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+                    THE TRIAL OF HENRY HETHERINGTON
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost
+no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it
+under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this
+eBook or online at http://www.gutenberg.org/license.
+
+
+Title: The Trial of Henry Hetherington
+
+Author: Henry Hetherington
+
+Release Date: March 05, 2012 [EBook #39055]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TRIAL OF HENRY
+HETHERINGTON ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger.
+
+
+
+
+                   *THE TRIAL OF HENRY HETHERINGTON*
+
+                                  _By_
+
+                          *Henry Hetherington*
+
+                    _On an Indictment for Blasphemy_
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+    A FULL REPORT OF THE TRIAL OF HENRY HETHERINGTON
+    THE TRIAL
+    INDICTMENT
+    Second Count:
+    Third Count:
+    Mr. Bult opened the proceedings
+    DEFENCE
+    OBSERVATIONS
+    Extract from The Sun Newspaper
+    "TO LORD DENMAN, ON THE LATE PROSECUTION FOR BLASPHEMY
+
+
+
+
+A FULL REPORT OF THE TRIAL OF HENRY HETHERINGTON
+
+
+ON AN INDICTMENT FOR BLASPHEMY,
+
+LORD DENMAN AND A SPECIAL JURY,
+
+ON TUESDAY, DECEMBER 8, 1840;
+
+FOR SELLING HASLAM’S LETTERS TO THE CLERGY TO ALL DENOMINATIONS:
+
+THE WHOLE OF THE AUTHORITIES CITED IN THE DEFENCE, AT FULL LENGTH.
+
+LONDON:
+
+PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY HENRY HETHERINGTON, 1-26, STRAND;
+
+AND SOLD BY ALL BOOKSELLERS.
+
+1840
+
+Price Sixpence.
+
+To
+
+JAMES WATSON,
+
+BOOKSELLER,
+
+THE FRIEND OF TRUTH, THE INFIDEL TO ERROR, AND THE LOVER OF LIBERTY,
+
+THIS TRIAL
+
+IS DEDICATED,
+
+IN PROOF OF THE AFFECTIONATE ATTACHMENT THAT SUBSISTS BETWEEN TWO
+FRIENDS, WHO FULLY RECOGNISE AND ACT UPON THE PRINCIPLES AVOWED AND
+CONTENDED FOR IN THE FOLLOWING DEFENCE; AND AS A TRIBUTE OF ESTEEM,
+
+TO GOD’S NOBLEST WORK--AN HONEST MAN!
+
+BY HIS FAITHFUL FRIEND,
+
+HENRY HETHERINGTON.
+
+
+
+
+THE TRIAL
+
+
+COURT OF QUEEN’S BENCH, December 8, 1840.
+
+Sittings at Nisi Prius at Westminster, before Lord DENMAN and a
+Middlesex Special Jury.
+
+PROSECUTION FOR BLASPHEMY.
+
+THE QUEEN Versus HETHERINGTON.
+
+This was a prosecution instituted by Her Majesty’s Attorney-General, Sir
+John Campbell, against Henry Hetherington, bookseller, of 126, Strand,
+for the publication of a blasphemous libel.
+
+
+
+
+INDICTMENT
+
+
+Of Easter term, in the Third Year of the Reign of Queen Victoria.
+Middlesex:--
+
+Be it remembered, that on Tuesday, the twenty-eighth day of April, in
+the third year of the reign of our sovereign lady Victoria, by the grace
+of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, Queen,
+Defender of the Faith, in the court of our said lady the Queen, before
+the Queen herself at Westminster, in the county of Middlesex, upon the
+oath of twelve jurors, good and lawful men, of the said county of
+Middlesex, now here sworn and charged to inquire for our said lady the
+Queen for the body of the same county; it is presented as followeth,
+that is to say, Middlesex to wit. The jurors for our lady the Queen upon
+their oath present, that Henry Hetherington, late of Westminster, in the
+county of Middlesex, bookseller, _being a wicked, impious, and
+ill-disposed person_, and having no regard for the laws and religion of
+this realm, but _most wickedly, blasphemously, impiously, and profanely
+devising and intending to asperse and vilify that part of the Holy Bible
+which is called the Old Testament_, on the third day of February, in the
+third year of the reign of our sovereign lady Victoria, by the grace of
+God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, Queen, Defender
+of the Faith, at Westminster aforesaid, in the county aforesaid, did
+publish, and cause to be published, a certain scandalous, impious, and
+blasphemous libel, of and concerning that part of the Holy Bible which
+is called the Old Testament, containing therein, amongst other things,
+divers scandalous, impious, and blasphemous matters of and concerning
+that part of the Holy Bible which is called the Old Testament, according
+to the tenor and effect following, that is to say, "What wretched stuff
+this Bible (meaning that part of the Holy Bible which is called the Old
+Testament) is, to be sure! What a random idiot its author must have
+been! I would advise the human race to burn every Bible they have got.
+Such a book is actually a disgrace to ourang outangs, much less to men.
+I would advise them to burn it, in order that posterity may never know
+we believed in such abominable trash. What must they think of our
+intellects? What must they think of our incredible foolery? And we not
+only believe it, but we actually look upon the book as the sacred word
+of God, as a production of infinite wisdom. Was insanity ever more
+complete? I for one, however, renounce the book; I renounce it as a vile
+compound of filth, blasphemy, and nonsense, as a fraud and a cheat, _and
+as an insult to God,"_ to the great displeasure of Almighty God, to the
+great scandal, infamy, and contempt of that part of the Holy Bible which
+is called the Old Testament, to the evil example of all others, and
+against the peace of our said lady the Queen, her crown, and dignity.
+
+
+
+
+Second Count:
+
+
+And the jurors aforesaid, upon their oath aforesaid, further present,
+that the said Henry Hetherington, devising and intending as aforesaid,
+on the eleventh day of February and year aforesaid, at Westminster
+aforesaid, in the county aforesaid, did publish, and cause to be
+published, a certain other scandalous, impious, and blasphemous libel,
+of and concerning that part of the Holy Bible which is called the Old
+Testament, containing therein, amongst other things, divers scandalous,
+impious, and blasphemous matters of and concerning that part of the Holy
+Bible which is called the Old Testament, according to the tenor and
+effect following, that is to say, "One great question between you and me
+is, ’Is the Bible (meaning that part of the Holy Bible which is called
+the Old Testament) the word of God, or is it not? I assert that it is
+not the word of God, and you assert that it is; and I not only assert
+that it is not the word of God, but that it is a book containing more
+blunders, more ignorance, and more nonsense, than any book to be found
+in the universe," to the great displeasure of Almighty God, to the great
+scandal and contempt of that part of the Holy Bible which is called the
+Old Testament, to the evil example of all others, and against the peace
+of our lady the Queen, lier crown, and dignity.
+
+
+
+
+Third Count:
+
+
+And the jurors aforesaid, upon their oath aforesaid, further present,
+that the said Henry Hetherington, further devising and intending as
+aforesaid, on the day and year last aforesaid, at Westminster aforesaid,
+in the county aforesaid, did publish, and cause to be published, a
+certain other scandalous, impious, and blasphemous libel of and
+concerning that part of the Holy Bible which is called the Old
+Testament, containing therein, among other things, divers scandalous,
+impious, and blasphemous matters of and concerning that part of the Holy
+Bible which is called the Old Testament, in one part thereof, according
+to the tenor and effect following, that is to say, "My object, and I
+fearlessly state it, is to expose this book (meaning that part of the
+Holy Bible which is called the Old Testament) in such a manner, that the
+children of the Stockport Sunday-school will reject it with contempt and
+in another part thereof, according to the tenor and effect following,
+that is to say,
+
+"Such a book (meaning that part of the Holy Bible which is called the
+Old Testament) ought to be rejected by every one. The human race have
+been too long gulled with such trash. Moses was the inventor of this
+grand cheat; and although it may have done some little towards
+frightening people into what is called morality, the purpose for which
+Moses invented it is now out of date,
+
+"to the great displeasure of Almighty God, to the great scandal and
+contempt of that part of the Holy Bible which is called the Old
+Testament, to the evil example of all others, and against the peace of
+our lady the Queen, her crown, and dignity."
+
+[Witness] ALEXANDER KERR,
+
+One sworn in court.
+
+A true Bill.
+
+On the names of the gentlemen summoned as Special Jurymen being called
+over, only five answered to their names.
+
+The Attorney-General prayed a tales, when the following were sworn:--
+
+The Jury.
+
+Special--
+
+Robert Savage, Esq., 11, Montaguplace, Bloomsbury.
+
+James Arboine, merchant, 3, Brunswick-square.
+
+William Fechney Black, merchant, Wilton-place.
+
+Charles Frederick Barnwell, Esq., 44, Woburn-place.
+
+Robert Eglinton, merchant, 29, Woburn-square.
+
+Common Jurors--
+
+Charles Ricketts, stove-maker, 5, Agar-street, West Strand.
+
+William Polden, licensed victualler, Villiers-street, Strand.
+
+John Osborne, confectioner, 401, Strand.
+
+John Johnson Ruffell, painter, 24, Church-street, Soho.
+
+Thomas Reid, baker, 24, Old Compton-street, Soho.
+
+Charles Phillips, ivory brush-maicer, 20, King-street, Soho. J. Mahew,
+baker, 84, Greek-street, Soho.
+
+
+
+
+Mr. Bult opened the proceedings
+
+
+The Attorney-General said, this was an indictment found by the Grand
+Jury of Middlesex, for the publication of certain blasphemous libels. It
+appeared to him that all he should have to do, would be to prove the
+publication of the libels in question. He had not hesitated for one
+moment, when he found there were only five Special Jurymen, to pray a
+tales, because it was to him a matter of perfect indifference from what
+class of society the Jury was taken. It had frequently been laid down by
+the Judges, that to insult and vilify Christianity was against the law.
+Publications insulting religion, and addressed to the vulgar and
+uneducated, were most dangerous. He would call a witness who purchased
+these books in the defendant’s shop, the defendant himself being
+present; and he should prove that the defendant was rated to that house.
+It gave him pain that it should be necessary for the Jury to hear such
+shocking attacks as were contained in this publication. It consisted of
+a series of letters, and each number was sold for a penny. It was
+"Letters to the Clergy of all Denominations" and was, in fact, an attack
+upon the Holy Scriptures, particularly on the Old Testament. He should
+content himself with reading one extract.--(The learned Gentleman then
+read an extract from Letter 8, contained in the first count of the
+indictment.) Mr. Hetherington was in person to defend himself: they
+would hear what he had to say, and then he (the Attorney-General) would
+have an opportunity of again addressing them.
+
+The following witness was then called and examined by Sir F. Pollock.
+
+Alexander Kerr, a policeman, bought the "Letters to the Clergy," 5, 8,
+and 13, at the shop of the defendant, 126, Strand, on the 5th of
+February last. A young man served him. Knows defendant--he was standing
+on the threshold of the door at the time; has known him for the last
+three years; has seen him repeatedly at the shop. Paid one penny each
+for the letters.
+
+Cross-examined by Mr. Hetherington.--Did not come in his uniform to
+purchase them. Came from directions he had received, not from any
+reputation the work had acquired. Did not read the fifth number or the
+eighth number of the book purchased at the shop. Stated at the Old
+Bailey, at the trial of Mr. Cleave, that he had read a copy, but not the
+one purchased of defendant. Curiosity induced him to read it. It did not
+shake his opinion--it did not make him burn his Bible; quite the
+opposite. He is a plainly-educated man. Was instructed to purchase all
+he could get at defendant’s shop. Purchased other numbers, but did not
+read them. The work produced no effect on him to induce him to follow
+the recommendations of the author.
+
+George Sherwill, collector of poor’s-rate for the liberty of the Savoy,
+proved that defendant was rated for No. 126.
+
+The libels were then put in and read: first, No. 8 of "Haslam’s Letters
+to the Clergy of all Denominations," then 5 of the same work, and then
+18.
+
+The Attorney-General said, that was the case for the prosecution.
+
+
+
+
+DEFENCE
+
+
+My Lord--Gentlemen of the Jury,
+
+"In rising to vindicate myself from the charge preferred against me in
+this indictment, I shall not attempt to justify the language alluded to
+by the Attorney-General; but I cannot refrain from expressing my
+surprise that the Government, after having encouraged the circulation of
+cheap knowledge upon all subjects,--in Penny Magazines and Penny
+Cyclopaedias,--should have placed me on my trial upon such a flimsy
+charge as this--for flimsy it undoubtedly is, when, out of a work
+comprising nearly 500 pages, the Attorney-General can only find one
+passage,--that in the eighth Letter, which is, I admit, expressed in
+very improper language,--whereon to found an indictment. I contend that
+it is impossible to say where a person is to stop in his inquiries. If a
+person is permitted to reject one tenet, another may reject another; and
+there is no reason why another should not go on, and reject the whole.
+In the whole work there is not one disrespectful word about
+Christianity; it is a rejection of the miracles ascribed to Moses in the
+Old Testament, which have been indignantly rejected by many learned men.
+The work was not intended as a scurrilous attack, but as an inquiry into
+the effects of the usages of society, founded upon the Old Testament.
+The object of Mr. Haslam was benevolent; and however much he might err,
+he was not criminal. He undertook to prove to the clergy that they were
+all in error that the doctrines they are teaching to the people are
+false, absurd, and irrational; that they are directly contrary to
+reason; and that, so long as they are preached to the people, so long
+will the people be vicious, wretched, and unhappy.
+
+"The Attorney-General has only read the objectionable passages: I will
+read a few passages from Mr. Haslam’s first Letter, which will enable
+the Jury to understand the nature of his work, and appreciate his
+motives. Having frankly stated his object, he proceeds:--
+
+"You, no doubt, will feel concerned at this; you will very likely be
+angry with me for this daring attempt; you will call me Deist, Atheist,
+Infidel, and many other charitable epithets; you will feel unutterable
+things towards me; and I shall, no doubt, be subject to the _extreme
+charity_ of your _pious_ congregations, who profess to ’love their
+neighbours as themselves,’ and into whose minds you have crammed
+absurdity after absurdity, until they have scarcely room for another. I
+shall, no doubt, expose myself to all manner of ill-feeling and
+uncharitableness, and to calumnies and lies of every description; but
+shall these deter me from making known the convictions of iny mind?
+Shall these hinder me from exposing the errors and absurdities which I
+see interested men instilling into the minds of the people? Shall these
+prevent me from telling the people that they are deceived and imposed
+upon, and that their beggary, and want, and wretchedness, are the
+consequences of it? Shall these, in short, stop me from exposing the
+irrationalities which I see everywhere around me, and which occasion so
+much misery and unhappiness to my fellow-men? No, I tell you they shall
+not. That power which sent you into the world, sent me into the world
+also; and if you have a right to think and speak, I have a right to
+think and speak also. I have received an organization for the purpose as
+well as any of you; and as long as that organization remains unimpaired,
+so long will I tell the world what I think and feel.
+
+"Why should any of you be angry with me? If I can prove your doctrines
+to be false and erroneous, what occasion is there for anger? What can
+you want with doctrines that are false? As honest men you ought
+immediately to abandon them. Instead, therefore, of being angry with me,
+you ought to have the very opposite feeling; for of what service can
+error and nonsense be to any man, or any set of men?
+
+"But if I prove that your doctrines are not only false and erroneous,
+but that they occasion a vast amount of mischief to the people; that
+they occasion want and vice, and all manner of wickedness, and that, by
+removing them from the minds of the people, and substituting truths, all
+this want, and vice, and wickedness might be put an end to; if, I say, I
+prove this, why should you be angry with me for doing it? Surely you
+cannot wish the people to remain in a state of want, and vice, and
+wickedness; and yet, if you do not, why should you be angry at me for
+showing you the causes of them, and pointing out the means for their
+removal?
+
+"You talk a great deal about morality and religion; you manifest in your
+pulpits a great anxiety to spread them amongst the people; but who can
+believe you to be sincere, when you resist every attempt to remove the
+causes of immorality and irreligion? You must know that effects cannot
+be removed without removing the causes of them, and by resisting the
+removal of these causes, you evidently show a disposition to keep the
+people in wickedness. This wickedness proceeds from certain causes. We
+have pointed these causes out to you, and if you will not remove them,
+does not that evidently show that you would rather that the people were
+wicked? Can there be conclusions more logical? What ridiculous cant it
+must be then to talk about morality and religion?
+
+"My assumption then is, that the belief of every man is given to him
+_independently of his will_, and that, therefore, no just power can
+punish him for it.
+
+"Your assumption is the opposite of this; you assert that the belief of
+every man depends upon his own will; _that he can either believe in the
+Bible, or not believe in the Bible_; that he can either be Christian or
+Jew, Mahomedan or Infidel, and that, therefore, God will punish him if
+he do not believe in a particular manner.
+
+"These then, are our respective assumptions--and now let reason, ’the
+grand prerogative of man,’ determine between us.
+
+"Gentlemen, contrast the spirit of Mr. Haslam in this passage with the
+spirit of my prosecutors. He invokes Reason, ’the grand prerogative of
+man,’ to determine between them; the Clergy, on the contrary, resort to
+prosecution to crush a reasoning opponent.
+
+"I beg to inform you that I have read the Bible attentively, and that
+the more I read it the more reason I see for disbelieving it.
+
+"The Bible asserts things which the whole of my senses tell me are
+false; and if my senses are independent of myself, how can I help
+disbelieving it?
+
+"I know that God gave me my senses; but how can I believe God made the
+Bible, when it is directly opposed to these senses? To believe that God
+is the author of both, is to believe that God commits absurdities like
+yourselves; and to ascribe such a paltry and blundering performance as
+the Bible to that power which governs the universe is to dishonour that
+power, if any thing can dishonour it.
+
+"But a man’s belief is not only formed independently of his will, but it
+is often formed in direct opposition to it. I, for instance, once
+believed that the principles which I now hold were false; I used to
+argue against them, and even write against them, and my will to
+disbelieve them was so strong, owing to their apparent absurdity, that I
+used to be delighted when I imagined I had discovered a fresh argument
+with which I might overturn them. Continuing, however, to argue, I began
+to see their truth; I saw the principles more clearly; I found I had
+mistaken them very much; and at last I saw into them as clearly, as
+Cobbett used to say, as the sun at noon-day.
+
+"Now here, you see, my will was to disbelieve these principles; but,
+after the process of reasoning was over, I was compelled to alter my
+will. This, then, being the case, was that will free? Could I have
+continued to disbelieve them, when my convictions told me they were
+true? And if I could not, where, I again ask, was my free will?
+
+"Here, then, is reasoning enough to prove the truth of my assumption;
+and now I beg to call your attention to its peculiar effect upon your
+various systems of religion.
+
+"In conclusion, therefore, I beg to call upon you to defend your
+doctrines from the serious charges I have here made, and shall continue
+to make against them. You may either do it by writing, or by verbal
+discussion, whichever you please. But do not continue to act so meanly
+and dishonourably, as to preach doctrines to the people which have over
+and over again been proved to be false and absurd, and which none of you
+are able to defend."
+
+Gentlemen, you will see by these passages that Mr. Haslam appeals to
+reason. He calls upon the Clergy to defend their doctrines, telling them
+they may either do it "by writing, or by verbal discussion." The
+Government, however, disregarded this appeal; they ought to have called
+upon the Bishop of Exeter, and other well-paid bigots of his class, to
+come forward and confute Mr. Haslam. But instead of this they prosecute
+a bookseller, who had never read a line of the book until this
+prosecution. They ought to meet Mr. Haslam with his own weapons; and it
+is disgraceful to the Government, which has always advocated the
+diffusion of cheap knowledge, to submit to the taunts of the Bishop of
+Exeter, and other bigots like him, by instituting these prosecutions for
+blasphemy. However we may disapprove of Haslam’s doctrines, we cannot
+but perceive that he is sincere in his belief.
+
+Gentlemen, I will, as I proceed, prove to you that the convictions of a
+tat which he now believes to be true to have been false. Gentlemen, I
+readily admit that the passage in the eighth number is offensively
+worded; but I will prove that the free exercise of the right of inquiry
+is not, and ought not to be, an offence in law. I will also call your
+attention to the hardship of a general bookseller being held responsible
+for every book that he sells, and will call your attention to the oath
+you have taken, and claim from you that acquittal to which I am
+entitled. I claim no exemption from punishment if I sell any obscene
+publication,--anything calculated to corrupt or demoralize society,--or
+any attacks upon a man’s private character; but in cases of the
+discussion of abstract truths, is a man to be punished for the
+convictions of his mind, which are not in the power of his will? It is
+too bad to bring a man into a court of justice on account of a few
+solitary passages in a work of this nature.
+
+Gentlemen of the Jury, our great and popular moralist, Dr. Johnson, has
+declared that "Truth is the basis of all excellence." This axiom is so
+clear and indisputable, that no intelligent man can hesitate to adopt
+it. How, then, can the truth, upon the various subjects interesting to
+human beings, be elicited? Not by letting interested men think for us,
+but by judging for ourselves--by collecting and examining facts and
+arguments, and communicating to society the impressions they
+respectively make upon our minds. There is no effectual mode of arriving
+at truth, but by the exercise of the right of free inquiry, and the
+unrestricted publication of the result of such inquiry. This right has
+been deemed of pre-eminent importance from time immemorial, and by men
+of all sects and parties; and although corrupt and tyrannical rulers in
+the past ages of the world have prosecuted honest men, and endeavoured
+to suppress the truth, you will find that in every case to which I shall
+call your attention, the intrepid advocates of truth have ultimately
+triumphed. Now, Gentlemen of the Jury, I will proceed at once to fortify
+myself with a few authorities,--not that I think truth depends upon
+great names, however numerous and illustrious they may be, but because I
+am determined to advance nothing that is not, in my opinion, strictly
+true, and sanctioned and maintained by the greatest intellects of the
+age.
+
+Gentlemen, I will begin with a Bishop.
+
+"God has given us rational faculties to guide and direct us, and we must
+make the most of them that we can; we must judge with our own reasons,
+as well as see with our own eyes; and it would-be very _rash, unmanly,
+and base_ in us to muffle up our own understandings, and deliver our
+reason and faith over to others blindfold."--_Bishop Burnett’s
+Thirty-nine Articles_, A. 39.
+
+"Gentlemen of the Jury, will you, by your verdict, consign a man to a
+dungeon, because he is too honest and independent to act a ’_rash,
+unmanly, and base_’ part? Will you declare, by your verdict, that
+henceforth we shall not ’_judge_ with our own reasons, nor _see_ with
+our _own eyes_?’ I feel confident you will not.
+
+"_Dr. Whitby_, in his _Last Thoughts_, tells us, "that belief or
+disbelief can neither be a virtue or a crime, in any one who uses the
+best means in his power of being informed.
+
+"If a proposition is _evident_, we cannot avoid believing it; _and where
+is the merit or piety of a necessary assent?_ If it is _not evident_, we
+cannot help rejecting it, or doubting of it; _and where is the crime of
+not performing impossibilities, or not believing what does not appear to
+us to be true?_"
+
+Gentlemen of the Jury, can you dispute the truth of the passage I have
+quoted from Dr. Whitby? Will you, by your verdict, pronounce it to be
+"_a crime_ not to perform _impossibilities_, and endeavour to _force us
+to believe_ what does not appear to us to be true?" Gentlemen, you
+cannot do it. Let us briefly trace the operations of the human mind, and
+we shall find that the mind is governed by a law of necessity. Are we
+not definitely and necessarily’ affected by the circumstances which
+surround us? Have we power to avoid receiving impressions from the
+objects presented to us? If we have not, which is now universally
+admitted by intelligent men, then the act of _perceiving_, or _forming
+ideas_, is a necessary mental operation. Can we, for instance, have an
+idea of a man when a monkey is presented to us? Or of colours other than
+those which are placed before our visual organs? We cannot, if the eye
+be not diseased, perceive red to be green, or green red. The power of
+_perception_, therefore, appears to be perfectly involuntary--it is
+governed by a law of necessity.
+
+The next operation of the mind is to form a judgment of the things
+perceived; and it is these two things--_perceiving_ and _judging_--which
+constitute a man’s knowledge or experience. If two bodies of different
+magnitudes are presented to our view, are we not compelled to judge of
+them according to the impression they respectively make upon the mind?
+It is precisely the same with _men, manners, and opinions_. Must we not
+conclude that things are what they appear to be, till we know the
+contrary? I would appeal to your own experience, Gentlemen, whether you
+do not invariably and necessarily judge of men and things according to
+their inherent or imaginary qualities? Some men, indeed, are puzzled to
+account for the diversity of judgment observable where different men
+examine the same subject, and from the same data; but this circumstance
+is easily accounted for. It results simply from this fact, that men
+judge of things precisely as they appear to them: and the different
+judgments formed of the same things are ascribable wholly to the
+different degrees of strength in the power of perception, and to the
+extent and variety of knowledge previously acquired. _Perception and
+judgment_, therefore, appear to be involuntary and necessary.
+
+Gentlemen, if this be true, is a man who has arrived at conclusions
+adverse to the _received opinions_ of society a fit subject of
+punishment? If not, how much less so is the bookseller who merely sells
+his book?
+
+Mr. Haslam calls upon the Clergy to enter into the controversy with him,
+and to let _reason_ decide between them. Why do not the Government, and
+the learned Attorney-General, adopt Mr. Haslam’s recommendation, instead
+of instituting a prosecution against a bookseller who never read a line
+of the book till his attention was called to it by this unjust
+prosecution? Why do not the Government,--who patronise penny
+literature--who affect to be friendly to free discussion, call on the
+Bishop of Exeter, and other well-paid bigots, to defend the Bible
+against the assaults of Mr. Haslam? For the learned Attorney-General to
+attempt to crush the free expression of opinion by prosecutions of this
+nature, is most unjust and impolitic. I maintain that two out of the
+three passages read would not support the indictment at all; and the
+third passage--set forth in the first count of the indictment--so far
+from being blasphemy, declares that the author _rejects the Bible,
+because he looks upon it as containing statements that were insulting to
+God_. In the passage immediately following that which is prosecuted, the
+author admits that the book contains some good precepts, but declares
+that he deems mere precepts to be useless. I will take the liberty of
+reading the passage to the Jury.
+
+"I allow that there are some good precepts in it, but I contend that
+these precepts are useless. I contend that _all_ precepts are useless.
+Of what use have all the precepts in the world been to the human race?
+Have they made man wiser, or better, or happier? Have they lessened the
+amount of his vice and his misery? 1 contend that they have not. Vice
+and misery have been increasing, although these precepts have been more
+and more preached to the people. Precepts, reverend ministers of the
+gospel, are mere wind; they are as empty as the vapour issuing from the
+kettle’s spout; they have no effect whatever in making man wise, or
+good, or happy; the present wretchedness of the world is a proof of it.
+The way, reverend sirs, to make man wise, and good, and happy, is, not
+to preach precepts to the people, but to abolish the present irrational
+system of individual property; to arrange society in such a manner that
+the interest of one man will be the interest of the whole. Until this be
+done, all the precepts in the world, preached, too, with all the
+eloquence in the world, will never remove man from his present
+deplorable condition."
+
+Gentlemen, you will perceive by this extract that the author is a
+socialist. It is not necessary for me to maintain that he is right in
+these opinions. All that I have to do is to show that these opinions
+were sincerely believed by Mr. Haslam. I have clearly shown that belief
+is involuntary. No man can tell one day what his belief will be the
+next. In my own person I furnish an instance of this. I married young,
+and having formed in my mind a standard of ideal perfection, I
+determined that my children should equal that standard, as far as human
+means could make them. I tried to effect my object by severity. Acting
+upon wrong principles, of course, I failed; but at that time I was young
+and ignorant, and believed myself to be right. However, a friend who
+knew better than myself, and who had had much experience, lent me Miss
+Williams’s Letters on the Philosophy of Education, and the reading of
+that book put new ideas into my mind. It produced, in fact, a mental
+revolution;--I changed my opinion and my system, and did so with the
+happiest success. From that time I banished coercion as a principle of
+education. I repeat, then, that belief is not voluntary, and that
+compulsion is not a good means of producing good belief or good conduct.
+
+Gentlemen, I will now quote the opinion of Bishop Marsh, as to the
+importance of free inquiry. I quote from the Bishops as persons of the
+greatest authority on this subject, far greater than the
+Attorney-General, or any of his legal brethren.
+
+"Investigation, it is said, frequently leads to doubts where there were
+none before. So much the better. If a thing is false, _it ought not to
+be received_; if a thing is true, _it can never lose in the end by
+inquiry_."--_Bishop Marsh’s First Lecture_.
+
+Gentlemen, you have heard the opinion of Bishop Marsh. You cannot
+suppose that the Bishops are adverse to the Church--they are great
+supporters of it, and so, perhaps, might I be if I got so much by it--(a
+laugh)--as like circumstances produce like effects. Well, Gentlemen,
+Bishop Marsh maintains that "if a thing is _false_, it ought not to be
+received; if it is true, it can never lose in the end by inquiry." Why,
+then, should the Attorney-General prosecute a person who rejects a thing
+that does not appear to him to be true?
+
+Gentlemen, let me now submit to your attention the opinion of Sir
+William Temple.
+
+_Sir William Temple_ says, "They may make me do things which are in my
+power, and depend on my will; but to believe _this_ or _that_ to be true
+depends not on my will, but upon the light, and evidence, and
+information which I have. And will civil discouragements and
+incapacities, fines and confiscations, stripes and imprisonment,
+enlighten the understanding, convince men’s minds of error, and inform
+them of the truth? Can they have any such efficacy as to make men change
+the inward judgment they have framed of things? _Nothing can do this but
+reason and argument_: this is what our minds and understandings will
+naturally yield to, but they _cannot_ be compelled to believe any thing
+by outward force. So that the promoting of _true_ religion is plainly
+out of the magistrate’s _reach_, as well as beside _his office_."
+
+Here, Gentlemen, you have the opinion of Sir William Temple, that men
+cannot be forced to believe anything by outward force and persecution,
+so that the promoting of true religion is out of the magistrate’s power,
+as well as beside his office. This is a most true and proper
+declaration; and if the Attorney-General had reflected upon this
+passage, I am sure he must have fully appreciated its truth, and then
+this prosecution would not have been instituted. I appeal to the learned
+Attorney-General, whether my being ruined and sent to a dungeon will
+alter the state of things? Will it alter the opinion of Mr. Haslam? Will
+it make me believe that I ought to be prosecuted for selling this book;
+or that a man has not a right to promulgate his opinions? I am placed in
+an awkward position in having to defend a man’s right to publish, while
+I dissent from some of Mr. Haslam’s opinions, and the manner in which he
+has thought proper to express them. I have been told that the
+Attorney-General is a good kind of a man, who has no wish to press
+severely upon persons in my situation; and some friends--not my true
+friends--have urged me to forward a memorial to him on the subject of
+this prosecution. Now what could I do? There was no way of inducing the
+Attorney-General to stay this prosecution, but by pleading guilty; and
+although I am well aware that your verdict, if adverse to me, will be my
+ruin, yet I would rather terminate my existence on the floor of this
+court than plead guilty to this lying indictment, or admit that I am a
+wicked, malicious, and evil-disposed person, when I know that to the
+best of my judgment and ability I am an upright, honest,
+well-intentioned man. If I believed myself to be the man described, in
+the indictment--which I must do before I could consent to plead
+guilty--I would fly to the uttermost parts of the earth; for a man is
+totally destroyed when he has lost all feeling of self-respect, and the
+esteem and regard of his friends and associates.
+
+Gentleman of the Jury, I have yet a host of authorities before me, but I
+will not waste time by quoting them; as I am convinced you must now be
+quite satisfied, from what I have already adduced, that every Englishman
+has an undoubted right to investigate all subjects--whether religious or
+political--and to publish the result of the investigation for the
+benefit of society at large; but, Gentlemen, in closing what I have to
+say on this part of the subject, I beg to lay before you two striking
+and convincing passages from Lord Brougham and Dr. Southwood Smith--two
+of the most intellectual and eminent individuals of the present day.
+
+Gentlemen, the first passage I will quote is from Dr. Southwood Smith,
+who strikingly and beautifully describes the proper boundary of human
+investigation; and I beg the particular attention of the learned
+Attorney-General to this passage.
+
+"There is no proper boundary to human investigation," says the doctor,
+"but the capacity of the human mind. Whatever the faculties enable it to
+understand, it ought to examine without any restraint on the freedom of
+its inquiry, and without any other limit to its extent than that which
+its great Author has fixed, by withholding from it the power to proceed
+farther. When the means of conducting the human understanding to its
+highest perfection shall have become generally understood, this freedom
+of inquiry will not only be universally allowed, but early and anxiously
+inculcated, _as a duty_ of primary and essential obligation."
+
+Gentlemen, I now beg you to listen to the extract I am about to read
+from _Lord Brougham’s Inaugural Address to the University of Glasgow_.
+
+"As men will no longer suffer themselves to be led blindfold in
+Ignorance, so will they no more yield to the vile principle of judging
+and treating their fellow-creatures, not according to the intrinsic
+merit of their actions, but according to the accidental and involuntary
+coincidence of their opinions. The great truth has finally gone forth to
+the ends of the earth, _that man shall no more render_ ACCOUNT TO MAN
+FOR HIS BELIEF, OVER WHICH HE HAS HIMSELF NO CONTROL.
+
+"Henceforward nothing shall prevail upon us to praise or to blame any
+one for that which he can no more change than he can the hue of his skin
+or the height of his stature. Henceforward, treating with entire respect
+those who conscientiously differ from ourselves, the only practical
+effect of the difference will be, to make us enlighten the ignorance, on
+one side or the other, from which it springs, by instructing them, if it
+be theirs, ourselves, if it be our own; to the end that the only kind of
+unanimity may be produced which is desirable among rational beings,--the
+agreement proceeding from full conviction after the freest
+discussion."--_Lord Brougham._
+
+Gentlemen, after hearing these splendid passages, will it be possible
+for you to sanction a renewal of persecution to crush freedom of
+opinion?
+
+Gentlemen of the Jury,--I now come to the next point in the argument.
+Having, I hope, successfully proved the right of free inquiry and the
+free publication of opinions, I will proceed to show, by a reference to
+past events, that it is highly important that this right should be
+preserved, and handed down to our latest posterity unimpaired.
+Gentlemen, it has been a uniform practice, from the earliest records of
+time, to stigmatize those who introduce new truths, or who attack the
+existing institutions of a country, as infidels, and to fix upon them
+all sorts of opprobious epithets.
+
+"In all ages _new doctrines_ have been branded as impious; and
+Christianity itself has offered no exception to this rule. The Greeks
+and Romans charged Christianity with ’impiety and novelty.’ In _Cave’s
+Primitive Christianity_ we are informed ’that the Christians were
+everywhere accounted a pack of _Atheists_, and their religion _the
+Atheism._’ _They were denominated; ’mountebank impostors,’ and ’men of a
+desperate and unlawful faction.’ They were represented as ’destructive
+and pernicious to human society,’ and were accused of ’sacrilege,
+sedition, and high treason.’ The same system of misrepresentation and
+abuse was practised by the Roman Catholics against the Protestants at
+the Reformation. Some called their dogs Calvin; and others transformed
+Calvin into Cain,’ In France, ’the old stale calumnies, formerly
+invented against the first Christians, were again revived by Demochares,
+a doctor of the Sorbonne, pretending that all the disasters of the state
+were to be attributed to Protestants alone.’"--*Combe on the
+Constitution of Man_.
+
+In our own enlightened country, where the importance of truth--and free
+inquiry as a means of its attainment--is beginning to be appreciated, a
+different practice should prevail. We ought not to persist in this
+unmanly course. Recollect, Gentlemen, the Prophets of the Jews were
+_blasphemers_ against the established religions of their day. Did that
+deter them from denouncing the idolatry and false religions of the
+surrounding nations? Elijah is represented as ridiculing the God of the
+Moabites in a most offensive manner: "_And it came to pass at noon, that
+Elijah mocked them and said, ’Cry aloud: for he is a god; either he is
+talking f or he is pursuing, or he is in a journey, or peradventure he
+sleepeth and must be awaked._’" 1 Kings xviii. 27. And in Judea, Jesus
+and his Apostles were charged as blasphemers against Judaism, or the
+religion established by Moses. We have a remarkable proof of this in the
+case of Stephen, recorded in the 6th and 7th chapters of the Acts of the
+Apostles.
+
+"And they were not able to resist the wisdom and the spirit by which he
+spake.
+
+"Then they suborned men, which said, We have heard him speak
+_blasphemous_ words against Moses, and against God.
+
+"And they stirred up the people, and the elders, and the scribes, and
+came upon him, and caught him, and brought him to the council,
+
+"And set up false witnesses, which said, This man ceaseth not to speak
+blasphemous words against this holy place and the law:
+
+"For we have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth shall destroy
+this place, and shall change the customs which Moses delivered
+us."--Acts vi, 10--14.
+
+And Stephen defending himself before the Council, boldly asks them,
+
+"Which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted? And they have
+slain them which showed before of the coming of the Just One; _of whom
+ye have_ BEEN NOW THE BETRAYERS AND MURDERERS.
+
+"When they heard these things they were cut to the heart, and they
+gnashed at him with their teeth.
+
+"And they cried out with a loud voice, and stopped their ears, and ran
+upon him with one accord,
+
+"And cast him out of the city, and stoned him." Acts vii; 51, 52,
+54,57,58.
+
+Now, Gentlemen, is it just or politic that the proclaimers of new
+truths, and new systems, should be treated in this manner? Would it not
+be far more rational to hear what a man has to say, and answer him, than
+to "gnash at him with the teeth," to "stop your ears," to "run at him
+with one accord," and to "stone him to death?" Can you, Gentlemen, by
+your verdict give your sanction to a course of proceeding similar to
+that which deprived Stephen of life? All persecution is the same in
+spirit--highly unjust and impolitic--whether it be exercised against the
+Apostle Stephen, or the humble individual who now addresses you.
+
+Gentlemen, the supporters of the established religion in the days of the
+Apostles, pursued the same course that the bigots of the present day are
+pursuing. They applied to the High Priest, or to the Attorney-General of
+that day, to prosecute Stephen for _blasphemy_, and stirred up the
+people. In the present case the Bishop of Exeter did not stir up the
+people, but he stirred up the Government. He sent a packet of papers to
+Lord Normanby, who handed them to the Attorney-General, and he appears
+to have considered it to be his duty to institute the present
+prosecution. The learned Attorney-General, as was the case with the
+priests and rulers of the Jews, would not allow any discussion to take
+place that was likely to change existing customs. I will do the
+Government the justice to say, however, that I do not believe they are
+disposed to put a stop to the full investigation of any subject, if
+conducted with decency. I readily admit that the passage in the eighth
+number of Mr. Haslam’s Letters is highly objectionable in
+phraseology--it is in very bad taste--but is that a reason for sending a
+bookseller to prison, because he has sold a book written in bad taste?
+It cannot be--all published works must be left to the fiat of public
+opinion to determine their merit.
+
+Gentlemen, the same spirit was evinced by the wicked and corrupt rulers
+of the Jews against the founder of Christianity. They sought false
+witnesses against him; but at length, Jesus having spoken out
+explicitly, the High Priest rent his clothes, saying, "_He hath spoken
+blasphemy; what further need have we of witnesses? Behold, now ye have
+heard his blasphemy. What think ye? They answered and said_, *HE is
+guilty to death.*" (Matt. 26; 65.) Will you, Gentlemen--a Christian
+Jury--considering Christianity part and parcel of the law of the land,
+by your verdict say, that Jesus was rightly treated by the Jews? Ought
+the constituted authorities of that day to have obstructed the glorious
+truths of Christianity, and have put to death the Messenger of Man’s
+salvation? Unless you deliver a verdict of acquittal, in my case, you in
+effect sanction and justify all the cruelties exercised against Jesus
+and his Apostles by the rulers of the Jews?
+
+The learned Counsel for the prosecution will, perhaps, think that there
+is no analogy between the cases cited and my own case--that Jesus and
+his Apostles introduced truths of the greatest magnitude and importance,
+while I am indicted for selling a book that denies the truth of the
+Jewish Scriptures. Why, Gentlemen, Dr. Adam Clarke says, "There is some
+reason to fear that they (the Jews) _no longer consider the Old
+Testament as divinely inspired, but believe that Moses had recourse to
+pious frauds_." And, Gentlemen, Jesus and his Apostles denied the
+_truth_ of the Jewish Scriptures--_as understood by the rulers of the
+Jews_,--and for denying the orthodox and received sense of the Jewish
+Scriptures were accused of blasphemy, and received the fate of martyrs!
+That cannot be disputed. Was it just, then,--was it politic, I ask, to
+settle this controversy by force and cruelty? To _scourg or imprison,
+and destroy_ those glorious men who had important truths to impart to
+the world? If England has embraced Christianity--and we are not a nation
+of hypocrites--let us act upon the spirit of his religion. He says
+plainly and emphatically, that we are not to root up error by force or
+cruelty.
+
+In the parable of the tares of the field, he sets forth our duty. "The
+Kingdom of Heaven," he says, "is likened unto a man who sowed good seed
+in his field; but while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among
+the wheat, and went his way. But when the blade was sprung up, and
+brought forth fruit, there appeared the tares also. So the servants of
+the householder came and said unto him, Sir, didst thou not sow good
+seed in thy field? from whence then hath it tares! He said unto them, An
+enemy hath done this. The servant said unto him, Wilt thou then that we
+go and gather them up? But he said, _Nay; lest while ye gather up the
+tares, ye root up also the wheat with them_. *Let both grow together
+until the harvest.*" Matt, xiii; 25--30.
+
+When his disciples demanded an explanation of this parable, he said,
+"The field is the world: the good seed are the children of the Kingdom:
+but the tares are the children of the wicked one: the enemy that sowed
+them in the devil: the harvest is the end of the world; and the reapers
+are the Angels. The Son of Man shall send forth his Angels, and They
+shall gather out of his Kingdom all things that offend, and them which
+do iniquity." Matt, xiii; 38, 39. 41.
+
+Gentlemen, how unjust and impolitic, then, are these prosecutions. Do
+they stop the progress of truth? Persecution for matters of opinion is
+the same in every case--impolitic--for it never yet succeeded in
+stopping the circulation of a correct opinion or a prohibited book? Why
+should _Christians_ prosecute men for disbelieving the _Jewish_
+Scriptures, when, according to Dr. Adam Clarke, the Jews disbelieve
+parts of the Old Testament themselves? Why should professed Christians
+take up and defend that which the Jews themselves reject? Paul, himself,
+teaches us that the Jewish law has been superseded by a superior system.
+He tells us that the Jewish law "was our schoolmaster to bring us unto
+Christ (or Christianity), but after that we are no longer under a
+schoolmaster." Gal. iii; 24, 25.
+
+I can assure the Jury that if Haslam’s Letters to the Clergy is an
+improper book, it cannot be put down by prosecution; it is far better to
+leave it to coldness and neglect. I could give many proofs of this. I am
+myself an instance of the inefficacy of prosecution. I have been
+prosecuted, as I think with great injustice, for the publication of a
+paper called _The Poor Man’s Guardian_. Five hundred men was imprisoned
+for selling it; I was twice imprisoned, and the circulation of the
+paper, thus prosecuted, more than paid my losses; but at last, in the
+Court of Exchequer, before Lord Lyndhurst, the Jury found a verdict in
+my favour, for I convinced the Jury that the publication was one which
+was not against the law.
+
+The Attorney-General: The Jury found that it was not a newspaper.
+
+Precisely so: and as soon as it was known that the _Guardian_ was a
+legal paper, it went down at once. I could not sell copies enough to pay
+the expenses (a laugh). It has been just the same with these Letters;
+they have remained unsold till this prosecution, but as soon as it was
+known that they were prosecuted, the man who published them could not
+print them fast enough.
+
+Gentlemen, the enlightened Christians of the present day, by sending out
+Missionaries to propagate Christianity, are guilty of blasphemy against
+the established religion of heathen countries. It would be considered in
+England very unjust and cruel if the natives were to seize our
+Missionaries, and imprison and ill-treat them. If in this country we are
+in the habit of sending out Missionaries to proclaim new truths to
+foreign countries--is it not grossly inconsistent and unjust, while
+doing this, to punish persons for free investigation at home? In a
+recent case, cannon have been fired upon the natives of one of the Tonga
+Islands, because they would not receive these Missionaries. The argument
+of these Christians is, that truth must be propagated all over the
+world--but why stop inquiry at home, while suffering a British
+man-of-war to fire upon these islanders, because they would not receive
+the new truths of the Missionaries in the way they wished? Is it
+wise--is it not highly impolitic, then, to attempt to check the progress
+of intellect and human improvement? Can it be done by persecution and
+imprisonment? No, Gentlemen, the spirit of inquiry is abroad among the
+industrious millions--no subject is too sacred for their investigation.
+The mind has burst the fetters imposed on it, in the days of by-gone
+ignorance, by the cupidity of interested and hypocritical priests, who
+are fully aware that their principles and practices cannot stand the
+test of free inquiry. Even Mr. Wesley, the founder of Methodism, saw
+that his darling system must ultimately fall before the searching eye of
+philosophy and truth.
+
+_From the Life of the Rev. John Wesley, published in 1792_.
+
+"Dear Sir,--For your obliging letter, which I received this morning, I
+return you thanks.
+
+"Our opinions, for the most part, perfectly coincide respecting the
+stability of the connexion after my head is laid in the dust. This,
+however, is a subject about which I am not so anxious as you seem to
+imagine; on the contrary, it is a matter of the utmost indifference to
+me, as I have-long foreseen that a division must necessarily ensue, from
+causes so various, unavoidable, and certain, that I have long since
+given up all thoughts and hopes of settling it on a permanent
+foundation. You do not seem to be aware of the most effective cause that
+will bring about a division. You apprehend the most serious consequences
+from a struggle between the preachers for power and pre-eminence, and
+there being none among them of sufficient authority or abilities to
+support the dignity, or command the respect, and exact the implicit
+obedience, which is so necessary to uphold our constitution on its
+present principles. This, most undoubtedly, is one thing that will
+operate very powerfully against unity in the connexion, and is, perhaps,
+what I might possibly have prevented, had not a still greater difficulty
+arisen in my mind. I have often wished for some person of abilities to
+succeed me as the head of the church I have, with such indefatigable
+pains and astonishing success, established; but, convinced that none but
+very superior abilities would be equal to the undertaking, was I to
+adopt a successor of this description, I fear he might gain so much
+influence among the people as to usurp a share, if not the whole, of
+that absolute and uncontrollable power which I have hitherto, and am
+determined I will maintain so long as I live: never will I bear a rival
+near my throne. You, no doubt, see the policy of continually changing
+the preachers from one circuit to another, at short periods: for should
+any of them become popular with their different congregations, and
+insinuate themselves into the favour of their hearers, they might
+possibly obtain such influence as to establish themselves independently
+of me and the general connexion. Besides, the novelty of the continual
+change excites curiosity, and is the more necessary, as few of our
+preachers have abilities to render themselves in any degree tolerable
+any longer than they are now.
+
+"The principal cause which will inevitably effect a diminution and
+division in the connexion after my death, wilt be the failure of
+subscriptions and contributions towards the support of the cause; for
+money is as much the sinews of religious as of military power. If it is
+with the greatest difficulty that even I can keep them together, for
+want of this very necessary article, I think no one else can. Another
+cause, which, with others, will effect the division, is the disputes and
+contentions that will arise between the preachers and the parties that
+will espouse their several causes; by which means much truth will be
+brought to light, which will reflect so much to their disadvantage, that
+the eyes of the people will be opened to see their motives and
+principles; nor will they any longer contribute to their support, when
+they find all their pretensions to sanctity and love are founded on
+motives of interest and ambition. The consequence of which will be, a
+few of the most popular will establish themselves in the respective
+places where they have gained sufficient influence over the minds of the
+people: the rest must revert to their original humble callings. But this
+no way concerns me: I have attained the object of my views, by
+establishing a name that will not soon perish from the face of the
+earth; I have founded a sect which will boast my name long after my
+discipline and doctrines are forgotten.
+
+"My character and reputation for sanctity is now beyond the reach of
+calumny; nor will any thing that may hereafter come to light, or be said
+concerning me, to my prejudice, however true, gain credit.
+
+    _"’My unsoiled name, the austereness of my life,_
+      _Will vouch against it,_
+    _And so the accusation overweigh_
+      _That it will stifle in its own report,_
+    _And smell of calumny.’_
+
+"Another cause that will operate more powerfully and effectually than
+any of the preceding is, the rays of Philosophy, which begin now to
+pervade all ranks, rapidly dispelling the mists of ignorance, which have
+been long, in a great degree, the mother of devotion, of slavish
+prejudice, and the enthusiastic bigotry of religious opinions. The
+decline of the Papal power is owing to the same irresistible cause; nor
+can it be supposed that Methodism can stand its ground when brought to
+the test of Truth, Reason, and Philosophy."
+
+"City-road, Thursday morning. J. W." (1)
+
+    1. As my defence had extended to a great length, I was anxious
+    to spare the time of the Jury, and did not, therefore, trouble
+    them with the whole of this letter. I merely described the
+    nature of it, and read the last paragraph, being the only
+    portion applicable to my purpose; but as I deem the letter a
+    valuable curiosity, and worthy of preservation, I have inserted
+    it entire.
+
+Gentlemen, you see Mr. Wesley anticipated that his system must yield to
+philosophy, and do you believe the Church of England can stand when
+brought to the test of "truth, reason* and philosophy?" A church that
+will keep a man in prison nearly two years for 5s. 6d. church-rates? If
+you suppress Biblical examination, and the free publication of opinion,
+the next step will be to stop inquiry into the _practices_ of the
+Church, and to make us all the fettered slaves of the priesthood. No,
+Gentlemen; Methodism and Church-of-Englandism are doomed to fall; and
+such will be the fate of all systems not based upon the rock of truth.
+But, Gentlemen, that is no reason for suppressing inquiry, because the
+more the truth is investigated, the more beautiful it will appear.
+
+Gentlemen, has not our country raised itself to the highest pinnacle of
+human greatness as regards civilization and the arts? What rapid
+strides--what useful discoveries it has made in the arts and sciences!
+Consider its vast achievements in steam navigation--in railroad
+travelling--in the improvement of machinery. To such perfection have
+they brought machinery, that it is now almost capable of superseding
+human labour altogether. If all these magnificent improvements in the
+arts and sciences are good to society, and have resulted from free
+inquiry--why hesitate to apply it to social, religious, and political
+subjects? Are we ever to remain drivellers in religion? The true crime
+is that Haslam’s Letters are sold at a penny. Why should two-guinea
+blasphemers be tolerated and penny ones prosecuted? How can the learned
+Attorney-General, whose shelves are, doubtless, adorned with Drummond’s
+Academical Questions, Voltaire, Gibbon, Volney, and Shelley, uphold this
+prosecution; and what must that law be which can find the crime, not in
+the contents of the book, but in the fact of its being sold for a penny?
+They might for two guineas buy a magnificent book full of blasphemy. The
+Attorney-General, in his opening speech, had told the Jury that such
+works were "dangerous to society if addressed to the _vulgar, the
+uneducated_, and the _unthinking_" but I will appeal to his own witness,
+who had read the book, and on whom, an uneducated man, it had proved
+inoperative. It had done no mischief: and I hope the Jury will not
+consign me to a dungeon for having sold a book which it has been proved
+by his own witness has done no mischief. Paul said the Bæreans were more
+noble than those of Thessalonica, because they searched the Scriptures
+daily to see whether these things were so or not. The Attorney-General
+is about to punish me for doing the same thing. Christ himself said, the
+truth shall make you free; but the Attorney-General says the truth--or
+that which you believe to be the truth--shall make you a prisoner. In
+the parable of the tares, to which I have already referred, Jesus
+expressly forbade the rooting up of the tares, lest the wheat should be
+rooted up also. He did not recommend persecution, but said let them both
+grow together until the harvest. These passages are sufficient to show
+that persecution is opposed to the whole spirit of Christianity.
+
+Gentlemen, I will now call your attention to the law on the subject. In
+entering upon this topic, of course I shall labour under a great
+disadvantage, because I am unacquainted with legal technicalities and
+cases. I will commence, therefore, by reading to you the opinion of
+Chief Baron Eyre, in his Charge to the Grand Jury, on the commission for
+the trial of persons on the charge of High Treason, in 1794, in the
+course of which he made use of these liberal expressions:--
+
+"All men may, nay, all men must, if they possess the faculty of
+thinking, reason upon every thing which sufficiently interests them to
+become objects of their attention; and among the objects of attention of
+freemen, the principles of government, the constitution of particular
+governments, and, above all, the constitution of the government under
+which they live, will naturally engage attention, and provoke
+speculation. _The power of communication of thoughts and opinions is the
+gift of God; and the freedom of it is the source of all science_--the
+first fruits, and the ultimate happiness of all society; and therefore,
+it seems to follow, _that human laws ought not to interpose, nay, cannot
+interpose, to prevent the communication of sentiment and opinions, in
+voluntary assemblies of men._"
+
+Here, Gentlemen, we have an eminent legal authority, in addition to the
+Bishops I have quoted, who declares that "human laws _ought not to
+inter-pose_, nay, cannot interpose, _to prevent the communication qf
+sentiment, and opinion_." Under what law then can I be condemned? This
+prosecution goes a step further than any other has gone; it in effect
+declares that you shall not dispute the truth of the Jewish Scriptures,
+which I have already shown are superseded by the introduction of
+Christianity. Paul declares that the Jewish law was only intended to be
+our schoolmaster to bring us to Christianity; but if Christianity, as is
+asserted, be part and parcel of the low of England, even then this
+prosecution has not a log to stand upon. In the "Life and Correspondence
+of Major Cartwright," however, there is a letter from Jefferson, himself
+an eminent lawyer, and President of the United States of America, who
+had deeply studied the laws of England, in which he has proved the
+fallacy of the notion that Christianity is part of the common law, by
+showing that the common law had existed long before Christianity was
+introduced into this country; and that the axiom had its origin and
+foundation in a misquotation and mistranslation of a decision of Justice
+Prisot, recorded in the Year Book, substituting the words _Holy
+Scriptures_ for _Ancient Scriptures_. Jefferson denominates it a
+"judiciary forgery," and I hope your Lordship will to-day confirm
+Jefferson’s view, and put an end to this illegal iniquity.
+
+Gentlemen, the passage I am about to quote from Jefferson’s letter to
+Major Cartwright, contains the opinion of Justice Prisot, in old French,
+but I have procured a literal and a free translation, which I will read
+to the Jury. Your Lordship can refer to the original in the Year Book.
+
+"I was glad to find, in your book, a formal contradiction, at length, of
+the judiciary usurpation of legislative powers; for such the judges have
+usurped in their repeated decisions that Christianity is a part of the
+common law. The proof of the contrary which you have adduced is
+incontrovertible; to wit, that the common law existed while the
+Anglo-Saxons were yet Pagans; at a time when they had never yet heard
+the name of Christ pronounced, or knew that such a character had ever
+existed. But it may amuse you to show when, and by what means, they
+stole this law in upon us. In a case of quare impedit, in the year-book,
+34 H. 6, fo. 38, (1458,) a question was made, how far the ecclesiastical
+law was to be respected in a common law court? And Justice Prisot, c. 5,
+gives his opinion in these words:--
+
+"’A tiel leis que ils de seint eglise ont en _ancien scripture_, covient
+
+"’_To such laws which they of the holy church have in ancient writing,
+it is proper_
+
+à nous à donner credence; car ceo common ley sur quels touts manners
+
+_for us to give credence; because that is the common law on which all
+sorts of leis_
+
+sont lor dés--et auxy, Sir, nous sumus obligés de conustre leur ley de
+saint
+
+_laws are founded--and thus, Sir, we are obliged to know their law of
+the holy_
+
+eglise; et semblablement ils sont obligés de conustre nostre lev: et,
+Sir, si
+
+_church; and in like manner they are obliged to know our law; and, Sir,
+if_
+
+poit apperer or ù nous que Tevesque ad fait come un ordinary fera en
+tiel
+
+_it can be shown thus to us that the bishop has done as a layman would
+in such_
+
+cas, adonq nous devons ceo adjuger bon, ou auterment nemy,’ &c.(1) See
+S. C,
+
+_a case, then we ought this to judge good, or otherwise not at all._
+
+      1. _Translation read to the Jury._
+
+Fitzherbert’s Abr. qu. imp. 89. Brown’s Abr. qu. imp. 12. Finch, in his
+first book, c. 3, is the first afterwards who quotes this case, and
+misstates it thus, ’To such laws of the church as have warrant in _holy
+scripture_ our law giveth credence,’ and cites Prisot, mistranslating
+’ancien scripture’ into ’holy scripture;’ whereas Prisot palpably says,
+’to such laws as those of holy church have in _ancient writing_ it is
+proper for us to give credence to wit, to their ancient written laws.
+This was in 1613, a century and a half after the dictum of Prisot.
+Wingate, in 1658, erects this false translation into a maxim of the
+common law, copying the words of Finch, but citing Prisot. Wingate’s
+Maxims, 3; and Sheppard, tit. ’Religion in 1675. copies the same
+mistranslation, quoting the Year-book, Finch and Wingate. Hale expresses
+it in these words, ’Christianity is parcel of the laws of England.’
+
+"It is proper for us to respect the laws which the members of the holy
+church have in _ancient manuscripts_, because they are the general
+source from which all laws are drawn. Thus, Sir, it is necessary for us
+to be acquainted with ecclesiastical law, and in like manner the judges
+of the ecclesiastical courts are obliged to understand our law: in
+consequence, Sir, if it can be shown to us that the ecclesiastical court
+has decided as a court of civil law would have done in the same case,
+then we ought to deem the judgment good; but if a civil law court would
+have decided otherwise, the judgment of the eclesiastical court must be
+deemed erroneous."
+
+"Ventr. 293. 3 Keble, 607, but quotes no authority. By these echoings
+and reechoings from one to another, it had become so established in
+1728, that in the case of the King v. Woolston, 2 Strange, 834, the
+court would not suffer it to be debated, whether to write against
+Christianity was punishable in the temporal courts at common law. Wood,
+therefore, 409, ventures still to vary the phrase, and says, ’that all
+blasphemy and profaneness are offences by the common law,’ and cites 2
+Strange. Then Blackstone, in 1763, IV. 59, repeats the words of Hale,
+that ’Christianity is part of the law of England,’ citing Ventris and
+Strange: and finally, Lord Mansfield, with a little qualification, in
+Evans’s case in 1767, says, ’that the essential principles of revealed
+religion are parts of the common law,’ thus engulphing Bible, Testament,
+and all, into the common law, without citing any authority. And thus we
+find this chain of authorities hanging link by link one upon another,
+and all ultimately on one and the same hook; and that a mistranslation
+of the words ’ancien scripture,’ used by Prisot. Finch quotes Prisot;
+Wingate does the same; Sheppard quotes Prisot, Finch, and Wingate; Hale
+cites nobody; the Court, in Woolston’s case, cites Hale; Wood cites
+Woolston’s case; Blackstone quotes Woolston’s case and Hale; and Lord
+Mansfield, like Hale, ventures it on his own authority. Here I might
+defy the best-read lawyer to produce another scrip of authority for this
+_judiciary forgery_; and I might go on further to show how some of the
+Anglo-Saxon priests interpolated into the text of Alfred’s laws, the
+20th, 21st, 22nd, and 23rd chapters of Exodus, and the 10th of the Acts
+of the Apostles, from the 23rd to the 29th verses. But this would lead
+my pen and your patience too far. What a conspiracy this between Church
+and State! Sing Tantararara, Rogues all, Rogues all; Sing Tantararara,
+Rogues all!"
+
+Gentlemen, after hearing this statement from the pen of an educated and
+eminent lawyer, can you hesitate to return a verdict of acquittal? You
+have now a complete history of this "_judiciary forgery_" as Jefferson
+terms it, before you; and I am satisfied that that which originated in a
+_fraudulent mistranslation_, cannot, now that the fraud is detected,
+long retain the force of law. On this ground, then, I confidently claim
+your verdict.
+
+Gentlemen, I now come to the trade argument--that it is a great hardship
+and injustice to hold a bookseller responsible for the contents of the
+books he sells.
+
+I am a general bookseller; and so great is the competition, and so fully
+is my time occupied, that I have no time to spare for reading the
+various works in my shop, even if I had the inclination. My excellent
+and amiable son, before his death, and before I had any idea of this
+prosecution, drew up a paper for the management of my business, by which
+it appears that upwards of seventy weekly periodicals pass through my
+hands every week, besides books and many other periodicals that are
+merely collected to order. Amongst them will be found every possible
+variety--"The Church of England Magazine," "The Sacred Album," and many
+others maintaining contradictory and conflicting opinions; but I do not
+hold myself responsible--either legally or morally--for any of them. I
+have no right to set myself up as a censor of the press. I sell them
+all--and am not responsible for any man’s opinions upon an abstract or
+general subject. When the subject matter of a book relates to the people
+at large, the public alone should decide upon its merits. If the book be
+a good one, they will support it; if a bad one, they will condemn and
+reject it. This is the only proper punishment for a bad author. The line
+of duty I mark out for myself in that I will never sell obscene
+publications--works that demoralise and corrupt society--nor any attacks
+upon private character; and if a person comes to me complaining that his
+character has been falsely and slanderously attacked, I sell no more of
+that work. What more can be expected from a general bookseller? If the
+sale of a controversial book is to be suppressed, because it contains a
+few passages in bad taste, and of objectionable phraseology, then the
+sale of the Bible itself must be prohibited, for that book contains many
+passages far more objectionable in the present day than any to be found
+in "Haslam’s Letters to the Clergy." I have here a list of passages from
+the Bible, of a highly objectionable character; but as I perceive a
+number of ladies in the court, I will not pollute their ears, nor shock
+the feelings of the Jury, by reading them. My only object in alluding to
+them, is to show that if the principle of selecting two or three
+objectionable passages from a work is to lead to its condemnation, and
+the punishment of the bookseller, then I might with equal justice be
+condemned for selling the Bible itself. On this ground, also, I claim
+and am entitled to your verdict.
+
+Gentlemen, the Attorney-General has not done justice to Mr. Haslam; he
+has dwelt upon the passages contained in the indictment, but has left
+the Jury in total ignorance of the general nature of the work. In many
+parts of the book are to be found passages of great beauty. So far from
+a charge of blasphemy fairly attaching to Mr. Haslam’s Letters, he
+uniformly declares that he rejects the Jewish Scriptures because they
+are _irrational_, and _dishonour_ the God "that governs the universe." I
+will read a passage from his Second Letter, which shows the veneration
+he entertains for the Deity.
+
+"But is it not monstrous, that that power which gives life and motion to
+millions of worlds; which guides them in their eternal revolutions in
+the boundless ocean of space, and which preserves them in everlasting
+order and harmony; is it not monstrous that that power should be
+represented in this ridiculous point of view? Vain, violent, and
+boisterous, without the least indication of any thing rational, good, or
+merciful in any of his proceedings. Such a God may be the God of the
+Christians, but he is not the God who governs the universe. That God is
+no more to be compared to the Bible God, than the dazzling sun is to be
+compared to the glimmering light of a candle."
+
+Mr. Haslam’s work has many other passages of the same description; and
+the Attorney-General will see that the passage in the Eighth
+Letter--almost the only objectionable passage in the work--was not
+deliberately designed to give offence, when I tell him that the author,
+in deference to the opinion of his friends, has cancelled the
+objectionable passage, and re-written it. Now what would the learned
+Attorney-General have more? The object of prosecution has been always
+held to be preventive, or corrective, not vindictive. The object sought,
+then, is already attained. Mr. Haslam has anticipated your wishes by
+correcting the objectionable passage.
+
+Gentlemen, I have urged sufficient, I hope, to induce you to give me
+your verdict; but before I conclude, I will read a passage from the
+works of Dean Swift, which is worthy of your profound attention.
+"Whoever," he says, "could restore, in any degree, brotherly love among
+men, would be an instrument of more good to society than ever was or
+will be done by all the statesmen in the world."
+
+Gentlemen, let us commence the glorious work to-day. I will tell you how
+you can do more towards spreading brotherly love among men, than all the
+statesmen in the world will be able to accomplish. Say to the
+Government, by your verdict, the publication of opinions shall be free.
+This will spread brotherly love among men; for what is it that prevents
+brotherly love from dwelling among men? The odious principle of
+coercion. I do not believe the Government wish to follow up these
+prosecutions if they can avoid it. They have a precedent, then, in the
+case of Sir Robert Peel. Mr. Carlile was in prison nearly _seven years_,
+and many of his shopmen were imprisoned for various terras. Did such
+vindictive persecutions change their opinions, or stop the sale of the
+works prosecuted? Quite the contrary. The individuals became confirmed
+and strengthened in their opinions, and all the prosecuted works are now
+on sale in every bookseller’s shop in London. The public began to
+consider them martyrs, and Sir Robert Peel and the Government of that
+day saw the injustice and cruelty of such proceedings, abandoned all
+prosecutions, and liberated those whose terms of imprisonment were
+unexpired. Surely those now in authority are not the men to recommence
+these prosecutions for matters of opinion; and my quarrel with them is,
+that they have not the moral courage to reply to the taunts of the
+Bishop of Exeter, by alluding to this case of Sir Robert Peel’s
+Government; and boldly declaring that henceforth public opinion shall be
+the only censor. Abolish that hateful principle of coercion for matters
+of opinion, and mutual toleration, respect, and brotherly kindness, will
+henceforth prevail.
+
+Gentlemen, Christianity gives no sanction to persecution. The religion
+of Jesus, rightly understood, is a practical and benevolent system. It
+is founded on two great commandments, love of God and love of Man. The
+_first_ commandment, in fact, resolves itself into a practical
+observance of the _second_; for it is expressly declared that, "_If a
+man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that
+loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he
+hath not seen_?"(1) Recollect, Gentlemen, "_Love worketh no ill to his
+neighbour_."(2) Jesus encourages all men to think for themselves. This
+is his exhortation--"_Why, even of your own selves, judge ye not what is
+right?*(3)" But while he has encouraged the exercise of mind, he has not
+made eternal happiness to depend upon *belief_ but upon their _actions_;
+and the great evil of society is attempting to coerce people into the
+belief of that which they cannot believe--a system to which, I hope,
+your verdict to-day will put a stop.
+
+      1. 1 John iv.; 20,
+      2. Rom. xiii.; 10,
+      3. Luke xii.; 57
+
+Gentlemen, the Founder of Christianity, in his parable of the Last
+Judgment, tells us distinctly that men are to be judged by their
+_actions_ and not by their _opinions_; for he describes himself as
+inviting the righteous to inherit the kingdom prepared for them from the
+foundation of the world: "For I was an hungered, and ye gave me meat: I
+was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in:
+naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in
+prison, and ye came unto me." He then represents the righteous as
+saying, "Lord, when saw we thee an hungered, and fed thee I or thirsty,
+and gave thee drink? When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or
+naked, and clothed thee? Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and
+came unto thee? And the King shall answer, Inasmuch AS YE HAVE DONE IT
+UNTO ONE OF THE LEAST OF THESE MY BRETHREN, ye have done it unto me." He
+then represents himself as denouncing the unrighteous for giving him no
+meat, nor drink; for not clothing him when naked, nor visiting him when
+sick; and when they desire to know when he required these things, and
+they did not minister unto him, he replies, "Inasmuch as ye did it not
+to one of the least of these my brethren, ye did it not to me." Here,
+you perceive, there is no particular belief enjoined, none condemned.
+All men are to be judged by their actions--not by their belief.
+
+Gentlemen, I have now urged all that I deem necessary to ensure an
+acquittal. I hope you will consider well the consequences of your
+verdict, and reflect upon the wickedness and impolicy of tearing a man
+from his family, for selling a book in the ordinary course of his
+business. If I have said anything in the course of my address to raise a
+prejudice in your minds, I hope you will discard it, and do justice by
+pronouncing an acquittal.
+
+The Attorney-General claimed his right of reply. He commenced by
+observing that the Defendant, in his very long address to the Jury, had
+not advanced anything that would call for many remarks from him, so that
+he should occupy bu ta very small portion of their time. The Defendant
+had contended that the blasphemous attack on our holy religion, which
+they had heard read, was only free inquiry; and had taunted the
+Government, and himself, who desired the extension of useful knowledge,
+with having prosecuted this book. But was this book of Haslam’s useful
+knowledge? The Defendant said, Why not answer it? But he, the
+Attorney-General, contended that it could not be answered. The only way
+to do with it was to prosecute it. This publication--for the sale of
+which the Defendant was indicted--was not fair argument and inquiry, but
+blasphemous invective. The Defendant accused him of not objecting so
+much to the matter of the publication, as to the price at which it was
+sold. Not withstanding what the Defendant had said on this point, he,
+the Attorney-General, contended that the low price at which it was sold
+made the publication doubly mischievous, as it caused it to circulate
+among the working classes of society, who were from their habits,
+incapable of thought or discrimination; their time was so entirely
+occupied that it was impossible they could devote sufficient time to
+reading to guard themselves against the evil tendency of such works;
+while the Jury, and men in their class of life, were, from their
+education, furnished with an antidote to the poison. If attacks on the
+Scriptures were to be permitted, what was to prevent the pious feelings
+of the community from being outraged? Suppose a man were to carry a
+board through the streets on which was inscribed in large characters,
+that "Christ was an impostor." Could it be tolerated? Yet this,
+according to the Defendant, was only free inquiry! Again, suppose any
+one preferred a republican to a monarchical form of government, and was
+to excite and recommend the substitution of the one for the other by
+force of arms, inciting, by inflammatory appeals, the people to murder
+the Government and the Queen--yet this would be, according to Mr.
+Hetherington, only free inquiry! The Defendant had said that Mr. Haslam
+was a Socialist; now the Socialists held an opinion that marriage was an
+institution that ought to be abolished. If a man, under that plea, were
+to recommend the seduction of his neighbour’s wife or daughter--would
+any one contend that such opinions should be published with impunity?
+yet the Defendant considers this the free investigation of opinions; and
+to prosecute a blasphemous publication, he says, is to prevent freedom
+of opinion. No one wished to interfere with Mr. Hetherington’s private
+opinion. The policeman, when he went to Mr. Hetherington’s shop to
+purchase the numbers, did not inquire as to his particular belief. If
+there were persons so unfortunate as to disbelieve the Scriptures--which
+were the foundation of our holy religion--the law did not interfere with
+them so long as they kept their opinions to themselves, and did not
+publicly attack the authenticity of the Bible. Mr. Hetherington had
+spoken of the effect of prosecution in extending the sale of such
+publications, alluding particularly to the _Poor Man’s Guardian_; but
+he, the Attorney-General, called upon the Jury to do their duty by
+bringing? to punishment those who outraged the law, that others might be
+deterred from offending. If the Jury looked at the immoral tendency of
+such writings, and the doctrines of non-responsibility laid down by Mr.
+Hetherington, who declared that he was neither responsible for his
+belief, nor his actions--
+
+Mr. Hetherington here interrupted, declaring that the Attorney-General
+was acting most unfairly towards him. He never used such language, but
+quite the contrary; what he maintained was, that he was not responsible
+for his _belief_ but that he _was responsible for his_ actions. If he
+injured a friend, a neighbour, or a fellow-citizen, he was amenable to
+society for the injury done. The Attorney-General, he contended, was not
+replying to him, but perverting his arguments and misrepresenting facts.
+
+Lord Denman said that he agreed with the Defendant in the first
+instance, and therefore he thought he was justified in putting the
+Attorney-General right; but the Attorney-General, he thought, was
+entitled to make any remarks upon facts which came out in evidence.
+
+Mr. Hetherington (with great vehemence).--But he is mis-stating facts,
+and making statements calculated to mislead the Jury.
+
+Lord Denman.--You must not interrupt.
+
+The Defendant.--But my liberty is at stake, and I will speak. (Applause
+at the back of the court, which was instantly suppressed by the
+officers.)
+
+Lord Denman.--You shall be heard in correction of anything you may think
+a misrepresentation, afterwards; not in reply, but merely in correction.
+
+The Defendant.--Thank you, my Lord.
+
+The Attorney-General observed, that the Defendant denied being the
+publisher, but he would convince the Jury that he was, by reading the
+title to them. He then read the title of the book--omitting the
+publisher’s name, and reading the name of the Defendant only, till Mr.
+Hetherington insisted upon his rending the whole title as
+follows:--"Letters to the Clergy of all Denominations, showing the
+Errors, Absurdities, and Irrationalities of their Doctrines. By C. J.
+Haslani. Fourth Edition. Manchester: A. Heywood. 56 and 60, Oldham
+Street. London*; Hetherington, 126, Strand; Cleave, Shoe Lane, Fleet
+Street; Watson, City Road, Finsbury; and J. Guest, Birmingham; and all
+Booksellers in Town and Country."
+
+The Attorney-General then proceeded.--Conceive, gentlemen, a servant or
+an apprentice reading this work where the institution of private
+property was said to be the great evil of society--would he feel any
+compunction at appropriating the goods or money of his employer to his
+own use? Would he not find arguments in this work to justify him in his
+iniquity? Mr. Hetherington had taken credit to himself for disinterested
+motives, but he feared that he was actuated by mercenary
+motives--looking only to emolument--careless of the effect it might have
+on the morals of the unthinking working-classes.(1) He called upon the
+Jury, by the oaths they had taken on the Holy Gospel--which this book
+blasphemously attacked--to consider the effect of a verdict of
+acquittal, and to do their duty to the public. By such a verdict they
+would license the most infamous attacks on the Holy Scriptures, and
+would loosen the bonds which held society together.
+
+    1. This comes well from a gentleman who descended from his high
+    professional position to attend at the Old Bailry, for a fee of
+    £. 100, to plead for a man charged with murder.
+
+Mr. Hetherington explained that it was the custom of the trade to place
+the name of any bookseller, with whom the real publisher did business,
+on the title-page of the book, and that his name had been so placed by
+Mr. Hey-wood, of Manchester, the real publisher, without his knowledge.
+Mr. Heywood was the original publisher; he received no punishment, and
+was now at liberty.
+
+Lord Denman, in summing up, observed, that the law considered the vendor
+of a work the publisher of it, and that consequently he must be held
+responsible. It had also been constantly laid down that blasphemy was an
+offence at common law. In the Defendant’s defence, TO WHICH HE HAD
+LISTENED WITH FEELINGS OF GREAT INTEREST, AYE, WITH SENTIMENTS OF
+RESPECT TOO, he had complained of the hardship of a general publisher
+being held responsible for the contents of all the works he might sell,
+but he had himself answered that argument by the conduct which he stated
+he pursued with regard to obscene and personally libellous publication,
+and from the title-page of this work it was scarcely possible not to be,
+in some measure, aware of its contents. Discussions on a subject, even
+the most sacred, might be tolerated when they were conducted in a fair
+spirit; but when appeals were made not to reason but to the bad feelings
+of human nature, or where ridicule or invective were had recourse to, it
+could not be considered discussion. As to the impolicy of these sort of
+prosecutions that was a question with which they had nothing to do; the
+only question for them to determine was, whether the publication in
+question was a blasphemous libel, and whether it had been published by
+the Defendant.
+
+The Jury immediately returned a verdict of Guilty.
+
+The Attorney-General prayed the immediate judgment of the Court.
+
+Lord Denman.--I think the passing sentence had better be deferred, until
+we have had the opportunity of considering the subject.
+
+The Defendant then retired, and the Court adjourned.
+
+
+
+
+OBSERVATIONS
+
+
+The renewal of a series of Government prosecutions for alleged
+blasphemy, will justify me in accompanying the publication of the
+foregoing trial with a few words of comment.
+
+The points upon which I deem it my duty to animadvert--are the conduct
+of the Government, the Attorney-General, and the Jury.
+
+I consider that the Government have acted towards me, in this
+prosecution, in a very unjustifiable manner. They first placed Mr.
+Cleave on his trial for selling the fifth, eighth, and thirteenth
+numbers of Haslam’s Letters. He pleaded _Not Guilty_, but was convicted
+(after an able and convincing speech from his-Counsel, Mr. Chambers), by
+as stupid a Jury as ever sat in judgment on an honest man. The Judge
+sentenced him to four months’ imprisonment, and a fine of £20. Such was
+the force of public opinion, however, on the injustice and impolicy of
+such prosecutions, that Mr. Cleave was liberated, upon paying the fine,
+after five weeks’ imprisonment.
+
+The trial of Mr. Heywood, the original publisher, came next. His known
+integrity and respectability had attached to him many influential
+friends, who represented to the Government the folly and injustice of
+these proceedings, and Lord Normanby at length yielded to their
+importunities, by agreeing, on condition that he pleaded guilty, that
+Mr. Heywood’s prosecution should proceed no further. Mr. Heywood
+complied, and was left at liberty, on entering into his own
+recognizances, to appear when called upon.
+
+Public opinion unequivocally declared that such prosecutions were
+indefensible, and it was very generally believed that the Government
+would abandon them from a conviction of their injustice and impolicy.
+Instead of which they proceeded against me for selling the same numbers
+of the identical work that Messrs. Cleave and Heywood had been
+prosecuted for selling, though the punishment of Mr. Cleave was
+remitted, and the Government compounded blasphemy in the case of Mr.
+Heywood. To injure and annoy honest and industrious tradesmen, because
+the author of a book has in two or three instances expressed his ideas
+in vulgar and objectionable phraseology, is unworthy of an enlightened
+Government. I feel pity for the Jury who could ignorantly pronounce a
+verdict of guilty against a man who never wilfully injured a
+fellow-creature, merely because he had sold a book that combated the
+established opinions of the day; but I entertain very different
+sentiments against the Government that could institute and carry forward
+prosecutions of this nature, when, from their superior knowledge, they
+must be fully aware of the iniquity of their proceedings. They encourage
+"reason and free inquiry," while it favours their objects; and they
+persecute and ruin all those, who, by the exercise of reason and free
+inquiry, arrive at conclusions adverse to the established opinions of
+society. The time has passed, however, for a renewal of persecution for
+matters of opinion. No Government can stand that will attempt it; and I
+tell Her Majesty’s Government, that when they interfere with the
+religious or anti-religious opinions of the people, they step out of
+their province,--and to inflict punishment upon either the original
+publisher or the general bookseller, who supplies all works to order,
+for the opinions contained in the works they respectively publish or
+sell, is an odious act of tyranny that good men of every opinion should
+denounce and oppose. I, for one, will never sanction or submit to such
+tyranny. Whether any and what sentence will be passed upon me I know
+not; but I have made up my mind that I will maintain, at all risks, and
+under every privation, to the utmost extent of my ability and means, the
+right of all men to freely publish their opinions upon every subject of
+general interest--whether social, political, or religious; aye, or
+anti-religious,--and if the Government would receive a suggestion from
+me, I would suggest to them to take their stand on this glorious
+principle--perfect freedom is the formation AS PUBLICATION OF OPINIONS
+FOR EVERY SECT AND PARTY. That is the most effectual way to elicit truth
+upon all subjects; and I would respectfully ask them, whether they ever
+knew the truth injure any sect or party that was disposed to act
+honestly?
+
+I hope the Government will reflect upon the injustice and impolicy of
+this new crusade against the free expression of opinion, adopt my
+suggestion, and abandon all prosecutions against those who honestly
+controvert the received opinions of society.
+
+Having now expressed my feelings with regard to the conduct of the
+Government, I must say a word or two respecting the behaviour of the
+learned Attorney-General towards me, on my trial. He made very few
+observations in opening the case, but reserved himself for his Reply; a
+privilege which I think he was not entitled to, as I called no
+witnesses. Had I anticipated he would have claimed the privilege of
+reply, and abused it in the shameful manner that he did, I could have
+overthrown, by witnesses, the false impression which he so unjustly
+laboured to establish on the minds of the Jury--that I was the publisher
+of the work, because my name was affixed to the book first of the London
+agents. What is the object of a reply? It is to answer the facts and
+arguments adduced by the Defendant; to show that he has reasoned
+illogically; and to point out to the Jury, succinctly and clearly* the
+points in which he has failed to answer the charge laid against him in
+the indictment. In addition, however, to this base attempt to hold me up
+to the Jury as the original publisher, the Attorney-General obviously
+sought to make the Jury believe--(and there is every reason to think
+that he triumphed in this his unjust attempt to injure me)--that I
+claimed immunity not only for my belief but my actions, When I insisted
+upon setting him right, by showing him the utter falsehood of his
+assertion, in which I was supported by Lord Chief Justice Denman, he
+treacherously aimed at fixing upon me the consequences of doctrines to
+which I had not even adverted in my speech, and which had no reference
+whatever to the subject then before the Court. He basely insinuated that
+I was virtually claiming immunity for all acts of aggression--such as
+robbery, murder, seduction, unjustifiable rebellion, and assassination
+of the Queen; striving to raise in the minds of the Jury a confusion
+between the right of freedom of opinion and the wrong of licentious
+action! This, too, was slanderously repeated, after my open appeal to
+the Court against such malignity; and this the learned Attorney-General
+calls availing himself of his privilege of reply! I was not allowed to
+answer these falsehoods of the Attorney-General; though, as the accused
+party, I was in justice, if not in law, entitled to every opportunity of
+making the truth apparent to the Jury.
+
+As to the Jury--What shall I say of them? I can only pity men who
+exhibited such woful ignorance and imbecility as to be led away by
+misrepresentations that had not even the appearance of truth. Let me ask
+the Jury one simple question. They were bound by their oath to give a
+true verdict according to the evidence. Now let me ask them, was there
+any evidence of BLASPHEMY?
+
+The evidence adduced merely proved the sale of a certain book. There was
+no evidence that the contents of the book were blasphemous. This
+question--(that is to say, the very question in dispute--the question
+whether or not there was any blasphemy)--this question was decided by
+Judge and Jury without an iota of evidence, without even an attempt at
+any evidence bearing Upon it. The opinions of the Judge and Jury decided
+the question of the indictment---Was there blasphemy or no! There was no
+evidence at all upon it. Gentlemen of the Jury--common and special--was
+your verdict in accordance with the EVIDENCE brought forward for your
+enlightened consideration--was your verdict in accordance with the terms
+of your oath? The verdict to which I was entitled from honest and
+reasoning men was the following:--either a direct "Not Guilty of
+blasphemy"--or this, "Guilty of selling a certain book concerning the
+nature of which wc=e have had no evidence"--matters of opinion not
+being, in fact susceptible of evidence.
+
+  H. HETHERINGTON.
+
+I cannot close these Observations without tendering my best thanks to
+the editor of _The Sun_ for the zeal and ability with which, in a
+succession of leading articles, he defended the right of Free Inquiry
+and the Free Publication of Opinions. The _Morning Chronicle_ published
+an impartial report of the Trial, and gave a good leading article on the
+subject. The _Morning Advertiser_ and the _Weekly Chronicle_ also
+published a fair report of the Trial. The _Weekly Dispatch_ and The
+_Statesman_ are both entitled to thanks for their advocacy of Truth and
+Liberty, in reference to the principle contended for in my Defence. The
+three Letters of Publicola, in The _Weekly Dispatch_, are invaluable;
+and I regret that I cannot find room for the whole of them in this
+pamphlet, without considerably enhancing its price and defeating my own
+object of extensive circulation for my Trial. They are worthy of a
+distinct publication. I can only fill up the space I have left by the
+insertion of the following excellent article from _The Sun_ of Friday,
+December the 11th, 1840, and Publicola’s Letter to Lord Chief Justice
+Denman.--H. H.
+
+
+
+
+Extract from The Sun Newspaper
+
+
+We brought evidence yesterday to show that the suppression of objections
+to the Scriptures by penal enactments is tyrannical, unjust, and absurd,
+and that the law is partially administered. If we return to the subject,
+it is from a deep sense of its almost immeasurable importance. Our whole
+internal A policy, nearly, is framed with a view to support the Church.
+The Church is founded, or rather pretends to be founded, on the Bible;
+but we are now told by the decision of the Jury on Tuesday, that it is a
+crime to object to its statements. The happiness of society, then, is to
+be chained and bound by principles and doctrines, which society must not
+examine; for if men must not object, what is the use of examination?
+
+"We see disorder pervading every part of society. The poor are set
+against the rich, and the rich are zealously engaged in oppressing and
+coercing the poor. Crime increases, and though more churches are
+building, religion is decaying. The remedies suggested for our
+disorders, within the bounds sanctioned by the Church, are more numerous
+than the disorders themselves; but though confusion and anarchy threaten
+us, the law forbids men to say aught against principles which our rulers
+have followed, while society has been brought into its present
+condition.
+
+"What the law now decrees against what it calls blasphemy, it decreed,
+not two centuries ago, against witchcraft. It now denounces the former
