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hira wi thout his privity , at the instance of a few iadivisuals , chiefly Dr . Williains ' s trustees ,-who-are . impressed , in common with the Dissenting- public , with" a deep sense of his in valuable services in his important public capacity .
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Carlile ^ s Triads . On this subject we feel a delicacy in speaking before the defendant has received judgment , but our readers would probably be disappointed if we wholly passed it over .
Of the facts of the case the public are already fully apprized . There have been two trials , and in each the defendant has been found Guilty . They were held before Sir C . Abbot , Chief Justice , at Guildhall . The first was on an indictment for
publishing- Paine * s " Age of Reason . " This trial commenced on Tuesday morning-, Oct . 12 r aud lasted till Thursday afternoon , Oct . 14 . The Attorney-General ( Sir Robert GifFord ) conducted the prosecution ; Mr . Carlile defended- himself . The Jury consisted of eight Special Jurymen and four talesmen . Public interest was
excited in a high degree , and the court was uncommonly crowded .- The defendant had brought piles of books with him for his defence . lie read the Age of Reason through , from the beginning * to the end .
He appealed frequently to the 53 rd of the King * , the Statute for the Repeal of the Antitrinitarian laws , as protecting Deists as well as Unitarian Christians . He charged the Attorney-General with being an
Unitarian , and contended that Unitarians were , Jike himself , unbelievers . He is even said to have pronounced them Deists u under a cloak , " and with equal truth and justice to have declared , that the Improved Version " rejects a great part of the New Testament . " His plan was to go into an
examination of the Bible , in order to justify his rejection of it , but in this he was overruled by the Court , on the interposition of the Jury themselves . On the last day , lie cited many Christian authors on the subject of religious liberty , including an
Essay on Blasphemy in The Christian Reformer , from the " Independent Whig , " which he is reported to have ascribed to Mr . Asplaud . He bad subpoenaed the Archbishop of Canterbury , and other digimaries of the Church , and Mr . Belsham , Mr . Fox , and other gentlemen of various persuasions , in order to shew tlie diversity ° * opinions amongst Christians , but was not permitted to bring them forward for such a purpose . Mr . Fry , the stationer , ana Mr . Hunt , of Manchester celebrity , were his friends and assistants in court . * he Attorney . General replied with much warmth . The newspapers attribute to him ^ e opinion , that " a ' contumelious denial
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of the Trinity" is itill an offence at Common ! L « iw I The Jury retired for about Tialf an hour , and then brought in the verdict ' of Guilty . \ On Friday , Oct . 15 , the second indictment against Carlile was tried , also before
a Special Jury ( though there were only three present ) and the Chief Justice . This indictment was preferred by the Society for the Suppression of Vice . Mr . Gurney conducted the prosecution . The charge was , that the defendant had published ic Palmer ' s Principles of IVatnre , " a work containing many profane and blasphemous passages . This work was said , by Carlile , to have been written in North America 20
years ag-o , and three editions of it to have been circulated there . The author was a Scottish clergyman , who had been expelled from Dundee for his opinions . He wrote the book when blind . [ The reader will not . confound this EHhu Palmer with
Thomas Fyshe Palmer , who was banished to New Holland . ] The defendant took nearly the same line ' of defence as on the former trial , and was stopped by the Court and the Jury . He therefore soon abandoned himself to the verdict which the Jury , without quitting the box , brought in against him .
He was now committed , and has . since remained in the King ' s Bench for want of bail , though he has advertised in the newspapers for it , unbelievers seeming to have no sympathy with the champion and confessor of their system . In a periodical
publication which he conducts , he calls for the names , with or without subscriptions , of all persons that wish to put their unbelief on record , and has already commenced the list with two names , one of them a female .
As far as we can judge from the newspapers , the Chief Justice conducted himself with great temper and legal propriety . His charges to the Jury appear to have been dispassionate . In the second , he expounded the 53 rd of the King , and shewed that , whilst it protected ^ Unitarian Christians , it left the deniers and revilers of the
Scriptures in the same state that they were in before , that is , amenable to both Statute and Common Law for their offence . These trials have , we humbly think , shewn the impolicy of state prosecutions for alleged blasphemy ; for , by means of them , a hundred-fold circulation has beea given to Deistical opinions above what they could have had if left to themselves . On
the abstract argument of the moral and Christian right of such prosecutions , our opinion need not be repeated ; but lest we should be charged ( as we are informed we have been by hasty judges ) with approving 4 he punishment of opinions , we take the opportunity to declare our steady conviction that pains and penalties ftug-ht awt
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Intelligence . —Carlite ' s Trials . C 45
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you : xiv . 4 q
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Oct. 2, 1819, page 645, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1777/page/57/
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