The Life & Work of Charles Bradlaugh. J. M. Robertson
The Superintendent said that in that case he would take him to the Station-house. Mr. Bradlaugh, who was all this time bareheaded in the keen air of early March, asked for his hat. Mr. Williamson stepped forward to hand it to him, but was pushed roughly aside by the police, and Mr. Bradlaugh did not get his hat till later.
At the Police Station he was detained for some time whilst the question of bail was under discussion. This was twice refused, once on the ground that there was no power to accept bail on a Sunday; and after being subjected to the indignity of being searched, Mr. Bradlaugh was taken into an underground stone cell, without fire, light, chair, or stool. In the cell there was "a straw palliasse, with a strange looking rug and one sheet." This cell, it afterwards transpired, had not been used for two years. In this dungeon-like place he was kept for four and a-half hours, from half-past four until nine o'clock on an evening in the beginning of March. At this hour the Superintendent allowed him the luxury of a stone corridor in which there was a fire; he was placed here in charge of a policemen, and also allowed the company of Mr. Steer, a Freethinker, who had attended the meeting and had been taken into custody on a charge of assaulting Mr. Edwards while "in the execution of his duty." Mr. Bradlaugh was at the outset charged with inciting to a breach of the peace, but on Monday was also further charged with an assault upon Mr. Edwards. In the morning he and Mr. Steer were brought up, like felons, through a trap-door into the prisoner's dock. Their appearance in court was greeted with a hearty burst of cheering, which the magistrates (of whom there were not less than nine upon the bench) tried in vain to suppress. The Court was very full, and such a great crowd had assembled outside the Guildhall, previous to the opening of the doors, that the Mayor (J. W. W. Ryder, Esq.) decided that the Court ordinarily used for police business was too small, and that the case should be heard in the large hall. The case was opened by Mr. Little, of the firm of Messrs Little and Woolcombe, on behalf of the plaintiff, Mr. Superintendent Edwards. After he had recited the charges, he said he was instructed by the magnanimous Edwards that he had no desire "to press strongly against the parties, if they would make a promise not again to make an attack upon public morals." Once or twice during the progress of the case, Mr. Bradlaugh came into collision with Mr. Bone, the magistrate's clerk, but on the whole he carried his points fairly easily. The case lasted the whole day right into the evening, and was adjourned to Friday the 8th to give Mr. Bradlaugh time to procure evidence. He and Mr. Steer were bound over in their own recognizances of £20 each.
The Court was again crowded on Friday, every part of the building being crammed, and the spectators included several dissenting ministers of various denominations. When Mr. Bradlaugh made his appearance in the dock he was, as before, greeted with tremendous and repeated cheering. The magistrate's clerk got quite excited, and called out again and again, "You ought to be ashamed of yourselves." The Mayor commanded the police to keep their eyes on the persons guilty of such manifestations, and to take them into custody if necessary. During the course of the proceedings he gave this order several times in one form or another, and succeeded in provoking a considerable burst of laughter, as occasionally nearly every person in Court was cheering or hissing according to his sentiments, and the Superintendent could hardly have afforded six constables to capture each disturber. However, at my father's request, his friends ceased to cheer. The charge against Mr. Bradlaugh was dismissed without hearing the whole of the evidence for the defence.[60] The magistrates found Mr. Steer guilty, but said that they did not consider the assault to have been of a severe character, and therefore fined him only 5s. and costs, not to include attorney's costs. Of course, the question of religious belief was raised on the swearing of the witnesses for the defence, but the only two who were questioned happened to be religious persons—one, indeed, was an "Independent Nonconformist," who was on his way to chapel, and was attracted to the field by the crowd and the presence of the police. On the following day (March 9th) notices were served by the authorities, representing the War Department in Devonport, on the Plymouth Freethinkers and others concerned, forbidding the use of the Park for the purpose of lectures; Mr. Bradlaugh therefore lectured on Sunday[61] in the Free Institute, while he turned over in his mind a plan for the following Sunday (17th). He announced to his audience that he intended to lecture "very near the Park," but the precise spot would not be made known until it was too late for the police to interfere.
