No. 28. Vol. 6.] LONDON, Friday, Dec. 6, 1822. [PRICE 6d. TO THE REPUBLICANS OF THE ISLAND of GREAT BRITAIN. CITIZENS, Dorchester Gaol December 2, Year 3 of the Spanish Revolution. I HAD prepared this week a long address to the Republicans of the Island of Hayti, but am compelled to defer it, in consequence of the multitude of letters I have received with subscriptions, so numerous, as, I fear, to keep me in arrears two or three weeks further, in regard to printing them. I must, therefore, content myself with introducing to your notice the particulars of an Outrage commilled by the Scottish Law Officers upon the Edinburgh Freethinkers' Zetetic Society. This was a Society established in Edinburgh for the practice of free discussion and mutual improvement. open to any one who thought proper to enter, and every one was allowed to express his sentiments on passing topics under discussion. It was held in a convenient and spacious hall, called Cordiner's Hall, Potter's Row, and possessed a library of the most useful books and a pair of globes. It may be considered the commencement of a philosophical institution for the improvement of the tradesmen and industrious classes of Edinburgh. This Society has been established upwards of twelve months, and has had regular weekly meetings on that day which the law has set apart for rest from labour, for cleanliness, and for mental improvement. On Sunday the 17th instant the Meeting was interrupted by the Sheriff, the Superintendant of the Police, and a large body of the Sheriff's Officers and Police Officers. If the Sheriff had been a philosopher he would have gone alone, for he would have known that philosophers make no other kind of war than a war of words. The meeting was a very Printed and Published by R. CARLILE, 55, Fleet Street. full one, and it happened that the first speaker was a stranger, who had made some notes on the proceedings of the former Sunday, and he requested leave to express his sentiments thereon. He did this in a spirit of aggravating ridicule, doubtless, with the view of creating a noise, but he was heard quietly out, and Mr. Robert Affleck rose and exposed the fallacy of his attempting to ridicule what he could not refute. This was no sooner over than in pounced the Sheriff, and with a great deal of agitation stepped upon a table and said, that he had received information that an illegal meeting was held there weekly, and that blasphemous discourses were delivered. The strangers all made their way to the door, but the members of the Society, conscious that they had done no moral or legal wrong, collected and called to the strangers to keep their places. The Sheriff then called for a Mr. Gray who was President the former Sunday, but he was absent. He then called by name, Mr. James and Robert Affleck, who immediately stepped forward and were declared prisoners, together with a Mr. Wilson, the Chairman of the day. The Officers were evidently surprised at the numbers and respectability of the persons present, and there was a hesitation and dilatoriness in all their proceedings. Mr. Robert Affleck perceiving that he and his brother were the only persons wanted, proposed to the Sheriff to let all the other individuals leave the place, which was acceded to, first taking down the name and residence of every individual, and taking from his person all books or papers be bappened to have about him. The Officers then proceeded to rifle the library, taking away what books they thought proper, which, with the prisoners, were lodged in the Sheriff's Court. On Monday upwards of twenty witnesses were examined in secret, and these examinations were continued the whole of Tuesday and Wednesday, when the prisoners were admitted to bail, the two Mr. Affleck's in £100 each, and Mr. Wilson in £60. The Mr. Gray who was called for and absent, has since, with upwards of one hundred and fifty persons connected with the Society, tendered their names to the Sheriff as witnesses of its proceedings. If the Ministers in London, or the Lord Advocate in Scotland, expected to find any thing like a political plot bere, they have been miserably deceived. The Members of this Society confined themselves to such conduct as their title expresses. Freethinkers' Zetetic Society, signifies a society, the members of which think freely on all subjects, and pro ceed to the developement of truth by a zetetic or analytic mode of argument and demonstration: that is to say, they believe nothing until it has undergone the fullest investigation. The Zetetic Societies of England have nothing to fear for themselves on account of the outrage committed upon that in Edinburgh; I would not have them suspend a single meeting on account of it. I will pledge myself to sicken the government of prosecutions for what are called blasphemous writings and expressions. The principles which are denominated blasphemous, have sufficient moral power to be making their way throughout the community, in a manner so rapid and extensive, as was never before witnessed, with principles of any one religious sect whatever. The moment an individual finds mental courage to undertake to examine our principles, that moment he is obliged to assent to their morality and political importance, and to confess that they are paramount to all others. We hold to nothing, in fact, that can be shewn to be