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the shop that I should be home in a few hours. heard nothing further of that matter, and you never came near me, until the evening before sentence was to be passed, when you brought a party with you a few minutes before the gates of the Prison were to be shut: a visit I received more as an insult than an act of friendship, which you might have seen by my manners.

The next thing I heard of you was a few days after I got to this Gaol, that at a dinner at the Crown and Anchor, to celebrate the return of Mr. Cobbett from America, you took the occasion to decry all Deists for allowing me to remain in Prison for want of bail: and if that was Deism you did not wish to participate in it. Mr. Cobbett decried Republicans and Republicanism, and so there was a pretty dish of it between you. I did not notice this matter at the time; although the papers highly coloured your expressions, and you were quite willing to let them go forth to the world so coloured, for all you did to counteract it was to express a great deal of anger to Mrs. Carlile upon the matter, and a hope that I should not see it. It appears it mattered nothing who saw it, so as I did not see it. Very kind and generous!

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The next act of your illiberality towards me, happened your trial at York. Scarlett knew it was touching a sore to mention your connection with me, and my presence with you at the Manchester Meeting, and knowing that it would well answer his purpose to strengthen the prejudices of the Jury, he did not fail to enlarge upon it. In the course of your defence you put the following words to the Jury, of which I did, for once, make a note at the time. "You have heard the miserable attempt to fix upon me an irreligious connexion with Carlile. I know the man, and if I do not say what I think of him, it is because he is now suffering the sentence of the law, and therefore not a fit subject for any body's animadversion." I ask you, can any thing be conceived more infamous than this, considering what had passed between you and me? Now, you too are under the sentence of the law, and we are upon a perfect equality, and as near neighbours as possible: now, I challenge you to say what you know of Carlile to his prejudice.

In the Court of King's Bench, at the time of your receiving sentence, you attempted to work upon the bigoted feelings of Bailey, by touching the same string, and disaVowing an irreligious connexion with me. You had gone too far with me to recover a belief from the public in the

sincerity of your professed religious feelings; and be assured that it has only brought a charge of hypocrisy upon you. I am proud in the boast of having freed my mind from every thing called religion: and after I witnessed this abandonment of principle, on your part, I candidly tell you that I derived pleasure from seeing you sent to a neighbouring Goal to fill out a period of imprisonment equivalent to mine. You, your friend the Clergyman, and Parson Harrison, may go a preaching together, if you like, when you are at liberty: I will never encourage you to form an irreligious connection with me again: although, I shall be ever willing to support you on all important political questions. I assure you that all the ill-will I feel towards you will be spent upon this paper: nothing of the kind will remain in my bosom: and you may please yourself about re-kindling it: I am quite indifferent.

I shall close with stating another fact. In addition to Mary Fildes, your man Wilde in London has been set to abuse me. I was informed a fortnight before his unpaid letter came to hand, that he was waiting for instructions to do it, but I wish you to understand that nothing that has passed between you and me, shall ever bring me into a dispute with a third person. I will stick to you as long as you like, but I will not notice any thing from a third person, neither will I ever allow any correspondent to attack you, or any other public character, through the pages of "The Republican." Whatever is necessary to be done on that head I will do it myself, and put my own name to it. But I would ask how comes it to pass that you, who have such a distaste for Republicanism and Deism, such a veneration for Monarchy, Aristrocracy, and Divinity, have in your employ persons so directly opposite in sentiment. At a dinner to celebrate the Birth-day of Thomas Paine, on the 29th of January last; your agent Mr. Wilde, who is an avowed advocate for the politics of Paine, and the theology of Mirabaud, was present. Hearing several names toasted, but not hearing the name of Henry Hunt, like a faithful servant and a good man (which I still believe him to be) he rose, and asked the Chairman, if the name of his master was not on the list of toasts. He was answered in the negative, and displayed an uneasiness, and something like indignation, at what he considered an improper neglect. He was answered by the Chairman, that that meeting was to celebrate the birthday of the greatest Republican and Deist that ever lived, and that Mr. Hunt made it his pecu

liar boast that he was neither of the characters described, therefore, it would be inconsistent to toast his name in conjunction with the name of Thomas Paine. I am informed that Mr. Wilde was by no means appeased, but protested that his master did partake of all the principles of Thomas Paine. However, the name of Henry Hunt was inadmissible, as his own writings and avowed principles were considered to preponderate over the assertion of Mr. Wilde. This of course I have at second hand, but it is no invention of mine; if called for my informant is forthcoming.

However, if you can make even the apparent contradictions here stated, you are welcome. It has been my duty to state them in self defence. You have called for them. You admit that religion is not a corruption in your eye, and you state a wish to preserve it. Throughout all our personal meetings I never saw in you any thing in the shape of a profession of religious feeling, and I now think you have as much religion in you as Cromwell's dispersed Barliament, or Cromwell's horse had. I hold religion to be the worst of all corruptions, and most certainly it is my wish to destroy it all, if it be practicable: but I disclaim what you have imputed to me "an intolerant and bigoted dictation." All I dictate is free discussion, and I dictate against all controul of opinion, but nothing further. Toleration, or Intolerance, are words I reject altogether.

