The History Of The Last Trial By Jury For Atheism In England

That day is chilled in my memory when I first set out for Cheltenham. It was in December 1840. The snow had been frozen on the ground a fortnight. There were three of us, Mrs. Holyoake, Madeline (our first child), and myself. I had been residing in Worcester, which was the first station to which I had been appointed as a Social Missionary. My salary (16s. per week) was barely sufficient to keep us alive in summer. In winter it was inherent obstinacy alone which made us believe that we existed.

I feel now the fierce blast which came in at the train windows from 'the fields of Tewkesbury,' on the day on which we travelled from Worcester to Cheltenham. The intense cold wrapped us round like a cloak of ice.

The shop lights threw their red glare over the snow-bedded ground as we entered the town of Cheltenham, and nothing but the drift and ourselves moved through the deserted streets. When at last we found a fire we had to wait to thaw before we could begin to speak. When tea was over we were-escorted to the house where we were to stay for the night. I was told it was 'a friend's house.' Cheltenham is a fashionable town, a watering, visiting place, where everything is genteel and thin. As the parlours of some prudent house-wives are kept for show, and not to sit in, so in Cheltenham numerous houses are kept 'to be let,' and not to live in. The people who belong to the apartments are like the supernumeraries on a stage, they are employed in walking over them. Their clothes are decent-but they cannot properly be said to wear them: they carry them about with them (on their backs of course, because that mode is most convenient) but simply to show that they have such things. In the same manner eating and drinking is partly pantomime, and not a received reality. Such a house as I have suggested was the 'friend's house' to which we were conducted till lodgings could be found. We were asked to sit by the kitchen fire on 'the bench in the corner,' and there we sat from eight till one o'clock, without being asked to take anything to eat. Madeline, deprived of her usual rest, continued sucking at the breast till her mother was literally too exhausted to speak. A neighbouring festivity kept my 'friends' up that night till two o'clock-up to which time we saw no prospect of bed or supper. As we entered the house, Eleanor, with a woman's prescience, said 'George, you had better go and buy some food.' 'Buy food,' I replied, in simplicity, 'the people at this fine house will be outraged to see me bring in food.' Retribution was not far off. I repented me of my credulity that night. When at last I clearly comprehended that we were to have nothing to eat, I proceeded to take affairs into my own hands, and being too well assured of the insensibility of my host, I did it in a way that I conceived suited to his capacity, and began as follows:

'We have talked all night about social progress, and if you have no objection we will make some. And if eating,' I added, 'be not an irregular thing in your house, we will take some supper.'

'I am very sorry to say,' he answered, 'we have nothing to offer you.'

'Charge me bed and board while we are with you,' I rejoined, 'but let us have both. You have bread, I suppose?'

'We have some rice bread.'

'Perhaps you will toast it.' 'Will you have it toasted?

'I will. Could you not make coffee?'

'We have no coffee.'

'Tea?'

'We have no tea.' 'Any water?'

'No hot water.'

'Any butter?'

'Yes, we have salt butter.'

'Then put some on the bread,' I added, for he did not even propose to do that. I had to dispute every inch of hospitality with him. My 'friend,' Mr. V., was an instance of that misplacement of which Plato speaks in his 'Republic' What a capital Conservative he would have made! No innovation with him-not even into his own loaf! I was obliged to take the initiative into the 'salt' butter.

After seeing the bread toasted, and buttering it myself, to make sure that it was buttered, I put on my hat and went into the streets, in search of material out of which to manufacture a cordial, for eight hours had then elapsed since Eleanor had had any sustenance, and my good host's choice reserve of cold water did not seem quite adequate to revive her.

When I reached the dark streets, to which I was so absolute a stranger, not knowing where I stood on the slippery ground, made so by frozen rain on a bedding of snow, I had not gone (or rather slipped) far before I was fairly lost. Like the sense in a Rousseauian love-letter, I neither knew whence I came nor whither I was going, and when I succeeded in my errand it was at the last place at which I should wish to be found.

During my absence that voluptuous caterer, 'mine host,' whom I had left behind-whose counterpart Maginn must have had before him when he drew the portrait of 'Quarantotti'-had proceeded so far as to boil some water. The evening ended without inconsistency, and the bed corresponded with the supper.

The next day I took lodgings, where, expecting nothing, I was no longer disappointed. But on this occasion, profiting by the experience of the preceding night, I went provided with a small stock of loaves and chocolate. My stay in Cheltenham was more agreeable than was to be expected after such an introduction; but I remember that I had to pay my expenses back again, and though they only amounted to 12s., I felt the want of them for a long time afterwards. Yet Cheltenham was not without generous partizans, but, as is common in the incipiency of opinion, they were at that time among that class who had fewest means. The experience here recounted was a sample of that frequently recurring, but not exactly of the kind on which vanity is nurtured, as the reader will think as he reverts (from a speech to be recited) to these incidents. He who reads thus far will acquit me of any premeditation of disturbing the peace of the religious inhabitants of Cheltenham, for it is certainly the last town I should have selected as the scene of such an occurrence as the one which I have to narrate.

