The Battle of The Press

CHAPTER VI. SIR ROBERT GIFFORD AND THE ODIOUS "SIX ACTS"

As briefly set forth in a letter to Sir Robert Gifford, January 14th, 1820, on the new Acts of the Legislature intended to expel even the shade of liberty from this country (England): —

"My Learned Friend,

"I venture to address you by that common epithet so-much in vogue with those who profess to be opposed to each other in courts of law, and I pledge my word to you with just the same feeling. My views are not so confined, nor my mind so narrow, as to imagine that you have inflicted an injury upon me beyond the period of my confinement; on the contrary, I reflect with pleasure on all that is past, and congratulate myself that by your assistance I have sown the seeds of my future prosperity. The prominent part you have taken in bringing forward and supporting the late Acts of Parliament under the auspices of your patron and preceptor, Lord Castlereagh, has induced me to address you on their several bearings, and to show you how far they may be nullified. Let me first premise that, under the present state of public opinion, their nature and character is such as to render them short-lived. I will commence with 'The Traverse Bill', which is admitted on all hands to be the least obnoxious, as one clause of it has enacted a real benefit by taking away from your office that arbitrary and capricious power of suspending prosecutions over the heads of individuals to any length of time. In consequence of this Act, I shall have the satisfaction of making you acknowledge the abandonment of at least four informations that have been suspended over my head ever since the Michaelmas term 1817, or of bringing them immediately to trial. How far I shall succeed in making you give up or proceed with those half-dozen, or dozen others of later date, remains to be seen. I cannot quit this subject without saying that it will give me much pleasure to meet you often in the Court of King's Bench, and hope that your known dissent from the hypocritical professions of the day will further induce you to promulgate those sentiments that you privately and I publicly espouse. With respect to the intended effect of the Traverse Bill. As to accelerating trials for misdemeanors, there is some ground for complaint, because equal justice is not given to plaintiff and defendant to hasten on his trial, and for this the Bill has not provided; whilst on the other hand, he is debarred from the benefit of a delay. The excuse set up for this part of the Bill was, that I had protracted the time of my trial for near twelve months. This, Sir Robert, you know to be false, the delay was on your part, and on the part of your predecessor. I am inclined to believe that prior to the 16th of August, my prosecution was in some measure abandoned. Having been present at the Manchester meeting and narrowly escaped the sabres of the yeomanry, and got better through the truncheons of Nadin and his gang than some of the other attendants of that meeting; and lastly, having eluded the vigilance and search of the magistrates of that lawless town, I came to London and told the plain, unvarnished tale of the massacre committed by the yeomanry at the instigation of the magistrates. The necessity for getting rid of me was immediately resolved upon, that I might not in any instance give evidence on that subject. First, the project of bringing a charge of high treason against me was discussed and as soon abandoned, and the trial for the high-sounding charge of 'Blasphemy' agreed on, for the double purpose of getting rid of me as an evidence and of drawing the public attention from the Manchester affair. The Traverse Bill, considered in its proper character, is merely a clause of 'the Blasphemous and seditious Libel Bill' put into a different shape, to hide the severity of the latter. 'The search for Arms Bill' and the 'Drilling and Training Bill' are enactments of the most hideous character, which nothing but the guilty fears of its projectors could have produced. The latter should have been entitled 'An Act for the encouragement of private malice'. 'The Seditious Meeting Bill' is another of those destructive measures that has brought England on a level with Algiers. The Bills relating to the Press are now to be considered. It is with those, Sir Robert, you have given us a specimen of your disposition to annihilate the liberty of the Press altogether, for we must look on those Bills, not as the act of Parliament, but as the act of the Attorney-General. I shall therefore proceed to make my observations on them, and begin with that which is intended to increase the punishment for whatever you may be pleased to call blasphemous or seditious libel."

After giving the first, second, and third clauses of the Bill, he comes to the fourth clause, which empowers the judges or magistrates who shall preside at the second conviction of the individuals for either blasphemous or seditious libel to use their discretion (!) in fining and imprisoning such individuals or of banishing them from the country.