+as displeasing to God; it then denounced the latter for the same
+offence. Men and women were in those less humane days burned for
+displeasing God, while now they are only fined and incarcerated. By the
+progress of knowledge, lawyers, both barristers and judges, have been
+compelled to give up that portion of the perfection of human reason, and
+the law against witchcraft has become obsolete. If our view of the law
+for suppressing objections to the Scriptures, under * the name of
+blasphemy, be correct, it is not more reasonable than the law against
+witchcraft. While no lawyer, however, will now lend himself to revive
+the latter or carry it into execution, there are numbers, we say it to
+the disgrace of the profession, zealous and eager to apply the former,
+at least to the penny tracts which are addressed to the poor.
+
+"It is therefore with deep regret that we saw so eminent a man as the
+Attorney-General lending himself to this sorry work. We are ready to
+admit, as a Tory contemporary has stated, that he has done his duty, and
+he finds his reward in the praise of the Tories. Nor did he show, as far
+as we can learn, certainly not in his reply, any reluctance to perform
+it; people say he did it as if he had something to atone for, and was
+rather eager to gain the approbation of Bishop Philpotts. His labours
+were crowned with a success which his own party reprobate. In
+Westminster Hall he has triumphed, but an appeal lies from that to the
+world; and even the Whigs, who have heretofore denounced prosecutions
+for blasphemy as for witchcraft, consider that in the last resort he
+will sustain a terrible defeat.
+
+"Mr. Hetherington has already suffered in body and mind, in purse and
+health; and probably awaits with apprehension the sentence, which may
+consign him to prison and ruin. He is down-stricken by the law; but
+those who have read his defence, and prefer reason to legal fictions,
+will place him far above the triumphant Attorney-General. He made an
+admirable pleading for free inquiry, which plain John Campbell
+instituted a prosecution to suppress. In his reply Sir John so far
+overstepped the bounds of propriety, that the Defendant would not allow
+him to proceed, and was supported by the Court. In a bad cause the
+Attorney-General used poisoned weapons. He upheld a prosecution for
+blasphemy, which is as ridiculous as a prosecution for witchcraft, and
+descended to misrepresent the accused. With our opinion of the law he
+was enforcing, we are bound to say that Sir John Campbell should have
+left such a duty to be performed by some taker of a half-guinea fee, who
+never got beyond the precincts of the Old Bailey. It was wholly unworthy
+of an eminent lawyer, who has risen into political power as a professed
+friend of free discussion. The slaves to lust have some pleasure for
+their punishment, but the servants of the grimgribber of Westminster
+Hall, who sacrifice present fame to a sense of duty to it, reap little
+more than disgrace for their nauseous drudgery.
+
+"Sir John Campbell prosecuted Mr. Hetherington, in the language of the
+indictment, for being ’a wicked, impious, and ill-disposed person,
+having no regard to the laws of this realm, but most wickedly,
+blasphemously, impiously, and profanely devising and intending to
+asperse and vilify that part of the Holy Bible which is called the Old
+Testament.’ Now, having no respect whatever for the fictions of the law,
+we have no hesitation in branding such accusations of a publisher as a
+monstrous tissue of falsehoods, and to affirm that it is a disgrace to
+any man who has the least respect for truth, to defend such a charge. We
+care not about its being the customary language of the law, for truth
+and men’s liberties are not to be sacrificed by and for such
+absurdities.
+
+"Further, this said aspersing and vilifying the Bible is said by Sir J.
+Campbell, at least such is the language of the indictment, which he used
+arguments to sustain, to be greatly ’to the displeasure of Almighty
+God.’ Who knows that? What worm dares to say that the Almighty God is
+displeased with another worm for uttering or writing a few words.’ Who
+is the vain and arrogant man that claims for himself the task of
+interpreting the thoughts of the Most High, and demanding that a man be
+punished for having displeased Almighty God? What name does the Court
+deserve which, being instituted to do justice and protect the people,
+punishes one of them because he displeases the Almighty? Can He not
+punish those who displease Him? To doubt it, to undertake to protect or
+avenge Him, to describe Him as displeased, while he showers prosperity
+and contentment on the man said to displease Him, is far more impious,
+more blasphemous, more dangerous to religion than anything Mr.
+Hetherington ever published, or Mr. Haslam wrote. Such, however, was the
+crime charged against Mr. Hetherington, which Sir John Campbell
+endeavoured to substantiate, and of which a Jury, who are as much
+deserving of reproach as the prosecutor, found him guilty. Such is the
+crime for which the Court will hereafter pass sentence, undertaking,
+like the Inquisition, to decide for the Almighty, and punish actions as
+displeasing to Him, at which He, by the course of nature, shows no
+displeasure.
+
+"At the present time, when a great portion of the Whig press will
+support the Attorney-General or be silent, leaving _The Sun_ to defend
+the great principle of free inquiry and free printing, as they left it
+to defend the same sacred and noble cause when it was assailed in the
+person of Mr. Harmer, we think it our duty not to be silent. As we
+should assail any Tory Attorney-General who had instituted such a
+prosecution, or carried it on, so we cannot allow it to pass
+unstigmatized because it has been instituted by a Whig Attorney-General.
+We know that the wisest and best politicians of the party deprecate such
+proceedings, and not the less because they will call forth in many
+independent journals, to the injury of the Whigs, an expression of
+honest indignation."
+
+
+
+
+"TO LORD DENMAN, ON THE LATE PROSECUTION FOR BLASPHEMY
+
+
+Mr Lord Chief Justice.
+
+"Your conduct on the Bench, upon the recent trial, ’The Queen v.
+Hetherington,’ for a religious libel, a nominal and an impossible
+offence, the fiction of fraudulent bigotry, has much increased the high
+esteem in which you have been always held by the public. Your Lordship’s
+opinions on this impolitic, irreligious, and thoroughly infamous species
+of prosecution have oft-times been expressed with the integrity and high
+moral courage that have ever distinguished your public life. I never
+shall forget the manliness with which I heard you avow from the Whig
+Treasury Benches, in the House of Commons, in your place as Attorney
+General, your detestation of indictments for religious opinions; and the
+House hailed you when you fairly acknowledged your deep regret that, as
+Common Serjeant, you had been obliged, in obedience to your oath and to
+the law, to impose even the smallest punishment possible upon three men
+convicted by an ignorant Jury of a libel on the Scriptures; and you were
+still more cheerfully received when you expressed your joy at the
+liberation of the prisoners whom you had so unwillingly punished. There
+was one part of your speech that did not certainly satisfy me. I respect
+your sense of obligation to an oath; but when you punished men whom you
+conscientiously believed to be undeserving of infliction, and this ’in
+obedience to the law,’ your Lordship might have reflected, that it was
+not Parliamentary, but Judge-made law--’Common-law,’ as it is called;
+and you might have acted upon the principle that if a corrupt and
+ignorant Judge made a law to suit the prejudices of a brutal age, a pure
+and well-informed Judge might reverse that law in favour of an age more
+humane and more enlightened. I recollect with great satisfaction that
+when, in the case of Lord Langford, the Counsel, Mr. Thesiger, asked a
+witness (Mr. Nathan, a Jew) ’what religion he was of?’ your Lordship
+expressed your strong displeasure; and, under your Lordship’s sanction,
+the witness refused to answer the interrogatory, and treated both the
+query and the querist with the utmost contempt; and the whole Court and
+audience seemed strongly to approve of the result. In the recent trial
+your Lordship’s conduct was a contrast to that of your immediate
+predecessors on the Bench, Lords Tenterden and Ellenborough, the last
+representatives of a most disgraceful school of political, prejudiced,
+corrupt Court Judges. You did all in your power to induce the Jury to
+acquit the accused. I am now credibly informed that the Attorney-General
+had the same object at heart; and having, intentionally, gone in a most
+slovenly and unimpressive manner, through his technical duty, he was
+abashed and mortified when he heard the verdict of guilty. Familiar as
+he must be with the extreme ignorance, stupidity, and corruption of
+Juries, on such occasions, he was still surprised at such a verdict. I
+am willing to give him credit for these common reports in his favour;
+but should the Government be so infatuated as to bring the defendant up
+for judgment, the country expects of you, my Lord Denman, that the
+sentence will be nominal, and that it will be accompanied by your
+reprobation of all such trials.
+
+"If it be true that hope is the last passion that leaves a man, equally
+true is it that the spirit, the accursed spirit of religious
+persecution, is the last passion that man deserts, or is willing to
+abandon. I sincerely believe that if the alternative were put to a
+hundred dying men, at their last, moment of consciousness, at their last
+gasp of breath, whether they preferred their own future salvation or
+beatitude, or the persecution of man upon earth for conscientious
+differences of opinion on religious subjects, full ninety-nine out of
+the hundred would choose the latter, on the ground of its being the
+turnpike-road to the former, and from the inherent delight in the spirit
+of religious intolerance. Fanaticism is the primeval curse of our
+nature. From its first victim Abel, to the present hour, it has raged
+through the human race. Moral sins and physical or corporeal diseases in
+the course of ages wear themselves out, or can be cured by instruction
+or medical treatment; but the most foul, leprous, and crime-engendering
+of all maladies that flesh is heir to, fanaticism--call it if you
+please, bigotry or superstition--admits of no cure, and of little
+mitigation. If this hellhound were now let loose from the restraints of
+law, we should in one year have every gaol and dungeon full of
+prisoners, and in another, the fires and faggots of the olden times
+would be raging more fiercely than of yore, and more furiously in this
+country than in any other. Whatever Catholics might have been in the
+middle ages, there has been more of religious persecution in Great
+Britain and Ireland, in the last century, than in all the Catholic
+countries of Europe within the same period. On the Continent the spirit
+is on the wane; in England it is on the increase.
+
+"My Lord Denman, in the very abstraction of our individual nature, and
+of the nature of society, a court of justice cannot take cognizance of
+opinions. Its functions are confined exclusively to facts. Can any two
+classes of things be more distinct and opposite? The one is fixed, the
+other perpetually varying. Law, cultivated reason and common sense have
+rescued subjects of opinion from judicial interference, except with
+respect to politics and religion, the two which of all others most need
+the exemption. The interference of courts of justice with religious
+opinions had immensely decreased, and it is now reviving; but it is in
+your Lordship’s power to annihilate it by passings nominal sentence on
+the defendant. The effects or results of a fact are ascertainable; those
+of an opinion are but speculative and uncertain. There is not in
+existence, there never has existed, and probably never can exist, a
+religious opinion that has not been deemed blasphemous, and of a
+destructive tendency to morals and social peace, by its opponents, who,
+if they had been strong enough, have relied upon the arguments of
+torture and death, or punishments as severe as society would permit.
+
+"My Lord, legism, or jurisprudence, are sufficiently understood to
+render it indisputable that punishments cannot be vindicatory or
+retrospective, and less than either, vindictive. All religious
+prosecutions seek only for revenge. The object of a legal punishment
+relates solely to the prevention of the offence. If a sentence against
+Mr. Hetherington cannot effect this object, it cannot be justified. Will
+a sentence alter his opinions? will it alter conscientiously that of any
+class or single member of society? and, above all, will it stop or check
+the dissemination of his doctrines? The two first points are nugatory;
+the last is defeated in its pretended object. All history and experience
+prove that persecution, let its form or degree be what it may, increases
+that which it is meant to destroy. Whether the tyrant be called Pope or
+Inquisition, Attorney-General or Court of Queen’s Bench, the principle
+and the result are the same.
+
+"Every religion, church, and sect, that exists or is defunct, in Europe
+and in Asia, from the earliest record, has had at its origin, and
+through its infancy, to encounter obloquy and persecution. The Jewish
+religion received animation and vigour from the contempt and cruelties
+of surrounding polytheists, and the Jews sought in one God a protection
+from the horrors which had been inflicted on them by the worshippers of
+many; and well did this atrocious people revenue themselves 011 their
+former persecutors, and this by assuming their own claim to the right of
+punishing men for differing in opinions. The progress of Christianity
+was accelerated by the Jews, in their attempts to crush it by inflicting
+an ignominious and most cruel death on an innocent individual, under
+that absurd fiction of blasphemy, in the foul name of which your
+Lordship is now called upon to punish, against your will, another
+innocent individual. If blasphemy has any meaning, its definition must
+be--’a resistance to a predominant priestcraft.’ Every religion, at its
+commencement, is but a confluent mass of blasphemies to the
+previously-established religions; and persecution is the reverse of
+annihilation, Where would Protestantism have been but for its
+persecution by the Catholics, and _vice versa_? From the dawn of
+Protestantism in England, under Wycliffe, and the burning of the first
+Protestants by the priests, in the reign of the Hero of Agincourt (what
+a hero!) down to the death of Mary, English Protestants were tortured,
+burnt, hanged, and punished, and yet the religion spread. Throughout
+Germany the same effects proceeded from the same cause. Our English
+persecutions of the Catholics in Ireland have been long, incessant, and
+too dreadfully cruel to reflect upon, and yet Catholicism has increased
+under them. We have not one respectable sect in England that has not
+arisen in despite of persecution, and increased by means of it, and
+these, with hundreds or thousands of other instances (for history
+abounds with them), prove that persecution or punishment does not, and
+cannot, effect the object in view; and that, consequently, punishment
+cannot be justified by its only legitimate principle of
+justification--utility. It is madness to punish for an offence which
+must be increased by the very nature of the punishment. Formerly, in
+punishments for blasphemy, men, women, and children were burnt and put
+to every variety of torture, for the good of their souls--now, we
+substitute for the word soul, the phrase--’_the security of society_,’
+or other jargon equally nonsensical. The Court of Inquisition was, and
+is, wherever it exists, more honourable than the Protestant Court of
+Queen’s Bench, for the Inquisitors tortured and destroyed for the sake
+of the soul, but our Courts punish only for the profit of the priest.
+The old plea, the impudent and barbarous plea, of ’Benefit of Clergy,’
+is annulled by law, and yet an indictment for blasphemy is nothing more
+or less than a process for the ’Benefit of Clergy.’ Thus, my Lord, have
+I humbly attempted to prove that your punishment of this individual will
+be in strong and violent opposition to the principles, opinion, and
+feelings which you have avowed on the Ministerial Benches of the House
+of Commons; and if the Whig Administration is so infatuatedly base as to
+call the defendant up for punishment your Lordship will be in the
+unenviable position of passing a sentence, as Lord Chief Justice of
+England, against the nature, principles, and objects of which you have
+expressed little less than abhorrence in the character of Her Majesty’s
+Attorney-General in the House of Commons. At that period, my Lord, you
+were the freely and most honourably chosen representative of one of the
+largest and most enlightened constituencies of Great Britain--the town
+of Nottingham--and your constituents expressed no dissatisfaction at
+your speech. Is there not a sympathy between Nottingham and other large,
+and populous, aud enlightened towns and cities, and between them all and
+the general population of the empire? I have likewise, my Lord, shown,
+to the best of my very humble abilities, as a legist, that any
+punishment inflicted on this individual, violates the only principle on
+which all punishments can be justified--the prevention of the
+offence--if it be one.
+
+"What, in other respects, will be the effects of this brutal
+prosecution? Burn Mr. Hetherington alive,--slowly roast him, torture him
+by every device, hang him, quarter him, and stick his head on
+Temple-bar, and his quarters on the gates of four of our principal
+cathedral towns, as in all such cases used to be the practice of our
+most pious Christian ancestors in ’the good old times’--or let your
+Lordship pass the most lenient sentence on him, and what will be the
+result? Will any thing be proved, disproved, strengthened, or
+invalidated, by either mode of punishment? If divines or laymen argue
+upon the Scriptures _in toto_ or in parts, _en masse_ or in detail,
+could any of the disputants establish his point by arguing that Mr.
+Hetherington or Mr. Snookes, for the names are indifferent, was or was
+not in gaol, or that the sentence was six days’ or six months’
+incarceration--how would the case stand syllogistically? A asserts that
+the Bible ought to be burnt--A is not prosecuted--ergo, the Bible ought
+to be burnt. B asserts that the Bible ought to be burnt--B is
+prosecuted--B is acquitted by the Jury--ergo, the Bible ought to be
+burnt. C asserts that the Bible ought to be burnt--C is prosecuted--C is
+found guilty--ergo, the Bible ought not to be burnt. Again, D, E, F, and
+G, are prosecuted for saying that the Bible ought to be burnt. They are
+all found guilty under different Judges, and their sentences vary from
+three, six, twelve, and eighteen months’ imprisonment. Here the public
+mind is in utter confusion between the cases of A, B, and C, and between
+the ratios of punishment inflicted on D, E, F, and G, I have gone to the
+extent of the musical gamut. Ratios might be calculated by
+arithmeticians aud algebraists. Thus--’As burning the Bible is to the
+acquittal of B,--so is not burning the Bible to the sentence on D, E, F,
+or G." Really, my Lord, as a man of the most cultivated intellect, you
+must see the monstrous absurdity, the atrocious cruelty, of subjecting
+opinions on Scriptures to ’Trial by Jury.’ If opinions on a book are to
+be brought before a Jury, so might its author. I speak in no disrespect
+of Scriptures, but I speak in utter disgust and abhorrence of bringing
+them before Juries. What, in fact, does a verdict of ’Guilty’ or ’Not
+Guilty’ amount to, in case of an opinion on the Scriptures? The ignorant
+Jury men unwittingly set themselves above the Scriptures, and tyrannise
+over the Deity himself. The impiety lies all in the Jury, and not in the
+accused. The trial my Lord, proceeds entirely on the conceded point that
+the Scriptures are the word of God; a word is an empty, unintelligible,
+worthless sound, except by the interpretation put upon it; and if the
+Jury will be the interpreters, they are the authors of the word, and
+usurp the powers of the Deity. God may say ’this is my word and
+commandment,’ and a Jury replies, ’the substance utility,
+intelligibility of a word depend entirely upon the meaning attached to
+it, and we Jurymen will put and make all other men put what construction
+we please, upon it, under pains and penalties, so that the word is not
+yours, but ours.’ A Defendant may argue, ’my construction is a matter
+between my conscience and my God.’ The verdict replies, ’God has nothing
+to do with it; your construction is entirely a case between your
+conscience and us Jurymen, stock-brokers, bill-brokers, pawnbrokers,
+gambling-house-keepers, and, peradventure, keepers of houses of a still
+worse description.’ My Lord Denman, the manly character of your mind
+will make you fearlessly grapple with this important subject, and will
+induce your Lordship to feel that I have as fearlessly and as honestly
+stated the merits of the case. Pause, my Lord, before you ruin, and
+almost torture a man, for whose defence you have expressed respect from
+the Judgment-seat, and this by a sentence for the nature and principles
+of which you have publicly and officially declared an abhorrence.
+
+"Our laws, Lord Denman, lay down a principle that every man is presumed
+to be acquainted with the business, profession, or study to which he
+belongs, or to which he has devoted himself. The converse--a most
+rational converse, is that he is unacquainted with what he does not
+belong to, or has not studied; or, in plain terms, that he is
+unacquainted with that of which he knows nothing. Sir Isaac Newton would
+have been a most ignorant Juryman upon a case resting upon the details
+of business in the butter trade of Cork; and a Mr. Jones, in that trade,
+would be an equally ignorant Juryman on a case involving the complex
+observations and abstract calculations of Sir Isaac’s Observatory.
+Shakspeare, as a Juryman, would have been puzzled to determine a
+disputed point of commerce; and a tradesman would be as equally
+perplexed in deciding a point upon the machinery of Arkwright, or the
+steam-engine of Watts. In the present case, a man named Haslam, (but the
+name is immaterial, for I apply myself to abstractions and not to
+individuals,) has devoted himself to the study of a subject. He is
+evidently a man of strong mind, of great knowledge, and of the most
+honest intentions. On many points I differ with him, but individual or
+public difference is not the case at issue. His very able work is
+submitted, not to the public mind, but to ’Trial by Jury;’ and its
+merits or demerits are determined upon by merchants, brokers, tradesmen.
+
+"Our laws, Lord Denman, lay down a principle that every man is presumed
+to be acquainted with the business, profession, or study to which he
+belongs, or to which he has devoted himself. The converse-a most
+rational converse, is that he is unacquainted with what he does not
+belong to, or has not studied; or, in plain terms, that he is
+unacquainted with that of which he knows nothing. Sir Isaac Newton would
+have been a most ignorant Juryman upon a ease resting upon the details
+of business in the butter trade of Cork; and a Mr. Jones, in that trade,
+would be an equally ignorant Juryman on a case involving the complex
+observations and abstract calculations of Sir Isaac’s Observatory.
+Shakspeare, as a Juryman, would have been puzzled to determine a
+disputed point of commerce; and a tradesman would be as equally
+perplexed in deciding a point upon the machinery of Arkwright, or the
+steam-engine of Watts. In the present case, a man named Haslam, (but the
+name is immaterial, for I apply myself to abstractions and not to
+individuals,) has devoted himself to the study of a subject. He is
+evidently a man of strong mind, of great knowledge, and of the most
+honest intentions. On many points I differ with him, but individual or
+public difference is not the case at issue. His very able work is
+submitted, not to the public mind, but to ’Trial by Jury;’ and its
+merits or demerits are determined upon by merchants, brokers, tradesmen
+and jobbing peculating Jurymen called ’Tales.’ as totally ignorant of
+Mr! Haslam’s studies and works, as he most probably is of their
+different lines of traffic. Is this a test of the merits of the case? Is
+this any barometer of the truth of the Gospel, of public feeling, or of
+the intelligence of our population?
+
+"My Lord Denman, the Attorney-General, tried, in the usual slang of his
+profession, or rather of his office, to attach moral imperfection and
+social dangers to speculative points of theology-to points of creed. We
+have now on our Bench, including Ireland and Scotland, Catholic Judges,
+Judges belonging to the Church of England, to the creeds of the
+Baptists, Anabaptists, Unitarians, and to the no-creeds of the Deists,
+and yet what barrister, attorney, or client, ever complained of a Judge
+on account of his creed or his construction of the Scriptures? In
+Ireland we have Catholic Judges, in Scotland Presbyterian, and in
+England Judges of the Clutch, and of every dissenting sect, and yet,
+when in ’Term time,’ a new Trial is moved for, on account of a
+misdirection of a Judge, who ever heard of the misdirection lying
+attached to the Judge’s creed? The Solicitor-General of Ireland is a
+Catholic, the Attorney-General of England is a Presbyterian (if he has
+any religion at all), and the Solicitor-General of England is of the
+Church (the refuge of all sceptics), and what does this amount to with
+respect to the discharge of their duties? Lord Chancellors Shaftesbury
+and Thurlow, and very many others, were avowed Deists, and yet in moving
+the House of Lords to set, their judgment aside, their creeds or
+opinions were never put upon the briefs.
+
+"Let me suppose, my Lord, that our most pious Monarch, George the Third,
+had indicted David Hume, the most perfect, of unofficial characters; or
+Adam Smith, a great benefactor of his species; or Edward Gibbon, the
+most illustrious of historians, for their Atheism or Deism; and let me
+state the fact, that the pious Monarch bestowed upon them all very good,
+and, in one instance, very confidential employments, what difference
+does this make? in either case the men, their public functions, and
+their doctrines, would have been equally at issue with public opinion at
+the present day. The merchant, in reading Adam Smith; the philosopher,
+in studying the superior works of Hume; and the scholar, in tracing
+Gibbon’s magnificent outline and correct details of Roman history, never
+condescend to inquire whether the authors were patronised by a pious or
+an impious monarch, or whether they were indicted by a Presbyterian,
+Episcopalian, or Atheistical Attorney-General--the slave of an order
+from the Secretary of State’s office. This species of scrutiny expired
+years ago, and why should it be revived?
+
+"My Lord Chief Justice Denman, the eyes of the country, and of foreign
+countries, are upon you. The issue of your sentence is the same, except
+to the individual; for, liberate him, you respond but to the voice of
+all enlightened men throughout Europe; incarcerate him, and by passing
+an inhuman sentence upon an innocent man, you enforce a judgment that
+you have promulgated in Parliament to be abhorrent in principles and
+feelings, and this will produce a powerful redaction.
+
+"PUBLICOLA."
+
+                                  ————
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TRIAL OF HENRY HETHERINGTON
+***
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+                    THE TRIAL OF HENRY HETHERINGTON
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost
+no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it
+under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this
+eBook or online at http://www.gutenberg.org/license.
+
+
+Title: The Trial of Henry Hetherington
+
+Author: Henry Hetherington
+
+Release Date: March 05, 2012 [EBook #39055]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TRIAL OF HENRY
+HETHERINGTON ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger.
+
+
+
+
+                   *THE TRIAL OF HENRY HETHERINGTON*
+
+                                  _By_
+
+                          *Henry Hetherington*
+
+                    _On an Indictment for Blasphemy_
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+    A FULL REPORT OF THE TRIAL OF HENRY HETHERINGTON
+    THE TRIAL
+    INDICTMENT
+    Second Count:
+    Third Count:
+    Mr. Bult opened the proceedings
+    DEFENCE
+    OBSERVATIONS
+    Extract from The Sun Newspaper
+    "TO LORD DENMAN, ON THE LATE PROSECUTION FOR BLASPHEMY
+
+
+
+
+A FULL REPORT OF THE TRIAL OF HENRY HETHERINGTON
+
+
+ON AN INDICTMENT FOR BLASPHEMY,
+
+LORD DENMAN AND A SPECIAL JURY,
+
+ON TUESDAY, DECEMBER 8, 1840;
+
+FOR SELLING HASLAM'S LETTERS TO THE CLERGY TO ALL DENOMINATIONS:
+
+THE WHOLE OF THE AUTHORITIES CITED IN THE DEFENCE, AT FULL LENGTH.
+
+LONDON:
+
+PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY HENRY HETHERINGTON, 1-26, STRAND;
+
+AND SOLD BY ALL BOOKSELLERS.
+
+1840
+
+Price Sixpence.
+
+To
+
+JAMES WATSON,
+
+BOOKSELLER,
+
+THE FRIEND OF TRUTH, THE INFIDEL TO ERROR, AND THE LOVER OF LIBERTY,
+
+THIS TRIAL
+
+IS DEDICATED,
+
+IN PROOF OF THE AFFECTIONATE ATTACHMENT THAT SUBSISTS BETWEEN TWO
+FRIENDS, WHO FULLY RECOGNISE AND ACT UPON THE PRINCIPLES AVOWED AND
+CONTENDED FOR IN THE FOLLOWING DEFENCE; AND AS A TRIBUTE OF ESTEEM,
+
+TO GOD'S NOBLEST WORK--AN HONEST MAN!
+
+BY HIS FAITHFUL FRIEND,
+
+HENRY HETHERINGTON.
+
+
+
+
+THE TRIAL
+
+
+COURT OF QUEEN'S BENCH, December 8, 1840.
+
+Sittings at Nisi Prius at Westminster, before Lord DENMAN and a
+Middlesex Special Jury.
+
+PROSECUTION FOR BLASPHEMY.
+
+THE QUEEN Versus HETHERINGTON.
+
+This was a prosecution instituted by Her Majesty's Attorney-General, Sir
+John Campbell, against Henry Hetherington, bookseller, of 126, Strand,
+for the publication of a blasphemous libel.
+
+
+
+
+INDICTMENT
+
+
+Of Easter term, in the Third Year of the Reign of Queen Victoria.
+Middlesex:--
+
+Be it remembered, that on Tuesday, the twenty-eighth day of April, in
+the third year of the reign of our sovereign lady Victoria, by the grace
+of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, Queen,
+Defender of the Faith, in the court of our said lady the Queen, before
+the Queen herself at Westminster, in the county of Middlesex, upon the
+oath of twelve jurors, good and lawful men, of the said county of
+Middlesex, now here sworn and charged to inquire for our said lady the
+Queen for the body of the same county; it is presented as followeth,
+that is to say, Middlesex to wit. The jurors for our lady the Queen upon
+their oath present, that Henry Hetherington, late of Westminster, in the
+county of Middlesex, bookseller, _being a wicked, impious, and
+ill-disposed person_, and having no regard for the laws and religion of
+this realm, but _most wickedly, blasphemously, impiously, and profanely
+devising and intending to asperse and vilify that part of the Holy Bible
+which is called the Old Testament_, on the third day of February, in the
+third year of the reign of our sovereign lady Victoria, by the grace of
+God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, Queen, Defender
+of the Faith, at Westminster aforesaid, in the county aforesaid, did
+publish, and cause to be published, a certain scandalous, impious, and
+blasphemous libel, of and concerning that part of the Holy Bible which
+is called the Old Testament, containing therein, amongst other things,
+divers scandalous, impious, and blasphemous matters of and concerning
+that part of the Holy Bible which is called the Old Testament, according
+to the tenor and effect following, that is to say, "What wretched stuff
+this Bible (meaning that part of the Holy Bible which is called the Old
+Testament) is, to be sure! What a random idiot its author must have
+been! I would advise the human race to burn every Bible they have got.
+Such a book is actually a disgrace to ourang outangs, much less to men.
+I would advise them to burn it, in order that posterity may never know
+we believed in such abominable trash. What must they think of our
+intellects? What must they think of our incredible foolery? And we not
+only believe it, but we actually look upon the book as the sacred word
+of God, as a production of infinite wisdom. Was insanity ever more
+complete? I for one, however, renounce the book; I renounce it as a vile
+compound of filth, blasphemy, and nonsense, as a fraud and a cheat, _and
+as an insult to God,"_ to the great displeasure of Almighty God, to the
+great scandal, infamy, and contempt of that part of the Holy Bible which
+is called the Old Testament, to the evil example of all others, and
+against the peace of our said lady the Queen, her crown, and dignity.
+
+
+
+
+Second Count:
+
+
+And the jurors aforesaid, upon their oath aforesaid, further present,
+that the said Henry Hetherington, devising and intending as aforesaid,
+on the eleventh day of February and year aforesaid, at Westminster
+aforesaid, in the county aforesaid, did publish, and cause to be
+published, a certain other scandalous, impious, and blasphemous libel,
+of and concerning that part of the Holy Bible which is called the Old
+Testament, containing therein, amongst other things, divers scandalous,
+impious, and blasphemous matters of and concerning that part of the Holy
+Bible which is called the Old Testament, according to the tenor and
+effect following, that is to say, "One great question between you and me
+is, 'Is the Bible (meaning that part of the Holy Bible which is called
+the Old Testament) the word of God, or is it not? I assert that it is
+not the word of God, and you assert that it is; and I not only assert
+that it is not the word of God, but that it is a book containing more
+blunders, more ignorance, and more nonsense, than any book to be found
+in the universe," to the great displeasure of Almighty God, to the great
+scandal and contempt of that part of the Holy Bible which is called the
+Old Testament, to the evil example of all others, and against the peace
+of our lady the Queen, lier crown, and dignity.
+
+
+
+
+Third Count:
+
+
+And the jurors aforesaid, upon their oath aforesaid, further present,
+that the said Henry Hetherington, further devising and intending as
+aforesaid, on the day and year last aforesaid, at Westminster aforesaid,
+in the county aforesaid, did publish, and cause to be published, a
+certain other scandalous, impious, and blasphemous libel of and
+concerning that part of the Holy Bible which is called the Old
+Testament, containing therein, among other things, divers scandalous,
+impious, and blasphemous matters of and concerning that part of the Holy
+Bible which is called the Old Testament, in one part thereof, according
+to the tenor and effect following, that is to say, "My object, and I
+fearlessly state it, is to expose this book (meaning that part of the
+Holy Bible which is called the Old Testament) in such a manner, that the
+children of the Stockport Sunday-school will reject it with contempt and
+in another part thereof, according to the tenor and effect following,
+that is to say,
+
+"Such a book (meaning that part of the Holy Bible which is called the
+Old Testament) ought to be rejected by every one. The human race have
+been too long gulled with such trash. Moses was the inventor of this
+grand cheat; and although it may have done some little towards
+frightening people into what is called morality, the purpose for which
+Moses invented it is now out of date,
+
+"to the great displeasure of Almighty God, to the great scandal and
+contempt of that part of the Holy Bible which is called the Old
+Testament, to the evil example of all others, and against the peace of
+our lady the Queen, her crown, and dignity."
+
+[Witness] ALEXANDER KERR,
+
+One sworn in court.
+
+A true Bill.
+
+On the names of the gentlemen summoned as Special Jurymen being called
+over, only five answered to their names.
+
+The Attorney-General prayed a tales, when the following were sworn:--
+
+The Jury.
+
+Special--
+
+Robert Savage, Esq., 11, Montaguplace, Bloomsbury.
+
+James Arboine, merchant, 3, Brunswick-square.
+
+William Fechney Black, merchant, Wilton-place.
+
+Charles Frederick Barnwell, Esq., 44, Woburn-place.
+
+Robert Eglinton, merchant, 29, Woburn-square.
+
+Common Jurors--
+
+Charles Ricketts, stove-maker, 5, Agar-street, West Strand.
+
+William Polden, licensed victualler, Villiers-street, Strand.
+
+John Osborne, confectioner, 401, Strand.
+
+John Johnson Ruffell, painter, 24, Church-street, Soho.
+
+Thomas Reid, baker, 24, Old Compton-street, Soho.
+
+Charles Phillips, ivory brush-maicer, 20, King-street, Soho. J. Mahew,
+baker, 84, Greek-street, Soho.
+
+
+
+
+Mr. Bult opened the proceedings
+
+
+The Attorney-General said, this was an indictment found by the Grand
+Jury of Middlesex, for the publication of certain blasphemous libels. It
+appeared to him that all he should have to do, would be to prove the
+publication of the libels in question. He had not hesitated for one
+moment, when he found there were only five Special Jurymen, to pray a
+tales, because it was to him a matter of perfect indifference from what
+class of society the Jury was taken. It had frequently been laid down by
+the Judges, that to insult and vilify Christianity was against the law.
+Publications insulting religion, and addressed to the vulgar and
+uneducated, were most dangerous. He would call a witness who purchased
+these books in the defendant's shop, the defendant himself being
+present; and he should prove that the defendant was rated to that house.
+It gave him pain that it should be necessary for the Jury to hear such
+shocking attacks as were contained in this publication. It consisted of
+a series of letters, and each number was sold for a penny. It was
+"Letters to the Clergy of all Denominations" and was, in fact, an attack
+upon the Holy Scriptures, particularly on the Old Testament. He should
+content himself with reading one extract.--(The learned Gentleman then
+read an extract from Letter 8, contained in the first count of the
+indictment.) Mr. Hetherington was in person to defend himself: they
+would hear what he had to say, and then he (the Attorney-General) would
+have an opportunity of again addressing them.
+
+The following witness was then called and examined by Sir F. Pollock.
+
+Alexander Kerr, a policeman, bought the "Letters to the Clergy," 5, 8,
+and 13, at the shop of the defendant, 126, Strand, on the 5th of
+February last. A young man served him. Knows defendant--he was standing
+on the threshold of the door at the time; has known him for the last
+three years; has seen him repeatedly at the shop. Paid one penny each
+for the letters.
+
+Cross-examined by Mr. Hetherington.--Did not come in his uniform to
+purchase them. Came from directions he had received, not from any
+reputation the work had acquired. Did not read the fifth number or the
+eighth number of the book purchased at the shop. Stated at the Old
+Bailey, at the trial of Mr. Cleave, that he had read a copy, but not the
+one purchased of defendant. Curiosity induced him to read it. It did not
+shake his opinion--it did not make him burn his Bible; quite the
+opposite. He is a plainly-educated man. Was instructed to purchase all
+he could get at defendant's shop. Purchased other numbers, but did not
+read them. The work produced no effect on him to induce him to follow
+the recommendations of the author.
+
+George Sherwill, collector of poor's-rate for the liberty of the Savoy,
+proved that defendant was rated for No. 126.
+
+The libels were then put in and read: first, No. 8 of "Haslam's Letters
+to the Clergy of all Denominations," then 5 of the same work, and then
+18.
+
+The Attorney-General said, that was the case for the prosecution.
+
+
+
+
+DEFENCE
+
+
+My Lord--Gentlemen of the Jury,
+
+"In rising to vindicate myself from the charge preferred against me in
+this indictment, I shall not attempt to justify the language alluded to
+by the Attorney-General; but I cannot refrain from expressing my
+surprise that the Government, after having encouraged the circulation of
+cheap knowledge upon all subjects,--in Penny Magazines and Penny
+Cyclopaedias,--should have placed me on my trial upon such a flimsy
+charge as this--for flimsy it undoubtedly is, when, out of a work
+comprising nearly 500 pages, the Attorney-General can only find one
+passage,--that in the eighth Letter, which is, I admit, expressed in
+very improper language,--whereon to found an indictment. I contend that
+it is impossible to say where a person is to stop in his inquiries. If a
+person is permitted to reject one tenet, another may reject another; and
+there is no reason why another should not go on, and reject the whole.
+In the whole work there is not one disrespectful word about
+Christianity; it is a rejection of the miracles ascribed to Moses in the
+Old Testament, which have been indignantly rejected by many learned men.
+The work was not intended as a scurrilous attack, but as an inquiry into
+the effects of the usages of society, founded upon the Old Testament.
+The object of Mr. Haslam was benevolent; and however much he might err,
+he was not criminal. He undertook to prove to the clergy that they were
+all in error that the doctrines they are teaching to the people are
+false, absurd, and irrational; that they are directly contrary to
+reason; and that, so long as they are preached to the people, so long
+will the people be vicious, wretched, and unhappy.
+
+"The Attorney-General has only read the objectionable passages: I will
+read a few passages from Mr. Haslam's first Letter, which will enable
+the Jury to understand the nature of his work, and appreciate his
+motives. Having frankly stated his object, he proceeds:--
+
+"You, no doubt, will feel concerned at this; you will very likely be
+angry with me for this daring attempt; you will call me Deist, Atheist,
+Infidel, and many other charitable epithets; you will feel unutterable
+things towards me; and I shall, no doubt, be subject to the _extreme
+charity_ of your _pious_ congregations, who profess to 'love their
+neighbours as themselves,' and into whose minds you have crammed
+absurdity after absurdity, until they have scarcely room for another. I
+shall, no doubt, expose myself to all manner of ill-feeling and
+uncharitableness, and to calumnies and lies of every description; but
+shall these deter me from making known the convictions of iny mind?
+Shall these hinder me from exposing the errors and absurdities which I
+see interested men instilling into the minds of the people? Shall these
+prevent me from telling the people that they are deceived and imposed
+upon, and that their beggary, and want, and wretchedness, are the
+consequences of it? Shall these, in short, stop me from exposing the
+irrationalities which I see everywhere around me, and which occasion so
+much misery and unhappiness to my fellow-men? No, I tell you they shall
+not. That power which sent you into the world, sent me into the world
+also; and if you have a right to think and speak, I have a right to
+think and speak also. I have received an organization for the purpose as
+well as any of you; and as long as that organization remains unimpaired,
+so long will I tell the world what I think and feel.
+
+"Why should any of you be angry with me? If I can prove your doctrines
+to be false and erroneous, what occasion is there for anger? What can
+you want with doctrines that are false? As honest men you ought
+immediately to abandon them. Instead, therefore, of being angry with me,
+you ought to have the very opposite feeling; for of what service can
+error and nonsense be to any man, or any set of men?
+
+"But if I prove that your doctrines are not only false and erroneous,
+but that they occasion a vast amount of mischief to the people; that
+they occasion want and vice, and all manner of wickedness, and that, by
+removing them from the minds of the people, and substituting truths, all
+this want, and vice, and wickedness might be put an end to; if, I say, I
+prove this, why should you be angry with me for doing it? Surely you
+cannot wish the people to remain in a state of want, and vice, and
+wickedness; and yet, if you do not, why should you be angry at me for
+showing you the causes of them, and pointing out the means for their
+removal?
+
+"You talk a great deal about morality and religion; you manifest in your
+pulpits a great anxiety to spread them amongst the people; but who can
+believe you to be sincere, when you resist every attempt to remove the
+causes of immorality and irreligion? You must know that effects cannot
+be removed without removing the causes of them, and by resisting the
+removal of these causes, you evidently show a disposition to keep the
+people in wickedness. This wickedness proceeds from certain causes. We
+have pointed these causes out to you, and if you will not remove them,
+does not that evidently show that you would rather that the people were
+wicked? Can there be conclusions more logical? What ridiculous cant it
+must be then to talk about morality and religion?
+
+"My assumption then is, that the belief of every man is given to him
+_independently of his will_, and that, therefore, no just power can
+punish him for it.
+
+"Your assumption is the opposite of this; you assert that the belief of
+every man depends upon his own will; _that he can either believe in the
+Bible, or not believe in the Bible_; that he can either be Christian or
+Jew, Mahomedan or Infidel, and that, therefore, God will punish him if
+he do not believe in a particular manner.
+
+"These then, are our respective assumptions--and now let reason, 'the
+grand prerogative of man,' determine between us.
+
+"Gentlemen, contrast the spirit of Mr. Haslam in this passage with the
+spirit of my prosecutors. He invokes Reason, 'the grand prerogative of
+man,' to determine between them; the Clergy, on the contrary, resort to
+prosecution to crush a reasoning opponent.
+
+"I beg to inform you that I have read the Bible attentively, and that
+the more I read it the more reason I see for disbelieving it.
+
+"The Bible asserts things which the whole of my senses tell me are
+false; and if my senses are independent of myself, how can I help
+disbelieving it?
+
+"I know that God gave me my senses; but how can I believe God made the
+Bible, when it is directly opposed to these senses? To believe that God
+is the author of both, is to believe that God commits absurdities like
+yourselves; and to ascribe such a paltry and blundering performance as
+the Bible to that power which governs the universe is to dishonour that
+power, if any thing can dishonour it.
+
+"But a man's belief is not only formed independently of his will, but it
+is often formed in direct opposition to it. I, for instance, once
+believed that the principles which I now hold were false; I used to
+argue against them, and even write against them, and my will to
+disbelieve them was so strong, owing to their apparent absurdity, that I
+used to be delighted when I imagined I had discovered a fresh argument
+with which I might overturn them. Continuing, however, to argue, I began
+to see their truth; I saw the principles more clearly; I found I had
+mistaken them very much; and at last I saw into them as clearly, as
+Cobbett used to say, as the sun at noon-day.
+
+"Now here, you see, my will was to disbelieve these principles; but,
+after the process of reasoning was over, I was compelled to alter my
+will. This, then, being the case, was that will free? Could I have
+continued to disbelieve them, when my convictions told me they were
+true? And if I could not, where, I again ask, was my free will?
+
+"Here, then, is reasoning enough to prove the truth of my assumption;
+and now I beg to call your attention to its peculiar effect upon your
+various systems of religion.
+
+"In conclusion, therefore, I beg to call upon you to defend your
+doctrines from the serious charges I have here made, and shall continue
+to make against them. You may either do it by writing, or by verbal
+discussion, whichever you please. But do not continue to act so meanly
+and dishonourably, as to preach doctrines to the people which have over
+and over again been proved to be false and absurd, and which none of you
+are able to defend."
+
+Gentlemen, you will see by these passages that Mr. Haslam appeals to
+reason. He calls upon the Clergy to defend their doctrines, telling them
+they may either do it "by writing, or by verbal discussion." The
+Government, however, disregarded this appeal; they ought to have called
+upon the Bishop of Exeter, and other well-paid bigots of his class, to
+come forward and confute Mr. Haslam. But instead of this they prosecute
+a bookseller, who had never read a line of the book until this
+prosecution. They ought to meet Mr. Haslam with his own weapons; and it
+is disgraceful to the Government, which has always advocated the
+diffusion of cheap knowledge, to submit to the taunts of the Bishop of
+Exeter, and other bigots like him, by instituting these prosecutions for
+blasphemy. However we may disapprove of Haslam's doctrines, we cannot
+but perceive that he is sincere in his belief.
+
+Gentlemen, I will, as I proceed, prove to you that the convictions of a
+tat which he now believes to be true to have been false. Gentlemen, I
+readily admit that the passage in the eighth number is offensively
+worded; but I will prove that the free exercise of the right of inquiry
+is not, and ought not to be, an offence in law. I will also call your
+attention to the hardship of a general bookseller being held responsible
+for every book that he sells, and will call your attention to the oath
+you have taken, and claim from you that acquittal to which I am
+entitled. I claim no exemption from punishment if I sell any obscene
+publication,--anything calculated to corrupt or demoralize society,--or
+any attacks upon a man's private character; but in cases of the
+discussion of abstract truths, is a man to be punished for the
+convictions of his mind, which are not in the power of his will? It is
+too bad to bring a man into a court of justice on account of a few
+solitary passages in a work of this nature.
+
+Gentlemen of the Jury, our great and popular moralist, Dr. Johnson, has
+declared that "Truth is the basis of all excellence." This axiom is so
+clear and indisputable, that no intelligent man can hesitate to adopt
+it. How, then, can the truth, upon the various subjects interesting to
+human beings, be elicited? Not by letting interested men think for us,
+but by judging for ourselves--by collecting and examining facts and
+arguments, and communicating to society the impressions they
+respectively make upon our minds. There is no effectual mode of arriving
+at truth, but by the exercise of the right of free inquiry, and the
+unrestricted publication of the result of such inquiry. This right has
+been deemed of pre-eminent importance from time immemorial, and by men
+of all sects and parties; and although corrupt and tyrannical rulers in
+the past ages of the world have prosecuted honest men, and endeavoured
+to suppress the truth, you will find that in every case to which I shall
+call your attention, the intrepid advocates of truth have ultimately
+triumphed. Now, Gentlemen of the Jury, I will proceed at once to fortify
+myself with a few authorities,--not that I think truth depends upon
+great names, however numerous and illustrious they may be, but because I
+am determined to advance nothing that is not, in my opinion, strictly
+true, and sanctioned and maintained by the greatest intellects of the
+age.
+
+Gentlemen, I will begin with a Bishop.
+
+"God has given us rational faculties to guide and direct us, and we must
+make the most of them that we can; we must judge with our own reasons,
+as well as see with our own eyes; and it would-be very _rash, unmanly,
+and base_ in us to muffle up our own understandings, and deliver our
+reason and faith over to others blindfold."--_Bishop Burnett's
+Thirty-nine Articles_, A. 39.
+
+"Gentlemen of the Jury, will you, by your verdict, consign a man to a
+dungeon, because he is too honest and independent to act a '_rash,
+unmanly, and base_' part? Will you declare, by your verdict, that
+henceforth we shall not '_judge_ with our own reasons, nor _see_ with
+our _own eyes_?' I feel confident you will not.
+
+"_Dr. Whitby_, in his _Last Thoughts_, tells us, "that belief or
+disbelief can neither be a virtue or a crime, in any one who uses the
+best means in his power of being informed.
+
+"If a proposition is _evident_, we cannot avoid believing it; _and where
+is the merit or piety of a necessary assent?_ If it is _not evident_, we
+cannot help rejecting it, or doubting of it; _and where is the crime of
+not performing impossibilities, or not believing what does not appear to
+us to be true?_"
+
+Gentlemen of the Jury, can you dispute the truth of the passage I have
+quoted from Dr. Whitby? Will you, by your verdict, pronounce it to be
+"_a crime_ not to perform _impossibilities_, and endeavour to _force us
+to believe_ what does not appear to us to be true?" Gentlemen, you
+cannot do it. Let us briefly trace the operations of the human mind, and
+we shall find that the mind is governed by a law of necessity. Are we
+not definitely and necessarily' affected by the circumstances which
+surround us? Have we power to avoid receiving impressions from the
+objects presented to us? If we have not, which is now universally
+admitted by intelligent men, then the act of _perceiving_, or _forming
+ideas_, is a necessary mental operation. Can we, for instance, have an
+idea of a man when a monkey is presented to us? Or of colours other than
+those which are placed before our visual organs? We cannot, if the eye
+be not diseased, perceive red to be green, or green red. The power of
+_perception_, therefore, appears to be perfectly involuntary--it is
+governed by a law of necessity.
+
+The next operation of the mind is to form a judgment of the things
+perceived; and it is these two things--_perceiving_ and _judging_--which
+constitute a man's knowledge or experience. If two bodies of different
+magnitudes are presented to our view, are we not compelled to judge of
+them according to the impression they respectively make upon the mind?
+It is precisely the same with _men, manners, and opinions_. Must we not
+conclude that things are what they appear to be, till we know the
+contrary? I would appeal to your own experience, Gentlemen, whether you
+do not invariably and necessarily judge of men and things according to
+their inherent or imaginary qualities? Some men, indeed, are puzzled to
+account for the diversity of judgment observable where different men
+examine the same subject, and from the same data; but this circumstance
+is easily accounted for. It results simply from this fact, that men
+judge of things precisely as they appear to them: and the different
+judgments formed of the same things are ascribable wholly to the
+different degrees of strength in the power of perception, and to the
+extent and variety of knowledge previously acquired. _Perception and
+judgment_, therefore, appear to be involuntary and necessary.
+
+Gentlemen, if this be true, is a man who has arrived at conclusions
+adverse to the _received opinions_ of society a fit subject of
+punishment? If not, how much less so is the bookseller who merely sells
+his book?
+
+Mr. Haslam calls upon the Clergy to enter into the controversy with him,
+and to let _reason_ decide between them. Why do not the Government, and
+the learned Attorney-General, adopt Mr. Haslam's recommendation, instead
+of instituting a prosecution against a bookseller who never read a line
+of the book till his attention was called to it by this unjust
+prosecution? Why do not the Government,--who patronise penny
+literature--who affect to be friendly to free discussion, call on the
+Bishop of Exeter, and other well-paid bigots, to defend the Bible
+against the assaults of Mr. Haslam? For the learned Attorney-General to
+attempt to crush the free expression of opinion by prosecutions of this
+nature, is most unjust and impolitic. I maintain that two out of the
+three passages read would not support the indictment at all; and the
+third passage--set forth in the first count of the indictment--so far
+from being blasphemy, declares that the author _rejects the Bible,
+because he looks upon it as containing statements that were insulting to
+God_. In the passage immediately following that which is prosecuted, the
+author admits that the book contains some good precepts, but declares
+that he deems mere precepts to be useless. I will take the liberty of
+reading the passage to the Jury.
+
+"I allow that there are some good precepts in it, but I contend that
+these precepts are useless. I contend that _all_ precepts are useless.
+Of what use have all the precepts in the world been to the human race?
+Have they made man wiser, or better, or happier? Have they lessened the
+amount of his vice and his misery? 1 contend that they have not. Vice
+and misery have been increasing, although these precepts have been more
+and more preached to the people. Precepts, reverend ministers of the
+gospel, are mere wind; they are as empty as the vapour issuing from the
+kettle's spout; they have no effect whatever in making man wise, or
+good, or happy; the present wretchedness of the world is a proof of it.
+The way, reverend sirs, to make man wise, and good, and happy, is, not
+to preach precepts to the people, but to abolish the present irrational
+system of individual property; to arrange society in such a manner that
+the interest of one man will be the interest of the whole. Until this be
+done, all the precepts in the world, preached, too, with all the
+eloquence in the world, will never remove man from his present
+deplorable condition."
+
+Gentlemen, you will perceive by this extract that the author is a
+socialist. It is not necessary for me to maintain that he is right in
+these opinions. All that I have to do is to show that these opinions
+were sincerely believed by Mr. Haslam. I have clearly shown that belief
+is involuntary. No man can tell one day what his belief will be the
+next. In my own person I furnish an instance of this. I married young,
+and having formed in my mind a standard of ideal perfection, I
+determined that my children should equal that standard, as far as human
+means could make them. I tried to effect my object by severity. Acting
+upon wrong principles, of course, I failed; but at that time I was young
+and ignorant, and believed myself to be right. However, a friend who
+knew better than myself, and who had had much experience, lent me Miss
+Williams's Letters on the Philosophy of Education, and the reading of
+that book put new ideas into my mind. It produced, in fact, a mental
+revolution;--I changed my opinion and my system, and did so with the
+happiest success. From that time I banished coercion as a principle of
+education. I repeat, then, that belief is not voluntary, and that
+compulsion is not a good means of producing good belief or good conduct.
+
+Gentlemen, I will now quote the opinion of Bishop Marsh, as to the
+importance of free inquiry. I quote from the Bishops as persons of the
+greatest authority on this subject, far greater than the
+Attorney-General, or any of his legal brethren.
+
+"Investigation, it is said, frequently leads to doubts where there were
+none before. So much the better. If a thing is false, _it ought not to
+be received_; if a thing is true, _it can never lose in the end by
+inquiry_."--_Bishop Marsh's First Lecture_.
+
+Gentlemen, you have heard the opinion of Bishop Marsh. You cannot
+suppose that the Bishops are adverse to the Church--they are great
+supporters of it, and so, perhaps, might I be if I got so much by it--(a
+laugh)--as like circumstances produce like effects. Well, Gentlemen,
+Bishop Marsh maintains that "if a thing is _false_, it ought not to be
+received; if it is true, it can never lose in the end by inquiry." Why,
+then, should the Attorney-General prosecute a person who rejects a thing
+that does not appear to him to be true?
+
+Gentlemen, let me now submit to your attention the opinion of Sir
+William Temple.
+
+_Sir William Temple_ says, "They may make me do things which are in my
+power, and depend on my will; but to believe _this_ or _that_ to be true
+depends not on my will, but upon the light, and evidence, and
+information which I have. And will civil discouragements and
+incapacities, fines and confiscations, stripes and imprisonment,
+enlighten the understanding, convince men's minds of error, and inform
+them of the truth? Can they have any such efficacy as to make men change
+the inward judgment they have framed of things? _Nothing can do this but
+reason and argument_: this is what our minds and understandings will
+naturally yield to, but they _cannot_ be compelled to believe any thing
+by outward force. So that the promoting of _true_ religion is plainly
+out of the magistrate's _reach_, as well as beside _his office_."
+
+Here, Gentlemen, you have the opinion of Sir William Temple, that men
+cannot be forced to believe anything by outward force and persecution,
+so that the promoting of true religion is out of the magistrate's power,
+as well as beside his office. This is a most true and proper
+declaration; and if the Attorney-General had reflected upon this
+passage, I am sure he must have fully appreciated its truth, and then
+this prosecution would not have been instituted. I appeal to the learned
+Attorney-General, whether my being ruined and sent to a dungeon will
+alter the state of things? Will it alter the opinion of Mr. Haslam? Will
+it make me believe that I ought to be prosecuted for selling this book;
+or that a man has not a right to promulgate his opinions? I am placed in
+an awkward position in having to defend a man's right to publish, while
+I dissent from some of Mr. Haslam's opinions, and the manner in which he
+has thought proper to express them. I have been told that the
+Attorney-General is a good kind of a man, who has no wish to press
+severely upon persons in my situation; and some friends--not my true
+friends--have urged me to forward a memorial to him on the subject of
+this prosecution. Now what could I do? There was no way of inducing the
+Attorney-General to stay this prosecution, but by pleading guilty; and
+although I am well aware that your verdict, if adverse to me, will be my
+ruin, yet I would rather terminate my existence on the floor of this
+court than plead guilty to this lying indictment, or admit that I am a
+wicked, malicious, and evil-disposed person, when I know that to the
+best of my judgment and ability I am an upright, honest,
+well-intentioned man. If I believed myself to be the man described, in
+the indictment--which I must do before I could consent to plead
+guilty--I would fly to the uttermost parts of the earth; for a man is
+totally destroyed when he has lost all feeling of self-respect, and the
+esteem and regard of his friends and associates.
+
+Gentleman of the Jury, I have yet a host of authorities before me, but I
+will not waste time by quoting them; as I am convinced you must now be
+quite satisfied, from what I have already adduced, that every Englishman
+has an undoubted right to investigate all subjects--whether religious or
+political--and to publish the result of the investigation for the
+benefit of society at large; but, Gentlemen, in closing what I have to
+say on this part of the subject, I beg to lay before you two striking
+and convincing passages from Lord Brougham and Dr. Southwood Smith--two
+of the most intellectual and eminent individuals of the present day.
+
+Gentlemen, the first passage I will quote is from Dr. Southwood Smith,
+who strikingly and beautifully describes the proper boundary of human
+investigation; and I beg the particular attention of the learned
+Attorney-General to this passage.
+
+"There is no proper boundary to human investigation," says the doctor,
+"but the capacity of the human mind. Whatever the faculties enable it to
+understand, it ought to examine without any restraint on the freedom of
+its inquiry, and without any other limit to its extent than that which
+its great Author has fixed, by withholding from it the power to proceed
+farther. When the means of conducting the human understanding to its
+highest perfection shall have become generally understood, this freedom
+of inquiry will not only be universally allowed, but early and anxiously
+inculcated, _as a duty_ of primary and essential obligation."
+
+Gentlemen, I now beg you to listen to the extract I am about to read
+from _Lord Brougham's Inaugural Address to the University of Glasgow_.
+
+"As men will no longer suffer themselves to be led blindfold in
+Ignorance, so will they no more yield to the vile principle of judging
+and treating their fellow-creatures, not according to the intrinsic
+merit of their actions, but according to the accidental and involuntary
+coincidence of their opinions. The great truth has finally gone forth to
+the ends of the earth, _that man shall no more render_ ACCOUNT TO MAN
+FOR HIS BELIEF, OVER WHICH HE HAS HIMSELF NO CONTROL.
+
+"Henceforward nothing shall prevail upon us to praise or to blame any
+one for that which he can no more change than he can the hue of his skin
+or the height of his stature. Henceforward, treating with entire respect
+those who conscientiously differ from ourselves, the only practical
+effect of the difference will be, to make us enlighten the ignorance, on
+one side or the other, from which it springs, by instructing them, if it
+be theirs, ourselves, if it be our own; to the end that the only kind of
+unanimity may be produced which is desirable among rational beings,--the
+agreement proceeding from full conviction after the freest
+discussion."--_Lord Brougham._
+
+Gentlemen, after hearing these splendid passages, will it be possible
+for you to sanction a renewal of persecution to crush freedom of
+opinion?
+
+Gentlemen of the Jury,--I now come to the next point in the argument.
+Having, I hope, successfully proved the right of free inquiry and the
+free publication of opinions, I will proceed to show, by a reference to
+past events, that it is highly important that this right should be
+preserved, and handed down to our latest posterity unimpaired.
+Gentlemen, it has been a uniform practice, from the earliest records of
+time, to stigmatize those who introduce new truths, or who attack the
+existing institutions of a country, as infidels, and to fix upon them
+all sorts of opprobious epithets.
+
+"In all ages _new doctrines_ have been branded as impious; and
+Christianity itself has offered no exception to this rule. The Greeks
+and Romans charged Christianity with 'impiety and novelty.' In _Cave's
+Primitive Christianity_ we are informed 'that the Christians were
+everywhere accounted a pack of _Atheists_, and their religion _the
+Atheism._' _They were denominated; 'mountebank impostors,' and 'men of a
+desperate and unlawful faction.' They were represented as 'destructive
+and pernicious to human society,' and were accused of 'sacrilege,
+sedition, and high treason.' The same system of misrepresentation and
+abuse was practised by the Roman Catholics against the Protestants at
+the Reformation. Some called their dogs Calvin; and others transformed
+Calvin into Cain,' In France, 'the old stale calumnies, formerly
+invented against the first Christians, were again revived by Demochares,
+a doctor of the Sorbonne, pretending that all the disasters of the state
+were to be attributed to Protestants alone.'"--*Combe on the
+Constitution of Man_.
+
+In our own enlightened country, where the importance of truth--and free
+inquiry as a means of its attainment--is beginning to be appreciated, a
+different practice should prevail. We ought not to persist in this
+unmanly course. Recollect, Gentlemen, the Prophets of the Jews were
+_blasphemers_ against the established religions of their day. Did that
+deter them from denouncing the idolatry and false religions of the
+surrounding nations? Elijah is represented as ridiculing the God of the
+Moabites in a most offensive manner: "_And it came to pass at noon, that
+Elijah mocked them and said, 'Cry aloud: for he is a god; either he is
+talking f or he is pursuing, or he is in a journey, or peradventure he
+sleepeth and must be awaked._'" 1 Kings xviii. 27. And in Judea, Jesus
+and his Apostles were charged as blasphemers against Judaism, or the
+religion established by Moses. We have a remarkable proof of this in the
+case of Stephen, recorded in the 6th and 7th chapters of the Acts of the
+Apostles.
+
+"And they were not able to resist the wisdom and the spirit by which he
+spake.
+
+"Then they suborned men, which said, We have heard him speak
+_blasphemous_ words against Moses, and against God.
+
+"And they stirred up the people, and the elders, and the scribes, and
+came upon him, and caught him, and brought him to the council,
+
+"And set up false witnesses, which said, This man ceaseth not to speak
+blasphemous words against this holy place and the law:
+
+"For we have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth shall destroy
+this place, and shall change the customs which Moses delivered
+us."--Acts vi, 10--14.
+
+And Stephen defending himself before the Council, boldly asks them,
+
+"Which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted? And they have
+slain them which showed before of the coming of the Just One; _of whom
+ye have_ BEEN NOW THE BETRAYERS AND MURDERERS.
+
+"When they heard these things they were cut to the heart, and they
+gnashed at him with their teeth.
+
+"And they cried out with a loud voice, and stopped their ears, and ran
+upon him with one accord,
+
+"And cast him out of the city, and stoned him." Acts vii; 51, 52,
+54,57,58.
+
+Now, Gentlemen, is it just or politic that the proclaimers of new
+truths, and new systems, should be treated in this manner? Would it not
+be far more rational to hear what a man has to say, and answer him, than
+to "gnash at him with the teeth," to "stop your ears," to "run at him
+with one accord," and to "stone him to death?" Can you, Gentlemen, by
+your verdict give your sanction to a course of proceeding similar to
+that which deprived Stephen of life? All persecution is the same in
+spirit--highly unjust and impolitic--whether it be exercised against the
+Apostle Stephen, or the humble individual who now addresses you.
+
+Gentlemen, the supporters of the established religion in the days of the
+Apostles, pursued the same course that the bigots of the present day are
+pursuing. They applied to the High Priest, or to the Attorney-General of
+that day, to prosecute Stephen for _blasphemy_, and stirred up the
+people. In the present case the Bishop of Exeter did not stir up the
+people, but he stirred up the Government. He sent a packet of papers to
+Lord Normanby, who handed them to the Attorney-General, and he appears
+to have considered it to be his duty to institute the present
+prosecution. The learned Attorney-General, as was the case with the
+priests and rulers of the Jews, would not allow any discussion to take
+place that was likely to change existing customs. I will do the
+Government the justice to say, however, that I do not believe they are
+disposed to put a stop to the full investigation of any subject, if
+conducted with decency. I readily admit that the passage in the eighth
+number of Mr. Haslam's Letters is highly objectionable in
+phraseology--it is in very bad taste--but is that a reason for sending a
+bookseller to prison, because he has sold a book written in bad taste?
+It cannot be--all published works must be left to the fiat of public
+opinion to determine their merit.
+
+Gentlemen, the same spirit was evinced by the wicked and corrupt rulers
+of the Jews against the founder of Christianity. They sought false
+witnesses against him; but at length, Jesus having spoken out
+explicitly, the High Priest rent his clothes, saying, "_He hath spoken
+blasphemy; what further need have we of witnesses? Behold, now ye have
+heard his blasphemy. What think ye? They answered and said_, *HE is
+guilty to death.*" (Matt. 26; 65.) Will you, Gentlemen--a Christian
+Jury--considering Christianity part and parcel of the law of the land,
+by your verdict say, that Jesus was rightly treated by the Jews? Ought
+the constituted authorities of that day to have obstructed the glorious
+truths of Christianity, and have put to death the Messenger of Man's
+salvation? Unless you deliver a verdict of acquittal, in my case, you in
+effect sanction and justify all the cruelties exercised against Jesus
+and his Apostles by the rulers of the Jews?
+
+The learned Counsel for the prosecution will, perhaps, think that there
+is no analogy between the cases cited and my own case--that Jesus and
+his Apostles introduced truths of the greatest magnitude and importance,
+while I am indicted for selling a book that denies the truth of the
+Jewish Scriptures. Why, Gentlemen, Dr. Adam Clarke says, "There is some
+reason to fear that they (the Jews) _no longer consider the Old
+Testament as divinely inspired, but believe that Moses had recourse to
+pious frauds_." And, Gentlemen, Jesus and his Apostles denied the
+_truth_ of the Jewish Scriptures--_as understood by the rulers of the
+Jews_,--and for denying the orthodox and received sense of the Jewish
+Scriptures were accused of blasphemy, and received the fate of martyrs!
+That cannot be disputed. Was it just, then,--was it politic, I ask, to
+settle this controversy by force and cruelty? To _scourg or imprison,
+and destroy_ those glorious men who had important truths to impart to
+the world? If England has embraced Christianity--and we are not a nation
+of hypocrites--let us act upon the spirit of his religion. He says
+plainly and emphatically, that we are not to root up error by force or
+cruelty.
+
+In the parable of the tares of the field, he sets forth our duty. "The
+Kingdom of Heaven," he says, "is likened unto a man who sowed good seed
+in his field; but while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among
+the wheat, and went his way. But when the blade was sprung up, and
+brought forth fruit, there appeared the tares also. So the servants of
+the householder came and said unto him, Sir, didst thou not sow good
+seed in thy field? from whence then hath it tares! He said unto them, An
+enemy hath done this. The servant said unto him, Wilt thou then that we
+go and gather them up? But he said, _Nay; lest while ye gather up the
+tares, ye root up also the wheat with them_. *Let both grow together
+until the harvest.*" Matt, xiii; 25--30.
+
+When his disciples demanded an explanation of this parable, he said,
+"The field is the world: the good seed are the children of the Kingdom:
+but the tares are the children of the wicked one: the enemy that sowed
+them in the devil: the harvest is the end of the world; and the reapers
+are the Angels. The Son of Man shall send forth his Angels, and They
+shall gather out of his Kingdom all things that offend, and them which
+do iniquity." Matt, xiii; 38, 39. 41.
+
+Gentlemen, how unjust and impolitic, then, are these prosecutions. Do
+they stop the progress of truth? Persecution for matters of opinion is
+the same in every case--impolitic--for it never yet succeeded in
+stopping the circulation of a correct opinion or a prohibited book? Why
+should _Christians_ prosecute men for disbelieving the _Jewish_
+Scriptures, when, according to Dr. Adam Clarke, the Jews disbelieve
+parts of the Old Testament themselves? Why should professed Christians
+take up and defend that which the Jews themselves reject? Paul, himself,
+teaches us that the Jewish law has been superseded by a superior system.
+He tells us that the Jewish law "was our schoolmaster to bring us unto
+Christ (or Christianity), but after that we are no longer under a
+schoolmaster." Gal. iii; 24, 25.
+
+I can assure the Jury that if Haslam's Letters to the Clergy is an
+improper book, it cannot be put down by prosecution; it is far better to
+leave it to coldness and neglect. I could give many proofs of this. I am
+myself an instance of the inefficacy of prosecution. I have been
+prosecuted, as I think with great injustice, for the publication of a
+paper called _The Poor Man's Guardian_. Five hundred men was imprisoned
+for selling it; I was twice imprisoned, and the circulation of the
+paper, thus prosecuted, more than paid my losses; but at last, in the
+Court of Exchequer, before Lord Lyndhurst, the Jury found a verdict in
+my favour, for I convinced the Jury that the publication was one which
+was not against the law.
+
+The Attorney-General: The Jury found that it was not a newspaper.
+
+Precisely so: and as soon as it was known that the _Guardian_ was a
+legal paper, it went down at once. I could not sell copies enough to pay
+the expenses (a laugh). It has been just the same with these Letters;
+they have remained unsold till this prosecution, but as soon as it was
+known that they were prosecuted, the man who published them could not
+print them fast enough.
+
+Gentlemen, the enlightened Christians of the present day, by sending out
+Missionaries to propagate Christianity, are guilty of blasphemy against
+the established religion of heathen countries. It would be considered in
+England very unjust and cruel if the natives were to seize our
+Missionaries, and imprison and ill-treat them. If in this country we are
+in the habit of sending out Missionaries to proclaim new truths to
+foreign countries--is it not grossly inconsistent and unjust, while
+doing this, to punish persons for free investigation at home? In a
+recent case, cannon have been fired upon the natives of one of the Tonga
+Islands, because they would not receive these Missionaries. The argument
+of these Christians is, that truth must be propagated all over the
+world--but why stop inquiry at home, while suffering a British
+man-of-war to fire upon these islanders, because they would not receive
+the new truths of the Missionaries in the way they wished? Is it
+wise--is it not highly impolitic, then, to attempt to check the progress
+of intellect and human improvement? Can it be done by persecution and
+imprisonment? No, Gentlemen, the spirit of inquiry is abroad among the
+industrious millions--no subject is too sacred for their investigation.
+The mind has burst the fetters imposed on it, in the days of by-gone
+ignorance, by the cupidity of interested and hypocritical priests, who
+are fully aware that their principles and practices cannot stand the
+test of free inquiry. Even Mr. Wesley, the founder of Methodism, saw
+that his darling system must ultimately fall before the searching eye of
+philosophy and truth.
+
+_From the Life of the Rev. John Wesley, published in 1792_.
+
+"Dear Sir,--For your obliging letter, which I received this morning, I
+return you thanks.
+
+"Our opinions, for the most part, perfectly coincide respecting the
+stability of the connexion after my head is laid in the dust. This,
+however, is a subject about which I am not so anxious as you seem to
+imagine; on the contrary, it is a matter of the utmost indifference to
+me, as I have-long foreseen that a division must necessarily ensue, from
+causes so various, unavoidable, and certain, that I have long since
+given up all thoughts and hopes of settling it on a permanent
+foundation. You do not seem to be aware of the most effective cause that
+will bring about a division. You apprehend the most serious consequences
+from a struggle between the preachers for power and pre-eminence, and
+there being none among them of sufficient authority or abilities to
+support the dignity, or command the respect, and exact the implicit
+obedience, which is so necessary to uphold our constitution on its
+present principles. This, most undoubtedly, is one thing that will
+operate very powerfully against unity in the connexion, and is, perhaps,
+what I might possibly have prevented, had not a still greater difficulty
+arisen in my mind. I have often wished for some person of abilities to
+succeed me as the head of the church I have, with such indefatigable
+pains and astonishing success, established; but, convinced that none but
+very superior abilities would be equal to the undertaking, was I to
+adopt a successor of this description, I fear he might gain so much
+influence among the people as to usurp a share, if not the whole, of
+that absolute and uncontrollable power which I have hitherto, and am
+determined I will maintain so long as I live: never will I bear a rival
+near my throne. You, no doubt, see the policy of continually changing
+the preachers from one circuit to another, at short periods: for should
+any of them become popular with their different congregations, and
+insinuate themselves into the favour of their hearers, they might
+possibly obtain such influence as to establish themselves independently
+of me and the general connexion. Besides, the novelty of the continual
+change excites curiosity, and is the more necessary, as few of our
+preachers have abilities to render themselves in any degree tolerable
+any longer than they are now.
+
+"The principal cause which will inevitably effect a diminution and
+division in the connexion after my death, wilt be the failure of
+subscriptions and contributions towards the support of the cause; for
+money is as much the sinews of religious as of military power. If it is
+with the greatest difficulty that even I can keep them together, for
+want of this very necessary article, I think no one else can. Another
+cause, which, with others, will effect the division, is the disputes and
+contentions that will arise between the preachers and the parties that
+will espouse their several causes; by which means much truth will be
+brought to light, which will reflect so much to their disadvantage, that
+the eyes of the people will be opened to see their motives and
+principles; nor will they any longer contribute to their support, when
+they find all their pretensions to sanctity and love are founded on
+motives of interest and ambition. The consequence of which will be, a
+few of the most popular will establish themselves in the respective
+places where they have gained sufficient influence over the minds of the
+people: the rest must revert to their original humble callings. But this
+no way concerns me: I have attained the object of my views, by
+establishing a name that will not soon perish from the face of the
+earth; I have founded a sect which will boast my name long after my
+discipline and doctrines are forgotten.
+
+"My character and reputation for sanctity is now beyond the reach of
+calumny; nor will any thing that may hereafter come to light, or be said
+concerning me, to my prejudice, however true, gain credit.
+
+    _"'My unsoiled name, the austereness of my life,_
+      _Will vouch against it,_
+    _And so the accusation overweigh_
+      _That it will stifle in its own report,_
+    _And smell of calumny.'_
+
+"Another cause that will operate more powerfully and effectually than
+any of the preceding is, the rays of Philosophy, which begin now to
+pervade all ranks, rapidly dispelling the mists of ignorance, which have
+been long, in a great degree, the mother of devotion, of slavish
+prejudice, and the enthusiastic bigotry of religious opinions. The
+decline of the Papal power is owing to the same irresistible cause; nor
+can it be supposed that Methodism can stand its ground when brought to
+the test of Truth, Reason, and Philosophy."
+
+"City-road, Thursday morning. J. W." (1)
+
+    1. As my defence had extended to a great length, I was anxious
+    to spare the time of the Jury, and did not, therefore, trouble
+    them with the whole of this letter. I merely described the
+    nature of it, and read the last paragraph, being the only
+    portion applicable to my purpose; but as I deem the letter a
+    valuable curiosity, and worthy of preservation, I have inserted
+    it entire.
+
+Gentlemen, you see Mr. Wesley anticipated that his system must yield to
+philosophy, and do you believe the Church of England can stand when
+brought to the test of "truth, reason* and philosophy?" A church that
+will keep a man in prison nearly two years for 5s. 6d. church-rates? If
+you suppress Biblical examination, and the free publication of opinion,
+the next step will be to stop inquiry into the _practices_ of the
+Church, and to make us all the fettered slaves of the priesthood. No,
+Gentlemen; Methodism and Church-of-Englandism are doomed to fall; and
+such will be the fate of all systems not based upon the rock of truth.
+But, Gentlemen, that is no reason for suppressing inquiry, because the
+more the truth is investigated, the more beautiful it will appear.
+
+Gentlemen, has not our country raised itself to the highest pinnacle of
+human greatness as regards civilization and the arts? What rapid
+strides--what useful discoveries it has made in the arts and sciences!
+Consider its vast achievements in steam navigation--in railroad
+travelling--in the improvement of machinery. To such perfection have
+they brought machinery, that it is now almost capable of superseding
+human labour altogether. If all these magnificent improvements in the
+arts and sciences are good to society, and have resulted from free
+inquiry--why hesitate to apply it to social, religious, and political
+subjects? Are we ever to remain drivellers in religion? The true crime
+is that Haslam's Letters are sold at a penny. Why should two-guinea
+blasphemers be tolerated and penny ones prosecuted? How can the learned
+Attorney-General, whose shelves are, doubtless, adorned with Drummond's
+Academical Questions, Voltaire, Gibbon, Volney, and Shelley, uphold this
+prosecution; and what must that law be which can find the crime, not in
+the contents of the book, but in the fact of its being sold for a penny?
+They might for two guineas buy a magnificent book full of blasphemy. The
+Attorney-General, in his opening speech, had told the Jury that such
+works were "dangerous to society if addressed to the _vulgar, the
+uneducated_, and the _unthinking_" but I will appeal to his own witness,
+who had read the book, and on whom, an uneducated man, it had proved
+inoperative. It had done no mischief: and I hope the Jury will not
+consign me to a dungeon for having sold a book which it has been proved
+by his own witness has done no mischief. Paul said the B�reans were more
+noble than those of Thessalonica, because they searched the Scriptures
+daily to see whether these things were so or not. The Attorney-General
+is about to punish me for doing the same thing. Christ himself said, the
+truth shall make you free; but the Attorney-General says the truth--or
+that which you believe to be the truth--shall make you a prisoner. In
+the parable of the tares, to which I have already referred, Jesus
+expressly forbade the rooting up of the tares, lest the wheat should be
+rooted up also. He did not recommend persecution, but said let them both
+grow together until the harvest. These passages are sufficient to show
+that persecution is opposed to the whole spirit of Christianity.
+
+Gentlemen, I will now call your attention to the law on the subject. In
+entering upon this topic, of course I shall labour under a great
+disadvantage, because I am unacquainted with legal technicalities and
+cases. I will commence, therefore, by reading to you the opinion of
+Chief Baron Eyre, in his Charge to the Grand Jury, on the commission for
+the trial of persons on the charge of High Treason, in 1794, in the
+course of which he made use of these liberal expressions:--
+
+"All men may, nay, all men must, if they possess the faculty of
+thinking, reason upon every thing which sufficiently interests them to
+become objects of their attention; and among the objects of attention of
+freemen, the principles of government, the constitution of particular
+governments, and, above all, the constitution of the government under
+which they live, will naturally engage attention, and provoke
+speculation. _The power of communication of thoughts and opinions is the
+gift of God; and the freedom of it is the source of all science_--the
+first fruits, and the ultimate happiness of all society; and therefore,
+it seems to follow, _that human laws ought not to interpose, nay, cannot
+interpose, to prevent the communication of sentiment and opinions, in
+voluntary assemblies of men._"
+
+Here, Gentlemen, we have an eminent legal authority, in addition to the
+Bishops I have quoted, who declares that "human laws _ought not to
+inter-pose_, nay, cannot interpose, _to prevent the communication qf
+sentiment, and opinion_." Under what law then can I be condemned? This
+prosecution goes a step further than any other has gone; it in effect
+declares that you shall not dispute the truth of the Jewish Scriptures,
+which I have already shown are superseded by the introduction of
+Christianity. Paul declares that the Jewish law was only intended to be
+our schoolmaster to bring us to Christianity; but if Christianity, as is
+asserted, be part and parcel of the low of England, even then this
+prosecution has not a log to stand upon. In the "Life and Correspondence
+of Major Cartwright," however, there is a letter from Jefferson, himself
+an eminent lawyer, and President of the United States of America, who
+had deeply studied the laws of England, in which he has proved the
+fallacy of the notion that Christianity is part of the common law, by
+showing that the common law had existed long before Christianity was
+introduced into this country; and that the axiom had its origin and
+foundation in a misquotation and mistranslation of a decision of Justice
+Prisot, recorded in the Year Book, substituting the words _Holy
+Scriptures_ for _Ancient Scriptures_. Jefferson denominates it a
+"judiciary forgery," and I hope your Lordship will to-day confirm
+Jefferson's view, and put an end to this illegal iniquity.
+
+Gentlemen, the passage I am about to quote from Jefferson's letter to
+Major Cartwright, contains the opinion of Justice Prisot, in old French,
+but I have procured a literal and a free translation, which I will read
+to the Jury. Your Lordship can refer to the original in the Year Book.
+
+"I was glad to find, in your book, a formal contradiction, at length, of
+the judiciary usurpation of legislative powers; for such the judges have
+usurped in their repeated decisions that Christianity is a part of the
+common law. The proof of the contrary which you have adduced is
+incontrovertible; to wit, that the common law existed while the
+Anglo-Saxons were yet Pagans; at a time when they had never yet heard
+the name of Christ pronounced, or knew that such a character had ever
+existed. But it may amuse you to show when, and by what means, they
+stole this law in upon us. In a case of quare impedit, in the year-book,
+34 H. 6, fo. 38, (1458,) a question was made, how far the ecclesiastical
+law was to be respected in a common law court? And Justice Prisot, c. 5,
+gives his opinion in these words:--
+
+"'A tiel leis que ils de seint eglise ont en _ancien scripture_, covient
+
+"'_To such laws which they of the holy church have in ancient writing,
+it is proper_
+
+� nous � donner credence; car ceo common ley sur quels touts manners
+
+_for us to give credence; because that is the common law on which all
+sorts of leis_
+
+sont lor d�s--et auxy, Sir, nous sumus oblig�s de conustre leur ley de
+saint
+
+_laws are founded--and thus, Sir, we are obliged to know their law of
+the holy_
+
+eglise; et semblablement ils sont oblig�s de conustre nostre lev: et,
+Sir, si
+
+_church; and in like manner they are obliged to know our law; and, Sir,
+if_
+
+poit apperer or � nous que Tevesque ad fait come un ordinary fera en
+tiel
+
+_it can be shown thus to us that the bishop has done as a layman would
+in such_
+
+cas, adonq nous devons ceo adjuger bon, ou auterment nemy,' &c.(1) See
+S. C,
+
+_a case, then we ought this to judge good, or otherwise not at all._
+
+      1. _Translation read to the Jury._
+
+Fitzherbert's Abr. qu. imp. 89. Brown's Abr. qu. imp. 12. Finch, in his
+first book, c. 3, is the first afterwards who quotes this case, and
+misstates it thus, 'To such laws of the church as have warrant in _holy
+scripture_ our law giveth credence,' and cites Prisot, mistranslating
+'ancien scripture' into 'holy scripture;' whereas Prisot palpably says,
+'to such laws as those of holy church have in _ancient writing_ it is
+proper for us to give credence to wit, to their ancient written laws.
+This was in 1613, a century and a half after the dictum of Prisot.
+Wingate, in 1658, erects this false translation into a maxim of the
+common law, copying the words of Finch, but citing Prisot. Wingate's
+Maxims, 3; and Sheppard, tit. 'Religion in 1675. copies the same
+mistranslation, quoting the Year-book, Finch and Wingate. Hale expresses
+it in these words, 'Christianity is parcel of the laws of England.'
+
+"It is proper for us to respect the laws which the members of the holy
+church have in _ancient manuscripts_, because they are the general
+source from which all laws are drawn. Thus, Sir, it is necessary for us
+to be acquainted with ecclesiastical law, and in like manner the judges
+of the ecclesiastical courts are obliged to understand our law: in
+consequence, Sir, if it can be shown to us that the ecclesiastical court
+has decided as a court of civil law would have done in the same case,
+then we ought to deem the judgment good; but if a civil law court would
+have decided otherwise, the judgment of the eclesiastical court must be
+deemed erroneous."
+
+"Ventr. 293. 3 Keble, 607, but quotes no authority. By these echoings
+and reechoings from one to another, it had become so established in
+1728, that in the case of the King v. Woolston, 2 Strange, 834, the
+court would not suffer it to be debated, whether to write against
+Christianity was punishable in the temporal courts at common law. Wood,
+therefore, 409, ventures still to vary the phrase, and says, 'that all
+blasphemy and profaneness are offences by the common law,' and cites 2
+Strange. Then Blackstone, in 1763, IV. 59, repeats the words of Hale,
+that 'Christianity is part of the law of England,' citing Ventris and
+Strange: and finally, Lord Mansfield, with a little qualification, in
+Evans's case in 1767, says, 'that the essential principles of revealed
+religion are parts of the common law,' thus engulphing Bible, Testament,
+and all, into the common law, without citing any authority. And thus we
+find this chain of authorities hanging link by link one upon another,
+and all ultimately on one and the same hook; and that a mistranslation
+of the words 'ancien scripture,' used by Prisot. Finch quotes Prisot;
+Wingate does the same; Sheppard quotes Prisot, Finch, and Wingate; Hale
+cites nobody; the Court, in Woolston's case, cites Hale; Wood cites
+Woolston's case; Blackstone quotes Woolston's case and Hale; and Lord
+Mansfield, like Hale, ventures it on his own authority. Here I might
+defy the best-read lawyer to produce another scrip of authority for this
+_judiciary forgery_; and I might go on further to show how some of the
+Anglo-Saxon priests interpolated into the text of Alfred's laws, the
+20th, 21st, 22nd, and 23rd chapters of Exodus, and the 10th of the Acts
+of the Apostles, from the 23rd to the 29th verses. But this would lead
+my pen and your patience too far. What a conspiracy this between Church
+and State! Sing Tantararara, Rogues all, Rogues all; Sing Tantararara,
+Rogues all!"
+
+Gentlemen, after hearing this statement from the pen of an educated and
+eminent lawyer, can you hesitate to return a verdict of acquittal? You
+have now a complete history of this "_judiciary forgery_" as Jefferson
+terms it, before you; and I am satisfied that that which originated in a
+_fraudulent mistranslation_, cannot, now that the fraud is detected,
+long retain the force of law. On this ground, then, I confidently claim
+your verdict.
+
+Gentlemen, I now come to the trade argument--that it is a great hardship
+and injustice to hold a bookseller responsible for the contents of the
+books he sells.
+
+I am a general bookseller; and so great is the competition, and so fully
+is my time occupied, that I have no time to spare for reading the
+various works in my shop, even if I had the inclination. My excellent
+and amiable son, before his death, and before I had any idea of this
+prosecution, drew up a paper for the management of my business, by which
+it appears that upwards of seventy weekly periodicals pass through my
+hands every week, besides books and many other periodicals that are
+merely collected to order. Amongst them will be found every possible
+variety--"The Church of England Magazine," "The Sacred Album," and many
+others maintaining contradictory and conflicting opinions; but I do not
+hold myself responsible--either legally or morally--for any of them. I
+have no right to set myself up as a censor of the press. I sell them
+all--and am not responsible for any man's opinions upon an abstract or
+general subject. When the subject matter of a book relates to the people
+at large, the public alone should decide upon its merits. If the book be
+a good one, they will support it; if a bad one, they will condemn and
+reject it. This is the only proper punishment for a bad author. The line
+of duty I mark out for myself in that I will never sell obscene
+publications--works that demoralise and corrupt society--nor any attacks
