teme de la Nature to Mirabeau (or, as you wrongly spell, Mirabaud) who never wrote any thing against religion. The author of this book is Baron d'Holbach, whose widow, I believe, is still alive at Paris; the same Baron published at the same time the most excellent moral code of unbelievers under the title of Systeme Social, in three small volumes Svo. He also published another useful work, intitled Ethocratie, 1 vol. and another Politique Naturelle, 2 vols. 8vo. is also attributed to him; this much esteemed philosopher was the intimate friend of Diderot, D'Alembert, Helvetius, &c. and his house was for a number of years the rendezvous of all enlightened men in this country.

TO MR. R. CARLILE, DORCHESTER GAOL.

Leeds, November 13, 1822.

ESTEEMED FRIEND AND FELLOW CITIZEN, THE time which has elapsed since our last remittance will perhaps have led you to think that we have suffered an apathy to seize upon us, or have fallen into a careless indifference, and a neglect of one of the most sacred duties which ever men had to perform.

The best means I know of to rid the earth of such monsters as oppress us is to keep a press unshackled, that the Rights of Man may be made known in every city, town, and hamlet in the world, and even to the wandering tribes which have no settled place of abode, and that the sentiments of all may respond to each other. Let the political principles of Thomas Paine be made known, and they will be sure to be adopted, for they no sooner become known than they are seen to be calculated to promote the welfare and happiness of all. The only means which I see at present of maintaining a free press is to give you such support as will enable you not only to bear up against, but to beat down, such a phalanx of vice, infamy, and corruption, as was never concentrated in any set of monsters called men before. If our apparent neglect has led you or any other Republicans to think the Republicans of Leeds remiss in so sacred a duty, I hope they will remove the suspicion by more speedy remittances in future; for, I think, it is much to be regretted that any thing like apathy should pervade any portion of men professing to be Republicans, convinced as they must be of the superiority of the principles they advocate over those which are opposed to them, particularly, when we see with what assiduity and perseverance the enemies of truth, reason, and justice, labour to keep the useful and industrious part of mankind in mental and bodily slavery; well knowing that if they can enslave the mind, the body will be a sure and easy prey. Then let me earnestly call upon all the honest and

virtuous part of the public to step forward on the present occasion with their mites, and thwart the fiends, in their project for keeping Mr. Carlile and family dungeoned for life. But more particularly let me intreat the Republicans of Leeds boldly and manfully to step forward and exert themselves in so humane, so noble a cause, and not relax or suffer their ardour to abate for one moment, but as they were amongst the first publicly to declare their approval of your conduct and identify themselves with you, to follow it up by giving you a full share of their support, for I hope there is not a Republicau in the country who will cease to subscribe whatever he or she may be able, till the whole amount of your and your sister's fines be paid. Should they not live to see the objects accomplished for which they are contending, they will have the satisfaction of having done their duty.

I think almost all the political evils with which society is afflicted, may be attributed to two predominating principles in man: namely, sycophancy on the one hand, and tyranny on the other; the former being the fosterer of the latter and both are the natural offspring of that prolific monster religion! Children, in general, from the first moment of their being born are taught to believe in a tyrant, who is not to be appeased but by flattery, fawning sycophancy, and a prostration of mind and body without knowing in what they have offended. Nay, they are taught, that without this, they will be doomed to everlasting torments, even should their whole lives be blameless and without reproach. The first thing which is taught them being to make themselves servile and mean, it destroys all the nobleness and independency of the mind. The most servile and mean are always the most tyrannical, and no sooner do such characters find that they have an opportunity of exercising their tyranny, than they begin to display the fiend-like principle which they have kept concealed under the mask of hypocrisy, by oppressing and inflicting the most cruel tortures on all who do not pay implicit obedience to their capricious will, and thus act like the malignant monster of their imagination-their God.

I hope there are a sufficient number of enlightened and liberal minded Republicans in this country, to enable you, through their support to continue to publish those wholesome truths, and make known those principles of Republicanism which are like poisoned arrows to priests and kings, that you and your family may live to see this most desirable object accomplished and all your wrongs redressed, is the sincere wish of

Your Friend and Fellow Citizen,
JOSEPH HURTLEY.

P. S. With this I shall transmit £11. 12s. being the amount of the present subscription in Leeds; and £1. 4s. from Millbridge, the subscription of twenty-four Republicans whose address you have received.

Received by the Leeds Parcel of James Penny, the sum of £1. 4s. being a Subscription of 1s. each from the Twenty-four Republicans who met at Millbridge, on the 20th of October, 1822, to follow the example of the brave Republicans of Manchester.