As to my being a persecuted bookseller, and not a përsecuted Reformer, I may just as well say that you are a persecuted farmer, or a persecuted grain roaster and grinder. It was not the bookselling for which I was prosecuted, but for what the books contained. Jealousy has always jaundiced eyes, and you certainly view things through deranged optics. Respecting what you would have done in Dørchester Gaol, or as to doing the same as you have done in Ilchester Gaol, it would be first necessary that the same abuses should exist; and really I do not see any such abuses in the place, unless it be the dread and close confinement of us blasphemers. But I shall have occasion by and by to say more on this subject. Your Fellow Prisoner, R. CARLILE.

On Monday April 15, will be published, No. I. Price 3d. To be continued Weekly,

LAWRENCE'S LECTURES on PHYSIOLOGY, ZOOLOGY, and the NATURAL HISTORY of MAN, delivered at the Royal College of Surgeons.

Vol. V. No. 15.

321

Hyde, near Manchester, March 8, 1822. ESTEEMED FELLOW-CITIZEN, PERMIT me, on the behalf of a few of your friends in this and the neighbouring village of Denton, to request your acceptance of the enclosed sum of Two Pounds. We are sorry it is all our finances will allow us to send you at present; had it been commensurate with our wishes, it would have amounted to hundreds of pounds, and which would have been a more adequate reward for the exertions you have made in the cause of Liberty, both Civil and Religious; the firm and undaunted advocate for free and uncontrouled discussion on all subjects relating to the welfare of society; the noble and bold assertor of Republicanism and the right of men to choose their Legislators and Magistrates, which you have proved yourself to be; the courage and heroism you have shewn whilst combating with the Vice and Bridge Street Hordes of Robbers and Plunderers; the unshaken fortitudey have displayed while suffering unparalleled persecutions and imprisonments, merits not only the pecuniary support, but the gratitude and esteem of every true friend to Liberty in every part of the habitable globe.

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You, Sir, are to this generation what Thomas Paine was to the and such are the incontrovertible and convincing truths displayed in the writings of Paine, aided by the powerful effects of your great and expanded mind, that there is not the least doubt but they will be duly appreciated by the present and all future generations, and that your names will be handed down together with that veneration and respect they deserve to the latest posterity. Your names and deeds are engraven, in large and legible characters, on such imperishable metal, and that metal is supported by pedestals in the Temple of Fame, so firm and secure, that not all the ghastly grins your enemies may favour it with, nor all the deadly venom they may bespatter it with, will be able to deface one single letter, or remove one single atom of the structure.

Do the Wig, Gown, and Tythe Gentlemen think they can stop the progress of Reason, Truth, and Justice, by persecutions, imprisonments, and fines? No: if they were to incarcerate and fine, nay, if they were to put to death and totally annihilate from the face of the earth all those persons who are now opposed to their system of idolatry, superstition, and fraud, it would set others not opposed to them at present to enquire why such measures were adopted; and when once the most stupid begin to enquire into the nature of things, and reason upon them, rays of Truth will make their way on to their minds, a change will take

place in their sentiments, which not all the Kingcraft or Priestcraft in the world will be able to bring back to their former state of stupidity. Do they suppose that imprisoning you, your family, and your shopmen, will convince all your friends of what they wish them to believe are errors; and that in future, no one will dare to call in question their right and authority to dictate to the inhabitants of the world what they shall think and what they shall say? How laborious will be the task to convince us that truth is not truth! How futile and vain the attempt! The demonstrable truths you have published are now so (and will be still more) widely circulated, and so deeply engraven on the minds of thousands in this country, that our common oppressors view the effects of them on their corrupt system with "fear and trembling;" and the vengeance they are heaping upon the heads of your patriotic and praiseworthy shopmen, plainly shews, they are writhing under the conviction, that ere long their occupation will be gone.

Whatever may be the result of your present contest with your and our enemies; in whatever way they may dispose of you; if they were to put you to death, (which Reason and Justice forbids) be you assured, Sir, other Carliles would start up to vindicate your character and principles, and would continue to expose to the world the impositions and frauds of their idolatrous system, till it be totally banished from the earth. For let the bigoted, the interested, and the powerful exert themselves as much as they please, it is a truth confirmed to us by the experience of all ages, that whatever opinions may prevail in the world, how strongly soever established, or how ancient soever they may be, if not grounded originally on Nature, but on the consent only and contrivance of men, will be sure, in the end, to find the same fate with old buildings, which, while they acquire to themselves a sort of veneration from their very age, are every day gradually weakened, till being found at last rotten and ruinous, they are demolished by common consent.

I dare say it will be no less gratifying to you to hear, than it is for me to inform you, that Reason is assuming her proper station in the minds of the people in this part of the country; that the principles of Republicanism are becoming better known and more generally adopted than they have been; and that Christianity is now estimated by the conduct of its votaries, by their works, and not by their words.

If Murray, Sharp, or any other such shining examples of Christian honesty and morality, who belong to the Bridge Street Gang, would take a tour through the country, would call at every house, and so far insinuate themselves into the confidence of the inhabitants, as to get them to declare what they thought of your persecutions and sufferings, on their return to their fellow-despots they might truly say: "On our journey through the country we have met with thousands whose moral conduct is such, that if set