The Battle of The Press. Campbell Theophila Carlile
at the same time, should it be the pleasure of the Attorney-General. The sittings after the terms of both Easter and Trinity had been allowed to pass without bringing the question to an issue, whilst the publications had been invariably kept on sale.
On Saturday, the 21st of August, Carlile was arrested on a warrant issued by John Atkins, Lord Mayor of the City of London, and lodged in the Giltspur Street Compter. The warrant set forth that defendant had published a malicious, seditious, and inflammatory libel, tending to create disaffection in the minds of his Majesty's subjects, and breaches of the peace. On the Monday he was conducted to the Mansion House and brought before the Lord Mayor, who, on finding bail ready, said that he should require twenty-four, if not forty-eight hours' notice of bail. This was evidently for the purpose of annoyance and to gratify a malicious caprice, for the names tendered were unexceptionable. On the Tuesday he was again brought before the Lord Mayor, and was committed for want of sureties. The person objected to was a Mr. Wooler, who owned several large houses and offices in the City, and who was as wealthy a man as the Lord Mayor himself. A Mr. Lindsay then offered to deposit the amount of bail required at once, when Lord Mayor Atkins refused and committed Carlile for want of sureties! On Thursday Carlile was again brought before him, and not being able to carry his caprices any further, he at length accepted the bail, but with the threat that if he continued the sale of the letters (to Sidmouth and the Prince) he would do so at his peril. Thus the reader will see that it was not the articles mentioned in these indictments and informations that were the real cause of these persecutions, but the letters to the Prince Regent and the Home Secretary, which Carlile had so indignantly and fearlessly addressed to them, immediately after he reached London, on his return from the scene of the Manchester massacre. He not only dared to write them such letters in which he appealed to and arraigned them, as man to man, but he published them and they were read. That was the sore that smarted and rankled and would not heal, though they dare not make this the ground of these indictments.
On the 16th of September, 1819, Carlile addressed the following letter to Attorney-General Sir Robert Gifford.
"Sir, – As the adjourned sittings of the Court of King's Bench are near at hand, I beg leave to enquire whether it is your intention as his Majesty's Attorney-General to prosecute in the ensuing sittings in the month of October those informations filed against me by the late Attorney-General, Sir Samuel Shepherd, and should such be your intention, which of them you will be pleased to take up first? Flattering myself that I shall find in you a generous opponent, I would entreat the earliest notice that might possibly be given, as it is my intention to serve with subpoenas several persons of rank and distinction, eminent in the theological, literary and scientific world, for whose convenience and accommodation I am solicitous to obtain the earliest notice, as many of them are resident in distant parts of the country, and would wish at least a week's notice for attendance. "I am, Sir,
"Your obliged and obedient servant,
"Richard Carlile."
To which he received the following reply.
"Sir, – In answer to your enquiry, I have to state that it is certainly my intention that the informations against you, which stand for trial at the adjourned sittings in October, should be tried at those sittings, and that the informations against you for publishing a blasphemous libel which stands prior in order in the list of causes, will first come on for trial.
"I am, Sir,
"Your obedient servant,
"R. Gifford
"Lincoln's Inn, September 7th, 1819."
This made the publication of the theological works of Thomas Paine the first cause to be tried, and one of the first persons to be subpoenaed was the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the following letter was written after receiving one from the Archbishop's lawyers signifying his willingness to be present at the trial.
"Fleet Street, September, 1819.
"My Lord, – I feel it my duty to express to you the warmest approbation I felt on receiving the candid reply from Messrs.
Foster, Cooke, and Frere, where your grace may be found in the month of October, should the presence of your grace be required on my trial. I beg to assure your grace that my motive for serving your grace with a subpoena was neither idle nor frivolous, and shall deem the presence of your grace to be of the highest importance, not only to my own interest, but in the interest of Truth and Justice, and consequently the interest of mankind in general. In conjunction with your grace, it is also my intention to serve with a subpoena those persons in this country most eminent in theology, astronomy, and oriental literature. I beg leave to assure your grace that such questions for such evidence as I may find necessary to elicit shall be put by me with a due impression of the importance and rank of those to whom I shall be addressing myself. I beg leave to subscribe myself,
"Your grace's most obliged and most obedient servant,
"Richard Carlile."
These letters being published in the Republican gave the authorities an inkling of the elaborate defence he intended to prepare for his trial. Such presumption and boldness amazed them, and was such as they never had to cope with before Carlile's time. William Cobbett escaped to America when he saw danger of prosecution, and Mr. Hone, though thrice tried and thrice acquitted, yet had given up the publication of the book of contention as a matter of general policy. But in Carlile's case the authorities encountered a man who had no idea of yielding a single point in the cause he felt to be just. He prepared to fight them on their own ground. He knew before he entered the court that the verdict would be against him; no matter how strong a defence he might make, conviction was, in his mind, a foregone conclusion. Those letters to Sidmouth and the Prince were not to be forgotten or forgiven. They must not be allowed to become a precedent for some future occasion.
Carlile resolved to do all that could possibly be done to set the subject of establishing the freedom of the Press fairly and squarely before the thousands that would read the account of the trials. He hoped by this means to reach a large body of thinking people, and arouse them to a sense of the danger of allowing to go unchallenged such actions on the part of the authorities as the last two years had witnessed. The simple reading of the newspaper accounts of his trial and defence would of itself, he argued, educate people and make them cognisant of his ends and aims, therefore he set himself to do what he could do for himself and the cause at this momentous epoch of his life.
The following article appeared in the 7th No., Vol. I, of the Republican, October 8th, 1819, written by Carlile.
"To the Public.
"The important moment has arrived when the trials which have attracted so much of the public attention and curiosity have been determined upon, and before another issue of this publication will be entered upon. The general expression of feeling that has been displayed on both sides of the question evinces that these trials are looked forward to with more than usual anxiety. I feel myself but as an insignificant being at this crisis, the mere instrument with which despotism in the back-ground is playing its game. I should not feel anxious for, or value my personal liberty, did I not know that its preservation by an upright and inflexible and discriminating jury is of the utmost importance at the present eventful moment A verdict of guilty will be hailed by the ministers as a cloak and sanction of all their late actions. They will triumph and go on in their destructive career; they will assume that an unlimited confidence has been placed in them, and there will be no bounds to their already frightful oppression. A verdict of not guilty will stagger and shake them from their holds, will destroy the remains of ignorance and superstition, and establish the liberty of the Press and free discussion with all its valued influence. Every stratagem will be used by my persecutors and by that portion of the Press which adheres to them to excite a feeling of prejudice against me. I was informed nearly a month ago that a loyal declaration would be ready for signatures in the City of London expressive of its abhorrence of seditious and blasphemous publications, about a week or ten days before my trial would take place. This declaration has been made, and however directly it may have been levelled at me, I cannot plead guilty to being its object, but do most heartily concur in its premises, and consequently I attended at the London Coffee House on Ludgate Hill and placed my name and address to it, which I shall expect to see published with the list