The fifth clause enacts that a person so sentenced to banishment shall leave the country within thirty days, or in default thereof he will be seized and sent to such a place as the Government may propose.

The sixth clause makes liable to transportation to Botany Bay, the Hulks, or to similar penalty the individual who should be found in any part of the British dominions within the term of his banishment. The letter continues: —

"The last and most important Act is now to be considered, which is entitled, 'An act to subject certain publications to the duties of stamps upon newspapers, and to make other regulations for restraining the abuses arising from the publication of blasphemous and seditious libels', but is, in fact, an imposition of a duty on political knowledge and information, for the better preservation of ignorance amongst the laboring classes. There are some very unfair exceptions in this Act; for instance, every pamphlet written in defence of the Christian religion is exempt from the duty imposed by this Act, whilst every answer coming within the quantity of paper and price prescribed, is subject to it. For instance, Dr. Rudge8 might address me on the evidences of the Christian religion in the Christian Champion for fourpence (8 cents), but I could not answer him in the Republican for less than sixpence (12 cents). These, Sir Robert, are your deeds, and they are worthy of you, for apostasy is always desperate and vicious in proportion to its former profession, while consistency at the same time becomes its mirror and object of attack.

What view your former patron had in pushing you forward is not for me to say, whether he was anxious to find an Attorney-General who should outstrip him in infamy whilst filling that office is best known to himself; but certainly, if that was his object, he has succeeded well. Your profession is certainly one that gives native genius an opportunity of displaying itself, and with a corresponding degree of spirit to reach the highest and most important offices of the State. Perhaps there never was an instance before of so young a man as yourself, or one who has been so short a time at the Bar, reaching the office you now fill, and on hearing your name announced for the office of Attorney-General I, with many others, was astonished at the promotion, knowing you by name only, as the man who was horsewhipped by Mr. Gurney, of Stannery Court notoriety, and your bringing a suit against him. In London you certainly were a briefless barrister. It was supposed that some one had discovered some lurking talent in you, and had been generous enough to push you forward. But how great was the surprise to find that you were destitute of talent as a lawyer, of grace as an orator, and of dignity as an officer of State. There are those who have affirmed that noble minds can proceed only from noble birth; as far as you are the object in view, this maxim is certainly verified, but it must be admitted that history affords us many exceptions to this rule. You, Sir Robert, in the absence of talent and of every requisite for your office and profession, have been fortunate enough to make up the deficiency by the assistance of a powerful friend. If Sir Vicary Gibbs had possessed no other personal means of bringing him out of Devonshire, and the western circuit, than Sir Robert Gilford possesses, both would have remained there to this day, the one a worn-out barrister, the other an attorney's clerk. But fortunately for you, your father had the means as a tradesman of assisting Sir Vicary Gibbs when in a state of penury, and a part of the contract was that you should be pinned on to his tail.

"R. Carlile.

"Dorchester Gaol,

"Jan. 10th 1820."

In a later letter to Sir Robert Gifford, Carlile says in a postcript: —

"I begin to fear that you and I shall never meet again in Guildhall. I mean to occupy the whole time of my imprisonment in preparing myself for the next defence of the 'Age of Reason'. If ever we meet again (in Court), I shall certainly detain you a month. I had calculated on at least ten days before, instead of three. But I had not studied my subject in the slightest degree; I kept everything to my natural feelings and a few hours' arrangement of books. I suffered myself, and foolishly, to be brow-beaten by Abbott. But the next time I will either make my defence or drive him out of Court, or he shall remove me from Court to finish the case."

Carlile dedicated the second volume of the Republican to Sir Robert in the sarcastic style which he always used in addressing him. I will give the dedication complete, as it is short, and so dismiss Sir Robert from our pages: —

"Dedication to Sir Robert Gifford, Knight, His Majesty's Attorney-General.