Bills were posted to the following effect:—
"In consequence of advice received, 'Iconoclast' will deliver an open-air address on Sunday forenoon, and will be present near the Devonport Park Lodge about half-past ten in order to vindicate the right of free speech."
Considerable excitement prevailed in Plymouth. Some thought that, in spite of the notice from the War Office representatives, the lecture was to be given in the Park itself; others thought a certain three-cornered field had been hired. All were wrong; private ground could not be had for love or money, the owners and renters of all such having joined the police and the clergy; vacant land belonging to the borough was also out of the question, because my father felt that to have lectured on such ground must have resulted in a collision with the police, and might have ended disastrously for some of his friends. Mr. Bradlaugh, Mr. Williamson, and Captain Trenaman consulted together, and—who originated the idea I do not know—after ascertaining that all the water was under the jurisdiction of the Saltash Corporation, it was resolved to give the lecture from a boat in such a way that while the audience were in the borough of Devonport, the speaker, only a few yards distant from his hearers, should be outside the Devonport jurisdiction.
"On Sunday morning, unfortunately, it rained in torrents and blew great gales," lamented Mr. Bradlaugh, in a brief description of the day's adventures. "We, however, determined to persevere, and on arriving near the Devonport Park Lodge I soon found myself at the head of a considerable number, who, despite the rain and the wind, followed me to Stonehouse Creek, a small tributary of the river Tamar, where I embarked on board the boat previously hired, and on which we erected a sort of platform from which I delivered a short address, the union jack being hoisted at the head of the boat. Directly after I had commenced to speak, Mr. Superintendent Edwards made his appearance, and certainly looked most disconsolate when he found the plan I had adopted to avoid his vigilance. As it was still raining very hard, I made my address a very brief one, telling the people that I was very glad of the opportunity of asserting the right of free speech, and promising to assert it again when I next visited Devonport. I was cheered several times notwithstanding the still descending torrent. Mr. Edwards, who had nearly captured the cab containing my wife, had under his command no less than twenty-eight policemen besides Inspector Bryant, and the Mayor was prepared with the Riot Act; but all their precautions were set at naught, and the right of open-air propaganda was victoriously asserted. Mr. Superintendent Edwards, with scarcely bottled up ire and indignation, endeavoured to find a victim in the licensed waterman, but even here he was defeated, as Captain Trenaman had taken his own crew."
Mr. Bradlaugh concluded his account by thanking the friends who had helped him "and the bold Trenamans, father and son, who commanded under me my first marine endeavour at Freethought propaganda." Immediately after the conclusion of the police proceedings Mr. Bradlaugh wrote a letter to Superintendent Edwards demanding that he should publish an apology in certain papers and pay £10 to the Devon and Cornwall Hospital, £10 to the Stoke Female Orphan Asylum, and his (Mr. Bradlaugh's) witnesses' expenses; but the messenger who delivered the letter was informed by Edwards that he would take no notice of the communication, but would consign it to the wastepaper basket. In fact, all the written reply that Edwards did make was of the shortest and curtest; it consisted merely of these words: "I beg to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of this morning." After such a letter, my father put the matter into the hands of his solicitor, who laid it before counsel for advice, with the result that legal proceedings were commenced against Mr. Edwards for assault and false imprisonment.
A little later at a meeting of the Devonport Town Council the Watch Committee reported that they had instructed the Town Clerk to take measures for Mr. Edwards' defence, and asked the Council's approval of what they had done. After considerable discussion twenty-eight persons voted for the adoption of the report and two against. The names of those voting were formally taken down, and it is rather curious to find that at least four members of the Council who voted that the Town of Devonport should undertake the expense and conduct of the defence of the Police Superintendent, had sat upon the Bench and decided against him without troubling my father to go through the