ill-founded. The Scottish newspapers are beginning to howl about blasphemy, and to lament that the principles of Carlile have reached to Edinburgh. Vile and odious hypocrites (whether Whig or Tory) do they not know that, almost to a man, the Colleges of Physicians, of Surgeons, and of Advocates, in Scotland, are composed of men of Carlile's principles; which were the principles, before Carlile was born, of Burns, of Adam Smith, of David Hume, of Lord Kaimes, and we may go back to every name that is honourable to the Scottish nation, and find that they were persons of Carlile's principles, even to Fletcher of Saltoun, and Buchanan the historian. "The Scotsman," Whig paper, hoists the following colours, or motto: "This is not the cause of Party, or of Faction, or of any Individual, but the common interest of every man in Britain." Now would it be believed, that under such a motto as this, the Editor or Proprietor of this paper would refuse to insert a letter from a respectable individual, Mr. Gray, explanatory of the views and character of "The Edinburgh Freethinkers' Zetetic Society," in consequence of the outrage committed upon the members, and the arrest of two of its managers. Yet this corrupt paper sets up a howl about blasphemy, and hypocritically pretends to lament the spread of such opinions a prosecution in Edinburgh will occasion. I will be bound for it, the fellows connected with this paper, i are thorough-bred Atheists. I know that in London, the Editors and Proprietors of those papers, who make the most howl about blasphemy, are notorious Atheists. Old Slop himself is a notorious Atheist: in short, a man cannot be really and truly intelligent, until he arrives at that state of mind to estimate rightly the superstitions which pervade mankind. Nothing is known yet, what ulterior measures the Lord Advocate of Scotland will pursue with Messrs. Affleck's and Wilson, but it is notorious that any further measure will arise from a dread of discussion, however temperate, upon the superstition and idolatry of this country. In all its essentials it is the same in Scotland as in England. The greatest crime attaching to those men will be that of their being my open and avowed friends. Their moral characters as men and tradesmen are unimpeachable. I have no personal knowledge of them: It was my being persecuted that brought them around me, and, when they came forward, they did it honestly, boldly, and manfully. If they suffer under the rigour of Scottish law, I swear to revenge their wrongs by redoubled efforts to expose and destroy that idolatry and corruption which it is their crime not to support. I will brave and put down all prosecutions on this account in England, for I have, at this moment, men who are angry at not being called forward for prosecution. Dorchester Gaol, Dec. 1, 1822. R. CARLILE. AN APPEAL TO THE REFORMERS, Who disapprove of the horrid deeds done at Manchester, on the fatal 16th of August, 1819. CITIZENS, THE Reformers of Ashton-under-Lyne deem it their duty to make this Public Appeal on behalf of the four men (namely, Charles Walker, Joshua Hobson, Samuel Clayton and James Higson) who stand charged with Sedition, it being the first attempt to prosecute under the Act denominated Castlereagh's Seditious Meeting Act. Their Charge is, suspending a Black Flag on the 16th of August last, from the Union Rooms, with the words " MURDER! AUGUST 16th, 1819, &c." They are to take their Trial at the New Bailey Court, Salford, the next Session. It is the particular wish of the Committee, and likewise the four individuals indicted, not to be judg ed and sentenced by the instigators and abbettors who conducted and executed the business of that fatal day. It is therefore their wish to remove it to another Court, this they are aware they cannot do without the voluntary contribution of a generous Public; they therefore with confidence throw themselves on that Public for assistance: For surely, when wicked men combine, good men should unite. Signed by order of the Committee, Ashton, Nov. 11th, 1822. EDWARD MERCER, Treasurer. TO MR. R. CARLILE, DORCHESTER GAOL. " Though no shining sun nor twinkling star SMART. DEAR SIR, Somers Town, Nov. 17, 1822. As I think your newly-embraced doctrine of Materialism founded in error and destruction of the happiness of mankind, whose happiness I nevertheless believe it to be your wish to promote, in disseminating that doctrine, although mistaken, as conceive, in your views, I beg leave, through the medium of your bold and fearless publication, "The Republican," to offer your readers a few remarks on that doctrine. Your letter to that unsophisticated inquirer after truth, Mr. John Goldsmith, contains propositions which I am convinced cannot be satisfactory to his mind. They must leave him as undecided in his opinion as they found him. This notion is, that animal existence must have emanated from God; but, unlike a bigot, he appears to be prepared to adopt any other more rational belief.-He, therefore, addressed himself to you, in the hope, as I conceive, of your advancing arguments tending either to strengthen or falsify his notions. In the event of your treating his notions as chimerical, he had a right to expect good and sufficient reasons for abandoning them. He had also a right to expect from you the developement of a more rational |