"Gratitude being one of the noblest traits in the character of animals, both rational and irrational, to whichever you may deem me allied, I feel that I owe it to you. I therefore embrace the earliest opportunity of dedicating a volume to you, in which I have had frequent occasion, most respectfully, to make allusions to your name and office. If I had followed the old and beaten track of troubling you with an adulatory application, begging your permission to accept this dedication, I am certain that it would have excited your ire to such a degree as to have occasioned a foaming at the mouth; equal to that which I lately witnessed in the Court of King's Bench. Therefore, considering that the soil of Devon has nurtured us both; that we sprang up at nearly the same time and under very similar circumstances, and that our relative situations in London has united us in an indissoluble tie, assuming a frank and friendly conduct, I have presumed to inscribe this second volume of the Republican to you as a token of my esteem and my sense of the high honor and benefit you have graciously bestowed on me. Should the Attorney-General be angry and think me over presumptuous, I am satisfied that Sir Robert Gifford will be pleased to have a volume dedicated to him which is replete with matter akin to his own feelings. You, Sir Robert, are amongst those who have taught us that a man, in office and out of office, forms two distinct beings, opposite both in nature and in principle; and I should not be surprised if, in the course of the revolutions of all that is natural, this country should adopt a representative system of government, or, in other words, a republican form, to find you filling some office to which your abilities shall be commensurate on the ground of your former boasted principles. It is a fact, daily demonstrated, that men who are eager to fill official situations never make principle a bar to obtaining them. It is but fair to say that when such men have a principle or attachment to a particular form of government, they are calculated to fill such a situation or office under that system with more satisfaction both to themselves and the public, but they are ever ready to sacrifice principle to interest. Since, Sir Robert, you cannot lay claim to eminence in this or any other degree, I am sufficiently charitable to lay aside the weapon of censure, and grateful to confine myself more to acknowledgment of the utility of your tergiversation towards him who prays that you may fill the office of Attorney-General as long as his Majesty or his heirs and successors shall grace the throne of Great Britain."

CHAPTER VIII. THE VICE SOCIETY

"A letter to the Society for the Suppression of Vice (self-styled, and by no one else) on their prosecution of the editor and his wife, and the object they have gained by it, namely, an exhausted fund.

"Lords, Ladies, Gentlemen, Bishops, Priests, and Deacons, composing the secret society commonly called 'The Society for the Suppression of Vice'.

"It appears that you and I have come off like all other persons who go to law for justice: one with a ragged coat, the other with none at all, only with this difference, that I who am supposed to have been defeated have got the ragged coat, and you who crow on having defeated me have none at all. I did not attempt to notice your first advertisement begging for relief, and the means of proceeding in your warfare, and setting forth your pretensions and claims to public charity in glowing colors. I thought it probable from the nervous debility of poor John Bull that your warfare on what you call blasphemy, and about which you have made so much noise, might have so far terrified him as to fill your empty coffers, particularly as your advertisement was not repeated for the moment; but it now appears that your bait has not taken. To show you that I am really sensible of the benefit you have conferred on me, and the community at large, by the circulation of such an immense number of Deistical volumes and pamphlets, I shall give your advertisement a gratuitous insertion, and then proceed to compliment you a little further on your meritorious conduct towards myself and wife.

"'Advertisement.

"'"Society for the Suppression of Vice," Committee Room, January, 1820. – The Committee beg leave to state that within the last four years they have been compelled, in order to preserve the public morals from further contamination, to institute no less than eighty-five prosecutions against offenders of various descriptions, all of which have led to conviction or to recognizances by the respective parties, and must prevent the repetition of similar crimes. They have checked the sale of toys and snuff-boxes with abominable devices, which were imported from France and other countries, they have caused the whole stock in trade of some of the most shameless and abandoned traffickers in obscene books and prints, amounting to some thousands, to be seized, and have also destroyed no less than fifty extensive copper plates, from which impressions were from time to time supplied. And lastly, they have brought to condign punishment that most audacious offender, Carlile, who, notwithstanding repeated indictments found against him, still persisted in selling works of the foulest sedition and the most horrible blasphemy that ever disgraced a free press, or outraged the feelings and principles of a British public. The necessary expenses attendant on these measures have greatly exhausted the funds of this Society, but the Committee, etc., etc.

