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THE LAND, THE PEOPLE,
AND
THE COMING STRUGGLE.
BY
CHARLES
BRADLAUGH.
LONDON:
Austin & Co., 17, Johnson’s Coubt, Fleet Street, E.C.
PBICE TWOPENCE,
��PART I.—THE LAND.
It will be on the Land Question that that large section of
the English aristocracy which regards the preservation of
territorial rights and privileges as essential to good govern
ment, will shortly have to encounter a stronger force, and to
cope with a wider movement than has been manifested in
England during the last 200 years. It is in connection
with the Land Question that thoughtful working men are
commencing to look for a speedy solution of some of the
most difficult problems as to the more striking evils of
modern society. At the present moment it is credibly
stated—•
1. That the bulk of the land in Great Britain and Ireland
is in the hands of extremely few holders, and that the
number of landed proprietors decreases daily. The West
minster Review for October, in a thoroughly honest article
on this question, declares that 180 years ago there were no
less than 180,000 families owning freehold estates; and that
now less than 160 persons own half England and threefourths of Scotland.
2. That these landholders treat their freehold rights as
of. infinitely more importance than the happiness of the
peasantry of the neighbourhood. Ancient footpaths are
closed, common rights denied, game preserving and rabbit
breeding carried on to the point of crop annihilation,
county members nominated and returned as if the title to
the freehold carried with it monoply of political right; and
a most contemptuous indifference is shown as to the con
dition of the tiller of the toil, or, what is even worse, a
mockery of charity to remedy in small part the evil which
the very charitable gentry have themselves created.
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The Land and the People.
3. That for the last 156 years this landed aristocracy has
been the real governing class, superseding the Crown and
controlling the people — certainly ever since, to use the
words of Earl Grey, they adopted the “ highly beneficial
custom” of excluding the Sovereign from the meetings of
the Cabinet, in consequence of George I.’s ignorance of the
English language.
4. That during this time—viz., from 1714—the standing
army has been built up, the National Debt—now amounting
to more than ^800,000,000 in England, and to nearly
^120,000,000 in India—has been almost entirely created,
the pension list swollen to exorbitant dimensions; while
imperial taxation and the rent rolls of the few privileged
ones have enormously increased—most of the burdens of
imperial and local taxation having been shifted from the
shoulders of the landholder on to those of the labourer.
For since, with the accession of the Brunswick family to the
English throne, the monarch, excluded even from the political
councils of the nation—at first because he could not speak
the language of his subjects, as in the case of George I.;
then because of his indifference, as in that of George II.;
and then because of his oft-recurring insanity, as in that of
George III.- has been practically reduced to a mere costly
show puppet; it is impossible for the student of our history
not to remark how the landed aristocracy have utilised their
possession of political power for the transference from their
own shoulders of the bulk of the local and imperial taxation.
5- That pauperism has become more permanent and more
widespread—and that consequently certain classes of crime
and misery have more prevailed—as the land monopoly has
become more complete.
6. That the agricultural labourers of many English
2°™ties’ and n°tably of Dorset, Wilts, Gloucester, Norfolk,
Suffolk, have from bad and insufficient food and shelter
degenerated, so that their state is a disgrace to any civilised
country in the world. _ The Westminster Review urges, on
the evidence of Mr. Simon, Medical Inspector, that rather
more than one-half our southern agricultural population are
so badly fed, that a class of starvation diseases, and a
general deterioration of mind must result. That in Berk
shire, Oxfordshire, and Somersetshire, insufficiency of nitro
genous food is the average.
7. That landowners in the large majority of instances, and
�The. Land and the People.
5
this whether the proprietor be Whig or Tory, regard their
tenants as bound to follow the politics of their freeholder,
and as fairly liable to ejectment when malcontent
Mr. Latham, a magistrate of Cheshire, before the House
of Commons Committee, said that “ it was the evil of
property that a man considers that he owns not only the
property itself, but that he owns the souls of the tenants
also.”
The Duke of Buccleuch, not content with the influence
which his vast holdings in Scotland give him, has actually
taken to the practice of manufacturing false and fraudulent
voters, by granting to certain of his dependents pretended
feu rents or freehold rent charges, so as to qualify them for
county voters, and this to such a glaring extent as to excite
popular indignation. This fabrication, however immoral, is
held to be legal, although, since the grant of the rent charges,
his Grace has actually sold to a railway company a con
siderable portion of the property charged. This Duke, of
Buccleuch, in his Wanlockhead mining works, in Dumfries
shire, employs a number of wretched lead miners, who
sometimes do not see five pounds in actual money from
year’s end to year’s end, being constantly in debt to the
overseer’s shop. They are badly paid and tyrannically dealt
with.
In Wales, because at the last general election the advan
tage was “won by the Liberals, through the votes of the
freeholders and leaseholders of cottages, the landlords,”
says the Westminster Review, “ enraged at their defeat, pro
ceeded to wreak their vengeance upon those of their tenants
who had presumed to vote in accordance with their convic
tions.” Mr. Harris, a gentleman of independent means in
Cardiganshire, “ believed that as many as 200 notices to
quit had been served in Cardiganshire alone, at Lady Day
after the election. He was himself aware of from thirty to
thirty-five served upon tenant farmers, in some cases where
the families had been 200 years upon the estates ; in others
where considerable sums had been laid out by the farmers
in improving their farms, which, as the law now stands in
England, they have no means of recovering.”
In Ireland you have a landlord—perhaps like the late
Most Noble the Marquis of Hertford—constantly residing
out of the country, having no sympathy or connection with
his property, except that of sucking it as dry of vitality as
�---- UrtHil'
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The Land and the People.
the law permits him. At election times, “ his lieutenant,
the agent, armed with notices to quit, and backed by the
police, is sufficiently formidable. Threats of eviction (and
more than half a million evictions have taken place in Ire
land during the last thirty years), distresses, and demands
for immediate payment of rent, large arrears of which are
usually due,” assail the voter. “ It has long been the prac
tice in Ireland for the landlords to collect together their
tenants who are voters, to place them upon cars, and send
them in a body under the agent to record their votes at the
polling-booth. These parties of voters are frequently es
corted by detachments of police and military, on the alleged
ground that there is fear of their being prevented by violence
from going to the polling place. It is observable that these
escorts are always asked for by the landlords or their agents,
never by the voters themselves.” General MacMurdo, who
commanded a brigade in Ireland at the last election, ad
mitted, before the House of Commons Committee, in answer
to. Mr. Gathorne Hardy, that these voters are practically
prisoners, one. of whom would not be allowed to go away,
even if he desired, until he had been escorted to the pollingbooth.
Consider the first and second points as to the property in
the possession of the great landowners in England, Scot
land, Ireland, and Wales. Under the feudal system in
England, bad as it was, there were no seignorial rights
without a declaration of corresponding duties—the vassals
gave their services, and in return the lord apportioned them
land, and gave them some sort of protection ; but now the
lord claims the land as his own freehold, without any admis
sion of obligation accompanying the o\\ nership, and regarding
himself as unduly taxed if any fiscal imposition touch his
pocket. In many cases, in order to relieve themselves from
the burdens of supporting the poor, the great proprietors
have ordered the wretched cottages of the labourers work
ing on their lands to be destroyed. The tillers of the soil
cleared out from a noble landowner’s domains get shelter
how they can, in hovels in bad condition and dearly priced,
w ere they are huddled together, as the following picture,
taken from the Parliamentary Blue Book, shows :—“ Mo
desty must be. an unknown virtue, decency an unimaginable
thing where, intone small chamber, with the beds lying as.
hickly as they can be packed, father, mother, young men,
�The Land and the People.
7
lads, grown and growing up girls—two and sometimes three
generations—are herded promiscuously, where every opera
tion of the toilette and of nature—dressing, undressing,
births and deaths-—is performed by each within the sight or
hearing of all; where children of both sexes, to as high an
age as twelve or fourteen, or even more, occupy the same
bed ; where the whole atmosphere is sensual, and human
nature is degraded into something below the level of the
swine. It is a hideous picture, and the picture is drawn
from life.”
In Scotland, even under the old semi-barbarous, but patriar
chal, system of clanship, we believe we are correct in stating
that the land was treated as the property of the entire clan
—so much so, at any rate, that the chief of the clan had no
power, under penalty of death, to alienate any portion of
the land without formal authority of the clan given in solemn
assembly, and the meanest member had privileges in connec
tion with the cultivation of the soil.
In Ireland the old Brehon laws as to the land are more
clear and distinct than on most other topics. Each member
of the local society or tribe had a life interest in the land of
the society, and when he lost it by death, or by quitting the
tribe, a new partition of lands was made, so as to prevent
too large a portion falling into the hands of any one holder.
And yet, after generations of progress, we find that the land
is now practically in the hands of a few large families, who
consider that they are entitled to hold the soil without any
sort of consequent liability to provide for the lives or to en
sure the happiness of the inhabitants.
The land is constantly increasing in value, or at any rate,
a higher rental is exacted by the freeholder, and yet there is
no corresponding contribution from the landowner towards
the imperial burdens j on the contrary, the landowner shifts
the fiscal burdens on to the labourer.
In illustration of this, the territorial incomes for England
and Wales alone amounted, in 1800, to ^22,500,000 ; in
1810 they had increased seven millions ; in 1850 they had
swollen to ^41,118,329 ; in 1861 they had grown to
^54,678,412 ; to-day they exceed ^65,000,000; while the
land-tax, which in 1800 was about ^2,000,000 per annum,
is now reduced by redemption to about one-half that
amount.
Since the date of the usurpation of power by the terri-
�8
The Land and the People.
tonal aristocracy—viz., since the accession to the throne of
the House of Brunswick—land has, according to the West
minster Review, increased in value in Great Britain to a
startling extent. Our taxation is constantly and fearfully on
the increase; in 1849 it was under 57 millions; in 1869 it
was nearly 74 millions—an increase of 17 millions in twenty
years.
Out of this taxation in this country, less than oneseventieth portion of the burden falls on land. In France
land bears one-sixth of all imperial burdens ; in India nearly
one half. To make the contrast more striking, we may point
out that twenty-five years before the accession of the House
of Brunswick land paid nearly two-thirds of all the imperial
taxes, the rents received by the aristocracy being then only
the seventh part of what they are to-day. And these rents,
which have grown sevenfold in two hundreds years, for what
are they paid ? For the natural fecundity of the soil which
the owner seldom or never aids. It is for the use of air,
moisture, heat, for the varied natural forces, that the culti
vator pays, and the receiver talks of the rights of property.
We shall have for the future to talk in this country of the
rights of life—rights which must be recognised even if the
recognition involves the utter abolition of the present landed
aristocracy. The great rent-takers have been the opponents
of progress, they have hindered reform, they kept the taxes
on knowledge, they passed combination laws, they enacted
long parliaments, they made the machinery of parliamentary
election costly and complicated so as to bar out the people.
They have prevented education, and then sneered at the
masses for their ignorance. All progress in the producing
power of labour has added to the value of land, and yet
the landowner, who has stood worse than idly by while the
land has increased in value, now talks of the labourer as of
the lower stratum to be checked and restrained. As Louis
Blanc says, “ The general wealth and population are suscep
tible of an almost indefinite increase, and, in fact, never do
cease increasing; commerce demands for its operations a
territorial basis wider and wider; towns are enlarged, and
new one built; the construction of a railway suddenly gives
to this suburb, to that district, an artificial value of some
importance. All this combines in a manner to raise the value
of land.”
These land monopolists too are ever grasping; they
�The Land and the People.
9
swallow common lands and enclose wastes, relying on their
long purses, the cost of legal proceedings, and the apathy
of a peasantry ignorant of their rights and unable to per-,
form their duties.
The Westminster Review says that no less than 7,000,000
acres of commons have gone to increase the already large
estates of adjoining proprietors during the last 200 years—
all, be it remembered, since the landed aristocracy have,
under the dissipated Guelph family, wielded full parliamen
tary power, all taken during the time that the imperial
national debt has risen from about ^52,000,000 to
j£8oi,ooo,ooo in England, and ^120,000,000 in India.
Side by side with this increased taxation, and upon these
huge estates, we find an unimproved—if not an absolutely
deteriorated—farm population. The parliamentary bluebooks describe the population round Mayhill as seeming
“ to lie entirely out of the pale of civilisation; type after
type of social life degraded almost to the level of barbarism.”
In Yorkshire we are told of the “ immorality and degrada
tion arising from the crowded and neglected state of the
dwellings of the poor.”
In Northamptonshire some of the cottages 11 are disgrace
ful, necessarily unhealthy, and a disgrace to civilisation.”
In a Bedfordshire parish “ one-third of the entire popu
lation were receiving pauper relief, and it seemed altogether
to puzzle the relieving officer to account for the manner in
which one-half the remainder lived.” In Bucks the labourer
has to “ pay exorbitant rent for a house in which the
ordinary decencies of life become a dead letter.” So we
may go through all the eastern, southern, south-western,
and most of the midland rural districts, until the repetition
grows as nauseous as it is hideous.
The wages of this wretched agricultural class vary from
7s. to 15s. per week, wage of 10s. to 12s. per week being
the most common, out of which a man has to pay rent, and
feed, clothe, and educate himself and his family. Children
are sent into the fields to work sometimes before they are
seven years old, often before eight years, and nearly always
about that age. And with education thus rendered prac
tically impossible, we find the organs of “ blood and cul
ture ” taunting the masses with their ignorance. We allege
that the mischief is caused by those who exact so much for
rent, and waste so much good land for pleasure, that no fair
�10
The Land and the People.
opportunity for happy life is left to the tiller of the soil.
While the condition of the agricultural population is as thus
■ stated, it cannot be pretended that sufficient compensation
is found in the general prosperity of the artisan classes.
Probably there are at this moment in England and Wales
more than half-a-million able-bodied paupers, that is, men
able to work who cannot get work in a country where mil
lions of acres of land fit for cultivation lie unfilled.
In Plymouth, a few weeks since, one out of every fifteen
persons was in receipt of pauper relief, and we fear that
throughout England and Wales it would be found that, at
the very least, one in every twenty is in the same position,
while in addition many thousands struggle on in a sort of
semi-starvation misery. At Cardiff the most fearful revela
tions have been made before the Parliamentary Commis
sioners, as to the state resulting from the folly or crimi
nality of some of the large capitalists. In this part of Wales,
by paying wages at long intervals, men, who were some
times justices of the peace and large landowners, in 1870
compelled their labourers to ask advances as a favour when
they were really entitled to payment as of right. Then by
a dexterous evasion of the Truck Act the men were forced
to a “ tommy shop,” where the advance was made in goods
instead of cash. Men swore before the Commissioners that
it was with the greatest difficulty they could get a few shil
lings of ready money, and that to obtain it, they were often
compelled to re-sell the goods forced on them at a loss. The
shop being sure of its customers, the women have been
kept waiting for nine hours for their turn, and assemble two,
and sometimes four, hours before the opening of the shop,
this even in the winter weather, and have, in two or three
cases, been known to wait outside all night, and this through
rain and storm, to secure a good place when business should
commence, so that they might get the food they were unable
to obtain elsewhere, and without which the breakfast meal
coold not be got. We wonder what kind of homes they can
possess which can be left for nine hours, and what is done
with the young children ! The cruelty inflicted upon the
women themselves by such a necessity is scarcely credible.
One woman had not “ seen money for twelve years,” being
constantly in debt to the shop. The same woman on oath
said : “ I went once when my son-in-law was ill, and I
wanted only two or three shillings, and I begged and cried
�The Land and the People.
11
or it, but do you think I could get it ? No 1” Nay, it was
proved that when a collection was made for a funeral, as the
bulk of the workers were without money, the cashier entered
the amount subscribed by each man in a book. Five per
cent, was charged for cashing the list, then any amount due
from the deceased’s family to the shop was taken out, and
even then part of the balance had to be taken in goods.
Deductions were made week by week for the doctor, who
was paid by bill at the end of the twelve months, and the
men had no means of knowing how much.
Nor is the state of things just described confined to
Wales. In Scotland a companion picture may be traced.
In the lead mines belonging to his grace the Duke of
Buccleuch, near Elvanfoot, in Lanarkshire, the miners have
been treated more like serfs than free labourers. Young
men of from eighteen to twenty are stated to be now work
ing for rod. per day, and while the nominal wages are 14s.
to 16s. per week, or ^36 8s. to ^41 12s. per annum, for
the ordinary working men, the Duke’s manager has—by a
fraudulently clever system of infrequent payments, occa
sional advances, a “ tommy shop,” and a complicated system
of accounts—so entangled the men that their pay for the
year is said to range from ^25 to ^35. The Duke of Buc
cleuch is more careful of his game and his salmon than he
is of his lead miners. About twelve months ago, not far
from Hawick, a poor woman, with a child at the breast,
was sent to gaol for being in possession of a salmon for
which she could not account. The child died whilst its
mother was in gaol, but the Duke of Buccleuch’s interest in
the salmon fisheries was maintained.
In the Liverpool Mercury it is alleged that the wickedlyfraudulent truck system—here, too, cunningly disguised to
evade the Truck Act—also prevails in the Wednesbury dis
trict. And yet the noble lords and high-minded gentlemen
who thus grind down the poor, and who, by cheating their
labourers, demoralise honest labourers into cheats—will pre
side at pious gatherings, and talk about saving the souls of
those whose lives they are damning. Or these bom legis
lators will denounce trades’ union outrages—these highminded men who draw scores of thousands out of the
muscle and heart of their wretched workpeople, and then
endow a church, and listen to a laudatory sermon preached
by the local Bishop.