My next location was in a northern manufacturing town, where I was treated like its iron-ware-case hardened. My salary there of 30s. per week was a subject of frequent discussion by the members of the Branch. For this sum I taught a Day School and lectured on Sunday. And as he who lives the life of a child all the week (as he must do who teaches children to any purpose) finds it hard to live that of a man on Sunday, my duties were wearying and perplexing. Those who grudged my salary made no sufficient allowance for that application necessary for the discharge of my duties-an application which often commenced long before they were up in the morning, and continued long after their mechanical employment was over at night. Not comprehending myself, at that time, that they who work for the improvement of others must not calculate on their appreciation as an encouragement, but as a result, I was thrown into that unpleasant state in which my pride incited me to stop and my duty to go on. It was not till subsequent to my return from Glasgow, four years afterwards, that I mastered the problem thus raised which so many have been ruined in solving. Though an Anti-Priest, my treatment was that of a priest. My congregation, as is the case with most Freethinkers, objected to the pay of the priest, when the true quarrel was with error, and not with payment: for if a man has the truth, it is well that it should be his interest to hold it. But Dissent, objecting to the pay of others, has been left without pay itself-hence its apostles have been reduced to fight the lowest battles of animal wants, when they should have been fighting for the truth. Dissent has too often paid its advocates the bad compliment of supposing, that if placed within reach of competence they would either fall into indolence or hypocrisy. It has acted practically upon the hypothesis, that the only possible way of ensuring their zeal and sincerity was to starve them-a policy which leaves progress to the mercy of accident. For a long period the operation of this policy chilled me. My initiation into affairs of progress was in company with men who estimated, above all other virtues, the virtue which worked for nothing. They would denounce the patriotism of that man who accepted a shilling for making a speech, although it had cost him more to compose it than those who heard it would probably give to save their country. Nine tenths of the best public men and women I have known, have turned back at this point. Not any new conviction-not any bribe of the enemy, but the natural though unwise revolt against being considered mendicants, has forced them back into supineness, indifference, or even into the very ranks of oppression. True, I felt that he who labours with his brains is worthy of his hire as well as he who labours with his hands. As often as I read a book or heard a lecture, which threw new light on the paths of life, I found that it not only relieved me from the dominion of ignorance, but imparted to me the strength of intelligence. I felt indebted to the author and speaker, for I found that knowledge was not only power, but property. I knew all this, but painful years passed over me before I acquired the courage to offer what instruction I had to impart as an article of commercial value. Those who have encountered this kind of experience know that the feeling it engenders is one of indifference, and that an unusual speech would arise in a cold sense of duty, and not in wantonness or wickedness. Thus much will inform the reader of the circumstances under which I spoke the alleged blasphemy in Cheltenham.

A fellow-missionary, Mr. Charles Southwell, had, in conjunction with Mr. Chilton and Mr. Field, set up an Atheistical periodical in Bristol, entitled the Oracle of Reason-which the authorities attempting forcibly to put down, Mr. Southwell was sentenced to twelve months' imprisonment in Bristol Gaol. On a visit to him I walked ninety miles from Birmingham to Bristol, and as my way lay through Cheltenham, I staid a night in that town to deliver a lecture on 'Home Colonisation as a means of superseding Poor Laws and Emigration.' At the conclusion of the lecture I instructed the chairman to make the announcement, which I still make after my lectures, viz., that any of the audience may put relevant questions or offer what objections they consider useful-whereupon a person stood up of the name of Maitland, a teetotaller, and sort of local preacher, and complained that 'though I had told them their duty to man, I had not told them of their duty to God,' and inquired 'whether we should have churches and chapels in community?'

I answered thus: 'I do not desire to have religion mixed up with an economical and secular subject, but as Mr. Maitland has introduced questions in reference to religion I will answer him frankly. Our national debt already hangs like a millstone round the poor man's neck, and our national church and general religious institutions cost us, upon accredited computation, about twenty millions annually. Worship being thus expensive, I appeal to your heads and your pockets whether we are not too poor to have a God? If poor men cost the state as much, they would be put like officers upon half-pay, and while our distress lasts I think it would be wise to do the same thing with deity. Thus far I object, as a matter of political economy, to build chapels in communities. If others want them they have themselves to please, but I, not being religious, cannot propose them. Morality I regard, but I do not believe there is such a thing as a God.* The pulpit says "Search the Scriptures," and they who are thus trepanned get imprisoned in Bristol jail, like my friend Mr. Southwell. For myself, I flee the Bible as a viper, and revolt at the touch of a Christian.'

Perhaps this reply was indecorous, but it was nothing more, and as it was delivered in a tone of conversational freedom, it produced only quiet amusement on the meeting. The next day I continued my journey to Bristol. A day or two after I received the Cheltenham Chronicle, commonly called the Rev. Francis Close's paper, it being the organ of his party, in which I read the following paragraph-written with that exaggerated virulence which Archdeacon Hare has subsequently deprecated as the bane of religious journalism, but which at that time was considered as a holy ornament:-

* I do not remember using this phrase, but as the witnesses

reported it perhaps it was so; but I still incline to the

opinion that it was an expression they fell upon in stating

their impressions of the meeting to their employers, and all

working in one office, they fell into one story, either

through inadvertence or from precaution.

Atheism and Blasphemy.-On Tuesday evening last a person named Holyoake, from Manchester, (?) delivered a lecture on Socialism (or, as it has been more appropriately termed, devilism), at the Mechanics' Institution. After attacking the Church of England and religion generally for a considerable time, he said he was open to any question that might be put to him. A teetotaller named Maitland then got up, and said the lecturer had been talking a good deal about our duty to man, but he omitted to mention our duty towards God, and he would be glad to know if there were any chapels in the community? The Socialist then replied that he professed no religion at all, and thought they were too poor to have any. He did not believe there was such a being as a God, and impiously remarked that if there was* he would have the deity served the same as government treated the subalterns, by placing him upon half-pay. With many similar blasphemous and awful remarks, which we cannot sully our columns by repeating, the poor misguided wretch continued to address the audience. To their lasting shame, be it spoke, a considerable portion of the company applauded the miscreant during the time he was giving utterance to these profane opinions.