+upon private character; and if a person comes to me complaining that his
+character has been falsely and slanderously attacked, I sell no more of
+that work. What more can be expected from a general bookseller? If the
+sale of a controversial book is to be suppressed, because it contains a
+few passages in bad taste, and of objectionable phraseology, then the
+sale of the Bible itself must be prohibited, for that book contains many
+passages far more objectionable in the present day than any to be found
+in "Haslam's Letters to the Clergy." I have here a list of passages from
+the Bible, of a highly objectionable character; but as I perceive a
+number of ladies in the court, I will not pollute their ears, nor shock
+the feelings of the Jury, by reading them. My only object in alluding to
+them, is to show that if the principle of selecting two or three
+objectionable passages from a work is to lead to its condemnation, and
+the punishment of the bookseller, then I might with equal justice be
+condemned for selling the Bible itself. On this ground, also, I claim
+and am entitled to your verdict.
+
+Gentlemen, the Attorney-General has not done justice to Mr. Haslam; he
+has dwelt upon the passages contained in the indictment, but has left
+the Jury in total ignorance of the general nature of the work. In many
+parts of the book are to be found passages of great beauty. So far from
+a charge of blasphemy fairly attaching to Mr. Haslam's Letters, he
+uniformly declares that he rejects the Jewish Scriptures because they
+are _irrational_, and _dishonour_ the God "that governs the universe." I
+will read a passage from his Second Letter, which shows the veneration
+he entertains for the Deity.
+
+"But is it not monstrous, that that power which gives life and motion to
+millions of worlds; which guides them in their eternal revolutions in
+the boundless ocean of space, and which preserves them in everlasting
+order and harmony; is it not monstrous that that power should be
+represented in this ridiculous point of view? Vain, violent, and
+boisterous, without the least indication of any thing rational, good, or
+merciful in any of his proceedings. Such a God may be the God of the
+Christians, but he is not the God who governs the universe. That God is
+no more to be compared to the Bible God, than the dazzling sun is to be
+compared to the glimmering light of a candle."
+
+Mr. Haslam's work has many other passages of the same description; and
+the Attorney-General will see that the passage in the Eighth
+Letter--almost the only objectionable passage in the work--was not
+deliberately designed to give offence, when I tell him that the author,
+in deference to the opinion of his friends, has cancelled the
+objectionable passage, and re-written it. Now what would the learned
+Attorney-General have more? The object of prosecution has been always
+held to be preventive, or corrective, not vindictive. The object sought,
+then, is already attained. Mr. Haslam has anticipated your wishes by
+correcting the objectionable passage.
+
+Gentlemen, I have urged sufficient, I hope, to induce you to give me
+your verdict; but before I conclude, I will read a passage from the
+works of Dean Swift, which is worthy of your profound attention.
+"Whoever," he says, "could restore, in any degree, brotherly love among
+men, would be an instrument of more good to society than ever was or
+will be done by all the statesmen in the world."
+
+Gentlemen, let us commence the glorious work to-day. I will tell you how
+you can do more towards spreading brotherly love among men, than all the
+statesmen in the world will be able to accomplish. Say to the
+Government, by your verdict, the publication of opinions shall be free.
+This will spread brotherly love among men; for what is it that prevents
+brotherly love from dwelling among men? The odious principle of
+coercion. I do not believe the Government wish to follow up these
+prosecutions if they can avoid it. They have a precedent, then, in the
+case of Sir Robert Peel. Mr. Carlile was in prison nearly _seven years_,
+and many of his shopmen were imprisoned for various terras. Did such
+vindictive persecutions change their opinions, or stop the sale of the
+works prosecuted? Quite the contrary. The individuals became confirmed
+and strengthened in their opinions, and all the prosecuted works are now
+on sale in every bookseller's shop in London. The public began to
+consider them martyrs, and Sir Robert Peel and the Government of that
+day saw the injustice and cruelty of such proceedings, abandoned all
+prosecutions, and liberated those whose terms of imprisonment were
+unexpired. Surely those now in authority are not the men to recommence
+these prosecutions for matters of opinion; and my quarrel with them is,
+that they have not the moral courage to reply to the taunts of the
+Bishop of Exeter, by alluding to this case of Sir Robert Peel's
+Government; and boldly declaring that henceforth public opinion shall be
+the only censor. Abolish that hateful principle of coercion for matters
+of opinion, and mutual toleration, respect, and brotherly kindness, will
+henceforth prevail.
+
+Gentlemen, Christianity gives no sanction to persecution. The religion
+of Jesus, rightly understood, is a practical and benevolent system. It
+is founded on two great commandments, love of God and love of Man. The
+_first_ commandment, in fact, resolves itself into a practical
+observance of the _second_; for it is expressly declared that, "_If a
+man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that
+loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he
+hath not seen_?"(1) Recollect, Gentlemen, "_Love worketh no ill to his
+neighbour_."(2) Jesus encourages all men to think for themselves. This
+is his exhortation--"_Why, even of your own selves, judge ye not what is
+right?*(3)" But while he has encouraged the exercise of mind, he has not
+made eternal happiness to depend upon *belief_ but upon their _actions_;
+and the great evil of society is attempting to coerce people into the
+belief of that which they cannot believe--a system to which, I hope,
+your verdict to-day will put a stop.
+
+      1. 1 John iv.; 20,
+      2. Rom. xiii.; 10,
+      3. Luke xii.; 57
+
+Gentlemen, the Founder of Christianity, in his parable of the Last
+Judgment, tells us distinctly that men are to be judged by their
+_actions_ and not by their _opinions_; for he describes himself as
+inviting the righteous to inherit the kingdom prepared for them from the
+foundation of the world: "For I was an hungered, and ye gave me meat: I
+was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in:
+naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in
+prison, and ye came unto me." He then represents the righteous as
+saying, "Lord, when saw we thee an hungered, and fed thee I or thirsty,
+and gave thee drink? When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or
+naked, and clothed thee? Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and
+came unto thee? And the King shall answer, Inasmuch AS YE HAVE DONE IT
+UNTO ONE OF THE LEAST OF THESE MY BRETHREN, ye have done it unto me." He
+then represents himself as denouncing the unrighteous for giving him no
+meat, nor drink; for not clothing him when naked, nor visiting him when
+sick; and when they desire to know when he required these things, and
+they did not minister unto him, he replies, "Inasmuch as ye did it not
+to one of the least of these my brethren, ye did it not to me." Here,
+you perceive, there is no particular belief enjoined, none condemned.
+All men are to be judged by their actions--not by their belief.
+
+Gentlemen, I have now urged all that I deem necessary to ensure an
+acquittal. I hope you will consider well the consequences of your
+verdict, and reflect upon the wickedness and impolicy of tearing a man
+from his family, for selling a book in the ordinary course of his
+business. If I have said anything in the course of my address to raise a
+prejudice in your minds, I hope you will discard it, and do justice by
+pronouncing an acquittal.
+
+The Attorney-General claimed his right of reply. He commenced by
+observing that the Defendant, in his very long address to the Jury, had
+not advanced anything that would call for many remarks from him, so that
+he should occupy bu ta very small portion of their time. The Defendant
+had contended that the blasphemous attack on our holy religion, which
+they had heard read, was only free inquiry; and had taunted the
+Government, and himself, who desired the extension of useful knowledge,
+with having prosecuted this book. But was this book of Haslam's useful
+knowledge? The Defendant said, Why not answer it? But he, the
+Attorney-General, contended that it could not be answered. The only way
+to do with it was to prosecute it. This publication--for the sale of
+which the Defendant was indicted--was not fair argument and inquiry, but
+blasphemous invective. The Defendant accused him of not objecting so
+much to the matter of the publication, as to the price at which it was
+sold. Not withstanding what the Defendant had said on this point, he,
+the Attorney-General, contended that the low price at which it was sold
+made the publication doubly mischievous, as it caused it to circulate
+among the working classes of society, who were from their habits,
+incapable of thought or discrimination; their time was so entirely
+occupied that it was impossible they could devote sufficient time to
+reading to guard themselves against the evil tendency of such works;
+while the Jury, and men in their class of life, were, from their
+education, furnished with an antidote to the poison. If attacks on the
+Scriptures were to be permitted, what was to prevent the pious feelings
+of the community from being outraged? Suppose a man were to carry a
+board through the streets on which was inscribed in large characters,
+that "Christ was an impostor." Could it be tolerated? Yet this,
+according to the Defendant, was only free inquiry! Again, suppose any
+one preferred a republican to a monarchical form of government, and was
+to excite and recommend the substitution of the one for the other by
+force of arms, inciting, by inflammatory appeals, the people to murder
+the Government and the Queen--yet this would be, according to Mr.
+Hetherington, only free inquiry! The Defendant had said that Mr. Haslam
+was a Socialist; now the Socialists held an opinion that marriage was an
+institution that ought to be abolished. If a man, under that plea, were
+to recommend the seduction of his neighbour's wife or daughter--would
+any one contend that such opinions should be published with impunity?
+yet the Defendant considers this the free investigation of opinions; and
+to prosecute a blasphemous publication, he says, is to prevent freedom
+of opinion. No one wished to interfere with Mr. Hetherington's private
+opinion. The policeman, when he went to Mr. Hetherington's shop to
+purchase the numbers, did not inquire as to his particular belief. If
+there were persons so unfortunate as to disbelieve the Scriptures--which
+were the foundation of our holy religion--the law did not interfere with
+them so long as they kept their opinions to themselves, and did not
+publicly attack the authenticity of the Bible. Mr. Hetherington had
+spoken of the effect of prosecution in extending the sale of such
+publications, alluding particularly to the _Poor Man's Guardian_; but
+he, the Attorney-General, called upon the Jury to do their duty by
+bringing? to punishment those who outraged the law, that others might be
+deterred from offending. If the Jury looked at the immoral tendency of
+such writings, and the doctrines of non-responsibility laid down by Mr.
+Hetherington, who declared that he was neither responsible for his
+belief, nor his actions--
+
+Mr. Hetherington here interrupted, declaring that the Attorney-General
+was acting most unfairly towards him. He never used such language, but
+quite the contrary; what he maintained was, that he was not responsible
+for his _belief_ but that he _was responsible for his_ actions. If he
+injured a friend, a neighbour, or a fellow-citizen, he was amenable to
+society for the injury done. The Attorney-General, he contended, was not
+replying to him, but perverting his arguments and misrepresenting facts.
+
+Lord Denman said that he agreed with the Defendant in the first
+instance, and therefore he thought he was justified in putting the
+Attorney-General right; but the Attorney-General, he thought, was
+entitled to make any remarks upon facts which came out in evidence.
+
+Mr. Hetherington (with great vehemence).--But he is mis-stating facts,
+and making statements calculated to mislead the Jury.
+
+Lord Denman.--You must not interrupt.
+
+The Defendant.--But my liberty is at stake, and I will speak. (Applause
+at the back of the court, which was instantly suppressed by the
+officers.)
+
+Lord Denman.--You shall be heard in correction of anything you may think
+a misrepresentation, afterwards; not in reply, but merely in correction.
+
+The Defendant.--Thank you, my Lord.
+
+The Attorney-General observed, that the Defendant denied being the
+publisher, but he would convince the Jury that he was, by reading the
+title to them. He then read the title of the book--omitting the
+publisher's name, and reading the name of the Defendant only, till Mr.
+Hetherington insisted upon his rending the whole title as
+follows:--"Letters to the Clergy of all Denominations, showing the
+Errors, Absurdities, and Irrationalities of their Doctrines. By C. J.
+Haslani. Fourth Edition. Manchester: A. Heywood. 56 and 60, Oldham
+Street. London*; Hetherington, 126, Strand; Cleave, Shoe Lane, Fleet
+Street; Watson, City Road, Finsbury; and J. Guest, Birmingham; and all
+Booksellers in Town and Country."
+
+The Attorney-General then proceeded.--Conceive, gentlemen, a servant or
+an apprentice reading this work where the institution of private
+property was said to be the great evil of society--would he feel any
+compunction at appropriating the goods or money of his employer to his
+own use? Would he not find arguments in this work to justify him in his
+iniquity? Mr. Hetherington had taken credit to himself for disinterested
+motives, but he feared that he was actuated by mercenary
+motives--looking only to emolument--careless of the effect it might have
+on the morals of the unthinking working-classes.(1) He called upon the
+Jury, by the oaths they had taken on the Holy Gospel--which this book
+blasphemously attacked--to consider the effect of a verdict of
+acquittal, and to do their duty to the public. By such a verdict they
+would license the most infamous attacks on the Holy Scriptures, and
+would loosen the bonds which held society together.
+
+    1. This comes well from a gentleman who descended from his high
+    professional position to attend at the Old Bailry, for a fee of
+    �. 100, to plead for a man charged with murder.
+
+Mr. Hetherington explained that it was the custom of the trade to place
+the name of any bookseller, with whom the real publisher did business,
+on the title-page of the book, and that his name had been so placed by
+Mr. Hey-wood, of Manchester, the real publisher, without his knowledge.
+Mr. Heywood was the original publisher; he received no punishment, and
+was now at liberty.
+
+Lord Denman, in summing up, observed, that the law considered the vendor
+of a work the publisher of it, and that consequently he must be held
+responsible. It had also been constantly laid down that blasphemy was an
+offence at common law. In the Defendant's defence, TO WHICH HE HAD
+LISTENED WITH FEELINGS OF GREAT INTEREST, AYE, WITH SENTIMENTS OF
+RESPECT TOO, he had complained of the hardship of a general publisher
+being held responsible for the contents of all the works he might sell,
+but he had himself answered that argument by the conduct which he stated
+he pursued with regard to obscene and personally libellous publication,
+and from the title-page of this work it was scarcely possible not to be,
+in some measure, aware of its contents. Discussions on a subject, even
+the most sacred, might be tolerated when they were conducted in a fair
+spirit; but when appeals were made not to reason but to the bad feelings
+of human nature, or where ridicule or invective were had recourse to, it
+could not be considered discussion. As to the impolicy of these sort of
+prosecutions that was a question with which they had nothing to do; the
+only question for them to determine was, whether the publication in
+question was a blasphemous libel, and whether it had been published by
+the Defendant.
+
+The Jury immediately returned a verdict of Guilty.
+
+The Attorney-General prayed the immediate judgment of the Court.
+
+Lord Denman.--I think the passing sentence had better be deferred, until
+we have had the opportunity of considering the subject.
+
+The Defendant then retired, and the Court adjourned.
+
+
+
+
+OBSERVATIONS
+
+
+The renewal of a series of Government prosecutions for alleged
+blasphemy, will justify me in accompanying the publication of the
+foregoing trial with a few words of comment.
+
+The points upon which I deem it my duty to animadvert--are the conduct
+of the Government, the Attorney-General, and the Jury.
+
+I consider that the Government have acted towards me, in this
+prosecution, in a very unjustifiable manner. They first placed Mr.
+Cleave on his trial for selling the fifth, eighth, and thirteenth
+numbers of Haslam's Letters. He pleaded _Not Guilty_, but was convicted
+(after an able and convincing speech from his-Counsel, Mr. Chambers), by
+as stupid a Jury as ever sat in judgment on an honest man. The Judge
+sentenced him to four months' imprisonment, and a fine of �20. Such was
+the force of public opinion, however, on the injustice and impolicy of
+such prosecutions, that Mr. Cleave was liberated, upon paying the fine,
+after five weeks' imprisonment.
+
+The trial of Mr. Heywood, the original publisher, came next. His known
+integrity and respectability had attached to him many influential
+friends, who represented to the Government the folly and injustice of
+these proceedings, and Lord Normanby at length yielded to their
+importunities, by agreeing, on condition that he pleaded guilty, that
+Mr. Heywood's prosecution should proceed no further. Mr. Heywood
+complied, and was left at liberty, on entering into his own
+recognizances, to appear when called upon.
+
+Public opinion unequivocally declared that such prosecutions were
+indefensible, and it was very generally believed that the Government
+would abandon them from a conviction of their injustice and impolicy.
+Instead of which they proceeded against me for selling the same numbers
+of the identical work that Messrs. Cleave and Heywood had been
+prosecuted for selling, though the punishment of Mr. Cleave was
+remitted, and the Government compounded blasphemy in the case of Mr.
+Heywood. To injure and annoy honest and industrious tradesmen, because
+the author of a book has in two or three instances expressed his ideas
+in vulgar and objectionable phraseology, is unworthy of an enlightened
+Government. I feel pity for the Jury who could ignorantly pronounce a
+verdict of guilty against a man who never wilfully injured a
+fellow-creature, merely because he had sold a book that combated the
+established opinions of the day; but I entertain very different
+sentiments against the Government that could institute and carry forward
+prosecutions of this nature, when, from their superior knowledge, they
+must be fully aware of the iniquity of their proceedings. They encourage
+"reason and free inquiry," while it favours their objects; and they
+persecute and ruin all those, who, by the exercise of reason and free
+inquiry, arrive at conclusions adverse to the established opinions of
+society. The time has passed, however, for a renewal of persecution for
+matters of opinion. No Government can stand that will attempt it; and I
+tell Her Majesty's Government, that when they interfere with the
+religious or anti-religious opinions of the people, they step out of
+their province,--and to inflict punishment upon either the original
+publisher or the general bookseller, who supplies all works to order,
+for the opinions contained in the works they respectively publish or
+sell, is an odious act of tyranny that good men of every opinion should
+denounce and oppose. I, for one, will never sanction or submit to such
+tyranny. Whether any and what sentence will be passed upon me I know
+not; but I have made up my mind that I will maintain, at all risks, and
+under every privation, to the utmost extent of my ability and means, the
+right of all men to freely publish their opinions upon every subject of
+general interest--whether social, political, or religious; aye, or
+anti-religious,--and if the Government would receive a suggestion from
+me, I would suggest to them to take their stand on this glorious
+principle--perfect freedom is the formation AS PUBLICATION OF OPINIONS
+FOR EVERY SECT AND PARTY. That is the most effectual way to elicit truth
+upon all subjects; and I would respectfully ask them, whether they ever
+knew the truth injure any sect or party that was disposed to act
+honestly?
+
+I hope the Government will reflect upon the injustice and impolicy of
+this new crusade against the free expression of opinion, adopt my
+suggestion, and abandon all prosecutions against those who honestly
+controvert the received opinions of society.
+
+Having now expressed my feelings with regard to the conduct of the
+Government, I must say a word or two respecting the behaviour of the
+learned Attorney-General towards me, on my trial. He made very few
+observations in opening the case, but reserved himself for his Reply; a
+privilege which I think he was not entitled to, as I called no
+witnesses. Had I anticipated he would have claimed the privilege of
+reply, and abused it in the shameful manner that he did, I could have
+overthrown, by witnesses, the false impression which he so unjustly
+laboured to establish on the minds of the Jury--that I was the publisher
+of the work, because my name was affixed to the book first of the London
+agents. What is the object of a reply? It is to answer the facts and
+arguments adduced by the Defendant; to show that he has reasoned
+illogically; and to point out to the Jury, succinctly and clearly* the
+points in which he has failed to answer the charge laid against him in
+the indictment. In addition, however, to this base attempt to hold me up
+to the Jury as the original publisher, the Attorney-General obviously
+sought to make the Jury believe--(and there is every reason to think
+that he triumphed in this his unjust attempt to injure me)--that I
+claimed immunity not only for my belief but my actions, When I insisted
+upon setting him right, by showing him the utter falsehood of his
+assertion, in which I was supported by Lord Chief Justice Denman, he
+treacherously aimed at fixing upon me the consequences of doctrines to
+which I had not even adverted in my speech, and which had no reference
+whatever to the subject then before the Court. He basely insinuated that
+I was virtually claiming immunity for all acts of aggression--such as
+robbery, murder, seduction, unjustifiable rebellion, and assassination
+of the Queen; striving to raise in the minds of the Jury a confusion
+between the right of freedom of opinion and the wrong of licentious
+action! This, too, was slanderously repeated, after my open appeal to
+the Court against such malignity; and this the learned Attorney-General
+calls availing himself of his privilege of reply! I was not allowed to
+answer these falsehoods of the Attorney-General; though, as the accused
+party, I was in justice, if not in law, entitled to every opportunity of
+making the truth apparent to the Jury.
+
+As to the Jury--What shall I say of them? I can only pity men who
+exhibited such woful ignorance and imbecility as to be led away by
+misrepresentations that had not even the appearance of truth. Let me ask
+the Jury one simple question. They were bound by their oath to give a
+true verdict according to the evidence. Now let me ask them, was there
+any evidence of BLASPHEMY?
+
+The evidence adduced merely proved the sale of a certain book. There was
+no evidence that the contents of the book were blasphemous. This
+question--(that is to say, the very question in dispute--the question
+whether or not there was any blasphemy)--this question was decided by
+Judge and Jury without an iota of evidence, without even an attempt at
+any evidence bearing Upon it. The opinions of the Judge and Jury decided
+the question of the indictment---Was there blasphemy or no! There was no
+evidence at all upon it. Gentlemen of the Jury--common and special--was
+your verdict in accordance with the EVIDENCE brought forward for your
+enlightened consideration--was your verdict in accordance with the terms
+of your oath? The verdict to which I was entitled from honest and
+reasoning men was the following:--either a direct "Not Guilty of
+blasphemy"--or this, "Guilty of selling a certain book concerning the
+nature of which wc=e have had no evidence"--matters of opinion not
+being, in fact susceptible of evidence.
+
+  H. HETHERINGTON.
+
+I cannot close these Observations without tendering my best thanks to
+the editor of _The Sun_ for the zeal and ability with which, in a
+succession of leading articles, he defended the right of Free Inquiry
+and the Free Publication of Opinions. The _Morning Chronicle_ published
+an impartial report of the Trial, and gave a good leading article on the
+subject. The _Morning Advertiser_ and the _Weekly Chronicle_ also
+published a fair report of the Trial. The _Weekly Dispatch_ and The
+_Statesman_ are both entitled to thanks for their advocacy of Truth and
+Liberty, in reference to the principle contended for in my Defence. The
+three Letters of Publicola, in The _Weekly Dispatch_, are invaluable;
+and I regret that I cannot find room for the whole of them in this
+pamphlet, without considerably enhancing its price and defeating my own
+object of extensive circulation for my Trial. They are worthy of a
+distinct publication. I can only fill up the space I have left by the
+insertion of the following excellent article from _The Sun_ of Friday,
+December the 11th, 1840, and Publicola's Letter to Lord Chief Justice
+Denman.--H. H.
+
+
+
+
+Extract from The Sun Newspaper
+
+
+We brought evidence yesterday to show that the suppression of objections
+to the Scriptures by penal enactments is tyrannical, unjust, and absurd,
+and that the law is partially administered. If we return to the subject,
+it is from a deep sense of its almost immeasurable importance. Our whole
+internal A policy, nearly, is framed with a view to support the Church.
+The Church is founded, or rather pretends to be founded, on the Bible;
+but we are now told by the decision of the Jury on Tuesday, that it is a
+crime to object to its statements. The happiness of society, then, is to
+be chained and bound by principles and doctrines, which society must not
+examine; for if men must not object, what is the use of examination?
+
+"We see disorder pervading every part of society. The poor are set
+against the rich, and the rich are zealously engaged in oppressing and
+coercing the poor. Crime increases, and though more churches are
+building, religion is decaying. The remedies suggested for our
+disorders, within the bounds sanctioned by the Church, are more numerous
+than the disorders themselves; but though confusion and anarchy threaten
+us, the law forbids men to say aught against principles which our rulers
+have followed, while society has been brought into its present
+condition.
+
+"What the law now decrees against what it calls blasphemy, it decreed,
+not two centuries ago, against witchcraft. It now denounces the former
+as displeasing to God; it then denounced the latter for the same
+offence. Men and women were in those less humane days burned for
+displeasing God, while now they are only fined and incarcerated. By the
+progress of knowledge, lawyers, both barristers and judges, have been
+compelled to give up that portion of the perfection of human reason, and
+the law against witchcraft has become obsolete. If our view of the law
+for suppressing objections to the Scriptures, under * the name of
+blasphemy, be correct, it is not more reasonable than the law against
+witchcraft. While no lawyer, however, will now lend himself to revive
+the latter or carry it into execution, there are numbers, we say it to
+the disgrace of the profession, zealous and eager to apply the former,
+at least to the penny tracts which are addressed to the poor.
+
+"It is therefore with deep regret that we saw so eminent a man as the
+Attorney-General lending himself to this sorry work. We are ready to
+admit, as a Tory contemporary has stated, that he has done his duty, and
+he finds his reward in the praise of the Tories. Nor did he show, as far
+as we can learn, certainly not in his reply, any reluctance to perform
+it; people say he did it as if he had something to atone for, and was
+rather eager to gain the approbation of Bishop Philpotts. His labours
+were crowned with a success which his own party reprobate. In
+Westminster Hall he has triumphed, but an appeal lies from that to the
+world; and even the Whigs, who have heretofore denounced prosecutions
+for blasphemy as for witchcraft, consider that in the last resort he
+will sustain a terrible defeat.
+
+"Mr. Hetherington has already suffered in body and mind, in purse and
+health; and probably awaits with apprehension the sentence, which may
+consign him to prison and ruin. He is down-stricken by the law; but
+those who have read his defence, and prefer reason to legal fictions,
+will place him far above the triumphant Attorney-General. He made an
+admirable pleading for free inquiry, which plain John Campbell
+instituted a prosecution to suppress. In his reply Sir John so far
+overstepped the bounds of propriety, that the Defendant would not allow
+him to proceed, and was supported by the Court. In a bad cause the
+Attorney-General used poisoned weapons. He upheld a prosecution for
+blasphemy, which is as ridiculous as a prosecution for witchcraft, and
+descended to misrepresent the accused. With our opinion of the law he
+was enforcing, we are bound to say that Sir John Campbell should have
+left such a duty to be performed by some taker of a half-guinea fee, who
+never got beyond the precincts of the Old Bailey. It was wholly unworthy
+of an eminent lawyer, who has risen into political power as a professed
+friend of free discussion. The slaves to lust have some pleasure for
+their punishment, but the servants of the grimgribber of Westminster
+Hall, who sacrifice present fame to a sense of duty to it, reap little
+more than disgrace for their nauseous drudgery.
+
+"Sir John Campbell prosecuted Mr. Hetherington, in the language of the
+indictment, for being 'a wicked, impious, and ill-disposed person,
+having no regard to the laws of this realm, but most wickedly,
+blasphemously, impiously, and profanely devising and intending to
+asperse and vilify that part of the Holy Bible which is called the Old
+Testament.' Now, having no respect whatever for the fictions of the law,
+we have no hesitation in branding such accusations of a publisher as a
+monstrous tissue of falsehoods, and to affirm that it is a disgrace to
+any man who has the least respect for truth, to defend such a charge. We
+care not about its being the customary language of the law, for truth
+and men's liberties are not to be sacrificed by and for such
+absurdities.
+
+"Further, this said aspersing and vilifying the Bible is said by Sir J.
+Campbell, at least such is the language of the indictment, which he used
+arguments to sustain, to be greatly 'to the displeasure of Almighty
+God.' Who knows that? What worm dares to say that the Almighty God is
+displeased with another worm for uttering or writing a few words.' Who
+is the vain and arrogant man that claims for himself the task of
+interpreting the thoughts of the Most High, and demanding that a man be
+punished for having displeased Almighty God? What name does the Court
+deserve which, being instituted to do justice and protect the people,
+punishes one of them because he displeases the Almighty? Can He not
+punish those who displease Him? To doubt it, to undertake to protect or
+avenge Him, to describe Him as displeased, while he showers prosperity
+and contentment on the man said to displease Him, is far more impious,
+more blasphemous, more dangerous to religion than anything Mr.
+Hetherington ever published, or Mr. Haslam wrote. Such, however, was the
+crime charged against Mr. Hetherington, which Sir John Campbell
+endeavoured to substantiate, and of which a Jury, who are as much
+deserving of reproach as the prosecutor, found him guilty. Such is the
+crime for which the Court will hereafter pass sentence, undertaking,
+like the Inquisition, to decide for the Almighty, and punish actions as
+displeasing to Him, at which He, by the course of nature, shows no
+displeasure.
+
+"At the present time, when a great portion of the Whig press will
+support the Attorney-General or be silent, leaving _The Sun_ to defend
+the great principle of free inquiry and free printing, as they left it
+to defend the same sacred and noble cause when it was assailed in the
+person of Mr. Harmer, we think it our duty not to be silent. As we
+should assail any Tory Attorney-General who had instituted such a
+prosecution, or carried it on, so we cannot allow it to pass
+unstigmatized because it has been instituted by a Whig Attorney-General.
+We know that the wisest and best politicians of the party deprecate such
+proceedings, and not the less because they will call forth in many
+independent journals, to the injury of the Whigs, an expression of
+honest indignation."
+
+
+
+
+"TO LORD DENMAN, ON THE LATE PROSECUTION FOR BLASPHEMY
+
+
+Mr Lord Chief Justice.
+
+"Your conduct on the Bench, upon the recent trial, 'The Queen v.
+Hetherington,' for a religious libel, a nominal and an impossible
+offence, the fiction of fraudulent bigotry, has much increased the high
+esteem in which you have been always held by the public. Your Lordship's
+opinions on this impolitic, irreligious, and thoroughly infamous species
+of prosecution have oft-times been expressed with the integrity and high
+moral courage that have ever distinguished your public life. I never
+shall forget the manliness with which I heard you avow from the Whig
+Treasury Benches, in the House of Commons, in your place as Attorney
+General, your detestation of indictments for religious opinions; and the
+House hailed you when you fairly acknowledged your deep regret that, as
+Common Serjeant, you had been obliged, in obedience to your oath and to
+the law, to impose even the smallest punishment possible upon three men
+convicted by an ignorant Jury of a libel on the Scriptures; and you were
+still more cheerfully received when you expressed your joy at the
+liberation of the prisoners whom you had so unwillingly punished. There
+was one part of your speech that did not certainly satisfy me. I respect
+your sense of obligation to an oath; but when you punished men whom you
+conscientiously believed to be undeserving of infliction, and this 'in
+obedience to the law,' your Lordship might have reflected, that it was
+not Parliamentary, but Judge-made law--'Common-law,' as it is called;
+and you might have acted upon the principle that if a corrupt and
+ignorant Judge made a law to suit the prejudices of a brutal age, a pure
+and well-informed Judge might reverse that law in favour of an age more
+humane and more enlightened. I recollect with great satisfaction that
+when, in the case of Lord Langford, the Counsel, Mr. Thesiger, asked a
+witness (Mr. Nathan, a Jew) 'what religion he was of?' your Lordship
+expressed your strong displeasure; and, under your Lordship's sanction,
+the witness refused to answer the interrogatory, and treated both the
+query and the querist with the utmost contempt; and the whole Court and
+audience seemed strongly to approve of the result. In the recent trial
+your Lordship's conduct was a contrast to that of your immediate
+predecessors on the Bench, Lords Tenterden and Ellenborough, the last
+representatives of a most disgraceful school of political, prejudiced,
+corrupt Court Judges. You did all in your power to induce the Jury to
+acquit the accused. I am now credibly informed that the Attorney-General
+had the same object at heart; and having, intentionally, gone in a most
+slovenly and unimpressive manner, through his technical duty, he was
+abashed and mortified when he heard the verdict of guilty. Familiar as
+he must be with the extreme ignorance, stupidity, and corruption of
+Juries, on such occasions, he was still surprised at such a verdict. I
+am willing to give him credit for these common reports in his favour;
+but should the Government be so infatuated as to bring the defendant up
+for judgment, the country expects of you, my Lord Denman, that the
+sentence will be nominal, and that it will be accompanied by your
+reprobation of all such trials.
+
+"If it be true that hope is the last passion that leaves a man, equally
+true is it that the spirit, the accursed spirit of religious
+persecution, is the last passion that man deserts, or is willing to
+abandon. I sincerely believe that if the alternative were put to a
+hundred dying men, at their last, moment of consciousness, at their last
+gasp of breath, whether they preferred their own future salvation or
+beatitude, or the persecution of man upon earth for conscientious
+differences of opinion on religious subjects, full ninety-nine out of
+the hundred would choose the latter, on the ground of its being the
+turnpike-road to the former, and from the inherent delight in the spirit
+of religious intolerance. Fanaticism is the primeval curse of our
+nature. From its first victim Abel, to the present hour, it has raged
+through the human race. Moral sins and physical or corporeal diseases in
+the course of ages wear themselves out, or can be cured by instruction
+or medical treatment; but the most foul, leprous, and crime-engendering
+of all maladies that flesh is heir to, fanaticism--call it if you
+please, bigotry or superstition--admits of no cure, and of little
+mitigation. If this hellhound were now let loose from the restraints of
+law, we should in one year have every gaol and dungeon full of
+prisoners, and in another, the fires and faggots of the olden times
+would be raging more fiercely than of yore, and more furiously in this
+country than in any other. Whatever Catholics might have been in the
+middle ages, there has been more of religious persecution in Great
+Britain and Ireland, in the last century, than in all the Catholic
+countries of Europe within the same period. On the Continent the spirit
+is on the wane; in England it is on the increase.
+
+"My Lord Denman, in the very abstraction of our individual nature, and
+of the nature of society, a court of justice cannot take cognizance of
+opinions. Its functions are confined exclusively to facts. Can any two
+classes of things be more distinct and opposite? The one is fixed, the
+other perpetually varying. Law, cultivated reason and common sense have
+rescued subjects of opinion from judicial interference, except with
+respect to politics and religion, the two which of all others most need
+the exemption. The interference of courts of justice with religious
+opinions had immensely decreased, and it is now reviving; but it is in
+your Lordship's power to annihilate it by passings nominal sentence on
+the defendant. The effects or results of a fact are ascertainable; those
+of an opinion are but speculative and uncertain. There is not in
+existence, there never has existed, and probably never can exist, a
+religious opinion that has not been deemed blasphemous, and of a
+destructive tendency to morals and social peace, by its opponents, who,
+if they had been strong enough, have relied upon the arguments of
+torture and death, or punishments as severe as society would permit.
+
+"My Lord, legism, or jurisprudence, are sufficiently understood to
+render it indisputable that punishments cannot be vindicatory or
+retrospective, and less than either, vindictive. All religious
+prosecutions seek only for revenge. The object of a legal punishment
+relates solely to the prevention of the offence. If a sentence against
+Mr. Hetherington cannot effect this object, it cannot be justified. Will
+a sentence alter his opinions? will it alter conscientiously that of any
+class or single member of society? and, above all, will it stop or check
+the dissemination of his doctrines? The two first points are nugatory;
+the last is defeated in its pretended object. All history and experience
+prove that persecution, let its form or degree be what it may, increases
+that which it is meant to destroy. Whether the tyrant be called Pope or
+Inquisition, Attorney-General or Court of Queen's Bench, the principle
+and the result are the same.
+
+"Every religion, church, and sect, that exists or is defunct, in Europe
+and in Asia, from the earliest record, has had at its origin, and
+through its infancy, to encounter obloquy and persecution. The Jewish
+religion received animation and vigour from the contempt and cruelties
+of surrounding polytheists, and the Jews sought in one God a protection
+from the horrors which had been inflicted on them by the worshippers of
+many; and well did this atrocious people revenue themselves 011 their
+former persecutors, and this by assuming their own claim to the right of
+punishing men for differing in opinions. The progress of Christianity
+was accelerated by the Jews, in their attempts to crush it by inflicting
+an ignominious and most cruel death on an innocent individual, under
+that absurd fiction of blasphemy, in the foul name of which your
+Lordship is now called upon to punish, against your will, another
+innocent individual. If blasphemy has any meaning, its definition must
+be--'a resistance to a predominant priestcraft.' Every religion, at its
+commencement, is but a confluent mass of blasphemies to the
+previously-established religions; and persecution is the reverse of
+annihilation, Where would Protestantism have been but for its
+persecution by the Catholics, and _vice versa_? From the dawn of
+Protestantism in England, under Wycliffe, and the burning of the first
+Protestants by the priests, in the reign of the Hero of Agincourt (what
+a hero!) down to the death of Mary, English Protestants were tortured,
+burnt, hanged, and punished, and yet the religion spread. Throughout
+Germany the same effects proceeded from the same cause. Our English
+persecutions of the Catholics in Ireland have been long, incessant, and
+too dreadfully cruel to reflect upon, and yet Catholicism has increased
+under them. We have not one respectable sect in England that has not
+arisen in despite of persecution, and increased by means of it, and
+these, with hundreds or thousands of other instances (for history
+abounds with them), prove that persecution or punishment does not, and
+cannot, effect the object in view; and that, consequently, punishment
+cannot be justified by its only legitimate principle of
+justification--utility. It is madness to punish for an offence which
+must be increased by the very nature of the punishment. Formerly, in
+punishments for blasphemy, men, women, and children were burnt and put
+to every variety of torture, for the good of their souls--now, we
+substitute for the word soul, the phrase--'_the security of society_,'
+or other jargon equally nonsensical. The Court of Inquisition was, and
+is, wherever it exists, more honourable than the Protestant Court of
+Queen's Bench, for the Inquisitors tortured and destroyed for the sake
+of the soul, but our Courts punish only for the profit of the priest.
+The old plea, the impudent and barbarous plea, of 'Benefit of Clergy,'
+is annulled by law, and yet an indictment for blasphemy is nothing more
+or less than a process for the 'Benefit of Clergy.' Thus, my Lord, have
+I humbly attempted to prove that your punishment of this individual will
+be in strong and violent opposition to the principles, opinion, and
+feelings which you have avowed on the Ministerial Benches of the House
+of Commons; and if the Whig Administration is so infatuatedly base as to
+call the defendant up for punishment your Lordship will be in the
+unenviable position of passing a sentence, as Lord Chief Justice of
+England, against the nature, principles, and objects of which you have
+expressed little less than abhorrence in the character of Her Majesty's
+Attorney-General in the House of Commons. At that period, my Lord, you
+were the freely and most honourably chosen representative of one of the
+largest and most enlightened constituencies of Great Britain--the town
+of Nottingham--and your constituents expressed no dissatisfaction at
+your speech. Is there not a sympathy between Nottingham and other large,
+and populous, aud enlightened towns and cities, and between them all and
+the general population of the empire? I have likewise, my Lord, shown,
+to the best of my very humble abilities, as a legist, that any
+punishment inflicted on this individual, violates the only principle on
+which all punishments can be justified--the prevention of the
+offence--if it be one.
+
+"What, in other respects, will be the effects of this brutal
+prosecution? Burn Mr. Hetherington alive,--slowly roast him, torture him
+by every device, hang him, quarter him, and stick his head on
+Temple-bar, and his quarters on the gates of four of our principal
+cathedral towns, as in all such cases used to be the practice of our
+most pious Christian ancestors in 'the good old times'--or let your
+Lordship pass the most lenient sentence on him, and what will be the
+result? Will any thing be proved, disproved, strengthened, or
+invalidated, by either mode of punishment? If divines or laymen argue
+upon the Scriptures _in toto_ or in parts, _en masse_ or in detail,
+could any of the disputants establish his point by arguing that Mr.
+Hetherington or Mr. Snookes, for the names are indifferent, was or was
+not in gaol, or that the sentence was six days' or six months'
+incarceration--how would the case stand syllogistically? A asserts that
+the Bible ought to be burnt--A is not prosecuted--ergo, the Bible ought
+to be burnt. B asserts that the Bible ought to be burnt--B is
+prosecuted--B is acquitted by the Jury--ergo, the Bible ought to be
+burnt. C asserts that the Bible ought to be burnt--C is prosecuted--C is
+found guilty--ergo, the Bible ought not to be burnt. Again, D, E, F, and
+G, are prosecuted for saying that the Bible ought to be burnt. They are
+all found guilty under different Judges, and their sentences vary from
+three, six, twelve, and eighteen months' imprisonment. Here the public
+mind is in utter confusion between the cases of A, B, and C, and between
+the ratios of punishment inflicted on D, E, F, and G, I have gone to the
+extent of the musical gamut. Ratios might be calculated by
+arithmeticians aud algebraists. Thus--'As burning the Bible is to the
+acquittal of B,--so is not burning the Bible to the sentence on D, E, F,
+or G." Really, my Lord, as a man of the most cultivated intellect, you
+must see the monstrous absurdity, the atrocious cruelty, of subjecting
+opinions on Scriptures to 'Trial by Jury.' If opinions on a book are to
+be brought before a Jury, so might its author. I speak in no disrespect
+of Scriptures, but I speak in utter disgust and abhorrence of bringing
+them before Juries. What, in fact, does a verdict of 'Guilty' or 'Not
+Guilty' amount to, in case of an opinion on the Scriptures? The ignorant
+Jury men unwittingly set themselves above the Scriptures, and tyrannise
+over the Deity himself. The impiety lies all in the Jury, and not in the
+accused. The trial my Lord, proceeds entirely on the conceded point that
+the Scriptures are the word of God; a word is an empty, unintelligible,
+worthless sound, except by the interpretation put upon it; and if the
+Jury will be the interpreters, they are the authors of the word, and
+usurp the powers of the Deity. God may say 'this is my word and
+commandment,' and a Jury replies, 'the substance utility,
+intelligibility of a word depend entirely upon the meaning attached to
+it, and we Jurymen will put and make all other men put what construction
+we please, upon it, under pains and penalties, so that the word is not
+yours, but ours.' A Defendant may argue, 'my construction is a matter
+between my conscience and my God.' The verdict replies, 'God has nothing
+to do with it; your construction is entirely a case between your
+conscience and us Jurymen, stock-brokers, bill-brokers, pawnbrokers,
+gambling-house-keepers, and, peradventure, keepers of houses of a still
+worse description.' My Lord Denman, the manly character of your mind
+will make you fearlessly grapple with this important subject, and will
+induce your Lordship to feel that I have as fearlessly and as honestly
+stated the merits of the case. Pause, my Lord, before you ruin, and
+almost torture a man, for whose defence you have expressed respect from
+the Judgment-seat, and this by a sentence for the nature and principles
+of which you have publicly and officially declared an abhorrence.
+
+"Our laws, Lord Denman, lay down a principle that every man is presumed
+to be acquainted with the business, profession, or study to which he
+belongs, or to which he has devoted himself. The converse--a most
+rational converse, is that he is unacquainted with what he does not
+belong to, or has not studied; or, in plain terms, that he is
+unacquainted with that of which he knows nothing. Sir Isaac Newton would
+have been a most ignorant Juryman upon a case resting upon the details
+of business in the butter trade of Cork; and a Mr. Jones, in that trade,
+would be an equally ignorant Juryman on a case involving the complex
+observations and abstract calculations of Sir Isaac's Observatory.
+Shakspeare, as a Juryman, would have been puzzled to determine a
+disputed point of commerce; and a tradesman would be as equally
+perplexed in deciding a point upon the machinery of Arkwright, or the
+steam-engine of Watts. In the present case, a man named Haslam, (but the
+name is immaterial, for I apply myself to abstractions and not to
+individuals,) has devoted himself to the study of a subject. He is
+evidently a man of strong mind, of great knowledge, and of the most
+honest intentions. On many points I differ with him, but individual or
+public difference is not the case at issue. His very able work is
+submitted, not to the public mind, but to 'Trial by Jury;' and its
+merits or demerits are determined upon by merchants, brokers, tradesmen.
+
+"Our laws, Lord Denman, lay down a principle that every man is presumed
+to be acquainted with the business, profession, or study to which he
+belongs, or to which he has devoted himself. The converse-a most
+rational converse, is that he is unacquainted with what he does not
+belong to, or has not studied; or, in plain terms, that he is
+unacquainted with that of which he knows nothing. Sir Isaac Newton would
+have been a most ignorant Juryman upon a ease resting upon the details
+of business in the butter trade of Cork; and a Mr. Jones, in that trade,
+would be an equally ignorant Juryman on a case involving the complex
+observations and abstract calculations of Sir Isaac's Observatory.
+Shakspeare, as a Juryman, would have been puzzled to determine a
+disputed point of commerce; and a tradesman would be as equally
+perplexed in deciding a point upon the machinery of Arkwright, or the
+steam-engine of Watts. In the present case, a man named Haslam, (but the
+name is immaterial, for I apply myself to abstractions and not to
+individuals,) has devoted himself to the study of a subject. He is
+evidently a man of strong mind, of great knowledge, and of the most
+honest intentions. On many points I differ with him, but individual or
+public difference is not the case at issue. His very able work is
+submitted, not to the public mind, but to 'Trial by Jury;' and its
+merits or demerits are determined upon by merchants, brokers, tradesmen
+and jobbing peculating Jurymen called 'Tales.' as totally ignorant of
+Mr! Haslam's studies and works, as he most probably is of their
+different lines of traffic. Is this a test of the merits of the case? Is
+this any barometer of the truth of the Gospel, of public feeling, or of
+the intelligence of our population?
+
+"My Lord Denman, the Attorney-General, tried, in the usual slang of his
+profession, or rather of his office, to attach moral imperfection and
+social dangers to speculative points of theology-to points of creed. We
+have now on our Bench, including Ireland and Scotland, Catholic Judges,
+Judges belonging to the Church of England, to the creeds of the
+Baptists, Anabaptists, Unitarians, and to the no-creeds of the Deists,
+and yet what barrister, attorney, or client, ever complained of a Judge
+on account of his creed or his construction of the Scriptures? In
+Ireland we have Catholic Judges, in Scotland Presbyterian, and in
+England Judges of the Clutch, and of every dissenting sect, and yet,
+when in 'Term time,' a new Trial is moved for, on account of a
+misdirection of a Judge, who ever heard of the misdirection lying
+attached to the Judge's creed? The Solicitor-General of Ireland is a
+Catholic, the Attorney-General of England is a Presbyterian (if he has
+any religion at all), and the Solicitor-General of England is of the
+Church (the refuge of all sceptics), and what does this amount to with
+respect to the discharge of their duties? Lord Chancellors Shaftesbury
+and Thurlow, and very many others, were avowed Deists, and yet in moving
+the House of Lords to set, their judgment aside, their creeds or
+opinions were never put upon the briefs.
+
+"Let me suppose, my Lord, that our most pious Monarch, George the Third,
+had indicted David Hume, the most perfect, of unofficial characters; or
+Adam Smith, a great benefactor of his species; or Edward Gibbon, the
+most illustrious of historians, for their Atheism or Deism; and let me
+state the fact, that the pious Monarch bestowed upon them all very good,
+and, in one instance, very confidential employments, what difference
+does this make? in either case the men, their public functions, and
+their doctrines, would have been equally at issue with public opinion at
+the present day. The merchant, in reading Adam Smith; the philosopher,
+in studying the superior works of Hume; and the scholar, in tracing
+Gibbon's magnificent outline and correct details of Roman history, never
+condescend to inquire whether the authors were patronised by a pious or
+an impious monarch, or whether they were indicted by a Presbyterian,
+Episcopalian, or Atheistical Attorney-General--the slave of an order
+from the Secretary of State's office. This species of scrutiny expired
+years ago, and why should it be revived?
+
+"My Lord Chief Justice Denman, the eyes of the country, and of foreign
+countries, are upon you. The issue of your sentence is the same, except
+to the individual; for, liberate him, you respond but to the voice of
+all enlightened men throughout Europe; incarcerate him, and by passing
+an inhuman sentence upon an innocent man, you enforce a judgment that
+you have promulgated in Parliament to be abhorrent in principles and
+feelings, and this will produce a powerful redaction.
+
+"PUBLICOLA."
+
+                                  ----
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TRIAL OF HENRY HETHERINGTON
+***
+
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+<title>THE TRIAL OF HENRY HETHERINGTON</title>
+<meta name="PG.Rights" content="Public Domain" />
+<meta name="PG.Title" content="The Trial of Henry Hetherington" />
+<meta name="PG.Producer" content="David Widger" />
+<link rel="coverpage" href="images/cover.jpg" />
+<meta name="DC.Creator" content="Henry Hetherington" />
+<meta name="DC.Created" content="1840" />
+<meta name="PG.Id" content="39055" />
+<meta name="PG.Released" content="2012-03-05" />
+<meta name="DC.Language" content="en" />
+<meta name="DC.Title" content="The Trial of Henry Hetherington" />
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+<meta content="The Trial of Henry Hetherington" name="DCTERMS.title" />
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+<meta content="2012-03-05T17:34:09.818222+00:00" scheme="DCTERMS.W3CDTF" name="DCTERMS.modified" />
+<meta content="Project Gutenberg" name="DCTERMS.publisher" />
+<meta content="Public Domain in the USA." name="DCTERMS.rights" />
+<link href="http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/39055" rel="DCTERMS.isFormatOf" />
+<meta content="Henry Hetherington" name="DCTERMS.creator" />
+<meta content="2012-03-05" scheme="DCTERMS.W3CDTF" name="DCTERMS.created" />
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+</style>
+</head>
+<body>
+<div class="document" id="the-trial-of-henry-hetherington">
+<h1 class="document-title level-1 pfirst title">THE TRIAL OF HENRY HETHERINGTON</h1>
+
+<!-- -*- encoding: utf-8 -*- -->
+<!-- -*- encoding: utf-8 -*- -->
+<div class="align-None container language-en noindent pgheader" id="pg-header" xml:lang="en" lang="en">
+<p class="noindent pfirst">This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the <a class="reference internal" href="#project-gutenberg-license">Project Gutenberg License</a>
+included with this eBook or online at
+<a class="reference external" href="http://www.gutenberg.org/license">http://www.gutenberg.org/license</a>.</p>
+<p class="noindent pnext"></p>
+<div class="noindent vspace" style="height: 2em">
+</div>
+<div class="align-None container noindent white-space-pre-line" id="pg-machine-header">
+<p class="noindent pfirst white-space-pre-line"><span class="white-space-pre-line">Title: The Trial of Henry Hetherington<br />
+<br />
+Author: Henry Hetherington<br />
+<br />
+Release Date: March 05, 2012 [EBook #39055]<br />
+<br />
+Language: English<br />
+<br />
+Character set encoding: UTF-8</span></p>
+</div>
+<div class="noindent vspace" style="height: 2em">
+</div>
+<p class="noindent pfirst" id="pg-start-line">*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK <span>THE TRIAL OF HENRY HETHERINGTON</span> ***</p>
+<div class="noindent vspace" style="height: 4em">
+</div>
+<p class="noindent pfirst" id="pg-produced-by"><span>Produced by David Widger.</span></p>
+<div class="noindent vspace" style="height: 1em">
+</div>
+<p class="noindent pfirst"><span></span></p>
+</div>
+<div class="clearpage">
+</div>
+<div class="align-center auto-scaled figure" style="width: 70%">
+<img style="display: block; width: 100%" alt=" " src="images/cover.jpg" />
+</div>
+<div class="clearpage">
+</div>
+<div class="center line-block noindent outermost">
+<div class="line"><span class="bold x-large">THE TRIAL OF HENRY HETHERINGTON</span></div>
+<div class="line"> </div>
+<div class="line"><cite class="italics">By</cite></div>
+<div class="line"> </div>
+<div class="line"><span class="bold x-large">Henry Hetherington</span></div>
+<div class="line"> </div>
+<div class="line"><span class="small-caps">On an Indictment for Blasphemy</span></div>
+<div class="line"> </div>
+<div class="line"> </div>
+</div>
+<div class="clearpage">
+</div>
+<div class="level-2 section" id="id1">
+<h2 class="level-2 pfirst section-title title">CONTENTS</h2>
+<div class="container contents" id="id2">
+<ul class="compact simple toc-list">
+<li class="level-2 toc-entry"><a class="reference internal" href="#a-full-report-of-the-trial-of-henry-hetherington" id="id3">A FULL REPORT OF THE TRIAL OF HENRY HETHERINGTON</a></li>
+<li class="level-2 toc-entry"><a class="reference internal" href="#the-trial" id="id4">THE TRIAL</a></li>
+<li class="level-2 toc-entry"><a class="reference internal" href="#indictment" id="id5">INDICTMENT</a></li>
+<li class="level-2 toc-entry"><a class="reference internal" href="#second-count" id="id6">Second Count:</a></li>
+<li class="level-2 toc-entry"><a class="reference internal" href="#third-count" id="id7">Third Count:</a></li>
+<li class="level-2 toc-entry"><a class="reference internal" href="#mr-bult-opened-the-proceedings" id="id8">Mr. Bult opened the proceedings</a></li>
+<li class="level-2 toc-entry"><a class="reference internal" href="#defence" id="id9">DEFENCE</a></li>
+<li class="level-2 toc-entry"><a class="reference internal" href="#observations" id="id10">OBSERVATIONS</a></li>
+<li class="level-2 toc-entry"><a class="reference internal" href="#extract-from-the-sun-newspaper" id="id11">Extract from The Sun Newspaper</a></li>
+<li class="level-2 toc-entry"><a class="reference internal" href="#to-lord-denman-on-the-late-prosecution-for-blasphemy" id="id12">"TO LORD DENMAN, ON THE LATE PROSECUTION FOR BLASPHEMY</a></li>
+</ul>
+</div>
+</div>
+<div class="clearpage">
+</div>
+<div class="level-2 section" id="a-full-report-of-the-trial-of-henry-hetherington">
+<h2 class="level-2 pfirst section-title title"><a class="toc-backref" href="#id3">A FULL REPORT OF THE TRIAL OF HENRY HETHERINGTON</a></h2>
+<p class="pfirst">ON AN INDICTMENT FOR BLASPHEMY,</p>
+<p class="pnext">LORD DENMAN AND A SPECIAL JURY,</p>
+<p class="pnext">ON TUESDAY, DECEMBER 8, 1840;</p>
+<p class="pnext">FOR SELLING HASLAM'S LETTERS TO THE CLERGY TO ALL DENOMINATIONS:</p>
+<p class="pnext">THE WHOLE OF THE AUTHORITIES CITED IN THE DEFENCE, AT FULL LENGTH.</p>
+<p class="pnext">LONDON:</p>
+<p class="pnext">PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY HENRY HETHERINGTON, 1-26, STRAND;</p>
+<p class="pnext">AND SOLD BY ALL BOOKSELLERS.</p>
+<p class="pnext">1840</p>
+<p class="pnext">Price Sixpence.</p>
+<p class="pnext">To</p>
+<p class="pnext">JAMES WATSON,</p>
+<p class="pnext">BOOKSELLER,</p>
+<p class="pnext">THE FRIEND OF TRUTH, THE INFIDEL TO ERROR, AND THE LOVER OF LIBERTY,</p>
+<p class="pnext">THIS TRIAL</p>
+<p class="pnext">IS DEDICATED,</p>
+<p class="pnext">IN PROOF OF THE AFFECTIONATE ATTACHMENT THAT SUBSISTS BETWEEN TWO
+FRIENDS, WHO FULLY RECOGNISE AND ACT UPON THE PRINCIPLES AVOWED AND
+CONTENDED FOR IN THE FOLLOWING DEFENCE; AND AS A TRIBUTE OF ESTEEM,</p>
+<p class="pnext">TO GOD'S NOBLEST WORK--AN HONEST MAN!</p>
+<p class="pnext">BY HIS FAITHFUL FRIEND,</p>
+<p class="pnext">HENRY HETHERINGTON.</p>
+<div class="clearpage">
+</div>
+</div>
+<div class="level-2 section" id="the-trial">
+<h2 class="level-2 pfirst section-title title"><a class="toc-backref" href="#id4">THE TRIAL</a></h2>
+<p class="pfirst">COURT OF QUEEN'S BENCH, December 8, 1840.</p>
+<p class="pnext">Sittings at Nisi Prius at Westminster, before Lord DENMAN and a
+Middlesex Special Jury.</p>
+<p class="pnext">PROSECUTION FOR BLASPHEMY.</p>
+<p class="pnext">THE QUEEN Versus HETHERINGTON.</p>
+<p class="pnext">This was a prosecution instituted by Her Majesty's Attorney-General, Sir
+John Campbell, against Henry Hetherington, bookseller, of 126, Strand,
+for the publication of a blasphemous libel.</p>
+<div class="clearpage">
+</div>
+</div>
+<div class="level-2 section" id="indictment">
+<h2 class="level-2 pfirst section-title title"><a class="toc-backref" href="#id5">INDICTMENT</a></h2>
+<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 3.00em">O</span><span class="dropspan">f</span> Easter term, in the Third Year of the Reign of Queen Victoria.
+Middlesex:--</p>
+<p class="pnext">Be it remembered, that on Tuesday, the twenty-eighth day of April, in
+the third year of the reign of our sovereign lady Victoria, by the
+grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, Queen,
+Defender of the Faith, in the court of our said lady the Queen, before
+the Queen herself at Westminster, in the county of Middlesex, upon
+the oath of twelve jurors, good and lawful men, of the said county of
+Middlesex, now here sworn and charged to inquire for our said lady the
+Queen for the body of the same county; it is presented as followeth,
+that is to say, Middlesex to wit. The jurors for our lady the Queen upon
+their oath present, that Henry Hetherington, late of Westminster, in
+the county of Middlesex, bookseller, <em class="italics">being a wicked, impious, and
+ill-disposed person</em>, and having no regard for the laws and religion of
+this realm, but <em class="italics">most wickedly, blasphemously, impiously, and profanely
+devising and intending to asperse and vilify that part of the Holy Bible
+which is called the Old Testament</em>, on the third day of February, in the
+third year of the reign of our sovereign lady Victoria, by the grace of
+God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, Queen, Defender
+of the Faith, at Westminster aforesaid, in the county aforesaid, did
+publish, and cause to be published, a certain scandalous, impious, and
+blasphemous libel, of and concerning that part of the Holy Bible which
+is called the Old Testament, containing therein, amongst other things,
+divers scandalous, impious, and blasphemous matters of and concerning
+that part of the Holy Bible which is called the Old Testament, according
+to the tenor and effect following, that is to say, "What wretched stuff
+this Bible (meaning that part of the Holy Bible which is called the
+Old Testament) is, to be sure! What a random idiot its author must have
+been! I would advise the human race to burn every Bible they have got.
+Such a book is actually a disgrace to ourang outangs, much less to men.
+I would advise them to burn it, in order that posterity may never
+know we believed in such abominable trash. What must they think of our
+intellects? What must they think of our incredible foolery? And we not
+only believe it, but we actually look upon the book as the sacred word
+of God, as a production of infinite wisdom. Was insanity ever more
+complete? I for one, however, renounce the book; I renounce it as a vile
+compound of filth, blasphemy, and nonsense, as a fraud and a cheat, <em class="italics">and
+as an insult to God,"</em> to the great displeasure of Almighty God, to the
+great scandal, infamy, and contempt of that part of the Holy Bible which
+is called the Old Testament, to the evil example of all others, and
+against the peace of our said lady the Queen, her crown, and dignity.</p>
+</div>
+<div class="level-2 section" id="second-count">
+<h2 class="level-2 pfirst section-title title"><a class="toc-backref" href="#id6">Second Count:</a></h2>
+<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 3.00em">A</span><span class="dropspan">nd</span> the jurors aforesaid, upon their oath aforesaid, further present,
+that the said Henry Hetherington, devising and intending as aforesaid,
+on the eleventh day of February and year aforesaid, at Westminster
+aforesaid, in the county aforesaid, did publish, and cause to be
+published, a certain other scandalous, impious, and blasphemous libel,
+of and concerning that part of the Holy Bible which is called the Old
+Testament, containing therein, amongst other things, divers scandalous,
+impious, and blasphemous matters of and concerning that part of the
+Holy Bible which is called the Old Testament, according to the tenor and
+effect following, that is to say, "One great question between you and me
+is, 'Is the Bible (meaning that part of the Holy Bible which is called
+the Old Testament) the word of God, or is it not? I assert that it is
+not the word of God, and you assert that it is; and I not only assert
+that it is not the word of God, but that it is a book containing more
+blunders, more ignorance, and more nonsense, than any book to be found
+in the universe," to the great displeasure of Almighty God, to the great
+scandal and contempt of that part of the Holy Bible which is called the
+Old Testament, to the evil example of all others, and against the peace
+of our lady the Queen, lier crown, and dignity.</p>
+</div>
+<div class="level-2 section" id="third-count">
+<h2 class="level-2 pfirst section-title title"><a class="toc-backref" href="#id7">Third Count:</a></h2>
+<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 3.00em">A</span><span class="dropspan">nd</span> the jurors aforesaid, upon their oath aforesaid, further present,
+that the said Henry Hetherington, further devising and intending as
+aforesaid, on the day and year last aforesaid, at Westminster aforesaid,
+in the county aforesaid, did publish, and cause to be published,
+a certain other scandalous, impious, and blasphemous libel of and
+concerning that part of the Holy Bible which is called the Old
+Testament, containing therein, among other things, divers scandalous,
+impious, and blasphemous matters of and concerning that part of the Holy
+Bible which is called the Old Testament, in one part thereof, according
+to the tenor and effect following, that is to say, "My object, and I
+fearlessly state it, is to expose this book (meaning that part of the
+Holy Bible which is called the Old Testament) in such a manner, that the
+children of the Stockport Sunday-school will reject it with contempt and
+in another part thereof, according to the tenor and effect following,
+that is to say,</p>
+<p class="pnext">"Such a book (meaning that part of the Holy Bible which
+is called the Old Testament) ought to be rejected by every one. The
+human race have been too long gulled with such trash. Moses was the
+inventor of this grand cheat; and although it may have done some little
+towards frightening people into what is called morality, the purpose for
+which Moses invented it is now out of date,</p>
+<p class="pnext">"to the great displeasure of Almighty God, to the great scandal and
+contempt of that part of the Holy Bible which is called the Old
+Testament, to the evil example of all others, and against the peace of
+our lady the Queen, her crown, and dignity."</p>
+<p class="pnext">[Witness] ALEXANDER KERR,</p>
+<p class="pnext">One sworn in court.</p>
+<p class="pnext">A true Bill.</p>
+<p class="pnext">On the names of the gentlemen summoned as Special Jurymen being called
+over, only five answered to their names.</p>
+<p class="pnext">The Attorney-General prayed a tales, when the following were sworn:--</p>
+<p class="pnext">The Jury.</p>
+<p class="pnext">Special--</p>
+<p class="pnext">Robert Savage, Esq., 11, Montaguplace, Bloomsbury.</p>
+<p class="pnext">James Arboine, merchant, 3, Brunswick-square.</p>
+<p class="pnext">William Fechney Black, merchant, Wilton-place.</p>
+<p class="pnext">Charles Frederick Barnwell, Esq., 44, Woburn-place.</p>
+<p class="pnext">Robert Eglinton, merchant, 29, Woburn-square.</p>
+<p class="pnext">Common Jurors--</p>
+<p class="pnext">Charles Ricketts, stove-maker, 5, Agar-street, West Strand.</p>
+<p class="pnext">William Polden, licensed victualler, Villiers-street, Strand.</p>
+<p class="pnext">John Osborne, confectioner, 401, Strand.</p>
+<p class="pnext">John Johnson Ruffell, painter, 24, Church-street, Soho.</p>
+<p class="pnext">Thomas Reid, baker, 24, Old Compton-street, Soho.</p>
+<p class="pnext">Charles Phillips, ivory brush-maicer, 20, King-street, Soho. J. Mahew,
+baker, 84, Greek-street, Soho.</p>
+</div>
+<div class="level-2 section" id="mr-bult-opened-the-proceedings">
+<h2 class="level-2 pfirst section-title title"><a class="toc-backref" href="#id8">Mr. Bult opened the proceedings</a></h2>
+<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 3.00em">T</span><span class="dropspan">he</span> Attorney-General said, this was an indictment found by the Grand
+Jury of Middlesex, for the publication of certain blasphemous libels.
+It appeared to him that all he should have to do, would be to prove
+the publication of the libels in question. He had not hesitated for one
+moment, when he found there were only five Special Jurymen, to pray a
+tales, because it was to him a matter of perfect indifference from what
+class of society the Jury was taken. It had frequently been laid down by
+the Judges, that to insult and vilify Christianity was against the
+law. Publications insulting religion, and addressed to the vulgar and
+uneducated, were most dangerous. He would call a witness who purchased
+these books in the defendant's shop, the defendant himself being
+present; and he should prove that the defendant was rated to that house.
+It gave him pain that it should be necessary for the Jury to hear such
+shocking attacks as were contained in this publication. It consisted
+of a series of letters, and each number was sold for a penny. It was
+"Letters to the Clergy of all Denominations" and was, in fact, an attack
+upon the Holy Scriptures, particularly on the Old Testament. He should
+content himself with reading one extract.--(The learned Gentleman then
+read an extract from Letter 8, contained in the first count of the
+indictment.) Mr. Hetherington was in person to defend himself: they
+would hear what he had to say, and then he (the Attorney-General) would
+have an opportunity of again addressing them.</p>
+<p class="pnext">The following witness was then called and examined by Sir F. Pollock.</p>
+<p class="pnext">Alexander Kerr, a policeman, bought the "Letters to the Clergy," 5,
+8, and 13, at the shop of the defendant, 126, Strand, on the 5th of
+February last. A young man served him. Knows defendant--he was standing
+on the threshold of the door at the time; has known him for the last
+three years; has seen him repeatedly at the shop. Paid one penny each
+for the letters.</p>
+<p class="pnext">Cross-examined by Mr. Hetherington.--Did not come in his uniform to
+purchase them. Came from directions he had received, not from any
+reputation the work had acquired. Did not read the fifth number or
+the eighth number of the book purchased at the shop. Stated at the Old
+Bailey, at the trial of Mr. Cleave, that he had read a copy, but not the
+one purchased of defendant. Curiosity induced him to read it. It did
+not shake his opinion--it did not make him burn his Bible; quite the
+opposite. He is a plainly-educated man. Was instructed to purchase all
+he could get at defendant's shop. Purchased other numbers, but did not
+read them. The work produced no effect on him to induce him to follow
+the recommendations of the author.</p>
+<p class="pnext">George Sherwill, collector of poor's-rate for the liberty of the Savoy,
+proved that defendant was rated for No. 126.</p>
+<p class="pnext">The libels were then put in and read: first, No. 8 of "Haslam's Letters
+to the Clergy of all Denominations," then 5 of the same work, and then
+18.</p>
+<p class="pnext">The Attorney-General said, that was the case for the prosecution.</p>
+<div class="clearpage">
+</div>
+</div>
+<div class="level-2 section" id="defence">
+<h2 class="level-2 pfirst section-title title"><a class="toc-backref" href="#id9">DEFENCE</a></h2>
+<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 3.00em">M</span><span class="dropspan">y</span> Lord--Gentlemen of the Jury,</p>
+<p class="pnext">"In rising to vindicate myself from the charge preferred against me in
+this indictment, I shall not attempt to justify the language alluded
+to by the Attorney-General; but I cannot refrain from expressing my
+surprise that the Government, after having encouraged the circulation
+of cheap knowledge upon all subjects,--in Penny Magazines and Penny
+Cyclopaedias,--should have placed me on my trial upon such a flimsy
+charge as this--for flimsy it undoubtedly is, when, out of a work
+comprising nearly 500 pages, the Attorney-General can only find one
+passage,--that in the eighth Letter, which is, I admit, expressed in
+very improper language,--whereon to found an indictment. I contend that
+it is impossible to say where a person is to stop in his inquiries. If a
+person is permitted to reject one tenet, another may reject another; and
+there is no reason why another should not go on, and reject the
+whole. In the whole work there is not one disrespectful word about
+Christianity; it is a rejection of the miracles ascribed to Moses in the
+Old Testament, which have been indignantly rejected by many learned men.
+The work was not intended as a scurrilous attack, but as an inquiry into
+the effects of the usages of society, founded upon the Old Testament.
+The object of Mr. Haslam was benevolent; and however much he might err,
+he was not criminal. He undertook to prove to the clergy that they
+were all in error that the doctrines they are teaching to the people
+are false, absurd, and irrational; that they are directly contrary to
+reason; and that, so long as they are preached to the people, so long
+will the people be vicious, wretched, and unhappy.</p>
+<p class="pnext">"The Attorney-General has only read the objectionable passages: I will
+read a few passages from Mr. Haslam's first Letter, which will enable
+the Jury to understand the nature of his work, and appreciate his
+motives. Having frankly stated his object, he proceeds:--</p>
+<p class="pnext">"You, no doubt, will feel concerned at this; you will very likely be
+angry with me for this daring attempt; you will call me Deist, Atheist,
+Infidel, and many other charitable epithets; you will feel unutterable
+things towards me; and I shall, no doubt, be subject to the <em class="italics">extreme
+charity</em> of your <em class="italics">pious</em> congregations, who profess to 'love their
+neighbours as themselves,' and into whose minds you have crammed
+absurdity after absurdity, until they have scarcely room for another.
+I shall, no doubt, expose myself to all manner of ill-feeling and
+uncharitableness, and to calumnies and lies of every description; but
+shall these deter me from making known the convictions of iny mind?
+Shall these hinder me from exposing the errors and absurdities which I
+see interested men instilling into the minds of the people? Shall these
+prevent me from telling the people that they are deceived and imposed
+upon, and that their beggary, and want, and wretchedness, are the
+consequences of it? Shall these, in short, stop me from exposing the
+irrationalities which I see everywhere around me, and which occasion so
+much misery and unhappiness to my fellow-men? No, I tell you they shall
+not. That power which sent you into the world, sent me into the world
+also; and if you have a right to think and speak, I have a right to
+think and speak also. I have received an organization for the purpose as
+well as any of you; and as long as that organization remains unimpaired,
+so long will I tell the world what I think and feel.</p>
+<p class="pnext">"Why should any of you be angry with me? If I can prove your doctrines
+to be false and erroneous, what occasion is there for anger? What
+can you want with doctrines that are false? As honest men you ought
+immediately to abandon them. Instead, therefore, of being angry with
+me, you ought to have the very opposite feeling; for of what service can
+error and nonsense be to any man, or any set of men?</p>
+<p class="pnext">"But if I prove that your doctrines are not only false and erroneous,
+but that they occasion a vast amount of mischief to the people; that
+they occasion want and vice, and all manner of wickedness, and that, by
+removing them from the minds of the people, and substituting truths, all
+this want, and vice, and wickedness might be put an end to; if, I say,
+I prove this, why should you be angry with me for doing it? Surely
+you cannot wish the people to remain in a state of want, and vice, and
+wickedness; and yet, if you do not, why should you be angry at me for
+showing you the causes of them, and pointing out the means for their
+removal?</p>
+<p class="pnext">"You talk a great deal about morality and religion; you manifest in your
+pulpits a great anxiety to spread them amongst the people; but who can
+believe you to be sincere, when you resist every attempt to remove the
+causes of immorality and irreligion? You must know that effects cannot
+be removed without removing the causes of them, and by resisting the
+removal of these causes, you evidently show a disposition to keep the
+people in wickedness. This wickedness proceeds from certain causes. We
+have pointed these causes out to you, and if you will not remove them,
+does not that evidently show that you would rather that the people were
+wicked? Can there be conclusions more logical? What ridiculous cant it
+must be then to talk about morality and religion?</p>
+<p class="pnext">"My assumption then is, that the belief of every man is given to him
+<em class="italics">independently of his will</em>, and that, therefore, no just power can
+punish him for it.</p>
+<p class="pnext">"Your assumption is the opposite of this; you assert that the belief of
+every man depends upon his own will; <em class="italics">that he can either believe in the
+Bible, or not believe in the Bible</em>; that he can either be Christian or
+Jew, Mahomedan or Infidel, and that, therefore, God will punish him if
+he do not believe in a particular manner.</p>
+<p class="pnext">"These then, are our respective assumptions--and now let reason, 'the
+grand prerogative of man,' determine between us.</p>
+<p class="pnext">"Gentlemen, contrast the spirit of Mr. Haslam in this passage with the
+spirit of my prosecutors. He invokes Reason, 'the grand prerogative of
+man,' to determine between them; the Clergy, on the contrary, resort to
+prosecution to crush a reasoning opponent.</p>
+<p class="pnext">"I beg to inform you that I have read the Bible attentively, and that
+the more I read it the more reason I see for disbelieving it.</p>
+<p class="pnext">"The Bible asserts things which the whole of my senses tell me are
+false; and if my senses are independent of myself, how can I help
+disbelieving it?</p>
+<p class="pnext">"I know that God gave me my senses; but how can I believe God made the
+Bible, when it is directly opposed to these senses? To believe that God
+is the author of both, is to believe that God commits absurdities like
+yourselves; and to ascribe such a paltry and blundering performance as
+the Bible to that power which governs the universe is to dishonour that
+power, if any thing can dishonour it.</p>
+<p class="pnext">"But a man's belief is not only formed independently of his will, but
+it is often formed in direct opposition to it. I, for instance, once
+believed that the principles which I now hold were false; I used
+to argue against them, and even write against them, and my will to
+disbelieve them was so strong, owing to their apparent absurdity, that
+I used to be delighted when I imagined I had discovered a fresh argument
+with which I might overturn them. Continuing, however, to argue, I began
+to see their truth; I saw the principles more clearly; I found I had
+mistaken them very much; and at last I saw into them as clearly, as
+Cobbett used to say, as the sun at noon-day.</p>
+<p class="pnext">"Now here, you see, my will was to disbelieve these principles; but,
+after the process of reasoning was over, I was compelled to alter my
+will. This, then, being the case, was that will free? Could I have
+continued to disbelieve them, when my convictions told me they were
+true? And if I could not, where, I again ask, was my free will?</p>
+<p class="pnext">"Here, then, is reasoning enough to prove the truth of my assumption;
+and now I beg to call your attention to its peculiar effect upon your
+various systems of religion.</p>
+<p class="pnext">"In conclusion, therefore, I beg to call upon you to defend your
+doctrines from the serious charges I have here made, and shall continue
+to make against them. You may either do it by writing, or by verbal
+discussion, whichever you please. But do not continue to act so meanly
+and dishonourably, as to preach doctrines to the people which have over
+and over again been proved to be false and absurd, and which none of you
+are able to defend."</p>
+<p class="pnext">Gentlemen, you will see by these passages that Mr. Haslam appeals to
+reason. He calls upon the Clergy to defend their doctrines, telling
+them they may either do it "by writing, or by verbal discussion." The
+Government, however, disregarded this appeal; they ought to have called
+upon the Bishop of Exeter, and other well-paid bigots of his class, to
+come forward and confute Mr. Haslam. But instead of this they prosecute
+a bookseller, who had never read a line of the book until this
+prosecution. They ought to meet Mr. Haslam with his own weapons; and
+it is disgraceful to the Government, which has always advocated the
+diffusion of cheap knowledge, to submit to the taunts of the Bishop of
+Exeter, and other bigots like him, by instituting these prosecutions for
+blasphemy. However we may disapprove of Haslam's doctrines, we cannot
+but perceive that he is sincere in his belief.</p>
+<p class="pnext">Gentlemen, I will, as I proceed, prove to you that the convictions of
+a tat which he now believes to be true to have been false. Gentlemen,
+I readily admit that the passage in the eighth number is offensively
+worded; but I will prove that the free exercise of the right of inquiry
+is not, and ought not to be, an offence in law. I will also call your
+attention to the hardship of a general bookseller being held responsible
+for every book that he sells, and will call your attention to the
+oath you have taken, and claim from you that acquittal to which I am
+entitled. I claim no exemption from punishment if I sell any obscene
+publication,--anything calculated to corrupt or demoralize society,--or
+any attacks upon a man's private character; but in cases of the
+discussion of abstract truths, is a man to be punished for the
+convictions of his mind, which are not in the power of his will? It
+is too bad to bring a man into a court of justice on account of a few
+solitary passages in a work of this nature.</p>
+<p class="pnext">Gentlemen of the Jury, our great and popular moralist, Dr. Johnson, has
+declared that "Truth is the basis of all excellence." This axiom is so
+clear and indisputable, that no intelligent man can hesitate to adopt
+it. How, then, can the truth, upon the various subjects interesting to
+human beings, be elicited? Not by letting interested men think for us,
+but by judging for ourselves--by collecting and examining facts
+and arguments, and communicating to society the impressions they
+respectively make upon our minds. There is no effectual mode of arriving
+at truth, but by the exercise of the right of free inquiry, and the
+unrestricted publication of the result of such inquiry. This right has
+been deemed of pre-eminent importance from time immemorial, and by men
+of all sects and parties; and although corrupt and tyrannical rulers in
+the past ages of the world have prosecuted honest men, and endeavoured
+to suppress the truth, you will find that in every case to which I shall
+call your attention, the intrepid advocates of truth have ultimately
+triumphed. Now, Gentlemen of the Jury, I will proceed at once to fortify
+myself with a few authorities,--not that I think truth depends upon
+great names, however numerous and illustrious they may be, but because
+I am determined to advance nothing that is not, in my opinion, strictly
+true, and sanctioned and maintained by the greatest intellects of the
+age.</p>
+<p class="pnext">Gentlemen, I will begin with a Bishop.</p>
+<p class="pnext">"God has given us rational faculties to guide and direct us, and we must
+make the most of them that we can; we must judge with our own reasons,
+as well as see with our own eyes; and it would-be very <em class="italics">rash, unmanly,
+and base</em> in us to muffle up our own understandings, and deliver
+our reason and faith over to others blindfold."--<em class="italics">Bishop Burnett's
+Thirty-nine Articles</em>, A. 39.</p>
+<p class="pnext">"Gentlemen of the Jury, will you, by your verdict, consign a man to
+a dungeon, because he is too honest and independent to act a '<em class="italics">rash,
+unmanly, and base</em>' part? Will you declare, by your verdict, that
+henceforth we shall not '<em class="italics">judge</em> with our own reasons, nor <em class="italics">see</em> with
+our <em class="italics">own eyes</em>?' I feel confident you will not.</p>
+<p class="pnext">"<em class="italics">Dr. Whitby</em>, in his <em class="italics">Last Thoughts</em>, tells us, "that belief or
+disbelief can neither be a virtue or a crime, in any one who uses the
+best means in his power of being informed.</p>
+<p class="pnext">"If a proposition is <em class="italics">evident</em>, we cannot avoid believing it; <em class="italics">and where
+is the merit or piety of a necessary assent?</em> If it is <em class="italics">not evident</em>, we
+cannot help rejecting it, or doubting of it; <em class="italics">and where is the crime of
+not performing impossibilities, or not believing what does not appear to
+us to be true?</em>"</p>
+<p class="pnext">Gentlemen of the Jury, can you dispute the truth of the passage I have
+quoted from Dr. Whitby? Will you, by your verdict, pronounce it to be
+"<em class="italics">a crime</em> not to perform <em class="italics">impossibilities</em>, and endeavour to <em class="italics">force
+us to believe</em> what does not appear to us to be true?" Gentlemen, you
+cannot do it. Let us briefly trace the operations of the human mind, and
+we shall find that the mind is governed by a law of necessity. Are we
+not definitely and necessarily' affected by the circumstances which
+surround us? Have we power to avoid receiving impressions from the
+objects presented to us? If we have not, which is now universally
+admitted by intelligent men, then the act of <em class="italics">perceiving</em>, or <em class="italics">forming
+ideas</em>, is a necessary mental operation. Can we, for instance, have an
+idea of a man when a monkey is presented to us? Or of colours other than
+those which are placed before our visual organs? We cannot, if the eye
+be not diseased, perceive red to be green, or green red. The power of
+<em class="italics">perception</em>, therefore, appears to be perfectly involuntary--it is
+governed by a law of necessity.</p>
+<p class="pnext">The next operation of the mind is to form a judgment of the things
+perceived; and it is these two things--<em class="italics">perceiving</em> and <em class="italics">judging</em>--which
+constitute a man's knowledge or experience. If two bodies of different
+magnitudes are presented to our view, are we not compelled to judge of
+them according to the impression they respectively make upon the mind?
+It is precisely the same with <em class="italics">men, manners, and opinions</em>. Must we
+not conclude that things are what they appear to be, till we know the
+contrary? I would appeal to your own experience, Gentlemen, whether you
+do not invariably and necessarily judge of men and things according to
+their inherent or imaginary qualities? Some men, indeed, are puzzled
+to account for the diversity of judgment observable where different men
+examine the same subject, and from the same data; but this circumstance
+is easily accounted for. It results simply from this fact, that men
+judge of things precisely as they appear to them: and the different
+judgments formed of the same things are ascribable wholly to the
+different degrees of strength in the power of perception, and to the
+extent and variety of knowledge previously acquired. <em class="italics">Perception and
+judgment</em>, therefore, appear to be involuntary and necessary.</p>
+<p class="pnext">Gentlemen, if this be true, is a man who has arrived at conclusions
+adverse to the <em class="italics">received opinions</em> of society a fit subject of
+punishment? If not, how much less so is the bookseller who merely sells
+his book?</p>
+<p class="pnext">Mr. Haslam calls upon the Clergy to enter into the controversy with him,
+and to let <em class="italics">reason</em> decide between them. Why do not the Government, and
+the learned Attorney-General, adopt Mr. Haslam's recommendation, instead
+of instituting a prosecution against a bookseller who never read a
+line of the book till his attention was called to it by this
+unjust prosecution? Why do not the Government,--who patronise penny
+literature--who affect to be friendly to free discussion, call on
+the Bishop of Exeter, and other well-paid bigots, to defend the Bible
+against the assaults of Mr. Haslam? For the learned Attorney-General to
+attempt to crush the free expression of opinion by prosecutions of this
+nature, is most unjust and impolitic. I maintain that two out of the
+three passages read would not support the indictment at all; and the
+third passage--set forth in the first count of the indictment--so far
+from being blasphemy, declares that the author <em class="italics">rejects the Bible,
+because he looks upon it as containing statements that were insulting to
+God</em>. In the passage immediately following that which is prosecuted, the
+author admits that the book contains some good precepts, but declares
+that he deems mere precepts to be useless. I will take the liberty of
+reading the passage to the Jury.</p>
+<p class="pnext">"I allow that there are some good precepts in it, but I contend that
+these precepts are useless. I contend that <em class="italics">all</em> precepts are useless.
+Of what use have all the precepts in the world been to the human race?
+Have they made man wiser, or better, or happier? Have they lessened the
+amount of his vice and his misery? 1 contend that they have not. Vice
+and misery have been increasing, although these precepts have been more
+and more preached to the people. Precepts, reverend ministers of the
+gospel, are mere wind; they are as empty as the vapour issuing from
+the kettle's spout; they have no effect whatever in making man wise, or
+good, or happy; the present wretchedness of the world is a proof of it.
+The way, reverend sirs, to make man wise, and good, and happy, is, not
+to preach precepts to the people, but to abolish the present irrational
+system of individual property; to arrange society in such a manner that
+the interest of one man will be the interest of the whole. Until this
+be done, all the precepts in the world, preached, too, with all
+the eloquence in the world, will never remove man from his present
+deplorable condition."</p>
+<p class="pnext">Gentlemen, you will perceive by this extract that the author is a
+socialist. It is not necessary for me to maintain that he is right in
+these opinions. All that I have to do is to show that these opinions
+were sincerely believed by Mr. Haslam. I have clearly shown that belief
+is involuntary. No man can tell one day what his belief will be the
+next. In my own person I furnish an instance of this. I married
+young, and having formed in my mind a standard of ideal perfection, I
+determined that my children should equal that standard, as far as human
+means could make them. I tried to effect my object by severity. Acting
+upon wrong principles, of course, I failed; but at that time I was young
+and ignorant, and believed myself to be right. However, a friend who
+knew better than myself, and who had had much experience, lent me Miss
+Williams's Letters on the Philosophy of Education, and the reading of
+that book put new ideas into my mind. It produced, in fact, a mental
+revolution;--I changed my opinion and my system, and did so with the
+happiest success. From that time I banished coercion as a principle
+of education. I repeat, then, that belief is not voluntary, and that
+compulsion is not a good means of producing good belief or good conduct.</p>
+<p class="pnext">Gentlemen, I will now quote the opinion of Bishop Marsh, as to the
+importance of free inquiry. I quote from the Bishops as persons of
+the greatest authority on this subject, far greater than the
+Attorney-General, or any of his legal brethren.</p>
+<p class="pnext">"Investigation, it is said, frequently leads to doubts where there were
+none before. So much the better. If a thing is false, <em class="italics">it ought not
+to be received</em>; if a thing is true, <em class="italics">it can never lose in the end by
+inquiry</em>."--<em class="italics">Bishop Marsh's First Lecture</em>.</p>
+<p class="pnext">Gentlemen, you have heard the opinion of Bishop Marsh. You cannot
+suppose that the Bishops are adverse to the Church--they are great
+supporters of it, and so, perhaps, might I be if I got so much by it--(a
+laugh)--as like circumstances produce like effects. Well, Gentlemen,
+Bishop Marsh maintains that "if a thing is <em class="italics">false</em>, it ought not to be
+received; if it is true, it can never lose in the end by inquiry." Why,
+then, should the Attorney-General prosecute a person who rejects a thing
+that does not appear to him to be true?</p>
+<p class="pnext">Gentlemen, let me now submit to your attention the opinion of Sir
+William Temple.</p>
+<p class="pnext"><em class="italics">Sir William Temple</em> says, "They may make me do things which are in my
+power, and depend on my will; but to believe <em class="italics">this</em> or <em class="italics">that</em> to be
+true depends not on my will, but upon the light, and evidence,
+and information which I have. And will civil discouragements and
+incapacities, fines and confiscations, stripes and imprisonment,
+enlighten the understanding, convince men's minds of error, and inform
+them of the truth? Can they have any such efficacy as to make men change
+the inward judgment they have framed of things? <em class="italics">Nothing can do this
+but reason and argument</em>: this is what our minds and understandings will
+naturally yield to, but they <em class="italics">cannot</em> be compelled to believe any thing
+by outward force. So that the promoting of <em class="italics">true</em> religion is plainly
+out of the magistrate's <em class="italics">reach</em>, as well as beside <em class="italics">his office</em>."</p>
+<p class="pnext">Here, Gentlemen, you have the opinion of Sir William Temple, that men
+cannot be forced to believe anything by outward force and persecution,