�12
The. Land and the People.
We affirm the doctrine laid down by Mr Mill and other
political economists, “ that property in land is only valid, in
so far as the proprietor of the land is its improver,” and
that “ when private property in land is not expedient, it is
unjustwe contend that the possession of land involves
and carries with it the duty of cultivating that land, and, in
fact, individual proprietorship of soil is only defensible so
long as the possessor can show improvement and cultivation
of the land he holds. And yet there are, as Captain Maxse
shows in his recent admirable essay in the Fortnightly
Review, in Great Britain and Ireland, no less than about
29,000,000 acres of land in an uncultivated state, of which
considerably over 11,000,000 acres could be profitably cul
tivated.
There are many thousands of labourers who might culti
vate this land, labourers who are in a semi-starving condition,
labourers who help to fill gaols and workhouses. To meet
this let the legislature declare that leaving cultivable land in
an uncultivated state is a misdemeanour, conviction for
which gives the Government the right to take possession of
such land, assessing it by its actual return for the last five
years, and not by its real value, and handing to the pro
prietor the amount of, say, twenty years’ purchase in Con
solidated 31 per cent. Stock, redeemable in a limited term
of years. The land so taken should not be sold at all, but
should be let out to persons willing to become cultivators,
on sufficiently long terms of tenancy to fairly recoup for
their labour and capital the cultivators, who should yearly pay
into the National Treasury, in lieu of all other imperial
taxes, a certain proportion of the value of the annual pro
duce. This tenancy to be immediately determinable in the
event of the improvement being insufficient, and extensible
on evidence of bona fide improvement of more than average
character.
All land capable of producing food, and misused for
preserving game, should be treated as uncultivated land.
The diversion of land in an old country from the purpose
it should fulfil—that of providing life for the many—to
the mere providing pleasure for a few, is a crime. The
extent to which the preservation of game has been carried
in some parts of England and Scotland shows a reckless
disregard of human happiness on the part of the landed
aristocracy, which bids fair to provoke a fearful retribution.
�The Land and the People.
13
It is calculated that for the deer forests of Scotland alone
nearly two million acres of land—some of it the choicest
pasture, much of it valuable land—is entirely lost to the
country. Two red deer mean the displacement of a family,
and it is therefore scarcely wonderful that we should learn
that much of the Duke of Sutherland’s vast estate is a mere
wilderness.
Country members who shun the House of Commons
while estimates are voted, and go to dinner when emigration
and pauperism are topics for discussion, crowd the benches
of St. Stephen’s when there is some new Act to be intro
duced for the better conviction of poachers without evidence,
or for the protection of fat rabbits, which eat and spoil
crops, against lean farm labourers, who, having not enough
to eat, pine alike in physique and intellect
The Game Laws are a disgrace to our civilisation, and
could not stand twelve months were it not for the over
whelming influence of the landed aristocracy in the Legis
lature. The practice of game preserving is injurious in that,
in addition to the land wasted for the preserve, it frequently
prevents proper cultivation of surrounding lands, and de
moralises and makes criminals of the agricultural labourers,
creating for them a kind and degree of crime which would
be otherwise unknown.
Poaching, so severely punished, is often actually fostered
and encouraged by the agents of the very landholders who
git as Justices of the Peace to punish it. Pheasants’ and
partridges’ eggs are bought to stock preserves; the game
keepers who buy these eggs, shut their eyes to the mode in
which they have been procured, although in most instances
it is thoroughly certain how they have been obtained. The
lad who was encouraged to procure the eggs, easily finds that
shooting or catching pheasants gains a much higher pecuniary
reward than leading the plough horse, trimming the hedge,
or grubbing the plantation. Poaching is the natural con
sequence of rearing a large number of rabbits, hares,
partridges, and pheasants, in the midst of an under-paid,
under-fed, badly-housed, and deplorably ignorant mass of
agricultural labourers. The brutal outrages on gamekeepers,
of which we read so much, are the regrettable, but verynatural, measures of retaliation for a system which takes a
baby child to work in the fields, sometimes soon after six
years of age, commonly before he is eight years old, which
�14
The Land and the People.
trains all his worst propensities, and deadens or degrades
his better faculties, which keeps him in constant wretched
ness, and tantalises him with the sight of hundreds of acres
on which game runs and flies well-fed, under his very nose,
while he limps ill-fed along the muddy lane which skirts the
preserve—game, which is at liberty to come out of its covert
and eat and destroy the farmer’s crop, but which is even
then made sacred by the law, and fenced round by carefullydrawn covenants.
An agricultural labourer (with a wife and family) whose
weekly pittance gives him bare vitality in summer, and
leaves him often cold and hungry in winter, in the midst of
lands where game is preserved, needs little inducement to
become a poacher. Detected, he resists violently, for his
ocal judges are the game owners, and he well knows that
before them he will get no mercy. Indicted, he goes to the
county gaol, and his wife and children go to the union work
house. Imprisonment makes the man worse, not better,
and he is confirmed into the criminal class for the rest of
his life, while his family, made into paupers, help to add
still more to the general burdens of the country.
In the agricultural districts, offences in connection with
the Game Laws are more numerous than those of any other
class. Men suspected of inclination for poaching are easily
sent to gaol, for cutting a twig or for nominal trespass, by
magistrates who, owning land on which game is reared,
regard it as most wicked sacrilege that hungry labourers
should even look too longingly across the hedge.
In this land question the abolition of the Game Laws
must be made a prominent feature.
The enormous estates of the few landed proprietors must
not only be prevented from growing larger, they must be
broken up. At their own instance and gradually, if they
will meet us with even a semblance of fairness, for the poor
and hungry cannot well afford to fight; but at our instance,
and rapidly, if they obstinately refuse all legislation. If they
will not commence inside the Houses of Parliament, then
from the outside we must make them listen. If they claim
that in this we are unfair, our answer is ready.
/ou have monopolised the land, and wrhile you have got
each>year a wider and firmer grip, you have cast its burdens
on others; you have made labour pay the taxes which land
could more easily have borne. You now claim that the
�The Land and the People.
15
rights of property in land should be respected, while you
have too frequently by your settlements and entails kept
your lands out of the possibility of fulfilling any of the obli
gations of property, and you have robbed your tradespeople
and creditors, because your land was protected by cunningly
contrived statutes and parchments against all duty, while it
enjoyed all privilege. You have been intolerant in your
power, driving your tenants to the poll like cattle, keeping
your labourers ignorant and demoralised, and yet charging
them with this very ignorance and degradation as an in
capacity for the enjoyment of political right. For the last
quarter of a century, by a short-sighted policy, and in order to
diminish your poor-rates, you have demolished the cottages on
your estates, compelling the wretched agricultural labourers,
whose toil gave value to your land, to crowd into huts even
more foul and dilapidated than those you destroyed. We
no longer pray, we argue—we no longer entreat, we insist—
that spade and plough, and sickle and scythe, shall have
fair right to win life and happiness for our starving from the
land which gave us birth. To you, Dukes of Athol, Devon
shire, Sutherland, Buccleuch, Norfolk, Northumberland; to
you, the Most Noble the Marquis of Westminster, of Breadalbane, of Bute—to you and your few confreres we speak now
in solemn warning. Is it not monstrous that one of you
should own land more than ioo miles long, another more
than 90,000 acres in one county only, another a rent-roll of
more than ^1,000,000 a-year, while pauperism grows with
fearfulrapidityunder the shadowof yourtown-houses, and semi
barbarism flourishes amongst the poor on your vast estates ?
It is on the land question, my lords, that the people
challenge you, at present in sorrow and shame. Take up
the matter while you may, and do justice while yet you can.
The world is wide for you to seek pleasure in, the poor can
only seek life—where death finds them—at home. Give up
your battues, your red deer, your black game, your pheasants,
your partridges; and when you see each acre of land
won by the fierce suasion of hardy toil to give life and hope
to the tiller, in this you will find your recompense. Ye
twelve who lock up in your iron safes the title-deeds of
nearly all Scotland’s broad acreage, I plead to you ; forget
pride and power, and be generous while you may, for the day
is near when your pride may be humbled, and your power
broken.
�16
The Land and the People.
For you, lords of Erin’s fertile soil—you who have wrought
her shame and made her sin—you who have driven her
children across the broad ocean to seek for life-—even for
you there is the moment to save yourselves, and do good to
your kind. Thoughtful "workmen will try to win your land
by law, hungry paupers may wrest it from you in despair;
you may yield it now on fair terms, and grow even richer in
the yielding. Which it will be, who can say ? All I know is,
that England is growing hungry, that empty bellies act faster
than heads reason, and that the Land Question cannot stand
still.
THE END.
London: Printed and Published by Austin & Co., 17, Johnson’s
Court, Fleet Streep E.C.
�
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The land, the people, and the coming struggle
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Bradlaugh, Charles
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Austin & Co.
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[1877?]
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Land reform
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Land Reform-Great Britain
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A PLEA EOR ATHEISM,
Bf C. BEADLAUGH.
Gillespie says that “ an Atheist propagandist seems a nos^
descript monster created by nature in a moment of mad
ness.” Despite this opinion, it is as the propagandist of
Atheism that I pen the following lines., in the hope that I
may succeed in removing some few of the many prejudices
which have been created against not only the actual holders
of Atheistic opinions, but also against those wrongfully sus
pected of entertaining such ideas. Men who have been
famous for depth of thought, for excellent wit, or great
genius, have been recklessly assailed as Atheists, by those
who lacked the high qualifications against which the spleen
of the calumniators was directed. Thus, not only has
Voltaire been without ground accused of Atheism, but
Bacon, Locke, and Bishop Berkeley himself, have, amongst
others, been denounced by thoughtless or unscrupulous
pietists as inclining to Atheism, the ground for the accusa
tion being that they manifested an inclination to improve
human thought.
It is too often the fashion with persons of pious reputation
to speak in unmeasured language of Atheism as favouring
immorality, and of Atheists as men whose conduct is neces
sarily vicious, and who have adopted atheistic views as a
desperate defiance against a Deity justly offended by the
badness of their lives. Such persons urge that amongst
the proximate causes of Atheism are vicious training, im
moral and profligate companions, licentious living, and the
like. Dr. John Pye Smith, in his “ Instructions on Chris
man Theology,” goes so far as to declare that “ nearly all
the Atheists upon record have been men of extremely
debauched and vile conduct.” Such language from the
Christian advocate is not surprising, but there are others
arho, professing great desire for the spread of Freethought,
�2
A PLEA FOE ATHEISM,
and with pretensions to rank amongst acute and liberal
thinkers, declare Atheism impracticable, #nd its teachings
cold, barren, and negative. In this brief essay I shall
except to each of the above allegations, and shall en
deavour to demonstrate that Atheism affords greater possi
bility for human happiness than any system yet based on
Theism, or possible to be founded thereon, and that the
lives of true Atheists must be more virtuous, because more
human, than those of the believers in Deity, the humanity
of the devout believer often finding itself neutralised by
a faith with which it is necessarily in constant collision.
The devotee piling the faggots at the auto da fe of an
heretic, and that heretic his son, might, notwithstanding, be
a good father in every respect but this. Heresy, in the
eyes of the believer, is highest criminality, and outweighs
all claims of family or affection.
Atheism, properly understood, is in nowise a cold,
barren negative; it is, on the contrary, a hearty, fruitful
affirmation of all truth, and involves the positive assertion
and action of highest humanity.
Let Atheism be fairly examined, and neither condemned
—its defence unheard—on the ex parte slanders of the pro
fessional preachers of fashionable orthodoxy, whose courage
is bold enough while the pulpit protects the sermon, but
whose, valour becomes tempered with discretion when a free
platform is afforded and discussion claimed; nor misjudged
because it has been the custom to regard Atheism as so
unpopular as to render its advocacy impolitic. The best
policy against all prejudice is to assert firmly the verity.
The Atheist does not say “ There is no God,” but he says,
“ I know not what you mean by God ; I am without idea
of God; the word ‘ God ’ is to me a sound conveying no
clear or distinct affirmation. I do not deny God, because
I cannot deny that of which I have no conception, and' the
conception of which, by its affirmer, is so imperfect that
he is unable to define it to me.” If you speak to the
Atheist of God as creator, he answers that the conception
of creation is impossible. We are utterly unable to construe
it in thought as possible that the complement of existent has
been either increased or diminished, much less can we con
ceive an absolute origination of substance. We cannot con
ceive either, on the o^e hand, nothing becoming something,
�A PLEA FOR ATHEISM.
or on the other, something becoming nothing.
3
The Theis t
who speaks of God creating the universe, must either sup
pose that Deity evolved it out of himself, or that he pro
duced it from nothing. But the Theist cannot regard the
universe as evolution of Deity, because this would identify
Universe and Deity, and be Pantheism rather than Theism.
There would be no distinction of substance—in fact no crea
tion. Nor can the Theist regard the universe as created
out of nothing, because Deity is, according to him, necessa
rily eternal and infinite. His existence being eternal and
infinite, precludes the possibility of the conception of
vacuum to be filled by the universe if. created. No one can
even think of any point of existence in extent or duration
and say, here is the point of separation between the creator
and the created. Indeed, it is not possible for the Theist to
imagine a beginning to the universe. It is not possible to
conceive either an absolute commencement, or an absolute
termination of existence; that is, it is impossible to con
ceive beginning before which you have a period when the
universe has yet to be ; or to conceive an end, after which
the universe, having been, no lunger exists. It is impos
sible in thought to originate or annihilate the universe.
The Atheist affirms that he cognises to-day effects, that
these are at the same time causes and effects—causes to the
effects they precede, effects to the causes they follow.
Cause is simply everything without which the effect would
not result, and with which it must result. Cause is the
means to an end, consummating itself in that end. The
Theist who argues for creation must assert a point of time,
that is, of duration, when the created did not yet exist. At
this point of time either something existed or nothing;
but something must have existed, for out of nothing no
thing can come. Something must have existed, because the
point fixed upon is that of the duration of , something.
This something must have been either finite or infinite;
if finite, it could not have been God, and if the something
were infinite, then creation was impossible, as it is impos
sible to add to infinite existence.
If you leave the question of creation and deal with the
government of the universe, the difficulties of Theism are
by no means lessened. The existence of evil is then a
terrible stumbling-block to the Theist.
Pain, misery,
�4
A
PLEA FOB. ATHETSM.
crime, poverty, confront the advocate of eternal goodness,
and challenge with unanswerable potency his declaration of
Deity as all-good, all-wise, and all-powerful. Evil is either
caused by God, or exists independently; but it cannot be
caused by God, as in that case he would not be all-good;
nor can it exist independently, as in that case he would not
be all-powerful. Evil must either have had a beginning,
or it must be eternal; but, according to the Theist, it can
not be eternal, because God alone is eternal. Nor can it
have had a beginning, for if it had it must either have ori
ginated in God, or outside God; but, according to the
Theist, it cannot have originated in God, for he is all-good,
and out of all-goodness evil cannot originate; nor can evil
have originated outside God, for, according to the Theist,
God is infinite, and it is impossible to go outside of or
beyond infinity.
To the Atheist this question of evil assumes an entirely
different aspect. He declares that evil is a result, but not
a result from God or Devil. He affirms that by conduct
founded on knowledge of the laws of existence it is possible
to ameliorate and avoid present evil, and, as our knowledge
increases, to prevent its future recurrence.
Some declare that the belief in God is necessary as a check
to crime. They allege that the Atheist may commit murder,
lie, or steal without fear of any consequences. To try the
actual value of this argument, it is not unfair to ask—Do
Theists ever steal? If yes, then in each such theft, the
belief in God and his power to punish has been inefficient
as a preventive of the crime. Do Theists ever lie or mur
der ? If yes, the same remark has further force—hell-fire fail
ing against the lesser as against the greater crime. The
fact is that those who use such an argument overlook a great
truth—i.e., that all men seek happiness, though in very
diverse fashions. Ignorant and miseducated men often mis
take the true path to happiness, and commit crime in the
endeavour to obtain it. Atheists hold that by teaching
mankind the real road to human happiness, it is possible to
keep them from the by-ways of criminality and error.
Atheists would teach men to be moral now, not because God
•ffers as an inducement reward by and by, but because in
the virtuous act itself immediate good is ensured to the doer
and the circle surrounding him. Atheism would preserve
�A
PLEA FOR ATHEISM.
O
man from lying, stealing, murdering now, not from fear of
an eternal agony after death, but because these crimes make
this life itself a course of misery.
While Theism, asserting God as the creator and governor
of the universe, hinders and checks man’s efforts by de
claring God’s will to be the sole directing and controlling
.< power, Atheism, by declaring all events to be in accordance
, with natural laws—that is, happening in certain ascertain'■ able sequences — stimulates man to discover the best condi
tions of life, and offers him the most powerful inducements
to morality. While the Theist provides future happi
ness for a scoundrel repentant on his death-bed, Atheism
affirms present and certain happiness for the man who does
his best to live here so well as to have little cause for re
penting hereafter.
