The Battle of The Press. Campbell Theophila Carlile
to the coach door by the master to have a parting glass, when to every glass was the toast, 'Down with Hunt!' One of them would insist on my taking a glass as a fellow-traveller to join in the sentiment of 'Down with Hunt!' To pacify the fools and disarm suspicion as far as possible, I drank the glass of wine with 'Down with Hunt!' which was considered the proof of my being a good fellow and a fit companion for them. The panic which prevailed in all the towns from Manchester to Northampton can scarcely be conceived, and it fell to my lot to detail the particulars of the massacre at each town we passed through, as nothing but post-horse expresses had passed through till the arrival of our mail coach."
Mr. Hunt received a sentence of two years' imprisonment in Dorchester Gaol for his part in this affair. The reader is spared the details of the bloody onslaught. The instances which came under Carlile's immediate observation were sickening in the extreme, and drew from him immediately on his arriving in London a spirited letter to Lord Sidmouth, describing the whole affair, and calling on him to call the Manchester authorities to account for their dastardly conduct. The letter itself gave great umbrage, and a council of three, consisting of Lord Sidmouth, Sir John Silvester, Recorder, and John Atkins, Mayor of London, studied over it for several days to see if it could not be made out to be itself a treasonable affair. In the meantime, the Prince Regent had directed Lord Sidmouth to return the magistrates of Manchester, and all the officers and privates concerned in the attack, "Their thanks to them for having so promptly preserved the peace and tranquillity of the country."
This drew from Carlile two more letters of the same kind as the first, but stronger, one to the Prince Regent, George, afterwards George IV, and another to Lord Sidmouth. The boldness of this proceeding was something very unusual and not to be tolerated; but Carlile never knew what fear was when he had a pen in his hand, or indeed at any other time. Moreover, he could not believe that the Prince Regent could have been properly informed, or he would not have done this, and he was boiling with indignation at the treatment of peaceable citizens.
This letter of Sir Francis Burdett on the Manchester massacre was adjudged libellous, and procured for Sir Francis a fine of £1,500 or a year's imprisonment, in the usual manner of those days. (Sir Francis preferred paying the fine.) It ran as follows: —
"To the Electors of Westminster,
"Aug. 18th, 1819.
"Gentlemen,
"This, then, is the answer of the boroughmongers to the petitioning people – this is the proof of our standing in no need of reform – these the practical blessings of our glorious boroughmongers' domination – this the use of a standing army in time of peace. It seems our fathers were not such fools as some would make believe in opposing the establishment of a standing army and sending King William's Dutch guards out of the country! Yet would to heaven they had been Dutchmen or Switzers, or Hessians, or Hanoverians, or anything rather than Englishmen who have done such deeds! What? Kill men unarmed and unresisting, and, gracious God, women too, disfigured, maimed, cut down, and trampled on by dragoons? Is this England? Is this a Christian land? A land of freedom? Can such things be and pass us by like a summer's cloud, unheeded? Forbid it; every drop of English blood in every vein that does not proclaim its owner bastard. Will the gentlemen of England support or wink at such proceedings? They have a great stake in their country; they hold great estates, and they are bound in duty and in honor to consider them as retaining fees on the part of their country for upholding its rights and privileges. Surely they will at length awake and find they have duties to perform. They never can stand tamely by as lookers-on whilst bloody Neros rip open their mothers's womb; they must join the general voice, loudly demanding justice and redress, and head public meetings throughout the United Kingdom to put a stop in its commencement to a reign of terror and of blood, to afford consolation as far as it can be afforded and legal redress to the widows and orphans – mutilated victims of this unparalleled and barbarous outrage. For this purpose I propose that a meeting shall be called in Westminster, which the gentlemen of the committee will arrange, and whose summons I would hold myself in readiness to attend. Whether the penalty of our meeting will be death by military execution I know not; but this I know – a man can die but once, and never better than in vindicating the laws and liberties of his country. Excuse this hasty address. I can scarcely tell what I have written; it may be a libel, or the Attorney-General may call it one, just as he pleases. When the seven bishops were tried for libel, for the support of arbitrary power, the army of James II, then encamped on Hounslow Heath, gave three cheers on hearing of their acquittal. The King, startled at the noise, asked, 'What's that?' 'Nothing, sire,' was the answer, 'but the soldiers shouting at the acquittal of the seven bishops.' 'Do you call that nothing?' said the misgiving tyrant; and shortly after abdicated the Government. 'Tis true, James could not inflict the tortures on his soldiers – could not tear their living flesh from their shoulders with the cat-o'-ninetails – could not flay them alive! Be this as it may, our duty is to meet, and England expects every man to do his duty.