We have three persons in our employ who are ready to verify on oath the correctness of the above statements. We therefore hope those in authority will not suffer the matter to rest here, but that some steps will immediately he taken to prevent any further publicity to such diabolical sentiments.-Ed. Cheltenham Chronicle.*

* This is an interpolation.

Some have censured the openness of my answer to Mr. Maitland as being inexpedient. It is not impossible to justify it on that ground, but I have an aversion to do it. Expediency has nothing to do with what a man shall say. Expediency may close the mouth, but it has no power over the speech if the mouth once opens. A man may keep silence if he chooses, but if he does speak he has no alternative but to speak that which is frank and true. But at that time there were political reasons why I should not evade the question put to me. The Odd Fellow of Mr. Hetherington (under the editorship of W. J. Linton) had shortly before contained an able article beginning thus:-

The world need not be much frightened at the present race of Socialists. However heinous their doctrines may be thought, there need be no fear, they will not act in too close accordance with them. For ourselves, having been among them at various times, we have never yet been able to discover any certain marks, whether of manner, of opinion, or of conduct, whereby to distinguish them from the mass of professing Christians. However heterodox their innermost sentiments, they usually maintain as decent an appearance of conformity with custom as the most worldly and orthodox could desire.

This was a character which no progressive party could live with, and as the hypocrisy here charged upon us was generally believed, and not wholly without reason, it became necessary either to give up the party or refute the accusation. The attack on Mr. Owen's friends, by the Bishop of Exeter in the House of Lords, had been evaded, not met, and a noble opportunity, such as bigotry seldom affords to a rising party, had been suffered to pass away unused. The enemy triumphed. In this very town of Cheltenham a young poet, named Sperry, who betrayed freethink-ing tendencies, had been called upon to recant. He did so, and then he was treated with contempt by those who intimidated him. They first destroyed his moral influence, and then despised him. I had therefore sufficient public reasons for not tempting a similar fate. If I had refused to reply, it would have been said I held opinions too horrible to avow. Had I evaded the answer I should have been considered a time-server, and if I answered frankly there were the legal consequences in prospect. I was not very much skilled in policy, but I knew this much that when a man cannot take care of consequences, he ought to take care of the credit of his cause. A little anticipating this history I may say that the expediency of the course I took, if the expediency must be defended, was shown in the altered tone of the authorities, both in Cheltenham and Gloucester, after my trial. Instead of that contempt with which persons holding Socialist opinions are treated, there was a somewhat respectful recognition of them. However crude might be considered my defence of my views, nothing escaped me that could be distorted into a willingness to avoid any suffering at the expense of my adherence to the principles I had adopted. Many persons who would not have spoken to me before came and expressed regret at what had happened, and I met with many instances of regard from persons who had formerly despised those with whom I acted.

I was indebted to the Odd-Fellow of July 23, then edited by Eben Jones, author of 'Studies of Sensation and Event,' for the fairest statement of my conduct and of the point in question, which the press gave. It was thus expressed:-

We cannot refrain from saying, that under the peculiar circumstances, Mr. Holyoake (presuming his disbelief in a God to be sincere) could not have said other than he did say, and at the same time have continued honest. It is true he was not asked, 'Do you believe in a God?' but a question was put to him which assumed his belief in a God, and had he not testified at once his disbelief, he would have sanctioned the false assumption: and if not a liar, would have been at least the permitter of a lie; between which is no distinction recognised by an honourable man. In arguing thus we would not express any sympathy whatever with Mr. Holyoake's atheism, we are merely concerned to show that it was not Mr. Holyoake's right alone, but absolutely his duty, to say that 'he did not believe in a God.' It was his duty, if it be the duty of man to be honest; he could not have spoken otherwise, unless he had 'lied against his heart,' and lied towards mankind.

The next number of the aforesaid Cheltenham Chronicle brought me this further notice:-

Holyoake the Blasphemous Socialist Lecturer.-In reference to a paragraph which appeared in the last Chronicle regarding this monster, the magistrates read the article alluded to, and expressed their opinion that it was a clear case of blasphemy. In order to check the further progress of his pernicious doctrines, the superintendent of police was ordered to use every exertion to bring him to justice.

On reading this paragraph I lost no time in setting out for Cheltenham, to hold a public meeting and justify myself to the town. Foot-sore and weary-for the journey was more than thirty miles, and the day very hot-I reached Cheltenham on the 1st of June, and proceeded as privately as a 'monster' could to my friends the Adamses. The next night I slid like sleep into the meeting, lest the police should prevent me from addressing it. Mr. Leech, a leading Chartist, presided, and the meeting was addressed by Messrs. Parker, jun., Geo. Adams, W. Bilson, and J. B. Lear. The Chartists of Cheltenham at that time held possession of the Mechanics' Institution, and they were threatened with the loss of it, if they let it to me to speak in any more. But as I required it in self-defence they generously disregarded the menace, and permitted me the use of it. My friends in the distant town of Newcastle-upon-Tyne afterwards gracefully acknowledged this kindness by making a collection for Mrs. Holberry, the wife of a Sheffield Chartist who had perished in prison. Before I had been long in the meeting, Superintendent Russell came in with about a dozen men, who were arranged on each side the door, and their glazed hats formed a brilliant, but a dubious back-ground for a meeting on Free-Discussion. I spoke an hour after they came in. So rare an audience was not to be thrown away, and I thought we might convert some of them. At the conclusion Superintendent Russell, who had the politeness to wait till we had done, intimated that he had instructions to apprehend me. I asked for his warrant. He said he had none. It was in vain that I protested against the irregularity of the proceeding. He replied that his instructions were imperative upon him-and it was thereupon arranged that I should walk down to the station with Mr. Hollis, a well-known gun maker of Cheltenham, and there, the meeting following, we arrived in procession between eleven and twelve o'clock.