Theism declares that God dispenses health and inflicts
disease, and sickness and illness are regarded by the Theist
as visitations from an angered Deity, to be borne with meek
ness and content. Atheism declares that physiological
knowledge may preserve us from disease by preventing our
infringing the law of health, and that sickness results not
as the ordinance of offended Deity, but from ill-ventilated
dwellings and workshops, bad and insufficient food, exces
sive toil, mental suffering, exposure to inclement weather,
and the like—all these finding root in poverty, the chief
source of crime and disease ; that prayers and piety afford
no protection against fever, and that if the human being be
kept without food he will starve as quickly whether he be
Theist or Atheist, theology being no substitute for bread.
When the Theist ventures to affirm that his God is an.
existence other than and separate from the so-called mate
rial universe, and when he invests this separate, hypothe
tical existence with the several attributes of omniscience,
omnipresence, omnipotence, eternity, infinity, immutability,
and perfect goodness, then the Atheist, in reply, says—“ I
deny the existence of such a being.”
It becomes very important, in order that injustice may
not be done to the Theistic argument, that we should have
—in. lieu of a clear definition, which it seems useless to ask
for—the best possible clue to the meaning intended to be
conveyed by the word God. If it were not that the word
is an arbitrary term, invented for the ignorant, and the
�6
A PEEA FOR ATHEISM.
notions suggested by which are vague and entirely contin
gent upon individual fancies, such a clue could be probably
most easily and satisfactorily obtained by tracing back the
word “ God,” and ascertaining the sense in which it was
used by the uneducated worshippers who have gone before
us ; collating this with the more modern Theism, qualified
as it is by the superior knowledge of to-day. Dupuis
says—“ De mot Dieu parait destine a exprimer l’idee de la
force universelie et eternellement active qui imprime le
mouvement a tout dans la Nature, suivant les lois d’une
harmonie constant et admirable, qui se developpe dans les
diverses formes que prend la matiere organisee, qui se mele i
tout, anime tout, et qui semble etre une dans ses modifica
tions infiniment variees, et n’appartenir qu’a elle-meme.”
“ The word God appears intended to express the force uni
versal, and eternally active, which endows all nature with
motion according to the laws of a constant and admirable
harmony; which develops itself in the diverse forms of
organised matter, which mingles with all, gives life to all;
which seems to be one through all its infinitely varied modi
fications, and inheres in itself alone.”
In the “ Bon Sens ” of Cure Meslier, it is asked, “ Qu’estce que Dieu?” and the answer is “ C’est un mot abstrait fait
pour designer la force cachee de la nature; ou c’est un
point mathematique qui n’a ni longueur, ni largeur, ni profundeur.” “ It is an abstract word coined to designate the
hidden fo'rce of nature, or rather it is a mathematical point
having neither length, breadth, nor thickness.”
The orthodox fringe of the Theism of to-day is Hebraistio
in its origin—that is, it finds its root in the superstition
and ignorance of a petty and barbarous people nearly desti
tute of literature, poor in language, and almost entirely
wanting in high conceptions of humanity. It might, as
Judaism is the foundation of Christianity, be fairly expected
that the ancient Jewish Records would aid us in our search
after the meaning to be attached to the word « God.” The
most prominent words in Hebrew rendered God or Lord in
English are nin11 Jeue, and
-A-leivn. The first word
Jeue, called by our orthodox Jehovah, is equivalent to “ that
which exists,” and indeed embodies in itself the only possible
trinity in unity—i.e., past, present, and future. There is
nothing in this Hebrew word to help you to any such defini—
�A
PLEA FOE ATHEISM.
7
tion as is required for the sustenance of modern Theism.
The most you can make of it by any stretch of imagination is
equivalent to the declaration “ I am, I have been,I shall be.’’
The word iTin'1 is hardly ever spoken by the religious Jews
who actually in reading substitute for it, Adonai, an entirely
different word. Dr. Wall notices the close resemblance
in sound between the word Yehowa or Yeue, or Jehovah,
and Jove. In fact Zevc iran)p Jupiter and Jeue—pater
(God the father) present still closer resemblance in sound.
Jove is also Zevg or Qeog or Aevc, whence the word Deus
and our Deity. The Greek mythology, far more ancient
than that of the Hebrews, has probably found for Christi
anity many other and more important features of coincidence
than that of a similarly sounding name. The word 0eoc
traced back affords us no help beyond that it identifies Deity
with the universe. Plato says that the early Greeks thought
that the only Gods (0EOY3) were the sun, moon, earth,
stars, and heaven. The word
Aleiin, assists us
still less in defining the word God, for Parkhurst translates
it as a plural noun signifying “ the curser,” deriving it from
the verb
(Ale) to curse. Finding that philology aids
us but little, we must endeavour to arrive at the meaning
of the word “ God ” by another rule. It is utterly impos
sible to fix the period of the rise of Theism amongst any
particular people, but it is notwithstanding comparatively
easy, if not to trace out the development of Theistic ideas,
at any rate to point to their probable course of growth
amongst all peoples.
Keightley, in his “ Origin of Mythology,” says—“ Sup
posing, for the sake of hypothesis, a race of men in a state
of total or partial ignorance of Deity, their belief in many
gods may have thus commenced. They saw around them
various changes brought about by human agency, and hence ?
they knew the power of intelligence to produce effects, j
When they beheld other and greater effects, they ascribed
them to some unseen being, similar but superior to man.”
They associated particular events with special unknown
beings (gods), to each of whom they ascribed either a pecu
liarity of power, or a sphere of action not common to other
gods. Thus one was god of the sea, another god of war,
another god of love, another ruled the thunder and lightning;
�8
A
PLEA FOB ATHEISM.
and thus through the various elements of the universe and
passions of humankind, so far as they were then known.
This mythology became modified with the advancement of
human knowledge. The ability to think has proved itself
oppugn ant to and destructive of the desire to worship.
Science has razed altar after altar heretofore erected to the
unknown gods, and pulled down deity after deity from the
pedestals on which ignorance and superstition had erected
them. The priest who had formerly spoken the oracle of
God lost his sway, just in proportion as the scientific teacher
succeeded in impressing mankind with a knowledge of the
facts around them. The ignorant who had hitherto listened
unquestioning during centuries of abject submission to their
spiritual preceptors, at last commenced to search and examine
for themselves, and were guided by experience rather than
by church doctrine. To- day it is that advancing intellect
challenges the reserve guard of the old armies of super
stition, and compels a conflict in which humankind must in
the end have great gain by the forced enunciation of the
truth.
From the word “ God” the Theist derives no argument
in his favour; it teaches nothing, defines nothing, demon
strates nothing, explains nothing. The Theist answers that
this is no sufficient objection, that there are many words
which are in common use to which the same objection
applies. Even admitting that this were true, it does not
answer the Atheist’s objection. Alleging a difficulty on the
one side.is not a removal of the obstacle already pointed out
on the other.
The Theist declares his God to be not only immutable,
but also infinitely intelligent, and says:—‘‘Matter is either
essentially intelligent, or essentially non-intelligent; if mat
ter were essentially intelligent, no matter could be without
intelligence; but matter cannot be essentially intelligent,
because some matter is not intelligent, therefore matter is
essentially non-intelligent: but there is intelligence, there
fore there must be a cause for the intelligence, independent
of matter—this must be an intelligent being—i.e., God.”
The Atheist answers, I do not know what is meant,
in the mouth of the Theist, by “ matter.” “ Matter,”
* substance,” “ existence,” are three words having the
�A
PLEA FOR ATHEISM.
9
same signification in the Atheist’s vocabulary. It is not
certain that the Theist expresses any very clear idea
when he uses the words “ matter” and “ intelligence.’
Beason and understanding are sometimes treated as
separate faculties, yet it is not unfair to presume
*> that the Theist would include them both under the word
v intelligence. Perception is the foundation of the intellect.
| The perceptive faculty, or perceptive faculties, differs or differ
I in each animal: yet in speaking of matter the Theist uses
the word “ intelligence” as though the same meaning were
to be understood in every case. The recollection of the per
ceptions is the exercise of a different faculty from the per
ceptive faculty, and occasionally varies disproportionately;
thus an individual may have great perceptive faculties, and
very little memory, or the reverse—yet memory, as well as
perception, is included in intelligence. So also the faculty
for comparing between two or more perceptions ; the faculty
of judging and the faculty of reflecting—all these are subject
to the same remarks, and all these and other faculties are in
cluded in the word intelligence. We answer, then, that
“ God” (whatever that word may mean) cannot be intelligent.
He can never perceive ; the act of perception results in the
obtaining a new idea, but if God be omniscient, his ideas
have been eternally the same. He has either been always, ana
always will be perceiving, or he has never perceived at all.
But God cannot have been always perceiving, because if he
had he would always have been obtaining fresh know
ledge, in which case he must have some time had less know
ledge than now, that is, he would have been less perfect;
that is—he would not have been God : he can never
recollect or forget, he can never compare, reflect, nor
judge. There cannot be perfect intelligence without un
derstanding ; but following Coleridge, “ understanding is
the faculty of judging according to sense.” The faculty
of whom? Of some person, judging according to that
person’s senses ? But has “ God” senses ? Is there any
thing beyond “ God” for “ God” to sensate ? There
' cannot be perfect intelligence without reason. By reason
we mean that faculty or aggregation of faculties which avails
itself of past experience to predetermine, more or less
accurately, experience in the future, and to affirm truths
which sense perceives, experiment verifies, and experience
�10
A PLEA FOE ATHEISM.
confirms. To God there can be neither past nor future,
therefore to him reason is impossible. There cannot be per
fect intelligence without will, but has God will ? If God
wills, the will of the all-powerful must be irresistible; the
will of the infinite must exclude all other wills.
God can never perceive. Perception and sensation are
identical. Every sensation is accompanied by pleasure or
pain. But God, if immutable, can neither be pleased nor
pained. Every fresh sensation involves a change in mental
and perhaps in physical condition. God, if immutable, cannot
change. Sensation is the source of all ideas, but it is only
objects external to the mind which can be sensated. If God
be infinite there can be no objects external to him, and
therefore sensation must be to him impossible. Yet without
perception where is intelligence ?
God cannot have memory or reason—memory is of the
past, reason for the future, but to God immutable there can
be no past, no future. The words past, present, and future
imply change; they assert progression of duration. If God
be immutable, to him change is impossible. Can you
have intelligence destitute of perception, memory, and
reason? God cannot have the faculty of judgment—judg
ment implies in the act of judging a conjoining or dis
joining of two or more thoughts, but this involves change
of mental condition. To God the immutable, change is
impossible.
Can you have intelligence, yet no per
ception, no memory, no reason, no judgment ? God
cannot think. The law of the thinkable is, that the
thing thought must be separated from the thing which
is not thought. To think otherwise would be to think
of nothing—to have an impression with no distinguishing
mark, would be to have no impression. Yet this separation
implies change, and to God, immutable, change is impossible.
Can you have intelligence without thought ? If the Theist
replies to this, that he does not mean by infinite intelligence
as an attribute of Deity, an infinity of the intelligence found
in a finite degree in humankind, then he is bound to explain,
clearly and distinctly, what other a intelligence” he means,
and until this be done the foregoing statements require
answer.
The Atheist does not regard “ substance” as either essen
tially intelligent or the reverse. Intelligence is the result of
�A PLEA POE ATHEISM.
11
certain conditions of existence. Burnished steel is bright—
that is, brightness is the necessity 01 a certain condition of
existence. Alter the condition, and the characteristic of the
condition no longer exists. The only essential of substance
is its existence. Alter the wording of the Theist’s objection.
Matter is either essentially bright, or essentially non-bright.
If matter were essentially bright, brightness should be the
essence of all matter I but matter cannot be essentially
bright, because some matter is not bright, therefore matter
is essentially non-bright; but there is brightness, therefore
there must be a cause for this brightness independent of
matter—that is, there must be an essentially bright being—
e.,
i. God.
Another Theistic proposition is thus stated:—“ Every
effect must have a cause ; the first cause universal must be
eternal: ergo, the first cause universal must be God.” This
is equivalent to saying that “ God” is “ first cause.” But
what is to be understood by cause ? Defined in the absolute,
the word has no real value. “ Cause,” therefore, cannot be
eternal. What can be understood by “ first cause ?” To us
the two words convey no meaning greater than would be
conveyed by the phrase “ round triangle.” Cause and effect
are correlative terms—each cause is the effect of some prece
dent ; each effect the cause of its consequent. It is impossible
to conceive existence terminated by a primal or initial cause.
The “ beginning,” as it is phrased, of the universe, is not
thought out by the Theist, but conceded without thought.*
To adopt the language of Montaigne, “ Men make themselves
believe that they believe.” The so-called belief in Creation
is nothing more than the prostration of the intellect on the
threshold of the unknown. We can only cognise the ever
succeeding phenomena of existence as a line, in continuous
and eternal evolution. This line has to us no beginning;
we traee it back into the misty regions of the past but a little
way, and however far we may be able to journey, there is still
the great beyond. Then what is meant by “ universal cause ?”
Spinoza gives the following definition of cause, as used in its
absolute signification, “By cause of itself I understand that,
the essence of which involves existence, or that, the nature of
which can only be'considered as existent.” That is, Spinoza
treats “ cause” absolute and “ existence” as two words
having the same meaning. If his mode of defining the word
�12
A PLEA FOE ATHEISM.
be contested, then it has no meaning other than its relative
signification of a means to an end. “ Every effect must have
a cause.” Every effect implies the plurality of effects, and
necessarily that each effect must be finite ; but how is it
1 possible from a finite effect to logically deduce an universal—
e.,
i. infinite cause ?
4
There are two modes of argument presented by Theists,
I and by which, separately or combined, they seek to demonstrate the being of a God. These are familiarly known as
the arguments a priori and a posteriori.
The a posteriori argument has been popularised in Eng
land by Paley, who has ably endeavoured to hide the weak
ness of his demonstration under an abundance of irrelevant
illustrations. The reasoning of Paley is very deficient in
the essential points where it most needed strength. It is
utterly impossible to prove by it the eternity or infinity of
Deity. As an argument founded on analogy, the design
argument, at the best, could only entitle its propounder to
infer the existence of a finite cause, or rather of a
multitude of finite causes. It ought not to be forgotten
that the illustrations of the eye, the watch, and the
man, even if admitted as instances of design, or rather
of adaptation, are instances of eyes, watches, and men,
designed or adapted out of pre-existing substance, by a
being of the same kind of substance, and afford, there
fore, no demonstration in favour of a designer, alleged
•to have actually created substance out of nothing, and also
alleged to have created a substance entirely different from
himself.
The a posteriori argument can never demonstrate infinity
' for Deity. Arguing from an effect finite in extent, the most
it could afford would be a cause sufficient for that effect,
j such cause being possibly finite in extent and duration.
?. And as the argument does not demonstrate God’s infinity,
neither ean it, for the same reason, make out his omniscience,
as it is clearly impossible to logically claim infinite wisdom
for a God possibly only finite. God’s omnipotence re
mains unproved for the same reason, and because it is
clearly absurd to argue that God exercises power where he
may not be. Nor can the a posteriori argument show God’s
absolute freedom, for as it does nothing more than seek to
prove a finite God. it is quite consistewi with the argument
�k PLEA FOB ATHEISM.
13
that God’s existence is limited and controlled in a thousand
ways. Nor does this argument show that God always existed;
at the best the proof is only that some cause, enough for the
effect, existed before it, but there is no evidence that this
cause differs from any other causes, which are often as
transient as the effect itself. And as it does not demon
strate that God has always existed, neither does it demon
strate that he will always exist, or even that he now exists.
It is perfectly in accordance with the argument, and with
the analogy of cause and effect, that the effect may remain
after the cause has ceased to exist. Nor does the argument
from design demonstrate one God. It is quite consistent with
this argument that a separate cause existed for each effect,
or mark of design discovered, or that several causes con
tributed to some or one of such effects. So that if the
argument be true, it might result in a multitude of petty
deities, limited in knowledge, extent, duration, and power;
and still worse, each one of this multitude of gods may have
had a cause which would also be finite in extent and dura*
ition, and would require another, and so on, until the design
argument loses the reasoner amongst an innumerable crowd
of deities, none of whom can have the attributes claimed for
God.
The design argument is defective as an argument from
analogy, because it seeks 'to prove a Creator God who
designed, but does not explain whether this God has been
eternally designing, which would be absurd; or, if he at
some time commenced to design, what then induced him so
to commence. It is illogical, for it seeks to prove an im
mutable Deity, by demonstrating a mutation on the part of
Deity.
It is unnecessary to deal specially with each of the many
writers who have used from different stand-points the a
posteriori form of argument in order to prove the existence
of Deity. The objections already stated apply to the whole
class; and, although probably each illustration used by the
theistic advocate is capable of an elucidation entirely at
variance with his argument, the main features of objection
are the same. The argument a posteriori is a method of
proof in which the premises are composed of some position
of existing facts, and the conclusion asserts a position ante
cedent to those facts.* The argument is from given effects
�14
A PLEA FOB ATHEISM.
to their causes. It is one form of this argument which
asserts that man has a moral nature, and from this seeks
to deduce the existence of a moral governor. This form
has the disadvantage that its premises are illusory., In
alleging a moral nature for man, the theist overlooks the
fact that the moral nature of man differs somewhat in each
individual, differs considerably in each nation, and differs
entirely in some peoples. It is dependent on organisation
and education: these are influenced by climate, food, and
mode of life. If the argument from man’s nature could de
monstrate anything, it would prove a murdering God for
the murderer, a lascivious God for the licentious man, a
dishonest God for the thief*, and so through the various
phases of human inclination. The a priori arguments are
methods of proof in which the matter of the premises exists
in the order of conception antecedently to that of the con
clusion. The argument is from cause to effect. Amongst
the prominent theistic advocates relying upon the d priori
argument in England are Dr. Samuel Clarke, the Rev.
