The Battle of The Press Part 5

"R. Carlile.

"Mr. H. V. Holmes,

"Newgate, London."

"Respecting your recognizances, if any fee was demanded from me here, I should refuse to pay it; I successfully refused it when I left Giltspur Street Compter. It must be that which Stevens alludes to when he says 'I did not behave like a gentleman', for I paid him 4s. ($1) a day for as plain a board as I ever saw on table. At that time I was continually being arrested, and I thought it prudent to spend as little as possible under such circ.u.mstances. He expressed himself as perfectly satisfied with what I gave him, though I did not give him a gratuity as turnkey; I saw no occasion for feeing the turnkeys..... Since you have left London, Griffin has gone to prison, and is shut up in Holborn, and the _Dwarf_, you will have seen, is dead. We must not die, and as to prison we have had enough of it. I am fully sensible that you will have to struggle hard to enlighten the people of Sheffield; I know that the present generation of them are a dull ma.s.s..... I am glad to hear that Mrs. H.

had resolved to brave prosecution had you been again prosecuted. This is the only way to succeed. Had Mrs. Carlile flinched, my business would have gone to wreck, for I verily think that there would have been no volunteers but for Mrs. C. and my sister going one after the other. It gave a sort of zest to the thing, and everything has gone well since.

"I am afraid you will be prosecuted from the rage carrying on in London.

Young Ha.s.sell has gone up from this neighborhood; I understand the fourth was arrested on Monday last for No. 17, vol. 9, of the _Republican_. The fifth entered on Tuesday, but I have not yet heard of his arrest.. On Tuesday a seizure was made for taxes, but the thieves were soon dismissed with payment. So you see that we shall want a mint of money to stand against them. The plan we proceed upon in London is to withdraw the article from sale for which the last (volunteer) was arrested, so as to make them prosecute each person for a new article.

This is better than having them all prosecuted for the same article, though three of them are already fixed for Paine and Palmer. If in Sheffield you have any volunteers to go to London, let me know."

"Dorchester Gaol, March 22nd, 1822.

"I wish to know if any difference is made between your treatment and that of Rhodes. Hard labor in this gaol means nothing at all, particularly before they had a treadmill up for grinding corn, and that is not hard labor in my eyes, as I have seen, and felt, what hard labor is. I do not think there can be much to do in Giltspur Street Compter, although I know they have a mill of some sort there. I can only hope that the doors of your prison will be open to you before 1824. I think they will; a revolution in France would produce one here immediately to a certainty. Our friend, the Devil, will work one here. Be so good as to state what the prison allowance of food consists of for a week with you.

As your work is mere play or pastime, I think it will not be worth while to complain of it at present. However, I will do it if you wish.... I return you 'The Solace', I would advise you as I have just advised my friend Smithson, of Leeds, to check the poetic muse; I do not like to see good common sense in rhyme. It does not need it. I intend to exclude all poems from the columns of the _Republican_ after this volume. I am not a poet and have no taste for it; but I know that it requires something very good on this head to please the public.... I see by the papers that Boyle has again refused his name to the Court, and again been remanded. I cannot get a lawyer to do anything for me on my plan, and to let them take their own course is the Devil! I even fear I shall not be able to get a motion made for the sale of that property of mine by auction which is in the possession of the robbers."

"May 14th, 1822.

"You will see your 'Reasons for Disbelief' in the Republican this week.

I expect to put your name to it, for such a creed, when you speak of having been a Methodist preacher, will not do without.... Should I lessen my expenses by the release of George Bere, I shall add two shillings a week to your, Rhodes, and Boyle's income. I was no party to the first fixing of it at five shillings, and never thought it enough.

Wedderburn I believe to be a worthy character as far as principle is concerned, and after such a severe imprisonment as he has had, I feel it my duty to help him on to some of the comforts of life, if possible.

If I were in London I would act very different to what I do now toward those who stand by me. I have now others to please as well as myself, and I find difficulty in doing justice to all and pleasing all at the same time.... If you were once to look at the weekly ma.s.s of writing that I do, you would never complain of being neglected. I do believe that your heart is bound up in the cause I am advocating, and you shall see that I will do everything possible to enable you to act upon those feelings when a better opportunity arrives."

"July 22nd, 1822.

"Say to Boyle that I am glad he refused to sign the pet.i.tion.

It was only an intrigue of some individual to acquire a little _eclat_ in the House of Commons upon the matter. Let them come manfully forward and move for the release of all prisoners prosecuted at the instance of the prosecuting a.s.sociation; and then an a.s.sistance or interference would be worth giving. I have often wished that Dr. Watson would turn bookseller and defend some important work in a Court of Law.