To the truth, it is no great proof a posteriori of a man's extravagance, that he should be involved in legal proceedings in Cheltenham on account of freedom of speech. Owing to priestly and conventional influences, that town will furnish a jury who would, under direction, bring in any man guilty of blasphemy who boiled his tea-kettle on a Sunday. Not long before the time now spoken of, a Mormon preacher, holding forth there, happened to say that the Elements of Euclid were as true as the Bible: and for this he was indicted for blasphemy, and was only saved from imprisonment by the grand jury (who must have had infidel tendencies) throwing out the bill.

On the morning after my apprehension I was taken before the Rev. Dr. Newell, R. Capper, and J. Overbury, Esquires, magistrates of Cheltenham. The Rev. Dr. Newell ought to have had the pride, if not the decency, to have kept away.

The Cheltenham Chronicle reported that' George Jacob Holyoake, who was described as a Socialist lecturer, and as the editor of the Oracle of Reason, was charged with delivering atheistical and blasphemous sentiments at the Mechanics' Institution, on the evening of the 24th of May. The prisoner had been apprehended last night, after delivering another lecture at the same place. The affair appeared to have caused great sensation, and several persons attended at the office anxious to hear the examination. Amongst the number were some individuals who, without the blush of shame mantling their cheeks, acknowledged themselves friends of the accused.'

Mr. Bubb, a local solicitor, a particularly gross and furious man, then said-'I attend to prefer the charge of blasphemy, and I shall take my stand on the common unwritten law of the land. There have been a variety of statutes passed for punishing blasphemy, but these statutes in no way interfere with the common unwritten law. (Mr. Capper nodded assent.)* Any person who denies the existence or providence of God is guilty of blasphemy, and the law has annexed to that offence imprisonment, corporal punishment, and fine. I shall give evidence of the facts, and I shall ask that he be committed for trial, or required to find bail for his appearance. The offence is much aggravated by his having put forth a placard, announcing a lecture on a subject completely innocent, and having got together a number of persons, has given utterance to those sentiments which are an insult to God and man.'

* Mr. Bubb took his stand on the common law because his

object was to make it a sessions case, and to take it out

of the statuary law, which (9 & 10 Will. 3, c. 32) would

have required that information of the words spoken should be

laid before a justice of the peace within four days from

their utterance, and would likewise have implied a trial at

the assizes.

The assertion that I had employed duplicity in choosing my subject was quite gratuitous. Addressing the Bench, I asked whether it was legal in these cases to apprehend persons without the authority of a warrant?

Mr. Capper replied, 'Any person in the meeting would be justified in taking you up without the authority of a warrant,' which showed that the Bench were better read in Bigotry than in Blackstone. I said it was customary in other towns, where bigotry existed to a greater degree even than it did there, for information to be laid and a regular notice served.

Mr. Capper said, 'We refuse to hold an argument with a man professing the abominable principle of denying the existence of a supreme Being,' This was not a very legal way of getting rid of my objections, but it answered in Cheltenham.

Two witnesses, James Bartram and William Henry Pearce, both of the Chronicle office, were adduced to report the words that formed the ground of the indictment. Neither of them could recollect anything else but the objectionable words reported in their own paper, and to these they did not swear positively, but only to the 'best of their belief.' Mr. Pearce was not produced at the trial at the Assizes, he having no local reputation but that of a dog-fancier and fighter, which did not render him a creditable authority on matters pertaining to religion. Bartram's sister was a Socialist, and she came to me some years after, in Manchester, to apologise for the disgrace brought upon her family by the weakness or the ignorance of her brother.

Mr. Overbury said he considered the case satisfactorily proved, and added, 'Whether you are of no religion is of very little consequence to us, but your attempt to propagate the infamous sentiment that there is no God, is calculated to produce disorder and confusion, and is a breach of the peace.' This was the remark of an ill-informed politician rather than of a Christian.

Being required to enter into my own recognizances of ￡100, and find two sureties of ￡50 each, Mr. Partridge became one, and Mr. Henry Fry, editor of the Educational Circular, offered himself as the other. But the Rev. Dr. Newell objected to Mr. Fry's bail, on the ground that he did not swear positively that he was worth ￡50 when all his debts were paid. He swore only that 'to the best of his belief he was so. I reminded the Bench that they had accepted the evidence of the witnesses against me on the same ground, namely 'the best of their belief.' Hereupon the Rev. Dr. Newell, with an air of outraged morality, exclaimed 'Come, come! we'll have no quibbling.'

I answered that I did not propose to quibble, for if that had been to my taste I might have avoided standing there at that moment. Mr. Bubb then interjected that he should demand twenty-four hours' notice of bail. Another gentleman then offered himself, whom I desired to sit down and let the Bench take their own course. This indifference with regard to the Bench incensed them very much.

Mr. Capper said, 'Even the heathens acknowledged the existence of a Deity. If you entertain the same pernicious opinion on your death-bed you will be a bold man indeed. But you are only actuated by a love of notoriety.' I only answered, 'Why do you address me thus, since you will not allow me to reply?' and I turned away repeating to myself the words of Sir Thomas Browne-'There is a rabble amongst the gentry as well as the commonalty; a sort of plebeian heads, whose fancy moves with the same wheel as these: men in the same level with mechanics, though their fortunes do somewhat gild their infirmities, and their purses compound, for their follies.'

