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fiftr P . Burpbtt contended * that upon the principles laid down by his Jearnod friend below him , and agreed to by the Right Hon . Secretary opposite * all pro . secutious for religious opinions were inexpedient . It was agreed on all hands that religious opinions ought to be tolerated bo long as they were expressed in temperate language ; but it was now argued , that as soon as those opinions were so expressed as to disgust every
honest nrind , then they ought to be visited with punishment . It appeared to him , that under such circuinstauces they ought not to be noticed , because , if they were so poisonous as ivas represented , they carried along with them their own antidote . ( Hear !) It was his opinion , that if Mr . Carlile had been left to
himself , and had not been prosecuted by the Government , he would at this moment have been totally unheard of ; whereas by prosecuting him , the Government had given him a notoriety which he could not otherwise have acquired , and had got themselves into a scrape from which they ibund some difficulty in getting extricated . He thought that the infliction of great
severity on any man for his opinions , no matter how offensive they might be , was the most certain way not to wean him from , but to con Arm him in , those ob ~ noxious opinions .
Mr . W . Smith and Lord Binning severally made a few observations' —the one in favour , the other in condemnation of the prayer of tlie petition . The petition was then laid upon the table .
Mr * Brougham , in moving that it be printed , said , that he would take that opportunity of stating a fact which he had forgotten to state in presenting the
petition . So far was the punishment inflicted on these petitioners from having put down publications of this obnoxious character , that if foe was righlly informed , they were now sold openly in all parts of the town . ( Hear . ) It had been said , that if the discussion of religious truths were calmly conducted , it ought to be
permitted . A wonderful admission truly ! Why , where would be the use of the discussion of religion , if the argument was to be all on one side ? ( Hear . ) He then pointed out the glaring inconsistency of denying to the poor the right of reading any discussion upon the truths of Chris--tisuiiity 9 and of allowing to the rich the
country iu Europe where individuals were at prescut imprisoned for religious opinions ? He recollected the time when
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privilege of having * in their libraries the works of Gibbon , and all sudi writers . Mr . Hume wished the Right Hon . Secretary opposite would answer him one question—~ Was not this country the only
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this country was 6 iledr with gladness ancl rejoicings because the inquisition was abolished in every country in Europe ; but if our prisons continued to be filled as they we * e at present , with incftvkluala suffering for religious opinions , England would succeed to the vacant post of
inquisitor-geueral for Europe , than which ) ie could conceive nothing more deroga * tory to its interests and honour . ( Hear . ) Mr . Peel declared it was quite ridiculous to talk of the prisons of the country being filled with sufferers for religious opinions , when it was notorious that there were not more than eleven
persons confined for blasphemous publications 5 and of that number only five had been prosecuted since his accession to his present office . ( Hear !) The Attqrnjsy- » Gejjbrai , defended the course which bad been pursued by the Jaw-officers of the Crown with regard to thege petitioners . He contended Ural the
prosecutions which had beee instituted against them had been effectual ia supr pressing blasphemous publications , and argued that it was unfair to blame mi * lusters for keeping them in prison , when they were consigned to it by a aeoteuce of the Court of King ' s Bench , arising out of those prosecutions . They were most
of them imprisoned for selhog Palmer ' s Principles of Nature , and he would say that a more horrible , blasphemous , and scurrilous libel , than that work , had never issued from the press of any country . The juries who had tried these petition * ers were not more shocked by the work itself , than by the manner in which the parties had ventured to defend it .
Mr . Brougham did not blame the law-officers of the Crown for prosecuting these individuals , hut rather for leaving them unprosecuted , till their offences had risen to such a height as to be thought fit ground for altering the old statute law of the country . He did not blame them for prosecuting Mr . Carlile ; but he did
blame them for bringing down six new acts upon the country , without trying the efficacy ^ f those which pre viously were in existence . ( Hear !) Long before those acjUs were passed , Benbow had kindly offer&d the throats of several individuals to the knife . Why had he escaped pro * secutioo ? If any man deserved prosecution it was that individual : but the
Government abstained from ^ indicting him and others , who were equally culpable with hiiii , in oider that they might repeat their offences , and so afford a pretext for innovating upon t } ie constitution . ( Hear !) It had been said that prosecutions were not instituted because juries would not convict . He had always said , tbte , though juries might not be inclined to jcoovicl for libels against the Govern-
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8 ^ 4 Intelligence . —ParliaiAtmtary i Coze af Richard Carlile .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Sept. 2, 1825, page 574, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2540/page/58/
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