Moses Lowman, and William Gillespie. As this last
gentleman condemns his predecessors for having utterly failed
to demonstrate God’s existence, and, as his own treatise
on the “Necessary Existence of God” comes to us certified
by the praise of Lord Brougham and the approval of Sir
William Hamilton, it is to Mr. William Gillespie that the
reader shall be directed.
The propositions are first stated entirely, so that Mr.
Gillespie may not complain of misrepresentation :—
1. Infinity of extension is necessarily existing.
2. Infinity of extension is necessarily indivisible.
Corollary.—Infinity of extension is necessarily immov
able.
3. There is necessarily a being of infinity of extension.
4. The being of infinity of extension is necessarily of
unity and simplicity.
Sub-proposition.—The material universe is finite in ex
tension.
5. There is necessarily but one being of infinity of expan
sion.
Part 2, Proposition 1.—Infinity of duration is neces
sarily existing.
2. Infinity of duration is necessarily indivisible.
�A TLEA FOB ATHEISM.
15
-Corollary.—Infinity of duration is necessarily immovable.
3. There is necessarily a being of infinity of duration.
4. The being of infinity of duration is necessarily of unity
and simplicity.
Sub-proposition.—The material universe is finite in dura
tion.
Corollary.—Every succession of substances is finite in
duration.
5. There is necessarily but one being of infinity of dura
tion.
Part 3, Proposition 1.—There is necessarily a being of
infinity of expansion and infinity of duration.
2. The being of infinity of expansion and infinity of dura
tion is necessarily of unity and simplicity.
Division 2, Part 1.—The simple sole being of infinity of
expansion and of duration is necessarily intelligent and
all-knowing.
Part 2.—-The simple sole being of infinity of expansion
and of duration, who is all-knowing, is necessarily allpowerful.
Part 3.—The simple sole being of infinity of expansior
and of duration, who is all-knowing and all-powerful, i
necessarily entirely free.
Division^.—The simple sole being of infinity of expansion
and of duration, who is all-knowing, all-powerful, and en
tirely free, is necessarily completely happy.
Sub-proposition.— The simple sole being of infinity of
expansion and of duration, who is all-knowing, all-powerful,
entirely free, and completely happy, is necessarily perfectly
good.
The first objection against the foregoing argument is, that
it seeks to prove too much. It affirms one existence (God)
infinite in extent and duration, and another entirely
different and distinct existence (the material universe)
finite in extent and duration. It therefore seeks to sub
stantiate everything and something more. The first pro
position is curiously worded, and the argument to demon
strate it is undoubtedly open to more than one objection.
Mr. Gillespie has not defined infinity, and it is possible
therefore his argument may be misapprehended in this
paper. Infinite signifies nothing more than indefinite.
When a person speaks of infinite extension he can on!)
�16
A
PLEA FOB ATHEISM.
mean to refer to the extension of something to which he
has been unable to set limits. The mind cannot conceive
extension per se, either absolute or finite. It can only
conceive something extended. It might be impossible
mentally to define the extension of some substance. In
such a case its extension would be indefinite j or, as Mr.
Gillespie uses the word, infinite. No one can therefore
possibly ha^b any idea of infinity of extension. Yet it is
upon the existence of such an idea, and on the impossibility
of getting rid of it, that Mr. Gillespie grounds his first pro
position. If the idea does not exist, the argument is des
troyed at the first step.
Mr. Gillespie argues that it is utterly beyond the power
of the human mind to conceive infinity of extension non
existent. He would have been more correct in asserting
that it is utterly beyond the power of the human mind to
conceive infinity of extension at all, either existent or non
existent. Extension can only be conceived as quality of
substance. It is possible to conceive substance extended.
It is impossible in thought to limit the possible extension
of substance. Mr. Gillespie having asserted that we cannot
but believe that infinity of extension exists, proceeds to
declare that it exists necessarily. For, he says, everything
the existence of which we cannot but believe, exists neces
sarily. It is not necessary at present to examine what Mr.
Gillespie means by existing necessarily; it is sufficient to
have shown that we do not believe in the existence of infinity
of extension, although we may and do believe in the existence
of substance, to the extension of which we may be unable to
set limits. But, says Mr. Gillespie, “ everything the ex
istence of which we cannot but believe is necessarily exist
ing.” Then as we cannot but believe in the existence of
> the universe (or, to adopt Mr. Gillespie’s phrase, the ma| terial universe), the material universe exists necessarily. If
I by “ anything necessarily existing,” he means anything the
essence of which involves existence, or the nature of which
can only be considered as existent, then Mr. Gillespie, by
demonstrating the necessary existence of the universe,
refutes his own later argument, that God is its creator.
Mr. Gillespie’s argument, as before remarked, is open to
misconception, because he has left us without any definition
of some of the most important words he uses. To avoid the
�A PLEA EOK ATHEISM.
17
same objection, it is necessary to state that by substance or
existence I mean that which is in itself and is conceived
per se—that is, the conception of which does not involve
the conception of anything else as antecedent to it. By
quality, that by which I cognise any mode of existence. By
mode, each cognised condition of existence. Regarding
extension as quality of mode of substance, and not as sub
stance itself, it appears absurd to argue that the quality
exists otherwise than as quality of mode.
The whole ofthe propositions following the first are so built
upon it, that if it fails they are baseless. The second proposi
tion is, that infinity of extension is necessarily indivisible.
In dealing with this proposition, Mr. Gillespie talhs of the
parts of infinity of extension, and winds up by saying that
ne means parts in the sense of partial consideration only.
Now not only is it denied that you can have any idea of
infinity of extension, but it is also denied that infinity
can be the subject of partial consideration. Mr. Gillespie’s
whole proof of this proposition is intended to affirm that the
parts of infinity of extension are necessarily indivisible from
each other. I have already denied the possibility of con
ceiving infinity in parts ; and, indeed, if it were possible to
conceive infinity in parts, then that infinity could not be
indivisible, for Mr. Gillespie says that, by indivisible, he
means indivisible, either really or mentally. Now each part
of anything conceived is, in the act of conceiving, mentally
separated from, either other parts of, or from the remainder
of, the whole of which it is part. It is clearly impossible
to have a partial consideration of infinity, because the part
considered must be mentally distinguished from the uncon
sidered remainder, and, in that case, you have, in thought,
the part considered finite, and the residue certainly limited,
at least, by the extent of the part under consideration.
If any of the foregoing objections are well-founded, they are
fatal to Mr. Gillespie’s argument.
The argument in favour of the corollary to the second pro
position is, that the parts of infinity of extension are ne
cessarily immovable amongst themselves ; but if there be no
such thing as infinity of extension—that is, if extension be
only a quality and not necessarily infinite; if infinite mean
only indefiniteness or illimitability, andif infinity cannot have
parts, this argument goes for very little. The acceptance of the
�18
A PLEA FOB AtfHElSliG
argument that theparts of infinity of extension are immovable,
is rendered difficult when the reader considers Mr. Gillespie’s
sub-proposition (4), that the parts of the material universe
are movable and divisible from each other. He urges that
a part of the infinity of extension or of its substratum must
penetrate the material universe and every atom of it. But
if infinity can have no parts, no part of it can penetrate the
material universe. If infinity have parts (which is absurd),
and if some part penetrate every atom of the material uni
verse, and if the part so penetrating be immovable, how
can the material universe be considered as movable, and
yet as penetrated in every atom by immovability ? If pene
trated be a proper phrase, then, at the moment when the
part of infinity was penetrating the material universe, the
part of infinity so penetrating must have been in motion.
Mr. Gillespie’s logic is faulty. Use his own language, and
there is either no penetration, or there is no immovability.
In his argument for the fourth proposition, Mr. Gillespie
—having by his previous proposition demonstrated (?) what
he calls a substratum for the before demonstrated (?) in
finity of extension—says, “it is intuitively evident that the
substratum of infinity of extension can be no more divisible
than infinity of extension.” Is this so ? Might not a com
plex and divisible substratum be conceived by us as possible
to underlie a (to us) simple and indivisible indefinite exten
sion, if the conception of the latter were possible to us ?
There cannot be any intuition. It is mere assumption, as,
indeed, is the assumption of extension at all, other than as
the extension of substance. In his argument for proposi
tion 5, Gillespie says that “ any one who asserts that he
can suppose two or more necessarily existing beings, each
of infinity of expansion, is no more to be argued with
than one who denies, Whatever is, is. Why is it more dif
ficult to suppose this than to suppose one being of infinity,
and, in addition to this infinity, a material universe? Is it
impossible to suppose a necessary being of heat, one of light,
and one of electricity, all occupying the same indefinite
expansion ? If it be replied that you cannot conceive two
distinct and different beings occupying the same point at
the same moment, then it must be equally impossible to
conceive the material universe and God existing together.
The sec md division of Mr. Gillespie’s argument is also open
�A PLEA FOE ATHEISM.
19
to grave objection. Having demonstrated to his own satis
faction an infinite substance, and also having assumed in
addition a finite substance, and having called the first, infi
nite “ being•” perhaps from a devout objection to speak of
God as substance, Mr. Gillespie seeks to prove that the infi
nite being is intelligent. He says, “ Intelligence either
began to be, or. it never began to be. That it never began
to be is evident in this, that if it began to be, it must have
had a cause; for whatever begins to be must have a cause.
And the cause of intelligence must be of intelligence; for
what is not of intelligence cannot make intelligence begin
to be. Now intelligence being before intelligence began to
be, is a contradiction. And this absurdity following from
the supposition, that intelligence began to be, it is proved
that intelligence never began to be: to wit, is of infinity of
duration.” Mr. Gillespie does not condescend to tell us
why ** what is not of intelligence cannot make intelligence
begin to bebut it is not unfair to suppose that he means
that of things which have nothing in common one cannot
be the cause of the other. Let us apply Mr. Gillespie’s
argument to the material universe, the existence of which is
to him so certain that he has treated it as a self-evident
proposition.
The material universe—that is, matter, either began to be,
or it never began to be. That it never began to be, is evi
dent in this, that if it began to be, it must have had a cause;
for whatever begins to be must have a cause. And the cause
of matter, must be of matter; for what is not of matter,
cannot make matter begin to be. Now matter being
before matter began to be, is a contradiction. And this
absurdity following from the supposition that matter—i.e.,
the material universe, began to be, it is proved that the mate
rial universe never began to be—to wit, is of indefinite
duration.
The argument as to the eternity of matter is at least as
logical as the argument for the eternity of intelligence.
Mr. Gillespie may reply, that he affirms the material
universe to be finite in duration, and that by the argument
for his proposition, part 2, he proves that the one infinite
being (God) is the creator of matter. His words are, “ As
the material universe is finite in duration, or began to be, it
must have had a cause; for, whatever begins to be must have
�20
A PLEA FOB ATHEISM.
•
And this cause must be [Mr. Gillespie does not
explain why], in one respect or other, the simple sole
being of infinity of expansion and duration, who is all-know
ing [the all-knowing or intelligence rests on the argument
which has just been shown to be equally applicable to matter]
inasmuch as what being, or cause independent of that being,
could there be ? And therefore, that being made matter
begin to be.” Taking Mr. Gillespie’s own argument, that
which made matter begin to be, must be of matter, for what
is not matter, cannot make matter begin to be; then Mr.
Gillespie’s infinite being (God) must be matter. But there
is yet another exception to the proposition, which is, that
the infinite being (God) is all-powerful. Having as above
argued that the being made matter, he proceeds, “ and this
being shown, it must be granted that the being is, necessarily,
all-powerful.” Nothing of the kind need be granted. If it
were true that it was demonstrated that the infinite being
(God) made matter, it would not prove him able to make
anything else; it might show the being cause enough forthat
effect, but does not demonstrate him cause for all effects.
So that if no better argument can be found to prove God allpowerful, his omnipotence remains unproved.
Mr. Gillespie’s last proposition is that the being (God)
whose existence he has so satisfactorily (?) made out, is ne
cessarily completely happy. In dealing with this proposition,
Mr. Gillespie talks of unhappiness as existing in various
kinds and degrees. But, to adopt his own style of argu
ment, Unhappiness either began to be, or it never began to
be. That it never began to be is evident in this, that what
ever began to be must have had a cause ; for whatever be
gins to be must have a cause. And the cause of unhappi
ness must be of unhappiness, for what is not of unhappiness
cannot make unhappiness begin to be. But unhappiness
2 being before unhappiness began to be, is a contradiction;
therefore unhappiness is of infinity of duration. But pro
position 5, part 2, says there is but one being of infinity of
duration. The one being of infinity of duration is therefore
necessarily unhappy. Mr. Gillespie’s arguments recoil on
himself, and are destructive of his own affirmations.
In his argument for the sub-proposition, Mr. Gillespie
says that God’s motive, or one of his motives to create, must
be believed to have been a desire to make bappin^-ss., besides
a cause.
�A PLEA FOB ATHEISM,
„
-j
|
•
■
21
his own consummate happiness, begin to be. That is God,
who is consummate happiness everywhere for ever, desired
something. That is, he wanted more than then existed.
That is, his happiness was not complete. That is, Mr. '
Gillespie refutes himself. But what did infinite and eternal complete happiness desire ? It desired (says Mr. Gil- '
lespie) to make more happiness—that is, to make more than
an infinity of complete happiness. Mr. Gillespie’s proof, on
the whole, is at most that there exists necessarily substance,
the extension and duration of which we cannot limit. Part
of his argument involves the use of the very a posteriori
reasoning justly considered regarded by himself as utterly
worthless for the demonstration of the existence of a being
with such attributes as orthodox Theism tries to assert.
If Sir William Hamilton meant no flattery in writing
that Mr. Gillespie’s work was one of the “ very ablest ” on
the Theistic side, how wretched indeed must, in his opinion,
have been the logic of the less able advocates for Theism.
Every Theist must admit that if a God exists, he could have
so convinced all men of the fact of his existence that doubt,
disagreement, or disbelief would be impossible. If he could
not do this, he would not be omnipotent, or he would not
be omniscient—that is, he would’ not be God. Every
Theist must also agree that if a God exists, he would wish
all men to have such a clear consciousness of his existence
and attributes that doubt, disagreement, or belief on this
subject would be impossible. And this, if for no other
reason, because that out of doubts and disagreements on
religion have too often resulted centuries of persecution,
strife, and misery, which a good God would desire to prevent.
If God would not desire this, then he is not all-good—that
is, he is not God. But as many men have doubts, a large
majority of mankind have disagreements, and some men
have disbeliefs as to God’s existence and attributes ; it follows either that God does not exist, or that he is not all- ■'
wise, or that he is not all-powerful, or that he is not all
good.
Every child is born into the world an Atheist; and if he
grows into a Theist, his Deity differs with the country
in which the believer may happen to be born, or the people
amongst whom he may happen to be educated. The belief
is the result of education or organisation. Religious
�22
A PLEA FOE ATHEISM.
belief is powerful in proportion to the want of scien
tific knowledge on the part of the believer. The more
ignorant, the more credulous. In the mind of the Theist
“ God ” is equivalent to the sphere of the unknown ; by
the use of the word he answers without thought problems
which might otherwise obtain scientific solution. The more
ignorant the Theist, the greater his God. Belief in God
is not a faith founded on reason; but a prostration of
the reasoning faculties on the threshold of the unknown.
Theism is worse than illogical; its teachings are not only
without utility, but of itself it has nothing to teach. Sepa
rated from Christianity with its almost innumerable sects,
from Mahomedanism with its numerous divisions, and sepa
rated also from every other preached system, Theism is a
Will-o’-the-wisp, without reality. Apart from othodoxy,
Theism is a boneless skeleton; the various mythologies give
it alike flesh and bone, otherwise coherence it hath none.
What does Christian Theism teach ? That the first man
made perfect by the all-powerful, all-wise, all-good God,
was nevertheless imperfect, and by his imperfection brought
misery into the world, where the all-good God must have
intended misery should never come. That this God made
men to share this misery, men whose fault was their being
what he made them. That this God begets a son, who is
nevertheless his unbegotten self, and that by belief in the
birth of God’s eternal son, and in the death of the undying
who died to satisfy God’s vengeance, man may escape the
consequences of the first man’s error. Christian Theism
declares that belief alone can save man, and yet recognises
the fact that man’s belief results from teaching, by establish
ing missionary societies to spread the faith. Christian
Theism teaches that God, though no respector of persons,
selected as his favourites one nation in preference to all
others; that man can do no good of himself or without
God’s aid, but yet that each man has a free will; that God
is all-powerful, but that few go to heaven and the majority
to hell; that all are to love God, who has predestined from
eternity that by far the largest number of human beings are
to be burning in hell for ever. Yet the advocates for Theism
venture to upraid those who argue against such a faith.
It is not pretended that this inefficient Plea for Atheism
contains either a refutation of all or even the majority of
�A
PLEA FOB ATHEISM,
23
Theistic arguments, or that it offers an explanation of every
objection against Atheism; but it is hoped that enough is
here stated to induce some one of ability on the Theistic
side to write for the better instruction of such as entertain
the views here advocated—views held sincerely, views pro
pagated actively, and views which are permeating more
widely than is generally supposed.