But I ought to say that during these proceedings the people in the court, of juster feeling than the magistrates, frequently expressed their disapprobation of the speeches made to me.

Mr. Capper's assertion that I was only actuated by a love of notoriety, were just the words to do me injury. The respectable people near, and the intelligent people at a distance, would believe the magistrate and disbelieve the sceptic, who had no friends to rebut the imputation. The vulgar bearing of this brutal old man lingered long in my memory as the most distinct thing of these proceedings. I should have thought less of it had it not come from an old man. The aged always inspire me with reverence, in their kindly aspects. They are the links which nature perpetuates between old time and our time-the human chroniclers of an experience the young can never know. They have followed the hearse of the old world, and are the legatees of Time, who has bequeathed to them his secrets and his conquests, which they in their turn distribute to us. When living at Islington, in 1848, I frequently passed, but not without sadness, nor sometimes without tears, an old man who stood near the Merlin's Cave to beg. He resembled one whom I cannot name. I could see on his brow the fresh traces of a struggle still going on between dignity and destitution. And I often gave him the price of the biscuit intended for my dinner, in the secret hope we all have in a kind act that some one else may repeat it to those we love; and I indulged the hope that others might approach with the same respectful feelings him to whom I have alluded, if ever, with untamed pride and broken heart, he should stand in his grey hairs on the high way to beg-which I have dreaded through so many years.

When taken back to the station-house, Captain Lefroy, who was at the head of the police, introduced me to Mr. Pinching, surgeon of the same corps. The captain, in a gentlemanly way, inquired if I would allow Mr. Pinching to reason with me on my opinions? I said, 'Certainly.' Mr. Pinching asked me the irrelevant question 'Did I believe in Jesus Christ?' and began a dry, historical argument to prove that there was the same evidence for the existence of Jesus Christ as for that of Henry the Fourth. I said, 'The argument is unnecessary with me. I do not care to argue whether he existed or not. My inquiry is not whether he lived, but what he said.' Mr. Pinching's next speech was delivered with an air of sharp authority, and he began to address me rather rudely.

He asked me was it not Robert Owen who made me an atheist? I replied, Mr. Owen himself was not an atheist. For myself, I had not become so till after the imprisonment of Mr. Southwell, which had led me to inquire into the grounds of religious opinion more closely than I had before done, and it had ended in my entire disbelief.

Mr. Pinching now became impatient and abusive, allowing me no opportunity of replying, and I said 'Stop! stop! sir, you must not treat me as a prisoner if you intend me to hear you. Unless you converse with me upon equal terms I shall not answer you.' Lefroy laughed, and said, 'Come! come! Pinching, I think you are not quite fair. After this Mr. Pinching became more abusive, and I turned away-when he ended the conversation by saying, 'I am only sorry the day is gone by when we could send you and Owen of Lanark to the stake instead of to Gloucester gaol.'

Not allowed to wait twenty-four hours to see if I could obtain bail, I was soon after sent off to Gloucester, nine miles away, the same afternoon, where the difficulty of negotiating my release was so much increased that it took me a fortnight to do it.

After my conversation with Mr. Pinching I was shut up in a very filthy place with a lousy man. I was handcuffed with small old irons that pinched my wrists, and I begged to have another pair of handcuffs put on, which was done: then I was made to walk through Cheltenham town and suburbs, and afterwards through Gloucester city, with the hand irons on. As I had walked thirty miles to be apprehended, they had no reason to suspect me of making my escape; nor was it customary to handcuff prisoners conveyed to Gloucester on foot. In my case it was done to pain and degrade me.

A memorial of a public meeting, sent from the town of Cheltenham to the House of Commons, on this subject, stated 'That notwithstanding Mr. Holyoake offered no resistance to any officer or procedure, and was at the same time in very delicate health and much exhausted, yet it was deemed necessary to lock both his hands in irons and make him walk to Gloucester-a distance of near nine miles-on a most sultry day, but on the way thither his friends interfered and obtained leave for him to ride, on condition only that they should pay his expenses as well as the expenses of two policemen to accompany him.' And it may be added that though I sat an hour at the station, waiting for the train, my hands were not unlocked.

The same memorial also alleged 'That the conduct of the magistrates during the proceedings indicated a predisposition to punish Mr. Holyoake, independently of any evidence which he might have offered in defence of his own conduct.'

The Member for Bath, to whom this memorial was entrusted, paid to it the most generous attention, and immediately returned the following reply:-

London, June 23rd, 1842.

Sir,-The petition you sent me is of a nature that demands serious inquiry, and I thought I should best discharge my duty towards the petitioners and Mr. Holyoake by at once addressing myself to Sir James Graham. He has very promptly taken up the inquiry, and I have no doubt but that substantial justice will be done. If, however, the petitioners should hereafter deem that justice has not been done, I can present their petition after the inquiry which has been undertaken by the Home Secretary has been closed. I have taken this liberty with the petition on my own responsibility, hoping that the petitioners will here trust to my discretion, and they for the moment will put confidence in my judgment. I will write you word so soon as I hear from the Home Secretary, who has now the petition in his hands for the purpose of immediately instituting a searching inquiry.

I am, sir, your obedient servant,

Mr. H. Fry. J. A. Roebuck.