+so that the promoting of true religion is out of the magistrate's
+power, as well as beside his office. This is a most true and proper
+declaration; and if the Attorney-General had reflected upon this
+passage, I am sure he must have fully appreciated its truth, and then
+this prosecution would not have been instituted. I appeal to the learned
+Attorney-General, whether my being ruined and sent to a dungeon will
+alter the state of things? Will it alter the opinion of Mr. Haslam? Will
+it make me believe that I ought to be prosecuted for selling this book;
+or that a man has not a right to promulgate his opinions? I am placed in
+an awkward position in having to defend a man's right to publish, while
+I dissent from some of Mr. Haslam's opinions, and the manner in which
+he has thought proper to express them. I have been told that the
+Attorney-General is a good kind of a man, who has no wish to press
+severely upon persons in my situation; and some friends--not my true
+friends--have urged me to forward a memorial to him on the subject of
+this prosecution. Now what could I do? There was no way of inducing the
+Attorney-General to stay this prosecution, but by pleading guilty; and
+although I am well aware that your verdict, if adverse to me, will be
+my ruin, yet I would rather terminate my existence on the floor of this
+court than plead guilty to this lying indictment, or admit that I am
+a wicked, malicious, and evil-disposed person, when I know that to
+the best of my judgment and ability I am an upright, honest,
+well-intentioned man. If I believed myself to be the man described,
+in the indictment--which I must do before I could consent to plead
+guilty--I would fly to the uttermost parts of the earth; for a man is
+totally destroyed when he has lost all feeling of self-respect, and the
+esteem and regard of his friends and associates.</p>
+<p class="pnext">Gentleman of the Jury, I have yet a host of authorities before me, but
+I will not waste time by quoting them; as I am convinced you must now be
+quite satisfied, from what I have already adduced, that every Englishman
+has an undoubted right to investigate all subjects--whether religious
+or political--and to publish the result of the investigation for the
+benefit of society at large; but, Gentlemen, in closing what I have to
+say on this part of the subject, I beg to lay before you two striking
+and convincing passages from Lord Brougham and Dr. Southwood Smith--two
+of the most intellectual and eminent individuals of the present day.</p>
+<p class="pnext">Gentlemen, the first passage I will quote is from Dr. Southwood Smith,
+who strikingly and beautifully describes the proper boundary of human
+investigation; and I beg the particular attention of the learned
+Attorney-General to this passage.</p>
+<p class="pnext">"There is no proper boundary to human investigation," says the doctor,
+"but the capacity of the human mind. Whatever the faculties enable it to
+understand, it ought to examine without any restraint on the freedom of
+its inquiry, and without any other limit to its extent than that which
+its great Author has fixed, by withholding from it the power to proceed
+farther. When the means of conducting the human understanding to its
+highest perfection shall have become generally understood, this freedom
+of inquiry will not only be universally allowed, but early and anxiously
+inculcated, <em class="italics">as a duty</em> of primary and essential obligation."</p>
+<p class="pnext">Gentlemen, I now beg you to listen to the extract I am about to read
+from <em class="italics">Lord Brougham's Inaugural Address to the University of Glasgow</em>.</p>
+<p class="pnext">"As men will no longer suffer themselves to be led blindfold in
+Ignorance, so will they no more yield to the vile principle of judging
+and treating their fellow-creatures, not according to the intrinsic
+merit of their actions, but according to the accidental and involuntary
+coincidence of their opinions. The great truth has finally gone forth
+to the ends of the earth, <em class="italics">that man shall no more render</em> ACCOUNT TO MAN
+FOR HIS BELIEF, OVER WHICH HE HAS HIMSELF NO CONTROL.</p>
+<p class="pnext">"Henceforward nothing shall prevail upon us to praise or to blame any one
+for that which he can no more change than he can the hue of his skin or
+the height of his stature. Henceforward, treating with entire respect
+those who conscientiously differ from ourselves, the only practical
+effect of the difference will be, to make us enlighten the ignorance, on
+one side or the other, from which it springs, by instructing them, if it
+be theirs, ourselves, if it be our own; to the end that the only kind of
+unanimity may be produced which is desirable among rational
+beings,--the agreement proceeding from full conviction after the freest
+discussion."--<em class="italics">Lord Brougham.</em></p>
+<p class="pnext">Gentlemen, after hearing these splendid passages, will it be possible
+for you to sanction a renewal of persecution to crush freedom of
+opinion?</p>
+<p class="pnext">Gentlemen of the Jury,--I now come to the next point in the argument.
+Having, I hope, successfully proved the right of free inquiry and the
+free publication of opinions, I will proceed to show, by a reference
+to past events, that it is highly important that this right should
+be preserved, and handed down to our latest posterity unimpaired.
+Gentlemen, it has been a uniform practice, from the earliest records of
+time, to stigmatize those who introduce new truths, or who attack the
+existing institutions of a country, as infidels, and to fix upon them
+all sorts of opprobious epithets.</p>
+<p class="pnext">"In all ages <em class="italics">new doctrines</em> have been branded as impious; and
+Christianity itself has offered no exception to this rule. The Greeks
+and Romans charged Christianity with 'impiety and novelty.' In <em class="italics">Cave's
+Primitive Christianity</em> we are informed 'that the Christians were
+everywhere accounted a pack of <em class="italics">Atheists</em>, and their religion <em class="italics">the
+Atheism.</em>' <em class="italics">They were denominated; 'mountebank impostors,' and 'men of a
+desperate and unlawful faction.' They were represented as 'destructive
+and pernicious to human society,' and were accused of 'sacrilege,
+sedition, and high treason.' The same system of misrepresentation and
+abuse was practised by the Roman Catholics against the Protestants at
+the Reformation. Some called their dogs Calvin; and others transformed
+Calvin into Cain,' In France, 'the old stale calumnies, formerly
+invented against the first Christians, were again revived by Demochares,
+a doctor of the Sorbonne, pretending that all the disasters of the
+state were to be attributed to Protestants alone.'"--*Combe on the
+Constitution of Man</em>.</p>
+<p class="pnext">In our own enlightened country, where the importance of truth--and free
+inquiry as a means of its attainment--is beginning to be appreciated,
+a different practice should prevail. We ought not to persist in this
+unmanly course. Recollect, Gentlemen, the Prophets of the Jews were
+<em class="italics">blasphemers</em> against the established religions of their day. Did that
+deter them from denouncing the idolatry and false religions of the
+surrounding nations? Elijah is represented as ridiculing the God of the
+Moabites in a most offensive manner: "<em class="italics">And it came to pass at noon, that
+Elijah mocked them and said, 'Cry aloud: for he is a god; either he is
+talking f or he is pursuing, or he is in a journey, or peradventure he
+sleepeth and must be awaked.</em>'" 1 Kings xviii. 27. And in Judea, Jesus
+and his Apostles were charged as blasphemers against Judaism, or the
+religion established by Moses. We have a remarkable proof of this in the
+case of Stephen, recorded in the 6th and 7th chapters of the Acts of the
+Apostles.</p>
+<p class="pnext">"And they were not able to resist the wisdom and the spirit by which he
+spake.</p>
+<p class="pnext">"Then they suborned men, which said, We have heard him speak
+<em class="italics">blasphemous</em> words against Moses, and against God.</p>
+<p class="pnext">"And they stirred up the people, and the elders, and the scribes, and
+came upon him, and caught him, and brought him to the council,</p>
+<p class="pnext">"And set up false witnesses, which said, This man ceaseth not to speak
+blasphemous words against this holy place and the law:</p>
+<p class="pnext">"For we have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth shall destroy
+this place, and shall change the customs which Moses delivered
+us."--Acts vi, 10--14.</p>
+<p class="pnext">And Stephen defending himself before the Council, boldly asks them,</p>
+<p class="pnext">"Which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted? And they have
+slain them which showed before of the coming of the Just One; <em class="italics">of whom
+ye have</em> BEEN NOW THE BETRAYERS AND MURDERERS.</p>
+<p class="pnext">"When they heard these things they were cut to the heart, and they
+gnashed at him with their teeth.</p>
+<p class="pnext">"And they cried out with a loud voice, and stopped their ears, and ran
+upon him with one accord,</p>
+<p class="pnext">"And cast him out of the city, and stoned him." Acts vii; 51, 52,
+54,57,58.</p>
+<p class="pnext">Now, Gentlemen, is it just or politic that the proclaimers of new
+truths, and new systems, should be treated in this manner? Would it not
+be far more rational to hear what a man has to say, and answer him, than
+to "gnash at him with the teeth," to "stop your ears," to "run at him
+with one accord," and to "stone him to death?" Can you, Gentlemen, by
+your verdict give your sanction to a course of proceeding similar to
+that which deprived Stephen of life? All persecution is the same in
+spirit--highly unjust and impolitic--whether it be exercised against the
+Apostle Stephen, or the humble individual who now addresses you.</p>
+<p class="pnext">Gentlemen, the supporters of the established religion in the days of the
+Apostles, pursued the same course that the bigots of the present day are
+pursuing. They applied to the High Priest, or to the Attorney-General
+of that day, to prosecute Stephen for <em class="italics">blasphemy</em>, and stirred up the
+people. In the present case the Bishop of Exeter did not stir up the
+people, but he stirred up the Government. He sent a packet of papers to
+Lord Normanby, who handed them to the Attorney-General, and he
+appears to have considered it to be his duty to institute the present
+prosecution. The learned Attorney-General, as was the case with the
+priests and rulers of the Jews, would not allow any discussion to
+take place that was likely to change existing customs. I will do the
+Government the justice to say, however, that I do not believe they are
+disposed to put a stop to the full investigation of any subject, if
+conducted with decency. I readily admit that the passage in the
+eighth number of Mr. Haslam's Letters is highly objectionable in
+phraseology--it is in very bad taste--but is that a reason for sending
+a bookseller to prison, because he has sold a book written in bad taste?
+It cannot be--all published works must be left to the fiat of public
+opinion to determine their merit.</p>
+<p class="pnext">Gentlemen, the same spirit was evinced by the wicked and corrupt rulers
+of the Jews against the founder of Christianity. They sought false
+witnesses against him; but at length, Jesus having spoken out
+explicitly, the High Priest rent his clothes, saying, "<em class="italics">He hath spoken
+blasphemy; what further need have we of witnesses? Behold, now ye have
+heard his blasphemy. What think ye? They answered and said</em>, <strong class="bold">HE is
+guilty to death.</strong>" (Matt. 26; 65.) Will you, Gentlemen--a Christian
+Jury--considering Christianity part and parcel of the law of the land,
+by your verdict say, that Jesus was rightly treated by the Jews? Ought
+the constituted authorities of that day to have obstructed the glorious
+truths of Christianity, and have put to death the Messenger of Man's
+salvation? Unless you deliver a verdict of acquittal, in my case, you
+in effect sanction and justify all the cruelties exercised against Jesus
+and his Apostles by the rulers of the Jews?</p>
+<p class="pnext">The learned Counsel for the prosecution will, perhaps, think that there
+is no analogy between the cases cited and my own case--that Jesus and
+his Apostles introduced truths of the greatest magnitude and importance,
+while I am indicted for selling a book that denies the truth of the
+Jewish Scriptures. Why, Gentlemen, Dr. Adam Clarke says, "There is
+some reason to fear that they (the Jews) <em class="italics">no longer consider the Old
+Testament as divinely inspired, but believe that Moses had recourse
+to pious frauds</em>." And, Gentlemen, Jesus and his Apostles denied the
+<em class="italics">truth</em> of the Jewish Scriptures--<em class="italics">as understood by the rulers of the
+Jews</em>,--and for denying the orthodox and received sense of the Jewish
+Scriptures were accused of blasphemy, and received the fate of martyrs!
+That cannot be disputed. Was it just, then,--was it politic, I ask, to
+settle this controversy by force and cruelty? To <em class="italics">scourg or imprison, and
+destroy</em> those glorious men who had important truths to impart to the
+world? If England has embraced Christianity--and we are not a nation of
+hypocrites--let us act upon the spirit of his religion. He says plainly
+and emphatically, that we are not to root up error by force or cruelty.</p>
+<p class="pnext">In the parable of the tares of the field, he sets forth our duty. "The
+Kingdom of Heaven," he says, "is likened unto a man who sowed good seed
+in his field; but while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among
+the wheat, and went his way. But when the blade was sprung up, and
+brought forth fruit, there appeared the tares also. So the servants of
+the householder came and said unto him, Sir, didst thou not sow good
+seed in thy field? from whence then hath it tares! He said unto them, An
+enemy hath done this. The servant said unto him, Wilt thou then that we
+go and gather them up? But he said, <em class="italics">Nay; lest while ye gather up the
+tares, ye root up also the wheat with them</em>. <strong class="bold">Let both grow together
+until the harvest.</strong>" Matt, xiii; 25--30.</p>
+<p class="pnext">When his disciples demanded an explanation of this parable, he said,
+"The field is the world: the good seed are the children of the Kingdom:
+but the tares are the children of the wicked one: the enemy that sowed
+them in the devil: the harvest is the end of the world; and the reapers
+are the Angels. The Son of Man shall send forth his Angels, and They
+shall gather out of his Kingdom all things that offend, and them which
+do iniquity." Matt, xiii; 38, 39. 41.</p>
+<p class="pnext">Gentlemen, how unjust and impolitic, then, are these prosecutions. Do
+they stop the progress of truth? Persecution for matters of opinion
+is the same in every case--impolitic--for it never yet succeeded in
+stopping the circulation of a correct opinion or a prohibited book?
+Why should <em class="italics">Christians</em> prosecute men for disbelieving the <em class="italics">Jewish</em>
+Scriptures, when, according to Dr. Adam Clarke, the Jews disbelieve
+parts of the Old Testament themselves? Why should professed Christians
+take up and defend that which the Jews themselves reject? Paul, himself,
+teaches us that the Jewish law has been superseded by a superior system.
+He tells us that the Jewish law "was our schoolmaster to bring us
+unto Christ (or Christianity), but after that we are no longer under a
+schoolmaster." Gal. iii; 24, 25.</p>
+<p class="pnext">I can assure the Jury that if Haslam's Letters to the Clergy is an
+improper book, it cannot be put down by prosecution; it is far better to
+leave it to coldness and neglect. I could give many proofs of this. I
+am myself an instance of the inefficacy of prosecution. I have been
+prosecuted, as I think with great injustice, for the publication of a
+paper called <em class="italics">The Poor Man's Guardian</em>. Five hundred men was imprisoned
+for selling it; I was twice imprisoned, and the circulation of the
+paper, thus prosecuted, more than paid my losses; but at last, in the
+Court of Exchequer, before Lord Lyndhurst, the Jury found a verdict in
+my favour, for I convinced the Jury that the publication was one which
+was not against the law.</p>
+<p class="pnext">The Attorney-General: The Jury found that it was not a newspaper.</p>
+<p class="pnext">Precisely so: and as soon as it was known that the <em class="italics">Guardian</em> was a
+legal paper, it went down at once. I could not sell copies enough to pay
+the expenses (a laugh). It has been just the same with these Letters;
+they have remained unsold till this prosecution, but as soon as it was
+known that they were prosecuted, the man who published them could not
+print them fast enough.</p>
+<p class="pnext">Gentlemen, the enlightened Christians of the present day, by sending out
+Missionaries to propagate Christianity, are guilty of blasphemy against
+the established religion of heathen countries. It would be considered
+in England very unjust and cruel if the natives were to seize our
+Missionaries, and imprison and ill-treat them. If in this country we
+are in the habit of sending out Missionaries to proclaim new truths
+to foreign countries--is it not grossly inconsistent and unjust, while
+doing this, to punish persons for free investigation at home? In a
+recent case, cannon have been fired upon the natives of one of the Tonga
+Islands, because they would not receive these Missionaries. The argument
+of these Christians is, that truth must be propagated all over
+the world--but why stop inquiry at home, while suffering a British
+man-of-war to fire upon these islanders, because they would not receive
+the new truths of the Missionaries in the way they wished? Is it
+wise--is it not highly impolitic, then, to attempt to check the progress
+of intellect and human improvement? Can it be done by persecution and
+imprisonment? No, Gentlemen, the spirit of inquiry is abroad among the
+industrious millions--no subject is too sacred for their investigation.
+The mind has burst the fetters imposed on it, in the days of by-gone
+ignorance, by the cupidity of interested and hypocritical priests, who
+are fully aware that their principles and practices cannot stand the
+test of free inquiry. Even Mr. Wesley, the founder of Methodism, saw
+that his darling system must ultimately fall before the searching eye of
+philosophy and truth.</p>
+<p class="pnext"><em class="italics">From the Life of the Rev. John Wesley, published in 1792</em>.</p>
+<p class="pnext">"Dear Sir,--For your obliging letter, which I received this morning, I
+return you thanks.</p>
+<p class="pnext">"Our opinions, for the most part, perfectly coincide respecting the
+stability of the connexion after my head is laid in the dust. This,
+however, is a subject about which I am not so anxious as you seem to
+imagine; on the contrary, it is a matter of the utmost indifference to
+me, as I have-long foreseen that a division must necessarily ensue,
+from causes so various, unavoidable, and certain, that I have long
+since given up all thoughts and hopes of settling it on a permanent
+foundation. You do not seem to be aware of the most effective cause that
+will bring about a division. You apprehend the most serious consequences
+from a struggle between the preachers for power and pre-eminence, and
+there being none among them of sufficient authority or abilities to
+support the dignity, or command the respect, and exact the implicit
+obedience, which is so necessary to uphold our constitution on its
+present principles. This, most undoubtedly, is one thing that will
+operate very powerfully against unity in the connexion, and is, perhaps,
+what I might possibly have prevented, had not a still greater difficulty
+arisen in my mind. I have often wished for some person of abilities to
+succeed me as the head of the church I have, with such indefatigable
+pains and astonishing success, established; but, convinced that none
+but very superior abilities would be equal to the undertaking, was I
+to adopt a successor of this description, I fear he might gain so much
+influence among the people as to usurp a share, if not the whole, of
+that absolute and uncontrollable power which I have hitherto, and am
+determined I will maintain so long as I live: never will I bear a rival
+near my throne. You, no doubt, see the policy of continually changing
+the preachers from one circuit to another, at short periods: for should
+any of them become popular with their different congregations, and
+insinuate themselves into the favour of their hearers, they might
+possibly obtain such influence as to establish themselves independently
+of me and the general connexion. Besides, the novelty of the continual
+change excites curiosity, and is the more necessary, as few of our
+preachers have abilities to render themselves in any degree tolerable
+any longer than they are now.</p>
+<p class="pnext">"The principal cause which will inevitably effect a diminution and
+division in the connexion after my death, wilt be the failure of
+subscriptions and contributions towards the support of the cause; for
+money is as much the sinews of religious as of military power. If it
+is with the greatest difficulty that even I can keep them together, for
+want of this very necessary article, I think no one else can. Another
+cause, which, with others, will effect the division, is the disputes and
+contentions that will arise between the preachers and the parties that
+will espouse their several causes; by which means much truth will be
+brought to light, which will reflect so much to their disadvantage,
+that the eyes of the people will be opened to see their motives and
+principles; nor will they any longer contribute to their support, when
+they find all their pretensions to sanctity and love are founded on
+motives of interest and ambition. The consequence of which will be,
+a few of the most popular will establish themselves in the respective
+places where they have gained sufficient influence over the minds of the
+people: the rest must revert to their original humble callings. But
+this no way concerns me: I have attained the object of my views, by
+establishing a name that will not soon perish from the face of the
+earth; I have founded a sect which will boast my name long after my
+discipline and doctrines are forgotten.</p>
+<p class="pnext">"My character and reputation for sanctity is now beyond the reach of
+calumny; nor will any thing that may hereafter come to light, or be said
+concerning me, to my prejudice, however true, gain credit.</p>
+<blockquote>
+<div>
+<div class="line-block outermost">
+<div class="line"><cite class="italics">"'My unsoiled name, the austereness of my life,</cite></div>
+<div class="inner line-block">
+<div class="line"><cite class="italics">Will vouch against it,</cite></div>
+</div>
+<div class="line"><cite class="italics">And so the accusation overweigh</cite></div>
+<div class="inner line-block">
+<div class="line"><cite class="italics">That it will stifle in its own report,</cite></div>
+</div>
+<div class="line"><cite class="italics">And smell of calumny.'</cite></div>
+</div>
+</div>
+</blockquote>
+<p class="pfirst">"Another cause that will operate more powerfully and effectually than
+any of the preceding is, the rays of Philosophy, which begin now to
+pervade all ranks, rapidly dispelling the mists of ignorance, which
+have been long, in a great degree, the mother of devotion, of slavish
+prejudice, and the enthusiastic bigotry of religious opinions. The
+decline of the Papal power is owing to the same irresistible cause; nor
+can it be supposed that Methodism can stand its ground when brought to
+the test of Truth, Reason, and Philosophy."</p>
+<p class="pnext">"City-road, Thursday morning. J. W." (1)</p>
+<blockquote>
+<div>
+<p class="pfirst">1. As my defence had extended to a great length, I was
+anxious to spare the time of the Jury, and did not,
+therefore, trouble them with the whole of this letter. I
+merely described the nature of it, and read the last
+paragraph, being the only portion applicable to my purpose;
+but as I deem the letter a valuable curiosity, and worthy of
+preservation, I have inserted it entire.</p>
+</div>
+</blockquote>
+<p class="pfirst">Gentlemen, you see Mr. Wesley anticipated that his system must yield
+to philosophy, and do you believe the Church of England can stand when
+brought to the test of "truth, reason* and philosophy?" A church that
+will keep a man in prison nearly two years for 5s. 6d. church-rates? If
+you suppress Biblical examination, and the free publication of opinion,
+the next step will be to stop inquiry into the <em class="italics">practices</em> of the
+Church, and to make us all the fettered slaves of the priesthood. No,
+Gentlemen; Methodism and Church-of-Englandism are doomed to fall; and
+such will be the fate of all systems not based upon the rock of truth.
+But, Gentlemen, that is no reason for suppressing inquiry, because the
+more the truth is investigated, the more beautiful it will appear.</p>
+<p class="pnext">Gentlemen, has not our country raised itself to the highest pinnacle
+of human greatness as regards civilization and the arts? What rapid
+strides--what useful discoveries it has made in the arts and sciences!
+Consider its vast achievements in steam navigation--in railroad
+travelling--in the improvement of machinery. To such perfection have
+they brought machinery, that it is now almost capable of superseding
+human labour altogether. If all these magnificent improvements in the
+arts and sciences are good to society, and have resulted from free
+inquiry--why hesitate to apply it to social, religious, and political
+subjects? Are we ever to remain drivellers in religion? The true crime
+is that Haslam's Letters are sold at a penny. Why should two-guinea
+blasphemers be tolerated and penny ones prosecuted? How can the learned
+Attorney-General, whose shelves are, doubtless, adorned with Drummond's
+Academical Questions, Voltaire, Gibbon, Volney, and Shelley, uphold this
+prosecution; and what must that law be which can find the crime, not in
+the contents of the book, but in the fact of its being sold for a penny?
+They might for two guineas buy a magnificent book full of blasphemy.
+The Attorney-General, in his opening speech, had told the Jury that
+such works were "dangerous to society if addressed to the <em class="italics">vulgar, the
+uneducated</em>, and the <em class="italics">unthinking</em>" but I will appeal to his own witness,
+who had read the book, and on whom, an uneducated man, it had proved
+inoperative. It had done no mischief: and I hope the Jury will not
+consign me to a dungeon for having sold a book which it has been proved
+by his own witness has done no mischief. Paul said the Bæreans were more
+noble than those of Thessalonica, because they searched the Scriptures
+daily to see whether these things were so or not. The Attorney-General
+is about to punish me for doing the same thing. Christ himself said, the
+truth shall make you free; but the Attorney-General says the truth--or
+that which you believe to be the truth--shall make you a prisoner.
+In the parable of the tares, to which I have already referred, Jesus
+expressly forbade the rooting up of the tares, lest the wheat should be
+rooted up also. He did not recommend persecution, but said let them both
+grow together until the harvest. These passages are sufficient to show
+that persecution is opposed to the whole spirit of Christianity.</p>
+<p class="pnext">Gentlemen, I will now call your attention to the law on the subject.
+In entering upon this topic, of course I shall labour under a great
+disadvantage, because I am unacquainted with legal technicalities and
+cases. I will commence, therefore, by reading to you the opinion of
+Chief Baron Eyre, in his Charge to the Grand Jury, on the commission
+for the trial of persons on the charge of High Treason, in 1794, in the
+course of which he made use of these liberal expressions:--</p>
+<p class="pnext">"All men may, nay, all men must, if they possess the faculty of
+thinking, reason upon every thing which sufficiently interests them to
+become objects of their attention; and among the objects of attention
+of freemen, the principles of government, the constitution of particular
+governments, and, above all, the constitution of the government
+under which they live, will naturally engage attention, and provoke
+speculation. <em class="italics">The power of communication of thoughts and opinions is the
+gift of God; and the freedom of it is the source of all science</em>--the
+first fruits, and the ultimate happiness of all society; and therefore,
+it seems to follow, <em class="italics">that human laws ought not to interpose, nay, cannot
+interpose, to prevent the communication of sentiment and opinions, in
+voluntary assemblies of men.</em>"</p>
+<p class="pnext">Here, Gentlemen, we have an eminent legal authority, in addition to
+the Bishops I have quoted, who declares that "human laws <em class="italics">ought not to
+inter-pose</em>, nay, cannot interpose, <em class="italics">to prevent the communication qf
+sentiment, and opinion</em>." Under what law then can I be condemned? This
+prosecution goes a step further than any other has gone; it in effect
+declares that you shall not dispute the truth of the Jewish Scriptures,
+which I have already shown are superseded by the introduction of
+Christianity. Paul declares that the Jewish law was only intended to be
+our schoolmaster to bring us to Christianity; but if Christianity, as
+is asserted, be part and parcel of the low of England, even then this
+prosecution has not a log to stand upon. In the "Life and Correspondence
+of Major Cartwright," however, there is a letter from Jefferson, himself
+an eminent lawyer, and President of the United States of America, who
+had deeply studied the laws of England, in which he has proved the
+fallacy of the notion that Christianity is part of the common law, by
+showing that the common law had existed long before Christianity was
+introduced into this country; and that the axiom had its origin and
+foundation in a misquotation and mistranslation of a decision of
+Justice Prisot, recorded in the Year Book, substituting the words
+<em class="italics">Holy Scriptures</em> for <em class="italics">Ancient Scriptures</em>. Jefferson denominates it
+a "judiciary forgery," and I hope your Lordship will to-day confirm
+Jefferson's view, and put an end to this illegal iniquity.</p>
+<p class="pnext">Gentlemen, the passage I am about to quote from Jefferson's letter to
+Major Cartwright, contains the opinion of Justice Prisot, in old French,
+but I have procured a literal and a free translation, which I will read
+to the Jury. Your Lordship can refer to the original in the Year Book.</p>
+<p class="pnext">"I was glad to find, in your book, a formal contradiction, at length, of
+the judiciary usurpation of legislative powers; for such the judges have
+usurped in their repeated decisions that Christianity is a part of
+the common law. The proof of the contrary which you have adduced
+is incontrovertible; to wit, that the common law existed while the
+Anglo-Saxons were yet Pagans; at a time when they had never yet heard
+the name of Christ pronounced, or knew that such a character had ever
+existed. But it may amuse you to show when, and by what means, they
+stole this law in upon us. In a case of quare impedit, in the year-book,
+34 H. 6, fo. 38, (1458,) a question was made, how far the ecclesiastical
+law was to be respected in a common law court? And Justice Prisot, c. 5,
+gives his opinion in these words:--</p>
+<p class="pnext">"'A tiel leis que ils de seint eglise ont en <em class="italics">ancien scripture</em>, covient</p>
+<p class="pnext">"'<em class="italics">To such laws which they of the holy church have in ancient writing,
+it is proper</em></p>
+<p class="pnext">à nous à donner credence; car ceo common ley sur quels touts manners</p>
+<p class="pnext"><em class="italics">for us to give credence; because that is the common law on which all
+sorts of leis</em></p>
+<p class="pnext">sont lor dés--et auxy, Sir, nous sumus obligés de conustre leur ley de
+saint</p>
+<p class="pnext"><em class="italics">laws are founded--and thus, Sir, we are obliged to know their law of
+the holy</em></p>
+<p class="pnext">eglise; et semblablement ils sont obligés de conustre nostre lev: et,
+Sir, si</p>
+<p class="pnext"><em class="italics">church; and in like manner they are obliged to know our law; and, Sir,
+if</em></p>
+<p class="pnext">poit apperer or ù nous que Tevesque ad fait come un ordinary fera en
+tiel</p>
+<p class="pnext"><em class="italics">it can be shown thus to us that the bishop has done as a layman would
+in such</em></p>
+<p class="pnext">cas, adonq nous devons ceo adjuger bon, ou auterment nemy,' &amp;c.(1) See
+S. C,</p>
+<p class="pnext"><em class="italics">a case, then we ought this to judge good, or otherwise not at all.</em></p>
+<blockquote>
+<div>
+<ol class="arabic simple">
+<li><p class="first pfirst"><em class="italics">Translation read to the Jury.</em></p>
+</li>
+</ol>
+</div>
+</blockquote>
+<p class="pfirst">Fitzherbert's Abr. qu. imp. 89. Brown's Abr. qu. imp. 12. Finch, in
+his first book, c. 3, is the first afterwards who quotes this case, and
+misstates it thus, 'To such laws of the church as have warrant in <em class="italics">holy
+scripture</em> our law giveth credence,' and cites Prisot, mistranslating
+'ancien scripture' into 'holy scripture;' whereas Prisot palpably says,
+'to such laws as those of holy church have in <em class="italics">ancient writing</em> it is
+proper for us to give credence to wit, to their ancient written laws.
+This was in 1613, a century and a half after the dictum of Prisot.
+Wingate, in 1658, erects this false translation into a maxim of the
+common law, copying the words of Finch, but citing Prisot. Wingate's
+Maxims, 3; and Sheppard, tit. 'Religion in 1675. copies the same
+mistranslation, quoting the Year-book, Finch and Wingate. Hale expresses
+it in these words, 'Christianity is parcel of the laws of England.'</p>
+<p class="pnext">"It is proper for us to respect the laws which the members of the holy
+church have in <em class="italics">ancient manuscripts</em>, because they are the general
+source from which all laws are drawn. Thus, Sir, it is necessary for us
+to be acquainted with ecclesiastical law, and in like manner the judges
+of the ecclesiastical courts are obliged to understand our law: in
+consequence, Sir, if it can be shown to us that the ecclesiastical court
+has decided as a court of civil law would have done in the same case,
+then we ought to deem the judgment good; but if a civil law court would
+have decided otherwise, the judgment of the eclesiastical court must be
+deemed erroneous."</p>
+<p class="pnext">"Ventr. 293. 3 Keble, 607, but quotes no authority. By these echoings
+and reechoings from one to another, it had become so established in
+1728, that in the case of the King v. Woolston, 2 Strange, 834, the
+court would not suffer it to be debated, whether to write against
+Christianity was punishable in the temporal courts at common law. Wood,
+therefore, 409, ventures still to vary the phrase, and says, 'that all
+blasphemy and profaneness are offences by the common law,' and cites 2
+Strange. Then Blackstone, in 1763, IV. 59, repeats the words of Hale,
+that 'Christianity is part of the law of England,' citing Ventris and
+Strange: and finally, Lord Mansfield, with a little qualification, in
+Evans's case in 1767, says, 'that the essential principles of revealed
+religion are parts of the common law,' thus engulphing Bible, Testament,
+and all, into the common law, without citing any authority. And thus we
+find this chain of authorities hanging link by link one upon another,
+and all ultimately on one and the same hook; and that a mistranslation
+of the words 'ancien scripture,' used by Prisot. Finch quotes Prisot;
+Wingate does the same; Sheppard quotes Prisot, Finch, and Wingate; Hale
+cites nobody; the Court, in Woolston's case, cites Hale; Wood cites
+Woolston's case; Blackstone quotes Woolston's case and Hale; and Lord
+Mansfield, like Hale, ventures it on his own authority. Here I might
+defy the best-read lawyer to produce another scrip of authority for this
+<em class="italics">judiciary forgery</em>; and I might go on further to show how some of the
+Anglo-Saxon priests interpolated into the text of Alfred's laws, the
+20th, 21st, 22nd, and 23rd chapters of Exodus, and the 10th of the Acts
+of the Apostles, from the 23rd to the 29th verses. But this would lead
+my pen and your patience too far. What a conspiracy this between Church
+and State! Sing Tantararara, Rogues all, Rogues all; Sing Tantararara,
+Rogues all!"</p>
+<p class="pnext">Gentlemen, after hearing this statement from the pen of an educated and
+eminent lawyer, can you hesitate to return a verdict of acquittal? You
+have now a complete history of this "<em class="italics">judiciary forgery</em>" as Jefferson
+terms it, before you; and I am satisfied that that which originated in
+a <em class="italics">fraudulent mistranslation</em>, cannot, now that the fraud is detected,
+long retain the force of law. On this ground, then, I confidently claim
+your verdict.</p>
+<p class="pnext">Gentlemen, I now come to the trade argument--that it is a great hardship
+and injustice to hold a bookseller responsible for the contents of the
+books he sells.</p>
+<p class="pnext">I am a general bookseller; and so great is the competition, and so
+fully is my time occupied, that I have no time to spare for reading the
+various works in my shop, even if I had the inclination. My excellent
+and amiable son, before his death, and before I had any idea of this
+prosecution, drew up a paper for the management of my business, by which
+it appears that upwards of seventy weekly periodicals pass through my
+hands every week, besides books and many other periodicals that are
+merely collected to order. Amongst them will be found every possible
+variety--"The Church of England Magazine," "The Sacred Album," and many
+others maintaining contradictory and conflicting opinions; but I do not
+hold myself responsible--either legally or morally--for any of them.
+I have no right to set myself up as a censor of the press. I sell them
+all--and am not responsible for any man's opinions upon an abstract or
+general subject. When the subject matter of a book relates to the people
+at large, the public alone should decide upon its merits. If the book
+be a good one, they will support it; if a bad one, they will condemn and
+reject it. This is the only proper punishment for a bad author. The
+line of duty I mark out for myself in that I will never sell obscene
+publications--works that demoralise and corrupt society--nor any attacks
+upon private character; and if a person comes to me complaining that his
+character has been falsely and slanderously attacked, I sell no more of
+that work. What more can be expected from a general bookseller? If the
+sale of a controversial book is to be suppressed, because it contains
+a few passages in bad taste, and of objectionable phraseology, then the
+sale of the Bible itself must be prohibited, for that book contains many
+passages far more objectionable in the present day than any to be found
+in "Haslam's Letters to the Clergy." I have here a list of passages
+from the Bible, of a highly objectionable character; but as I perceive a
+number of ladies in the court, I will not pollute their ears, nor shock
+the feelings of the Jury, by reading them. My only object in alluding
+to them, is to show that if the principle of selecting two or three
+objectionable passages from a work is to lead to its condemnation, and
+the punishment of the bookseller, then I might with equal justice be
+condemned for selling the Bible itself. On this ground, also, I claim
+and am entitled to your verdict.</p>
+<p class="pnext">Gentlemen, the Attorney-General has not done justice to Mr. Haslam; he
+has dwelt upon the passages contained in the indictment, but has left
+the Jury in total ignorance of the general nature of the work. In many
+parts of the book are to be found passages of great beauty. So far from
+a charge of blasphemy fairly attaching to Mr. Haslam's Letters, he
+uniformly declares that he rejects the Jewish Scriptures because they
+are <em class="italics">irrational</em>, and <em class="italics">dishonour</em> the God "that governs the universe."
+I will read a passage from his Second Letter, which shows the veneration
+he entertains for the Deity.</p>
+<p class="pnext">"But is it not monstrous, that that power which gives life and motion
+to millions of worlds; which guides them in their eternal revolutions
+in the boundless ocean of space, and which preserves them in everlasting
+order and harmony; is it not monstrous that that power should be
+represented in this ridiculous point of view? Vain, violent, and
+boisterous, without the least indication of any thing rational, good,
+or merciful in any of his proceedings. Such a God may be the God of the
+Christians, but he is not the God who governs the universe. That God is
+no more to be compared to the Bible God, than the dazzling sun is to be
+compared to the glimmering light of a candle."</p>
+<p class="pnext">Mr. Haslam's work has many other passages of the same description;
+and the Attorney-General will see that the passage in the Eighth
+Letter--almost the only objectionable passage in the work--was not
+deliberately designed to give offence, when I tell him that the
+author, in deference to the opinion of his friends, has cancelled the
+objectionable passage, and re-written it. Now what would the learned
+Attorney-General have more? The object of prosecution has been always
+held to be preventive, or corrective, not vindictive. The object sought,
+then, is already attained. Mr. Haslam has anticipated your wishes by
+correcting the objectionable passage.</p>
+<p class="pnext">Gentlemen, I have urged sufficient, I hope, to induce you to give me
+your verdict; but before I conclude, I will read a passage from the
+works of Dean Swift, which is worthy of your profound attention.
+"Whoever," he says, "could restore, in any degree, brotherly love among
+men, would be an instrument of more good to society than ever was or
+will be done by all the statesmen in the world."</p>
+<p class="pnext">Gentlemen, let us commence the glorious work to-day. I will tell you how
+you can do more towards spreading brotherly love among men, than all
+the statesmen in the world will be able to accomplish. Say to the
+Government, by your verdict, the publication of opinions shall be free.
+This will spread brotherly love among men; for what is it that prevents
+brotherly love from dwelling among men? The odious principle of
+coercion. I do not believe the Government wish to follow up these
+prosecutions if they can avoid it. They have a precedent, then, in the
+case of Sir Robert Peel. Mr. Carlile was in prison nearly <em class="italics">seven years</em>,
+and many of his shopmen were imprisoned for various terras. Did such
+vindictive persecutions change their opinions, or stop the sale of the
+works prosecuted? Quite the contrary. The individuals became confirmed
+and strengthened in their opinions, and all the prosecuted works are
+now on sale in every bookseller's shop in London. The public began to
+consider them martyrs, and Sir Robert Peel and the Government of that
+day saw the injustice and cruelty of such proceedings, abandoned all
+prosecutions, and liberated those whose terms of imprisonment were
+unexpired. Surely those now in authority are not the men to recommence
+these prosecutions for matters of opinion; and my quarrel with them
+is, that they have not the moral courage to reply to the taunts of
+the Bishop of Exeter, by alluding to this case of Sir Robert Peel's
+Government; and boldly declaring that henceforth public opinion shall be
+the only censor. Abolish that hateful principle of coercion for matters
+of opinion, and mutual toleration, respect, and brotherly kindness, will
+henceforth prevail.</p>
+<p class="pnext">Gentlemen, Christianity gives no sanction to persecution. The religion
+of Jesus, rightly understood, is a practical and benevolent system. It
+is founded on two great commandments, love of God and love of Man.
+The <em class="italics">first</em> commandment, in fact, resolves itself into a practical
+observance of the <em class="italics">second</em>; for it is expressly declared that, "<em class="italics">If a
+man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that
+loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he
+hath not seen</em>?"(1) Recollect, Gentlemen, "<em class="italics">Love worketh no ill to his
+neighbour</em>."(2) Jesus encourages all men to think for themselves. This
+is his exhortation--"<em class="italics">Why, even of your own selves, judge ye not what is
+right?*(3)" But while he has encouraged the exercise of mind, he has not
+made eternal happiness to depend upon *belief</em> but upon their <em class="italics">actions</em>;
+and the great evil of society is attempting to coerce people into the
+belief of that which they cannot believe--a system to which, I hope,
+your verdict to-day will put a stop.</p>
+<blockquote>
+<div>
+<ol class="arabic simple">
+<li><p class="first pfirst">1 John iv.; 20,</p>
+</li>
+<li><p class="first pfirst">Rom. xiii.; 10,</p>
+</li>
+<li><p class="first pfirst">Luke xii.; 57</p>
+</li>
+</ol>
+</div>
+</blockquote>
+<p class="pfirst">Gentlemen, the Founder of Christianity, in his parable of the Last
+Judgment, tells us distinctly that men are to be judged by their
+<em class="italics">actions</em> and not by their <em class="italics">opinions</em>; for he describes himself as
+inviting the righteous to inherit the kingdom prepared for them from the
+foundation of the world: "For I was an hungered, and ye gave me meat: I
+was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me
+in: naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was
+in prison, and ye came unto me." He then represents the righteous as
+saying, "Lord, when saw we thee an hungered, and fed thee I or thirsty,
+and gave thee drink? When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or
+naked, and clothed thee? Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and
+came unto thee? And the King shall answer, Inasmuch AS YE HAVE DONE IT
+UNTO ONE OF THE LEAST OF THESE MY BRETHREN, ye have done it unto me." He
+then represents himself as denouncing the unrighteous for giving him no
+meat, nor drink; for not clothing him when naked, nor visiting him when
+sick; and when they desire to know when he required these things, and
+they did not minister unto him, he replies, "Inasmuch as ye did it not
+to one of the least of these my brethren, ye did it not to me." Here,
+you perceive, there is no particular belief enjoined, none condemned.
+All men are to be judged by their actions--not by their belief.</p>
+<p class="pnext">Gentlemen, I have now urged all that I deem necessary to ensure an
+acquittal. I hope you will consider well the consequences of your
+verdict, and reflect upon the wickedness and impolicy of tearing a
+man from his family, for selling a book in the ordinary course of his
+business. If I have said anything in the course of my address to raise
+a prejudice in your minds, I hope you will discard it, and do justice by
+pronouncing an acquittal.</p>
+<p class="pnext">The Attorney-General claimed his right of reply. He commenced by
+observing that the Defendant, in his very long address to the Jury, had
+not advanced anything that would call for many remarks from him, so that
+he should occupy bu ta very small portion of their time. The Defendant
+had contended that the blasphemous attack on our holy religion,
+which they had heard read, was only free inquiry; and had taunted the
+Government, and himself, who desired the extension of useful knowledge,
+with having prosecuted this book. But was this book of Haslam's
+useful knowledge? The Defendant said, Why not answer it? But he, the
+Attorney-General, contended that it could not be answered. The only way
+to do with it was to prosecute it. This publication--for the sale of
+which the Defendant was indicted--was not fair argument and inquiry,
+but blasphemous invective. The Defendant accused him of not objecting so
+much to the matter of the publication, as to the price at which it was
+sold. Not withstanding what the Defendant had said on this point, he,
+the Attorney-General, contended that the low price at which it was sold
+made the publication doubly mischievous, as it caused it to circulate
+among the working classes of society, who were from their habits,
+incapable of thought or discrimination; their time was so entirely
+occupied that it was impossible they could devote sufficient time to
+reading to guard themselves against the evil tendency of such works;
+while the Jury, and men in their class of life, were, from their
+education, furnished with an antidote to the poison. If attacks on the
+Scriptures were to be permitted, what was to prevent the pious feelings
+of the community from being outraged? Suppose a man were to carry a
+board through the streets on which was inscribed in large characters,
+that "Christ was an impostor." Could it be tolerated? Yet this,
+according to the Defendant, was only free inquiry! Again, suppose any
+one preferred a republican to a monarchical form of government, and was
+to excite and recommend the substitution of the one for the other by
+force of arms, inciting, by inflammatory appeals, the people to murder
+the Government and the Queen--yet this would be, according to Mr.
+Hetherington, only free inquiry! The Defendant had said that Mr. Haslam
+was a Socialist; now the Socialists held an opinion that marriage was an
+institution that ought to be abolished. If a man, under that plea, were
+to recommend the seduction of his neighbour's wife or daughter--would
+any one contend that such opinions should be published with impunity?
+yet the Defendant considers this the free investigation of opinions; and
+to prosecute a blasphemous publication, he says, is to prevent freedom
+of opinion. No one wished to interfere with Mr. Hetherington's private
+opinion. The policeman, when he went to Mr. Hetherington's shop to
+purchase the numbers, did not inquire as to his particular belief. If
+there were persons so unfortunate as to disbelieve the Scriptures--which
+were the foundation of our holy religion--the law did not interfere
+with them so long as they kept their opinions to themselves, and did
+not publicly attack the authenticity of the Bible. Mr. Hetherington
+had spoken of the effect of prosecution in extending the sale of such
+publications, alluding particularly to the <em class="italics">Poor Man's Guardian</em>; but
+he, the Attorney-General, called upon the Jury to do their duty by
+bringing? to punishment those who outraged the law, that others might be
+deterred from offending. If the Jury looked at the immoral tendency of
+such writings, and the doctrines of non-responsibility laid down by
+Mr. Hetherington, who declared that he was neither responsible for his
+belief, nor his actions--</p>
+<p class="pnext">Mr. Hetherington here interrupted, declaring that the Attorney-General
+was acting most unfairly towards him. He never used such language, but
+quite the contrary; what he maintained was, that he was not responsible
+for his <em class="italics">belief</em> but that he <em class="italics">was responsible for his</em> actions. If he
+injured a friend, a neighbour, or a fellow-citizen, he was amenable to
+society for the injury done. The Attorney-General, he contended, was not
+replying to him, but perverting his arguments and misrepresenting facts.</p>
+<p class="pnext">Lord Denman said that he agreed with the Defendant in the first
+instance, and therefore he thought he was justified in putting the
+Attorney-General right; but the Attorney-General, he thought, was
+entitled to make any remarks upon facts which came out in evidence.</p>
+<p class="pnext">Mr. Hetherington (with great vehemence).--But he is mis-stating facts,
+and making statements calculated to mislead the Jury.</p>
+<p class="pnext">Lord Denman.--You must not interrupt.</p>
+<p class="pnext">The Defendant.--But my liberty is at stake, and I will speak. (Applause
+at the back of the court, which was instantly suppressed by the
+officers.)</p>
+<p class="pnext">Lord Denman.--You shall be heard in correction of anything you may think
+a misrepresentation, afterwards; not in reply, but merely in correction.</p>
+<p class="pnext">The Defendant.--Thank you, my Lord.</p>
+<p class="pnext">The Attorney-General observed, that the Defendant denied being the
+publisher, but he would convince the Jury that he was, by reading
+the title to them. He then read the title of the book--omitting the
+publisher's name, and reading the name of the Defendant only, till
+Mr. Hetherington insisted upon his rending the whole title as
+follows:--"Letters to the Clergy of all Denominations, showing the
+Errors, Absurdities, and Irrationalities of their Doctrines. By C.
+J. Haslani. Fourth Edition. Manchester: A. Heywood. 56 and 60, Oldham
+Street. London*; Hetherington, 126, Strand; Cleave, Shoe Lane, Fleet
+Street; Watson, City Road, Finsbury; and J. Guest, Birmingham; and all
+Booksellers in Town and Country."</p>
+<p class="pnext">The Attorney-General then proceeded.--Conceive, gentlemen, a servant
+or an apprentice reading this work where the institution of private
+property was said to be the great evil of society--would he feel any
+compunction at appropriating the goods or money of his employer to his
+own use? Would he not find arguments in this work to justify him in his
+iniquity? Mr. Hetherington had taken credit to himself for
+disinterested motives, but he feared that he was actuated by mercenary
+motives--looking only to emolument--careless of the effect it might have
+on the morals of the unthinking working-classes.(1) He called upon the
+Jury, by the oaths they had taken on the Holy Gospel--which this
+book blasphemously attacked--to consider the effect of a verdict of
+acquittal, and to do their duty to the public. By such a verdict they
+would license the most infamous attacks on the Holy Scriptures, and
+would loosen the bonds which held society together.</p>
+<blockquote>
+<div>
+<p class="pfirst">1. This comes well from a gentleman who descended from his
+high professional position to attend at the Old Bailry, for
+a fee of £. 100, to plead for a man charged with murder.</p>
+</div>
+</blockquote>
+<p class="pfirst">Mr. Hetherington explained that it was the custom of the trade to place
+the name of any bookseller, with whom the real publisher did business,
+on the title-page of the book, and that his name had been so placed by
+Mr. Hey-wood, of Manchester, the real publisher, without his knowledge.
+Mr. Heywood was the original publisher; he received no punishment, and
+was now at liberty.</p>
+<p class="pnext">Lord Denman, in summing up, observed, that the law considered the vendor
+of a work the publisher of it, and that consequently he must be held
+responsible. It had also been constantly laid down that blasphemy was
+an offence at common law. In the Defendant's defence, TO WHICH HE
+HAD LISTENED WITH FEELINGS OF GREAT INTEREST, AYE, WITH SENTIMENTS OF
+RESPECT TOO, he had complained of the hardship of a general publisher
+being held responsible for the contents of all the works he might sell,
+but he had himself answered that argument by the conduct which he stated
+he pursued with regard to obscene and personally libellous publication,
+and from the title-page of this work it was scarcely possible not to be,
+in some measure, aware of its contents. Discussions on a subject, even
+the most sacred, might be tolerated when they were conducted in a fair
+spirit; but when appeals were made not to reason but to the bad feelings
+of human nature, or where ridicule or invective were had recourse to, it
+could not be considered discussion. As to the impolicy of these sort of
+prosecutions that was a question with which they had nothing to do;
+the only question for them to determine was, whether the publication in
+question was a blasphemous libel, and whether it had been published by
+the Defendant.</p>
+<p class="pnext">The Jury immediately returned a verdict of Guilty.</p>
+<p class="pnext">The Attorney-General prayed the immediate judgment of the Court.</p>
+<p class="pnext">Lord Denman.--I think the passing sentence had better be deferred, until
+we have had the opportunity of considering the subject.</p>
+<p class="pnext">The Defendant then retired, and the Court adjourned.</p>
+<div class="clearpage">
+</div>
+</div>
+<div class="level-2 section" id="observations">
+<h2 class="level-2 pfirst section-title title"><a class="toc-backref" href="#id10">OBSERVATIONS</a></h2>
+<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 3.00em">T</span><span class="dropspan">he</span> renewal of a series of Government prosecutions for alleged
+blasphemy, will justify me in accompanying the publication of the
+foregoing trial with a few words of comment.</p>
+<p class="pnext">The points upon which I deem it my duty to animadvert--are the conduct
+of the Government, the Attorney-General, and the Jury.</p>
+<p class="pnext">I consider that the Government have acted towards me, in this
+prosecution, in a very unjustifiable manner. They first placed Mr.
+Cleave on his trial for selling the fifth, eighth, and thirteenth
+numbers of Haslam's Letters. He pleaded <em class="italics">Not Guilty</em>, but was convicted
+(after an able and convincing speech from his-Counsel, Mr. Chambers),
+by as stupid a Jury as ever sat in judgment on an honest man. The Judge
+sentenced him to four months' imprisonment, and a fine of £20. Such was
+the force of public opinion, however, on the injustice and impolicy of
+such prosecutions, that Mr. Cleave was liberated, upon paying the fine,
+after five weeks' imprisonment.</p>
+<p class="pnext">The trial of Mr. Heywood, the original publisher, came next. His known
+integrity and respectability had attached to him many influential
+friends, who represented to the Government the folly and injustice
+of these proceedings, and Lord Normanby at length yielded to their
+importunities, by agreeing, on condition that he pleaded guilty,
+that Mr. Heywood's prosecution should proceed no further. Mr.
+Heywood complied, and was left at liberty, on entering into his own
+recognizances, to appear when called upon.</p>
+<p class="pnext">Public opinion unequivocally declared that such prosecutions were
+indefensible, and it was very generally believed that the Government
+would abandon them from a conviction of their injustice and impolicy.
+Instead of which they proceeded against me for selling the same
+numbers of the identical work that Messrs. Cleave and Heywood had
+been prosecuted for selling, though the punishment of Mr. Cleave was
+remitted, and the Government compounded blasphemy in the case of Mr.
+Heywood. To injure and annoy honest and industrious tradesmen, because
+the author of a book has in two or three instances expressed his ideas
+in vulgar and objectionable phraseology, is unworthy of an enlightened
+Government. I feel pity for the Jury who could ignorantly pronounce
+a verdict of guilty against a man who never wilfully injured a
+fellow-creature, merely because he had sold a book that combated
+the established opinions of the day; but I entertain very different
+sentiments against the Government that could institute and carry forward
+prosecutions of this nature, when, from their superior knowledge, they
+must be fully aware of the iniquity of their proceedings. They encourage
+"reason and free inquiry," while it favours their objects; and they
+persecute and ruin all those, who, by the exercise of reason and free
+inquiry, arrive at conclusions adverse to the established opinions of
+society. The time has passed, however, for a renewal of persecution for
+matters of opinion. No Government can stand that will attempt it; and
+I tell Her Majesty's Government, that when they interfere with the
+religious or anti-religious opinions of the people, they step out of
+their province,--and to inflict punishment upon either the original
+publisher or the general bookseller, who supplies all works to order,
+for the opinions contained in the works they respectively publish or
+sell, is an odious act of tyranny that good men of every opinion should
+denounce and oppose. I, for one, will never sanction or submit to such
+tyranny. Whether any and what sentence will be passed upon me I know
+not; but I have made up my mind that I will maintain, at all risks, and
+under every privation, to the utmost extent of my ability and means, the
+right of all men to freely publish their opinions upon every subject
+of general interest--whether social, political, or religious; aye, or
+anti-religious,--and if the Government would receive a suggestion
+from me, I would suggest to them to take their stand on this glorious
+principle--perfect freedom is the formation AS PUBLICATION OF OPINIONS
+FOR EVERY SECT AND PARTY. That is the most effectual way to elicit truth
+upon all subjects; and I would respectfully ask them, whether they
+ever knew the truth injure any sect or party that was disposed to act
+honestly?</p>
+<p class="pnext">I hope the Government will reflect upon the injustice and impolicy
+of this new crusade against the free expression of opinion, adopt my
+suggestion, and abandon all prosecutions against those who honestly
+controvert the received opinions of society.</p>
+<p class="pnext">Having now expressed my feelings with regard to the conduct of the
+Government, I must say a word or two respecting the behaviour of the
+learned Attorney-General towards me, on my trial. He made very few
+observations in opening the case, but reserved himself for his Reply;
+a privilege which I think he was not entitled to, as I called no
+witnesses. Had I anticipated he would have claimed the privilege of
+reply, and abused it in the shameful manner that he did, I could have
+overthrown, by witnesses, the false impression which he so unjustly
+laboured to establish on the minds of the Jury--that I was the publisher
+of the work, because my name was affixed to the book first of the London
+agents. What is the object of a reply? It is to answer the facts
+and arguments adduced by the Defendant; to show that he has reasoned
+illogically; and to point out to the Jury, succinctly and clearly* the
+points in which he has failed to answer the charge laid against him in
+the indictment. In addition, however, to this base attempt to hold me
+up to the Jury as the original publisher, the Attorney-General obviously
+sought to make the Jury believe--(and there is every reason to think
+that he triumphed in this his unjust attempt to injure me)--that I
+claimed immunity not only for my belief but my actions, When I insisted
+upon setting him right, by showing him the utter falsehood of his
+assertion, in which I was supported by Lord Chief Justice Denman, he
+treacherously aimed at fixing upon me the consequences of doctrines to
+which I had not even adverted in my speech, and which had no reference
+whatever to the subject then before the Court. He basely insinuated that
+I was virtually claiming immunity for all acts of aggression--such as
+robbery, murder, seduction, unjustifiable rebellion, and assassination
+of the Queen; striving to raise in the minds of the Jury a confusion
+between the right of freedom of opinion and the wrong of licentious
+action! This, too, was slanderously repeated, after my open appeal to
+the Court against such malignity; and this the learned Attorney-General
+calls availing himself of his privilege of reply! I was not allowed to
+answer these falsehoods of the Attorney-General; though, as the accused
+party, I was in justice, if not in law, entitled to every opportunity of
+making the truth apparent to the Jury.</p>
+<p class="pnext">As to the Jury--What shall I say of them? I can only pity men who
+exhibited such woful ignorance and imbecility as to be led away by
+misrepresentations that had not even the appearance of truth. Let me ask
+the Jury one simple question. They were bound by their oath to give a
+true verdict according to the evidence. Now let me ask them, was there
+any evidence of BLASPHEMY?</p>
+<p class="pnext">The evidence adduced merely proved the sale of a certain book. There
+was no evidence that the contents of the book were blasphemous. This
+question--(that is to say, the very question in dispute--the question
+whether or not there was any blasphemy)--this question was decided by
+Judge and Jury without an iota of evidence, without even an attempt at
+any evidence bearing Upon it. The opinions of the Judge and Jury decided
+the question of the indictment---Was there blasphemy or no! There
+was no evidence at all upon it. Gentlemen of the Jury--common and
+special--was your verdict in accordance with the EVIDENCE brought
+forward for your enlightened consideration--was your verdict in
+accordance with the terms of your oath? The verdict to which I was
+entitled from honest and reasoning men was the following:--either a
+direct "Not Guilty of blasphemy"--or this, "Guilty of selling a certain
+book concerning the nature of which wc=e have had no evidence"--matters of
+opinion not being, in fact susceptible of evidence.</p>
+<ol class="upperalpha simple" start="8">
+<li><p class="first pfirst">HETHERINGTON.</p>
+</li>
+</ol>
+<p class="pfirst">I cannot close these Observations without tendering my best thanks
+to the editor of <em class="italics">The Sun</em> for the zeal and ability with which, in a
+succession of leading articles, he defended the right of Free Inquiry
+and the Free Publication of Opinions. The <em class="italics">Morning Chronicle</em> published
+an impartial report of the Trial, and gave a good leading article on
+the subject. The <em class="italics">Morning Advertiser</em> and the <em class="italics">Weekly Chronicle</em> also
+published a fair report of the Trial. The <em class="italics">Weekly Dispatch</em> and The
+<em class="italics">Statesman</em> are both entitled to thanks for their advocacy of Truth and
+Liberty, in reference to the principle contended for in my Defence. The
+three Letters of Publicola, in The <em class="italics">Weekly Dispatch</em>, are invaluable;
+and I regret that I cannot find room for the whole of them in this
+pamphlet, without considerably enhancing its price and defeating my
+own object of extensive circulation for my Trial. They are worthy of a
+distinct publication. I can only fill up the space I have left by the
+insertion of the following excellent article from <em class="italics">The Sun</em> of Friday,
+December the 11th, 1840, and Publicola's Letter to Lord Chief Justice
+Denman.--H. H.</p>
+<div class="clearpage">
+</div>
+</div>
+<div class="level-2 section" id="extract-from-the-sun-newspaper">
+<h2 class="level-2 pfirst section-title title"><a class="toc-backref" href="#id11">Extract from The Sun Newspaper</a></h2>
+<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 3.00em">W</span><span class="dropspan">e</span> brought evidence yesterday to show that the suppression of
+objections to the Scriptures by penal enactments is tyrannical, unjust,
+and absurd, and that the law is partially administered. If we return
+to the subject, it is from a deep sense of its almost immeasurable
+importance. Our whole internal A policy, nearly, is framed with a view
+to support the Church. The Church is founded, or rather pretends to be
+founded, on the Bible; but we are now told by the decision of the
+Jury on Tuesday, that it is a crime to object to its statements. The
+happiness of society, then, is to be chained and bound by principles and
+doctrines, which society must not examine; for if men must not object,
+what is the use of examination?</p>
+<p class="pnext">"We see disorder pervading every part of society. The poor are set
+against the rich, and the rich are zealously engaged in oppressing
+and coercing the poor. Crime increases, and though more churches
+are building, religion is decaying. The remedies suggested for our
+disorders, within the bounds sanctioned by the Church, are more numerous
+than the disorders themselves; but though confusion and anarchy
+threaten us, the law forbids men to say aught against principles which
+our rulers have followed, while society has been brought into its
+present condition.</p>
+<p class="pnext">"What the law now decrees against what it calls blasphemy, it decreed,
+not two centuries ago, against witchcraft. It now denounces the former
+as displeasing to God; it then denounced the latter for the same
+offence. Men and women were in those less humane days burned for
+displeasing God, while now they are only fined and incarcerated. By the
+progress of knowledge, lawyers, both barristers and judges, have been
+compelled to give up that portion of the perfection of human reason, and
+the law against witchcraft has become obsolete. If our view of the
+law for suppressing objections to the Scriptures, under * the name of
+blasphemy, be correct, it is not more reasonable than the law against
+witchcraft. While no lawyer, however, will now lend himself to revive
+the latter or carry it into execution, there are numbers, we say it to
+the disgrace of the profession, zealous and eager to apply the former,
+at least to the penny tracts which are addressed to the poor.</p>
+<p class="pnext">"It is therefore with deep regret that we saw so eminent a man as the
+Attorney-General lending himself to this sorry work. We are ready to
+admit, as a Tory contemporary has stated, that he has done his duty, and
+he finds his reward in the praise of the Tories. Nor did he show, as far
+as we can learn, certainly not in his reply, any reluctance to perform
+it; people say he did it as if he had something to atone for, and was
+rather eager to gain the approbation of Bishop Philpotts. His
+labours were crowned with a success which his own party reprobate. In
+Westminster Hall he has triumphed, but an appeal lies from that to the
+world; and even the Whigs, who have heretofore denounced prosecutions
+for blasphemy as for witchcraft, consider that in the last resort he
+will sustain a terrible defeat.</p>
+<p class="pnext">"Mr. Hetherington has already suffered in body and mind, in purse and
+health; and probably awaits with apprehension the sentence, which may
+consign him to prison and ruin. He is down-stricken by the law; but
+those who have read his defence, and prefer reason to legal fictions,
+will place him far above the triumphant Attorney-General. He made
+an admirable pleading for free inquiry, which plain John Campbell
+instituted a prosecution to suppress. In his reply Sir John so far
+overstepped the bounds of propriety, that the Defendant would not allow
+him to proceed, and was supported by the Court. In a bad cause the
+Attorney-General used poisoned weapons. He upheld a prosecution for
+blasphemy, which is as ridiculous as a prosecution for witchcraft, and
+descended to misrepresent the accused. With our opinion of the law he
+was enforcing, we are bound to say that Sir John Campbell should have
+left such a duty to be performed by some taker of a half-guinea fee, who
+never got beyond the precincts of the Old Bailey. It was wholly unworthy
+of an eminent lawyer, who has risen into political power as a professed
+friend of free discussion. The slaves to lust have some pleasure for
+their punishment, but the servants of the grimgribber of Westminster
+Hall, who sacrifice present fame to a sense of duty to it, reap little
+more than disgrace for their nauseous drudgery.</p>
+<p class="pnext">"Sir John Campbell prosecuted Mr. Hetherington, in the language of
+the indictment, for being 'a wicked, impious, and ill-disposed
+person, having no regard to the laws of this realm, but most wickedly,
+blasphemously, impiously, and profanely devising and intending to
+asperse and vilify that part of the Holy Bible which is called the Old
+Testament.' Now, having no respect whatever for the fictions of the law,
+we have no hesitation in branding such accusations of a publisher as a
+monstrous tissue of falsehoods, and to affirm that it is a disgrace to
+any man who has the least respect for truth, to defend such a charge.
+We care not about its being the customary language of the law, for
+truth and men's liberties are not to be sacrificed by and for such
+absurdities.</p>
+<p class="pnext">"Further, this said aspersing and vilifying the Bible is said by Sir J.
+Campbell, at least such is the language of the indictment, which he
+used arguments to sustain, to be greatly 'to the displeasure of Almighty
+God.' Who knows that? What worm dares to say that the Almighty God is
+displeased with another worm for uttering or writing a few words.'
+Who is the vain and arrogant man that claims for himself the task of
+interpreting the thoughts of the Most High, and demanding that a man be
+punished for having displeased Almighty God? What name does the Court
+deserve which, being instituted to do justice and protect the people,
+punishes one of them because he displeases the Almighty? Can He not
+punish those who displease Him? To doubt it, to undertake to protect or
+avenge Him, to describe Him as displeased, while he showers prosperity
+and contentment on the man said to displease Him, is far more impious,
+more blasphemous, more dangerous to religion than anything Mr.
+Hetherington ever published, or Mr. Haslam wrote. Such, however, was
+the crime charged against Mr. Hetherington, which Sir John Campbell
+endeavoured to substantiate, and of which a Jury, who are as much
+deserving of reproach as the prosecutor, found him guilty. Such is the
+crime for which the Court will hereafter pass sentence, undertaking,
+like the Inquisition, to decide for the Almighty, and punish actions
+as displeasing to Him, at which He, by the course of nature, shows no
+displeasure.</p>
+<p class="pnext">"At the present time, when a great portion of the Whig press will
+support the Attorney-General or be silent, leaving <em class="italics">The Sun</em> to defend
+the great principle of free inquiry and free printing, as they left it
+to defend the same sacred and noble cause when it was assailed in the
+person of Mr. Harmer, we think it our duty not to be silent. As we
+should assail any Tory Attorney-General who had instituted such
+a prosecution, or carried it on, so we cannot allow it to pass
+unstigmatized because it has been instituted by a Whig Attorney-General.
+We know that the wisest and best politicians of the party deprecate
+such proceedings, and not the less because they will call forth in
+many independent journals, to the injury of the Whigs, an expression of
+honest indignation."</p>
+<div class="clearpage">
+</div>
+</div>
+<div class="level-2 section" id="to-lord-denman-on-the-late-prosecution-for-blasphemy">
+<h2 class="level-2 pfirst section-title title"><a class="toc-backref" href="#id12">"TO LORD DENMAN, ON THE LATE PROSECUTION FOR BLASPHEMY</a></h2>
+<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 3.00em">M</span><span class="dropspan">r</span> Lord Chief Justice.</p>
+<p class="pnext">"Your conduct on the Bench, upon the recent trial, 'The Queen v.
+Hetherington,' for a religious libel, a nominal and an impossible
+offence, the fiction of fraudulent bigotry, has much increased the high
+esteem in which you have been always held by the public. Your Lordship's
+opinions on this impolitic, irreligious, and thoroughly infamous species
+of prosecution have oft-times been expressed with the integrity and high
+moral courage that have ever distinguished your public life. I never
+shall forget the manliness with which I heard you avow from the Whig
+Treasury Benches, in the House of Commons, in your place as Attorney
+General, your detestation of indictments for religious opinions; and the
+House hailed you when you fairly acknowledged your deep regret that, as
+Common Serjeant, you had been obliged, in obedience to your oath and to
+the law, to impose even the smallest punishment possible upon three men
+convicted by an ignorant Jury of a libel on the Scriptures; and you were
+still more cheerfully received when you expressed your joy at the
+liberation of the prisoners whom you had so unwillingly punished. There
+was one part of your speech that did not certainly satisfy me. I respect
+your sense of obligation to an oath; but when you punished men whom you
+conscientiously believed to be undeserving of infliction, and this 'in
+obedience to the law,' your Lordship might have reflected, that it was
+not Parliamentary, but Judge-made law--'Common-law,' as it is called;
+and you might have acted upon the principle that if a corrupt and
+ignorant Judge made a law to suit the prejudices of a brutal age, a pure
+and well-informed Judge might reverse that law in favour of an age more
+humane and more enlightened. I recollect with great satisfaction that
+when, in the case of Lord Langford, the Counsel, Mr. Thesiger, asked a
+witness (Mr. Nathan, a Jew) 'what religion he was of?' your Lordship
+expressed your strong displeasure; and, under your Lordship's sanction,
+the witness refused to answer the interrogatory, and treated both the
+query and the querist with the utmost contempt; and the whole Court and
+audience seemed strongly to approve of the result. In the recent trial
+your Lordship's conduct was a contrast to that of your immediate
+predecessors on the Bench, Lords Tenterden and Ellenborough, the last
+representatives of a most disgraceful school of political, prejudiced,
+corrupt Court Judges. You did all in your power to induce the Jury to
+acquit the accused. I am now credibly informed that the Attorney-General
+had the same object at heart; and having, intentionally, gone in a most
+slovenly and unimpressive manner, through his technical duty, he was
+abashed and mortified when he heard the verdict of guilty. Familiar as
+he must be with the extreme ignorance, stupidity, and corruption of
+Juries, on such occasions, he was still surprised at such a verdict. I
+am willing to give him credit for these common reports in his favour;
+but should the Government be so infatuated as to bring the defendant up
+for judgment, the country expects of you, my Lord Denman, that the
+sentence will be nominal, and that it will be accompanied by your
+reprobation of all such trials.</p>
+<p class="pnext">"If it be true that hope is the last passion that leaves a man,
+equally true is it that the spirit, the accursed spirit of religious
+persecution, is the last passion that man deserts, or is willing to
+abandon. I sincerely believe that if the alternative were put to a
+hundred dying men, at their last, moment of consciousness, at their last
+gasp of breath, whether they preferred their own future salvation
+or beatitude, or the persecution of man upon earth for conscientious
+differences of opinion on religious subjects, full ninety-nine out of
+the hundred would choose the latter, on the ground of its being the
+turnpike-road to the former, and from the inherent delight in the
+spirit of religious intolerance. Fanaticism is the primeval curse of our
+nature. From its first victim Abel, to the present hour, it has raged
+through the human race. Moral sins and physical or corporeal diseases in
+the course of ages wear themselves out, or can be cured by instruction
+or medical treatment; but the most foul, leprous, and crime-engendering
+of all maladies that flesh is heir to, fanaticism--call it if you
+please, bigotry or superstition--admits of no cure, and of little
+mitigation. If this hellhound were now let loose from the restraints
+of law, we should in one year have every gaol and dungeon full of
+prisoners, and in another, the fires and faggots of the olden times
+would be raging more fiercely than of yore, and more furiously in this
+country than in any other. Whatever Catholics might have been in the
+middle ages, there has been more of religious persecution in Great
+Britain and Ireland, in the last century, than in all the Catholic
+countries of Europe within the same period. On the Continent the spirit
+is on the wane; in England it is on the increase.</p>
+<p class="pnext">"My Lord Denman, in the very abstraction of our individual nature, and
+of the nature of society, a court of justice cannot take cognizance of
+opinions. Its functions are confined exclusively to facts. Can any two
+classes of things be more distinct and opposite? The one is fixed, the
+other perpetually varying. Law, cultivated reason and common sense have
+rescued subjects of opinion from judicial interference, except with
+respect to politics and religion, the two which of all others most need
+the exemption. The interference of courts of justice with religious
+opinions had immensely decreased, and it is now reviving; but it is in
+your Lordship's power to annihilate it by passings nominal sentence
+on the defendant. The effects or results of a fact are ascertainable;
+those of an opinion are but speculative and uncertain. There is not
+in existence, there never has existed, and probably never can exist,
+a religious opinion that has not been deemed blasphemous, and of a
+destructive tendency to morals and social peace, by its opponents,
+who, if they had been strong enough, have relied upon the arguments of
+torture and death, or punishments as severe as society would permit.</p>
+<p class="pnext">"My Lord, legism, or jurisprudence, are sufficiently understood to
+render it indisputable that punishments cannot be vindicatory or
+retrospective, and less than either, vindictive. All religious
+prosecutions seek only for revenge. The object of a legal punishment
+relates solely to the prevention of the offence. If a sentence against
+Mr. Hetherington cannot effect this object, it cannot be justified.
+Will a sentence alter his opinions? will it alter conscientiously that
+of any class or single member of society? and, above all, will it stop
+or check the dissemination of his doctrines? The two first points are
+nugatory; the last is defeated in its pretended object. All history and
+experience prove that persecution, let its form or degree be what it
+may, increases that which it is meant to destroy. Whether the tyrant be
+called Pope or Inquisition, Attorney-General or Court of Queen's Bench,
+the principle and the result are the same.</p>
+<p class="pnext">"Every religion, church, and sect, that exists or is defunct, in Europe
+and in Asia, from the earliest record, has had at its origin, and
+through its infancy, to encounter obloquy and persecution. The Jewish
+religion received animation and vigour from the contempt and cruelties
+of surrounding polytheists, and the Jews sought in one God a protection
+from the horrors which had been inflicted on them by the worshippers of
+many; and well did this atrocious people revenue themselves 011 their
+former persecutors, and this by assuming their own claim to the right
+of punishing men for differing in opinions. The progress of Christianity
+was accelerated by the Jews, in their attempts to crush it by inflicting
+an ignominious and most cruel death on an innocent individual, under
+that absurd fiction of blasphemy, in the foul name of which your
+Lordship is now called upon to punish, against your will, another
+innocent individual. If blasphemy has any meaning, its definition must
+be--'a resistance to a predominant priestcraft.' Every religion, at
+its commencement, is but a confluent mass of blasphemies to the
+previously-established religions; and persecution is the reverse
+of annihilation, Where would Protestantism have been but for its
+persecution by the Catholics, and <em class="italics">vice versa</em>? From the dawn of
+Protestantism in England, under Wycliffe, and the burning of the first
+Protestants by the priests, in the reign of the Hero of Agincourt (what
+a hero!) down to the death of Mary, English Protestants were tortured,
+burnt, hanged, and punished, and yet the religion spread. Throughout
+Germany the same effects proceeded from the same cause. Our English
+persecutions of the Catholics in Ireland have been long, incessant, and
+too dreadfully cruel to reflect upon, and yet Catholicism has increased
+under them. We have not one respectable sect in England that has not
+arisen in despite of persecution, and increased by means of it, and
+these, with hundreds or thousands of other instances (for history
+abounds with them), prove that persecution or punishment does not, and
+cannot, effect the object in view; and that, consequently,
+punishment cannot be justified by its only legitimate principle of
+justification--utility. It is madness to punish for an offence which
+must be increased by the very nature of the punishment. Formerly, in
+punishments for blasphemy, men, women, and children were burnt and
+put to every variety of torture, for the good of their souls--now, we
+substitute for the word soul, the phrase--'<em class="italics">the security of society</em>,'
+or other jargon equally nonsensical. The Court of Inquisition was, and
+is, wherever it exists, more honourable than the Protestant Court of
+Queen's Bench, for the Inquisitors tortured and destroyed for the sake
+of the soul, but our Courts punish only for the profit of the priest.
+The old plea, the impudent and barbarous plea, of 'Benefit of Clergy,'
+is annulled by law, and yet an indictment for blasphemy is nothing more
+or less than a process for the 'Benefit of Clergy.' Thus, my Lord, have
+I humbly attempted to prove that your punishment of this individual
+will be in strong and violent opposition to the principles, opinion, and
+feelings which you have avowed on the Ministerial Benches of the House
+of Commons; and if the Whig Administration is so infatuatedly base as
+to call the defendant up for punishment your Lordship will be in the
+unenviable position of passing a sentence, as Lord Chief Justice of
+England, against the nature, principles, and objects of which you have
+expressed little less than abhorrence in the character of Her Majesty's
+Attorney-General in the House of Commons. At that period, my Lord, you
+were the freely and most honourably chosen representative of one of the
+largest and most enlightened constituencies of Great Britain--the town
+of Nottingham--and your constituents expressed no dissatisfaction at
+your speech. Is there not a sympathy between Nottingham and other large,
+and populous, aud enlightened towns and cities, and between them all and
+the general population of the empire? I have likewise, my Lord,
+shown, to the best of my very humble abilities, as a legist, that any
+punishment inflicted on this individual, violates the only principle
+on which all punishments can be justified--the prevention of the
+offence--if it be one.</p>
+<p class="pnext">"What, in other respects, will be the effects of this brutal
+prosecution? Burn Mr. Hetherington alive,--slowly roast him, torture
+him by every device, hang him, quarter him, and stick his head on
+Temple-bar, and his quarters on the gates of four of our principal
+cathedral towns, as in all such cases used to be the practice of our
+most pious Christian ancestors in 'the good old times'--or let your
+Lordship pass the most lenient sentence on him, and what will be
+the result? Will any thing be proved, disproved, strengthened, or
+invalidated, by either mode of punishment? If divines or laymen argue
+upon the Scriptures <em class="italics">in toto</em> or in parts, <em class="italics">en masse</em> or in detail,
+could any of the disputants establish his point by arguing that Mr.
+Hetherington or Mr. Snookes, for the names are indifferent, was or
+was not in gaol, or that the sentence was six days' or six months'
+incarceration--how would the case stand syllogistically? A asserts that
+the Bible ought to be burnt--A is not prosecuted--ergo, the Bible
+ought to be burnt. B asserts that the Bible ought to be burnt--B is
+prosecuted--B is acquitted by the Jury--ergo, the Bible ought to be
+burnt. C asserts that the Bible ought to be burnt--C is prosecuted--C is
+found guilty--ergo, the Bible ought not to be burnt. Again, D, E, F, and
+G, are prosecuted for saying that the Bible ought to be burnt. They are
+all found guilty under different Judges, and their sentences vary from
+three, six, twelve, and eighteen months' imprisonment. Here the public
+mind is in utter confusion between the cases of A, B, and C, and between
+the ratios of punishment inflicted on D, E, F, and G, I have gone to
+the extent of the musical gamut. Ratios might be calculated by
+arithmeticians aud algebraists. Thus--'As burning the Bible is to the
+acquittal of B,--so is not burning the Bible to the sentence on D, E, F,
+or G." Really, my Lord, as a man of the most cultivated intellect, you
+must see the monstrous absurdity, the atrocious cruelty, of subjecting
+opinions on Scriptures to 'Trial by Jury.' If opinions on a book are to
+be brought before a Jury, so might its author. I speak in no disrespect
+of Scriptures, but I speak in utter disgust and abhorrence of bringing
+them before Juries. What, in fact, does a verdict of 'Guilty' or 'Not
+Guilty' amount to, in case of an opinion on the Scriptures? The ignorant
+Jury men unwittingly set themselves above the Scriptures, and tyrannise
+over the Deity himself. The impiety lies all in the Jury, and not in the
+accused. The trial my Lord, proceeds entirely on the conceded point that
+the Scriptures are the word of God; a word is an empty, unintelligible,
+worthless sound, except by the interpretation put upon it; and if the
+Jury will be the interpreters, they are the authors of the word,
+and usurp the powers of the Deity. God may say 'this is my word
+and commandment,' and a Jury replies, 'the substance utility,
+intelligibility of a word depend entirely upon the meaning attached to
+it, and we Jurymen will put and make all other men put what construction
+we please, upon it, under pains and penalties, so that the word is not
+yours, but ours.' A Defendant may argue, 'my construction is a matter
+between my conscience and my God.' The verdict replies, 'God has
+nothing to do with it; your construction is entirely a case between your
+conscience and us Jurymen, stock-brokers, bill-brokers, pawnbrokers,
+gambling-house-keepers, and, peradventure, keepers of houses of a still
+worse description.' My Lord Denman, the manly character of your mind
+will make you fearlessly grapple with this important subject, and will
+induce your Lordship to feel that I have as fearlessly and as honestly
+stated the merits of the case. Pause, my Lord, before you ruin, and
+almost torture a man, for whose defence you have expressed respect from
+the Judgment-seat, and this by a sentence for the nature and principles
+of which you have publicly and officially declared an abhorrence.</p>
+<p class="pnext">"Our laws, Lord Denman, lay down a principle that every man is presumed
+to be acquainted with the business, profession, or study to which
+he belongs, or to which he has devoted himself. The converse--a most
+rational converse, is that he is unacquainted with what he does
+not belong to, or has not studied; or, in plain terms, that he is
+unacquainted with that of which he knows nothing. Sir Isaac Newton would
+have been a most ignorant Juryman upon a case resting upon the details
+of business in the butter trade of Cork; and a Mr. Jones, in that trade,
+would be an equally ignorant Juryman on a case involving the complex
+observations and abstract calculations of Sir Isaac's Observatory.
+Shakspeare, as a Juryman, would have been puzzled to determine a
+disputed point of commerce; and a tradesman would be as equally
+perplexed in deciding a point upon the machinery of Arkwright, or the
+steam-engine of Watts. In the present case, a man named Haslam, (but
+the name is immaterial, for I apply myself to abstractions and not
+to individuals,) has devoted himself to the study of a subject. He is
+evidently a man of strong mind, of great knowledge, and of the most
+honest intentions. On many points I differ with him, but individual
+or public difference is not the case at issue. His very able work is
+submitted, not to the public mind, but to 'Trial by Jury;' and its
+merits or demerits are determined upon by merchants, brokers, tradesmen.</p>
+<p class="pnext">"Our laws, Lord Denman, lay down a principle that every man is presumed
+to be acquainted with the business, profession, or study to which
+he belongs, or to which he has devoted himself. The converse-a most
+rational converse, is that he is unacquainted with what he does
+not belong to, or has not studied; or, in plain terms, that he is
+unacquainted with that of which he knows nothing. Sir Isaac Newton would
+have been a most ignorant Juryman upon a ease resting upon the details
+of business in the butter trade of Cork; and a Mr. Jones, in that
+trade, would be an equally ignorant Juryman on a case involving
+the complex observations and abstract calculations of Sir Isaac's
+Observatory. Shakspeare, as a Juryman, would have been puzzled to
+determine a disputed point of commerce; and a tradesman would be as
+equally perplexed in deciding a point upon the machinery of Arkwright,
+or the steam-engine of Watts. In the present case, a man named Haslam,
+(but the name is immaterial, for I apply myself to abstractions and not
+to individuals,) has devoted himself to the study of a subject. He is
+evidently a man of strong mind, of great knowledge, and of the most
+honest intentions. On many points I differ with him, but individual
+or public difference is not the case at issue. His very able work is
+submitted, not to the public mind, but to 'Trial by Jury;' and its
+merits or demerits are determined upon by merchants, brokers, tradesmen
+and jobbing peculating Jurymen called 'Tales.' as totally ignorant
+of Mr! Haslam's studies and works, as he most probably is of their
+different lines of traffic. Is this a test of the merits of the case?
+Is this any barometer of the truth of the Gospel, of public feeling, or
+of the intelligence of our population?</p>
+<p class="pnext">"My Lord Denman, the Attorney-General, tried, in the usual slang of his
+profession, or rather of his office, to attach moral imperfection and
+social dangers to speculative points of theology-to points of creed. We
+have now on our Bench, including Ireland and Scotland, Catholic
+Judges, Judges belonging to the Church of England, to the creeds of the
+Baptists, Anabaptists, Unitarians, and to the no-creeds of the Deists,
+and yet what barrister, attorney, or client, ever complained of a Judge
+on account of his creed or his construction of the Scriptures? In
+Ireland we have Catholic Judges, in Scotland Presbyterian, and in
+England Judges of the Clutch, and of every dissenting sect, and
+yet, when in 'Term time,' a new Trial is moved for, on account of a
+misdirection of a Judge, who ever heard of the misdirection lying
+attached to the Judge's creed? The Solicitor-General of Ireland is a
+Catholic, the Attorney-General of England is a Presbyterian (if he has
+any religion at all), and the Solicitor-General of England is of the
+Church (the refuge of all sceptics), and what does this amount to with
+respect to the discharge of their duties? Lord Chancellors Shaftesbury
+and Thurlow, and very many others, were avowed Deists, and yet in
+moving the House of Lords to set, their judgment aside, their creeds or
+opinions were never put upon the briefs.</p>
+<p class="pnext">"Let me suppose, my Lord, that our most pious Monarch, George the Third,
+had indicted David Hume, the most perfect, of unofficial characters;
+or Adam Smith, a great benefactor of his species; or Edward Gibbon, the
+most illustrious of historians, for their Atheism or Deism; and let me
+state the fact, that the pious Monarch bestowed upon them all very good,
+and, in one instance, very confidential employments, what difference
+does this make? in either case the men, their public functions, and
+their doctrines, would have been equally at issue with public opinion at
+the present day. The merchant, in reading Adam Smith; the philosopher,
+in studying the superior works of Hume; and the scholar, in tracing
+Gibbon's magnificent outline and correct details of Roman history, never
+condescend to inquire whether the authors were patronised by a pious
+or an impious monarch, or whether they were indicted by a Presbyterian,
+Episcopalian, or Atheistical Attorney-General--the slave of an order
+from the Secretary of State's office. This species of scrutiny expired
+years ago, and why should it be revived?</p>
+<p class="pnext">"My Lord Chief Justice Denman, the eyes of the country, and of foreign
+countries, are upon you. The issue of your sentence is the same, except
+to the individual; for, liberate him, you respond but to the voice of
+all enlightened men throughout Europe; incarcerate him, and by passing
+an inhuman sentence upon an innocent man, you enforce a judgment that
+you have promulgated in Parliament to be abhorrent in principles and
+feelings, and this will produce a powerful redaction.</p>
+<p class="pnext">"PUBLICOLA."</p>
+<hr class="docutils" />
+<!-- -*- encoding: utf-8 -*- -->
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+<p class="pfirst" id="pg-end-line">*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK <span>THE TRIAL OF HENRY HETHERINGTON</span> ***</p>
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+.. -*- encoding: utf-8 -*-