Either Theism is true or false. If true, discussion must
help to spread its influence; if false, the sooner it ceases
to influence human conduct the better for human kind. It
will be useless for the clergy to urge that such a pamphlet
deserves no reply. It is true the writer is unimportant,
and the language in which his thoughts find expression
lacks the polish of a Macaulay, and the fervour of a Burke;
but they are nevertheless his thoughts, uttered because it is
rot only his right, but his duty to give them utterance. And
this Plea for Atheism is put forth challenging the Theists to
battle for their cause, and in the hope that the strugglers
being sincere, truth may give laurels to the victor and the
vanquished; laurels to the victor in that he has upheld
the truth; laurels still welcome to the vanquished, whose
defeat crowns him with a truth he knew not of before.
London: Austin & Co., Printers and Publishers, 17, Johns«u’s Court|
Fleet Street, E.C.
�
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Victorian Blogging
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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A plea for atheism
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Bradlaugh, Charles
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An account of the resource
Place of publication: [London]
Collation: 23 p. ; 18 cm.
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[1896]
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G4951
N101
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Atheism
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Atheism
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Victorian Blogging
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An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Supernatural and rational morality
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Bradlaugh, Charles
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 8 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: Printed by Annie Besant and Charles Bradlaugh,63, Fleet St., E. C. - 1886 (p. 8).
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Annie Besant and Charles Bradlaugh
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1886
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G903
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Rationalism
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English
Free Thought
Morality
Rationalism
Religion
Supernatural
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f263ae1b6478ba7e66b27e80858e84cb
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. ..... ............ .
�IMPEACHMENT
OF THE
HOUSE OF BRUNSWICK.
BY
CHARLES BRADLAUGH.
[second EDITION,
REVISED
AND
LARGELY
RE-WRITTEN.]
LONDON:
Austin & Co., 17, Johnson’s Court, Fleet Street, E.C.
PRICE ONE SHILLING.
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�PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.
In re-writing and enlarging the matter of this pamphlet, I
have become so sensible of its many defects, that were it
not for the pressing demands for an immediate edition, I
should be inclined to wait. Each day’s research amongst
the correspondence of Waldegrave, Cowper, Temple, Rose,
Grenville, Walpole, North, Castlereagh, Holland, Pitt, Ward,
Malmesbury, Buckingham, Fox, Grey, Wellington, &c., &c.,
brings out new facts to assist my Impeachment. The first
edition has received from the press much abuse, and save
one article, in the Gentlemans Magazine, to which I give
a special reply,, but little criticism. It has been denounced
as treasonable, and threats, varying from indictment to
menace, even of physical violence, have been inserted in
respectable journals. My answer is this improved edition,
in which I have found no reason to soften a single word.
The matter in these pages has been delivered as lectures
in some of the finest halls in Great Britain, and before
crowded, and not only orderly, but enthusiastic audiences.
At least eighty thousand different persons have listened to
the statements here printed; discussion and opposition have
been invited, none worthy mention has been offered. It is
said that I try to throw upon the Brunswick family the whole
blame of misgovernment. Not quite; I blame also the
people that they have permitted an inefficient and mischief
working family to rule so long. It is said that I seek to
make the present members of the Royal Family responsible
for the vices and incapabilities of their predecessors. This
is not so; I seek to show that the Family exhibits no govern
mental capacity, and that even to-day the aspirants for the
�iv
Preface.
Throne have no such high merit as shall redeem or separate
them from the consequences of the judgment I seek to obtain
from my fellow countrymen. I only ask a judgment to be
pronounced in the Parliament House, and I know that be
fore this can be feared or hoped for, there is hard work to
be done in enlightening the British people in the history of
the last two hundred years.
This is not even a Republican pamphlet. The virtues or
vices of the Brunswicks have no part—for or against—in
the discussion of Republicanism. Here is only a conten
tion that our Monarchy is elective, and that the people have
the right and duty to make another selection. I am, it is true,
a Republican, but while I hope and work for the spread of
Republican views, I do not desire a fierce, a sudden, change.
I would, rather than have a Republic won by force, hope
that an English-thinking ruler, chosen by the suffrages of
the nation, with pride for those British names which have
carried our literature through the world, might do better for
us than a foreign family—foreign to us alike in their memo
ries, their language, their inter-marryings, and their hopes.
If, however, it should in this country have at last to come
to a question of Republic, or another George IV., then I
can see only one reply, and I can hear scores of thousands
of my fellow-countrymen training themselves to give it.
C. BRADLAUGH.
�IMPEACHMENT
OF THE
HOUSE OF BRUNSWICK.
CHAP. I.
INTRODUCTORY.
By statutes of the 12 and 13 Will. III., and 6 Anne c. 11, Article
2, the British Parliament, limiting the Monarchy to members of
the Church of England, excluded the Stuarts, and from and
after the death of King William and the Princess Anne without
heirs, contrived that the Crown of this kingdom should devolve
upon the Princess Sophia, Duchess Dowager of Hanover, and
the heirs of her body, being Protestants. Heirs failing to Anne,
although seventeen times pregnant, and Sophia dying about
seven weeks before Anne, her son George succeeded under
these Acts as George I. of England and Scotland.
It is said, and perhaps truly, that the German Protestant
Guelph was an improvement on the Catholic Stuart, and the
Whigs take credit for having effected this change in spite of the
Tories. This credit they deserve ; but it must not be forgotten
that it was scarce half a century before that the entire aristo
cracy, including the patriotic Whigs, coalesced to restore to the
throne the Stuarts, who had been got rid of under Cromwell.
If this very aristocracy, of which the Whigs form part, had
never assisted in calling back the Stuarts in the person of
Charles II., there would have been no need to thank them for
again turning that family out.
The object of the present essay is to submit reasons for the
repeal of the Acts of Settlement and Union, so far as the suc
cession to the throne is concerned, after the abdication or demise
of the present monarch. It is of course assumed, as a point
upon which all supporters of the present Royal Family will
agree, that the right to deal with the throne is inalienably vested
in the English people, to be exercised by them through their
representatives in Parliament. The right of the members of
the House of Brunswick to succeed to the throne is a right
accruing only from the Acts of Settlement and Union, it being
clear that, except from this statute, they have no claim to the
throne. It is therefore submitted that should Parliament in its
wisdom see fit to enact that after the death or abdication of her
present Majesty, the throne shall no longer be filled by a mem
�6
The House of Brunswick.
ber of the House of Brunswick, such an enactment would be
perfectly within the competence of Parliament. It is further
submitted that the Parliament has full and uncontrollable autho
rity to make any enactment, and to repeal any enactment here
tofore made, even if such new statute, or the repeal of any old
statute, should in truth change the constitution of the Empire,
or modify the character and powers of either Parliamentary
Chamber. The Parliament of the English Commonwealth,
which met on April 25th, 1660, gave the Crown to Charles II.,
and the Parliament of the British Monarchy has the undoubted
right to withhold the Crown from Albert Edward Prince of
Wales. The Convention which assembled at Westminster on
January 22nd, 1688, took away the Crown from James II., and
passed over his son, the then Prince of Wales, as if he had been
non-existent. This Convention was declared to have all the
authority of Parliament—ergo, Parliament has admittedly the
right to deprive a living King of his Crown, and to treat a
Prince of Wales as having no claim to the succession.
In point of fact two of the clauses of the Act of Settlement
were repealed in the reign of Queen Anne, and a third clause was
repealed early in the reign of George I., showing that this par
ticular statute has never been considered immutable or irrepealable. It is right to add that the clauses repealed were only of
consequence to the nation, and that their repeal was no injury to
the Crown. The unbounded right of the supreme Legislature
to enlarge its own powers, was contended for and admitted in
1716, when the duration of Parliament was extended four years,
a triennial Parliament declaring itself and all future Parliaments
septennial. Furthermore, it has been held to be sedition to
deny the complete authority of the Irish Parliament to put an
end to its own existence.
It has been admitted to be within the jurisdiction of Parlia
ment to give electoral privileges to citizens theretofore unenfran
chised ; Parliament claims the unquestioned right to disfran
chise persons, hitherto electors, for misconduct in the exercise
of electoral rights, and in its pleasure to remove and annul any
electoral disability. The right of Parliament to decrease or in
crease the number of representatives for any borough, has never
been disputed, and its authority to decrease the number of Peers
sitting and voting in the House of Lords was recognised in pass
ing the Irish Church Disestablishment Bill, by which several
Bishops were summarily ejected from amongst the Peers. It
is now submitted that Parliament possesses no Legislative right
but what it derives from the people, and that the people are
under no irrevocable contract or obligation to continue any
member of the House of Brunswick on the throne.. In ordei
to show that this is not a solitary opinion, the following Parlia
mentary dicta are given :—
.
•
The Honourable Temple Luttrell, in a speech made in the
House of Commons, on the7th November, 1775, showed “that of
thirty-three sovereigns since William the Conqueror, thirteen
�The House of Brunswick.
7
only have ascended the throne by divine hereditary right...... The
will of the people, superseding any hereditary claim to succession,
at the commencement of the twelfth century placed Henry I. on
the throne,” and this subject to conditions as to laws to be made
by Henry. King John was compelled “ solemnly to register an
assurance of the ancient rights of the people in a formal manner;
and this necessary work was accomplished by the Congress at
Runnymede, in the year 1115. “ Sir, in the reign of Henry 111,
(about the year 1223), the barons, clergy, and freeholders under
standing that the King, as Earl of Poictou, had landed some of
his continental troops in the western ports of England, with a
design to strengthen a most odious and arbitrary set of ministers,
they assembled in a Convention or Congress, from whence they
despatched deputies to King Henry, declaring that if he did not
immediately send back those Poictouvians, and remove from his
person and councils evil advisers, they would place upon the
throne a Prince who should better observe the laws of the land
Sir, the King not only hearkened to that Congress, but shortly
after complied with every article of their demand, and publicly
notified his reformation. Now, Sir, what are we to call that as
sembly which dethroned Edward II. when the Archbishop of
Canterbury preached a sermon on this Text, 1 The voice op the
people is the voice of God ?’ ” “ A Prince of the house of Lancas
ter was invited over from banishment, and elected by the people
to the throne ” on the fall of Richard II. “I shall next proceed
to the general Convention and Congress, which in 1461, enthroned
the Earl of March by the name of Edward IV., the Primate of
all England collecting the suffrages of the people.” “ In 1659,
a Convention or Congress restored legal Monarchy in the person
of Charles II.”
William Pitt, on the 16th December, 1788, being then Chan
cellor of the Exchequer, contended that “the right of providing
for the deficiency of Royal authority rested with the two remain
ing branches of the legislatureand again, “ on the disability of the
Sovereign, where was the right to be found ? It was to be found
in the voice, in the sense of the people, with them it rested.”
On the 22nd December, Mr. Pitt said that Mr. Fox had con
tended that “ the two Houses of Parliament cannot proceed to
legislate without a King.” His (Mr. Pitt’s) answer was : “ The
conduct of the Revolution had contradicted that assertion; they
had acted legislatively, and no King being present, they must,
consequently, have acted without a King.”
Mr. Hardinge, a barrister of great repute, and afterwards
Solicitor-General and Judge, in the same debate, said : “The
virtues of our ancestors and the genius of the Government accu
rately understood, a century ago, had prompted the. Lords and
Commons of the realm to pass a law without a King ; and a law
which, as he had always read it, had put upon living record this
principle: ‘That whenever the supreme executive hand shall
have lost its power to act, the people of the land, fully and freely
represented, can alone repair the defect.’”
�8
The House of Brunswick.
On the 26th December, in the House of Lords, discussing the
power to exclude a sitting Monarch from the throne, the Earl of
Abingdon said: “Will a King exclude himself? No ! no!
my Lords, that exclusion appertains to us and to the other
House of Parliament exclusively. It is to us it belongs, it is our
duty. It is the business of the Lords and Commons of Great
Britain, and of us alone, as the tustees and representatives of the
nation.” And following up this argument, Lord Abingdon con
tended that in the contingency he was alluding to, “the right to
new model or alter the succession, vests in the Parliament of
England without the King, in the Lords and Commons of Great
Britain solely and exclusively.”
Lord Stormont, in the same debate, pointed out that William
III. “possessed no other right to the throne than that which he
derived from the votes of the two Houses.”
The Marquis of Lansdowne said : “One of the best constitu
tional writers we had whs Mr. Justice Foster, who, in his book
on the ‘ Principles of the Constitution/ denies the right even of
hereditary succession, and says it is no right whatever, but
merely a political expedient...... The Crown, Mr. Justice Foster
said, was not merely a descendable property like a laystall, or a
pigstye, but was put in trust for millions, and for the happiness
of ages yet unborn, which Parliament has it always in its power
to mould, to shape, to alter, to fashion, just as it shall think
proper. And in speaking of Parliament,” his Lordship said,
“ Mr. Justice Foster repeatedly spoke of the two Houses of
Parliament only.”
My object being to procure the repeal of the only title under
which any member of the House of Brunswick could claim to
succeed the present sovereign on the throne, or else to procure a
special enactment which shall for the future exclude the Brunswicks, as the Stuarts were excluded in 1688 and 1701, the follow
ing grounds are submitted as justifying and requiring such repeal
or new enactment:—
1st. That during the one hundred and fifty-seven years the
Brunswick family have reigned over the British Empire, the
policy and conduct of the majority of the members of that
family, and especially of the various reigning members, always
saving and excepting her present Majesty, have been hostile to
the welfare of the mass of the people. This will be sought to
be proved at length by a sketch of the principal events in the
reign of each monarch, from August 1st, 1714, to the present
date.
2nd. That during the same period of one hundred and fifty
seven years, fifteen-sixteenths of the entire National Debt have
been created, and that this debt is in great part the result of
wars arising from the mischievous and pro-Hanoverian policy
of the Brunswick family.
3rd. That in consequence of the incompetence or want of
desire for governmental duty on the part of the various reigning
members of the House of Brunswick, the governing power of
�The House of Brunswick.
9
the country has been practically limited to a few families who
have used government in the majority of instances as a system
of machinery for securing place and pension for themselves and
their associates ; while it is submitted that Government should
be the best contrivance of national wisdom for the alleviation
of national suffering and promotion of national happiness. Earl
Grey even admits that “ Our national annals since the Revolu
tion of 1688 present a sad picture of the selfishness, baseness,
and corruption of the great majority of the actors on the political
stage.”
4th. That a huge pension list has been created, the recipients
of the largest pensions being in most cases persons who are
already members of wealthy families, and. who have done nothing
whatever to justify their being kept in idleness at the national
expense, while so many workers in the agricultural districts are
in a state of semi-starvation ; so many toilers in large works in
Wales, Scotland, and some parts of England, are in constant
debt and dependence ; and while large numbers of the Irish
peasantry—having for many generations been denied life at home
—have until lately been driven to seek those means of existence
across the sea which their own fertile land should have amply
provided for them.
5th. That the monarchs of the Brunswick family have been,
except in a few cases of vicious interference, costly puppets,
useful only to the governing aristocracy as a cloak to shield the
real wrongdoes from the just reproaches of the people.
6th. That the Brunswick family have shown themselves utterly
incapable of initiating or encouraging wise legislation. That
George I. was shut out practically from the government by his
utter ignorance of the English language, his want of sympathy
with British habits, and his frequent absences from this country.
A volume of history, published by Messrs. Longmans in 1831,
says that “ George I. continued a German princeling on the
British throne—surrounded still by his petty Hanoverian satel
lites, and so ignorant even of the language of his new subjects,
that his English minister, who understood neither French nor
German, could communicate with him only by an imperfect
jargon of barbarous Latin.” He “ discarded his wife, and had
two mistresses publicly installed in their Court rights and privi
leges.” Earl Grey declares that “ the highly beneficial practice
of holding Cabinet Councils without the presence of the sovereign
arose from George the First’s not knowing English.” Leslie
describes George I. as altogether ignorant of our language, laws,
customs, and constitution. Madame de Maintenon writes of
him as disgusted with his subjects. That George II. was utterly
indifferent to English improvement, and was mostly away in
Hanover. Lord Hervey’s “ Memoirs ” pourtray him as caring
for nothing but soldiers and women, and declare that his highest
ambition was to combine the reputation of a great general with
that of a successful libertine. That George III. was repeatedly
insane, and that in his officially lucid moments his sanity was
�10
The House of Brunswick.
more dangerous to England than his madness. Buckle says of
him that he was “ despotic as well as superstitious........Every
liberal sentiment, everything approaching to reform, nay, even
the mere mention of inquiry, was an abomination in the eyes of
that narrow and ignorant prince.” Lord Grenville, his Prime
Minister, said of him : “ He had perhaps the narrowest mind of
any man I ever knew.” That George IV. was a dissipated,
drunken debauchee, bad husband, unfaithful lover, untrustworthy
friend, unnatural father, corrupt regent, and worse king. Buckle
speaks of “ the incredible baseness of that ignoble voluptuary.”
That William IV. was obstinate, but fortunately fearful of losing
his crown, gave way to progress with a bad grace when chica
nery was no longer possible, and continued resistance became
dangerous.
7th. That under the Brunswick family, the national expendi
ture has increased to a frightful extent, while our best posses
sions in America have been lost, and our home possession,
Ireland, rendered chronic in its discontent by the terrible mis
government under the four Georges.
