But let us hear the opinions of the writers of a Public Journal, of a a man, too, who presumes to make those opinions public, in the nineteenth century, on the nature of the human soul, and on the relative duties of man. "But let us remember, that we all hold our lives only as the gift of God, and that we have no claim whatever in right to them,-that he made us for his own service and honour, and through those means, for our own ultimate happiness; and that when we abuse these gifts (the gifts of life,) and degrade and brutify (observe the eloquence of the language) the divine image in our bodies (Mr. Editor Bell believes our bodies to be the image of God's body) and souls, our own reason, a thing of the same general nature with the Divine mind itself, teaches us that there is no inconsistency with the attributes of such a Being, that he should cut us off; or, if we use the figurative language of the Holy Scriptures, that he should repent that he had made man, when they had become so abominable in his sight." Let us divest these sentiments of Mr. Editor Bell's eloquence, and see how they will look in plain English. "Let us remember, my dear brethren, "that we did not make ourselves; and that if we had never been "born we could not in justice grumble at God for not making us ❝he made us for his own honour and service; (and consequently "we are not at all obliged to him) but if nevertheless we dare to enjoy life in our own way, he will certainly send us to the Devil— "that is, if we brutify our bodies, which are the image of God's "body, and our souls, which are undoubtedly the image of God's "soul. Nay, more than that, my dear brethren, you are to know "that our reason, our own dear reason, (which it is nevertheless "the height of impiety to listen to) is exactly of the same nature "with the Deity itself—(a vile scribbler of the same nature with "God! O Tempora, O Mores !') All this premised, still it is no 66 way inconsistent with the character of the Divine Being, to cut us off, who are of the same nature with himself, and to be quite savage with himself that he had made so vile an animal as man!" If this vile cant is not the height of impiety and ignorance, I am totally unable to comprehend what is. How long will this man continue to tell us that the Bible is the most ancient book in the world by 1,200 years! How long will he declaim about the immortal fruits and flowers of Aaron's rod, which are long since dead! How long will he pester the world with the metamorphosis of an Egyptian Magus's rod into a serpent! We would be obliged to him if he could tell us where he learned to call the Egyptian Conjurors by the name of Magi; and to refrain till he is better acquainted with history, to call such a man as Carlile ignorant. 66 66 66 Gloucester Street, JULIAN AUGUSTUS ST. JOHN. R. Carlile, Printer, 55, Fleet Street, London. No. 11. Vol. I.] LONDON, FRIDAY, Nov. 5, 1819. [PRICE 2D. A LETTER TO Charles Wood, Abehurch Lane, Robert Hutchinson, Clements Lane, George Harvey, Lawrence Lane, Arthur Chichester Allen, Ironmonger Lane. William Parker, John Street, Robert Plant, Haberdasher, Portsoken Ward, Merchants. The Jurors who tried the Information filed by His Majesty's Attorney-General, against the Theological Works of Thomas Paine, and who returned as their Verdict GUILTY. GENTLEMEN, King's Bench Prison, November 3, 1819. I, as the Defendant in that important mockery of trial, feel it a duty I owe to myself and to my country, to make public every thing that comes to my knowledge relating to those proceedings, the result of which I feel satisfied will produce a more lasting impression on the public mind, and more real benefits to mankind in general than any other proceeding that ever occurred in a Court of Law. As you have felt it your duty, or your interest to consign me over to the tender mercies of my Persecutors, and as I am quite sensible into what hands I have fallen, I feel justified in seizing this opportunity to make known to the public my reasons for calling you (in a Letter addressed to Chief Justice Abbott) a PREDETERMINED JURY. This is one of the most serious charges that can possibly be brought against R. Carlile, Printer, 55, Fleet Street, London. twelve men sitting in a Jury box, who have sworn well and truly to try, and the whole charge that it became you to try in my case, was whether I had published the Theological Works of Thomas Paine, with a malicious intent, or an intention to injure the morals and welfare of the People of this Country. Whether you did try this question as you had sworn to try, I shall proceed to enquire. It is no doubt fresh in the memory of each of you, Gentlemen, that I advanced a charge against one of you, as having asserted previous to his coming into the Jury box, that he would vote for giving that rascal, Carlile, five years, imprisonment on bread and water; you all affected amazement at the assertion, and I did not understand until I saw it in the papers the next morning, that you called for the name. I mentioned to you that I had just received the communication in the Court, and that if I found it to be a fact it would serve me as a ground to move for a new trial if it became necessary. The individuals who heard the assertion have since been pointed out to me, but I am not yet aware that any of them will stand forward to make an affidavit of the fact, although in shrinking from doing this they make themselves partakers of the crime. As an affidavit of the fact is the only thing under the present circumstances that would be attended to in the Court of King's Bench, and as I cannot yet depend upon the resolution of any one of the individuals who heard the assertion to make the affidavit, I shall proceed to narrate the particulars as they occurred to me during the proceedings of the