The committal the police bore with them was to the following effect:-

[Gloucestershire to wit.]-To all and every of the constables and other officers of the peace for the said county, and to the keeper of the gaol at Gloucester in the said county-

Whereas George Jacob Holyoake is now brought before us, three of Her Majesty's Justices of the Peace in and for the said county, and charged, on the oaths of James Bertram and William Henry Pearce, with having, on the twenty-forth day of May last, at the parish of Cheltenham in the said county, wickedly and profanely uttered, made use of, and proclaimed, in the presence of a public assembly of men, women, and children, then and there assembled, certain impious and blasphemous words against God, and of and concerning the Christian religion, to wit, 'That he was of no religion at all,' and 'that he did not believe there was such a thing as a God,' and 'that if he could have his way he would place the Deity on half-pay, as the government of this country did the subaltern officers,' against the peace of our lady the Queen, her crown and dignity. And whereas we, the said justices, have required the said George Jacob Holyoake to become bound in the sum of one hundred pounds, and to find two sufficient sureties in the sum of fifty pounds each, conditioned for the appearance of the said George Jacob Holyoake at the next Quarter Sessions of the peace, to be holden at Gloucester, in and for the said county, and then and there to answer to any bill of indictment that may be preferred against him for his said offence, which he hath neglected to do.

These are therefore in Her Majesty's name to command you, and every of you the said constables, forthwith safely to convey and deliver into the custody of the keeper of the said gaol the body of the said George Jacob Holyoake.

And you, the said keeper, are hereby required to receive the said George Jacob Holyoake into your said custody, and him safely keep until the said next general Quarter Sessions of the peace, to be holden at Gloucester, in and for the said county, or until he become bound and finds such sureties as aforesaid, or until he shall be thence delivered by due course of law. And for your so doing this shall be to you and every of you a sufficient warrant.

Given under our hands and seals the third day of June, in the year of our Lord One Thousand Eight Hundred and Forty-two.

Robt. Capper, J. B. Newell, Joseph Overbury.

Twenty-four hours' notice of bail to be given.

I hereby certify that the above is a true 'copy' of a warrant, by virtue of which the within named George Jacob Holyoake was brought into custody the 3rd day of June, 1842. Witness my hand,

Thomas Moore, Clerk to the county gaol of Gloucester.

Some of the magistrates characterised the speech for which I was committed as 'Felony,' 'a breach of the peace,' etc., and I was told that my committal was made out for 'felony.' Serious comments were made thereupon by the public. Able strictures on the subject were made by 'Philo Publicola,' in the Weekly Dispatch. But the magistrates grew wiser as they grew cooler, and on the copy of the committal subsequently furnished to me, the charge of felony did not appear.

A very curious circumstance deserves mentioning here. The magistrates being censured in the House of Commons for their 'irregularities' in my case (as will be explained in my defence further on) an attempt was made to fix the blame on Mr. Russell, superintendent of the police. This induced me to address the following letter to the editor of the Cheltenham Free Press:-

Sir,-Observing an attempt has been made in Parliament by the Hon. Craven Berkley to fix the blame of my 'harsh treatment' on the constables of your town, and to implicate Superintendent Russell, I beg to say that after my committal I never saw Mr. Russell, and never once said, or suspected, that the harshness exercised towards me, while ostensibly in his custody, originated with him. His courtesy to me on the night of my apprehension, of which I retain a lively sense, forbids such a conclusion.

I shall be glad if you will insert this in your next number. I can never consent to purchase public sympathy by a silence which may unjustly sacrifice any person's interest. I was justified in making the complaints I have, but would rather they were for ever unredressed than that an innocent man should suffer.

Birmingham, July 30, 1842. G. Jacob Holyoake.

Soon after Mr. Russell left the corps, and appears to have been offered up by the magistrates as a sacrifice for the irregularities they had committed.

On my arrival my pockets were searched, and even my pocket-book and letters taken from me. This I felt not only as an indignity, but also as a breach of faith. Before leaving Cheltenham, and when in communication with my friends, I inquired if my papers would be taken from me at Gloucester, and the officers answered 'No,' (but they must have known differently). Trusting their answer, however, I brought with me papers I should not otherwise have brought. Perhaps I was fevered after my walk, but the cell I was put into gave me a new sense. There had been times when I had wished for a sixth sense, but this was not the sense I coveted, for it was a sense of suffocation. The bed was so filthy that I could not lie down, and sat on the side all night. When taken into the general room next morning the prisoners surrounded me, exclaiming,' What are ye come for?' As I made no reply, another observed, 'We always tells one another,' 'Oh! blasphemy,' I replied. 'What's that,' said one. 'Aren't you 'ligious?' said another.

But as these rustics were happily unacquainted with doctrinal piety, they said nothing rude; and seeing my loaf unbroken, and that I could not eat, 'Here,' said four or five at once, 'will you have some of this tea, zir?'-which was mint-tea, the reward of some extra work, and the nicest thing they had to offer.

When the chaplain of the gaol, the Rev. Robert Cooper, came to see me, I told him that before I took anything from him for my soul, I wanted something from him for my defence; and I demanded my note book and papers. Mr. Samuel Jones, a visiting magistrate, brought me a few pencil notes which I had made during my examination in Cheltenham and some private papers, but he withheld many others relating to matters of opinion, saying that he 'did not think them necessary to my defence.' The clergyman has a veto on all books admitted, and of a list which I gave him, which I wanted to read for my trial, he only allowed me thirteen. He said the others 'were of an unchristian character,' and he could not let me have them. 'I told him I was not going to make an orthodox defence. He would not relax, so I would not have any spiritual consolation, and we lived on very indifferent terms.