And 8th. That the ever-increasing burden of the national
taxation has been shifted from the land on to the shoulders of
the. middle and lower classes, the landed aristocracy having,
until very lately, enjoyed the practical monopoly of tax-levying
power.
CHAP. II.
THE REIGN OF GEORGE I.
On August ist, 1714, George Lewis, Elector of Hanover, and
great-grandson of James I. of England, succeeded to the throne;
but being apparently rather doubtful as to the reception he
would meet in this country, he delayed visiting his new domi
nions until the month of October. In April, 1714, there was so
little disposition in favour .of the newly-chosen dynasty, that the
Earl of Oxford entreated George not to bring any of his family
into this country without Queen Anne’s express consent. It
seems strange to read in the correspondence of Madame Eliza
beth Charlotte, Duchesse d’Orleans, her hesitation “ to rejoice
at the accession of our Prince George, for she had no confidence
in the Englishand her fears “ that the inconstancy of the
English will in the end produce some scheme which may be in
jurious to the French monarchy.” She adds: “If the English
were to be trusted, I should say that it is fortunate the Parlia
ments are in favour of George, but themore one reads the history
of English revolutions, the more one is compelled to remark the
eternal hatred which the people of that nation have had towards
their kings, as well as their fickleness.” To-day it is the Eng
�The House of Brunswick.
11
lish who charge the French with fickleness. Thackeray says of
George I.,that “he showed an uncommon prudence and cool
ness of behaviour when he came into his kingdom, exhibiting no
elation ; reasonably doubtful whether he should not be turned
out some day ; looking upon himself only as a lodger, and making
the most of his brief tenure of St James’s and Hampton Court,
plundering, it is true, somewhat, and dividing amongst his Ger
man followers ; but what could be expected of a sovereign who
at home could sell his subjects at so many ducats per head, and
make no scruple in so disposing of them ?” At the accession of
George I. the national debt of this country, exclusive of an
nuities, was about ^36,000,000; after five Brunswicks have left us,
it is _£8oo,ooo,ooo for Great Britain and Ireland, and much more
than £110,000,000 for India. The average annual national ex
penditure under the rule of George I. was ,£5,923,079 : to-day it is
more than £70,000,000, of which more than £20,000,000 have
been added in the last twenty years. During the reign of
George I. land paid very nearly one-fourth the whole of the
taxes, to-day it pays less than one-seventieth part; and yet, while
its proportion of the burden is so much lighter, its exaction from
labour in rent is ten times heavier.
George I. came to England without his wife, the Princess of
Zelle. Years before, he had arrested her and placed her in
close confinement in Ahlden Castle, on account of her intrigue
with Philip, Count Konigsmark, whom some say George I. sus
pected of being the actual father of the Electoral Prince George,
afterwards George II. To use the language of a writer patro
nised by George Prince of Wales, in 1808, “The coldness
between George I. and his son and successor George II. may
be said to have been almost coeval with the existence of the latter.”
Our King, George I., described by Thackeray as a “ cold, selfish
libertine,” had Konigsmark murdered in the palace of Heranhausen ; confined his wife, at twenty-eight years of age, in a dun
geon, where she remained until she was sixty; and when George
Augustus, Electoral Prince of Hanover, tried to get access to his
mother, George Lewis, then Elector of Hanover, arrested Prince
George also, and it is said would have put him to death if the
Emperor of Germany had not protected him as a Prince of the
German Empire. During the reign of George II., Frederick
Prince of Wales, whom his father denounced as “a changeling,”
published an account of how George I. had turned Frederick’s
father out of ■ the palace. These Guelphs have been a loving
family. The Edinburgh Review declares that “ the terms on
which the eldest sons of this family have always lived with their
fathers have been those of distrust, opposition, and hostility.”
Even after George Lewis had ascended the throne of England,
his hatred to George Augustus was so bitter, that there was
some proposition that James, Earl Berkeley-and Lord High
Admiral, should carry off the Prince to America and keep him
there.
Thackeray says : “When George I. made his first visit''to
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The House of Brunswick.
Hanover, his son was appointed regent during the Royal ab
sence. But this honour was never again conferred on the
Prince of Wales ; he and his father fell out presently. On the
occasion of the christening of his second son, a Royal row took
place, and the Prince, shaking his fist in the Duke of New
castle's face, called him a rogue, and provoked his august
father. He and his wife were turned out of St. James’s, and
their princely children taken from them, by order of the Royal
head of the family. Father and mother wept piteously at part
ing from their little ones. The young ones sent some cherries,
with their love, to papa and mamma, the parents watered the
fruit with their tears. They had no tears thirty-five years after
wards, when Prince Frederick died, their eldest son, their heir,
their enemy.”
A satirical ballad on the expulsion of Prince George from St.
James’s Palace, which was followed by the death of the newlychristened baby Prince, is droll enough to here repeat :—
The King then took his gray goose quill,
And dipt it o’er in gall ;
And, by Master Vice-Chamberlain,
He sent to him this scrawl:
“ Take hence yourself, and eke your spouse,
Your maidens and your men ;
Your trunks, and all your trumpery,
Except your chil-de-ren.”
*****
The Prince secured with nimble haste
The Artillery Commission ;
And with him trudged full many a maid,
But not one politician.
Up leapt Lepel, and frisked away,
As though she ran on wheels ;
Miss Meadows made a woful face,
Miss Howe took to her heels.
But Bellenden I needs must praise,
Who, as down stairs she jumps,
Sang “ O’er the hills and far away,”
Despising doleful dumps.
Then up the street they took their way,
And knockt up good Lord Grant-ham ;
Higgledy-piggledy they lay,
And all went rantam scantam.
Now sire and son had played their part,
What could befall beside ?
Why the poor babe took this to heart,
Kickt up its heels, and died.
�The House of Brunswick.
13
Mahon, despite all his desire to make out the best for the
Whig revolution and its consequences, occasionally makes some
pregnant admissions : “ The jealousy which George I. enter
tained for his son was no new feeling. It had existed even at
Hanover, and had since been inflamed by an insidious motion
of the Tories that out of the Civil List £100,000 should be
allotted as a separate revenue for the Prince of Wales. This
motion was over-ruled by the Ministerial party, and its rejection
offended the Prince as much as its proposal had the King......
In fact it is remarkable...... that since that family has reigned,
the heirs-apparent have always been on ill terms with the sove
reign. There have been four Princes of Wales since the death
of Anne, and all four have gone into bitter opposition.” “ That
family,” said Lord Carteret one day in full Council, “ always has
quarrelled, and always will quarrel, from generation to genera
tion.”
“ Through the whole of the reign of George I., and through
nearly half of the reign of George II.,” says Lord Macaulay, “a
Tory was regarded as the enemy of the reigning house, and was
excluded from all the favours of the Crown. Though most of
the country gentlemen were Tories, none but Whigs were ap
pointed deans and bishops. In every county, opulent and welldescended Tory squires complained that their names were left
out of the Commission of the Peace, while men of small estate
and of mean birth, who were for toleration and excise, septen
nial parliaments and standing armies, presided at Quarter Ses
sions, and became deputy-lieutenants.”
In attacking the Whigs, my object is certainly not to write in
favour of the Tories, but some such work is needful while so
many persons labour under the delusion that the Whigs have
always been friends to liberty and progress.
Although George I. brought with him no wife to England, he
was accompanied by at least two of his mistresses, and our
peerage roll was enriched by the addition of Madame Kielmansegge as Countess of Darlington, and Mademoiselle Erangard
Melosine de Schulenberg as Duchess of Kendal and Munster,
Baroness of Glastonbury and Countess of Feversham. These
peeresses were received with high favour by the Whig aristo
cracy, although the Tories refused to countenance them, and
“ they were often hooted by the mob as they passed through the
streets.” The Edinburgh Review described them as “ two big
blowsy German women.” Here I have no room to deal fairly
with Charlotte Sophia, Baroness of Brentford and Countess of
Darlington ; her title is extinct, and I can write nothing of any
good or useful act to revive her memory. Lord Chesterfield
says of George I. : “No woman came amiss to him, if she were
only very willing and very fat.” John Heneage Jesse, in his
“ Memoirs of the Court of England”—speaking of the Duchess
of Kendal, the Countess Platen (the co-partner in the murder
of Konigsmark), afterwards Countess of Darlington, and many
others less known to infamy—says that George I. “ had the
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The House of Brunswick.
folly and wickedness to encumber himself with a seraglio of
hideous German prostitutes.” The Duchess of Kendal was for
many years the chief mistress of George, and being tall and lean
was caricatured as the Maypole or the Giraffe. She had a
pension of ,£7,500 a year, the profits of the place of Master of
the Horse, and other plunder. The Countess of Darlington’s
figure may be judged from the name of Elephant or Camel
popularly awarded to her. Horace Walpole says of her : “I
remember as a boy being terrified at her enormous figure. The
fierce black eyes, large and rolling, between two lofty-arched
eyebrows, two acres of cheeks spread with crimson, an ocean of
neck that overflowed, and was not distinguished from the lower
part of her body, and no part restrained by stays. No wonder
that a child dreaded such an ogress.” She died 1724. Mahon
says : “ She was unwieldy in person, and rapacious in cha
racter.”
Phillimore declares that “ George I. brought with him from
Hanover mistresses as rapacious, and satellites as ignoble, as
those which drew down such deserved obloquy on Charles II.
Bothman, Bernstoff, Robethon, and two Turks—Mustapha and
Mahomet—meddled more with public affairs, and were to the
full as venal as Chiffin, Pepys, and Smith.” Mahon, who calls
Robethon “ a prying, impertinent, venomous creature,” adds that
<l coming from a poor electorate, a flight of hungry Hanoverians,
like so many famished vultures, fell with keen eyes and bended
talons on the fruitful soil of England.”
One of the earliest acts of the Whig aristocracy, in the reign of
George I., was to pass a measure through Parliament lengthen
ing the existence of that very Parliament to seven years, and
giving to the King the power to continue all subsequent Par
liaments to a like period. The Triennial Parliaments were thus
lengthened by a corrupt majority. For the committal of the
Septennial bill, there was a majority of 72 votes, and it is alleged
by the Westminster Review, “ that about 82 members of the
honourable house had either fingered Walpole’s gold, or pocketed
the bank notes which, by the purest accident, were left under
their plates........In the ten years which preceded the Septennial
Act, the sum expended in Secret Service money was ,£337,960.
In the ten years which followed the passing of the Septennial
Act, the sum expended for Secret Service was ,£1,453,400.”
The same writer says, “ The friends and framers of the Triennial
Bill were for the most part Tories, and its opponents for the most
part Whigs. The framers and friends of the Bill for long Par
liaments were all Whigs, and its enemies all Tories.” When the
measure came before the Lords, we find Baron Bernstoff, on the
King’s behalf, actually canvassing Peers’wives with promises of
places for their relatives in order to induce them to get their
husbands to vote for the Bill. Another of the early infringements
of public liberty by the Whig supporters of George I., was the
passing (1 Geo.. I., c. 5) the Riot Act, which had not existed
from the accession of James I. to the death of Queen Anne. Sir
�The House of Brunswick.
15
John Hinde Cotton, a few years afterwards, described this Act,
which is still the law of England, as “ An Act by which a little
dirty justice of the peace, the meanest and vilest tool a minister
can use, had it in his power to put twenty or thirty of the best
subjects of England to immediate death, without any trial 01form, but that of reading a proclamation’” In order to facilitate
the King’s desire to spend most of his time in Hanover, the
third section of the Act of Settlement was repealed.
Thackeray says : “Delightful as London city was, King George
I. liked to be out of it as much as ever he could, and when there,
passed all his time with his Germans. It was with them as with
Blucher one hundred years afterwards, when the bold old Reiter
looked down from St. Paul’s and sighed out, ‘ Was fur plunder !”
The German women plundered, the German secretaries plun
dered, the German cooks and intendants plundered; even
Mustapha and Mahomet, the German negroes, had a share of
the booty. Take what you can get, was the old monarch’s
maxim.”
There was considerable discontent expressed in the early years
of George’s reign. Hallam says : “ Much of this disaffection
was owing to the cold reserve of George I., ignorant of the lan
guage, alien to the prejudices of his people, and continually
absent in his electoral dominions, to which he seemed to sacri
fice the nation’s interest....... The letters in Coxe’s Memoirs of
Walpole, abundantly show the German nationality, the impolicy
and neglect of his duties, the rapacity and petty selfishness of
George I. The Whigs were much dissatisfied, but the fear of
losing their places made them his slaves.” In order to add the
duchies of Bremen and Verden to Hanover, in 1716, the King,
as Elector, made a treaty with Denmark against Sweden, which
treaty proved the source of those Continental wars, and the
attendant system of subsidies to European powers, which have,
in the main, created our enormous National Debt. Bremen and
Verden being actually purchased for George I. as the Elector of
Hanover, with English money, Great Britain in addition was
pledged by George I. to guarantee Sleswick to Denmark.
Sweden and Denmark quarrelling—and George I. as Elector of
Hanover having, without the consent of the English Parliament,
declared war against Sweden—an English fleet was sent into
the Baltic to take up a quarrel with which we had no concern.
In addition we were involved in a quarrel with Russia, because
that power had interfered to prevent Mecklenburg being added
to George’s Hanoverian estates. The chief mover in this matter
was the notorious Baron Bernstoff, who held some village pro
perty in Mecklenburg. In all these complications, Hanover
gained, England lost. If Hanover found troops, England paid
for them, while the Electorate solely reaped the benefit. Every
thoughtful writer admits that English interests were always
betrayed to satisfy Hanoverian greed.
The King’s fondness for Germany provoked some hostility,
and amongst the various squibs issued, one in 1716, from the
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The House of Brunswick.
pen of Samuel Wesley, brother of John Wesley, is not without
interest. It represents a conversation between George and the
Duchess of Kendall :—
As soon as the wind it came fairly about,
That kept the king in and his enemies out,
He determined no longer confinement to bear,
And thus to the Duchess his mind did declare :
“ Quoth he, my dear Kenny, I’ve been tired a long while,
With living obscure in this poor little isle,
And now Spain and Pretenderhave no more mines to spring,
I’m resolved to go home and live like a king.”
The Duchess approves of this, describes and laughs at all the
persons nominated for the Council of Regency, and concludes:—
“ On the whole, I’ll be hanged if all over the realm
There are thirteen such fools to be put to the helm ;
So for this time be easy, nor have jealous thought,
They ha’n’t sense to sell you, nor are worth being bought.”
“’Tis for that (quoth the King, in very bad French),
I chose them for my regents, and you for my wench,
And neither, I’m sure, will my trust e’er betray,
For the devil won’t take you if I turn you away.”
It was this same Duchess of Kendal who, as the King’s
mistress, was publicly accused of having received enormous
sums of money from the South Sea Company for herself and the
King, in order to shield from justice the principal persons con
nected with those terrible South Sea frauds, by which, in the
year 1720, so many families were reduced to misery.
In 1717, Mr. Shippen, a member of the House of Commons,
was committed to the Tower, for saying in his place in the
House, that it was the “ infelicity of his Majesty’s reign that he
is unacquainted with our language and constitution.” Lord
Macaulay tells us how Lord Carteret, afterwards Earl Granville,
rose into favour. The King could speak no English ; Carteret
was the only one of the Ministry who could speak German.
“ All the communication that Walpole had with his master was
in very bad Latin.” The influence Carteret wielded over the
King did not extend to every member of the Royal Family. The
Princess of Wales afterwards described the Lords Carteret and
Bolingbroke as two she had “ long known to be two as worth
less men of parts as any in the country, and who I have not
only been often told are two of the greatest liars and knaves in
any country, but whom my own observation and experience have
found so.”
Under George I. our standing army was nearly doubled by the
Whig Ministry, and this when peace would rather have justified
a reduction than an increase. The payments to Hanoverian
troops commenced under this king, a payment which William
Pitt afterwards earned the enmity of George II. by very sharply
�The House of Brunswick.
IT
denouncing, and which payment was but a step in the system of
continental subsidies which have helped to swell our national
debt to its present enormous dimensions.
In this reign the enclosure of waste lands was practically com
menced, sixteen enclosure Acts being passed, and 17,660 acres
of land enclosed. This example, once furnishe4, was followed
in the next reign with increasing rapidity, 226 enclosure Acts
being passed in the reign of George II., and 318,778 acres of
land enclosed. As Mr. Fawcett states, up to 1845, more than
7,000,000 acres of land, over which the public possessed in
valuable rights, have been gradually absorbed, and individuals
wielding legislative influence have been enriched at the expense
of the public and the poor.
Within six years from his accession, the King was about
.£600,000 in debt, and this sum was the first of a long list of
debts discharged by the nation for these Brunswicks. When
our ministers to-day talk of obligations on the part of the people
to endow each additional member of the Royal Family, the
memory of these shameful extravagances should have some
effect. George I. had a civil list of £700^000 a year; he received
£300,000 from the Royal Exchange Assurance Company, and
.£300,000 from the London Assurance Companies, and had one
million voted to him in 1726 towards payment of his debts.