"I remain, Gentlemen,
"Most truly and faithfully
"Your most obedient servant,
"Francis Burdett."
CHAPTER IV. RECORD OP PERSECUTION
Under the administration of Lords Liverpool, Castlereagh, Canning, Sidmouth, etc., Richard Carlile, of Fleet Street, London, publisher, was arrested on the 14th of August, 1817, on three warrants granted by Mr. Justice Holroyd on the oath of one Griffin Swanson, a common informer, for publishing a book called "The Parodies",5 the sale of which had been suppressed by Mr. William Hone, but for which Mr. Hone was afterwards put on three several trials and as often acquitted, to the great joy of the people, to the great grief of the administration and Sir Samuel Shepherd, Attorney-General, to the acceleration of the death of the then Chief Justice (Ellenborough), and to the mortification of the succeeding Chief Justice, who saw his great prototype defeated as well as himself. On the 15th Carlile was committed to the King's Bench prison by Mr. Justice Holroyd in default of bail to the amount of £800 ($4,000) on three several warrants. On the 13th of November, being called to plead, he was surprised with a fourth information by the aforesaid Attorney-General, founded on the 18th No. of Vol. I of Sherwin's Political Register.
On the 20th of December he was liberated after an imprisonment of eighteen weeks by entering into recognizances of £300 ($1,500) without either of the four informations being submitted to a jury then or ever afterwards. On the 16th day of January, 1819, he was informed that "The Society for the Suppression of Vice" had presented a bill to the Grand Jury, then sitting at the Old Bailey, on a charge of blasphemous libel for the publication of Thomas Paine's theological works. Bail was immediately presented and the arrest prevented. The indictment was removed by a writ of certiorari to the Court of King's Bench at the instance of the Society, and further bail required on the first day of Hilary term, when an information was also filed and presented to the court by the Attorney-General (Shepherd) against the same publication. To both the indictment and information the defendant imparled under an order to plead within the first eight days of Easter term. On the 11th day of February a warrant was granted by Chief Justice Abbott against the defendant, on an oath made by George Pritchard and Thomas Fair, that the defendant had continued the sale of Paine's works, and that the said George Pritchard intended to prosecute. The warrant was put in force at 8 o'clock in the evening, and by 10 o'clock defendant was lodged within the walls of Newgate. On the 15th day of February, he was brought from Newgate by a writ of habeas corpus to the chambers of Mr. Justice Bailey, and bail was tendered and taken a third time to appear and answer to the charge against the same publication. On the first day of Easter term, Carlile pleaded to an information and indictment, and in addition to these had presented to him another information at the instance of the Attorney-General, founded on No. 6, vol. 4, of Sherwin's Weekly Political Register, and another indictment at the instance of the Society for the Suppression of Vice founded on that part of the 1st vol. of the Deist entitled "Palmer's Principles of Nature". To these last two he again imparled, and on the first day of Trinity term he prayed the court to stay this accumulation of informations and indictments until those to which he had already pleaded and was prepared to defend were disposed of. But the lenient and impartial judges of the Court of King's Bench could see no need of this, and he must stand prepared to defend five or perhaps nine informations
Parodies on the Book of Common Prayer.