+

+.. meta::

+   :PG.Id: 39055

+   :PG.Title: The Trial of Henry Hetherington

+   :PG.Released: 2012-03-05

+   :PG.Rights: Public Domain

+   :PG.Producer: David Widger

+   :DC.Creator: Henry Hetherington

+   :DC.Title: The Trial of Henry Hetherington

+   :DC.Language: en

+   :DC.Created: 1840

+   :coverpage: images/cover.jpg

+

+

+

+.. role:: xlarge-bold

+   :class: x-large bold

+

+.. role:: large

+   :class: large

+

+.. role:: small-caps

+     :class: small-caps

+

+

+

+

+===============================

+THE TRIAL OF HENRY HETHERINGTON

+===============================

+

+.. pgheader::

+

+.. clearpage::

+

+.. image:: images/cover.jpg

+

+

+.. clearpage::

+

+

+.. class:: center

+

+   | :xlarge-bold:`THE TRIAL OF HENRY HETHERINGTON`

+   |

+   | `By`

+   |

+   | :xlarge-bold:`Henry Hetherington`

+   |

+   | :small-caps:`On an Indictment for Blasphemy`

+   |

+   |

+

+

+

+.. clearpage::

+

+

+.. contents:: CONTENTS

+   :depth: 1

+   :backlinks: entry

+

+

+

+

+.. clearpage::

+

+

+

+

+

+

+A FULL REPORT OF THE TRIAL OF HENRY HETHERINGTON

+================================================

+

+ON AN INDICTMENT FOR BLASPHEMY,

+

+LORD DENMAN AND A SPECIAL JURY,

+

+ON TUESDAY, DECEMBER 8, 1840;

+

+FOR SELLING HASLAM'S LETTERS TO THE CLERGY TO ALL DENOMINATIONS:

+

+THE WHOLE OF THE AUTHORITIES CITED IN THE DEFENCE, AT FULL LENGTH.

+

+LONDON:

+

+PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY HENRY HETHERINGTON, 1-26, STRAND;

+

+AND SOLD BY ALL BOOKSELLERS.

+

+1840

+

+Price Sixpence.

+

+

+

+

+

+To

+

+JAMES WATSON,

+

+BOOKSELLER,

+

+THE FRIEND OF TRUTH, THE INFIDEL TO ERROR, AND THE LOVER OF LIBERTY,

+

+THIS TRIAL

+

+IS DEDICATED,

+

+IN PROOF OF THE AFFECTIONATE ATTACHMENT THAT SUBSISTS BETWEEN TWO

+FRIENDS, WHO FULLY RECOGNISE AND ACT UPON THE PRINCIPLES AVOWED AND

+CONTENDED FOR IN THE FOLLOWING DEFENCE; AND AS A TRIBUTE OF ESTEEM,

+

+TO GOD'S NOBLEST WORK--AN HONEST MAN!

+

+BY HIS FAITHFUL FRIEND,

+

+HENRY HETHERINGTON.

+

+

+.. clearpage::

+

+THE TRIAL

+=========

+

+

+COURT OF QUEEN'S BENCH, December 8, 1840.

+

+Sittings at Nisi Prius at Westminster, before Lord DENMAN and a

+Middlesex Special Jury.

+

+PROSECUTION FOR BLASPHEMY.

+

+THE QUEEN Versus HETHERINGTON.

+

+This was a prosecution instituted by Her Majesty's Attorney-General, Sir

+John Campbell, against Henry Hetherington, bookseller, of 126, Strand,

+for the publication of a blasphemous libel.

+

+

+.. clearpage::

+

+INDICTMENT

+==========

+

+

+.. dropcap:: O Of

+

+

+Of Easter term, in the Third Year of the Reign of Queen Victoria.

+Middlesex:--

+

+Be it remembered, that on Tuesday, the twenty-eighth day of April, in

+the third year of the reign of our sovereign lady Victoria, by the

+grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, Queen,

+Defender of the Faith, in the court of our said lady the Queen, before

+the Queen herself at Westminster, in the county of Middlesex, upon

+the oath of twelve jurors, good and lawful men, of the said county of

+Middlesex, now here sworn and charged to inquire for our said lady the

+Queen for the body of the same county; it is presented as followeth,

+that is to say, Middlesex to wit. The jurors for our lady the Queen upon

+their oath present, that Henry Hetherington, late of Westminster, in

+the county of Middlesex, bookseller, *being a wicked, impious, and

+ill-disposed person*, and having no regard for the laws and religion of

+this realm, but *most wickedly, blasphemously, impiously, and profanely

+devising and intending to asperse and vilify that part of the Holy Bible

+which is called the Old Testament*, on the third day of February, in the

+third year of the reign of our sovereign lady Victoria, by the grace of

+God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, Queen, Defender

+of the Faith, at Westminster aforesaid, in the county aforesaid, did

+publish, and cause to be published, a certain scandalous, impious, and

+blasphemous libel, of and concerning that part of the Holy Bible which

+is called the Old Testament, containing therein, amongst other things,

+divers scandalous, impious, and blasphemous matters of and concerning

+that part of the Holy Bible which is called the Old Testament, according

+to the tenor and effect following, that is to say, "What wretched stuff

+this Bible (meaning that part of the Holy Bible which is called the

+Old Testament) is, to be sure! What a random idiot its author must have

+been! I would advise the human race to burn every Bible they have got.

+Such a book is actually a disgrace to ourang outangs, much less to men.

+I would advise them to burn it, in order that posterity may never

+know we believed in such abominable trash. What must they think of our

+intellects? What must they think of our incredible foolery? And we not

+only believe it, but we actually look upon the book as the sacred word

+of God, as a production of infinite wisdom. Was insanity ever more

+complete? I for one, however, renounce the book; I renounce it as a vile

+compound of filth, blasphemy, and nonsense, as a fraud and a cheat, *and

+as an insult to God,"* to the great displeasure of Almighty God, to the

+great scandal, infamy, and contempt of that part of the Holy Bible which

+is called the Old Testament, to the evil example of all others, and

+against the peace of our said lady the Queen, her crown, and dignity.

+

+

+Second Count:

+=============

+

+

+.. dropcap:: A And

+

+

+And the jurors aforesaid, upon their oath aforesaid, further present,

+that the said Henry Hetherington, devising and intending as aforesaid,

+on the eleventh day of February and year aforesaid, at Westminster

+aforesaid, in the county aforesaid, did publish, and cause to be

+published, a certain other scandalous, impious, and blasphemous libel,

+of and concerning that part of the Holy Bible which is called the Old

+Testament, containing therein, amongst other things, divers scandalous,

+impious, and blasphemous matters of and concerning that part of the

+Holy Bible which is called the Old Testament, according to the tenor and

+effect following, that is to say, "One great question between you and me

+is, 'Is the Bible (meaning that part of the Holy Bible which is called

+the Old Testament) the word of God, or is it not? I assert that it is

+not the word of God, and you assert that it is; and I not only assert

+that it is not the word of God, but that it is a book containing more

+blunders, more ignorance, and more nonsense, than any book to be found

+in the universe," to the great displeasure of Almighty God, to the great

+scandal and contempt of that part of the Holy Bible which is called the

+Old Testament, to the evil example of all others, and against the peace

+of our lady the Queen, lier crown, and dignity.

+

+

+

+

+Third Count:

+============

+

+

+.. dropcap:: A And

+

+

+And the jurors aforesaid, upon their oath aforesaid, further present,

+that the said Henry Hetherington, further devising and intending as

+aforesaid, on the day and year last aforesaid, at Westminster aforesaid,

+in the county aforesaid, did publish, and cause to be published,

+a certain other scandalous, impious, and blasphemous libel of and

+concerning that part of the Holy Bible which is called the Old

+Testament, containing therein, among other things, divers scandalous,

+impious, and blasphemous matters of and concerning that part of the Holy

+Bible which is called the Old Testament, in one part thereof, according

+to the tenor and effect following, that is to say, "My object, and I

+fearlessly state it, is to expose this book (meaning that part of the

+Holy Bible which is called the Old Testament) in such a manner, that the

+children of the Stockport Sunday-school will reject it with contempt and

+in another part thereof, according to the tenor and effect following,

+that is to say,

+

+"Such a book (meaning that part of the Holy Bible which

+is called the Old Testament) ought to be rejected by every one. The

+human race have been too long gulled with such trash. Moses was the

+inventor of this grand cheat; and although it may have done some little

+towards frightening people into what is called morality, the purpose for

+which Moses invented it is now out of date,

+

+"to the great displeasure of Almighty God, to the great scandal and

+contempt of that part of the Holy Bible which is called the Old

+Testament, to the evil example of all others, and against the peace of

+our lady the Queen, her crown, and dignity."