When the “ South Sea Bill” was promoted in 1720, wholesale
bribery was resorted to. Transfers of stock were proved to have
been made to persons high in office. Two members of the
Whig Ministry, Lord Sunderland and Mr. Aislabie, were so im
plicated that they had to resign their offices, and the last-named,
who was Chancellor of the Exchequer, was ignominiously ex
pelled the House of Commons. Royalty itself, or at least the
King’s sultanas, and several of his German household, shared
the spoil. £30,000 were traced to the King’s mistresses, and
a select committee of the House denounced the whole business
as “ a train of the deepest villany and fraud with which hell ever
contrived to ruin a nation.” Near the close of the reign, Lord
Macclesfied, Lord Chancellor and favourite and tool of the King,,
was impeached for extortion and abuse of trust in his office, and
being convicted, was sentenced to pay a fine of £30,000. In
5716, Mademoiselle Schulenberg, then Duchess of Munster,
received £“5,000 as a bribe for procuring the title of Viscount
for Sir Henry St. John. In 1724, the same mistress, bribed by
Lord Bolingbroke, successfully used her influence to pass an act
through Parliament restoring him his forfeited estates. Mr.
Chetwynd, says my Lady Cowper, in order to secure his position
in the Board of Trade, paid to another of George’s mistresses
£500 down, agreed to allow her £200 a year as long as he held
the place, and gave her also the fine brilliant earrings she wore.
In 1724, there appeared in Dublin, the first of the famous
“ Drapier Letters,” written by Jonathan Swift against Wood’s
coinage patent. A patent had been granted to a man named
Wood for coining halfpence in Ireland. This grant was made
C
�18
The House of Brunswick.
under the influence of the Duchess of Kendal, the mistress of
the King, and on the stipulation that she should receive a large
share of the profits. These “ Drapier Letters ” were prosecuted
by the Government, but Swift followed them with others ; the
grand juries refused to find true bills, and ultimately the patent
was cancelled. Wood, or the Duchess, got as compensation a
grant of a pension of ,£3,000 a year for eight years.
George died at Osnabruck, on his journey Hanoverwards, hi
June 1727, having made a will by which he disposed of his
money in some fashion displeasing to his son George II.; and as
the Edinburgh Review tells us, the latter “ evaded the old King’s
directions, and got his money by burning his will.” In this
George II. only followed his royal father’s example. When
Sophia Dorothea died, she left a will bequeathing her property
in a fashion displeasing to George I., who, without scruple,,
destroyed the testament and appropriated the estate. _ George L
had also previously burned the will of his father-in-law, the
Duke of Zell. At this time the destruction of a will was a capital
felony in England.
In concluding this rough sketch of the reign of George I., it
must not be forgotten that his accession meant the triumph of
the Protestant caste in Ireland, and that under his rule much
was done to render permanent the utter hatred manifested by
the Irish people to their English conquerors, who had always
preferred the policy of extermination to that of conciliation.
Things were so sad in Ireland at the end of this reign, that
Dean Swift, in bitter mockery, “ wrote and published his
‘ Modest Proposal ’ for relieving the miseries of the people, by
cooking and eating the children of the poor“ a piece of the
fiercest sarcasm,” says Mitchell, “ steeped in all the concentrated
bitterness of his soul.” Poor Ireland, she had, at any rate,,
nothing to endear her to the memory of George I.
CHAP. III.
THE REIGN OF GEORGE IL
When George I. died there was so little interest or affection
exhibited by his son and successor, that Sir Robert Walpole, on
announcing to George II. that by the demise of his father he
had succeeded to regal honours,, was saluted with a volley of
oaths, and “ Dat is one big lie.” No pretence even was made
of sorrow. George Augustus had hated George Lewis . during
life and at the first council, when the will of the late King was
produced by the Archbishop of Canterbury, the new monarch
simply took it up and walked out of the room with the docu
ment, which was never seen again. Thackeray, who pictures
�The House of Brunswick.
19
George II. as a dull, little man, of low tastes,” says that he
“ made away with his father’s will under the astonished nose of
the Archbishop of Canterbury.” A duplicate of this will having
been deposited with the Duke of Brunswick, a large sum of money
was paid to that Prince nominally as a subsidy by the English
Government for the maintenance of troops, but really as a bribe
for surrendering the document. A legacy having been left by
this will to Lady Walsingham, threats were held out in 1733 by
her then husband, Lord Chesterfield, and £20,000 was paid in
compromise.
The eldest son of George II. was Frederick, born in 1706,
and who up to 1728 resided permanently in Hanover. Lord
Hervey tells us that the King hated his son Frederick, and that
the Queen Caroline, his mother, abhorred him. To Lord Her
vey the Queen says “ My dear Lord, I will give it you under
my hand, if you are in any fear of my relapsing, that my dear
first-born is the greatest ass, and the greatest liar, and the
greatest canaille, and the greatest beast in the whole world ; and
that I most heartily wish he were out of it.” This is a tolerably
strong description of the father of George III. from the lips of
his own mother. Along with this description of Frederick by
the Queen, take Thackeray’s character of George II.’s worthy
father of worthy son : “ Here was one who had neither dignity,
learning, morals, nor wit—who tainted a great society by a bad
example ; who in youth, manhood, old age, was gross, low, and
sensuaL”
In 1705, when only Electoral Prince of Hanover, George had
married Caroline, daughter of the Margrave of Anspach, a
woman of more than average ability. Thackeray describes
Caroline in high terms of praise, but Lord Chesterfield says
that “ she valued herself upon her skill in simulation and dis
simulation...... Cunning and perfidy were the means she made
use of in business.” The Prince of Anspach is alleged by the
Whisperer to have raised some difficulties as to the marriage
on account of George I. being disposed to deny the legitimacy
of his son, and it is further pretended that George I. had actually
to make distinct acknowledgment of his son to King William
III. before the arrangements for the Act of Settlement were
consented to by that King. It is quite clear from the diary of
Lady Cowper, that the old King’s feeling towards George II.
was always one of the most bitter hatred.
The influence exercised by Queen Caroline over George II.
was purely political; and Lord Hervey declares that “wherever
the interest of Germany and the honour of the Empire were con
cerned, her thoughts and reasonings were as German and Im
perial as if England had been out of the question.”
A strange story is told of Sir Robert Walpole and Caroline.
Sir Robert, when intriguing for office under George I., with
Townshend, Devonshire, and others, objected to their plans
being communicated to the Prince of Wales, saying, “ The fat
b
his wife, would betray the secret and spoil the project.”
�'20
The Hottie of Brunswick.
This courtly speech being made known by some kind friend to
the Princess Caroline, considerable hostility was naturally ex
hibited. Sir Robert Walpole, who held the doctrine that every
person was purchasable, the only question being one of price,
managed to purchase peace with Caroline when Queen. When
the ministry suspended, “ Walpole not fairly out, Compton not
fairly in,” Sir Robert assured the Queen that he would secure
her an annuity of ,£100,000 in the event of the King’s death, Sir
Spencer Compton, who was then looked to as likely to be in
power, having only offered £60,000. The Queen sent back
word, “ Tell Sir Robert the fat b—h has forgiven him,” and
thenceforth they were political allies until the Queen’s death
in 1737.
The domestic relations of George II. were marvellous. We
pass with little notice Lady Suffolk, lady-in-waiting to the
Queen and mistress to the King, who was sold by her husband
for a pension of ,£12,000 a year, paid by the British taxpayers,
and who was coarsely insulted by both their Majesties. It is
needless to dwell on the confidential communications, in which
« that strutting little sultan George II.,” as Thackeray calls him,
solicited favours from his wife for his mistress, the Countess of
Walmoden ; but, to use the words of the cultured Edinburgh
Review, the Queen’s “actual intercession to secure for the
King the favours of the Duchess of Modena precludes the idea
that these sentiments were as revolting to the royal Philaminte
as they would nowadays be to a scavenger’s daughter. Nor
was the Queen the only lady of the Royal Family who talked
openly on these matters. When Lady Suffolk was waning at
court, the Princess Royal could find nothing better to say than
this : ‘ I wish with all my heart that he (z>., the King) would
take somebody else, that Mamma might be relieved from the
ennui of seeing him for ever in her room.’ ”
Lady Cowper in her diary tells us that George IL, when Prince
of Wales, intrigued with Lady Walpole, not only with the know
ledge of the Princess Caroline, but also with connivance of the
Prime Minister himself. Lord Hervey adds that Caroline used
to sneer at Sir Robert Walpole, asking how the poor man—“ avec
ce gros corps, ces jambes enflees et ce vilcvin ventre ■ could pos
sibly believe that any woman couldlove him for himself. And that
Sir Robert retaliated, when Caroline afterwards complained to
him of the King’s cross temper, by telling her very coolly that “it
was impossible it could be otherwise, since the King had tasted
better things,” and ended by advising her to bring pretty Lady
Tankerville en rapport with the King.
In 1727 an Act was passed, directed against workmen in the
woollen trade, rendering combination for the purpose of raising
wages unlawful. Some years afterwards, this Act was extended
to other trades, and the whole tendency of the septennial Parlia
ment legislation manifests a most unfortunate desire on the part
of the Legislature to coerce and keep in subjection the artisan
classes.
„
�The House of Brunswick.
21
In February 1728, the celebrated “Beggar’s Opera,” by Gay,
was put on the stage at the Lincoln’s Inn Fields Theatre, and
being supposed to contain some satirical reflections on court
corruption, provoked much displeasure on the part of Royalty.
The Duchess of Queensborough, who patronised Gay, being
forbidden to attend court, wrote thus : “The Duchess of Queens
borough is surprised and well pleased that the King has given
her so agreeable a command as forbidding her the court..........
She hopes that, by so unprecedented an order as this, the King
will see as few as she wishes at his court, particularly such as
dare speak or think truth.”
In 1729, £115,000 was voted by Parliament for the payment
of the King’s debts. This vote seems to have been obtained
under false pretences, to benefit the King, whose “ cardinal pas
sion,” says Phillimore, “ was avarice.”
The Craftsman, during the first decade of the reign, fiercely
assailed the Whig ministry for “a wasteful expenditure of money
in foreign subsidies and bribes and in his place in the House
of Commons William Pitt, “the great Commoner,” in the
strongest language attacked the system of foreign bribery by
which home corruption was supplemented.
The rapidly-increasing expenditure needed every day increased
taxation, and a caricature published in 1732 marks the public
feeling. A monster (Excise), in the form of a many-headed
dragon, is drawing the minister (Sir Robert Walpole) in his
coach, and pouring into his lap, in the shape of gold, what it
has eaten up in the forms of mutton, hams, cups, glasses, mugs,
pipes, &c.
“ See this dragon Excise
Has ten thousand eyes,
And five thousand mouths to devour us ;
A sting and sharp claws,
With wide gaping jaws,
And a belly as big as a store-house.”
Beginning with'wines and liquors—
“ Grant these, and the glutton
Will roar out for mutton,
Your beef, bread, and bacon to boot ;
Your goose, pig, and pullet,
He’ll thrust down his gullet,
Whilst the labourer munches a root.”
In 1730, Mr. Sandys introduced a Bill to disable pensioners
from sitting in Parliament. George II. vigorously opposed this
measure, which was defeated. In the King’s private notes to
Lord Townshend, Mr. Sandys’ proposed act is termed a “vil
lainous measure,” which should be “ torn to pieces in every
particular.”
It was in 1732 that the Earl of Aylesford, a Tory peer, de
clared that standing armies in time of peace were “ against the
�22
The House of Brunswick.
very words of the Petition of Rights" and that “ all the con
fusions and disorders which have been brought upon this king
dom for many years have been all brought upon it by means of
standing armies.” In 1733, Earl Strafford affirmed that “a
standing army ” was “ always inconsistent with the liberties of
the peopleand urged that “ where the people have any regard
for their liberties, they ought never to keep up a greater number
of regular forces than are absolutely necessary for the security
of the Government.” Sir John Barnard declared that the army
ought not to be used on political questions. He said : “ In a
free country, if a tumult happens from a just cause of complaint
the people ought to be satisfied ; their grievances ought to be
redressed ; they ought not surely to be immediately knocked on
the head because they may happen to complain in an irregular
way.” Mr. Pulteney urged that a standing army is “ a body of
men distinct from the body of the people ; they are governed by
different laws ; blind obedience and an entire submission to the
orders of their commanding officer is their only principle. The
nations around us are already enslaved by those very means ;
by means of their standing armies they have every one lost
their liberties ; it is indeed impossible that the liberties of the
people can be preserved in a country where a numerous stand
ing army is kept up.”
In 1735, sixteen Scottish peers were elected to sit in the House
of Lords, and in a petition to Parliament it was alleged, that the
whole of this list of sixteen peers was elected by bribery and
corruption. The petition positively asserted “ that the list of
sixteen peers for Scotland had been formed by persons high in
trust under the crown, previous to the election itself. The peers
were solicited to vote for this list without the liberty of making
any alteration, and endeavours were used to engage peers to
vote for this list by promise of pensions and offices, civil and
military, to themselves and their relations, and by actual pro
mise and offers of sums of money. Several had received money,
and releases of debts owing to the crown were granted to those
who voted for this list. To render this transaction more in
famous, a battalion of troops occupied the Abbey Court of Edin
burgh, and continued there during the whole time of the election,
while there was a considerable body lying within a mile of the
city ready to advance on the signal.” This petition, notwith
standing the gravity of its allegations, was quietly suppressed.
Lady Sundon, Woman of the Bedchamber and Mistress of
the Robes to Queen Caroline, received from Lord Pomfret
jewellery of ,£1,400 value, for obtaining him the appointment of
Master of the Horse.
With a Civil List of ,£800,000 a year, George II. was continually in debt, but an obedient Ministry and a corrupt Parliament never hesitated to discharge his Majesty’s obligations out
of the pockets of the unrepresented people. Lord Carteret, m
1733, speaking of a Bill before the House for granting the King
half a million out of the Sinking Fund, said : “ This Fund, my
�The House of Brunswick.
23
Lords, has been clandestinely defrauded of several small sums at
different times, which indeed together amount to a pretty large
sum ; but by this Bill it is to be openly and avowedly plundered
of £500,000 at once.”
On the 27th of April, 1736, Prince Frederick was married to
the Princess Augusta, of Saxe Gotha, whom King George II.
afterwards described as “ cette diablesse Madame la PrincesseP
In August of the same year, a sharp open quarrel took place
between the Prince of Wales and his parents, which, after some
resumptions of pretended friendliness, ended, on September 10,
1737, in the former being ordered by the King to quit St. James’s
Palace, where he was residing. On the 22nd of the preceding
February, Pulteney had moved for an allowance of ,£100,000 a
year to Prince Frederick. George II. refused to consent, on the
ground that the responsibility to provide for the Prince of Wales
rested with himself, and that “ it would be highly indecorous to
interfere between father and son.” On the Prince of Wales
taking up his residence at Norfolk House, “the King issued an
order that no persons who paid their court to the Prince and
Princess should be admitted to his presence.” An official intima
tion of this was given to foreign ambassadors.
On the 20th of November, 1737, Queen Caroline died, never
having spoken to her son since the quarrel. “ She was,” says
Walpole, “implacable in hatred even to her dying moments.
She absolutely refused to pardon, or even to see, her son.” The
death-bed scene is thus spoken of by Thackeray : “ There never
was such a ghastly farce and as sketched by Lord Hervey, it
is a monstrous mixture of religion, disgusting comedy, and bru
tishness : “ We are shocked in the very chamber of death by
the intrusion of egotism, vanity, buffoonery, and inhumanity.
The King is at one moment dissolved in a mawkish tenderness,
at another sunk into brutal apathy. He is at one moment all
tears for the loss of one who united the softness and amiability
of one sex to the courage and firmness of the other ; at another
all fury because the object of his regrets cannot swallow, or
cannot change her posture, or cannot animate the glassy fixed
ness of her eyes ; at one moment he begins an elaborate pane
gyric on her virtues, then breaks off into an enumeration of his
own, by which he implies that her heart has been enthralled,
and her intelligence awed. He then breaks off into a stupid
story about a storm, for which his daughter laughs at him, and
then while he is weeping over his consort’s death-bed, she ad
vises him to marry again ; and we are—what the Queen was
not—startled by the strange reply, ‘ Non, faurai des mattresses^
with the faintly-moaned out rejoinder, ‘Gela riempeche pas?”
So does the Edinburgh Reviewer, following Lord Hervey, paint
the dying scene of the Queen of our second George.
After the death of the Queen, the influence of the King’s mis
tresses became supreme, and Sir R. Walpole, who in losing
Queen Caroline had lost his greatest hold over George, paid
court to Lady Walmoden, in order to maintain his weakened
�24
The House of Brunswick.
influence. In the private letters of the Pelham family, who
succeeded to power soon after Walpole’s fall, we find frequent
mention of the Countess of Yarmouth as a power to be gained,
a person to stand well with. “ I read,” says Thackeray, “ that
Lady Yarmouth (my most religious and gracious king’s favou
rite) sold a bishopric to a clergyman for ,£5,000. (He betted
her ^5,000 that he would not be made a bishop, and he lost, and
paid her.) Was he the only prelate of his time led up by such
hands for consecration ? As I peep into George II.’s St. James’s,
I see crowds of cassocks rustling up the back-stairs of the ladies
of the Court; stealthy clergy slipping purses into their laps ;
that godless old King yawning under his canopy in his Chapel
Royal, as the chaplain before him is discoursing.”
On the 23rd of May, 1738, George William Frederick, son of
Frederick, and afterwards George III., was born.