TO MR. R. CARLILE, DORCHESTER GAOL.

DEAR AND REVERED SIR,

Oldham, Nov. 9, 1822. IT is with feelings of the greatest pleasure that I take the opportunity of writing in behalf of the Republicans of Oldham, to request you will accept the sum of Four Pounds, the better to enable you to combat the tyrants in power, and which you so richly merit. They are likewise glad that the completion of the time is at hand that your Christian persecutors so wantonly ordered you to spend in a Gaol. To inflict a period of three years imprisonment and fifteen hundred pounds as fines, is one of those traits which predominate so conspicuously in the characters of the meek and lowly Christians. Is this the only resource they had? This their argument to convince the more sensible part of the community? Let their church answer. Now, in my opinion, by incarcerating the man whom they have. sought to make the victim of their rage, they have not only paraly sed their craft and sophistry by so doing, but their doctrines will henceforth be considered as nothing but a cheat and delusion, and the book called the Bible nothing but a string of contradictions, falsehood and lies. If the Bible be true, as their church says, from whence proceeds all their fears; whence all those arrestations of the men taken from Mr. Carlile's shop, the prosecutions of which are attended with such enormous expense? Surely, they have arrived at the climax of madness or they would have perceived that the efforts made in this way greatly assist in the destruction of that hydra which has been the scourge and curse of so many nations for so many centuries. It is shocking, when the mind calmly contemplates the nature of things, if a man is but endowed with ordinary ability, and that ability but ordinarily exercised, to consider to what a degree Arts and Sciences have arrived, and then contrast it with the religious dogmas, not only of this country, but in all other countries where Priests and Kings, have reared their hideous heads. We shall most certainly from such contemplations be actuated by motives for the destruction of those doginas? Mr. Paine, truly says, that there are but few men that are bold enough to be honest or honest enough to be bold, but at the close of the eighteenth century, he wrote in direct opposition to the Bible, exposing its errors and fraud by bringing proof against the Bible from the Bible itself, and set the proper example. This I believe was the first direct attack made by any Englishman.

But since that period there are others who have exposed its errors and frauds, amongst whom you have been the bravest and most fearless. You have not only published the Age of Reason in its parts, but have given publicity to other deistical works that were but little known. How it happened that until the time of the French Revolu tion an investigation of the Bible had not taken place, I am at a loss to determine, but very probably the necessity was not so pressing prior to that period as it has been since. The abuse in Church and State, united for the fulfilment and the accomplishment of the designs of those monsters in power, to rob and plunder the public, have appeared more clear since the period of the French Revolution than before. The craft, the trickery, the impositions, the frauds of these demagogues were then hurled from the womb of darkness before the eyes of an half-starved and dying people. Such a tissue of crimes were developed, as never before that period was recorded in the annals of history. Having all this before us, it became a paramount duty in us to continue the investigation, to detect imposition, and to expose its terrific and hideous features to the unwary and unthinking part of the community; and, finally, if possible, to arrive at a goal from whence we may commence a new era of government, that may treat us with more humanity. Permit me to say, Mr. Carlile, without flattery or adulation, that, it is to you in a superlative degree that the country is indebted for knowledge in these matters. For my own part I have for many years viewed things in the light that you now write in, and I grow more confirmed in the belief of it. There never did, there does not, there never will arrive a time that any book, let that book bear what name it may, can pass for the word of God. We very often use the word God, but let a man say what sort of archetype presents itself to the mind when he uses the word. No two people upon earth think alike in this respect, therefore, as nothing tangible offers itself, whereby we can be justified in saying what God is, as no two people think similar, it is unnecessary to attempt to give a definition. Let us content ourselves then by exploring as far as in us lays the various modifications and combinations of matter. They teach us no falsehood; they will teach us no miracle, nor will they even teach us that there is an effect without a cause. Had there been but a few men thirty years ago, possessing the same spirit and talents which you possess, there is but little doubt that we should have known little of the tyranny of the priesthood; a tyranny that surpasses all other tyrannies upon the earth, inasmuch as it not only enslaves the minds of its dupes and votaries whilst here, but holds out its horrors and threats for a punishment hereafter. Had the principles of the immortal Mirabaud been published extensively, and explained thirty years since and continued until now, the Priests of all denominations would have been less respected than what they now are. My grateful respects are due to your wife and your sister who have assisted so much in the cause of freedom towards emancipating the mind from the trammels of superstition and bigotry.

I have thought proper to transmit to you a list of the subscribers