Part 1 (1/2)
Letter To Sir Samuel Shepherd.
by Anonymous.
LETTER,
Sir,
As you have commenced the prosecution of Carlile, a printer, for publis.h.i.+ng an edition of Paine's Age of Reason, in conjunction with the self-styled Society for the Suppression of Vice, I take the liberty to submit to your consideration a few remarks, upon the nature and tendency of this purposed suit. Since prosecutions of this kind are not novel, and as it may be fairly conjectured that you will follow the ordinary routine of men in your office in these causes, and moreover as the accused will be subjected to the usual disadvantage of meeting three pleadings to the one which will be allowed him, besides the probable interruptions from the Judge on the bench, I think it needful and reasonable to antic.i.p.ate and meet beforehand those hacknied arguments, which it seems to me most probable that you will advance in the court on the days of trial.
That the accuser should be permitted to plead three times to the once with which the accused is but imperfectly indulged, though it may be law, is most flagrant injustice. But, perhaps, you may not be quite satisfied with my arithmetic, and may ask me, how I make out my three pleadings to one. It were much to the honour of this country, and its laws, if I should be mistaken in my calculation, but I fear to be put to the blush as an Englishman, (if you serjeants at law are not,) by my computation, being found to be but too true.
In the first place, you open the case. This you do not reckon pleading: but as you are allowed to say whatever you think proper, it becomes as truly a pleading in reality as your latter speech, which alone you call by that name. The second is what is styled so on both sides. And this would be injustice, if I stopped here; but having engaged to reckon up three pleadings, I fix upon the most unfit person that could be named; that is, my Lord Judge, to plead on the third occasion.
This speech of the Judge, you crown-lawyers term summing up the evidence; but I believe you can never adduce one solitary instance in a crown prosecution, in which the Judge has not acted completely the part of a retained counsel for the crown.
That my Lord Judge should be unable to divest himself of the habit of pleading as an advocate, since he has formerly followed that employment, though far from equitable or decorous, is still very natural, like as the mail-coach horse which has aforetime been a hunter,
”When hounds and horns the forest rend,”
p.r.i.c.ks up his ears, and longs to join in the pursuit. But the Judge also discharges a still more exceptionable office, that of interrupter on the part of the crown.
He is apt to lug in his observation, that what the accused is saying in his own defence is _irrelevant_ to the question; though a man's penetration must be astonis.h.i.+ng who can determine beforehand that any particular sentence uttered shall not, by a concatenation of argument, be brought to bear forcibly upon the point in question.
If the accused adduces instances of opposite decisions in similar proceeding suits, with a view to point out an inconsistency, the Judge will exclaim, ”That is not the cause before us;” though how in the world can inconsistency be shewn without bringing forward more than one particular?
These ill-timed interruptions, by breaking the thread of connection of the defence of the accused, must so maul it, and put it out of shape, that the jury become unable to make either head or tail of it, even though it should have been previously drawn up with good judgement, and contain the soundest reasonings.
In trials for alledged blasphemy, if the accused complains that a garbled extract made from his book does not convey its true sense, and wishes to read it at large, the court object, and cry out, that the book is too bad to be read in that place, and that it will poison the ears of the audience.
If the accused desires that the Bible may be referred to, in proof of its contradictions or blameable pa.s.sages, the court bawls aloud that it is too good a book to be produced before the profane. If reference be thus objected to, by what means, then, shall the truth be brought to light?
And now, Mr. Attorney-General, let us proceed to your own probable allegations and arguments in court in this particular cause; and I will suppose you to say to the gentlemen of the jury, that you have been urged by the representations of a respectable body of men, the Society for the Suppression of Vice, to prosecute R. Carlile, whom you have discovered and proved before the court to have gone _vi et armis_, by violence and with weapons of war, and not having the fear of G.o.d before his eyes, to have published a blasphemous libel, the Age of Reason, by Thomas Paine, which libel had been previously condemned by a Jury, and burnt by the common hangman. That the wicked tendency of this libel was to induce a general disbelief of your and their most holy religion, that pure, pacific, and benevolent system, which, having emanated from the Deity, is, to its adherents, the basis of their comforts in this life, their solace in the hours of affliction, sickness, and death, their moral instruction in this world, and their providitor of everlasting happiness in a world to come; that libels of this impious description were with a malignant zeal thrown in the way of the young and inexperienced, too undiscerning to detect their sophistry, or suspect the poison contained in them, and too ignorant yet of the world to be on their guard against the practices of bad men: that irreligion and; immorality are necessarily connected; and that the propagators of infidelity are actuated by a malice too virulent to be attributed to mere human pa.s.sion, and for which a motive and stimulus would be in vain sought for, unless it be a.s.signed to the instigators of the great enemy of mankind, the Devil. The jury will be conjured, as they value the preservation of good morals, the peace and good order of society, both individual and public welfare, the happiness of their fellow-subjects both in this world and in a future life, to arrest the fatal poison in its progress, and give a verdict of conviction and condemnation against the accused.
But, Mr. Attorney General, you would not take s.h.i.+ning pinchbeck counters instead of sovereigns for a fee, with as little close examination as you will wish the jury to admit the weight and validity of your arguments, and the accuracy of your a.s.sertions.