Mock Trial. The intelligence had reached my friends on Monday the 11th October, that William Parker, of John Street, had in public company asserted that he had never been on a Jury before, but that he was now summoned and should certainly attend for the purpose of convicting Carlile, that he would cut the ras cal's ears off, that he would hang him without trial-and several expressions of a similar nature, accompanied with language so disgraceful that I should be sorry to pollute these pages with the repetition of it. Some of these expressions were made at Lloyd's Coffee House. Being in Town but a few hours on Monday, and leaving it before night for my residence at Blackheath, this information did not reach me until the Tuesday morning, and then knowing that it would be of no use to object to Mr. Parker without an affidavit of the fact, I suffered him to be sworn without interruption. Repeated information on the same subject came to hand during the mockery of trial; the first by letter was as follows: SIR, I wrote to you yesterday, but as I trusted the delivery of it to one of those emissaries of that prototype of Midas, the Lord Mayor, I am by no means certain you received it; the following are its contents: that an individual sitting in judgment upon you, by name William Parker, of John Street, publicly declared, and that too after he knew he was elected jury-man, 66 that he would be damned but he would hang that rascal Carlile at all events, he should vote for a five years' imprisonment on bread and water." With impressions of this kind, added to strong prejudice, can he deliver a just verdict? I sincerely wish you may obtain justice, and am Sir, Your's, &c. Thursday Morning, A FRIEND TO JUSTICE. October 14th, 1819. The persons who heard Mr. Parker make use of those expressions, with many others, were Thomas Edwards, esq. Coleman-street, Lutyens, esq. James Work, esq. Samuel Shaw, esq. Subscriber's to Lloyd's Coffee Room. The following letter was received at Fleet-street the same day, and if true, is a strong proof that the Gentleman alluded to must have had communication with other persons on the subject of the Mock Trial during, the adjournment of the court, in defiance of the law, the recommendation of the Judge, and the sacred character of a Juror. SIR, George Coutts, a Baker, in Farringdon Ward, a Juryman on your trial, has had the audacity, and I may truly say, villainy, to declare publicly, that if it is possible, he will bring you in " GUILTY." I communicate this to you in order that you may if you think proper, put the question to him in Court, whether he has or has not declared the above. Wishing you success through your arduous struggle, I' remain, Your obedient servant, AN ENEMY TO CORRUPTION AND TYRANNY. Thursday Morning, Oct. 14th, 1819. The next piece of information made on the subject was to some friends of mine, who were sitting at the Baptist's Head Coffee House; it was as follows: Mr. French, Watch Maker, Sweeting's Alley, can prove that Mr. A. C. Allen, previous to Mr. Carlile's trial, made use of expressions of this kind. "Mr. Hunt, Carlile, and others ought to be hung. I wish the Manchester Magistrates had killed 30,000 of the People." By subsequent information I have learnt that Mr. George Harvey of Lawrence-lane, made a similar expression of his determination to convict, in the shop of Mr. Hickson, Statiouer, King-street, Cheapside. I am not much surprised at this, when I find there is a family connection with this gentleman and Sir George Hill, the tool and understrapper. of Lord Castlereagh. I have been further informed that Mr. Triggey, chair-maker, made a similar avowal in public company, at the sign of the Three Pigeons, in the neighbourhood of Newgate street. So that it appears out of the twelve gentlemen, five of you had avowed a determination before coming into court, to convict. This, Gentlemen, is a strong proof that the question brought before the court and you as Jurors, was not a question cognizable before any human tribunal, and if you had acted the part and characters of honest men, you would have declared to the court your incompetency to decide. I have not the smallest doubt but that you will live long enough to regret the part you have taken in this business. I have a consolation in the hope that I shall live to see Civil Liberty established on the wreck of the Established Priesthood; they can never exist together, and in the same country. I have no objection to the existence of Christianity, if its existence can be supported by argument, without the aid of the secular arm; nor to the existence of the priests, if they would be content to take that only which their hearers might be pleased to allow them. What I object to is, that we are compelled to subscribe to certain opinions, and in many cases actually compelled, for convenience, to act and speak hypocritically, and that we are compelled to support a set of men in idleness, whose conduct in the aggregate is extremely immoral and reprehensible, and whose opinions or doctrines we condemn as erroneous. That country cannot be called free, where this is the case, and I for one will never cease to use my exertions as an individual, to establish perfect freedom on all points. I am at present under thirty years of age, in good health, and if I do not meet death by the poison cup, the hand of the assassin, or by some more refined, yet more cruel mode of torture, which we know to be practised in some of our Country Bastilles, I have no fear of surviving your sentence, Gentlemen, (for all I have to suffer is at your hands) and of meeting you again perhaps on a similar occasion, with an open and undaunted front. I have never regretted but one thing that occurred on my mock trial, that is, that I should have paid that deference to twelve men, |