"'Subscriptions and donations are thankfully received by the treasurer, Henry Hoare, Esq., 37, Fleet Street, and by the secretary, Mr. George Pritchard, 31, Essex Street, Strand.'

"It appears that your Society, the names of the members of which you once published annually and ostentatiously, is now reduced to a mere cabal whose names you are ashamed to publish, and that all your business is transacted at the office of your secretary, Pritchard, the lawyer, who, next to myself, has gained more by your charges than any other person. It is notorious that all prosecutions emanate from that office at the instigation of that man, who condescends to drop further proceedings whenever the victim of the prosecution will pay him about £30, which is termed expenses incurred. It is further known that this accommodation has taken place more than once with the same individual, so that the preservation of the public morals is evidently but a secondary object with this secretary of yours. The first avowed object of your Society was to seek out the persons who were instrumental in disseminating obscene books and pictures. Had you confined yourself to this, no honest or moral man would have complained of or objected to your conduct as a Society. But you studiously endeavor to connect my publications with those which are justly termed obscene, for after enumerating exertions in putting a stop to the sale of those truly objectionable articles, and while I solemnly swear I never sold anything of the description or in any way connected with them, you in the very same sentence add: 'and lastly, they have brought to condign punishment that most audacious offender, Carlile'. Now what does all this argue? Why, that I, notwithstanding the indictments you obtained against me, could put my books fearlessly and openly in my window for sale, and that the most distinguished and the most virtuous women could come into my shop and put down their money for the 'Age of Reason' or Palmer's 'Principles of Nature', and publicly express their approbation of my perseverance. It was no sooner opened by the sheriffs officer to remove the goods six weeks after the seizure than a gentleman stepped in and said, 'I will give you twelve guineas for twelve copies of the "Age of Reason."' Then I ask what part of the British public I have corrupted? or whose feelings I have outraged? It is your province to war with obscenity, mine with idolatry. I will now endeavor to show you where the advantage and disadvantage of your conduct towards me lies. I calculate that in consequence of the persecution I sold more Deistical volumes and tracts last year than I should have done in seven years in the ordinary course of business. The consequence was that I was prepared to meet all the violence that has been used on my property; and I leave you to judge whether it is not more than probable that, before the end of seven years, I or some other person shall be able to renew the publication of those works which are for the moment suppressed. Where will you be then? You will have to fight the same battle over again at a considerable expense on your part and a considerable profit on mine; besides, if once a jury pronounces a verdict of 'not guilty' on this question – and this requires but one honest man free from superstition to do this – the principle will spread like wildfire. But even admitting that none shall venture to publish those two volumes for which I am at present confined, what do we lose whilst the works of Gibbon, Hume, Voltaire, Volney, and fifty other authors of similar opinions are in full and rapid circulation? Your attempt to lay the pruning-hook to those publications will only redouble the vigor of the roots and remaining branches. Your attempt to impede the progress of truth and liberal opinion will have no other tendency than to detract from that merit and applause you would otherwise have obtained if you had confined yourself to the objects for which your Society was instituted. But your efforts to make blasphemy, or what you call blasphemy, a part of your game will only hold you up to public scorn as bigoted persecutors. In taking my leave of you I have to advise you not to remain under the scandal of being a secret society. Why do you not publish your names and the names of those subscribers of high rank and character you mention in your advertisement? You make profession of your own utility and laudable exertions; surely you cannot feel shame in publishing your names? I have been informed that Mr. Hedgher, who kept that celebrated brothel and sink of vice in St. George's Fields, for so many years called the 'Dog and Duck', is endeavoring to expiate his former conduct by becoming one of the most active and leading members of your Society. I have received this information from many different persons who are strangers to me, and who think it strange that such a man should be one of my prosecutors after living with and encouraging everything that was vicious and vile. The slight notice that I took last week of one of your right reverend Presidents must suffice for awhile.

"I remain

"Your grateful protege,

"Dorchester Gaol,

"R. Carlile.