+

+[Witness] ALEXANDER KERR,

+

+One sworn in court.

+

+A true Bill.

+

+On the names of the gentlemen summoned as Special Jurymen being called

+over, only five answered to their names.

+

+The Attorney-General prayed a tales, when the following were sworn:--

+

+The Jury.

+

+Special--

+

+Robert Savage, Esq., 11, Montaguplace, Bloomsbury.

+

+James Arboine, merchant, 3, Brunswick-square.

+

+William Fechney Black, merchant, Wilton-place.

+

+Charles Frederick Barnwell, Esq., 44, Woburn-place.

+

+Robert Eglinton, merchant, 29, Woburn-square.

+

+Common Jurors--

+

+Charles Ricketts, stove-maker, 5, Agar-street, West Strand.

+

+William Polden, licensed victualler, Villiers-street, Strand.

+

+John Osborne, confectioner, 401, Strand.

+

+John Johnson Ruffell, painter, 24, Church-street, Soho.

+

+Thomas Reid, baker, 24, Old Compton-street, Soho.

+

+Charles Phillips, ivory brush-maicer, 20, King-street, Soho. J. Mahew,

+baker, 84, Greek-street, Soho.

+

+

+

+

+Mr. Bult opened the proceedings

+===============================

+

+

+.. dropcap:: T The

+

+

+The Attorney-General said, this was an indictment found by the Grand

+Jury of Middlesex, for the publication of certain blasphemous libels.

+It appeared to him that all he should have to do, would be to prove

+the publication of the libels in question. He had not hesitated for one

+moment, when he found there were only five Special Jurymen, to pray a

+tales, because it was to him a matter of perfect indifference from what

+class of society the Jury was taken. It had frequently been laid down by

+the Judges, that to insult and vilify Christianity was against the

+law. Publications insulting religion, and addressed to the vulgar and

+uneducated, were most dangerous. He would call a witness who purchased

+these books in the defendant's shop, the defendant himself being

+present; and he should prove that the defendant was rated to that house.

+It gave him pain that it should be necessary for the Jury to hear such

+shocking attacks as were contained in this publication. It consisted

+of a series of letters, and each number was sold for a penny. It was

+"Letters to the Clergy of all Denominations" and was, in fact, an attack

+upon the Holy Scriptures, particularly on the Old Testament. He should

+content himself with reading one extract.--(The learned Gentleman then

+read an extract from Letter 8, contained in the first count of the

+indictment.) Mr. Hetherington was in person to defend himself: they

+would hear what he had to say, and then he (the Attorney-General) would

+have an opportunity of again addressing them.

+

+The following witness was then called and examined by Sir F. Pollock.

+

+Alexander Kerr, a policeman, bought the "Letters to the Clergy," 5,

+8, and 13, at the shop of the defendant, 126, Strand, on the 5th of

+February last. A young man served him. Knows defendant--he was standing

+on the threshold of the door at the time; has known him for the last

+three years; has seen him repeatedly at the shop. Paid one penny each

+for the letters.

+

+Cross-examined by Mr. Hetherington.--Did not come in his uniform to

+purchase them. Came from directions he had received, not from any

+reputation the work had acquired. Did not read the fifth number or

+the eighth number of the book purchased at the shop. Stated at the Old

+Bailey, at the trial of Mr. Cleave, that he had read a copy, but not the

+one purchased of defendant. Curiosity induced him to read it. It did

+not shake his opinion--it did not make him burn his Bible; quite the

+opposite. He is a plainly-educated man. Was instructed to purchase all

+he could get at defendant's shop. Purchased other numbers, but did not

+read them. The work produced no effect on him to induce him to follow

+the recommendations of the author.

+

+George Sherwill, collector of poor's-rate for the liberty of the Savoy,

+proved that defendant was rated for No. 126.

+

+The libels were then put in and read: first, No. 8 of "Haslam's Letters

+to the Clergy of all Denominations," then 5 of the same work, and then

+18.

+

+The Attorney-General said, that was the case for the prosecution.

+

+

+.. clearpage::

+

+DEFENCE

+=======

+

+

+.. dropcap:: M My

+

+

+My Lord--Gentlemen of the Jury,

+

+"In rising to vindicate myself from the charge preferred against me in

+this indictment, I shall not attempt to justify the language alluded

+to by the Attorney-General; but I cannot refrain from expressing my

+surprise that the Government, after having encouraged the circulation

+of cheap knowledge upon all subjects,--in Penny Magazines and Penny

+Cyclopaedias,--should have placed me on my trial upon such a flimsy

+charge as this--for flimsy it undoubtedly is, when, out of a work

+comprising nearly 500 pages, the Attorney-General can only find one

+passage,--that in the eighth Letter, which is, I admit, expressed in

+very improper language,--whereon to found an indictment. I contend that

+it is impossible to say where a person is to stop in his inquiries. If a

+person is permitted to reject one tenet, another may reject another; and

+there is no reason why another should not go on, and reject the

+whole. In the whole work there is not one disrespectful word about

+Christianity; it is a rejection of the miracles ascribed to Moses in the

+Old Testament, which have been indignantly rejected by many learned men.

+The work was not intended as a scurrilous attack, but as an inquiry into

+the effects of the usages of society, founded upon the Old Testament.

+The object of Mr. Haslam was benevolent; and however much he might err,

+he was not criminal. He undertook to prove to the clergy that they

+were all in error that the doctrines they are teaching to the people

+are false, absurd, and irrational; that they are directly contrary to

+reason; and that, so long as they are preached to the people, so long

+will the people be vicious, wretched, and unhappy.

+

+"The Attorney-General has only read the objectionable passages: I will

+read a few passages from Mr. Haslam's first Letter, which will enable

+the Jury to understand the nature of his work, and appreciate his

+motives. Having frankly stated his object, he proceeds:--

+

+"You, no doubt, will feel concerned at this; you will very likely be

+angry with me for this daring attempt; you will call me Deist, Atheist,

+Infidel, and many other charitable epithets; you will feel unutterable

+things towards me; and I shall, no doubt, be subject to the *extreme

+charity* of your *pious* congregations, who profess to 'love their

+neighbours as themselves,' and into whose minds you have crammed

+absurdity after absurdity, until they have scarcely room for another.

+I shall, no doubt, expose myself to all manner of ill-feeling and

+uncharitableness, and to calumnies and lies of every description; but

+shall these deter me from making known the convictions of iny mind?

+Shall these hinder me from exposing the errors and absurdities which I

+see interested men instilling into the minds of the people? Shall these

+prevent me from telling the people that they are deceived and imposed

+upon, and that their beggary, and want, and wretchedness, are the

+consequences of it? Shall these, in short, stop me from exposing the

+irrationalities which I see everywhere around me, and which occasion so

+much misery and unhappiness to my fellow-men? No, I tell you they shall

+not. That power which sent you into the world, sent me into the world

+also; and if you have a right to think and speak, I have a right to

+think and speak also. I have received an organization for the purpose as

+well as any of you; and as long as that organization remains unimpaired,

+so long will I tell the world what I think and feel.

+

+"Why should any of you be angry with me? If I can prove your doctrines

+to be false and erroneous, what occasion is there for anger? What

+can you want with doctrines that are false? As honest men you ought

+immediately to abandon them. Instead, therefore, of being angry with

+me, you ought to have the very opposite feeling; for of what service can

+error and nonsense be to any man, or any set of men?

+

+"But if I prove that your doctrines are not only false and erroneous,

+but that they occasion a vast amount of mischief to the people; that

+they occasion want and vice, and all manner of wickedness, and that, by

+removing them from the minds of the people, and substituting truths, all

+this want, and vice, and wickedness might be put an end to; if, I say,

+I prove this, why should you be angry with me for doing it? Surely

+you cannot wish the people to remain in a state of want, and vice, and

+wickedness; and yet, if you do not, why should you be angry at me for

+showing you the causes of them, and pointing out the means for their

+removal?

+

+"You talk a great deal about morality and religion; you manifest in your

+pulpits a great anxiety to spread them amongst the people; but who can

+believe you to be sincere, when you resist every attempt to remove the

+causes of immorality and irreligion? You must know that effects cannot

+be removed without removing the causes of them, and by resisting the

+removal of these causes, you evidently show a disposition to keep the

+people in wickedness. This wickedness proceeds from certain causes. We

+have pointed these causes out to you, and if you will not remove them,

+does not that evidently show that you would rather that the people were

+wicked? Can there be conclusions more logical? What ridiculous cant it

+must be then to talk about morality and religion?

+

+"My assumption then is, that the belief of every man is given to him

+*independently of his will*, and that, therefore, no just power can

+punish him for it.

+

+"Your assumption is the opposite of this; you assert that the belief of

+every man depends upon his own will; *that he can either believe in the

+Bible, or not believe in the Bible*; that he can either be Christian or

+Jew, Mahomedan or Infidel, and that, therefore, God will punish him if

+he do not believe in a particular manner.

+

+"These then, are our respective assumptions--and now let reason, 'the

+grand prerogative of man,' determine between us.

+

+"Gentlemen, contrast the spirit of Mr. Haslam in this passage with the

+spirit of my prosecutors. He invokes Reason, 'the grand prerogative of

+man,' to determine between them; the Clergy, on the contrary, resort to

+prosecution to crush a reasoning opponent.

+

+"I beg to inform you that I have read the Bible attentively, and that

+the more I read it the more reason I see for disbelieving it.

+

+"The Bible asserts things which the whole of my senses tell me are

+false; and if my senses are independent of myself, how can I help

+disbelieving it?

+

+"I know that God gave me my senses; but how can I believe God made the

+Bible, when it is directly opposed to these senses? To believe that God

+is the author of both, is to believe that God commits absurdities like

+yourselves; and to ascribe such a paltry and blundering performance as

+the Bible to that power which governs the universe is to dishonour that

+power, if any thing can dishonour it.

+

+"But a man's belief is not only formed independently of his will, but

+it is often formed in direct opposition to it. I, for instance, once

+believed that the principles which I now hold were false; I used

+to argue against them, and even write against them, and my will to

+disbelieve them was so strong, owing to their apparent absurdity, that

+I used to be delighted when I imagined I had discovered a fresh argument

+with which I might overturn them. Continuing, however, to argue, I began

+to see their truth; I saw the principles more clearly; I found I had

+mistaken them very much; and at last I saw into them as clearly, as

+Cobbett used to say, as the sun at noon-day.

+

+"Now here, you see, my will was to disbelieve these principles; but,

+after the process of reasoning was over, I was compelled to alter my

+will. This, then, being the case, was that will free? Could I have

+continued to disbelieve them, when my convictions told me they were

+true? And if I could not, where, I again ask, was my free will?

+

+"Here, then, is reasoning enough to prove the truth of my assumption;

+and now I beg to call your attention to its peculiar effect upon your

+various systems of religion.

+

+"In conclusion, therefore, I beg to call upon you to defend your

+doctrines from the serious charges I have here made, and shall continue

+to make against them. You may either do it by writing, or by verbal

+discussion, whichever you please. But do not continue to act so meanly

+and dishonourably, as to preach doctrines to the people which have over

+and over again been proved to be false and absurd, and which none of you

+are able to defend."

+

+Gentlemen, you will see by these passages that Mr. Haslam appeals to

+reason. He calls upon the Clergy to defend their doctrines, telling

+them they may either do it "by writing, or by verbal discussion." The

+Government, however, disregarded this appeal; they ought to have called

+upon the Bishop of Exeter, and other well-paid bigots of his class, to

+come forward and confute Mr. Haslam. But instead of this they prosecute

+a bookseller, who had never read a line of the book until this

+prosecution. They ought to meet Mr. Haslam with his own weapons; and

+it is disgraceful to the Government, which has always advocated the

+diffusion of cheap knowledge, to submit to the taunts of the Bishop of

+Exeter, and other bigots like him, by instituting these prosecutions for

+blasphemy. However we may disapprove of Haslam's doctrines, we cannot

+but perceive that he is sincere in his belief.

+

+Gentlemen, I will, as I proceed, prove to you that the convictions of

+a tat which he now believes to be true to have been false. Gentlemen,

+I readily admit that the passage in the eighth number is offensively

+worded; but I will prove that the free exercise of the right of inquiry

+is not, and ought not to be, an offence in law. I will also call your

+attention to the hardship of a general bookseller being held responsible

+for every book that he sells, and will call your attention to the

+oath you have taken, and claim from you that acquittal to which I am

+entitled. I claim no exemption from punishment if I sell any obscene

+publication,--anything calculated to corrupt or demoralize society,--or

+any attacks upon a man's private character; but in cases of the

+discussion of abstract truths, is a man to be punished for the

+convictions of his mind, which are not in the power of his will? It

+is too bad to bring a man into a court of justice on account of a few

+solitary passages in a work of this nature.

+

+Gentlemen of the Jury, our great and popular moralist, Dr. Johnson, has

+declared that "Truth is the basis of all excellence." This axiom is so

+clear and indisputable, that no intelligent man can hesitate to adopt

+it. How, then, can the truth, upon the various subjects interesting to

+human beings, be elicited? Not by letting interested men think for us,

+but by judging for ourselves--by collecting and examining facts

+and arguments, and communicating to society the impressions they

+respectively make upon our minds. There is no effectual mode of arriving

+at truth, but by the exercise of the right of free inquiry, and the

+unrestricted publication of the result of such inquiry. This right has

+been deemed of pre-eminent importance from time immemorial, and by men

+of all sects and parties; and although corrupt and tyrannical rulers in

+the past ages of the world have prosecuted honest men, and endeavoured

+to suppress the truth, you will find that in every case to which I shall

+call your attention, the intrepid advocates of truth have ultimately

+triumphed. Now, Gentlemen of the Jury, I will proceed at once to fortify

+myself with a few authorities,--not that I think truth depends upon

+great names, however numerous and illustrious they may be, but because

+I am determined to advance nothing that is not, in my opinion, strictly

+true, and sanctioned and maintained by the greatest intellects of the

+age.

+

+Gentlemen, I will begin with a Bishop.

+

+"God has given us rational faculties to guide and direct us, and we must

+make the most of them that we can; we must judge with our own reasons,

+as well as see with our own eyes; and it would-be very *rash, unmanly,

+and base* in us to muffle up our own understandings, and deliver

+our reason and faith over to others blindfold."--*Bishop Burnett's

+Thirty-nine Articles*, A. 39.

+

+"Gentlemen of the Jury, will you, by your verdict, consign a man to

+a dungeon, because he is too honest and independent to act a '*rash,

+unmanly, and base*' part? Will you declare, by your verdict, that

+henceforth we shall not '*judge* with our own reasons, nor *see* with

+our *own eyes*?' I feel confident you will not.

+

+"*Dr. Whitby*, in his *Last Thoughts*, tells us, "that belief or

+disbelief can neither be a virtue or a crime, in any one who uses the

+best means in his power of being informed.

+

+"If a proposition is *evident*, we cannot avoid believing it; *and where

+is the merit or piety of a necessary assent?* If it is *not evident*, we

+cannot help rejecting it, or doubting of it; *and where is the crime of

+not performing impossibilities, or not believing what does not appear to

+us to be true?*"

+

+Gentlemen of the Jury, can you dispute the truth of the passage I have

+quoted from Dr. Whitby? Will you, by your verdict, pronounce it to be

+"*a crime* not to perform *impossibilities*, and endeavour to *force

+us to believe* what does not appear to us to be true?" Gentlemen, you

+cannot do it. Let us briefly trace the operations of the human mind, and

+we shall find that the mind is governed by a law of necessity. Are we

+not definitely and necessarily' affected by the circumstances which

+surround us? Have we power to avoid receiving impressions from the

+objects presented to us? If we have not, which is now universally

+admitted by intelligent men, then the act of *perceiving*, or *forming

+ideas*, is a necessary mental operation. Can we, for instance, have an

+idea of a man when a monkey is presented to us? Or of colours other than

+those which are placed before our visual organs? We cannot, if the eye

+be not diseased, perceive red to be green, or green red. The power of

+*perception*, therefore, appears to be perfectly involuntary--it is

+governed by a law of necessity.

+

+The next operation of the mind is to form a judgment of the things

+perceived; and it is these two things--*perceiving* and *judging*--which

+constitute a man's knowledge or experience. If two bodies of different

+magnitudes are presented to our view, are we not compelled to judge of

+them according to the impression they respectively make upon the mind?

+It is precisely the same with *men, manners, and opinions*. Must we

+not conclude that things are what they appear to be, till we know the

+contrary? I would appeal to your own experience, Gentlemen, whether you

+do not invariably and necessarily judge of men and things according to

+their inherent or imaginary qualities? Some men, indeed, are puzzled

+to account for the diversity of judgment observable where different men

+examine the same subject, and from the same data; but this circumstance

+is easily accounted for. It results simply from this fact, that men

+judge of things precisely as they appear to them: and the different

+judgments formed of the same things are ascribable wholly to the

+different degrees of strength in the power of perception, and to the

+extent and variety of knowledge previously acquired. *Perception and

+judgment*, therefore, appear to be involuntary and necessary.

+

+Gentlemen, if this be true, is a man who has arrived at conclusions

+adverse to the *received opinions* of society a fit subject of

+punishment? If not, how much less so is the bookseller who merely sells

+his book?

+

+Mr. Haslam calls upon the Clergy to enter into the controversy with him,

+and to let *reason* decide between them. Why do not the Government, and

+the learned Attorney-General, adopt Mr. Haslam's recommendation, instead

+of instituting a prosecution against a bookseller who never read a

+line of the book till his attention was called to it by this

+unjust prosecution? Why do not the Government,--who patronise penny

+literature--who affect to be friendly to free discussion, call on

+the Bishop of Exeter, and other well-paid bigots, to defend the Bible

+against the assaults of Mr. Haslam? For the learned Attorney-General to

+attempt to crush the free expression of opinion by prosecutions of this

+nature, is most unjust and impolitic. I maintain that two out of the

+three passages read would not support the indictment at all; and the

+third passage--set forth in the first count of the indictment--so far

+from being blasphemy, declares that the author *rejects the Bible,

+because he looks upon it as containing statements that were insulting to

+God*. In the passage immediately following that which is prosecuted, the

+author admits that the book contains some good precepts, but declares

+that he deems mere precepts to be useless. I will take the liberty of

+reading the passage to the Jury.

+

+"I allow that there are some good precepts in it, but I contend that

+these precepts are useless. I contend that *all* precepts are useless.

+Of what use have all the precepts in the world been to the human race?

+Have they made man wiser, or better, or happier? Have they lessened the

+amount of his vice and his misery? 1 contend that they have not. Vice

+and misery have been increasing, although these precepts have been more

+and more preached to the people. Precepts, reverend ministers of the

+gospel, are mere wind; they are as empty as the vapour issuing from

+the kettle's spout; they have no effect whatever in making man wise, or

+good, or happy; the present wretchedness of the world is a proof of it.

+The way, reverend sirs, to make man wise, and good, and happy, is, not

+to preach precepts to the people, but to abolish the present irrational

+system of individual property; to arrange society in such a manner that

+the interest of one man will be the interest of the whole. Until this

+be done, all the precepts in the world, preached, too, with all

+the eloquence in the world, will never remove man from his present

+deplorable condition."

+

+Gentlemen, you will perceive by this extract that the author is a

+socialist. It is not necessary for me to maintain that he is right in

+these opinions. All that I have to do is to show that these opinions

+were sincerely believed by Mr. Haslam. I have clearly shown that belief

+is involuntary. No man can tell one day what his belief will be the

+next. In my own person I furnish an instance of this. I married

+young, and having formed in my mind a standard of ideal perfection, I

+determined that my children should equal that standard, as far as human

+means could make them. I tried to effect my object by severity. Acting

+upon wrong principles, of course, I failed; but at that time I was young

+and ignorant, and believed myself to be right. However, a friend who

+knew better than myself, and who had had much experience, lent me Miss

+Williams's Letters on the Philosophy of Education, and the reading of

+that book put new ideas into my mind. It produced, in fact, a mental

+revolution;--I changed my opinion and my system, and did so with the

+happiest success. From that time I banished coercion as a principle

+of education. I repeat, then, that belief is not voluntary, and that

+compulsion is not a good means of producing good belief or good conduct.

+

+Gentlemen, I will now quote the opinion of Bishop Marsh, as to the

+importance of free inquiry. I quote from the Bishops as persons of

+the greatest authority on this subject, far greater than the

+Attorney-General, or any of his legal brethren.

+

+"Investigation, it is said, frequently leads to doubts where there were

+none before. So much the better. If a thing is false, *it ought not

+to be received*; if a thing is true, *it can never lose in the end by

+inquiry*."--*Bishop Marsh's First Lecture*.

+

+Gentlemen, you have heard the opinion of Bishop Marsh. You cannot

+suppose that the Bishops are adverse to the Church--they are great

+supporters of it, and so, perhaps, might I be if I got so much by it--(a

+laugh)--as like circumstances produce like effects. Well, Gentlemen,

+Bishop Marsh maintains that "if a thing is *false*, it ought not to be

+received; if it is true, it can never lose in the end by inquiry." Why,

+then, should the Attorney-General prosecute a person who rejects a thing

+that does not appear to him to be true?

+

+Gentlemen, let me now submit to your attention the opinion of Sir

+William Temple.

+

+*Sir William Temple* says, "They may make me do things which are in my

+power, and depend on my will; but to believe *this* or *that* to be

+true depends not on my will, but upon the light, and evidence,

+and information which I have. And will civil discouragements and

+incapacities, fines and confiscations, stripes and imprisonment,

+enlighten the understanding, convince men's minds of error, and inform

+them of the truth? Can they have any such efficacy as to make men change

+the inward judgment they have framed of things? *Nothing can do this

+but reason and argument*: this is what our minds and understandings will

+naturally yield to, but they *cannot* be compelled to believe any thing

+by outward force. So that the promoting of *true* religion is plainly

+out of the magistrate's *reach*, as well as beside *his office*."

+

+Here, Gentlemen, you have the opinion of Sir William Temple, that men

+cannot be forced to believe anything by outward force and persecution,

+so that the promoting of true religion is out of the magistrate's

+power, as well as beside his office. This is a most true and proper

+declaration; and if the Attorney-General had reflected upon this

+passage, I am sure he must have fully appreciated its truth, and then

+this prosecution would not have been instituted. I appeal to the learned

+Attorney-General, whether my being ruined and sent to a dungeon will

+alter the state of things? Will it alter the opinion of Mr. Haslam? Will

+it make me believe that I ought to be prosecuted for selling this book;

+or that a man has not a right to promulgate his opinions? I am placed in

+an awkward position in having to defend a man's right to publish, while

+I dissent from some of Mr. Haslam's opinions, and the manner in which

+he has thought proper to express them. I have been told that the

+Attorney-General is a good kind of a man, who has no wish to press

+severely upon persons in my situation; and some friends--not my true

+friends--have urged me to forward a memorial to him on the subject of

+this prosecution. Now what could I do? There was no way of inducing the

+Attorney-General to stay this prosecution, but by pleading guilty; and

+although I am well aware that your verdict, if adverse to me, will be

+my ruin, yet I would rather terminate my existence on the floor of this

+court than plead guilty to this lying indictment, or admit that I am

+a wicked, malicious, and evil-disposed person, when I know that to

+the best of my judgment and ability I am an upright, honest,

+well-intentioned man. If I believed myself to be the man described,

+in the indictment--which I must do before I could consent to plead

+guilty--I would fly to the uttermost parts of the earth; for a man is

+totally destroyed when he has lost all feeling of self-respect, and the

+esteem and regard of his friends and associates.

+

+Gentleman of the Jury, I have yet a host of authorities before me, but

+I will not waste time by quoting them; as I am convinced you must now be

+quite satisfied, from what I have already adduced, that every Englishman

+has an undoubted right to investigate all subjects--whether religious

+or political--and to publish the result of the investigation for the

+benefit of society at large; but, Gentlemen, in closing what I have to

+say on this part of the subject, I beg to lay before you two striking

+and convincing passages from Lord Brougham and Dr. Southwood Smith--two

+of the most intellectual and eminent individuals of the present day.

+

+Gentlemen, the first passage I will quote is from Dr. Southwood Smith,

+who strikingly and beautifully describes the proper boundary of human

+investigation; and I beg the particular attention of the learned

+Attorney-General to this passage.

+

+"There is no proper boundary to human investigation," says the doctor,

+"but the capacity of the human mind. Whatever the faculties enable it to

+understand, it ought to examine without any restraint on the freedom of

+its inquiry, and without any other limit to its extent than that which

+its great Author has fixed, by withholding from it the power to proceed

+farther. When the means of conducting the human understanding to its

+highest perfection shall have become generally understood, this freedom

+of inquiry will not only be universally allowed, but early and anxiously

+inculcated, *as a duty* of primary and essential obligation."

+

+Gentlemen, I now beg you to listen to the extract I am about to read

+from *Lord Brougham's Inaugural Address to the University of Glasgow*.

+

+"As men will no longer suffer themselves to be led blindfold in

+Ignorance, so will they no more yield to the vile principle of judging

+and treating their fellow-creatures, not according to the intrinsic

+merit of their actions, but according to the accidental and involuntary

+coincidence of their opinions. The great truth has finally gone forth

+to the ends of the earth, *that man shall no more render* ACCOUNT TO MAN

+FOR HIS BELIEF, OVER WHICH HE HAS HIMSELF NO CONTROL.

+

+"Henceforward nothing shall prevail upon us to praise or to blame any one

+for that which he can no more change than he can the hue of his skin or

+the height of his stature. Henceforward, treating with entire respect

+those who conscientiously differ from ourselves, the only practical

+effect of the difference will be, to make us enlighten the ignorance, on

+one side or the other, from which it springs, by instructing them, if it

+be theirs, ourselves, if it be our own; to the end that the only kind of

+unanimity may be produced which is desirable among rational

+beings,--the agreement proceeding from full conviction after the freest

+discussion."--*Lord Brougham.*

+

+Gentlemen, after hearing these splendid passages, will it be possible

+for you to sanction a renewal of persecution to crush freedom of

+opinion?

+

+Gentlemen of the Jury,--I now come to the next point in the argument.

+Having, I hope, successfully proved the right of free inquiry and the

+free publication of opinions, I will proceed to show, by a reference

+to past events, that it is highly important that this right should

+be preserved, and handed down to our latest posterity unimpaired.

+Gentlemen, it has been a uniform practice, from the earliest records of

+time, to stigmatize those who introduce new truths, or who attack the

+existing institutions of a country, as infidels, and to fix upon them

+all sorts of opprobious epithets.

+

+"In all ages *new doctrines* have been branded as impious; and

+Christianity itself has offered no exception to this rule. The Greeks

+and Romans charged Christianity with 'impiety and novelty.' In *Cave's

+Primitive Christianity* we are informed 'that the Christians were

+everywhere accounted a pack of *Atheists*, and their religion *the

+Atheism.*' *They were denominated; 'mountebank impostors,' and 'men of a

+desperate and unlawful faction.' They were represented as 'destructive

+and pernicious to human society,' and were accused of 'sacrilege,

+sedition, and high treason.' The same system of misrepresentation and

+abuse was practised by the Roman Catholics against the Protestants at

+the Reformation. Some called their dogs Calvin; and others transformed

+Calvin into Cain,' In France, 'the old stale calumnies, formerly

+invented against the first Christians, were again revived by Demochares,

+a doctor of the Sorbonne, pretending that all the disasters of the

+state were to be attributed to Protestants alone.'"--*Combe on the

+Constitution of Man*.

+

+In our own enlightened country, where the importance of truth--and free

+inquiry as a means of its attainment--is beginning to be appreciated,

+a different practice should prevail. We ought not to persist in this

+unmanly course. Recollect, Gentlemen, the Prophets of the Jews were

+*blasphemers* against the established religions of their day. Did that

+deter them from denouncing the idolatry and false religions of the

+surrounding nations? Elijah is represented as ridiculing the God of the

+Moabites in a most offensive manner: "*And it came to pass at noon, that

+Elijah mocked them and said, 'Cry aloud: for he is a god; either he is

+talking f or he is pursuing, or he is in a journey, or peradventure he

+sleepeth and must be awaked.*'" 1 Kings xviii. 27. And in Judea, Jesus

+and his Apostles were charged as blasphemers against Judaism, or the

+religion established by Moses. We have a remarkable proof of this in the

+case of Stephen, recorded in the 6th and 7th chapters of the Acts of the

+Apostles.

+

+"And they were not able to resist the wisdom and the spirit by which he

+spake.

+

+"Then they suborned men, which said, We have heard him speak

+*blasphemous* words against Moses, and against God.

+

+"And they stirred up the people, and the elders, and the scribes, and

+came upon him, and caught him, and brought him to the council,

+

+"And set up false witnesses, which said, This man ceaseth not to speak

+blasphemous words against this holy place and the law:

+

+"For we have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth shall destroy

+this place, and shall change the customs which Moses delivered

+us."--Acts vi, 10--14.

+

+And Stephen defending himself before the Council, boldly asks them,

+

+"Which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted? And they have

+slain them which showed before of the coming of the Just One; *of whom

+ye have* BEEN NOW THE BETRAYERS AND MURDERERS.

+

+"When they heard these things they were cut to the heart, and they

+gnashed at him with their teeth.

+

+"And they cried out with a loud voice, and stopped their ears, and ran

+upon him with one accord,

+

+"And cast him out of the city, and stoned him." Acts vii; 51, 52,

+54,57,58.

+

+Now, Gentlemen, is it just or politic that the proclaimers of new

+truths, and new systems, should be treated in this manner? Would it not

+be far more rational to hear what a man has to say, and answer him, than

+to "gnash at him with the teeth," to "stop your ears," to "run at him

+with one accord," and to "stone him to death?" Can you, Gentlemen, by

+your verdict give your sanction to a course of proceeding similar to

+that which deprived Stephen of life? All persecution is the same in

+spirit--highly unjust and impolitic--whether it be exercised against the

+Apostle Stephen, or the humble individual who now addresses you.

+

+Gentlemen, the supporters of the established religion in the days of the

+Apostles, pursued the same course that the bigots of the present day are

+pursuing. They applied to the High Priest, or to the Attorney-General

+of that day, to prosecute Stephen for *blasphemy*, and stirred up the

+people. In the present case the Bishop of Exeter did not stir up the

+people, but he stirred up the Government. He sent a packet of papers to

+Lord Normanby, who handed them to the Attorney-General, and he

+appears to have considered it to be his duty to institute the present

+prosecution. The learned Attorney-General, as was the case with the

+priests and rulers of the Jews, would not allow any discussion to

+take place that was likely to change existing customs. I will do the

+Government the justice to say, however, that I do not believe they are

+disposed to put a stop to the full investigation of any subject, if

+conducted with decency. I readily admit that the passage in the

+eighth number of Mr. Haslam's Letters is highly objectionable in

+phraseology--it is in very bad taste--but is that a reason for sending

+a bookseller to prison, because he has sold a book written in bad taste?

+It cannot be--all published works must be left to the fiat of public

+opinion to determine their merit.

+

+Gentlemen, the same spirit was evinced by the wicked and corrupt rulers

+of the Jews against the founder of Christianity. They sought false

+witnesses against him; but at length, Jesus having spoken out

+explicitly, the High Priest rent his clothes, saying, "*He hath spoken

+blasphemy; what further need have we of witnesses? Behold, now ye have

+heard his blasphemy. What think ye? They answered and said*, **HE is

+guilty to death.**" (Matt. 26; 65.) Will you, Gentlemen--a Christian

+Jury--considering Christianity part and parcel of the law of the land,

+by your verdict say, that Jesus was rightly treated by the Jews? Ought

+the constituted authorities of that day to have obstructed the glorious

+truths of Christianity, and have put to death the Messenger of Man's

+salvation? Unless you deliver a verdict of acquittal, in my case, you

+in effect sanction and justify all the cruelties exercised against Jesus

+and his Apostles by the rulers of the Jews?

+

+The learned Counsel for the prosecution will, perhaps, think that there

+is no analogy between the cases cited and my own case--that Jesus and

+his Apostles introduced truths of the greatest magnitude and importance,

+while I am indicted for selling a book that denies the truth of the

+Jewish Scriptures. Why, Gentlemen, Dr. Adam Clarke says, "There is

+some reason to fear that they (the Jews) *no longer consider the Old

+Testament as divinely inspired, but believe that Moses had recourse

+to pious frauds*." And, Gentlemen, Jesus and his Apostles denied the

+*truth* of the Jewish Scriptures--*as understood by the rulers of the

+Jews*,--and for denying the orthodox and received sense of the Jewish

+Scriptures were accused of blasphemy, and received the fate of martyrs!

+That cannot be disputed. Was it just, then,--was it politic, I ask, to

+settle this controversy by force and cruelty? To *scourg or imprison, and

+destroy* those glorious men who had important truths to impart to the

+world? If England has embraced Christianity--and we are not a nation of

+hypocrites--let us act upon the spirit of his religion. He says plainly

+and emphatically, that we are not to root up error by force or cruelty.

+

+In the parable of the tares of the field, he sets forth our duty. "The

+Kingdom of Heaven," he says, "is likened unto a man who sowed good seed

+in his field; but while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among

+the wheat, and went his way. But when the blade was sprung up, and

+brought forth fruit, there appeared the tares also. So the servants of

+the householder came and said unto him, Sir, didst thou not sow good

+seed in thy field? from whence then hath it tares! He said unto them, An

+enemy hath done this. The servant said unto him, Wilt thou then that we

+go and gather them up? But he said, *Nay; lest while ye gather up the

+tares, ye root up also the wheat with them*. **Let both grow together

+until the harvest.**" Matt, xiii; 25--30.

+

+When his disciples demanded an explanation of this parable, he said,

+"The field is the world: the good seed are the children of the Kingdom:

+but the tares are the children of the wicked one: the enemy that sowed

+them in the devil: the harvest is the end of the world; and the reapers

+are the Angels. The Son of Man shall send forth his Angels, and They

+shall gather out of his Kingdom all things that offend, and them which

+do iniquity." Matt, xiii; 38, 39. 41.

+

+Gentlemen, how unjust and impolitic, then, are these prosecutions. Do

+they stop the progress of truth? Persecution for matters of opinion

+is the same in every case--impolitic--for it never yet succeeded in

+stopping the circulation of a correct opinion or a prohibited book?

+Why should *Christians* prosecute men for disbelieving the *Jewish*

+Scriptures, when, according to Dr. Adam Clarke, the Jews disbelieve

+parts of the Old Testament themselves? Why should professed Christians

+take up and defend that which the Jews themselves reject? Paul, himself,

+teaches us that the Jewish law has been superseded by a superior system.

+He tells us that the Jewish law "was our schoolmaster to bring us

+unto Christ (or Christianity), but after that we are no longer under a

+schoolmaster." Gal. iii; 24, 25.

+

+I can assure the Jury that if Haslam's Letters to the Clergy is an

+improper book, it cannot be put down by prosecution; it is far better to

+leave it to coldness and neglect. I could give many proofs of this. I

+am myself an instance of the inefficacy of prosecution. I have been

+prosecuted, as I think with great injustice, for the publication of a

+paper called *The Poor Man's Guardian*. Five hundred men was imprisoned

+for selling it; I was twice imprisoned, and the circulation of the

+paper, thus prosecuted, more than paid my losses; but at last, in the

+Court of Exchequer, before Lord Lyndhurst, the Jury found a verdict in

+my favour, for I convinced the Jury that the publication was one which

+was not against the law.

+

+The Attorney-General: The Jury found that it was not a newspaper.

+

+Precisely so: and as soon as it was known that the *Guardian* was a

+legal paper, it went down at once. I could not sell copies enough to pay

+the expenses (a laugh). It has been just the same with these Letters;

+they have remained unsold till this prosecution, but as soon as it was

+known that they were prosecuted, the man who published them could not

+print them fast enough.

+

+Gentlemen, the enlightened Christians of the present day, by sending out

+Missionaries to propagate Christianity, are guilty of blasphemy against

+the established religion of heathen countries. It would be considered

+in England very unjust and cruel if the natives were to seize our

+Missionaries, and imprison and ill-treat them. If in this country we

+are in the habit of sending out Missionaries to proclaim new truths

+to foreign countries--is it not grossly inconsistent and unjust, while

+doing this, to punish persons for free investigation at home? In a

+recent case, cannon have been fired upon the natives of one of the Tonga

+Islands, because they would not receive these Missionaries. The argument

+of these Christians is, that truth must be propagated all over

+the world--but why stop inquiry at home, while suffering a British

+man-of-war to fire upon these islanders, because they would not receive

+the new truths of the Missionaries in the way they wished? Is it

+wise--is it not highly impolitic, then, to attempt to check the progress

+of intellect and human improvement? Can it be done by persecution and

+imprisonment? No, Gentlemen, the spirit of inquiry is abroad among the

+industrious millions--no subject is too sacred for their investigation.

+The mind has burst the fetters imposed on it, in the days of by-gone

+ignorance, by the cupidity of interested and hypocritical priests, who

+are fully aware that their principles and practices cannot stand the

+test of free inquiry. Even Mr. Wesley, the founder of Methodism, saw

+that his darling system must ultimately fall before the searching eye of

+philosophy and truth.

+

+*From the Life of the Rev. John Wesley, published in 1792*.

+

+"Dear Sir,--For your obliging letter, which I received this morning, I

+return you thanks.

+

+"Our opinions, for the most part, perfectly coincide respecting the

+stability of the connexion after my head is laid in the dust. This,

+however, is a subject about which I am not so anxious as you seem to

+imagine; on the contrary, it is a matter of the utmost indifference to

+me, as I have-long foreseen that a division must necessarily ensue,

+from causes so various, unavoidable, and certain, that I have long

+since given up all thoughts and hopes of settling it on a permanent

+foundation. You do not seem to be aware of the most effective cause that

+will bring about a division. You apprehend the most serious consequences

+from a struggle between the preachers for power and pre-eminence, and

+there being none among them of sufficient authority or abilities to

+support the dignity, or command the respect, and exact the implicit

+obedience, which is so necessary to uphold our constitution on its

+present principles. This, most undoubtedly, is one thing that will

+operate very powerfully against unity in the connexion, and is, perhaps,

+what I might possibly have prevented, had not a still greater difficulty

+arisen in my mind. I have often wished for some person of abilities to

+succeed me as the head of the church I have, with such indefatigable

+pains and astonishing success, established; but, convinced that none

+but very superior abilities would be equal to the undertaking, was I

+to adopt a successor of this description, I fear he might gain so much

+influence among the people as to usurp a share, if not the whole, of

+that absolute and uncontrollable power which I have hitherto, and am

+determined I will maintain so long as I live: never will I bear a rival

+near my throne. You, no doubt, see the policy of continually changing

+the preachers from one circuit to another, at short periods: for should

+any of them become popular with their different congregations, and

+insinuate themselves into the favour of their hearers, they might

+possibly obtain such influence as to establish themselves independently

+of me and the general connexion. Besides, the novelty of the continual

+change excites curiosity, and is the more necessary, as few of our

+preachers have abilities to render themselves in any degree tolerable

+any longer than they are now.

+

+"The principal cause which will inevitably effect a diminution and

+division in the connexion after my death, wilt be the failure of

+subscriptions and contributions towards the support of the cause; for

+money is as much the sinews of religious as of military power. If it

+is with the greatest difficulty that even I can keep them together, for

+want of this very necessary article, I think no one else can. Another

+cause, which, with others, will effect the division, is the disputes and

+contentions that will arise between the preachers and the parties that

+will espouse their several causes; by which means much truth will be

+brought to light, which will reflect so much to their disadvantage,

+that the eyes of the people will be opened to see their motives and

+principles; nor will they any longer contribute to their support, when

+they find all their pretensions to sanctity and love are founded on

+motives of interest and ambition. The consequence of which will be,

+a few of the most popular will establish themselves in the respective

+places where they have gained sufficient influence over the minds of the

+people: the rest must revert to their original humble callings. But

+this no way concerns me: I have attained the object of my views, by

+establishing a name that will not soon perish from the face of the

+earth; I have founded a sect which will boast my name long after my

+discipline and doctrines are forgotten.

+

+"My character and reputation for sanctity is now beyond the reach of

+calumny; nor will any thing that may hereafter come to light, or be said

+concerning me, to my prejudice, however true, gain credit.

+

+          | `"'My unsoiled name, the austereness of my life,`

+          |         `Will vouch against it,`

+          | `And so the accusation overweigh`

+          |         `That it will stifle in its own report,`

+          | `And smell of calumny.'`

+

+

+"Another cause that will operate more powerfully and effectually than

+any of the preceding is, the rays of Philosophy, which begin now to

+pervade all ranks, rapidly dispelling the mists of ignorance, which

+have been long, in a great degree, the mother of devotion, of slavish

+prejudice, and the enthusiastic bigotry of religious opinions. The

+decline of the Papal power is owing to the same irresistible cause; nor

+can it be supposed that Methodism can stand its ground when brought to

+the test of Truth, Reason, and Philosophy."

+

+

+"City-road, Thursday morning. J. W." (1)

+

+     1. As my defence had extended to a great length, I was

+     anxious to spare the time of the Jury, and did not,

+     therefore, trouble them with the whole of this letter. I

+     merely described the nature of it, and read the last

+     paragraph, being the only portion applicable to my purpose;

+     but as I deem the letter a valuable curiosity, and worthy of

+     preservation, I have inserted it entire.

+

+Gentlemen, you see Mr. Wesley anticipated that his system must yield

+to philosophy, and do you believe the Church of England can stand when

+brought to the test of "truth, reason* and philosophy?" A church that

+will keep a man in prison nearly two years for 5s. 6d. church-rates? If

+you suppress Biblical examination, and the free publication of opinion,

+the next step will be to stop inquiry into the *practices* of the

+Church, and to make us all the fettered slaves of the priesthood. No,

+Gentlemen; Methodism and Church-of-Englandism are doomed to fall; and

+such will be the fate of all systems not based upon the rock of truth.

+But, Gentlemen, that is no reason for suppressing inquiry, because the

+more the truth is investigated, the more beautiful it will appear.

+

+Gentlemen, has not our country raised itself to the highest pinnacle

+of human greatness as regards civilization and the arts? What rapid

+strides--what useful discoveries it has made in the arts and sciences!

+Consider its vast achievements in steam navigation--in railroad

+travelling--in the improvement of machinery. To such perfection have

+they brought machinery, that it is now almost capable of superseding

+human labour altogether. If all these magnificent improvements in the

+arts and sciences are good to society, and have resulted from free

+inquiry--why hesitate to apply it to social, religious, and political

+subjects? Are we ever to remain drivellers in religion? The true crime

+is that Haslam's Letters are sold at a penny. Why should two-guinea

+blasphemers be tolerated and penny ones prosecuted? How can the learned

+Attorney-General, whose shelves are, doubtless, adorned with Drummond's

+Academical Questions, Voltaire, Gibbon, Volney, and Shelley, uphold this

+prosecution; and what must that law be which can find the crime, not in

+the contents of the book, but in the fact of its being sold for a penny?

+They might for two guineas buy a magnificent book full of blasphemy.

+The Attorney-General, in his opening speech, had told the Jury that

+such works were "dangerous to society if addressed to the *vulgar, the

+uneducated*, and the *unthinking*" but I will appeal to his own witness,

+who had read the book, and on whom, an uneducated man, it had proved

+inoperative. It had done no mischief: and I hope the Jury will not

+consign me to a dungeon for having sold a book which it has been proved

+by his own witness has done no mischief. Paul said the Bæreans were more

+noble than those of Thessalonica, because they searched the Scriptures

+daily to see whether these things were so or not. The Attorney-General

+is about to punish me for doing the same thing. Christ himself said, the

+truth shall make you free; but the Attorney-General says the truth--or

+that which you believe to be the truth--shall make you a prisoner.

+In the parable of the tares, to which I have already referred, Jesus

+expressly forbade the rooting up of the tares, lest the wheat should be

+rooted up also. He did not recommend persecution, but said let them both

+grow together until the harvest. These passages are sufficient to show

+that persecution is opposed to the whole spirit of Christianity.

+

+Gentlemen, I will now call your attention to the law on the subject.

+In entering upon this topic, of course I shall labour under a great

+disadvantage, because I am unacquainted with legal technicalities and

+cases. I will commence, therefore, by reading to you the opinion of

+Chief Baron Eyre, in his Charge to the Grand Jury, on the commission

+for the trial of persons on the charge of High Treason, in 1794, in the

+course of which he made use of these liberal expressions:--

+

+"All men may, nay, all men must, if they possess the faculty of

+thinking, reason upon every thing which sufficiently interests them to

+become objects of their attention; and among the objects of attention

+of freemen, the principles of government, the constitution of particular

+governments, and, above all, the constitution of the government

+under which they live, will naturally engage attention, and provoke

+speculation. *The power of communication of thoughts and opinions is the

+gift of God; and the freedom of it is the source of all science*--the

+first fruits, and the ultimate happiness of all society; and therefore,

+it seems to follow, *that human laws ought not to interpose, nay, cannot

+interpose, to prevent the communication of sentiment and opinions, in

+voluntary assemblies of men.*"

+

+Here, Gentlemen, we have an eminent legal authority, in addition to

+the Bishops I have quoted, who declares that "human laws *ought not to

+inter-pose*, nay, cannot interpose, *to prevent the communication qf

+sentiment, and opinion*." Under what law then can I be condemned? This

+prosecution goes a step further than any other has gone; it in effect

+declares that you shall not dispute the truth of the Jewish Scriptures,

+which I have already shown are superseded by the introduction of

+Christianity. Paul declares that the Jewish law was only intended to be

+our schoolmaster to bring us to Christianity; but if Christianity, as

+is asserted, be part and parcel of the low of England, even then this

+prosecution has not a log to stand upon. In the "Life and Correspondence

+of Major Cartwright," however, there is a letter from Jefferson, himself

+an eminent lawyer, and President of the United States of America, who

+had deeply studied the laws of England, in which he has proved the

+fallacy of the notion that Christianity is part of the common law, by

+showing that the common law had existed long before Christianity was

+introduced into this country; and that the axiom had its origin and

+foundation in a misquotation and mistranslation of a decision of

+Justice Prisot, recorded in the Year Book, substituting the words

+*Holy Scriptures* for *Ancient Scriptures*. Jefferson denominates it

+a "judiciary forgery," and I hope your Lordship will to-day confirm

+Jefferson's view, and put an end to this illegal iniquity.

+

+Gentlemen, the passage I am about to quote from Jefferson's letter to

+Major Cartwright, contains the opinion of Justice Prisot, in old French,

+but I have procured a literal and a free translation, which I will read

+to the Jury. Your Lordship can refer to the original in the Year Book.

+

+"I was glad to find, in your book, a formal contradiction, at length, of

+the judiciary usurpation of legislative powers; for such the judges have

+usurped in their repeated decisions that Christianity is a part of

+the common law. The proof of the contrary which you have adduced

+is incontrovertible; to wit, that the common law existed while the

+Anglo-Saxons were yet Pagans; at a time when they had never yet heard

+the name of Christ pronounced, or knew that such a character had ever

+existed. But it may amuse you to show when, and by what means, they

+stole this law in upon us. In a case of quare impedit, in the year-book,

+34 H. 6, fo. 38, (1458,) a question was made, how far the ecclesiastical

+law was to be respected in a common law court? And Justice Prisot, c. 5,

+gives his opinion in these words:--

+

+"'A tiel leis que ils de seint eglise ont en *ancien scripture*, covient

+

+"'*To such laws which they of the holy church have in ancient writing,

+it is proper*

+

+à nous à donner credence; car ceo common ley sur quels touts manners

+

+*for us to give credence; because that is the common law on which all

+sorts of leis*

+

+sont lor dés--et auxy, Sir, nous sumus obligés de conustre leur ley de

+saint

+

+*laws are founded--and thus, Sir, we are obliged to know their law of

+the holy*

+

+eglise; et semblablement ils sont obligés de conustre nostre lev: et,

+Sir, si

+

+*church; and in like manner they are obliged to know our law; and, Sir,

+if*

+

+poit apperer or ù nous que Tevesque ad fait come un ordinary fera en

+tiel

+

+*it can be shown thus to us that the bishop has done as a layman would

+in such*

+

+cas, adonq nous devons ceo adjuger bon, ou auterment nemy,' &c.(1) See

+S. C,

+

+*a case, then we ought this to judge good, or otherwise not at all.*

+

+

+     1. *Translation read to the Jury.*

+

+

+Fitzherbert's Abr. qu. imp. 89. Brown's Abr. qu. imp. 12. Finch, in

+his first book, c. 3, is the first afterwards who quotes this case, and

+misstates it thus, 'To such laws of the church as have warrant in *holy

+scripture* our law giveth credence,' and cites Prisot, mistranslating

+'ancien scripture' into 'holy scripture;' whereas Prisot palpably says,

+'to such laws as those of holy church have in *ancient writing* it is

+proper for us to give credence to wit, to their ancient written laws.

+This was in 1613, a century and a half after the dictum of Prisot.

+Wingate, in 1658, erects this false translation into a maxim of the

+common law, copying the words of Finch, but citing Prisot. Wingate's

+Maxims, 3; and Sheppard, tit. 'Religion in 1675. copies the same

+mistranslation, quoting the Year-book, Finch and Wingate. Hale expresses

+it in these words, 'Christianity is parcel of the laws of England.'

+

+"It is proper for us to respect the laws which the members of the holy

+church have in *ancient manuscripts*, because they are the general

+source from which all laws are drawn. Thus, Sir, it is necessary for us

+to be acquainted with ecclesiastical law, and in like manner the judges

+of the ecclesiastical courts are obliged to understand our law: in

+consequence, Sir, if it can be shown to us that the ecclesiastical court

+has decided as a court of civil law would have done in the same case,

+then we ought to deem the judgment good; but if a civil law court would

+have decided otherwise, the judgment of the eclesiastical court must be

+deemed erroneous."

+

+"Ventr. 293. 3 Keble, 607, but quotes no authority. By these echoings

+and reechoings from one to another, it had become so established in

+1728, that in the case of the King v. Woolston, 2 Strange, 834, the

+court would not suffer it to be debated, whether to write against

+Christianity was punishable in the temporal courts at common law. Wood,

+therefore, 409, ventures still to vary the phrase, and says, 'that all

+blasphemy and profaneness are offences by the common law,' and cites 2

+Strange. Then Blackstone, in 1763, IV. 59, repeats the words of Hale,

+that 'Christianity is part of the law of England,' citing Ventris and

+Strange: and finally, Lord Mansfield, with a little qualification, in

+Evans's case in 1767, says, 'that the essential principles of revealed

+religion are parts of the common law,' thus engulphing Bible, Testament,

+and all, into the common law, without citing any authority. And thus we

+find this chain of authorities hanging link by link one upon another,

+and all ultimately on one and the same hook; and that a mistranslation

+of the words 'ancien scripture,' used by Prisot. Finch quotes Prisot;

+Wingate does the same; Sheppard quotes Prisot, Finch, and Wingate; Hale

+cites nobody; the Court, in Woolston's case, cites Hale; Wood cites

+Woolston's case; Blackstone quotes Woolston's case and Hale; and Lord

+Mansfield, like Hale, ventures it on his own authority. Here I might

+defy the best-read lawyer to produce another scrip of authority for this

+*judiciary forgery*; and I might go on further to show how some of the

+Anglo-Saxon priests interpolated into the text of Alfred's laws, the

+20th, 21st, 22nd, and 23rd chapters of Exodus, and the 10th of the Acts

+of the Apostles, from the 23rd to the 29th verses. But this would lead

+my pen and your patience too far. What a conspiracy this between Church

+and State! Sing Tantararara, Rogues all, Rogues all; Sing Tantararara,

+Rogues all!"

+

+Gentlemen, after hearing this statement from the pen of an educated and

+eminent lawyer, can you hesitate to return a verdict of acquittal? You

+have now a complete history of this "*judiciary forgery*" as Jefferson

+terms it, before you; and I am satisfied that that which originated in

+a *fraudulent mistranslation*, cannot, now that the fraud is detected,

+long retain the force of law. On this ground, then, I confidently claim

+your verdict.

+

+Gentlemen, I now come to the trade argument--that it is a great hardship

+and injustice to hold a bookseller responsible for the contents of the

+books he sells.

+

+I am a general bookseller; and so great is the competition, and so

+fully is my time occupied, that I have no time to spare for reading the

+various works in my shop, even if I had the inclination. My excellent

+and amiable son, before his death, and before I had any idea of this

+prosecution, drew up a paper for the management of my business, by which

+it appears that upwards of seventy weekly periodicals pass through my

+hands every week, besides books and many other periodicals that are

+merely collected to order. Amongst them will be found every possible

+variety--"The Church of England Magazine," "The Sacred Album," and many

+others maintaining contradictory and conflicting opinions; but I do not

+hold myself responsible--either legally or morally--for any of them.

+I have no right to set myself up as a censor of the press. I sell them

+all--and am not responsible for any man's opinions upon an abstract or

+general subject. When the subject matter of a book relates to the people

+at large, the public alone should decide upon its merits. If the book

+be a good one, they will support it; if a bad one, they will condemn and

+reject it. This is the only proper punishment for a bad author. The

+line of duty I mark out for myself in that I will never sell obscene

+publications--works that demoralise and corrupt society--nor any attacks

+upon private character; and if a person comes to me complaining that his

+character has been falsely and slanderously attacked, I sell no more of

+that work. What more can be expected from a general bookseller? If the

+sale of a controversial book is to be suppressed, because it contains

+a few passages in bad taste, and of objectionable phraseology, then the

+sale of the Bible itself must be prohibited, for that book contains many

+passages far more objectionable in the present day than any to be found

+in "Haslam's Letters to the Clergy." I have here a list of passages

+from the Bible, of a highly objectionable character; but as I perceive a

+number of ladies in the court, I will not pollute their ears, nor shock

+the feelings of the Jury, by reading them. My only object in alluding

+to them, is to show that if the principle of selecting two or three

+objectionable passages from a work is to lead to its condemnation, and

+the punishment of the bookseller, then I might with equal justice be

+condemned for selling the Bible itself. On this ground, also, I claim

+and am entitled to your verdict.

+

+Gentlemen, the Attorney-General has not done justice to Mr. Haslam; he

+has dwelt upon the passages contained in the indictment, but has left

+the Jury in total ignorance of the general nature of the work. In many

+parts of the book are to be found passages of great beauty. So far from

+a charge of blasphemy fairly attaching to Mr. Haslam's Letters, he

+uniformly declares that he rejects the Jewish Scriptures because they

+are *irrational*, and *dishonour* the God "that governs the universe."

+I will read a passage from his Second Letter, which shows the veneration

+he entertains for the Deity.

+

+"But is it not monstrous, that that power which gives life and motion

+to millions of worlds; which guides them in their eternal revolutions

+in the boundless ocean of space, and which preserves them in everlasting

+order and harmony; is it not monstrous that that power should be

+represented in this ridiculous point of view? Vain, violent, and

+boisterous, without the least indication of any thing rational, good,

+or merciful in any of his proceedings. Such a God may be the God of the

+Christians, but he is not the God who governs the universe. That God is

+no more to be compared to the Bible God, than the dazzling sun is to be

+compared to the glimmering light of a candle."

+

+Mr. Haslam's work has many other passages of the same description;

+and the Attorney-General will see that the passage in the Eighth

+Letter--almost the only objectionable passage in the work--was not

+deliberately designed to give offence, when I tell him that the

+author, in deference to the opinion of his friends, has cancelled the

+objectionable passage, and re-written it. Now what would the learned

+Attorney-General have more? The object of prosecution has been always

+held to be preventive, or corrective, not vindictive. The object sought,

+then, is already attained. Mr. Haslam has anticipated your wishes by

+correcting the objectionable passage.

+

+Gentlemen, I have urged sufficient, I hope, to induce you to give me

+your verdict; but before I conclude, I will read a passage from the

+works of Dean Swift, which is worthy of your profound attention.

+"Whoever," he says, "could restore, in any degree, brotherly love among

+men, would be an instrument of more good to society than ever was or

+will be done by all the statesmen in the world."

+

+Gentlemen, let us commence the glorious work to-day. I will tell you how

+you can do more towards spreading brotherly love among men, than all

+the statesmen in the world will be able to accomplish. Say to the

+Government, by your verdict, the publication of opinions shall be free.

+This will spread brotherly love among men; for what is it that prevents

+brotherly love from dwelling among men? The odious principle of

+coercion. I do not believe the Government wish to follow up these

+prosecutions if they can avoid it. They have a precedent, then, in the

+case of Sir Robert Peel. Mr. Carlile was in prison nearly *seven years*,

+and many of his shopmen were imprisoned for various terras. Did such

+vindictive persecutions change their opinions, or stop the sale of the

+works prosecuted? Quite the contrary. The individuals became confirmed

+and strengthened in their opinions, and all the prosecuted works are

+now on sale in every bookseller's shop in London. The public began to

+consider them martyrs, and Sir Robert Peel and the Government of that

+day saw the injustice and cruelty of such proceedings, abandoned all

+prosecutions, and liberated those whose terms of imprisonment were

+unexpired. Surely those now in authority are not the men to recommence

+these prosecutions for matters of opinion; and my quarrel with them

+is, that they have not the moral courage to reply to the taunts of

+the Bishop of Exeter, by alluding to this case of Sir Robert Peel's

+Government; and boldly declaring that henceforth public opinion shall be

+the only censor. Abolish that hateful principle of coercion for matters

+of opinion, and mutual toleration, respect, and brotherly kindness, will

+henceforth prevail.

+

+Gentlemen, Christianity gives no sanction to persecution. The religion

+of Jesus, rightly understood, is a practical and benevolent system. It

+is founded on two great commandments, love of God and love of Man.

+The *first* commandment, in fact, resolves itself into a practical

+observance of the *second*; for it is expressly declared that, "*If a

+man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that

+loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he

+hath not seen*?"(1) Recollect, Gentlemen, "*Love worketh no ill to his

+neighbour*."(2) Jesus encourages all men to think for themselves. This

+is his exhortation--"*Why, even of your own selves, judge ye not what is

+right?*(3)" But while he has encouraged the exercise of mind, he has not

+made eternal happiness to depend upon *belief* but upon their *actions*;

+and the great evil of society is attempting to coerce people into the

+belief of that which they cannot believe--a system to which, I hope,

+your verdict to-day will put a stop.

+

+     1. 1 John iv.; 20,

+

+     2. Rom. xiii.; 10,

+

+     3. Luke xii.; 57

+

+Gentlemen, the Founder of Christianity, in his parable of the Last

+Judgment, tells us distinctly that men are to be judged by their

+*actions* and not by their *opinions*; for he describes himself as

+inviting the righteous to inherit the kingdom prepared for them from the

+foundation of the world: "For I was an hungered, and ye gave me meat: I

+was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me

+in: naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was

+in prison, and ye came unto me." He then represents the righteous as

+saying, "Lord, when saw we thee an hungered, and fed thee I or thirsty,

+and gave thee drink? When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or

+naked, and clothed thee? Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and

+came unto thee? And the King shall answer, Inasmuch AS YE HAVE DONE IT

+UNTO ONE OF THE LEAST OF THESE MY BRETHREN, ye have done it unto me." He

+then represents himself as denouncing the unrighteous for giving him no

+meat, nor drink; for not clothing him when naked, nor visiting him when

+sick; and when they desire to know when he required these things, and

+they did not minister unto him, he replies, "Inasmuch as ye did it not

+to one of the least of these my brethren, ye did it not to me." Here,

+you perceive, there is no particular belief enjoined, none condemned.

+All men are to be judged by their actions--not by their belief.

+

+Gentlemen, I have now urged all that I deem necessary to ensure an

+acquittal. I hope you will consider well the consequences of your

+verdict, and reflect upon the wickedness and impolicy of tearing a

+man from his family, for selling a book in the ordinary course of his

+business. If I have said anything in the course of my address to raise

+a prejudice in your minds, I hope you will discard it, and do justice by

+pronouncing an acquittal.

+

+The Attorney-General claimed his right of reply. He commenced by

+observing that the Defendant, in his very long address to the Jury, had

+not advanced anything that would call for many remarks from him, so that

+he should occupy bu ta very small portion of their time. The Defendant

+had contended that the blasphemous attack on our holy religion,

+which they had heard read, was only free inquiry; and had taunted the

+Government, and himself, who desired the extension of useful knowledge,

+with having prosecuted this book. But was this book of Haslam's

+useful knowledge? The Defendant said, Why not answer it? But he, the

+Attorney-General, contended that it could not be answered. The only way

+to do with it was to prosecute it. This publication--for the sale of

+which the Defendant was indicted--was not fair argument and inquiry,

+but blasphemous invective. The Defendant accused him of not objecting so

+much to the matter of the publication, as to the price at which it was

+sold. Not withstanding what the Defendant had said on this point, he,

+the Attorney-General, contended that the low price at which it was sold

+made the publication doubly mischievous, as it caused it to circulate

+among the working classes of society, who were from their habits,

+incapable of thought or discrimination; their time was so entirely

+occupied that it was impossible they could devote sufficient time to

+reading to guard themselves against the evil tendency of such works;

+while the Jury, and men in their class of life, were, from their

+education, furnished with an antidote to the poison. If attacks on the

+Scriptures were to be permitted, what was to prevent the pious feelings

+of the community from being outraged? Suppose a man were to carry a

+board through the streets on which was inscribed in large characters,

+that "Christ was an impostor." Could it be tolerated? Yet this,

+according to the Defendant, was only free inquiry! Again, suppose any

+one preferred a republican to a monarchical form of government, and was

+to excite and recommend the substitution of the one for the other by

+force of arms, inciting, by inflammatory appeals, the people to murder

+the Government and the Queen--yet this would be, according to Mr.

+Hetherington, only free inquiry! The Defendant had said that Mr. Haslam

+was a Socialist; now the Socialists held an opinion that marriage was an

+institution that ought to be abolished. If a man, under that plea, were

+to recommend the seduction of his neighbour's wife or daughter--would

+any one contend that such opinions should be published with impunity?

+yet the Defendant considers this the free investigation of opinions; and

+to prosecute a blasphemous publication, he says, is to prevent freedom

+of opinion. No one wished to interfere with Mr. Hetherington's private

+opinion. The policeman, when he went to Mr. Hetherington's shop to

+purchase the numbers, did not inquire as to his particular belief. If

+there were persons so unfortunate as to disbelieve the Scriptures--which

+were the foundation of our holy religion--the law did not interfere

+with them so long as they kept their opinions to themselves, and did

+not publicly attack the authenticity of the Bible. Mr. Hetherington

+had spoken of the effect of prosecution in extending the sale of such

+publications, alluding particularly to the *Poor Man's Guardian*; but

+he, the Attorney-General, called upon the Jury to do their duty by

+bringing? to punishment those who outraged the law, that others might be

+deterred from offending. If the Jury looked at the immoral tendency of

+such writings, and the doctrines of non-responsibility laid down by

+Mr. Hetherington, who declared that he was neither responsible for his

+belief, nor his actions--

+

+Mr. Hetherington here interrupted, declaring that the Attorney-General

+was acting most unfairly towards him. He never used such language, but

+quite the contrary; what he maintained was, that he was not responsible

+for his *belief* but that he *was responsible for his* actions. If he

+injured a friend, a neighbour, or a fellow-citizen, he was amenable to

+society for the injury done. The Attorney-General, he contended, was not

+replying to him, but perverting his arguments and misrepresenting facts.

+

+Lord Denman said that he agreed with the Defendant in the first

+instance, and therefore he thought he was justified in putting the

+Attorney-General right; but the Attorney-General, he thought, was

+entitled to make any remarks upon facts which came out in evidence.

+

+Mr. Hetherington (with great vehemence).--But he is mis-stating facts,

+and making statements calculated to mislead the Jury.

+

+Lord Denman.--You must not interrupt.

+

+The Defendant.--But my liberty is at stake, and I will speak. (Applause

+at the back of the court, which was instantly suppressed by the

+officers.)

+

+Lord Denman.--You shall be heard in correction of anything you may think

+a misrepresentation, afterwards; not in reply, but merely in correction.

+

+The Defendant.--Thank you, my Lord.

+

+The Attorney-General observed, that the Defendant denied being the

+publisher, but he would convince the Jury that he was, by reading

+the title to them. He then read the title of the book--omitting the

+publisher's name, and reading the name of the Defendant only, till

+Mr. Hetherington insisted upon his rending the whole title as

+follows:--"Letters to the Clergy of all Denominations, showing the

+Errors, Absurdities, and Irrationalities of their Doctrines. By C.

+J. Haslani. Fourth Edition. Manchester: A. Heywood. 56 and 60, Oldham

+Street. London*; Hetherington, 126, Strand; Cleave, Shoe Lane, Fleet

+Street; Watson, City Road, Finsbury; and J. Guest, Birmingham; and all

+Booksellers in Town and Country."

+

+The Attorney-General then proceeded.--Conceive, gentlemen, a servant

+or an apprentice reading this work where the institution of private

+property was said to be the great evil of society--would he feel any

+compunction at appropriating the goods or money of his employer to his

+own use? Would he not find arguments in this work to justify him in his

+iniquity? Mr. Hetherington had taken credit to himself for

+disinterested motives, but he feared that he was actuated by mercenary

+motives--looking only to emolument--careless of the effect it might have

+on the morals of the unthinking working-classes.(1) He called upon the

+Jury, by the oaths they had taken on the Holy Gospel--which this

+book blasphemously attacked--to consider the effect of a verdict of

+acquittal, and to do their duty to the public. By such a verdict they

+would license the most infamous attacks on the Holy Scriptures, and

+would loosen the bonds which held society together.

+

+     1. This comes well from a gentleman who descended from his

+     high professional position to attend at the Old Bailry, for

+     a fee of £. 100, to plead for a man charged with murder.

+

+Mr. Hetherington explained that it was the custom of the trade to place

+the name of any bookseller, with whom the real publisher did business,

+on the title-page of the book, and that his name had been so placed by

+Mr. Hey-wood, of Manchester, the real publisher, without his knowledge.

+Mr. Heywood was the original publisher; he received no punishment, and

+was now at liberty.

+

+Lord Denman, in summing up, observed, that the law considered the vendor

+of a work the publisher of it, and that consequently he must be held

+responsible. It had also been constantly laid down that blasphemy was

+an offence at common law. In the Defendant's defence, TO WHICH HE

+HAD LISTENED WITH FEELINGS OF GREAT INTEREST, AYE, WITH SENTIMENTS OF

+RESPECT TOO, he had complained of the hardship of a general publisher

+being held responsible for the contents of all the works he might sell,

+but he had himself answered that argument by the conduct which he stated

+he pursued with regard to obscene and personally libellous publication,

+and from the title-page of this work it was scarcely possible not to be,

+in some measure, aware of its contents. Discussions on a subject, even

+the most sacred, might be tolerated when they were conducted in a fair

+spirit; but when appeals were made not to reason but to the bad feelings

+of human nature, or where ridicule or invective were had recourse to, it

+could not be considered discussion. As to the impolicy of these sort of

+prosecutions that was a question with which they had nothing to do;

+the only question for them to determine was, whether the publication in

+question was a blasphemous libel, and whether it had been published by

+the Defendant.

+

+The Jury immediately returned a verdict of Guilty.

+

+The Attorney-General prayed the immediate judgment of the Court.

+

+Lord Denman.--I think the passing sentence had better be deferred, until

+we have had the opportunity of considering the subject.

+

+The Defendant then retired, and the Court adjourned.

+

+

+.. clearpage::

+

+OBSERVATIONS

+============

+

+

+.. dropcap:: T The

+

+

+The renewal of a series of Government prosecutions for alleged

+blasphemy, will justify me in accompanying the publication of the

+foregoing trial with a few words of comment.

+

+The points upon which I deem it my duty to animadvert--are the conduct

+of the Government, the Attorney-General, and the Jury.

+

+I consider that the Government have acted towards me, in this

+prosecution, in a very unjustifiable manner. They first placed Mr.

+Cleave on his trial for selling the fifth, eighth, and thirteenth

+numbers of Haslam's Letters. He pleaded *Not Guilty*, but was convicted

+(after an able and convincing speech from his-Counsel, Mr. Chambers),

+by as stupid a Jury as ever sat in judgment on an honest man. The Judge

+sentenced him to four months' imprisonment, and a fine of £20. Such was

+the force of public opinion, however, on the injustice and impolicy of

+such prosecutions, that Mr. Cleave was liberated, upon paying the fine,

+after five weeks' imprisonment.

+

+The trial of Mr. Heywood, the original publisher, came next. His known

+integrity and respectability had attached to him many influential

+friends, who represented to the Government the folly and injustice

+of these proceedings, and Lord Normanby at length yielded to their

+importunities, by agreeing, on condition that he pleaded guilty,

+that Mr. Heywood's prosecution should proceed no further. Mr.

+Heywood complied, and was left at liberty, on entering into his own

+recognizances, to appear when called upon.

+

+Public opinion unequivocally declared that such prosecutions were

+indefensible, and it was very generally believed that the Government

+would abandon them from a conviction of their injustice and impolicy.

+Instead of which they proceeded against me for selling the same

+numbers of the identical work that Messrs. Cleave and Heywood had

+been prosecuted for selling, though the punishment of Mr. Cleave was

+remitted, and the Government compounded blasphemy in the case of Mr.