One day Mr. Bransby Cooper, and Mr. Samuel Jones (just mentioned), both old magistrates, came to visit me. Mr. Jones, I was told, had at one time been a preacher among the Methodists. He told me he would be kind to me, but all his kindness was religious kindness-the worst kindness I have ever experienced. I was then the sole occupant of the Queen's evidence side of the prison, a place I had chosen as I preferred to be alone. I had a large yard and all the cells to myself. In this solitary place these magistrates visited me. After teazing me with Leslie for a long time, Mr. Bransby Cooper concluded thus-'Now! Holyoake, you are a Deist-are you not?' I shook my head. 'You cannot be an atheist,' he continued, 'you don't look like one.' He said this, I suppose, seeing no horns on my head, and no eyes on my elbows, as he expected. I answered that I felt very unpleasantly how much I was in their power, and had therefore some reason to desire to oblige them. Though sorry to say what might outrage them or look like obstinacy, yet out of respect to my own conscience I must say that I was an atheist. Upon these they both flew into indignant revulsions, and shouted 'a fool! a fool!' till the roof rang. Capt. Mason (the governor), who accompanied them, turned away a few paces, with the air of one not caring to be witness of so much rudeness.

* See Report of Gloucester Trinity Sessions in the county

papers of that period.

Before leaving they said of course I should employ counsel to defend me. I answered, 'No, I should defend myself as well as I was able. Barristers were not good at stating a case of conscience.' They urged, they even coaxed me to abandon the idea of defending myself; but finding me not to be deterred, they threatened me that it would aggravate my case-reminded me of Hone and others, and said that the judge would put me down and not hear me. This menace, as will be seen hereafter, did me great harm. They reported my determination at the Trinity Sessions as though it was a matter desirable to be averted.

Mr. Bransby Cooper was a brother of Sir Astley Cooper. He was formerly member for Gloucester, and when he suspected that I did not regard his dignity sufficiently, he would slide in some remark about 'his friend' Sir James Graham, who was then Secretary of State for the Home Department. Bransby Cooper was the senior magistrate at this time-a man of venerable and commanding aspect, generous to a fault in matters of humanity, harsh to a fault in matters of religion. On his way through the city, old women would way-lay him to beg. First raising his stick against them-then threatening to commit them as vagrants-they fled from him in mock terror, but knowing the generous feelings of the man they returned again, and before he reached home he would empty his pockets among them. One minute he would growl at me like an unchained tiger-the next he would utter some word of real sympathy, such as came from no one else, and at the end of my imprisonment I parted from him with something of regret. He had the voice of Stentor, and though at first his savage roar shook me, at last I acquired an artistic liking for it, and his voice was so grand that I came to the conclusion that he had a natural right to be a brute. The old man, after his fashion, laboured very hard for my conversion. His son Robert was chaplain of the gaol, and had I happily been brought over, the old man would have given the credit to his boy. My conversion was thus a sort of family speculation.

Those who sent me to prison in default of bail, took care to make bail impossible to me by intimidating those who would have become my sureties, and after two weeks' anxiety I was obliged to accept the generous offer of two friends in Worcester-James Barnes and John Dymond Stevenson-to come from that city and enter into recognizances for me, and I was indebted to them for my liberation, after sixteen days' imprisonment.

So near was my trial upon my release that I had to return to Gloucester within a fortnight. A great desire of my youth had been to see London. When I found myself suddenly shut up in gaol, in prospect of an indefinite term of imprisonment, which in my then state of health might prove fatal, my sole remorse was that I had never seen that city of my dreams. Once again at liberty I made a short visit to my family in Birmingham, and the next week found me in London.

Chafed and sad, with tremulous heart and irresolute step, it seems but yesterday that I walked through Woburn Place into the city in which I now write. Its streets, its pride, its magnificence enthralled me, and its very poverty fascinated me because nearer to my destiny. Savage and Johnson had walked those squares houseless, and why not I. Chatterton had perished in a garret, and garrets had something sacred in them. Solitary in that two million multitude, I was hardly known to any one in it, yet when I remembered that I was in London I felt an enchanted gladness, and in all vicissitudes of fortune and chequered struggles with fate, I have walked its magical streets with undimmed joy, and it is to me still a fairy land, whose atmosphere of enchantment feels as if it would never leave me.

How sweetly, how gratefully to me (as words never read before) came the notice the Weekly Dispatch gave of my first lecture in London. All the night before I had sat up with Ryall, answering correspondence and concerting my defence. When I reached the Rotunda it was more fitting that I should have found a bed there than a rostrum, for when I rose to speak I was weak as well as timid. To succeed in any way in London was more than I ventured to expect, and the nature of the report in the Weekly Dispatch inspired me with the hope of at least being tolerated.

I hastened back to Gloucester. Either a Secretary of State's order, or a Bill had come into operation, I was never correctly informed which, removing my trial from the Sessions to the Assizes, which gave me an impartial Judge to determine my case. At a Sessions' trial the parties who had caused my imprisonment, and the magistrates who had shown themselves my personal opponents, would have sat on the Bench to try me. Though unable to proceed with my trial after having committed me, they put me to the expense of bringing my bail from Worcester, and charged me ￡1 9s. for renewing my sureties.