He will never get out of his poverty in this country without some such step. Gale Jones, who is such a brilliant orator, has dragged through a life of poverty entirely from the want of resolution to exhibit his talents where they would serve him. There is something original in your critique on the '39 Articles', because I am not aware that they were ever handled in that way before. I have been obliged to notice them in Mrs. Wright's speech for November, but I have gone on an entirely different strain to yours. After you have seen that speech it may induce you to re-write your critique and introduce some of those contradictions. For instance, the first article says, 'G.o.d is without a body' and composed of a substance, and the indivisible Trinity is divided twenty ways in the course of the articles. We read of 'parts'

of a partless bodyless body. Such an abuse of language is scarcely to be found in the Bible as the 39 Articles contain.... This G.o.d without a body, parts, or pa.s.sions, took flesh, bones, and everything appertaining to the perfection of man's nature into Heaven, and made a fourth part of what was before a 'Trinity'. Oh, Christians and Christianity! It is really, and speaking seriously between you and myself, the grossest mythology that was ever practised upon the credulity of mankind. A really free press and free uninterrupted discussion would annihilate it in one year throughout Europe."

"September 19th, 1822.

"Your chaplain is, I think, taking considerable pains to convert you back to his creed. There are half-a-dozen of them belonging to this gaol. They took considerable pains with Mr. Wedderburn, but have been very shy with me. I have published almost every word that has pa.s.sed between us. I shall leave my prison more thoroughly impressed with the truth and importance of my principles than when I entered it."

"August 26th, 1823.

"Nothing will afford me greater pleasure than to see you all who have been imprisoned on my account turning out bright men. The first thing required is a resolution to be strictly moral, the second to fill up your time well, and be industrious at everything useful. I have no fear but I shall be able to make quite a change in public opinion about myself in another year. I am fully determined to write myself out of prison by my pen, if I do not get out otherwise. I am now carrying on some pretty work with the parsons. I have written to five since Sunday morning in answer to different points. I shall let none of them rest."

"September 8th, 1823.

"I should have no objection to buy Burnett's History if you can a.s.sure me against one thing: that they are the real property of the person who sells them, that is to say, if they are honestly come by. This is a necessary caution, as no bargain would induce me to deal with a man who had been sent to the Compter for theft.... Respecting the new prison act, I am sure that my savage keepers cannot alter my treatment for the worse. I am hara.s.sing them to make it better. I sent an invitation to Peel to come and see how I was treated; I also sent an invitation to old Eldon to bring the Bishop of the Diocese with him, or any clergyman he liked, that I might give him proofs that no man could defend the Christian religion as a matter of morality or law. They are both in this neighborhood. I will soon publish a heap of the squibs that I have thrown at the priests and others in this neighborhood. Some of them are quite amusing. I feel myself master of them, and they tacitly acknowledge it.... I have been informed that some one has been fishing for more prosecution, but I doubt whether they will take more after Frost and Jones are tried. The gangs are evidently sickened, and now they talk of writing me down. I wish they might be resolute enough to attempt the matter. I think a great deal about Reig; sometimes that he will be destroyed, again that he will not be. But if he is, some of the Faith men will pay dear for it on a future day."

"December 9th, 1823.

"I have not a doubt but that the smuggler Waters was purposely sent to London with a report of my madness. A viler gang of villainous aristocrats is nowhere to be found than this country produces. I very much desire to know who carried this tale among the prisoners, as the rule in this gaol is to keep everything secret, not to let the prisoners of one yard know what is doing or being done in the others.... I am sorry to hear from Boyle that Mrs. Holmes did not like going to Sheffield. This will be the D------l if she continue in the same mind, for you can only succeed by both pulling hard in one way------ Mrs.

C------ has often opposed my projects; but I will say this for her--that when she saw I was determined, she would a.s.sist after her fit of anger was over."

"I expect to hear every day that you are arrested in Sheffield; but it is possible this London battle may be decisive. Rather than give in I will send for you and Mrs. Holmes too, as if I cannot stand in London there will be dire persecution throughout the country. I have sent your last to print in a most daring address to the old Chancellor, but such as becomes him and me to offer him. Excuse haste; I am writing defences"

[for the shopmen then under arrest].

"June 5th, 1824.

"Enclosed is what Mrs. Ellison wished. I have now a fine head of hair--it has been growing all winter--and I can supply a hundred such locks if they are worth anything, or gratifying to anyone. I never set my mind on trifles like these."

"August 2nd, 1824.

"Mrs. T. R. Perry is now in the shop, and after her is another female ready, with men in abundance."

In speaking of a placard about him that had been posted up in Norwich to advertise a tract against him, he says:--

"The author found that he had sold 14 in a fortnight. There is nothing in it that impeaches my conduct. My little egotistical vagaries are only matters to be laughed at, and, as I have just been telling our High Sheriff Garland, are put forth theatrically, to produce an effect upon the audience."

Holmes wants to become a printer of liberal works, and Carlile tells him how to go about making himself one; then, speaking of the _Newgate Magazine_, he writes of applying some money sent to him for the purchase of paper for this magazine, and says:--

"This work is to be wholly their own. Ha.s.sell will make a prime fellow with the pen. Clark is an animated Bible. He has compiled the 'Scripturious creed', which I will give to you to print the moment you have types. Another pamphlet I have for you is the 'Life of Paine'. In addition to what others give you to do, I will fill up the time of a journeyman until you are a perfect printer. I sent Sheriff Garland and Abbott (Chief Justice) a _Republican_. Garland came with his niece and daughter and sat down with me for half an hour, the gaoler remaining in the back-ground all the time unnoticed. Garland wanted me to get out by making some little formal apology; but I told him, 'No! I was determined to fight it out'. 'Well,' said he, 'I suppose we must consider you a political Luther.' I thought the gaoler would have spit fire at me this morning for my compliment of last week. Such a look for Cruikshank!"