+Heywood. To injure and annoy honest and industrious tradesmen, because

+the author of a book has in two or three instances expressed his ideas

+in vulgar and objectionable phraseology, is unworthy of an enlightened

+Government. I feel pity for the Jury who could ignorantly pronounce

+a verdict of guilty against a man who never wilfully injured a

+fellow-creature, merely because he had sold a book that combated

+the established opinions of the day; but I entertain very different

+sentiments against the Government that could institute and carry forward

+prosecutions of this nature, when, from their superior knowledge, they

+must be fully aware of the iniquity of their proceedings. They encourage

+"reason and free inquiry," while it favours their objects; and they

+persecute and ruin all those, who, by the exercise of reason and free

+inquiry, arrive at conclusions adverse to the established opinions of

+society. The time has passed, however, for a renewal of persecution for

+matters of opinion. No Government can stand that will attempt it; and

+I tell Her Majesty's Government, that when they interfere with the

+religious or anti-religious opinions of the people, they step out of

+their province,--and to inflict punishment upon either the original

+publisher or the general bookseller, who supplies all works to order,

+for the opinions contained in the works they respectively publish or

+sell, is an odious act of tyranny that good men of every opinion should

+denounce and oppose. I, for one, will never sanction or submit to such

+tyranny. Whether any and what sentence will be passed upon me I know

+not; but I have made up my mind that I will maintain, at all risks, and

+under every privation, to the utmost extent of my ability and means, the

+right of all men to freely publish their opinions upon every subject

+of general interest--whether social, political, or religious; aye, or

+anti-religious,--and if the Government would receive a suggestion

+from me, I would suggest to them to take their stand on this glorious

+principle--perfect freedom is the formation AS PUBLICATION OF OPINIONS

+FOR EVERY SECT AND PARTY. That is the most effectual way to elicit truth

+upon all subjects; and I would respectfully ask them, whether they

+ever knew the truth injure any sect or party that was disposed to act

+honestly?

+

+I hope the Government will reflect upon the injustice and impolicy

+of this new crusade against the free expression of opinion, adopt my

+suggestion, and abandon all prosecutions against those who honestly

+controvert the received opinions of society.

+

+Having now expressed my feelings with regard to the conduct of the

+Government, I must say a word or two respecting the behaviour of the

+learned Attorney-General towards me, on my trial. He made very few

+observations in opening the case, but reserved himself for his Reply;

+a privilege which I think he was not entitled to, as I called no

+witnesses. Had I anticipated he would have claimed the privilege of

+reply, and abused it in the shameful manner that he did, I could have

+overthrown, by witnesses, the false impression which he so unjustly

+laboured to establish on the minds of the Jury--that I was the publisher

+of the work, because my name was affixed to the book first of the London

+agents. What is the object of a reply? It is to answer the facts

+and arguments adduced by the Defendant; to show that he has reasoned

+illogically; and to point out to the Jury, succinctly and clearly* the

+points in which he has failed to answer the charge laid against him in

+the indictment. In addition, however, to this base attempt to hold me

+up to the Jury as the original publisher, the Attorney-General obviously

+sought to make the Jury believe--(and there is every reason to think

+that he triumphed in this his unjust attempt to injure me)--that I

+claimed immunity not only for my belief but my actions, When I insisted

+upon setting him right, by showing him the utter falsehood of his

+assertion, in which I was supported by Lord Chief Justice Denman, he

+treacherously aimed at fixing upon me the consequences of doctrines to

+which I had not even adverted in my speech, and which had no reference

+whatever to the subject then before the Court. He basely insinuated that

+I was virtually claiming immunity for all acts of aggression--such as

+robbery, murder, seduction, unjustifiable rebellion, and assassination

+of the Queen; striving to raise in the minds of the Jury a confusion

+between the right of freedom of opinion and the wrong of licentious

+action! This, too, was slanderously repeated, after my open appeal to

+the Court against such malignity; and this the learned Attorney-General

+calls availing himself of his privilege of reply! I was not allowed to

+answer these falsehoods of the Attorney-General; though, as the accused

+party, I was in justice, if not in law, entitled to every opportunity of

+making the truth apparent to the Jury.

+

+As to the Jury--What shall I say of them? I can only pity men who

+exhibited such woful ignorance and imbecility as to be led away by

+misrepresentations that had not even the appearance of truth. Let me ask

+the Jury one simple question. They were bound by their oath to give a

+true verdict according to the evidence. Now let me ask them, was there

+any evidence of BLASPHEMY?

+

+The evidence adduced merely proved the sale of a certain book. There

+was no evidence that the contents of the book were blasphemous. This

+question--(that is to say, the very question in dispute--the question

+whether or not there was any blasphemy)--this question was decided by

+Judge and Jury without an iota of evidence, without even an attempt at

+any evidence bearing Upon it. The opinions of the Judge and Jury decided

+the question of the indictment---Was there blasphemy or no! There

+was no evidence at all upon it. Gentlemen of the Jury--common and

+special--was your verdict in accordance with the EVIDENCE brought

+forward for your enlightened consideration--was your verdict in

+accordance with the terms of your oath? The verdict to which I was

+entitled from honest and reasoning men was the following:--either a

+direct "Not Guilty of blasphemy"--or this, "Guilty of selling a certain

+book concerning the nature of which wc=e have had no evidence"--matters of

+opinion not being, in fact susceptible of evidence.

+

+H. HETHERINGTON.

+

+

+I cannot close these Observations without tendering my best thanks

+to the editor of *The Sun* for the zeal and ability with which, in a

+succession of leading articles, he defended the right of Free Inquiry

+and the Free Publication of Opinions. The *Morning Chronicle* published

+an impartial report of the Trial, and gave a good leading article on

+the subject. The *Morning Advertiser* and the *Weekly Chronicle* also

+published a fair report of the Trial. The *Weekly Dispatch* and The

+*Statesman* are both entitled to thanks for their advocacy of Truth and

+Liberty, in reference to the principle contended for in my Defence. The

+three Letters of Publicola, in The *Weekly Dispatch*, are invaluable;

+and I regret that I cannot find room for the whole of them in this

+pamphlet, without considerably enhancing its price and defeating my

+own object of extensive circulation for my Trial. They are worthy of a

+distinct publication. I can only fill up the space I have left by the

+insertion of the following excellent article from *The Sun* of Friday,

+December the 11th, 1840, and Publicola's Letter to Lord Chief Justice

+Denman.--H. H.

+

+

+.. clearpage::

+

+Extract from The Sun Newspaper

+==============================

+

+

+.. dropcap:: W We

+

+

+We brought evidence yesterday to show that the suppression of

+objections to the Scriptures by penal enactments is tyrannical, unjust,

+and absurd, and that the law is partially administered. If we return

+to the subject, it is from a deep sense of its almost immeasurable

+importance. Our whole internal A policy, nearly, is framed with a view

+to support the Church. The Church is founded, or rather pretends to be

+founded, on the Bible; but we are now told by the decision of the

+Jury on Tuesday, that it is a crime to object to its statements. The

+happiness of society, then, is to be chained and bound by principles and

+doctrines, which society must not examine; for if men must not object,

+what is the use of examination?

+

+"We see disorder pervading every part of society. The poor are set

+against the rich, and the rich are zealously engaged in oppressing

+and coercing the poor. Crime increases, and though more churches

+are building, religion is decaying. The remedies suggested for our

+disorders, within the bounds sanctioned by the Church, are more numerous

+than the disorders themselves; but though confusion and anarchy

+threaten us, the law forbids men to say aught against principles which

+our rulers have followed, while society has been brought into its

+present condition.

+

+"What the law now decrees against what it calls blasphemy, it decreed,

+not two centuries ago, against witchcraft. It now denounces the former

+as displeasing to God; it then denounced the latter for the same

+offence. Men and women were in those less humane days burned for

+displeasing God, while now they are only fined and incarcerated. By the

+progress of knowledge, lawyers, both barristers and judges, have been

+compelled to give up that portion of the perfection of human reason, and

+the law against witchcraft has become obsolete. If our view of the

+law for suppressing objections to the Scriptures, under * the name of

+blasphemy, be correct, it is not more reasonable than the law against

+witchcraft. While no lawyer, however, will now lend himself to revive

+the latter or carry it into execution, there are numbers, we say it to

+the disgrace of the profession, zealous and eager to apply the former,

+at least to the penny tracts which are addressed to the poor.

+

+"It is therefore with deep regret that we saw so eminent a man as the

+Attorney-General lending himself to this sorry work. We are ready to

+admit, as a Tory contemporary has stated, that he has done his duty, and

+he finds his reward in the praise of the Tories. Nor did he show, as far

+as we can learn, certainly not in his reply, any reluctance to perform

+it; people say he did it as if he had something to atone for, and was

+rather eager to gain the approbation of Bishop Philpotts. His

+labours were crowned with a success which his own party reprobate. In

+Westminster Hall he has triumphed, but an appeal lies from that to the

+world; and even the Whigs, who have heretofore denounced prosecutions

+for blasphemy as for witchcraft, consider that in the last resort he

+will sustain a terrible defeat.

+

+"Mr. Hetherington has already suffered in body and mind, in purse and

+health; and probably awaits with apprehension the sentence, which may

+consign him to prison and ruin. He is down-stricken by the law; but

+those who have read his defence, and prefer reason to legal fictions,

+will place him far above the triumphant Attorney-General. He made

+an admirable pleading for free inquiry, which plain John Campbell

+instituted a prosecution to suppress. In his reply Sir John so far

+overstepped the bounds of propriety, that the Defendant would not allow

+him to proceed, and was supported by the Court. In a bad cause the

+Attorney-General used poisoned weapons. He upheld a prosecution for

+blasphemy, which is as ridiculous as a prosecution for witchcraft, and

+descended to misrepresent the accused. With our opinion of the law he

+was enforcing, we are bound to say that Sir John Campbell should have

+left such a duty to be performed by some taker of a half-guinea fee, who

+never got beyond the precincts of the Old Bailey. It was wholly unworthy

+of an eminent lawyer, who has risen into political power as a professed

+friend of free discussion. The slaves to lust have some pleasure for

+their punishment, but the servants of the grimgribber of Westminster

+Hall, who sacrifice present fame to a sense of duty to it, reap little

+more than disgrace for their nauseous drudgery.

+

+"Sir John Campbell prosecuted Mr. Hetherington, in the language of

+the indictment, for being 'a wicked, impious, and ill-disposed

+person, having no regard to the laws of this realm, but most wickedly,

+blasphemously, impiously, and profanely devising and intending to

+asperse and vilify that part of the Holy Bible which is called the Old

+Testament.' Now, having no respect whatever for the fictions of the law,

+we have no hesitation in branding such accusations of a publisher as a

+monstrous tissue of falsehoods, and to affirm that it is a disgrace to

+any man who has the least respect for truth, to defend such a charge.

+We care not about its being the customary language of the law, for

+truth and men's liberties are not to be sacrificed by and for such

+absurdities.

+

+"Further, this said aspersing and vilifying the Bible is said by Sir J.

+Campbell, at least such is the language of the indictment, which he

+used arguments to sustain, to be greatly 'to the displeasure of Almighty

+God.' Who knows that? What worm dares to say that the Almighty God is

+displeased with another worm for uttering or writing a few words.'

+Who is the vain and arrogant man that claims for himself the task of

+interpreting the thoughts of the Most High, and demanding that a man be

+punished for having displeased Almighty God? What name does the Court

+deserve which, being instituted to do justice and protect the people,

+punishes one of them because he displeases the Almighty? Can He not

+punish those who displease Him? To doubt it, to undertake to protect or

+avenge Him, to describe Him as displeased, while he showers prosperity

+and contentment on the man said to displease Him, is far more impious,

+more blasphemous, more dangerous to religion than anything Mr.

+Hetherington ever published, or Mr. Haslam wrote. Such, however, was

+the crime charged against Mr. Hetherington, which Sir John Campbell

+endeavoured to substantiate, and of which a Jury, who are as much

+deserving of reproach as the prosecutor, found him guilty. Such is the

+crime for which the Court will hereafter pass sentence, undertaking,

+like the Inquisition, to decide for the Almighty, and punish actions

+as displeasing to Him, at which He, by the course of nature, shows no

+displeasure.

+

+"At the present time, when a great portion of the Whig press will

+support the Attorney-General or be silent, leaving *The Sun* to defend

+the great principle of free inquiry and free printing, as they left it

+to defend the same sacred and noble cause when it was assailed in the

+person of Mr. Harmer, we think it our duty not to be silent. As we

+should assail any Tory Attorney-General who had instituted such

+a prosecution, or carried it on, so we cannot allow it to pass

+unstigmatized because it has been instituted by a Whig Attorney-General.

+We know that the wisest and best politicians of the party deprecate

+such proceedings, and not the less because they will call forth in

+many independent journals, to the injury of the Whigs, an expression of

+honest indignation."

+

+

+.. clearpage::

+

+"TO LORD DENMAN, ON THE LATE PROSECUTION FOR BLASPHEMY

+======================================================

+

+

+.. dropcap:: M Mr

+

+

+Mr Lord Chief Justice.

+

+"Your conduct on the Bench, upon the recent trial, 'The Queen v.

+Hetherington,' for a religious libel, a nominal and an impossible

+offence, the fiction of fraudulent bigotry, has much increased the high

+esteem in which you have been always held by the public. Your Lordship's

+opinions on this impolitic, irreligious, and thoroughly infamous species

+of prosecution have oft-times been expressed with the integrity and high

+moral courage that have ever distinguished your public life. I never

+shall forget the manliness with which I heard you avow from the Whig

+Treasury Benches, in the House of Commons, in your place as Attorney

+General, your detestation of indictments for religious opinions; and the

+House hailed you when you fairly acknowledged your deep regret that, as

+Common Serjeant, you had been obliged, in obedience to your oath and to

+the law, to impose even the smallest punishment possible upon three men

+convicted by an ignorant Jury of a libel on the Scriptures; and you were

+still more cheerfully received when you expressed your joy at the

+liberation of the prisoners whom you had so unwillingly punished. There

+was one part of your speech that did not certainly satisfy me. I respect

+your sense of obligation to an oath; but when you punished men whom you

+conscientiously believed to be undeserving of infliction, and this 'in

+obedience to the law,' your Lordship might have reflected, that it was

+not Parliamentary, but Judge-made law--'Common-law,' as it is called;

+and you might have acted upon the principle that if a corrupt and

+ignorant Judge made a law to suit the prejudices of a brutal age, a pure

+and well-informed Judge might reverse that law in favour of an age more

+humane and more enlightened. I recollect with great satisfaction that

+when, in the case of Lord Langford, the Counsel, Mr. Thesiger, asked a

+witness (Mr. Nathan, a Jew) 'what religion he was of?' your Lordship

+expressed your strong displeasure; and, under your Lordship's sanction,

+the witness refused to answer the interrogatory, and treated both the

+query and the querist with the utmost contempt; and the whole Court and

+audience seemed strongly to approve of the result. In the recent trial

+your Lordship's conduct was a contrast to that of your immediate

+predecessors on the Bench, Lords Tenterden and Ellenborough, the last

+representatives of a most disgraceful school of political, prejudiced,

+corrupt Court Judges. You did all in your power to induce the Jury to

+acquit the accused. I am now credibly informed that the Attorney-General

+had the same object at heart; and having, intentionally, gone in a most

+slovenly and unimpressive manner, through his technical duty, he was

+abashed and mortified when he heard the verdict of guilty. Familiar as

+he must be with the extreme ignorance, stupidity, and corruption of

+Juries, on such occasions, he was still surprised at such a verdict. I

+am willing to give him credit for these common reports in his favour;

+but should the Government be so infatuated as to bring the defendant up

+for judgment, the country expects of you, my Lord Denman, that the

+sentence will be nominal, and that it will be accompanied by your

+reprobation of all such trials.

+

+"If it be true that hope is the last passion that leaves a man,

+equally true is it that the spirit, the accursed spirit of religious

+persecution, is the last passion that man deserts, or is willing to

+abandon. I sincerely believe that if the alternative were put to a

+hundred dying men, at their last, moment of consciousness, at their last

+gasp of breath, whether they preferred their own future salvation

+or beatitude, or the persecution of man upon earth for conscientious

+differences of opinion on religious subjects, full ninety-nine out of

+the hundred would choose the latter, on the ground of its being the

+turnpike-road to the former, and from the inherent delight in the

+spirit of religious intolerance. Fanaticism is the primeval curse of our

+nature. From its first victim Abel, to the present hour, it has raged

+through the human race. Moral sins and physical or corporeal diseases in

+the course of ages wear themselves out, or can be cured by instruction

+or medical treatment; but the most foul, leprous, and crime-engendering

+of all maladies that flesh is heir to, fanaticism--call it if you

+please, bigotry or superstition--admits of no cure, and of little

+mitigation. If this hellhound were now let loose from the restraints

+of law, we should in one year have every gaol and dungeon full of

+prisoners, and in another, the fires and faggots of the olden times

+would be raging more fiercely than of yore, and more furiously in this

+country than in any other. Whatever Catholics might have been in the

+middle ages, there has been more of religious persecution in Great

+Britain and Ireland, in the last century, than in all the Catholic

+countries of Europe within the same period. On the Continent the spirit

+is on the wane; in England it is on the increase.

+

+"My Lord Denman, in the very abstraction of our individual nature, and

+of the nature of society, a court of justice cannot take cognizance of

+opinions. Its functions are confined exclusively to facts. Can any two

+classes of things be more distinct and opposite? The one is fixed, the

+other perpetually varying. Law, cultivated reason and common sense have

+rescued subjects of opinion from judicial interference, except with

+respect to politics and religion, the two which of all others most need

+the exemption. The interference of courts of justice with religious

+opinions had immensely decreased, and it is now reviving; but it is in

+your Lordship's power to annihilate it by passings nominal sentence

+on the defendant. The effects or results of a fact are ascertainable;

+those of an opinion are but speculative and uncertain. There is not

+in existence, there never has existed, and probably never can exist,

+a religious opinion that has not been deemed blasphemous, and of a

+destructive tendency to morals and social peace, by its opponents,

+who, if they had been strong enough, have relied upon the arguments of

+torture and death, or punishments as severe as society would permit.

+

+"My Lord, legism, or jurisprudence, are sufficiently understood to

+render it indisputable that punishments cannot be vindicatory or

+retrospective, and less than either, vindictive. All religious

+prosecutions seek only for revenge. The object of a legal punishment

+relates solely to the prevention of the offence. If a sentence against

+Mr. Hetherington cannot effect this object, it cannot be justified.

+Will a sentence alter his opinions? will it alter conscientiously that

+of any class or single member of society? and, above all, will it stop

+or check the dissemination of his doctrines? The two first points are

+nugatory; the last is defeated in its pretended object. All history and

+experience prove that persecution, let its form or degree be what it

+may, increases that which it is meant to destroy. Whether the tyrant be

+called Pope or Inquisition, Attorney-General or Court of Queen's Bench,

+the principle and the result are the same.

+

+"Every religion, church, and sect, that exists or is defunct, in Europe

+and in Asia, from the earliest record, has had at its origin, and

+through its infancy, to encounter obloquy and persecution. The Jewish

+religion received animation and vigour from the contempt and cruelties

+of surrounding polytheists, and the Jews sought in one God a protection

+from the horrors which had been inflicted on them by the worshippers of

+many; and well did this atrocious people revenue themselves 011 their

+former persecutors, and this by assuming their own claim to the right

+of punishing men for differing in opinions. The progress of Christianity

+was accelerated by the Jews, in their attempts to crush it by inflicting

+an ignominious and most cruel death on an innocent individual, under

+that absurd fiction of blasphemy, in the foul name of which your

+Lordship is now called upon to punish, against your will, another

+innocent individual. If blasphemy has any meaning, its definition must

+be--'a resistance to a predominant priestcraft.' Every religion, at

+its commencement, is but a confluent mass of blasphemies to the

+previously-established religions; and persecution is the reverse

+of annihilation, Where would Protestantism have been but for its

+persecution by the Catholics, and *vice versa*? From the dawn of

+Protestantism in England, under Wycliffe, and the burning of the first

+Protestants by the priests, in the reign of the Hero of Agincourt (what

+a hero!) down to the death of Mary, English Protestants were tortured,

+burnt, hanged, and punished, and yet the religion spread. Throughout

+Germany the same effects proceeded from the same cause. Our English

+persecutions of the Catholics in Ireland have been long, incessant, and

+too dreadfully cruel to reflect upon, and yet Catholicism has increased

+under them. We have not one respectable sect in England that has not

+arisen in despite of persecution, and increased by means of it, and

+these, with hundreds or thousands of other instances (for history

+abounds with them), prove that persecution or punishment does not, and

+cannot, effect the object in view; and that, consequently,

+punishment cannot be justified by its only legitimate principle of

+justification--utility. It is madness to punish for an offence which

+must be increased by the very nature of the punishment. Formerly, in

+punishments for blasphemy, men, women, and children were burnt and

+put to every variety of torture, for the good of their souls--now, we

+substitute for the word soul, the phrase--'*the security of society*,'

+or other jargon equally nonsensical. The Court of Inquisition was, and

+is, wherever it exists, more honourable than the Protestant Court of

+Queen's Bench, for the Inquisitors tortured and destroyed for the sake

+of the soul, but our Courts punish only for the profit of the priest.

+The old plea, the impudent and barbarous plea, of 'Benefit of Clergy,'

+is annulled by law, and yet an indictment for blasphemy is nothing more

+or less than a process for the 'Benefit of Clergy.' Thus, my Lord, have

+I humbly attempted to prove that your punishment of this individual

+will be in strong and violent opposition to the principles, opinion, and

+feelings which you have avowed on the Ministerial Benches of the House

+of Commons; and if the Whig Administration is so infatuatedly base as

+to call the defendant up for punishment your Lordship will be in the

+unenviable position of passing a sentence, as Lord Chief Justice of

+England, against the nature, principles, and objects of which you have

+expressed little less than abhorrence in the character of Her Majesty's

+Attorney-General in the House of Commons. At that period, my Lord, you

+were the freely and most honourably chosen representative of one of the

+largest and most enlightened constituencies of Great Britain--the town

+of Nottingham--and your constituents expressed no dissatisfaction at

+your speech. Is there not a sympathy between Nottingham and other large,

+and populous, aud enlightened towns and cities, and between them all and

+the general population of the empire? I have likewise, my Lord,

+shown, to the best of my very humble abilities, as a legist, that any

+punishment inflicted on this individual, violates the only principle

+on which all punishments can be justified--the prevention of the

+offence--if it be one.

+

+"What, in other respects, will be the effects of this brutal

+prosecution? Burn Mr. Hetherington alive,--slowly roast him, torture

+him by every device, hang him, quarter him, and stick his head on

+Temple-bar, and his quarters on the gates of four of our principal

+cathedral towns, as in all such cases used to be the practice of our

+most pious Christian ancestors in 'the good old times'--or let your

+Lordship pass the most lenient sentence on him, and what will be

+the result? Will any thing be proved, disproved, strengthened, or

+invalidated, by either mode of punishment? If divines or laymen argue

+upon the Scriptures *in toto* or in parts, *en masse* or in detail,

+could any of the disputants establish his point by arguing that Mr.

+Hetherington or Mr. Snookes, for the names are indifferent, was or

+was not in gaol, or that the sentence was six days' or six months'

+incarceration--how would the case stand syllogistically? A asserts that

+the Bible ought to be burnt--A is not prosecuted--ergo, the Bible

+ought to be burnt. B asserts that the Bible ought to be burnt--B is

+prosecuted--B is acquitted by the Jury--ergo, the Bible ought to be

+burnt. C asserts that the Bible ought to be burnt--C is prosecuted--C is

+found guilty--ergo, the Bible ought not to be burnt. Again, D, E, F, and

+G, are prosecuted for saying that the Bible ought to be burnt. They are

+all found guilty under different Judges, and their sentences vary from

+three, six, twelve, and eighteen months' imprisonment. Here the public

+mind is in utter confusion between the cases of A, B, and C, and between

+the ratios of punishment inflicted on D, E, F, and G, I have gone to

+the extent of the musical gamut. Ratios might be calculated by

+arithmeticians aud algebraists. Thus--'As burning the Bible is to the

+acquittal of B,--so is not burning the Bible to the sentence on D, E, F,

+or G." Really, my Lord, as a man of the most cultivated intellect, you

+must see the monstrous absurdity, the atrocious cruelty, of subjecting

+opinions on Scriptures to 'Trial by Jury.' If opinions on a book are to

+be brought before a Jury, so might its author. I speak in no disrespect

+of Scriptures, but I speak in utter disgust and abhorrence of bringing

+them before Juries. What, in fact, does a verdict of 'Guilty' or 'Not

+Guilty' amount to, in case of an opinion on the Scriptures? The ignorant

+Jury men unwittingly set themselves above the Scriptures, and tyrannise

+over the Deity himself. The impiety lies all in the Jury, and not in the

+accused. The trial my Lord, proceeds entirely on the conceded point that

+the Scriptures are the word of God; a word is an empty, unintelligible,

+worthless sound, except by the interpretation put upon it; and if the

+Jury will be the interpreters, they are the authors of the word,

+and usurp the powers of the Deity. God may say 'this is my word

+and commandment,' and a Jury replies, 'the substance utility,

+intelligibility of a word depend entirely upon the meaning attached to

+it, and we Jurymen will put and make all other men put what construction

+we please, upon it, under pains and penalties, so that the word is not

+yours, but ours.' A Defendant may argue, 'my construction is a matter

+between my conscience and my God.' The verdict replies, 'God has

+nothing to do with it; your construction is entirely a case between your

+conscience and us Jurymen, stock-brokers, bill-brokers, pawnbrokers,

+gambling-house-keepers, and, peradventure, keepers of houses of a still

+worse description.' My Lord Denman, the manly character of your mind

+will make you fearlessly grapple with this important subject, and will

+induce your Lordship to feel that I have as fearlessly and as honestly

+stated the merits of the case. Pause, my Lord, before you ruin, and

+almost torture a man, for whose defence you have expressed respect from

+the Judgment-seat, and this by a sentence for the nature and principles

+of which you have publicly and officially declared an abhorrence.

+

+"Our laws, Lord Denman, lay down a principle that every man is presumed

+to be acquainted with the business, profession, or study to which

+he belongs, or to which he has devoted himself. The converse--a most

+rational converse, is that he is unacquainted with what he does

+not belong to, or has not studied; or, in plain terms, that he is

+unacquainted with that of which he knows nothing. Sir Isaac Newton would

+have been a most ignorant Juryman upon a case resting upon the details

+of business in the butter trade of Cork; and a Mr. Jones, in that trade,

+would be an equally ignorant Juryman on a case involving the complex

+observations and abstract calculations of Sir Isaac's Observatory.

+Shakspeare, as a Juryman, would have been puzzled to determine a

+disputed point of commerce; and a tradesman would be as equally

+perplexed in deciding a point upon the machinery of Arkwright, or the

+steam-engine of Watts. In the present case, a man named Haslam, (but

+the name is immaterial, for I apply myself to abstractions and not

+to individuals,) has devoted himself to the study of a subject. He is

+evidently a man of strong mind, of great knowledge, and of the most

+honest intentions. On many points I differ with him, but individual

+or public difference is not the case at issue. His very able work is

+submitted, not to the public mind, but to 'Trial by Jury;' and its

+merits or demerits are determined upon by merchants, brokers, tradesmen.

+

+"Our laws, Lord Denman, lay down a principle that every man is presumed

+to be acquainted with the business, profession, or study to which

+he belongs, or to which he has devoted himself. The converse-a most

+rational converse, is that he is unacquainted with what he does

+not belong to, or has not studied; or, in plain terms, that he is

+unacquainted with that of which he knows nothing. Sir Isaac Newton would

+have been a most ignorant Juryman upon a ease resting upon the details

+of business in the butter trade of Cork; and a Mr. Jones, in that

+trade, would be an equally ignorant Juryman on a case involving

+the complex observations and abstract calculations of Sir Isaac's

+Observatory. Shakspeare, as a Juryman, would have been puzzled to

+determine a disputed point of commerce; and a tradesman would be as

+equally perplexed in deciding a point upon the machinery of Arkwright,

+or the steam-engine of Watts. In the present case, a man named Haslam,

+(but the name is immaterial, for I apply myself to abstractions and not

+to individuals,) has devoted himself to the study of a subject. He is

+evidently a man of strong mind, of great knowledge, and of the most

+honest intentions. On many points I differ with him, but individual

+or public difference is not the case at issue. His very able work is

+submitted, not to the public mind, but to 'Trial by Jury;' and its

+merits or demerits are determined upon by merchants, brokers, tradesmen

+and jobbing peculating Jurymen called 'Tales.' as totally ignorant

+of Mr! Haslam's studies and works, as he most probably is of their

+different lines of traffic. Is this a test of the merits of the case?

+Is this any barometer of the truth of the Gospel, of public feeling, or

+of the intelligence of our population?

+

+"My Lord Denman, the Attorney-General, tried, in the usual slang of his

+profession, or rather of his office, to attach moral imperfection and

+social dangers to speculative points of theology-to points of creed. We

+have now on our Bench, including Ireland and Scotland, Catholic

+Judges, Judges belonging to the Church of England, to the creeds of the

+Baptists, Anabaptists, Unitarians, and to the no-creeds of the Deists,

+and yet what barrister, attorney, or client, ever complained of a Judge

+on account of his creed or his construction of the Scriptures? In

+Ireland we have Catholic Judges, in Scotland Presbyterian, and in

+England Judges of the Clutch, and of every dissenting sect, and

+yet, when in 'Term time,' a new Trial is moved for, on account of a

+misdirection of a Judge, who ever heard of the misdirection lying

+attached to the Judge's creed? The Solicitor-General of Ireland is a

+Catholic, the Attorney-General of England is a Presbyterian (if he has

+any religion at all), and the Solicitor-General of England is of the

+Church (the refuge of all sceptics), and what does this amount to with

+respect to the discharge of their duties? Lord Chancellors Shaftesbury

+and Thurlow, and very many others, were avowed Deists, and yet in

+moving the House of Lords to set, their judgment aside, their creeds or

+opinions were never put upon the briefs.

+

+"Let me suppose, my Lord, that our most pious Monarch, George the Third,

+had indicted David Hume, the most perfect, of unofficial characters;

+or Adam Smith, a great benefactor of his species; or Edward Gibbon, the

+most illustrious of historians, for their Atheism or Deism; and let me

+state the fact, that the pious Monarch bestowed upon them all very good,

+and, in one instance, very confidential employments, what difference

+does this make? in either case the men, their public functions, and

+their doctrines, would have been equally at issue with public opinion at

+the present day. The merchant, in reading Adam Smith; the philosopher,

+in studying the superior works of Hume; and the scholar, in tracing

+Gibbon's magnificent outline and correct details of Roman history, never

+condescend to inquire whether the authors were patronised by a pious

+or an impious monarch, or whether they were indicted by a Presbyterian,

+Episcopalian, or Atheistical Attorney-General--the slave of an order

+from the Secretary of State's office. This species of scrutiny expired

+years ago, and why should it be revived?

+

+"My Lord Chief Justice Denman, the eyes of the country, and of foreign

+countries, are upon you. The issue of your sentence is the same, except

+to the individual; for, liberate him, you respond but to the voice of

+all enlightened men throughout Europe; incarcerate him, and by passing

+an inhuman sentence upon an innocent man, you enforce a judgment that

+you have promulgated in Parliament to be abhorrent in principles and

+feelings, and this will produce a powerful redaction.

+

+"PUBLICOLA."

+

+

+

+

+

+

+----------------------

+

+.. pgfooter::