The imposing name a.s.sumed by the Society who are the ostensible movers of the prosecution, might, at the first glance, seem sufficient to carry all before it, and to dispatch the business at one blow. For what could such a Society direct their efforts, against but vice? However, men are not to be judged of by the t.i.tles they choose to give to themselves, without some scrutiny being made into their conduct. This self styled Society for the Suppression of Vice, exhibit themselves to us as the foes to free inquiry, and stifling the arguments on one side of a question. In vain will they excuse themselves as preventing the poisonous effects of reasonings on the wrong side; for to decide in that way which side is wrong is a _pet.i.tio propositi_, a begging of the question. Real truth is best established by the free production of the arguments on both sides; for thereby suspicion of unfairness is re moved. So many absurdities attend upon error and falsehood, that truth has a very preponderating advantage against them, where enquiry is left free. The arguments then adduced on the wrong side of a question, are not so noxious and poisonous as disingenuous men wish to insinuate. The truth abhors to be indebted to suppression of argument, from that it never can derive advantage; therefore it is only resorted to by the party who are in the wrong. This endeavour to suppress argument implies disingenuousness, and this last named quality is always at variance with real truth. Error may be designed, but disingenuousness never can be; and, therefore, when accompanied with violence, it is always criminal.
Disinenuousness, as far as it extends, cannot consist with the love of truth, but error may. Now as the love of truth is the basis of all real morality, this disingenuous self-styled Society for the Suppression of Vice, are, therefore, detected to be a Society for the Suppression of Virtue.
I will still suppose you to proceed in the beaten, track of your predecessors in office, and omitting to reply to the technicality _vi et armis_, on which, I imagine, you lay no stress, I take the liberty to question the propriety of the accustomed phrase, ”not having the fear of G.o.d before his eyes.” You will admit, Mr. Attorney-General, that to forge the Great Seal of England would be a criminal deception, and also, that to examine whether it was forged or not, or to state reasons for believing it to have been forged, would be allowable. Now, as the authority of the Creator is a higher one than the British Government, so to forge a revelation from him would be a more criminal imposture than the former one; and a rigid examination and scrutiny into its truth or falsehood, and all doubts and rational exceptions against a supposed revelation, would always be innocent, and might sometimes be laudable.
Therefore, as Paine's Age of Reason is an objection against the truth of the supposed revelations of Moses and Jesus, the conduct of R. Carlile in publis.h.i.+ng it must be innocent, at least, if not meritorious, and therefore would consist well with a pious veneration towards the Supreme Being; and this invalidates your a.s.sertion.
”Which libel had been condemned by the legislature.” But as the legislature is composed of fallible men, their sanction does not prove the truth and validity of Jesus's pretensions; and as the conduct of the legislature in sanctioning this revelation might be directed and influenced by political motives, their sanction is an argument rather against than in favour of its truth.
”And burnt by the common hangman.” Jean Jaques Rousseau says, and so must every reasonable man, _Bruler un livre n'est pas y repondre_, ”Burning a book is not answering it.”
”The wicked tendency of this libel was to induce a general disbelief of your and their most holy religion.” The truth can only be ascertained by leaving inquiry free, that arguments on both, sides of a question may be brought forward, in order that it may be seen on which side the preponderance lies. Therefore, the same objection would hold good against producing the arguments on the wrong side of any other question, as well as this before us now; this would militate against truth in general, and is, of course, absurd. Besides, as the Deists have made the offer to argue with Jesus's followers upon the truth or falsehood of Jesus's pretensions upon fair and equal terms, which offer Jesus's followers have thought proper to divine, therefore, to use a figure borrowed from pugilistic combats, the Deists throw up the hat and claim the victory.
”That pure, pacific, and benevolent system, which having emanated from the Deity.” But the Deists offer to bring arguments to disprove the purity, peaceableness, and benevolence of Jesus's system, and likewise its origin from the Supreme Being; and your laws hinder those arguments from appearing. Now, this endeavour of yours to suppress is concealment.
And if there is nothing criminal in this system of Jesus, what could you have to conceal? The Deists do not endeavour to conceal any thing, it is the hiding, hus.h.i.+ng, concealing party which are the guilty; where morality is concerned concealment implies guilt. If the Deists venture to bring forward demonstrations from the four Gospels against the personal moral character of Jesus, you call that blasphemy. But recollect, that when the Deists make you the offer to discuss the moral character and the pretensions of Jesus to a mission from the Almighty upon honourable and fair terms, and you choose to decline this equitable proposal, the charge of blasphemy falls upon yourselves; your sneaking evasion and concealment cause the charge of blasphemy to be brought home against you, and you stand convicted yourselves as the blasphemers.
”Is to its adherents the basis of their comforts in this life.” Observe, that those very men who lay heavy taxation upon this country, and, what was unknown to Pagan times, entail those taxes upon unborn children, those men are among the most zealous a.s.serters of Jesus's pretensions, and employ Jesus's priests as diligent advocates for the imposition of public burdens on the land, and sundry abuses. So that the bulk of the people of this country are not much indebted to Jesus's system for temporal comforts. Nay, it rather deprives them of many comforts, and even necessaries in this life. We have such men at present in office, of greatest power and trust, who are of such principles that they would countenance and patronize no religion but what suited their purpose, and promoted their tyranny and oppressive objects and designs. Therefore, we may see what Jesus's religion is by its suiting them so well.