Speaking of his printer and the difficulties he finds in getting the _Republican_ and other work done, he says:--

"I have a tickler in this week's for a visiting magistrate, only Moses (his printer) generally accommodates me with about forty errors to an issue."

This Moses was a man whom Carlile taught or had taught in his own office, and he it was who printed the whole of the _Republican_, though his name never appeared. So in view of the good work he helped on through his printing of the prosecuted volumes, we must forgive him the small (!) matter of "forty errors to an issue", though it must have been a fearful and most aggravating annoyance to Carlile.

November 25th 1824.--Carlile says in a letter of this date:--

"We have had a hurricane on this coast such as never was known before.

I felt quite comfortable at being in such a strong building. Parson Richman, the chaplain of the Dorchester Gaol, and his wife were killed in bed by the falling in of the roof and chimney. The damage done to the houses immediately before the sea is incalculable. It has nearly destroyed every beauty of Weymouth. Several hundreds of people killed by falling houses or drowned, and yet the Christians call this a dispensation of Providence. I am glad that I am out of such a concern.

But we are on the wrong side of good luck at 84 Fleet Street, though the Christians are quite savage that we are not nearly so bad off as our neighbors. I fear we shall be jostled out of 84. The City Surveyor is set to work to condemn our house as unsafe. The second I conjecture was a Christian fire....

That second fire was certainly planned for the purpose, because the fire engine belonging to the office in which our house has its insurance had left, and as soon as it had left the fire broke out. I really think the house is in danger, as long as it stands alone as it now does.... I have very little hope of keeping 84. The Saints are trying every scheme to get the house down, and I fear they will succeed; if so, we shall be out of the shop by the New Year."

"May 4th, 1825.

"I have just had an interview with my gaoler to witness my signature to an agreement about my house and liberation.

He is the most foul fellow that I ever looked upon. He ought not to have been born outside of the pale of the Inquisition."

"June 14th, 1825 [On the Rev. Robert Taylor.]

"I noticed the Vice Society advertis.e.m.e.nt, sent and bought their book, and am about to print it in the _Republican_. Rumor says they are consulting about prosecuting Taylor (Rev. Robert). He is a handsome fellow, a first-rate orator, and bewitches by his face and his tongue some very smart ladies. His meetings are crowded with fashionable ladies, and he is doing a deal of good."

"October 3rd, 1825.

"I doubt you being indicted at the Sessions. If so, you can traverse to Epiphany, and perhaps for a pound or two remove it to the Bench, that is to your county a.s.sizes. This would be better than being confined at present; you should not have admitted the law as being against, to the curate. There is no such law. It is all a fiction. There cannot be a law for anything of the kind, for it is not an offence against public morals. Should you come to trial, don't forget to say that the British Government in India sanctions all such exhibitions. I saw an account of some speechifying at a missionary meeting lately where they begged money because Indian children made images of clay, etc., and cried them about as 'G.o.ds' a penny apiece. We have proofs that Haley has sent in a crying recantation to Peel. I see plainly there is nothing too base for this fellow to do. If Peel liberates him we shall have a pull upon both by showing that no one but a rascal can find Christian mercy and grace."

October 11th 1825.--In this letter we can get an idea of how Carlile kept things stirred up in the gaol for both the inside and outside authorities, for this reason I give a little longer extract than usual.

"I shall be very glad to see Mrs. H. at Dorchester, yet I doubt if I could get her free admission. I had a hard fight to get Mrs. Wright admission. The gaoler tried to interrupt it. I wrote to a magistrate, he to the gaoler saying he saw no impropriety in it, but left it to the gaoler. The fellow yielded after saying, 'It was not to be a precedent'.

He would not let her write her name to me in the office of the gaol, she had to go back to town to do so; I don't believe you yet when you say he was civil to you. He is the greatest ruffian I ever saw in any kind of office. There is war and rumor of war in the gaol just now. This is session week, and I am about to make a report to the magistrates against the gaoler. I sent up the complaints of the smugglers to the Lords of the Treasury in August. I found out on Sat.u.r.day that it had made a noise all around, and back, and forward. Their lordships sent it to Peel, and he down to the Magistrates. Mine was a most curious letter to the Treasury; if I make any more noise out of it, I will print it. To be revenged they turned away my favorite turnkey and his wife; they told them they might thank me for it. I was sorry to see them go, but they have been going on their own account for a long time, and I know they would not have stayed after I left. After it was known that he was going the goaler would not let them come to see me, out of his sight. To-day I sent out an open letter calculated to mortify the fellow if he looked into it, inviting the turnkey and his wife to visit me as friends and visitors.