+

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+                    THE TRIAL OF HENRY HETHERINGTON
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost
+no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it
+under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this
+eBook or online at http://www.gutenberg.org/license.
+
+
+Title: The Trial of Henry Hetherington
+
+Author: Henry Hetherington
+
+Release Date: March 05, 2012 [EBook #39055]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: US-ASCII
+
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TRIAL OF HENRY
+HETHERINGTON ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger.
+
+
+
+
+                   *THE TRIAL OF HENRY HETHERINGTON*
+
+                                  _By_
+
+                          *Henry Hetherington*
+
+                    _On an Indictment for Blasphemy_
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+    A FULL REPORT OF THE TRIAL OF HENRY HETHERINGTON
+    THE TRIAL
+    INDICTMENT
+    Second Count:
+    Third Count:
+    Mr. Bult opened the proceedings
+    DEFENCE
+    OBSERVATIONS
+    Extract from The Sun Newspaper
+    "TO LORD DENMAN, ON THE LATE PROSECUTION FOR BLASPHEMY
+
+
+
+
+A FULL REPORT OF THE TRIAL OF HENRY HETHERINGTON
+
+
+ON AN INDICTMENT FOR BLASPHEMY,
+
+LORD DENMAN AND A SPECIAL JURY,
+
+ON TUESDAY, DECEMBER 8, 1840;
+
+FOR SELLING HASLAM'S LETTERS TO THE CLERGY TO ALL DENOMINATIONS:
+
+THE WHOLE OF THE AUTHORITIES CITED IN THE DEFENCE, AT FULL LENGTH.
+
+LONDON:
+
+PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY HENRY HETHERINGTON, 1-26, STRAND;
+
+AND SOLD BY ALL BOOKSELLERS.
+
+1840
+
+Price Sixpence.
+
+To
+
+JAMES WATSON,
+
+BOOKSELLER,
+
+THE FRIEND OF TRUTH, THE INFIDEL TO ERROR, AND THE LOVER OF LIBERTY,
+
+THIS TRIAL
+
+IS DEDICATED,
+
+IN PROOF OF THE AFFECTIONATE ATTACHMENT THAT SUBSISTS BETWEEN TWO
+FRIENDS, WHO FULLY RECOGNISE AND ACT UPON THE PRINCIPLES AVOWED AND
+CONTENDED FOR IN THE FOLLOWING DEFENCE; AND AS A TRIBUTE OF ESTEEM,
+
+TO GOD'S NOBLEST WORK--AN HONEST MAN!
+
+BY HIS FAITHFUL FRIEND,
+
+HENRY HETHERINGTON.
+
+
+
+
+THE TRIAL
+
+
+COURT OF QUEEN'S BENCH, December 8, 1840.
+
+Sittings at Nisi Prius at Westminster, before Lord DENMAN and a
+Middlesex Special Jury.
+
+PROSECUTION FOR BLASPHEMY.
+
+THE QUEEN Versus HETHERINGTON.
+
+This was a prosecution instituted by Her Majesty's Attorney-General, Sir
+John Campbell, against Henry Hetherington, bookseller, of 126, Strand,
+for the publication of a blasphemous libel.
+
+
+
+
+INDICTMENT
+
+
+Of Easter term, in the Third Year of the Reign of Queen Victoria.
+Middlesex:--
+
+Be it remembered, that on Tuesday, the twenty-eighth day of April, in
+the third year of the reign of our sovereign lady Victoria, by the grace
+of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, Queen,
+Defender of the Faith, in the court of our said lady the Queen, before
+the Queen herself at Westminster, in the county of Middlesex, upon the
+oath of twelve jurors, good and lawful men, of the said county of
+Middlesex, now here sworn and charged to inquire for our said lady the
+Queen for the body of the same county; it is presented as followeth,
+that is to say, Middlesex to wit. The jurors for our lady the Queen upon
+their oath present, that Henry Hetherington, late of Westminster, in the
+county of Middlesex, bookseller, _being a wicked, impious, and
+ill-disposed person_, and having no regard for the laws and religion of
+this realm, but _most wickedly, blasphemously, impiously, and profanely
+devising and intending to asperse and vilify that part of the Holy Bible
+which is called the Old Testament_, on the third day of February, in the
+third year of the reign of our sovereign lady Victoria, by the grace of
+God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, Queen, Defender
+of the Faith, at Westminster aforesaid, in the county aforesaid, did
+publish, and cause to be published, a certain scandalous, impious, and
+blasphemous libel, of and concerning that part of the Holy Bible which
+is called the Old Testament, containing therein, amongst other things,
+divers scandalous, impious, and blasphemous matters of and concerning
+that part of the Holy Bible which is called the Old Testament, according
+to the tenor and effect following, that is to say, "What wretched stuff
+this Bible (meaning that part of the Holy Bible which is called the Old
+Testament) is, to be sure! What a random idiot its author must have
+been! I would advise the human race to burn every Bible they have got.
+Such a book is actually a disgrace to ourang outangs, much less to men.
+I would advise them to burn it, in order that posterity may never know
+we believed in such abominable trash. What must they think of our
+intellects? What must they think of our incredible foolery? And we not
+only believe it, but we actually look upon the book as the sacred word
+of God, as a production of infinite wisdom. Was insanity ever more
+complete? I for one, however, renounce the book; I renounce it as a vile
+compound of filth, blasphemy, and nonsense, as a fraud and a cheat, _and
+as an insult to God,"_ to the great displeasure of Almighty God, to the
+great scandal, infamy, and contempt of that part of the Holy Bible which
+is called the Old Testament, to the evil example of all others, and
+against the peace of our said lady the Queen, her crown, and dignity.
+
+
+
+
+Second Count:
+
+
+And the jurors aforesaid, upon their oath aforesaid, further present,
+that the said Henry Hetherington, devising and intending as aforesaid,
+on the eleventh day of February and year aforesaid, at Westminster
+aforesaid, in the county aforesaid, did publish, and cause to be
+published, a certain other scandalous, impious, and blasphemous libel,
+of and concerning that part of the Holy Bible which is called the Old
+Testament, containing therein, amongst other things, divers scandalous,
+impious, and blasphemous matters of and concerning that part of the Holy
+Bible which is called the Old Testament, according to the tenor and
+effect following, that is to say, "One great question between you and me
+is, 'Is the Bible (meaning that part of the Holy Bible which is called
+the Old Testament) the word of God, or is it not? I assert that it is
+not the word of God, and you assert that it is; and I not only assert
+that it is not the word of God, but that it is a book containing more
+blunders, more ignorance, and more nonsense, than any book to be found
+in the universe," to the great displeasure of Almighty God, to the great
+scandal and contempt of that part of the Holy Bible which is called the
+Old Testament, to the evil example of all others, and against the peace
+of our lady the Queen, lier crown, and dignity.
+
+
+
+
+Third Count:
+
+
+And the jurors aforesaid, upon their oath aforesaid, further present,
+that the said Henry Hetherington, further devising and intending as
+aforesaid, on the day and year last aforesaid, at Westminster aforesaid,
+in the county aforesaid, did publish, and cause to be published, a
+certain other scandalous, impious, and blasphemous libel of and
+concerning that part of the Holy Bible which is called the Old
+Testament, containing therein, among other things, divers scandalous,
+impious, and blasphemous matters of and concerning that part of the Holy
+Bible which is called the Old Testament, in one part thereof, according
+to the tenor and effect following, that is to say, "My object, and I
+fearlessly state it, is to expose this book (meaning that part of the
+Holy Bible which is called the Old Testament) in such a manner, that the
+children of the Stockport Sunday-school will reject it with contempt and
+in another part thereof, according to the tenor and effect following,
+that is to say,
+
+"Such a book (meaning that part of the Holy Bible which is called the
+Old Testament) ought to be rejected by every one. The human race have
+been too long gulled with such trash. Moses was the inventor of this
+grand cheat; and although it may have done some little towards
+frightening people into what is called morality, the purpose for which
+Moses invented it is now out of date,
+
+"to the great displeasure of Almighty God, to the great scandal and
+contempt of that part of the Holy Bible which is called the Old
+Testament, to the evil example of all others, and against the peace of
+our lady the Queen, her crown, and dignity."
+
+[Witness] ALEXANDER KERR,
+
+One sworn in court.
+
+A true Bill.
+
+On the names of the gentlemen summoned as Special Jurymen being called
+over, only five answered to their names.
+
+The Attorney-General prayed a tales, when the following were sworn:--
+
+The Jury.
+
+Special--
+
+Robert Savage, Esq., 11, Montaguplace, Bloomsbury.
+
+James Arboine, merchant, 3, Brunswick-square.
+
+William Fechney Black, merchant, Wilton-place.
+
+Charles Frederick Barnwell, Esq., 44, Woburn-place.
+
+Robert Eglinton, merchant, 29, Woburn-square.
+
+Common Jurors--
+
+Charles Ricketts, stove-maker, 5, Agar-street, West Strand.
+
+William Polden, licensed victualler, Villiers-street, Strand.
+
+John Osborne, confectioner, 401, Strand.
+
+John Johnson Ruffell, painter, 24, Church-street, Soho.
+
+Thomas Reid, baker, 24, Old Compton-street, Soho.
+
+Charles Phillips, ivory brush-maicer, 20, King-street, Soho. J. Mahew,
+baker, 84, Greek-street, Soho.
+
+
+
+
+Mr. Bult opened the proceedings
+
+
+The Attorney-General said, this was an indictment found by the Grand
+Jury of Middlesex, for the publication of certain blasphemous libels. It
+appeared to him that all he should have to do, would be to prove the
+publication of the libels in question. He had not hesitated for one
+moment, when he found there were only five Special Jurymen, to pray a
+tales, because it was to him a matter of perfect indifference from what
+class of society the Jury was taken. It had frequently been laid down by
+the Judges, that to insult and vilify Christianity was against the law.
+Publications insulting religion, and addressed to the vulgar and
+uneducated, were most dangerous. He would call a witness who purchased
+these books in the defendant's shop, the defendant himself being
+present; and he should prove that the defendant was rated to that house.
+It gave him pain that it should be necessary for the Jury to hear such
+shocking attacks as were contained in this publication. It consisted of
+a series of letters, and each number was sold for a penny. It was
+"Letters to the Clergy of all Denominations" and was, in fact, an attack
+upon the Holy Scriptures, particularly on the Old Testament. He should
+content himself with reading one extract.--(The learned Gentleman then
+read an extract from Letter 8, contained in the first count of the
+indictment.) Mr. Hetherington was in person to defend himself: they
+would hear what he had to say, and then he (the Attorney-General) would
+have an opportunity of again addressing them.
+
+The following witness was then called and examined by Sir F. Pollock.
+
+Alexander Kerr, a policeman, bought the "Letters to the Clergy," 5, 8,
+and 13, at the shop of the defendant, 126, Strand, on the 5th of
+February last. A young man served him. Knows defendant--he was standing
+on the threshold of the door at the time; has known him for the last
+three years; has seen him repeatedly at the shop. Paid one penny each
+for the letters.
+
+Cross-examined by Mr. Hetherington.--Did not come in his uniform to
+purchase them. Came from directions he had received, not from any
+reputation the work had acquired. Did not read the fifth number or the
+eighth number of the book purchased at the shop. Stated at the Old
+Bailey, at the trial of Mr. Cleave, that he had read a copy, but not the
+one purchased of defendant. Curiosity induced him to read it. It did not
+shake his opinion--it did not make him burn his Bible; quite the
+opposite. He is a plainly-educated man. Was instructed to purchase all
+he could get at defendant's shop. Purchased other numbers, but did not
+read them. The work produced no effect on him to induce him to follow
+the recommendations of the author.
+
+George Sherwill, collector of poor's-rate for the liberty of the Savoy,
+proved that defendant was rated for No. 126.
+
+The libels were then put in and read: first, No. 8 of "Haslam's Letters
+to the Clergy of all Denominations," then 5 of the same work, and then
+18.
+
+The Attorney-General said, that was the case for the prosecution.
+
+
+
+
+DEFENCE
+
+
+My Lord--Gentlemen of the Jury,
+
+"In rising to vindicate myself from the charge preferred against me in
+this indictment, I shall not attempt to justify the language alluded to
+by the Attorney-General; but I cannot refrain from expressing my
+surprise that the Government, after having encouraged the circulation of
+cheap knowledge upon all subjects,--in Penny Magazines and Penny
+Cyclopaedias,--should have placed me on my trial upon such a flimsy
+charge as this--for flimsy it undoubtedly is, when, out of a work
+comprising nearly 500 pages, the Attorney-General can only find one
+passage,--that in the eighth Letter, which is, I admit, expressed in
+very improper language,--whereon to found an indictment. I contend that
+it is impossible to say where a person is to stop in his inquiries. If a
+person is permitted to reject one tenet, another may reject another; and
+there is no reason why another should not go on, and reject the whole.
+In the whole work there is not one disrespectful word about
+Christianity; it is a rejection of the miracles ascribed to Moses in the
+Old Testament, which have been indignantly rejected by many learned men.
+The work was not intended as a scurrilous attack, but as an inquiry into
+the effects of the usages of society, founded upon the Old Testament.
+The object of Mr. Haslam was benevolent; and however much he might err,
+he was not criminal. He undertook to prove to the clergy that they were
+all in error that the doctrines they are teaching to the people are
+false, absurd, and irrational; that they are directly contrary to
+reason; and that, so long as they are preached to the people, so long
+will the people be vicious, wretched, and unhappy.
+
+"The Attorney-General has only read the objectionable passages: I will
+read a few passages from Mr. Haslam's first Letter, which will enable
+the Jury to understand the nature of his work, and appreciate his
+motives. Having frankly stated his object, he proceeds:--
+
+"You, no doubt, will feel concerned at this; you will very likely be
+angry with me for this daring attempt; you will call me Deist, Atheist,
+Infidel, and many other charitable epithets; you will feel unutterable
+things towards me; and I shall, no doubt, be subject to the _extreme
+charity_ of your _pious_ congregations, who profess to 'love their
+neighbours as themselves,' and into whose minds you have crammed
+absurdity after absurdity, until they have scarcely room for another. I
+shall, no doubt, expose myself to all manner of ill-feeling and
+uncharitableness, and to calumnies and lies of every description; but
+shall these deter me from making known the convictions of iny mind?
+Shall these hinder me from exposing the errors and absurdities which I
+see interested men instilling into the minds of the people? Shall these
+prevent me from telling the people that they are deceived and imposed
+upon, and that their beggary, and want, and wretchedness, are the
+consequences of it? Shall these, in short, stop me from exposing the
+irrationalities which I see everywhere around me, and which occasion so
+much misery and unhappiness to my fellow-men? No, I tell you they shall
+not. That power which sent you into the world, sent me into the world
+also; and if you have a right to think and speak, I have a right to
+think and speak also. I have received an organization for the purpose as
+well as any of you; and as long as that organization remains unimpaired,
+so long will I tell the world what I think and feel.
+
+"Why should any of you be angry with me? If I can prove your doctrines
+to be false and erroneous, what occasion is there for anger? What can
+you want with doctrines that are false? As honest men you ought
+immediately to abandon them. Instead, therefore, of being angry with me,
+you ought to have the very opposite feeling; for of what service can
+error and nonsense be to any man, or any set of men?
+
+"But if I prove that your doctrines are not only false and erroneous,
+but that they occasion a vast amount of mischief to the people; that
+they occasion want and vice, and all manner of wickedness, and that, by
+removing them from the minds of the people, and substituting truths, all
+this want, and vice, and wickedness might be put an end to; if, I say, I
+prove this, why should you be angry with me for doing it? Surely you
+cannot wish the people to remain in a state of want, and vice, and
+wickedness; and yet, if you do not, why should you be angry at me for
+showing you the causes of them, and pointing out the means for their
+removal?
+
+"You talk a great deal about morality and religion; you manifest in your
+pulpits a great anxiety to spread them amongst the people; but who can
+believe you to be sincere, when you resist every attempt to remove the
+causes of immorality and irreligion? You must know that effects cannot
+be removed without removing the causes of them, and by resisting the
+removal of these causes, you evidently show a disposition to keep the
+people in wickedness. This wickedness proceeds from certain causes. We
+have pointed these causes out to you, and if you will not remove them,
+does not that evidently show that you would rather that the people were
+wicked? Can there be conclusions more logical? What ridiculous cant it
+must be then to talk about morality and religion?
+
+"My assumption then is, that the belief of every man is given to him
+_independently of his will_, and that, therefore, no just power can
+punish him for it.
+
+"Your assumption is the opposite of this; you assert that the belief of
+every man depends upon his own will; _that he can either believe in the
+Bible, or not believe in the Bible_; that he can either be Christian or
+Jew, Mahomedan or Infidel, and that, therefore, God will punish him if
+he do not believe in a particular manner.
+
+"These then, are our respective assumptions--and now let reason, 'the
+grand prerogative of man,' determine between us.
+
+"Gentlemen, contrast the spirit of Mr. Haslam in this passage with the
+spirit of my prosecutors. He invokes Reason, 'the grand prerogative of
+man,' to determine between them; the Clergy, on the contrary, resort to
+prosecution to crush a reasoning opponent.
+
+"I beg to inform you that I have read the Bible attentively, and that
+the more I read it the more reason I see for disbelieving it.
+
+"The Bible asserts things which the whole of my senses tell me are
+false; and if my senses are independent of myself, how can I help
+disbelieving it?
+
+"I know that God gave me my senses; but how can I believe God made the
+Bible, when it is directly opposed to these senses? To believe that God
+is the author of both, is to believe that God commits absurdities like
+yourselves; and to ascribe such a paltry and blundering performance as
+the Bible to that power which governs the universe is to dishonour that
+power, if any thing can dishonour it.
+
+"But a man's belief is not only formed independently of his will, but it
+is often formed in direct opposition to it. I, for instance, once
+believed that the principles which I now hold were false; I used to
+argue against them, and even write against them, and my will to
+disbelieve them was so strong, owing to their apparent absurdity, that I
+used to be delighted when I imagined I had discovered a fresh argument
+with which I might overturn them. Continuing, however, to argue, I began
+to see their truth; I saw the principles more clearly; I found I had
+mistaken them very much; and at last I saw into them as clearly, as
+Cobbett used to say, as the sun at noon-day.
+
+"Now here, you see, my will was to disbelieve these principles; but,
+after the process of reasoning was over, I was compelled to alter my
+will. This, then, being the case, was that will free? Could I have
+continued to disbelieve them, when my convictions told me they were
+true? And if I could not, where, I again ask, was my free will?
+
+"Here, then, is reasoning enough to prove the truth of my assumption;
+and now I beg to call your attention to its peculiar effect upon your
+various systems of religion.
+
+"In conclusion, therefore, I beg to call upon you to defend your
+doctrines from the serious charges I have here made, and shall continue
+to make against them. You may either do it by writing, or by verbal
+discussion, whichever you please. But do not continue to act so meanly
+and dishonourably, as to preach doctrines to the people which have over
+and over again been proved to be false and absurd, and which none of you
+are able to defend."
+
+Gentlemen, you will see by these passages that Mr. Haslam appeals to
+reason. He calls upon the Clergy to defend their doctrines, telling them
+they may either do it "by writing, or by verbal discussion." The
+Government, however, disregarded this appeal; they ought to have called
+upon the Bishop of Exeter, and other well-paid bigots of his class, to
+come forward and confute Mr. Haslam. But instead of this they prosecute
+a bookseller, who had never read a line of the book until this
+prosecution. They ought to meet Mr. Haslam with his own weapons; and it
+is disgraceful to the Government, which has always advocated the
+diffusion of cheap knowledge, to submit to the taunts of the Bishop of
+Exeter, and other bigots like him, by instituting these prosecutions for
+blasphemy. However we may disapprove of Haslam's doctrines, we cannot
+but perceive that he is sincere in his belief.
+
+Gentlemen, I will, as I proceed, prove to you that the convictions of a
+tat which he now believes to be true to have been false. Gentlemen, I
+readily admit that the passage in the eighth number is offensively
+worded; but I will prove that the free exercise of the right of inquiry
+is not, and ought not to be, an offence in law. I will also call your
+attention to the hardship of a general bookseller being held responsible
+for every book that he sells, and will call your attention to the oath
+you have taken, and claim from you that acquittal to which I am
+entitled. I claim no exemption from punishment if I sell any obscene
+publication,--anything calculated to corrupt or demoralize society,--or
+any attacks upon a man's private character; but in cases of the
+discussion of abstract truths, is a man to be punished for the
+convictions of his mind, which are not in the power of his will? It is
+too bad to bring a man into a court of justice on account of a few
+solitary passages in a work of this nature.
+
+Gentlemen of the Jury, our great and popular moralist, Dr. Johnson, has
+declared that "Truth is the basis of all excellence." This axiom is so
+clear and indisputable, that no intelligent man can hesitate to adopt
+it. How, then, can the truth, upon the various subjects interesting to
+human beings, be elicited? Not by letting interested men think for us,
+but by judging for ourselves--by collecting and examining facts and
+arguments, and communicating to society the impressions they
+respectively make upon our minds. There is no effectual mode of arriving
+at truth, but by the exercise of the right of free inquiry, and the
+unrestricted publication of the result of such inquiry. This right has
+been deemed of pre-eminent importance from time immemorial, and by men
+of all sects and parties; and although corrupt and tyrannical rulers in
+the past ages of the world have prosecuted honest men, and endeavoured
+to suppress the truth, you will find that in every case to which I shall
+call your attention, the intrepid advocates of truth have ultimately
+triumphed. Now, Gentlemen of the Jury, I will proceed at once to fortify
+myself with a few authorities,--not that I think truth depends upon
+great names, however numerous and illustrious they may be, but because I
+am determined to advance nothing that is not, in my opinion, strictly
+true, and sanctioned and maintained by the greatest intellects of the
+age.
+
+Gentlemen, I will begin with a Bishop.
+
+"God has given us rational faculties to guide and direct us, and we must
+make the most of them that we can; we must judge with our own reasons,
+as well as see with our own eyes; and it would-be very _rash, unmanly,
+and base_ in us to muffle up our own understandings, and deliver our
+reason and faith over to others blindfold."--_Bishop Burnett's
+Thirty-nine Articles_, A. 39.
+
+"Gentlemen of the Jury, will you, by your verdict, consign a man to a
+dungeon, because he is too honest and independent to act a '_rash,
+unmanly, and base_' part? Will you declare, by your verdict, that
+henceforth we shall not '_judge_ with our own reasons, nor _see_ with
+our _own eyes_?' I feel confident you will not.
+
+"_Dr. Whitby_, in his _Last Thoughts_, tells us, "that belief or
+disbelief can neither be a virtue or a crime, in any one who uses the
+best means in his power of being informed.
+
+"If a proposition is _evident_, we cannot avoid believing it; _and where
+is the merit or piety of a necessary assent?_ If it is _not evident_, we
+cannot help rejecting it, or doubting of it; _and where is the crime of
+not performing impossibilities, or not believing what does not appear to
+us to be true?_"
+
+Gentlemen of the Jury, can you dispute the truth of the passage I have
+quoted from Dr. Whitby? Will you, by your verdict, pronounce it to be
+"_a crime_ not to perform _impossibilities_, and endeavour to _force us
+to believe_ what does not appear to us to be true?" Gentlemen, you
+cannot do it. Let us briefly trace the operations of the human mind, and
+we shall find that the mind is governed by a law of necessity. Are we
+not definitely and necessarily' affected by the circumstances which
+surround us? Have we power to avoid receiving impressions from the
+objects presented to us? If we have not, which is now universally
+admitted by intelligent men, then the act of _perceiving_, or _forming
+ideas_, is a necessary mental operation. Can we, for instance, have an
+idea of a man when a monkey is presented to us? Or of colours other than
+those which are placed before our visual organs? We cannot, if the eye
+be not diseased, perceive red to be green, or green red. The power of
+_perception_, therefore, appears to be perfectly involuntary--it is
+governed by a law of necessity.
+
+The next operation of the mind is to form a judgment of the things
+perceived; and it is these two things--_perceiving_ and _judging_--which
+constitute a man's knowledge or experience. If two bodies of different
+magnitudes are presented to our view, are we not compelled to judge of
+them according to the impression they respectively make upon the mind?
+It is precisely the same with _men, manners, and opinions_. Must we not
+conclude that things are what they appear to be, till we know the
+contrary? I would appeal to your own experience, Gentlemen, whether you
+do not invariably and necessarily judge of men and things according to
+their inherent or imaginary qualities? Some men, indeed, are puzzled to
+account for the diversity of judgment observable where different men
+examine the same subject, and from the same data; but this circumstance
+is easily accounted for. It results simply from this fact, that men
+judge of things precisely as they appear to them: and the different
+judgments formed of the same things are ascribable wholly to the
+different degrees of strength in the power of perception, and to the
+extent and variety of knowledge previously acquired. _Perception and
+judgment_, therefore, appear to be involuntary and necessary.
+
+Gentlemen, if this be true, is a man who has arrived at conclusions
+adverse to the _received opinions_ of society a fit subject of
+punishment? If not, how much less so is the bookseller who merely sells
+his book?
+
+Mr. Haslam calls upon the Clergy to enter into the controversy with him,
+and to let _reason_ decide between them. Why do not the Government, and
+the learned Attorney-General, adopt Mr. Haslam's recommendation, instead
+of instituting a prosecution against a bookseller who never read a line
+of the book till his attention was called to it by this unjust
+prosecution? Why do not the Government,--who patronise penny
+literature--who affect to be friendly to free discussion, call on the
+Bishop of Exeter, and other well-paid bigots, to defend the Bible
+against the assaults of Mr. Haslam? For the learned Attorney-General to
+attempt to crush the free expression of opinion by prosecutions of this
+nature, is most unjust and impolitic. I maintain that two out of the
+three passages read would not support the indictment at all; and the
+third passage--set forth in the first count of the indictment--so far
+from being blasphemy, declares that the author _rejects the Bible,
+because he looks upon it as containing statements that were insulting to
+God_. In the passage immediately following that which is prosecuted, the
+author admits that the book contains some good precepts, but declares
+that he deems mere precepts to be useless. I will take the liberty of
+reading the passage to the Jury.
+
+"I allow that there are some good precepts in it, but I contend that
+these precepts are useless. I contend that _all_ precepts are useless.
+Of what use have all the precepts in the world been to the human race?
+Have they made man wiser, or better, or happier? Have they lessened the
+amount of his vice and his misery? 1 contend that they have not. Vice
+and misery have been increasing, although these precepts have been more
+and more preached to the people. Precepts, reverend ministers of the
+gospel, are mere wind; they are as empty as the vapour issuing from the
+kettle's spout; they have no effect whatever in making man wise, or
+good, or happy; the present wretchedness of the world is a proof of it.
+The way, reverend sirs, to make man wise, and good, and happy, is, not
+to preach precepts to the people, but to abolish the present irrational
+system of individual property; to arrange society in such a manner that
+the interest of one man will be the interest of the whole. Until this be
+done, all the precepts in the world, preached, too, with all the
+eloquence in the world, will never remove man from his present
+deplorable condition."
+
+Gentlemen, you will perceive by this extract that the author is a
+socialist. It is not necessary for me to maintain that he is right in
+these opinions. All that I have to do is to show that these opinions
+were sincerely believed by Mr. Haslam. I have clearly shown that belief
+is involuntary. No man can tell one day what his belief will be the
+next. In my own person I furnish an instance of this. I married young,
+and having formed in my mind a standard of ideal perfection, I
+determined that my children should equal that standard, as far as human
+means could make them. I tried to effect my object by severity. Acting
+upon wrong principles, of course, I failed; but at that time I was young
+and ignorant, and believed myself to be right. However, a friend who
+knew better than myself, and who had had much experience, lent me Miss
+Williams's Letters on the Philosophy of Education, and the reading of
+that book put new ideas into my mind. It produced, in fact, a mental
+revolution;--I changed my opinion and my system, and did so with the
+happiest success. From that time I banished coercion as a principle of
+education. I repeat, then, that belief is not voluntary, and that
+compulsion is not a good means of producing good belief or good conduct.
+
+Gentlemen, I will now quote the opinion of Bishop Marsh, as to the
+importance of free inquiry. I quote from the Bishops as persons of the
+greatest authority on this subject, far greater than the
+Attorney-General, or any of his legal brethren.
+
+"Investigation, it is said, frequently leads to doubts where there were
+none before. So much the better. If a thing is false, _it ought not to
+be received_; if a thing is true, _it can never lose in the end by
+inquiry_."--_Bishop Marsh's First Lecture_.
+
+Gentlemen, you have heard the opinion of Bishop Marsh. You cannot
+suppose that the Bishops are adverse to the Church--they are great
+supporters of it, and so, perhaps, might I be if I got so much by it--(a
+laugh)--as like circumstances produce like effects. Well, Gentlemen,
+Bishop Marsh maintains that "if a thing is _false_, it ought not to be
+received; if it is true, it can never lose in the end by inquiry." Why,
+then, should the Attorney-General prosecute a person who rejects a thing
+that does not appear to him to be true?
+
+Gentlemen, let me now submit to your attention the opinion of Sir
+William Temple.
+
+_Sir William Temple_ says, "They may make me do things which are in my
+power, and depend on my will; but to believe _this_ or _that_ to be true
+depends not on my will, but upon the light, and evidence, and
+information which I have. And will civil discouragements and
+incapacities, fines and confiscations, stripes and imprisonment,
+enlighten the understanding, convince men's minds of error, and inform
+them of the truth? Can they have any such efficacy as to make men change
+the inward judgment they have framed of things? _Nothing can do this but
+reason and argument_: this is what our minds and understandings will
+naturally yield to, but they _cannot_ be compelled to believe any thing
+by outward force. So that the promoting of _true_ religion is plainly
+out of the magistrate's _reach_, as well as beside _his office_."
+
+Here, Gentlemen, you have the opinion of Sir William Temple, that men
+cannot be forced to believe anything by outward force and persecution,
+so that the promoting of true religion is out of the magistrate's power,
+as well as beside his office. This is a most true and proper
+declaration; and if the Attorney-General had reflected upon this
+passage, I am sure he must have fully appreciated its truth, and then
+this prosecution would not have been instituted. I appeal to the learned
+Attorney-General, whether my being ruined and sent to a dungeon will
+alter the state of things? Will it alter the opinion of Mr. Haslam? Will
+it make me believe that I ought to be prosecuted for selling this book;
+or that a man has not a right to promulgate his opinions? I am placed in
+an awkward position in having to defend a man's right to publish, while
+I dissent from some of Mr. Haslam's opinions, and the manner in which he
+has thought proper to express them. I have been told that the
+Attorney-General is a good kind of a man, who has no wish to press
+severely upon persons in my situation; and some friends--not my true
+friends--have urged me to forward a memorial to him on the subject of
+this prosecution. Now what could I do? There was no way of inducing the
+Attorney-General to stay this prosecution, but by pleading guilty; and
+although I am well aware that your verdict, if adverse to me, will be my
+ruin, yet I would rather terminate my existence on the floor of this
+court than plead guilty to this lying indictment, or admit that I am a
+wicked, malicious, and evil-disposed person, when I know that to the
+best of my judgment and ability I am an upright, honest,
+well-intentioned man. If I believed myself to be the man described, in
+the indictment--which I must do before I could consent to plead
+guilty--I would fly to the uttermost parts of the earth; for a man is
+totally destroyed when he has lost all feeling of self-respect, and the
+esteem and regard of his friends and associates.
+
+Gentleman of the Jury, I have yet a host of authorities before me, but I
+will not waste time by quoting them; as I am convinced you must now be
+quite satisfied, from what I have already adduced, that every Englishman
+has an undoubted right to investigate all subjects--whether religious or
+political--and to publish the result of the investigation for the
+benefit of society at large; but, Gentlemen, in closing what I have to
+say on this part of the subject, I beg to lay before you two striking
+and convincing passages from Lord Brougham and Dr. Southwood Smith--two
+of the most intellectual and eminent individuals of the present day.
+
+Gentlemen, the first passage I will quote is from Dr. Southwood Smith,
+who strikingly and beautifully describes the proper boundary of human
+investigation; and I beg the particular attention of the learned
+Attorney-General to this passage.
+
+"There is no proper boundary to human investigation," says the doctor,
+"but the capacity of the human mind. Whatever the faculties enable it to
+understand, it ought to examine without any restraint on the freedom of
+its inquiry, and without any other limit to its extent than that which
+its great Author has fixed, by withholding from it the power to proceed
+farther. When the means of conducting the human understanding to its
+highest perfection shall have become generally understood, this freedom
+of inquiry will not only be universally allowed, but early and anxiously
+inculcated, _as a duty_ of primary and essential obligation."
+
+Gentlemen, I now beg you to listen to the extract I am about to read
+from _Lord Brougham's Inaugural Address to the University of Glasgow_.
+
+"As men will no longer suffer themselves to be led blindfold in
+Ignorance, so will they no more yield to the vile principle of judging
+and treating their fellow-creatures, not according to the intrinsic
+merit of their actions, but according to the accidental and involuntary
+coincidence of their opinions. The great truth has finally gone forth to
+the ends of the earth, _that man shall no more render_ ACCOUNT TO MAN
+FOR HIS BELIEF, OVER WHICH HE HAS HIMSELF NO CONTROL.
+
+"Henceforward nothing shall prevail upon us to praise or to blame any
+one for that which he can no more change than he can the hue of his skin
+or the height of his stature. Henceforward, treating with entire respect
+those who conscientiously differ from ourselves, the only practical
+effect of the difference will be, to make us enlighten the ignorance, on
+one side or the other, from which it springs, by instructing them, if it
+be theirs, ourselves, if it be our own; to the end that the only kind of
+unanimity may be produced which is desirable among rational beings,--the
+agreement proceeding from full conviction after the freest
+discussion."--_Lord Brougham._
+
+Gentlemen, after hearing these splendid passages, will it be possible
+for you to sanction a renewal of persecution to crush freedom of
+opinion?
+
+Gentlemen of the Jury,--I now come to the next point in the argument.
+Having, I hope, successfully proved the right of free inquiry and the
+free publication of opinions, I will proceed to show, by a reference to
+past events, that it is highly important that this right should be
+preserved, and handed down to our latest posterity unimpaired.
+Gentlemen, it has been a uniform practice, from the earliest records of
+time, to stigmatize those who introduce new truths, or who attack the
+existing institutions of a country, as infidels, and to fix upon them
+all sorts of opprobious epithets.
+
+"In all ages _new doctrines_ have been branded as impious; and
+Christianity itself has offered no exception to this rule. The Greeks
+and Romans charged Christianity with 'impiety and novelty.' In _Cave's
+Primitive Christianity_ we are informed 'that the Christians were
+everywhere accounted a pack of _Atheists_, and their religion _the
+Atheism._' _They were denominated; 'mountebank impostors,' and 'men of a
+desperate and unlawful faction.' They were represented as 'destructive
+and pernicious to human society,' and were accused of 'sacrilege,
+sedition, and high treason.' The same system of misrepresentation and
+abuse was practised by the Roman Catholics against the Protestants at
+the Reformation. Some called their dogs Calvin; and others transformed
+Calvin into Cain,' In France, 'the old stale calumnies, formerly
+invented against the first Christians, were again revived by Demochares,
+a doctor of the Sorbonne, pretending that all the disasters of the state
+were to be attributed to Protestants alone.'"--*Combe on the
+Constitution of Man_.
+
+In our own enlightened country, where the importance of truth--and free
+inquiry as a means of its attainment--is beginning to be appreciated, a
+different practice should prevail. We ought not to persist in this
+unmanly course. Recollect, Gentlemen, the Prophets of the Jews were
+_blasphemers_ against the established religions of their day. Did that
+deter them from denouncing the idolatry and false religions of the
+surrounding nations? Elijah is represented as ridiculing the God of the
+Moabites in a most offensive manner: "_And it came to pass at noon, that
+Elijah mocked them and said, 'Cry aloud: for he is a god; either he is
+talking f or he is pursuing, or he is in a journey, or peradventure he
+sleepeth and must be awaked._'" 1 Kings xviii. 27. And in Judea, Jesus
+and his Apostles were charged as blasphemers against Judaism, or the
+religion established by Moses. We have a remarkable proof of this in the
+case of Stephen, recorded in the 6th and 7th chapters of the Acts of the
+Apostles.
+
+"And they were not able to resist the wisdom and the spirit by which he
+spake.
+
+"Then they suborned men, which said, We have heard him speak
+_blasphemous_ words against Moses, and against God.
+
+"And they stirred up the people, and the elders, and the scribes, and
+came upon him, and caught him, and brought him to the council,
+
+"And set up false witnesses, which said, This man ceaseth not to speak
+blasphemous words against this holy place and the law:
+
+"For we have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth shall destroy
+this place, and shall change the customs which Moses delivered
+us."--Acts vi, 10--14.
+
+And Stephen defending himself before the Council, boldly asks them,
+
+"Which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted? And they have
+slain them which showed before of the coming of the Just One; _of whom
+ye have_ BEEN NOW THE BETRAYERS AND MURDERERS.
+
+"When they heard these things they were cut to the heart, and they
+gnashed at him with their teeth.
+
+"And they cried out with a loud voice, and stopped their ears, and ran
+upon him with one accord,
+
+"And cast him out of the city, and stoned him." Acts vii; 51, 52,
+54,57,58.
+
+Now, Gentlemen, is it just or politic that the proclaimers of new
+truths, and new systems, should be treated in this manner? Would it not
+be far more rational to hear what a man has to say, and answer him, than
+to "gnash at him with the teeth," to "stop your ears," to "run at him
+with one accord," and to "stone him to death?" Can you, Gentlemen, by
+your verdict give your sanction to a course of proceeding similar to
+that which deprived Stephen of life? All persecution is the same in
+spirit--highly unjust and impolitic--whether it be exercised against the
+Apostle Stephen, or the humble individual who now addresses you.
+
+Gentlemen, the supporters of the established religion in the days of the
+Apostles, pursued the same course that the bigots of the present day are
+pursuing. They applied to the High Priest, or to the Attorney-General of
+that day, to prosecute Stephen for _blasphemy_, and stirred up the
+people. In the present case the Bishop of Exeter did not stir up the
+people, but he stirred up the Government. He sent a packet of papers to
+Lord Normanby, who handed them to the Attorney-General, and he appears
+to have considered it to be his duty to institute the present
+prosecution. The learned Attorney-General, as was the case with the
+priests and rulers of the Jews, would not allow any discussion to take
+place that was likely to change existing customs. I will do the
+Government the justice to say, however, that I do not believe they are
+disposed to put a stop to the full investigation of any subject, if
+conducted with decency. I readily admit that the passage in the eighth
+number of Mr. Haslam's Letters is highly objectionable in
+phraseology--it is in very bad taste--but is that a reason for sending a
+bookseller to prison, because he has sold a book written in bad taste?
+It cannot be--all published works must be left to the fiat of public
+opinion to determine their merit.
+
+Gentlemen, the same spirit was evinced by the wicked and corrupt rulers
+of the Jews against the founder of Christianity. They sought false
+witnesses against him; but at length, Jesus having spoken out
+explicitly, the High Priest rent his clothes, saying, "_He hath spoken
+blasphemy; what further need have we of witnesses? Behold, now ye have
+heard his blasphemy. What think ye? They answered and said_, *HE is
+guilty to death.*" (Matt. 26; 65.) Will you, Gentlemen--a Christian
+Jury--considering Christianity part and parcel of the law of the land,
+by your verdict say, that Jesus was rightly treated by the Jews? Ought
+the constituted authorities of that day to have obstructed the glorious
+truths of Christianity, and have put to death the Messenger of Man's
+salvation? Unless you deliver a verdict of acquittal, in my case, you in
+effect sanction and justify all the cruelties exercised against Jesus
+and his Apostles by the rulers of the Jews?
+
+The learned Counsel for the prosecution will, perhaps, think that there
+is no analogy between the cases cited and my own case--that Jesus and
+his Apostles introduced truths of the greatest magnitude and importance,
+while I am indicted for selling a book that denies the truth of the
+Jewish Scriptures. Why, Gentlemen, Dr. Adam Clarke says, "There is some
+reason to fear that they (the Jews) _no longer consider the Old
+Testament as divinely inspired, but believe that Moses had recourse to
+pious frauds_." And, Gentlemen, Jesus and his Apostles denied the
+_truth_ of the Jewish Scriptures--_as understood by the rulers of the
+Jews_,--and for denying the orthodox and received sense of the Jewish
+Scriptures were accused of blasphemy, and received the fate of martyrs!
+That cannot be disputed. Was it just, then,--was it politic, I ask, to
+settle this controversy by force and cruelty? To _scourg or imprison,
+and destroy_ those glorious men who had important truths to impart to
+the world? If England has embraced Christianity--and we are not a nation
+of hypocrites--let us act upon the spirit of his religion. He says
+plainly and emphatically, that we are not to root up error by force or
+cruelty.
+
+In the parable of the tares of the field, he sets forth our duty. "The
+Kingdom of Heaven," he says, "is likened unto a man who sowed good seed
+in his field; but while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among
+the wheat, and went his way. But when the blade was sprung up, and
+brought forth fruit, there appeared the tares also. So the servants of
+the householder came and said unto him, Sir, didst thou not sow good
+seed in thy field? from whence then hath it tares! He said unto them, An
+enemy hath done this. The servant said unto him, Wilt thou then that we
+go and gather them up? But he said, _Nay; lest while ye gather up the
+tares, ye root up also the wheat with them_. *Let both grow together
+until the harvest.*" Matt, xiii; 25--30.
+
+When his disciples demanded an explanation of this parable, he said,
+"The field is the world: the good seed are the children of the Kingdom:
+but the tares are the children of the wicked one: the enemy that sowed
+them in the devil: the harvest is the end of the world; and the reapers
+are the Angels. The Son of Man shall send forth his Angels, and They
+shall gather out of his Kingdom all things that offend, and them which
+do iniquity." Matt, xiii; 38, 39. 41.
+
+Gentlemen, how unjust and impolitic, then, are these prosecutions. Do
+they stop the progress of truth? Persecution for matters of opinion is
+the same in every case--impolitic--for it never yet succeeded in
+stopping the circulation of a correct opinion or a prohibited book? Why
+should _Christians_ prosecute men for disbelieving the _Jewish_
+Scriptures, when, according to Dr. Adam Clarke, the Jews disbelieve
+parts of the Old Testament themselves? Why should professed Christians
+take up and defend that which the Jews themselves reject? Paul, himself,
+teaches us that the Jewish law has been superseded by a superior system.
+He tells us that the Jewish law "was our schoolmaster to bring us unto
+Christ (or Christianity), but after that we are no longer under a
+schoolmaster." Gal. iii; 24, 25.
+
+I can assure the Jury that if Haslam's Letters to the Clergy is an
+improper book, it cannot be put down by prosecution; it is far better to
+leave it to coldness and neglect. I could give many proofs of this. I am
+myself an instance of the inefficacy of prosecution. I have been
+prosecuted, as I think with great injustice, for the publication of a
+paper called _The Poor Man's Guardian_. Five hundred men was imprisoned
+for selling it; I was twice imprisoned, and the circulation of the
+paper, thus prosecuted, more than paid my losses; but at last, in the
+Court of Exchequer, before Lord Lyndhurst, the Jury found a verdict in
+my favour, for I convinced the Jury that the publication was one which
+was not against the law.
+
+The Attorney-General: The Jury found that it was not a newspaper.
+
+Precisely so: and as soon as it was known that the _Guardian_ was a
+legal paper, it went down at once. I could not sell copies enough to pay
+the expenses (a laugh). It has been just the same with these Letters;
+they have remained unsold till this prosecution, but as soon as it was
+known that they were prosecuted, the man who published them could not
+print them fast enough.
+
+Gentlemen, the enlightened Christians of the present day, by sending out
+Missionaries to propagate Christianity, are guilty of blasphemy against
+the established religion of heathen countries. It would be considered in
+England very unjust and cruel if the natives were to seize our
+Missionaries, and imprison and ill-treat them. If in this country we are
+in the habit of sending out Missionaries to proclaim new truths to
+foreign countries--is it not grossly inconsistent and unjust, while
+doing this, to punish persons for free investigation at home? In a
+recent case, cannon have been fired upon the natives of one of the Tonga
+Islands, because they would not receive these Missionaries. The argument
+of these Christians is, that truth must be propagated all over the
+world--but why stop inquiry at home, while suffering a British
+man-of-war to fire upon these islanders, because they would not receive
+the new truths of the Missionaries in the way they wished? Is it
+wise--is it not highly impolitic, then, to attempt to check the progress
+of intellect and human improvement? Can it be done by persecution and
+imprisonment? No, Gentlemen, the spirit of inquiry is abroad among the
+industrious millions--no subject is too sacred for their investigation.
+The mind has burst the fetters imposed on it, in the days of by-gone
+ignorance, by the cupidity of interested and hypocritical priests, who
+are fully aware that their principles and practices cannot stand the
+test of free inquiry. Even Mr. Wesley, the founder of Methodism, saw
+that his darling system must ultimately fall before the searching eye of
+philosophy and truth.
+
+_From the Life of the Rev. John Wesley, published in 1792_.
+
+"Dear Sir,--For your obliging letter, which I received this morning, I
+return you thanks.
+
+"Our opinions, for the most part, perfectly coincide respecting the
+stability of the connexion after my head is laid in the dust. This,
+however, is a subject about which I am not so anxious as you seem to
+imagine; on the contrary, it is a matter of the utmost indifference to
+me, as I have-long foreseen that a division must necessarily ensue, from
+causes so various, unavoidable, and certain, that I have long since
+given up all thoughts and hopes of settling it on a permanent
+foundation. You do not seem to be aware of the most effective cause that
+will bring about a division. You apprehend the most serious consequences
+from a struggle between the preachers for power and pre-eminence, and
+there being none among them of sufficient authority or abilities to
+support the dignity, or command the respect, and exact the implicit
+obedience, which is so necessary to uphold our constitution on its
+present principles. This, most undoubtedly, is one thing that will
+operate very powerfully against unity in the connexion, and is, perhaps,
+what I might possibly have prevented, had not a still greater difficulty
+arisen in my mind. I have often wished for some person of abilities to
+succeed me as the head of the church I have, with such indefatigable
+pains and astonishing success, established; but, convinced that none but
+very superior abilities would be equal to the undertaking, was I to
+adopt a successor of this description, I fear he might gain so much
+influence among the people as to usurp a share, if not the whole, of
+that absolute and uncontrollable power which I have hitherto, and am
+determined I will maintain so long as I live: never will I bear a rival
+near my throne. You, no doubt, see the policy of continually changing
+the preachers from one circuit to another, at short periods: for should
+any of them become popular with their different congregations, and
+insinuate themselves into the favour of their hearers, they might
+possibly obtain such influence as to establish themselves independently
+of me and the general connexion. Besides, the novelty of the continual
+change excites curiosity, and is the more necessary, as few of our
+preachers have abilities to render themselves in any degree tolerable
+any longer than they are now.
+
+"The principal cause which will inevitably effect a diminution and
+division in the connexion after my death, wilt be the failure of
+subscriptions and contributions towards the support of the cause; for
+money is as much the sinews of religious as of military power. If it is
+with the greatest difficulty that even I can keep them together, for
+want of this very necessary article, I think no one else can. Another
+cause, which, with others, will effect the division, is the disputes and
+contentions that will arise between the preachers and the parties that
+will espouse their several causes; by which means much truth will be
+brought to light, which will reflect so much to their disadvantage, that
+the eyes of the people will be opened to see their motives and
+principles; nor will they any longer contribute to their support, when
+they find all their pretensions to sanctity and love are founded on
+motives of interest and ambition. The consequence of which will be, a
+few of the most popular will establish themselves in the respective
+places where they have gained sufficient influence over the minds of the
+people: the rest must revert to their original humble callings. But this
+no way concerns me: I have attained the object of my views, by
+establishing a name that will not soon perish from the face of the
+earth; I have founded a sect which will boast my name long after my
+discipline and doctrines are forgotten.
+
+"My character and reputation for sanctity is now beyond the reach of
+calumny; nor will any thing that may hereafter come to light, or be said
+concerning me, to my prejudice, however true, gain credit.
+
+    _"'My unsoiled name, the austereness of my life,_
+      _Will vouch against it,_
+    _And so the accusation overweigh_
+      _That it will stifle in its own report,_
+    _And smell of calumny.'_
+
+"Another cause that will operate more powerfully and effectually than
+any of the preceding is, the rays of Philosophy, which begin now to
+pervade all ranks, rapidly dispelling the mists of ignorance, which have
+been long, in a great degree, the mother of devotion, of slavish
+prejudice, and the enthusiastic bigotry of religious opinions. The
+decline of the Papal power is owing to the same irresistible cause; nor
+can it be supposed that Methodism can stand its ground when brought to
+the test of Truth, Reason, and Philosophy."
+
+"City-road, Thursday morning. J. W." (1)
+
+    1. As my defence had extended to a great length, I was anxious
+    to spare the time of the Jury, and did not, therefore, trouble
+    them with the whole of this letter. I merely described the
+    nature of it, and read the last paragraph, being the only
+    portion applicable to my purpose; but as I deem the letter a
+    valuable curiosity, and worthy of preservation, I have inserted
+    it entire.
+
+Gentlemen, you see Mr. Wesley anticipated that his system must yield to
+philosophy, and do you believe the Church of England can stand when
+brought to the test of "truth, reason* and philosophy?" A church that
+will keep a man in prison nearly two years for 5s. 6d. church-rates? If
+you suppress Biblical examination, and the free publication of opinion,
+the next step will be to stop inquiry into the _practices_ of the
+Church, and to make us all the fettered slaves of the priesthood. No,
+Gentlemen; Methodism and Church-of-Englandism are doomed to fall; and
+such will be the fate of all systems not based upon the rock of truth.
+But, Gentlemen, that is no reason for suppressing inquiry, because the
+more the truth is investigated, the more beautiful it will appear.
+
+Gentlemen, has not our country raised itself to the highest pinnacle of
+human greatness as regards civilization and the arts? What rapid
+strides--what useful discoveries it has made in the arts and sciences!
+Consider its vast achievements in steam navigation--in railroad
+travelling--in the improvement of machinery. To such perfection have
+they brought machinery, that it is now almost capable of superseding
+human labour altogether. If all these magnificent improvements in the
+arts and sciences are good to society, and have resulted from free
+inquiry--why hesitate to apply it to social, religious, and political
+subjects? Are we ever to remain drivellers in religion? The true crime
+is that Haslam's Letters are sold at a penny. Why should two-guinea
+blasphemers be tolerated and penny ones prosecuted? How can the learned
+Attorney-General, whose shelves are, doubtless, adorned with Drummond's
+Academical Questions, Voltaire, Gibbon, Volney, and Shelley, uphold this
+prosecution; and what must that law be which can find the crime, not in
+the contents of the book, but in the fact of its being sold for a penny?
+They might for two guineas buy a magnificent book full of blasphemy. The
+Attorney-General, in his opening speech, had told the Jury that such
+works were "dangerous to society if addressed to the _vulgar, the
+uneducated_, and the _unthinking_" but I will appeal to his own witness,
+who had read the book, and on whom, an uneducated man, it had proved
+inoperative. It had done no mischief: and I hope the Jury will not
+consign me to a dungeon for having sold a book which it has been proved
+by his own witness has done no mischief. Paul said the Baereans were
+more noble than those of Thessalonica, because they searched the
+Scriptures daily to see whether these things were so or not. The
+Attorney-General is about to punish me for doing the same thing. Christ
+himself said, the truth shall make you free; but the Attorney-General
+says the truth--or that which you believe to be the truth--shall make
+you a prisoner. In the parable of the tares, to which I have already
+referred, Jesus expressly forbade the rooting up of the tares, lest the
+wheat should be rooted up also. He did not recommend persecution, but
+said let them both grow together until the harvest. These passages are
+sufficient to show that persecution is opposed to the whole spirit of
+Christianity.
+
+Gentlemen, I will now call your attention to the law on the subject. In
+entering upon this topic, of course I shall labour under a great
+disadvantage, because I am unacquainted with legal technicalities and
+cases. I will commence, therefore, by reading to you the opinion of
+Chief Baron Eyre, in his Charge to the Grand Jury, on the commission for
+the trial of persons on the charge of High Treason, in 1794, in the
+course of which he made use of these liberal expressions:--
+
+"All men may, nay, all men must, if they possess the faculty of
+thinking, reason upon every thing which sufficiently interests them to
+become objects of their attention; and among the objects of attention of
+freemen, the principles of government, the constitution of particular
+governments, and, above all, the constitution of the government under
+which they live, will naturally engage attention, and provoke
+speculation. _The power of communication of thoughts and opinions is the
+gift of God; and the freedom of it is the source of all science_--the
+first fruits, and the ultimate happiness of all society; and therefore,
+it seems to follow, _that human laws ought not to interpose, nay, cannot
+interpose, to prevent the communication of sentiment and opinions, in
+voluntary assemblies of men._"
+
+Here, Gentlemen, we have an eminent legal authority, in addition to the
+Bishops I have quoted, who declares that "human laws _ought not to
+inter-pose_, nay, cannot interpose, _to prevent the communication qf
+sentiment, and opinion_." Under what law then can I be condemned? This
+prosecution goes a step further than any other has gone; it in effect
+declares that you shall not dispute the truth of the Jewish Scriptures,
+which I have already shown are superseded by the introduction of
+Christianity. Paul declares that the Jewish law was only intended to be
+our schoolmaster to bring us to Christianity; but if Christianity, as is
+asserted, be part and parcel of the low of England, even then this
+prosecution has not a log to stand upon. In the "Life and Correspondence
+of Major Cartwright," however, there is a letter from Jefferson, himself
+an eminent lawyer, and President of the United States of America, who
+had deeply studied the laws of England, in which he has proved the
+fallacy of the notion that Christianity is part of the common law, by
+showing that the common law had existed long before Christianity was
+introduced into this country; and that the axiom had its origin and
+foundation in a misquotation and mistranslation of a decision of Justice
+Prisot, recorded in the Year Book, substituting the words _Holy
+Scriptures_ for _Ancient Scriptures_. Jefferson denominates it a
+"judiciary forgery," and I hope your Lordship will to-day confirm
+Jefferson's view, and put an end to this illegal iniquity.
+
+Gentlemen, the passage I am about to quote from Jefferson's letter to
+Major Cartwright, contains the opinion of Justice Prisot, in old French,
+but I have procured a literal and a free translation, which I will read
+to the Jury. Your Lordship can refer to the original in the Year Book.
+
+"I was glad to find, in your book, a formal contradiction, at length, of
+the judiciary usurpation of legislative powers; for such the judges have
+usurped in their repeated decisions that Christianity is a part of the
+common law. The proof of the contrary which you have adduced is
+incontrovertible; to wit, that the common law existed while the
+Anglo-Saxons were yet Pagans; at a time when they had never yet heard
+the name of Christ pronounced, or knew that such a character had ever
+existed. But it may amuse you to show when, and by what means, they
+stole this law in upon us. In a case of quare impedit, in the year-book,
+34 H. 6, fo. 38, (1458,) a question was made, how far the ecclesiastical
+law was to be respected in a common law court? And Justice Prisot, c. 5,
+gives his opinion in these words:--
+
+"'A tiel leis que ils de seint eglise ont en _ancien scripture_, covient
+
+"'_To such laws which they of the holy church have in ancient writing,
+it is proper_
+
+a nous a donner credence; car ceo common ley sur quels touts manners
+
+_for us to give credence; because that is the common law on which all
+sorts of leis_
+
+sont lor des--et auxy, Sir, nous sumus obliges de conustre leur ley de
+saint
+
+_laws are founded--and thus, Sir, we are obliged to know their law of
+the holy_
+
+eglise; et semblablement ils sont obliges de conustre nostre lev: et,
+Sir, si
+
+_church; and in like manner they are obliged to know our law; and, Sir,
+if_
+
+poit apperer or u nous que Tevesque ad fait come un ordinary fera en
+tiel
+
+_it can be shown thus to us that the bishop has done as a layman would
+in such_
+
+cas, adonq nous devons ceo adjuger bon, ou auterment nemy,' &c.(1) See
+S. C,
+
+_a case, then we ought this to judge good, or otherwise not at all._
+
+      1. _Translation read to the Jury._
+
+Fitzherbert's Abr. qu. imp. 89. Brown's Abr. qu. imp. 12. Finch, in his
+first book, c. 3, is the first afterwards who quotes this case, and
+misstates it thus, 'To such laws of the church as have warrant in _holy
+scripture_ our law giveth credence,' and cites Prisot, mistranslating
+'ancien scripture' into 'holy scripture;' whereas Prisot palpably says,
+'to such laws as those of holy church have in _ancient writing_ it is
+proper for us to give credence to wit, to their ancient written laws.
+This was in 1613, a century and a half after the dictum of Prisot.
+Wingate, in 1658, erects this false translation into a maxim of the
+common law, copying the words of Finch, but citing Prisot. Wingate's
+Maxims, 3; and Sheppard, tit. 'Religion in 1675. copies the same
+mistranslation, quoting the Year-book, Finch and Wingate. Hale expresses
+it in these words, 'Christianity is parcel of the laws of England.'
+
+"It is proper for us to respect the laws which the members of the holy
+church have in _ancient manuscripts_, because they are the general
+source from which all laws are drawn. Thus, Sir, it is necessary for us
+to be acquainted with ecclesiastical law, and in like manner the judges
+of the ecclesiastical courts are obliged to understand our law: in
+consequence, Sir, if it can be shown to us that the ecclesiastical court
+has decided as a court of civil law would have done in the same case,
+then we ought to deem the judgment good; but if a civil law court would
+have decided otherwise, the judgment of the eclesiastical court must be
+deemed erroneous."
+
+"Ventr. 293. 3 Keble, 607, but quotes no authority. By these echoings
+and reechoings from one to another, it had become so established in
+1728, that in the case of the King v. Woolston, 2 Strange, 834, the
+court would not suffer it to be debated, whether to write against
+Christianity was punishable in the temporal courts at common law. Wood,
+therefore, 409, ventures still to vary the phrase, and says, 'that all
+blasphemy and profaneness are offences by the common law,' and cites 2
+Strange. Then Blackstone, in 1763, IV. 59, repeats the words of Hale,
+that 'Christianity is part of the law of England,' citing Ventris and
+Strange: and finally, Lord Mansfield, with a little qualification, in
+Evans's case in 1767, says, 'that the essential principles of revealed
+religion are parts of the common law,' thus engulphing Bible, Testament,
+and all, into the common law, without citing any authority. And thus we
+find this chain of authorities hanging link by link one upon another,
+and all ultimately on one and the same hook; and that a mistranslation
+of the words 'ancien scripture,' used by Prisot. Finch quotes Prisot;
+Wingate does the same; Sheppard quotes Prisot, Finch, and Wingate; Hale
+cites nobody; the Court, in Woolston's case, cites Hale; Wood cites
+Woolston's case; Blackstone quotes Woolston's case and Hale; and Lord
+Mansfield, like Hale, ventures it on his own authority. Here I might
+defy the best-read lawyer to produce another scrip of authority for this
+_judiciary forgery_; and I might go on further to show how some of the
+Anglo-Saxon priests interpolated into the text of Alfred's laws, the
+20th, 21st, 22nd, and 23rd chapters of Exodus, and the 10th of the Acts
+of the Apostles, from the 23rd to the 29th verses. But this would lead
+my pen and your patience too far. What a conspiracy this between Church
+and State! Sing Tantararara, Rogues all, Rogues all; Sing Tantararara,
+Rogues all!"
+
+Gentlemen, after hearing this statement from the pen of an educated and
+eminent lawyer, can you hesitate to return a verdict of acquittal? You
+have now a complete history of this "_judiciary forgery_" as Jefferson
+terms it, before you; and I am satisfied that that which originated in a
+_fraudulent mistranslation_, cannot, now that the fraud is detected,
+long retain the force of law. On this ground, then, I confidently claim
+your verdict.
+
+Gentlemen, I now come to the trade argument--that it is a great hardship
+and injustice to hold a bookseller responsible for the contents of the
+books he sells.
+
+I am a general bookseller; and so great is the competition, and so fully
+is my time occupied, that I have no time to spare for reading the
+various works in my shop, even if I had the inclination. My excellent
+and amiable son, before his death, and before I had any idea of this
+prosecution, drew up a paper for the management of my business, by which
+it appears that upwards of seventy weekly periodicals pass through my
+hands every week, besides books and many other periodicals that are
+merely collected to order. Amongst them will be found every possible
+variety--"The Church of England Magazine," "The Sacred Album," and many
+others maintaining contradictory and conflicting opinions; but I do not
+hold myself responsible--either legally or morally--for any of them. I
+have no right to set myself up as a censor of the press. I sell them
+all--and am not responsible for any man's opinions upon an abstract or
+general subject. When the subject matter of a book relates to the people
+at large, the public alone should decide upon its merits. If the book be
+a good one, they will support it; if a bad one, they will condemn and
+reject it. This is the only proper punishment for a bad author. The line
+of duty I mark out for myself in that I will never sell obscene
+publications--works that demoralise and corrupt society--nor any attacks
+upon private character; and if a person comes to me complaining that his
+character has been falsely and slanderously attacked, I sell no more of
+that work. What more can be expected from a general bookseller? If the
+sale of a controversial book is to be suppressed, because it contains a
+few passages in bad taste, and of objectionable phraseology, then the
+sale of the Bible itself must be prohibited, for that book contains many
+passages far more objectionable in the present day than any to be found
+in "Haslam's Letters to the Clergy." I have here a list of passages from
+the Bible, of a highly objectionable character; but as I perceive a
+number of ladies in the court, I will not pollute their ears, nor shock
+the feelings of the Jury, by reading them. My only object in alluding to
+them, is to show that if the principle of selecting two or three
+objectionable passages from a work is to lead to its condemnation, and
+the punishment of the bookseller, then I might with equal justice be
+condemned for selling the Bible itself. On this ground, also, I claim
+and am entitled to your verdict.
+
+Gentlemen, the Attorney-General has not done justice to Mr. Haslam; he
+has dwelt upon the passages contained in the indictment, but has left
+the Jury in total ignorance of the general nature of the work. In many
+parts of the book are to be found passages of great beauty. So far from
+a charge of blasphemy fairly attaching to Mr. Haslam's Letters, he
+uniformly declares that he rejects the Jewish Scriptures because they
+are _irrational_, and _dishonour_ the God "that governs the universe." I
+will read a passage from his Second Letter, which shows the veneration
+he entertains for the Deity.
+
+"But is it not monstrous, that that power which gives life and motion to
+millions of worlds; which guides them in their eternal revolutions in
+the boundless ocean of space, and which preserves them in everlasting
+order and harmony; is it not monstrous that that power should be
+represented in this ridiculous point of view? Vain, violent, and
+boisterous, without the least indication of any thing rational, good, or
+merciful in any of his proceedings. Such a God may be the God of the
+Christians, but he is not the God who governs the universe. That God is
+no more to be compared to the Bible God, than the dazzling sun is to be
+compared to the glimmering light of a candle."
+
+Mr. Haslam's work has many other passages of the same description; and
+the Attorney-General will see that the passage in the Eighth
+Letter--almost the only objectionable passage in the work--was not
+deliberately designed to give offence, when I tell him that the author,
+in deference to the opinion of his friends, has cancelled the
+objectionable passage, and re-written it. Now what would the learned
+Attorney-General have more? The object of prosecution has been always
+held to be preventive, or corrective, not vindictive. The object sought,
+then, is already attained. Mr. Haslam has anticipated your wishes by
+correcting the objectionable passage.
+
+Gentlemen, I have urged sufficient, I hope, to induce you to give me
+your verdict; but before I conclude, I will read a passage from the
+works of Dean Swift, which is worthy of your profound attention.
+"Whoever," he says, "could restore, in any degree, brotherly love among
+men, would be an instrument of more good to society than ever was or
+will be done by all the statesmen in the world."
+
+Gentlemen, let us commence the glorious work to-day. I will tell you how
+you can do more towards spreading brotherly love among men, than all the
+statesmen in the world will be able to accomplish. Say to the
+Government, by your verdict, the publication of opinions shall be free.
+This will spread brotherly love among men; for what is it that prevents
+brotherly love from dwelling among men? The odious principle of
+coercion. I do not believe the Government wish to follow up these
+prosecutions if they can avoid it. They have a precedent, then, in the
+case of Sir Robert Peel. Mr. Carlile was in prison nearly _seven years_,
+and many of his shopmen were imprisoned for various terras. Did such
+vindictive persecutions change their opinions, or stop the sale of the
+works prosecuted? Quite the contrary. The individuals became confirmed
+and strengthened in their opinions, and all the prosecuted works are now
+on sale in every bookseller's shop in London. The public began to
+consider them martyrs, and Sir Robert Peel and the Government of that
+day saw the injustice and cruelty of such proceedings, abandoned all
+prosecutions, and liberated those whose terms of imprisonment were
+unexpired. Surely those now in authority are not the men to recommence
+these prosecutions for matters of opinion; and my quarrel with them is,
+that they have not the moral courage to reply to the taunts of the
+Bishop of Exeter, by alluding to this case of Sir Robert Peel's
+Government; and boldly declaring that henceforth public opinion shall be
+the only censor. Abolish that hateful principle of coercion for matters
+of opinion, and mutual toleration, respect, and brotherly kindness, will
+henceforth prevail.
+
+Gentlemen, Christianity gives no sanction to persecution. The religion
+of Jesus, rightly understood, is a practical and benevolent system. It
+is founded on two great commandments, love of God and love of Man. The
+_first_ commandment, in fact, resolves itself into a practical
+observance of the _second_; for it is expressly declared that, "_If a
+man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that
+loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he
+hath not seen_?"(1) Recollect, Gentlemen, "_Love worketh no ill to his
+neighbour_."(2) Jesus encourages all men to think for themselves. This
+is his exhortation--"_Why, even of your own selves, judge ye not what is
+right?*(3)" But while he has encouraged the exercise of mind, he has not
+made eternal happiness to depend upon *belief_ but upon their _actions_;
+and the great evil of society is attempting to coerce people into the
+belief of that which they cannot believe--a system to which, I hope,
+your verdict to-day will put a stop.
+
+      1. 1 John iv.; 20,
+      2. Rom. xiii.; 10,
+      3. Luke xii.; 57
+
+Gentlemen, the Founder of Christianity, in his parable of the Last
+Judgment, tells us distinctly that men are to be judged by their
+_actions_ and not by their _opinions_; for he describes himself as
+inviting the righteous to inherit the kingdom prepared for them from the
+foundation of the world: "For I was an hungered, and ye gave me meat: I
+was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in:
+naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in
+prison, and ye came unto me." He then represents the righteous as
+saying, "Lord, when saw we thee an hungered, and fed thee I or thirsty,
+and gave thee drink? When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or
+naked, and clothed thee? Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and
+came unto thee? And the King shall answer, Inasmuch AS YE HAVE DONE IT
+UNTO ONE OF THE LEAST OF THESE MY BRETHREN, ye have done it unto me." He
+then represents himself as denouncing the unrighteous for giving him no
+meat, nor drink; for not clothing him when naked, nor visiting him when
+sick; and when they desire to know when he required these things, and
+they did not minister unto him, he replies, "Inasmuch as ye did it not
+to one of the least of these my brethren, ye did it not to me." Here,
+you perceive, there is no particular belief enjoined, none condemned.
+All men are to be judged by their actions--not by their belief.
+
+Gentlemen, I have now urged all that I deem necessary to ensure an
+acquittal. I hope you will consider well the consequences of your
+verdict, and reflect upon the wickedness and impolicy of tearing a man
+from his family, for selling a book in the ordinary course of his
+business. If I have said anything in the course of my address to raise a
+prejudice in your minds, I hope you will discard it, and do justice by
+pronouncing an acquittal.
+
+The Attorney-General claimed his right of reply. He commenced by
+observing that the Defendant, in his very long address to the Jury, had
+not advanced anything that would call for many remarks from him, so that
+he should occupy bu ta very small portion of their time. The Defendant
+had contended that the blasphemous attack on our holy religion, which
+they had heard read, was only free inquiry; and had taunted the
+Government, and himself, who desired the extension of useful knowledge,
+with having prosecuted this book. But was this book of Haslam's useful
+knowledge? The Defendant said, Why not answer it? But he, the
+Attorney-General, contended that it could not be answered. The only way
+to do with it was to prosecute it. This publication--for the sale of
+which the Defendant was indicted--was not fair argument and inquiry, but
+blasphemous invective. The Defendant accused him of not objecting so
+much to the matter of the publication, as to the price at which it was
+sold. Not withstanding what the Defendant had said on this point, he,
+the Attorney-General, contended that the low price at which it was sold
+made the publication doubly mischievous, as it caused it to circulate
+among the working classes of society, who were from their habits,
+incapable of thought or discrimination; their time was so entirely
+occupied that it was impossible they could devote sufficient time to
+reading to guard themselves against the evil tendency of such works;
+while the Jury, and men in their class of life, were, from their
+education, furnished with an antidote to the poison. If attacks on the
+Scriptures were to be permitted, what was to prevent the pious feelings
+of the community from being outraged? Suppose a man were to carry a
+board through the streets on which was inscribed in large characters,
+that "Christ was an impostor." Could it be tolerated? Yet this,
+according to the Defendant, was only free inquiry! Again, suppose any
+one preferred a republican to a monarchical form of government, and was
+to excite and recommend the substitution of the one for the other by
+force of arms, inciting, by inflammatory appeals, the people to murder
+the Government and the Queen--yet this would be, according to Mr.
+Hetherington, only free inquiry! The Defendant had said that Mr. Haslam
+was a Socialist; now the Socialists held an opinion that marriage was an
+institution that ought to be abolished. If a man, under that plea, were
+to recommend the seduction of his neighbour's wife or daughter--would
+any one contend that such opinions should be published with impunity?
+yet the Defendant considers this the free investigation of opinions; and
+to prosecute a blasphemous publication, he says, is to prevent freedom
+of opinion. No one wished to interfere with Mr. Hetherington's private
+opinion. The policeman, when he went to Mr. Hetherington's shop to
+purchase the numbers, did not inquire as to his particular belief. If
+there were persons so unfortunate as to disbelieve the Scriptures--which
+were the foundation of our holy religion--the law did not interfere with
+them so long as they kept their opinions to themselves, and did not
+publicly attack the authenticity of the Bible. Mr. Hetherington had
+spoken of the effect of prosecution in extending the sale of such
+publications, alluding particularly to the _Poor Man's Guardian_; but
+he, the Attorney-General, called upon the Jury to do their duty by
+bringing? to punishment those who outraged the law, that others might be
+deterred from offending. If the Jury looked at the immoral tendency of
+such writings, and the doctrines of non-responsibility laid down by Mr.
+Hetherington, who declared that he was neither responsible for his
+belief, nor his actions--
+
+Mr. Hetherington here interrupted, declaring that the Attorney-General
+was acting most unfairly towards him. He never used such language, but
+quite the contrary; what he maintained was, that he was not responsible
+for his _belief_ but that he _was responsible for his_ actions. If he
+injured a friend, a neighbour, or a fellow-citizen, he was amenable to
+society for the injury done. The Attorney-General, he contended, was not
+replying to him, but perverting his arguments and misrepresenting facts.
+
+Lord Denman said that he agreed with the Defendant in the first
+instance, and therefore he thought he was justified in putting the
+Attorney-General right; but the Attorney-General, he thought, was
+entitled to make any remarks upon facts which came out in evidence.
+
+Mr. Hetherington (with great vehemence).--But he is mis-stating facts,
+and making statements calculated to mislead the Jury.
+
+Lord Denman.--You must not interrupt.
+
+The Defendant.--But my liberty is at stake, and I will speak. (Applause
+at the back of the court, which was instantly suppressed by the
+officers.)
+
+Lord Denman.--You shall be heard in correction of anything you may think
+a misrepresentation, afterwards; not in reply, but merely in correction.
+
+The Defendant.--Thank you, my Lord.
+
+The Attorney-General observed, that the Defendant denied being the
+publisher, but he would convince the Jury that he was, by reading the
+title to them. He then read the title of the book--omitting the
+publisher's name, and reading the name of the Defendant only, till Mr.
+Hetherington insisted upon his rending the whole title as
+follows:--"Letters to the Clergy of all Denominations, showing the
+Errors, Absurdities, and Irrationalities of their Doctrines. By C. J.
+Haslani. Fourth Edition. Manchester: A. Heywood. 56 and 60, Oldham
+Street. London*; Hetherington, 126, Strand; Cleave, Shoe Lane, Fleet
+Street; Watson, City Road, Finsbury; and J. Guest, Birmingham; and all
+Booksellers in Town and Country."
+
+The Attorney-General then proceeded.--Conceive, gentlemen, a servant or
+an apprentice reading this work where the institution of private
+property was said to be the great evil of society--would he feel any
+compunction at appropriating the goods or money of his employer to his
+own use? Would he not find arguments in this work to justify him in his
+iniquity? Mr. Hetherington had taken credit to himself for disinterested
+motives, but he feared that he was actuated by mercenary
+motives--looking only to emolument--careless of the effect it might have
+on the morals of the unthinking working-classes.(1) He called upon the
+Jury, by the oaths they had taken on the Holy Gospel--which this book
+blasphemously attacked--to consider the effect of a verdict of
+acquittal, and to do their duty to the public. By such a verdict they
+would license the most infamous attacks on the Holy Scriptures, and
+would loosen the bonds which held society together.
+
+    1. This comes well from a gentleman who descended from his high
+    professional position to attend at the Old Bailry, for a fee of
+    L. 100, to plead for a man charged with murder.
+
+Mr. Hetherington explained that it was the custom of the trade to place
+the name of any bookseller, with whom the real publisher did business,
+on the title-page of the book, and that his name had been so placed by
+Mr. Hey-wood, of Manchester, the real publisher, without his knowledge.
+Mr. Heywood was the original publisher; he received no punishment, and
+was now at liberty.
+
+Lord Denman, in summing up, observed, that the law considered the vendor
+of a work the publisher of it, and that consequently he must be held
+responsible. It had also been constantly laid down that blasphemy was an
+offence at common law. In the Defendant's defence, TO WHICH HE HAD
+LISTENED WITH FEELINGS OF GREAT INTEREST, AYE, WITH SENTIMENTS OF
+RESPECT TOO, he had complained of the hardship of a general publisher
+being held responsible for the contents of all the works he might sell,
+but he had himself answered that argument by the conduct which he stated
+he pursued with regard to obscene and personally libellous publication,
+and from the title-page of this work it was scarcely possible not to be,
+in some measure, aware of its contents. Discussions on a subject, even
+the most sacred, might be tolerated when they were conducted in a fair
+spirit; but when appeals were made not to reason but to the bad feelings
+of human nature, or where ridicule or invective were had recourse to, it
+could not be considered discussion. As to the impolicy of these sort of
+prosecutions that was a question with which they had nothing to do; the
+only question for them to determine was, whether the publication in
+question was a blasphemous libel, and whether it had been published by
+the Defendant.
+
+The Jury immediately returned a verdict of Guilty.
+
+The Attorney-General prayed the immediate judgment of the Court.
+
+Lord Denman.--I think the passing sentence had better be deferred, until
+we have had the opportunity of considering the subject.
+
+The Defendant then retired, and the Court adjourned.
+
+
+
+
+OBSERVATIONS
+
+
+The renewal of a series of Government prosecutions for alleged
+blasphemy, will justify me in accompanying the publication of the
+foregoing trial with a few words of comment.
+
+The points upon which I deem it my duty to animadvert--are the conduct
+of the Government, the Attorney-General, and the Jury.
+
+I consider that the Government have acted towards me, in this
+prosecution, in a very unjustifiable manner. They first placed Mr.
+Cleave on his trial for selling the fifth, eighth, and thirteenth
+numbers of Haslam's Letters. He pleaded _Not Guilty_, but was convicted
+(after an able and convincing speech from his-Counsel, Mr. Chambers), by
+as stupid a Jury as ever sat in judgment on an honest man. The Judge
+sentenced him to four months' imprisonment, and a fine of L20. Such was
+the force of public opinion, however, on the injustice and impolicy of
+such prosecutions, that Mr. Cleave was liberated, upon paying the fine,
+after five weeks' imprisonment.
+
+The trial of Mr. Heywood, the original publisher, came next. His known
+integrity and respectability had attached to him many influential
+friends, who represented to the Government the folly and injustice of
+these proceedings, and Lord Normanby at length yielded to their
+importunities, by agreeing, on condition that he pleaded guilty, that
+Mr. Heywood's prosecution should proceed no further. Mr. Heywood
+complied, and was left at liberty, on entering into his own
+recognizances, to appear when called upon.
+
+Public opinion unequivocally declared that such prosecutions were
+indefensible, and it was very generally believed that the Government
+would abandon them from a conviction of their injustice and impolicy.
+Instead of which they proceeded against me for selling the same numbers
+of the identical work that Messrs. Cleave and Heywood had been
+prosecuted for selling, though the punishment of Mr. Cleave was
+remitted, and the Government compounded blasphemy in the case of Mr.
+Heywood. To injure and annoy honest and industrious tradesmen, because
+the author of a book has in two or three instances expressed his ideas
+in vulgar and objectionable phraseology, is unworthy of an enlightened
+Government. I feel pity for the Jury who could ignorantly pronounce a
+verdict of guilty against a man who never wilfully injured a
+fellow-creature, merely because he had sold a book that combated the
+established opinions of the day; but I entertain very different
+sentiments against the Government that could institute and carry forward
+prosecutions of this nature, when, from their superior knowledge, they
+must be fully aware of the iniquity of their proceedings. They encourage
+"reason and free inquiry," while it favours their objects; and they
+persecute and ruin all those, who, by the exercise of reason and free
+inquiry, arrive at conclusions adverse to the established opinions of
+society. The time has passed, however, for a renewal of persecution for
+matters of opinion. No Government can stand that will attempt it; and I
+tell Her Majesty's Government, that when they interfere with the
+religious or anti-religious opinions of the people, they step out of
+their province,--and to inflict punishment upon either the original
+publisher or the general bookseller, who supplies all works to order,
+for the opinions contained in the works they respectively publish or
+sell, is an odious act of tyranny that good men of every opinion should
+denounce and oppose. I, for one, will never sanction or submit to such
+tyranny. Whether any and what sentence will be passed upon me I know
+not; but I have made up my mind that I will maintain, at all risks, and
+under every privation, to the utmost extent of my ability and means, the
+right of all men to freely publish their opinions upon every subject of
+general interest--whether social, political, or religious; aye, or
+anti-religious,--and if the Government would receive a suggestion from
+me, I would suggest to them to take their stand on this glorious
+principle--perfect freedom is the formation AS PUBLICATION OF OPINIONS
+FOR EVERY SECT AND PARTY. That is the most effectual way to elicit truth
+upon all subjects; and I would respectfully ask them, whether they ever
+knew the truth injure any sect or party that was disposed to act
+honestly?
+
+I hope the Government will reflect upon the injustice and impolicy of
+this new crusade against the free expression of opinion, adopt my
+suggestion, and abandon all prosecutions against those who honestly
+controvert the received opinions of society.
+
+Having now expressed my feelings with regard to the conduct of the
+Government, I must say a word or two respecting the behaviour of the
+learned Attorney-General towards me, on my trial. He made very few
+observations in opening the case, but reserved himself for his Reply; a
+privilege which I think he was not entitled to, as I called no
+witnesses. Had I anticipated he would have claimed the privilege of
+reply, and abused it in the shameful manner that he did, I could have
+overthrown, by witnesses, the false impression which he so unjustly
+laboured to establish on the minds of the Jury--that I was the publisher
+of the work, because my name was affixed to the book first of the London
+agents. What is the object of a reply? It is to answer the facts and
+arguments adduced by the Defendant; to show that he has reasoned
+illogically; and to point out to the Jury, succinctly and clearly* the
+points in which he has failed to answer the charge laid against him in
+the indictment. In addition, however, to this base attempt to hold me up
+to the Jury as the original publisher, the Attorney-General obviously
+sought to make the Jury believe--(and there is every reason to think
+that he triumphed in this his unjust attempt to injure me)--that I
+claimed immunity not only for my belief but my actions, When I insisted
+upon setting him right, by showing him the utter falsehood of his
+assertion, in which I was supported by Lord Chief Justice Denman, he
+treacherously aimed at fixing upon me the consequences of doctrines to
+which I had not even adverted in my speech, and which had no reference
+whatever to the subject then before the Court. He basely insinuated that
+I was virtually claiming immunity for all acts of aggression--such as
+robbery, murder, seduction, unjustifiable rebellion, and assassination
+of the Queen; striving to raise in the minds of the Jury a confusion
+between the right of freedom of opinion and the wrong of licentious
+action! This, too, was slanderously repeated, after my open appeal to
+the Court against such malignity; and this the learned Attorney-General
+calls availing himself of his privilege of reply! I was not allowed to
+answer these falsehoods of the Attorney-General; though, as the accused
+party, I was in justice, if not in law, entitled to every opportunity of
+making the truth apparent to the Jury.
+
+As to the Jury--What shall I say of them? I can only pity men who
+exhibited such woful ignorance and imbecility as to be led away by
+misrepresentations that had not even the appearance of truth. Let me ask
+the Jury one simple question. They were bound by their oath to give a
+true verdict according to the evidence. Now let me ask them, was there
+any evidence of BLASPHEMY?
+
+The evidence adduced merely proved the sale of a certain book. There was
+no evidence that the contents of the book were blasphemous. This
+question--(that is to say, the very question in dispute--the question
+whether or not there was any blasphemy)--this question was decided by
+Judge and Jury without an iota of evidence, without even an attempt at
+any evidence bearing Upon it. The opinions of the Judge and Jury decided
+the question of the indictment---Was there blasphemy or no! There was no
+evidence at all upon it. Gentlemen of the Jury--common and special--was
+your verdict in accordance with the EVIDENCE brought forward for your
+enlightened consideration--was your verdict in accordance with the terms
+of your oath? The verdict to which I was entitled from honest and
+reasoning men was the following:--either a direct "Not Guilty of
+blasphemy"--or this, "Guilty of selling a certain book concerning the
+nature of which wc=e have had no evidence"--matters of opinion not
+being, in fact susceptible of evidence.
+
+  H. HETHERINGTON.
+
+I cannot close these Observations without tendering my best thanks to
+the editor of _The Sun_ for the zeal and ability with which, in a
+succession of leading articles, he defended the right of Free Inquiry
+and the Free Publication of Opinions. The _Morning Chronicle_ published
+an impartial report of the Trial, and gave a good leading article on the
+subject. The _Morning Advertiser_ and the _Weekly Chronicle_ also
+published a fair report of the Trial. The _Weekly Dispatch_ and The
+_Statesman_ are both entitled to thanks for their advocacy of Truth and
+Liberty, in reference to the principle contended for in my Defence. The
+three Letters of Publicola, in The _Weekly Dispatch_, are invaluable;
+and I regret that I cannot find room for the whole of them in this
+pamphlet, without considerably enhancing its price and defeating my own
+object of extensive circulation for my Trial. They are worthy of a
+distinct publication. I can only fill up the space I have left by the
+insertion of the following excellent article from _The Sun_ of Friday,
+December the 11th, 1840, and Publicola's Letter to Lord Chief Justice
+Denman.--H. H.
+
+
+
+
+Extract from The Sun Newspaper
+
+
+We brought evidence yesterday to show that the suppression of objections
+to the Scriptures by penal enactments is tyrannical, unjust, and absurd,
+and that the law is partially administered. If we return to the subject,
+it is from a deep sense of its almost immeasurable importance. Our whole
+internal A policy, nearly, is framed with a view to support the Church.
+The Church is founded, or rather pretends to be founded, on the Bible;
+but we are now told by the decision of the Jury on Tuesday, that it is a
+crime to object to its statements. The happiness of society, then, is to
+be chained and bound by principles and doctrines, which society must not
+examine; for if men must not object, what is the use of examination?
+
+"We see disorder pervading every part of society. The poor are set
+against the rich, and the rich are zealously engaged in oppressing and
+coercing the poor. Crime increases, and though more churches are
+building, religion is decaying. The remedies suggested for our
+disorders, within the bounds sanctioned by the Church, are more numerous
+than the disorders themselves; but though confusion and anarchy threaten
+us, the law forbids men to say aught against principles which our rulers
+have followed, while society has been brought into its present
+condition.
+
+"What the law now decrees against what it calls blasphemy, it decreed,
+not two centuries ago, against witchcraft. It now denounces the former
+as displeasing to God; it then denounced the latter for the same
+offence. Men and women were in those less humane days burned for
+displeasing God, while now they are only fined and incarcerated. By the
+progress of knowledge, lawyers, both barristers and judges, have been
+compelled to give up that portion of the perfection of human reason, and
+the law against witchcraft has become obsolete. If our view of the law
+for suppressing objections to the Scriptures, under * the name of
+blasphemy, be correct, it is not more reasonable than the law against
+witchcraft. While no lawyer, however, will now lend himself to revive
+the latter or carry it into execution, there are numbers, we say it to
+the disgrace of the profession, zealous and eager to apply the former,
+at least to the penny tracts which are addressed to the poor.
+
+"It is therefore with deep regret that we saw so eminent a man as the
+Attorney-General lending himself to this sorry work. We are ready to
+admit, as a Tory contemporary has stated, that he has done his duty, and
+he finds his reward in the praise of the Tories. Nor did he show, as far
+as we can learn, certainly not in his reply, any reluctance to perform
+it; people say he did it as if he had something to atone for, and was
+rather eager to gain the approbation of Bishop Philpotts. His labours
+were crowned with a success which his own party reprobate. In
+Westminster Hall he has triumphed, but an appeal lies from that to the
+world; and even the Whigs, who have heretofore denounced prosecutions
+for blasphemy as for witchcraft, consider that in the last resort he
+will sustain a terrible defeat.
+
+"Mr. Hetherington has already suffered in body and mind, in purse and
+health; and probably awaits with apprehension the sentence, which may
+consign him to prison and ruin. He is down-stricken by the law; but
+those who have read his defence, and prefer reason to legal fictions,
+will place him far above the triumphant Attorney-General. He made an
+admirable pleading for free inquiry, which plain John Campbell
+instituted a prosecution to suppress. In his reply Sir John so far
+overstepped the bounds of propriety, that the Defendant would not allow
+him to proceed, and was supported by the Court. In a bad cause the
+Attorney-General used poisoned weapons. He upheld a prosecution for
+blasphemy, which is as ridiculous as a prosecution for witchcraft, and
+descended to misrepresent the accused. With our opinion of the law he
+was enforcing, we are bound to say that Sir John Campbell should have
+left such a duty to be performed by some taker of a half-guinea fee, who
+never got beyond the precincts of the Old Bailey. It was wholly unworthy
+of an eminent lawyer, who has risen into political power as a professed
+friend of free discussion. The slaves to lust have some pleasure for
+their punishment, but the servants of the grimgribber of Westminster
+Hall, who sacrifice present fame to a sense of duty to it, reap little
+more than disgrace for their nauseous drudgery.
+
+"Sir John Campbell prosecuted Mr. Hetherington, in the language of the
+indictment, for being 'a wicked, impious, and ill-disposed person,
+having no regard to the laws of this realm, but most wickedly,
+blasphemously, impiously, and profanely devising and intending to
+asperse and vilify that part of the Holy Bible which is called the Old
+Testament.' Now, having no respect whatever for the fictions of the law,
+we have no hesitation in branding such accusations of a publisher as a
+monstrous tissue of falsehoods, and to affirm that it is a disgrace to
+any man who has the least respect for truth, to defend such a charge. We
+care not about its being the customary language of the law, for truth
+and men's liberties are not to be sacrificed by and for such
+absurdities.
+
+"Further, this said aspersing and vilifying the Bible is said by Sir J.
+Campbell, at least such is the language of the indictment, which he used
+arguments to sustain, to be greatly 'to the displeasure of Almighty
+God.' Who knows that? What worm dares to say that the Almighty God is
+displeased with another worm for uttering or writing a few words.' Who
+is the vain and arrogant man that claims for himself the task of
+interpreting the thoughts of the Most High, and demanding that a man be
+punished for having displeased Almighty God? What name does the Court
+deserve which, being instituted to do justice and protect the people,
+punishes one of them because he displeases the Almighty? Can He not
+punish those who displease Him? To doubt it, to undertake to protect or
+avenge Him, to describe Him as displeased, while he showers prosperity
+and contentment on the man said to displease Him, is far more impious,
+more blasphemous, more dangerous to religion than anything Mr.
+Hetherington ever published, or Mr. Haslam wrote. Such, however, was the
+crime charged against Mr. Hetherington, which Sir John Campbell
+endeavoured to substantiate, and of which a Jury, who are as much
+deserving of reproach as the prosecutor, found him guilty. Such is the
+crime for which the Court will hereafter pass sentence, undertaking,
+like the Inquisition, to decide for the Almighty, and punish actions as
+displeasing to Him, at which He, by the course of nature, shows no
+displeasure.
+
+"At the present time, when a great portion of the Whig press will
+support the Attorney-General or be silent, leaving _The Sun_ to defend
+the great principle of free inquiry and free printing, as they left it
+to defend the same sacred and noble cause when it was assailed in the
+person of Mr. Harmer, we think it our duty not to be silent. As we
+should assail any Tory Attorney-General who had instituted such a
+prosecution, or carried it on, so we cannot allow it to pass
+unstigmatized because it has been instituted by a Whig Attorney-General.
+We know that the wisest and best politicians of the party deprecate such
+proceedings, and not the less because they will call forth in many
+independent journals, to the injury of the Whigs, an expression of
+honest indignation."
+
+
+
+
+"TO LORD DENMAN, ON THE LATE PROSECUTION FOR BLASPHEMY
+
+
+Mr Lord Chief Justice.
+
+"Your conduct on the Bench, upon the recent trial, 'The Queen v.
+Hetherington,' for a religious libel, a nominal and an impossible
+offence, the fiction of fraudulent bigotry, has much increased the high
+esteem in which you have been always held by the public. Your Lordship's
+opinions on this impolitic, irreligious, and thoroughly infamous species
+of prosecution have oft-times been expressed with the integrity and high
+moral courage that have ever distinguished your public life. I never
+shall forget the manliness with which I heard you avow from the Whig
+Treasury Benches, in the House of Commons, in your place as Attorney
+General, your detestation of indictments for religious opinions; and the
+House hailed you when you fairly acknowledged your deep regret that, as
+Common Serjeant, you had been obliged, in obedience to your oath and to
+the law, to impose even the smallest punishment possible upon three men
+convicted by an ignorant Jury of a libel on the Scriptures; and you were
+still more cheerfully received when you expressed your joy at the
+liberation of the prisoners whom you had so unwillingly punished. There
+was one part of your speech that did not certainly satisfy me. I respect
+your sense of obligation to an oath; but when you punished men whom you
+conscientiously believed to be undeserving of infliction, and this 'in
+obedience to the law,' your Lordship might have reflected, that it was
+not Parliamentary, but Judge-made law--'Common-law,' as it is called;
+and you might have acted upon the principle that if a corrupt and
+ignorant Judge made a law to suit the prejudices of a brutal age, a pure
+and well-informed Judge might reverse that law in favour of an age more
+humane and more enlightened. I recollect with great satisfaction that
+when, in the case of Lord Langford, the Counsel, Mr. Thesiger, asked a
+witness (Mr. Nathan, a Jew) 'what religion he was of?' your Lordship
+expressed your strong displeasure; and, under your Lordship's sanction,
+the witness refused to answer the interrogatory, and treated both the
+query and the querist with the utmost contempt; and the whole Court and
+audience seemed strongly to approve of the result. In the recent trial
+your Lordship's conduct was a contrast to that of your immediate
+predecessors on the Bench, Lords Tenterden and Ellenborough, the last
+representatives of a most disgraceful school of political, prejudiced,
+corrupt Court Judges. You did all in your power to induce the Jury to
+acquit the accused. I am now credibly informed that the Attorney-General
+had the same object at heart; and having, intentionally, gone in a most
+slovenly and unimpressive manner, through his technical duty, he was
+abashed and mortified when he heard the verdict of guilty. Familiar as
+he must be with the extreme ignorance, stupidity, and corruption of
+Juries, on such occasions, he was still surprised at such a verdict. I
+am willing to give him credit for these common reports in his favour;
+but should the Government be so infatuated as to bring the defendant up
+for judgment, the country expects of you, my Lord Denman, that the
+sentence will be nominal, and that it will be accompanied by your
+reprobation of all such trials.
+
+"If it be true that hope is the last passion that leaves a man, equally
+true is it that the spirit, the accursed spirit of religious
+persecution, is the last passion that man deserts, or is willing to
+abandon. I sincerely believe that if the alternative were put to a
+hundred dying men, at their last, moment of consciousness, at their last
+gasp of breath, whether they preferred their own future salvation or
+beatitude, or the persecution of man upon earth for conscientious
+differences of opinion on religious subjects, full ninety-nine out of
+the hundred would choose the latter, on the ground of its being the
+turnpike-road to the former, and from the inherent delight in the spirit
+of religious intolerance. Fanaticism is the primeval curse of our
+nature. From its first victim Abel, to the present hour, it has raged
+through the human race. Moral sins and physical or corporeal diseases in
+the course of ages wear themselves out, or can be cured by instruction
+or medical treatment; but the most foul, leprous, and crime-engendering
+of all maladies that flesh is heir to, fanaticism--call it if you
+please, bigotry or superstition--admits of no cure, and of little
+mitigation. If this hellhound were now let loose from the restraints of
+law, we should in one year have every gaol and dungeon full of
+prisoners, and in another, the fires and faggots of the olden times
+would be raging more fiercely than of yore, and more furiously in this
+country than in any other. Whatever Catholics might have been in the
+middle ages, there has been more of religious persecution in Great
+Britain and Ireland, in the last century, than in all the Catholic
+countries of Europe within the same period. On the Continent the spirit
+is on the wane; in England it is on the increase.
+
+"My Lord Denman, in the very abstraction of our individual nature, and
+of the nature of society, a court of justice cannot take cognizance of
+opinions. Its functions are confined exclusively to facts. Can any two
+classes of things be more distinct and opposite? The one is fixed, the
+other perpetually varying. Law, cultivated reason and common sense have
+rescued subjects of opinion from judicial interference, except with
+respect to politics and religion, the two which of all others most need
+the exemption. The interference of courts of justice with religious
+opinions had immensely decreased, and it is now reviving; but it is in
+your Lordship's power to annihilate it by passings nominal sentence on
+the defendant. The effects or results of a fact are ascertainable; those
+of an opinion are but speculative and uncertain. There is not in
+existence, there never has existed, and probably never can exist, a
+religious opinion that has not been deemed blasphemous, and of a
+destructive tendency to morals and social peace, by its opponents, who,
+if they had been strong enough, have relied upon the arguments of
+torture and death, or punishments as severe as society would permit.
+
+"My Lord, legism, or jurisprudence, are sufficiently understood to
+render it indisputable that punishments cannot be vindicatory or
+retrospective, and less than either, vindictive. All religious
+prosecutions seek only for revenge. The object of a legal punishment
+relates solely to the prevention of the offence. If a sentence against
+Mr. Hetherington cannot effect this object, it cannot be justified. Will
+a sentence alter his opinions? will it alter conscientiously that of any
+class or single member of society? and, above all, will it stop or check
+the dissemination of his doctrines? The two first points are nugatory;
+the last is defeated in its pretended object. All history and experience
+prove that persecution, let its form or degree be what it may, increases
+that which it is meant to destroy. Whether the tyrant be called Pope or
+Inquisition, Attorney-General or Court of Queen's Bench, the principle
+and the result are the same.
+
+"Every religion, church, and sect, that exists or is defunct, in Europe
+and in Asia, from the earliest record, has had at its origin, and
+through its infancy, to encounter obloquy and persecution. The Jewish
+religion received animation and vigour from the contempt and cruelties
+of surrounding polytheists, and the Jews sought in one God a protection
+from the horrors which had been inflicted on them by the worshippers of
+many; and well did this atrocious people revenue themselves 011 their
+former persecutors, and this by assuming their own claim to the right of
+punishing men for differing in opinions. The progress of Christianity
+was accelerated by the Jews, in their attempts to crush it by inflicting
+an ignominious and most cruel death on an innocent individual, under
+that absurd fiction of blasphemy, in the foul name of which your
+Lordship is now called upon to punish, against your will, another
+innocent individual. If blasphemy has any meaning, its definition must
+be--'a resistance to a predominant priestcraft.' Every religion, at its
+commencement, is but a confluent mass of blasphemies to the
+previously-established religions; and persecution is the reverse of
+annihilation, Where would Protestantism have been but for its
+persecution by the Catholics, and _vice versa_? From the dawn of
+Protestantism in England, under Wycliffe, and the burning of the first
+Protestants by the priests, in the reign of the Hero of Agincourt (what
+a hero!) down to the death of Mary, English Protestants were tortured,
+burnt, hanged, and punished, and yet the religion spread. Throughout
+Germany the same effects proceeded from the same cause. Our English
+persecutions of the Catholics in Ireland have been long, incessant, and
+too dreadfully cruel to reflect upon, and yet Catholicism has increased
+under them. We have not one respectable sect in England that has not
+arisen in despite of persecution, and increased by means of it, and
+these, with hundreds or thousands of other instances (for history
+abounds with them), prove that persecution or punishment does not, and
+cannot, effect the object in view; and that, consequently, punishment
+cannot be justified by its only legitimate principle of
+justification--utility. It is madness to punish for an offence which
+must be increased by the very nature of the punishment. Formerly, in
+punishments for blasphemy, men, women, and children were burnt and put
+to every variety of torture, for the good of their souls--now, we
+substitute for the word soul, the phrase--'_the security of society_,'
+or other jargon equally nonsensical. The Court of Inquisition was, and
+is, wherever it exists, more honourable than the Protestant Court of
+Queen's Bench, for the Inquisitors tortured and destroyed for the sake
+of the soul, but our Courts punish only for the profit of the priest.
+The old plea, the impudent and barbarous plea, of 'Benefit of Clergy,'
+is annulled by law, and yet an indictment for blasphemy is nothing more
+or less than a process for the 'Benefit of Clergy.' Thus, my Lord, have
+I humbly attempted to prove that your punishment of this individual will
+be in strong and violent opposition to the principles, opinion, and
+feelings which you have avowed on the Ministerial Benches of the House
+of Commons; and if the Whig Administration is so infatuatedly base as to
+call the defendant up for punishment your Lordship will be in the
+unenviable position of passing a sentence, as Lord Chief Justice of
+England, against the nature, principles, and objects of which you have
+expressed little less than abhorrence in the character of Her Majesty's
+Attorney-General in the House of Commons. At that period, my Lord, you
+were the freely and most honourably chosen representative of one of the
+largest and most enlightened constituencies of Great Britain--the town
+of Nottingham--and your constituents expressed no dissatisfaction at
+your speech. Is there not a sympathy between Nottingham and other large,
+and populous, aud enlightened towns and cities, and between them all and
+the general population of the empire? I have likewise, my Lord, shown,
+to the best of my very humble abilities, as a legist, that any
+punishment inflicted on this individual, violates the only principle on
+which all punishments can be justified--the prevention of the
+offence--if it be one.
+
+"What, in other respects, will be the effects of this brutal
+prosecution? Burn Mr. Hetherington alive,--slowly roast him, torture him
+by every device, hang him, quarter him, and stick his head on
+Temple-bar, and his quarters on the gates of four of our principal
+cathedral towns, as in all such cases used to be the practice of our
+most pious Christian ancestors in 'the good old times'--or let your
+Lordship pass the most lenient sentence on him, and what will be the
+result? Will any thing be proved, disproved, strengthened, or
+invalidated, by either mode of punishment? If divines or laymen argue
+upon the Scriptures _in toto_ or in parts, _en masse_ or in detail,
+could any of the disputants establish his point by arguing that Mr.
+Hetherington or Mr. Snookes, for the names are indifferent, was or was
+not in gaol, or that the sentence was six days' or six months'
+incarceration--how would the case stand syllogistically? A asserts that
+the Bible ought to be burnt--A is not prosecuted--ergo, the Bible ought
+to be burnt. B asserts that the Bible ought to be burnt--B is
+prosecuted--B is acquitted by the Jury--ergo, the Bible ought to be
+burnt. C asserts that the Bible ought to be burnt--C is prosecuted--C is
+found guilty--ergo, the Bible ought not to be burnt. Again, D, E, F, and
+G, are prosecuted for saying that the Bible ought to be burnt. They are
+all found guilty under different Judges, and their sentences vary from
+three, six, twelve, and eighteen months' imprisonment. Here the public
+mind is in utter confusion between the cases of A, B, and C, and between
+the ratios of punishment inflicted on D, E, F, and G, I have gone to the
+extent of the musical gamut. Ratios might be calculated by
+arithmeticians aud algebraists. Thus--'As burning the Bible is to the
+acquittal of B,--so is not burning the Bible to the sentence on D, E, F,
+or G." Really, my Lord, as a man of the most cultivated intellect, you
+must see the monstrous absurdity, the atrocious cruelty, of subjecting
+opinions on Scriptures to 'Trial by Jury.' If opinions on a book are to
+be brought before a Jury, so might its author. I speak in no disrespect
+of Scriptures, but I speak in utter disgust and abhorrence of bringing
+them before Juries. What, in fact, does a verdict of 'Guilty' or 'Not
+Guilty' amount to, in case of an opinion on the Scriptures? The ignorant
+Jury men unwittingly set themselves above the Scriptures, and tyrannise
+over the Deity himself. The impiety lies all in the Jury, and not in the
+accused. The trial my Lord, proceeds entirely on the conceded point that
+the Scriptures are the word of God; a word is an empty, unintelligible,
+worthless sound, except by the interpretation put upon it; and if the
+Jury will be the interpreters, they are the authors of the word, and
+usurp the powers of the Deity. God may say 'this is my word and
+commandment,' and a Jury replies, 'the substance utility,
+intelligibility of a word depend entirely upon the meaning attached to
+it, and we Jurymen will put and make all other men put what construction
+we please, upon it, under pains and penalties, so that the word is not
+yours, but ours.' A Defendant may argue, 'my construction is a matter
+between my conscience and my God.' The verdict replies, 'God has nothing
+to do with it; your construction is entirely a case between your
+conscience and us Jurymen, stock-brokers, bill-brokers, pawnbrokers,
+gambling-house-keepers, and, peradventure, keepers of houses of a still
+worse description.' My Lord Denman, the manly character of your mind
+will make you fearlessly grapple with this important subject, and will
+induce your Lordship to feel that I have as fearlessly and as honestly
+stated the merits of the case. Pause, my Lord, before you ruin, and
+almost torture a man, for whose defence you have expressed respect from
+the Judgment-seat, and this by a sentence for the nature and principles
+of which you have publicly and officially declared an abhorrence.
+
+"Our laws, Lord Denman, lay down a principle that every man is presumed
+to be acquainted with the business, profession, or study to which he
+belongs, or to which he has devoted himself. The converse--a most
+rational converse, is that he is unacquainted with what he does not
+belong to, or has not studied; or, in plain terms, that he is
+unacquainted with that of which he knows nothing. Sir Isaac Newton would
+have been a most ignorant Juryman upon a case resting upon the details
+of business in the butter trade of Cork; and a Mr. Jones, in that trade,
+would be an equally ignorant Juryman on a case involving the complex
+observations and abstract calculations of Sir Isaac's Observatory.
+Shakspeare, as a Juryman, would have been puzzled to determine a
+disputed point of commerce; and a tradesman would be as equally
+perplexed in deciding a point upon the machinery of Arkwright, or the
+steam-engine of Watts. In the present case, a man named Haslam, (but the
+name is immaterial, for I apply myself to abstractions and not to
+individuals,) has devoted himself to the study of a subject. He is
+evidently a man of strong mind, of great knowledge, and of the most
+honest intentions. On many points I differ with him, but individual or
+public difference is not the case at issue. His very able work is
+submitted, not to the public mind, but to 'Trial by Jury;' and its
+merits or demerits are determined upon by merchants, brokers, tradesmen.
+
+"Our laws, Lord Denman, lay down a principle that every man is presumed
+to be acquainted with the business, profession, or study to which he
+belongs, or to which he has devoted himself. The converse-a most
+rational converse, is that he is unacquainted with what he does not
+belong to, or has not studied; or, in plain terms, that he is
+unacquainted with that of which he knows nothing. Sir Isaac Newton would
+have been a most ignorant Juryman upon a ease resting upon the details
+of business in the butter trade of Cork; and a Mr. Jones, in that trade,
+would be an equally ignorant Juryman on a case involving the complex
+observations and abstract calculations of Sir Isaac's Observatory.
+Shakspeare, as a Juryman, would have been puzzled to determine a
+disputed point of commerce; and a tradesman would be as equally
+perplexed in deciding a point upon the machinery of Arkwright, or the
+steam-engine of Watts. In the present case, a man named Haslam, (but the
+name is immaterial, for I apply myself to abstractions and not to
+individuals,) has devoted himself to the study of a subject. He is
+evidently a man of strong mind, of great knowledge, and of the most
+honest intentions. On many points I differ with him, but individual or
+public difference is not the case at issue. His very able work is
+submitted, not to the public mind, but to 'Trial by Jury;' and its
+merits or demerits are determined upon by merchants, brokers, tradesmen
+and jobbing peculating Jurymen called 'Tales.' as totally ignorant of
+Mr! Haslam's studies and works, as he most probably is of their
+different lines of traffic. Is this a test of the merits of the case? Is
+this any barometer of the truth of the Gospel, of public feeling, or of
+the intelligence of our population?
+
+"My Lord Denman, the Attorney-General, tried, in the usual slang of his
+profession, or rather of his office, to attach moral imperfection and
+social dangers to speculative points of theology-to points of creed. We
+have now on our Bench, including Ireland and Scotland, Catholic Judges,
+Judges belonging to the Church of England, to the creeds of the
+Baptists, Anabaptists, Unitarians, and to the no-creeds of the Deists,
+and yet what barrister, attorney, or client, ever complained of a Judge
+on account of his creed or his construction of the Scriptures? In
+Ireland we have Catholic Judges, in Scotland Presbyterian, and in
+England Judges of the Clutch, and of every dissenting sect, and yet,
+when in 'Term time,' a new Trial is moved for, on account of a
+misdirection of a Judge, who ever heard of the misdirection lying
+attached to the Judge's creed? The Solicitor-General of Ireland is a
+Catholic, the Attorney-General of England is a Presbyterian (if he has
+any religion at all), and the Solicitor-General of England is of the
+Church (the refuge of all sceptics), and what does this amount to with
+respect to the discharge of their duties? Lord Chancellors Shaftesbury
+and Thurlow, and very many others, were avowed Deists, and yet in moving
+the House of Lords to set, their judgment aside, their creeds or
+opinions were never put upon the briefs.
+
+"Let me suppose, my Lord, that our most pious Monarch, George the Third,
+had indicted David Hume, the most perfect, of unofficial characters; or
+Adam Smith, a great benefactor of his species; or Edward Gibbon, the
+most illustrious of historians, for their Atheism or Deism; and let me
+state the fact, that the pious Monarch bestowed upon them all very good,
+and, in one instance, very confidential employments, what difference
+does this make? in either case the men, their public functions, and
+their doctrines, would have been equally at issue with public opinion at
+the present day. The merchant, in reading Adam Smith; the philosopher,
+in studying the superior works of Hume; and the scholar, in tracing
+Gibbon's magnificent outline and correct details of Roman history, never
+condescend to inquire whether the authors were patronised by a pious or
+an impious monarch, or whether they were indicted by a Presbyterian,
+Episcopalian, or Atheistical Attorney-General--the slave of an order
+from the Secretary of State's office. This species of scrutiny expired
+years ago, and why should it be revived?
+
+"My Lord Chief Justice Denman, the eyes of the country, and of foreign
+countries, are upon you. The issue of your sentence is the same, except
+to the individual; for, liberate him, you respond but to the voice of
+all enlightened men throughout Europe; incarcerate him, and by passing
+an inhuman sentence upon an innocent man, you enforce a judgment that
+you have promulgated in Parliament to be abhorrent in principles and
+feelings, and this will produce a powerful redaction.
+
+"PUBLICOLA."
+
+                                  ----
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TRIAL OF HENRY HETHERINGTON
+***
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