but might do much good in London by an early publication of what I had witnessed. I resolved to leave by the first mail, but my portmanteau was still in the enemies' quarters. A person in Mr. Wroe's house undertook to bring me to a coach stand, and having got into a coach, I ordered the man to drive me to the 'Star' Inn, to the door of which we had great difficulty in getting owing to the pressure of so many mounted yeomanry. I got out boldly, and told the coachman to wait, and went into the travellers' room. I made sure of being known, as we had driven past the inn in the morning in the open barouche, and were seen by all the servants, who did not fail to hiss a little as their house was the rendezvous for the enemy, a circumstance I did not know when I went there. On calling the waiter he was quite sullen, saying they had kept me a bed at a great inconvenience to other customers. I pacified him by telling him to charge for it, but I had to ring again and again before the bill and the portmanteau were brought, and all the time I thought there was something brewing for me. At last a different waiter came, and then my things were soon brought and bill settled. Having pleased the waiter beyond his expectations, I slipped on a great coat and a pair of white gaiters, and he ushered me to the coach with a great deal of ceremony, and the yeomanry in front were requested to make way for one whom they had been sent to kill in the morning. While I had been waiting so long for my bill, etc., my coach had to move on to make way for another, and so I was shown to the wrong coach and drove off to the 'Bridgewater Arms', from whence the mail coach started. I had just got out and paid the man when there was a hue and cry after me by the first coachman I had hired, and unknowingly left behind at the 'Star' door. My first impression was that the police had scent of me, but I soon found my mistake, paid the man, and all was right. At three in the morning the coach left, and great was the terror of the coachman, guard, and passengers that it would be stopped by the Reformers before it got to Stockport. I had nothing to fear on this head, but was not free of apprehension that one of my fellow-travellers was a police officer in disguise set to watch me, or to keep at my heels at any rate. He was despatched from Manchester as an express agent to London, either to the Government or to some mercantile house. There were four of us in the mail, two were friends of the master of the 'Bridgewater Arms', and had been there on a visit, and appeared to be coach-masters themselves living somewhere between Macclesfield and Derby. Those two worthies were well filled with wine, but a bottle was brought to the coach door by the master to have a parting glass, when to every glass was the toast, 'Down with Hunt!' One of them would insist on my taking a glass as a fellow-traveller to join in the sentiment of 'Down with Hunt!' To pacify the fools and disarm suspicion as far as possible, I drank the glass of wine with 'Down with Hunt!' which was considered the proof of my being a good fellow and a fit companion for them. The panic which prevailed in all the towns from Manchester to Northampton can scarcely be conceived, and it fell to my lot to detail the particulars of the massacre at each town we passed through, as nothing but post-horse expresses had passed through till the arrival of our mail coach."

Mr. Hunt received a sentence of two years' imprisonment in Dorchester Gaol for his part in this affair. The reader is spared the details of the bloody onslaught. The instances which came under Carlile's immediate observation were sickening in the extreme, and drew from him immediately on his arriving in London a spirited letter to Lord Sidmouth, describing the whole affair, and calling on him to call the Manchester authorities to account for their dastardly conduct. The letter itself gave great umbrage, and a council of three, consisting of Lord Sidmouth, Sir John Silvester, Recorder, and John Atkins, Mayor of London, studied over it for several days to see if it could not be made out to be itself a treasonable affair. In the meantime, the Prince Regent had directed Lord Sidmouth to return the magistrates of Manchester, and all the officers and privates concerned in the attack, "Their thanks to them for having so promptly preserved the peace and tranquillity of the country."

This drew from Carlile two more letters of the same kind as the first, but stronger, one to the Prince Regent, George, afterwards George IV, and another to Lord Sidmouth. The boldness of this proceeding was something very unusual and not to be tolerated; but Carlile never knew what fear was when he had a pen in his hand, or indeed at any other time. Moreover, he could not believe that the Prince Regent could have been properly informed, or he would not have done this, and he was boiling with indignation at the treatment of peaceable citizens.

This letter of Sir Francis Burdett on the Manchester massacre was adjudged libellous, and procured for Sir Francis a fine of £1,500 or a year's imprisonment, in the usual manner of those days. (Sir Francis preferred paying the fine.) It ran as follows: —

"To the Electors of Westminster,

"Aug. 18th, 1819.

"Gentlemen,

"This, then, is the answer of the boroughmongers to the petitioning people – this is the proof of our standing in no need of reform – these the practical blessings of our glorious boroughmongers' domination – this the use of a standing army in time of peace. It seems our fathers were not such fools as some would make believe in opposing the establishment of a standing army and sending King William's Dutch guards out of the country! Yet would to heaven they had been Dutchmen or Switzers, or Hessians, or Hanoverians, or anything rather than Englishmen who have done such deeds! What? Kill men unarmed and unresisting, and, gracious God, women too, disfigured, maimed, cut down, and trampled on by dragoons? Is this England? Is this a Christian land? A land of freedom? Can such things be and pass us by like a summer's cloud, unheeded? Forbid it; every drop of English blood in every vein that does not proclaim its owner bastard. Will the gentlemen of England support or wink at such proceedings? They have a great stake in their country; they hold great estates, and they are bound in duty and in honor to consider them as retaining fees on the part of their country for upholding its rights and privileges. Surely they will at length awake and find they have duties to perform. They never can stand tamely by as lookers-on whilst bloody Neros rip open their mothers's womb; they must join the general voice, loudly demanding justice and redress, and head public meetings throughout the United Kingdom to put a stop in its commencement to a reign of terror and of blood, to afford consolation as far as it can be afforded and legal redress to the widows and orphans – mutilated victims of this unparalleled and barbarous outrage. For this purpose I propose that a meeting shall be called in Westminster, which the gentlemen of the committee will arrange, and whose summons I would hold myself in readiness to attend. Whether the penalty of our meeting will be death by military execution I know not; but this I know – a man can die but once, and never better than in vindicating the laws and liberties of his country. Excuse this hasty address. I can scarcely tell what I have written; it may be a libel, or the Attorney-General may call it one, just as he pleases. When the seven bishops were tried for libel, for the support of arbitrary power, the army of James II, then encamped on Hounslow Heath, gave three cheers on hearing of their acquittal. The King, startled at the noise, asked, 'What's that?' 'Nothing, sire,' was the answer, 'but the soldiers shouting at the acquittal of the seven bishops.' 'Do you call that nothing?' said the misgiving tyrant; and shortly after abdicated the Government. 'Tis true, James could not inflict the tortures on his soldiers – could not tear their living flesh from their shoulders with the cat-o'-ninetails – could not flay them alive! Be this as it may, our duty is to meet, and England expects every man to do his duty.

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