My arrest caused a demand for atheistical publications in Cheltenham, which Mr. George Adams, partly as a friend to the free publication of opinion and partly from personal friendship to me, undertook to supply. In this he was joined by his wife, Harriet Adams, a very interesting and courageous woman. On Monday evening, June 13th, at a public meeting called to consider the grounds of my own apprehension, Mr. George Adams was arrested for selling No. 25 of the Oracle, and forthwith conveyed to the station-house. As soon as a knowledge of the arrest came to the ears of Mrs. Adams, she went to the station-house to see her husband, when she, likewise, was served with a warrant for selling No. 4. Mrs. Adams says, (the account cannot be better rendered than in her own words) 'I went to see my husband at the station-house, when I was detained; a policeman was sent home with me to fetch my infant, and I had to leave four at home in bed. The man that went with me to the station was a rude fellow; he was quite abusive to me, telling me I should be locked up from my husband; saying, it was quite time such things were put a stop to. When we arrived at the station-house he would have locked me in a cell with drunken women, had I not sat down in the yard and insisted on seeing the superintendent, who then allowed me to sit up in a kitchen, where policemen were coming in and out all night. My husband was much troubled on my account.' The four children were left locked up in the house alone.

Mr. Bubb's speech, when Adams was brought up, is so curious a relic of provincial barbarism that I preserve it, or those who are told of it in time to come will regard the story as some malicious fiction. Mr. Bubb opened the charge by justifying himself and clients-'It has been said that we are prosecuting here for the entertaining of opinions merely. That proposition I deny. The entertaining of opinions is not opposed to law if people keep them to, themselves. If they step out of the way, and seek to propagate them by undermining the institutions of the country, by denying the existence of a God, by robbing others of "the hopes set before them," without offering the flimsiest pretext, it is the duty of all to prevent this. Such is the opinion of those gentlemen who set on foot these proceedings, and no clamour of persecution will prevent them from doing what they believe to be their duty. And if there are any here present disposed to take up this unfortunate trade, I would assure them that as long as the law punishes, and the magistrates uphold the law, so long will they bring offenders to justice. So long as men say there is no God, or that the religion of the state is a farce and a fallacy, these gentlemen will not be deterred by any clamour.' If this threat were carried out the magistrates on every Bench would have constant employment-especially if they would undertake, as Mr. Bubb appeared to promise, to ascertain whether or not we had the 'flimsiest pretext' to offer in defence of the course we took.

Adams and his wife were committed to take their trials at the Sessions-in the wife's case it was purely vexatious, as there was no one bound over to prosecute her. Yet Adams, nearly blind from an inflammation of the eyes, and his wife with her child in her arms, were kept several days in attendance at Gloucester-though the same law which prevented the court proceeding in my case, prevented the court from trying the Adamses. In further aggravation of loss, ￡1 17s. 6d. were demanded for discharge of bail and entering new sureties-nor was time allowed to fetch the bail (after they were demanded) from Cheltenham, the clerk announcing that they would be estreated at once. Upon this I directed Mr. and Mrs. Adams to go into court and say they were prepared to take their trial then, and there was no occasion to estreat the property of their friends. Time was then allowed.

Mrs. Adams was never tried. Mr. Adams's trial took place at Gloucester assizes, immediately before my own.

The passage from No. 25 of the Oracle, for which Adams was indicted, was written by my friend Mr. Chilton, who was outraged at my imprisonment, and ran as follows:-

What else could be expected of men who deify a real or imaginary individual, a compound of ambition and folly, of mock humility and rampant tyranny; who, though called the 'Prince of Peace,' declared he came to bring a sword in the world? This hellish mission he performed to perfection, for never since his time has blood and misery ceased to flow from his dogmas and mysteries.

As I was very anxious to save Adams from consequences which he incurred through friendship to me, I advised him to let Mr. Thompson defend him. This gentleman began by sympathising with all the disgust invented by the counsel who opened the prosecution, and he ended by expressing Adams's sorrow and contrition for what he had done-a contrition which he did not feel, and would rather have undergone much imprisonment than have had it said that he did. During the whole of the trials arising out of the Oracle, Mr. Ralph Thomas, barrister, was the only counsel who defended us in court without sacrificing us. Taking warning by Mr. Thompson's example, I made it a rule to advise all our friends to defend themselves, and where unaccustomed to public speaking, to write a brief defence in their own language, and after some legal friend had revised it, to read it to the court. We do not want lawyers to defend our opinions, those opinions not being their own, but we want them simply to maintain our right to publish what are to us important convictions. Instead of this they commonly agree with the crown that we are criminal for having a conscience, and then, in our name, recant with 'contrition' the opinions which we go into court to maintain.

Adams's sentence was delivered in the following words by Mr. Justice Erskine:-'George Adams, you have been convicted of the offence of publishing a blasphemous libel, and the libel which was proved to have been published by you was one of a most horrid and shocking character. Whatever a man's opinions may be, he can have no right to give vent to them in that language. If there was evidence to prove that you were the author, or that you were engaged as an active disseminator, I should have thought it my duty to have inflicted on you a very serious imprisonment. Although by the law of this country every man has a right to express his sentiments in decent language, he has no business to make use of such shocking language as this. But you have expressed, through your counsel, contrition; and trusting that this is the general feeling of your mind, I shall not think it necessary to pass on you a severe sentence this time. But if you ever offend again, it will then be known that you are determined to persevere, and it will be seen whether the law is not strong enough to prevent it. The sentence of the court is, that you be imprisoned in the Common Gaol of this county for one calendar month.

I was with Adams during the term of his imprisonment, and although his losses and the privations of his family were great, he never uttered a murmuring word. From first to last he behaved well, and Mrs. Adams, as women usually do, behaved better.

It is worthy of remark that when a gentleman deposed that the character of Mr. Adams 'was a pattern of morality,' Mr. Justice Erskine told the jury that 'had Adams committed a robbery such a character might have weight, but in extenuation of religious offence it was of no service.'