"February 20th, 1820."

CHAPTER IX. THE CATO STREET PLOT

We gather from the published statements of Carlile – statements which were never denied as far as we have been able to ascertain, and which were published within a few days of the occurrences having taken place – an inside view of this "alarming conspiracy", and interested readers will be able to draw their own conclusions. The story itself would trench upon the ridiculous were it not that the lives of several men were sacrificed to give coloring to its pretended genuineness. The occupation which Carlile found for the spy Edwards was comical when considered in the light of the supposed cause of Carlile's fines and imprisonment, i.e., the publication of Paine's "Age of Reason". The modelling of the statue of Paine was probably the most honorable work Edwards was ever engaged in. But here is the story as told by Carlile himself:

"A verdict has been obtained by the law officers of the Crown against Thistlewood on a charge of high treason arising out of what has been called the 'Cato Street Plot'. In taking notice of the affair at its rupture, I observed that the trials would prove that the ministers were the instigators of the entire business. I think this assertion has been fully borne out by the evidence adduced on the trial. Here are the particulars. Lord Harrowby' asserted that 'he had received an intimation of the projected assassination a month before the time of explosion'. An annunciation of a grand cabinet dinner appeared in the New Times, and that paper only. Edwards the modeller, who has been the spy and the agent of the Government, produced this announcement on the day of its publication to Thistlewood and others of the party, and recommended it as a good opportunity for their object. This Edwards attended all their meetings, and was very active in preparing all the weapons of destruction. Whether Edwards was present in the loft or not at the time of the capture has not appeared, but it appears that he was the only individual who knew the retreat of Thistlewood, as he accompanied him to that retreat, and must have immediately made his communication to the police. In the list of witnesses Edwards was described as a resident of Ranelagh Place, whereas he has resided in Fleet Street for over the twelve months last past, and an apartment there has been taken for no other purpose than to mislead. The wife and children having continued to live on the third floor of the bookseller's at the corner of Johnson's Court,' Fleet Street, where he has resided since midsummer last, while he and some Bow Street officers have gone to Ranelagh Place in the daytime and just boiled a few eggs, etc., by the way of keeping possession of it. However, there is something too black between the ministers and Edwards to have him produced as a witness. The principal accomplice produced was Adams, who, it appeared, in conjunction with Edwards, lodged the weapons and ammunition at the lodgings of Tidd on the morning after the parties were arrested, and who no doubt were acting in conjunction with the police officers, as the latter reached there within a quarter of an hour of them. It appears that Adams had lately been discharged from the army to follow his business as a shoemaker the better to adapt him as a spy, or an instigator. Of Monument I shall say nothing, as it really appears that he was decoyed to Cato Street ignorant of the object about to be pursued. I am assured that if the manner in which this Cato Street conspiracy had been made to burst and to petrify the minds of the people, had not raised such a strong prejudice against the accused, the juries would have rejected the evidence adduced by the Crown with indignation. Thistlewood's counsel himself could not palliate some of his projects, and could give him no hope of escape from death on one of the indictments, but the charge of high treason should have required more respectable evidence of the plans and intentions of the parties. Another circumstance is much to be lamented, and that is that any other man should fall a victim to the insanity of Thistlewood. It may not be amiss to give a sketch of Thistlewood's career, which has been one of folly and madness. In the early part of the French Revolution he held a lieutenancy in the militia; from thence he exchanged into some regular regiment and went to the West Indies. He left the army and went to the United States; from this time can be dated the origin of those principles which have brought him to his present hapless state. From the United States he embarked for France, and remained in Paris during the whole of the career of the Robespierreian party, and has unfortunately shown himself, ever since, to be deeply impregnated with all the principles and the worst passions that disgraced the French Revolution and finally tended to destroy its benefits. From Paris he returned to London, and being quite a stranger to the political characters of that day, his return from France formed a groundwork of an introduction to many of them who were in the habit of assembling at the shop and house of Daniel Isaac Eaton, a bookseller in Newgate Street. I have met many of the old friends of Mr. Eaton, but could never learn anything of the general tenor of Thistlewood's conduct at that time, so that it appears to me that he was never sufficiently countenanced by any of them to form any intimacies. From this time up to the Spa Fields Meeting, I have no knowledge of how he spent his time, further than that he spent a considerable part of it, and considerable property, at the gaming table, and reduced himself to a state of indigence. I now proceed to notice the character of Edwards, and this I feel capable of doing, because I employed him as a modeller for several figures in the course of the last year or so. On my entering the house at 55 Fleet Street, I became the neighbor of Edwards, who previously held the little shop which Mr. Hone had occupied, and which bore the No. 55 1/2, as being part of 56. Edwards had no sooner become aware that I had taken 55 than he strenuously applied himself to become a tenant or lodger of mine, before I had the least idea of letting any part of the house. I had a strong dislike to his appearance, and gave him no hope of my receiving him as a lodger. The Attorney-General and the Vice Society soon enabled me to support the place without any lodgers, and I put Mr. Edwards off with the assurance that I should not rent any part of it. He was in the habit of coming into the shop to purchase my pamphlets, and I soon conceived the idea of having him model for me a figure of Thomas Paine. He expressed himself as quite anxious for the job, and observed that, being a great admirer of Paine's principles, he would be satisfied with a small price for it. On my wishing him to set a price, he proposed £5, which would just cover the expense he would be at, without including his time or abilities. This happened in the latter part of February or March. A few days later Edwards expressed a wish to have the money beforehand, and observed that it was usual with modellers. I hesitated, refused, and then offered him £1, which he accepted. A head, or bust, was soon ready, and I gave him three guineas extra for the copyright; but I could get him no further with the figure, although I had gone to the expense of the pedestal and other requisites for it, until the fall of the year. During the whole of this time he seemed to be in the most abject poverty, was obliged to give up his shop, and was never to be found at home. I urged him by continued messages to proceed with the figure, and in the month of September I got him to finish it, much to my satisfaction, and that of every other person who loved and revered the principles of Paine. Edwards was paid for the figure long before it was finished and set up, and altogether considerably in addition to the first agreement. From this time he stuck very close to me on one pretence or another, followed me twice to Blackheath for the purpose of modelling my likeness on his own account, which he completed in the King's Bench Prison, without any apparent idea of making anything out of it. He pleaded great poverty, and twice solicited the loan of money from me. After finishing the figure of Paine, I as often refused, because his whole conduct had convinced me that he was both dishonest and ill-disposed. I had never the smallest idea that he was a spy. And as I knew him to be in the habit of running after Thistlewood and his party, I often asked him 'what project they had on foot', by way of a joke. It was Edwards who informed me that the person who visited me in the King's Bench Prison, in company with Davidson, was a spy, and that it was he who conveyed all the information to Lord Sidmouth and the Lord Mayor. Edwards was the fourth person who entered the room, and it struck me forcibly that there was a strange coolness and distance between these three, who had often met before. I never for a moment suspected Edwards to be anything further than an idle and dissolute fellow. I have some recollection of being accosted by Adams, the other spy. I was in the company of a Mr. Watling of the Strand, close by Mr. Sherwin's printing office, where I had been on business, when a tall shoemaker, with pieces of leather and other articles in his hand, accosted us, and said that nothing would afford him as much pleasure as our going to drink a glass with him, and hoped that his workman-like appearance would not disparage him in our eyes. I answered him that his appearance was by no means a disgrace to him, but that I never drank malt or spirituous liquors. If we would only sit in his company for a few minutes he would be satisfied. We entered the 'Shakespeare Tavern' at the corner of Smith Street, Northampton Square, when Adams introduced himself as having lately left the Horse Guards, and wishing to find out a society of good fellows, that he was a Yorkshire man, and had learnt of his friends the distress of the country, and the disposition of the people. He knew Mr. Watling and myself, but neither of us had ever seen him before. I should never have recollected the man or the circumstance had these trials not brought him to light, as we sat with him but a few minutes and heard what he had to say for himself. I saw him no more."