In 1739, Lady Walmoden, who had up to this year remained
in Hanover, was brought to England and formally installed at
the English Court. In this year we bound ourselves by treaty
to pay 250,000 dollars per annum for three years to the Danish
Government. “ The secret motive of this treaty,” says Mahon,
« as of too many others, was not English, but Hanoverian, and
regarded the possession of a petty castle and lordship called
Steinhorst. This castle had been bought from Holstein by
George II. as Elector of Hanover, but the Danes claiming the
sovereignty, a skirmish ensued.......... The well-timed treaty of
subsidy calmed their resentment, and obtained the cession of
their claim.” Many urged, as in truth it was, that Steinhorst
was bought with British money, and Bolingbroke expressed his
fear “ that we shall throw the small remainder- of our wealth
where we have thrown so much already, into the German Gulf,
which cries Give ! Give 1 and is never satisfied.”
On the 19th of May, 1739, in accordance with the wish of the
King, war was declared with Spain, nominally on the question
of the right of search, but when peace was declared at Aix-laChapelle, this subject was never mentioned. According to Dr.
Colquhoun, this war cost the country £(46,418,680.
George II. was, despite the provisions of the Act of Settle
ment, continually in Hanover. From 1729 to I73I> again in
1735 and 1736, and eight times between 174° an(i I7551745 he wished to go, but was not allowed.
On the 2nd of October, 1741 (the Pelham family having
managed to acquire power by dint, as Lord Macaulay puts it,
of more than suspected treason to . [their leader and colleague),
the Duke of Newcastle, then Prime Minister, wrote his brother,
Henry Pelham, as follows : “ I must freely own to you, that I
think the King’s unjustifiable partiality for Hanover, to which
he makes all other views and considerations subservient, has
manifested itself so much that no man can continue in the active
part of the administration with honour.” The duke goes on to
describe the King’s policy as “ both dishonourable and fatal ; ’
and Henry Pelham, on the 8th of October, writes him back that
�The House of Brunswick.
25
“ a partiality to Hanover is general, is what all men of business
have found great obstructions from, ever since this family have
been upon the throne.” Yet these are amongst the most promi
nent of the public defenders of the House of Brunswick, and a
family which reaped great place and profit from the connection.
Of the Duke of Newcastle, Lord Macaulay says : “ No man
was so unmercifully satirised. But in truth he was himself a
satire ready made. All that the art of the satirist does for other
men, nature had done for him. Whatever was absurd about
him stood out with grotesque prominence from the rest of the
character. He was a living, moving, talking, caricature. His
gait was a shuffling trot, his utterance a rapid stutter ; he was
always in a hurry; he was never in time; he abounded in fulsome
caresses and in hysterical tears. His oratory resembled that of
Justice Shallow. It was nonsense, effervescent with animal
spirits and impertinence. Of his ignorance many anecdotes
remain, some well authenticated, some probably invented at
coffee-houses, but all exquisitely characteristic. ‘ Oh! yes, yes,
to be sure ! Annapolis must be defended ; troops must be sent
to Annapolis. Pray where is Annapolis ?’ ‘ Cape Breton an
island ! Wonderful ! show it me in the map. So it is, sure
enough. My dear sir, you always bring us good news. I must
go and tell the King that Cape Breton is an island.’ And this
man was, during near thirty years, Secretary of State, and during
near ten years First Lord of the Treasury ! His large fortune,
his strong hereditary connection, his great Parliamentary interest,
will not alone explain this extraordinary fact. His success is a
signal instance of what may be effected by a man who devotes his
whole heart and soul without reserve to one object. He was eaten
up by ambition. His love of influence and authority resembled
the avarice of the old usurer in the ‘ Fortunes of Nigel.’ It was
so intense a passion that it supplied the place of talents, that it
inspired even fatuity with cunning. ‘ Have no money dealings
with my father,’ says Martha to Lord Glenvarloch, 1 for, dotard
as he is, he will make an ass of you.’ It was as dangerous to
have any political connection with Newcastle as to buy and sell
with old Trapbois. He was greedy after power with a greedi
ness all his own. He was jealous of all colleagues, and even of
his own brother. Under the disguise of levity, he was false
beyond all example of political falsehood. All the able men of
his time ridiculed him as a dunce, a driveller, a child who never
knew his own mind for an hour together ; and he over-reached
them all round.”
In 1742, under the opposition of Pulteney, the Tories called
upon Paxton, the Solicitor to the Treasury, and Scrope, the
Secretary to the Treasury, to account for the specific sum of
^1,147,211, which it was proved they had received from the
minister. No account was ever furnished. George Vaughan, a
confidant of Sir Robert Walpole, was examined before the
Commons as to a practice charged upon that minister, of oblig
ing the possessor of a place or office to pay a certain sum out
D
�26
The House of Brunswick.
of the profits of it to some person or persons recommended by
the minister. Vaughan, who does not appear to have ventured
any direct denial, managed to avoid giving a categorical reply,
and to get excused from answering on the ground that he might
criminate himself. Agitation was commenced for the revival of
Triennial Parliaments, for the renewal of the clause of the Act
of Settlement, by which pensioners and placemen were excluded
from the House of Commons, and for the abolition of standing
armies in time of peace. The Whigs, however, successfully
crushed out the whole of this agitation. Strong language was
heard in the House of Commons, where Sir James Dashwood
said that “ it was no wonder that the people were then unwilling
to support the Government, when a weak, narrow-minded prince
occupied the throne.”
A very amusing squib appeared in 1742, when Sir Robert
Walpole’s power was giving way, partly under the bold attacks
of the Tories, led by Cotton and Shippen ; partly before the
malcontent Whigs under the guidance of Carteret and Pulteney ;
partly before the rising power of the young England party led
by William Pitt ; and somewhat from the jealousy, if not
treachery, of his colleague the Duke of Newcastle. The squib
pictures the King’s embarrassment and anger at being forced to
dismiss Walpole, and to Carteret whom he has charged to form
a ministry :—
“ Quoth the King : My good lord, perhaps you’ve been told
That I used to abuse you a little of old,
But now bring whom you will, and eke turn away,
Let but me and my money at Walmoden stay.”
Lord Carteret explaining to the King whopi he shall keep of
the old ministry, includes the Duke of Newcastle :—“Though Newcastle’s false, as he’s silly I know,
By betraying old Robin to me long ago,
As well as all those who employed him before,
Yet I leave him in place but I leave him no power.
“ For granting his heart is as black as his hat,
With no more truth in this than there’s sense, beneath that,
Yet, as he’s a coward, he’ll shake when I frown ;
You call’d him a rascal, I’ll use him like one.
“ For your foreign affairs, howe’er they turn out,
At least I’ll take care you shall make a great rout;
Then cock your great hat, strut, bounce, and look bluff,
For though kick’d and cuff’d here, you shall there kick and cuff.
“ That Walpole did nothing they all used to say,
So I’ll do enough, but I’ll make the dogs pay ;
Great fleets I’ll provide, and great armies engage,
Whate’er debts we make, or whate’er wars we wage !
�The House of Brunswick.
With cordials like these the monarch’s new guest
Reviv’d his sunk spirits, and gladden’d his breast;
Till in rapture he cried, ‘ My dear Lord, you shall do
Whatever you will—give me troops to review.’ ”
In t743? King George II. actually tried to engage this country
by a private agreement, to pay .£300,000 a year to the Queen of
Hungary, ‘ as long as war should continue, or the necessity of
her affairs should require.” The King, being in Hanover, sent
over the treaty to England, with a warrant directing the Lords
Justices to “ratify and confirm it,” which, however, they refused
to do. On hearing that the Lord Chancellor refused to sanc
tion the arrangement, King George II. threatened, through Earl
Granville, to affix the Great Seal with his own hand. Ultimately
the £300,000 per annum was agreed to be paid so long as the
war lasted, but this sum was in more than one instance ex
ceeded.
Although George II. had induced the country to vote such
large sums to Maria Therese, the Empress-Queen, he nevertheless abandoned her in a most cowardly manner when he
thought his Hanoverian dominions in danger, and actually
treated with France without the knowledge or consent of his
ministry. A rhyming squib, in which the King is termed the
Balancing Captain,” from which we present the following ex
tracts, will serve to show the feeling widely manifested in Eng
land at that time
“ I’ll tell you a story as strange as ’tis new,
Which all who’re concern’d will allow to be true,
Of a Balancing Captain, well known hereabouts/
Returned home (God save him) a mere king of clouts.
“ This Captain he takes in a gold ballasted ship,
Each summer to terra damnosa a trip,
For which he begs, borrows, scrapes all he can get,
And runs his poor owners most vilely in debt.
“ The last time he set out for this blessed place,
He met them, and told them a most piteous case,
Of a sister of his, who, though bred up at court
Was ready to perish for want of support.
’
This Hung'ry sister he then did pretend,
Would be to his owners a notable friend,
If they would at that critical juncture supply her •
They did—but, alas ! all the fat’s in the fire !”
The ballad then suggests that the King, having got all the
money possible, made a peace with the enemies of the Queen of
Hungary, described in the ballad as the sister
“ He then turns his sister adrift, and declares
most mortal foes were her father’s right heirs :
‘ o71h7dS !’
such a steP was ne’er taken!’
Oh, oh ! says Moll Bluff, I have saved my own bacon.
�28
The House of Brunswick.
‘ Let France damn the Germans, and undamn the Dutch,
And Spain on Old England pish ever so much ;
Let Russia bang Sweden, or Sweden bang that,
I care not, by Robert, one kick of my hat /
‘ Or should my chous’d owners begin to look sour,
I’ll trust to mate Bob to exert his old power,
Regit animas dictis, or numis with ease,
So, spite of your growling, I’ll act as I please !’ ”
The British Nation, described as the owners, are cautioned to
look into the accounts of their Captain, who is bringing them to
insolvency :—
“ This secret, however, must out on the day
When he meets his poor owners to ask for his pay ;
Arid I fear, when they come to adjust the account,
A zero for balance will prove their amount.”
The firial result of all these subsidy votes was to increase our
national debt, up to the signing of the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle,
to ^76,000,000 ; while the seven years’ war, which Came later,
brought the debt to
133,000,000, not including in this the
capitalised value of the terminable annuities.
On November 22nd, 1743, a caricature was published, which
had a wide sale, and which represented the King as a fat
Hanoverian white horse riding to death a nearly starved British
lion.
In 1744, ^200,000 was voted, which King George and Lord
Carteret, who was called by William Pitt his “ Hanoverian troop
minister,” had agreed to give the King of Sardinia. ^40,000
was also voted for a payment made by the King to the Duke of
Arenberg. This payment was denounced by Mr. Lyttelton as a
dangerous misapplication of public money.
The votes for foreign subsidies alone, in 1744, were ,£691,426,
while the Hanoverian soldiers cost us .£393,773- The King
actually tried in addition in the month of August to get a further
subsidy for his friend the Elector of Saxony, and another for the
King of Poland, and this when Englishmen and Irishmen were
lacking bread. Nor was even a pretence made in some instances
of earning the money, f 150,000 was paid this year to keep
Prince Charles in Alsace, and the moment Austria got the
money, Prince Charles was withdrawn, and Henry Pelham,
writing to the Duke of Newcastle, says, “The same will be the
case with every sum of money we advance. The allies will take
it, and then act as suits their convenience and security.” In the
four years from 1744 to 1747 both included, we paid ,£4,342,683
for foreign troops and subsidies, not including the Dutch and
Hessians, whom we hired to put down the rebellion of 1745- In
the case of the whole of this war, in which we subsidised all our
allies except the Dutch, it is clear that the direct and sole blame
rests upon the King, who cared nothing for English interests in
�The House of Brunswick.
29
the matter. When firmly remonstrated with by Lord Chancellor
Hardwicke, his reply was what the Duke of Newcastle describes,
as “almost sullen silence.”
For the rebellion of 1745—which came so. near being success
ful, and which would have thoroughly succeeded had the Pre
tender’s son possessed any sort of ability as a leader—there is,
little room to spare here. The attempt to suppress it in its early
stages is thus described in a Jacobite ballad ;—
“ Horse, foot, and dragoons, from lost Flanders they call,
With Hessians and Danes, and the devil and all;
And hunters and rangers led by Oglethorpe ;
And the Church, at the bum of the Bishop of York.
And pray, who so fit to lead forth this parade,
As the babe of Tangier, my old grandmother Wade ?
Whose cunning’s so quick, but whose motion’s so slow,
That the rebels marched on, while he stuck in the snow.”'
The hideously disgusting cruelties and horrible excesses com
mitted by the infamous Duke of Cumberland, and the Hessians
and Hanoverians under his command, in suppressing the rebel
lion after the battle of Culloden, are, alas 1 too well known.
Duncan Forbes, Lord President of the Court of Session, and a
warm supporter of the Brunswicks, remonstrating with the Duke
as to the latter’s disregard of the laws of the country, his Royal
Highness of Cumberland replied with an oath : “ The laws of
my country, my lord ; I’ll make a brigade give laws.” Scotland
has many reasons for loving the House of Brunswick. Lord
Waldegrave, who strove hard to whitewash the Duke of Cumber
land, says that “ Frederick Prince of Wales gave too much
credit to the most malignant and groundless accusations, by
showing favour to every man who aspersed his brother’s cha
racter.”
In 1747, £456,733 was voted by Parliament for the payment
of the King’s debts.
In 1748 considerable difficulty arose in consequence of the.
King’s intrigues to obtain, at the expense of England, the
Bishopric of Osnaburg as a princely establishment for his.
favourite son the Duke of Cumberland, that pious prince, much
esteemed in Scotland as “ the butcher.” The most open hosti
lity subsisted between the Duke of Cumberland and Prince
Frederick, and pamphleteering attacks on the former, for his
brutality and excesses, were supposed to be encouraged by the
Leicester House party.
Amongst the curious scandals of 1749, it is stated that the
King—being present at a masked ball, at which Elizabeth Chudleigh, afterwards Duchess of Kingston, figured as “ La Belle
Sauvage” in a close fitting dress of flesh-coloured silk—re
quested permission to place his hand on Miss Chudleigh’s breast.
The latter replied that she would put the King’s hand on a still
softer place, and immediately raised it to his own royal forehead.
�30
The House of Brunswick.
On the 20th March, 1751, Frederick Prince of Wales died.
The King, who received the news while playing cards with his
mistress, Lady Yarmouth, and who had not spoken to his son for
years, merely said, “Freddy is dead.” On this subject Thackeray
preserves for us the following epitaph :—
“ Here lies Fred,
o>
Who was alive, and is dead.
Had it been his father,
I had much rather.
Had it been his brother,
Still better than another.
Had it been his sister,
N o one would have missed her.
Had it been the whole generation,
Still better for the nation.
■
But since ’tis only Fred,
Who was alive, and is dead,
There’s no more to be said.”
In 1755, there was the second war, estimated to have cost
;£i 11,271,996. In this George II. pursued exactly the opposite
course of policy to*that taken by him in the previous one. The
war during the years fallowing 1739, was f°r the humiliation of
the King of Prussia ; the policy in the last war was to prevent
his humiliation. Mr. Baxter estimates the debt (exclusive of
annuities) at ^133,000,000 ; Dr. Colquhoun, adding the value of
the annuities, makes it ^146,682,843 at the conclusion of this
war.
Towards the close of the reign of George II., who died on
October 25th, 1760, his Royal Highness the Duke of Cumber
land, by an exhibition of great strategy, combined with much
discretionary valour, succeeded in making peace on terms which
ensured the repose of himself and his Hanoverian forces during
the remainder of the war. At home his Royal Higness was
much attacked, some venturing to describe his personal conduct
as cowardly and his generalship as contemptible. It is a suffi
cient refutation of such a calumny to say that the Duke of Cum
berland was as brave a soldier and as able a general as our
present Commander-in-Chief, his Royal Highness the Duke of
Cambridge.
Lord Waldegrave, who wrote in favour of George II., admits
that the King “ is accused by his ministers of being hasty and
passionate when any measure is proposed which he does not
approve of.” That “ too great attention to money seems to be
his capital failing.” And that “ his political courage seems
somewhat problematical.” Phillimore says : “ In public life he
was altogether indifferent to the welfare of England, except as
it affected his Electorate’s or his own. Always purchasing con
cubines, he was always governed by his wife. In private life he
was a gross lover, an unreasonable master, a coarsely unfaithful
husband, an unnatural parent, and a selfish man.”
�The House of Brunswick.
31
N o more fitting conclusion can be found to this chapter than
the following pregnant words from the pen of Lord Macaulay :
—“At the close of the reign of George II. the feeling of aver
sion with which the House of Brunswick had long been regarded
by half the nation had died away ; but no feeling of affection
to that house had yet sprung up. There was little, indeed, in
the old King’s character to inspire esteem or tenderness. He
was not our countryman. He never set foot on our soil till he
was more than thirty years old. His speech bewrayed his
foreign origin and breeding. His love for his native land, though
the most amiable part of his character, was not likely to endear
him to his British subjects. He was never so happy as when
he could exchange St. James’s for Heranhausen. Year after
year our fleets were employed to convoy him to the Continent,
and the interests of his kingdom were as nothing to him when
compared with the interests of his Electorate. As to the rest,
he had neither the qualities which make dulness respectable, nor
the qualities which make libertinism attractive. He had been
a bad son and a worse father, an unfaithful husband and an un
graceful lover. Not one magnanimous or humane action is re
corded of him ; but many instances of meanness, and of a
harshness which, but for the strong constitutional restraints
under which he was placed, might have made the misery of his
people.”
CHAP. IV.
THE REIGN OF GEORGE III.
When George II. died, his grandson and successor, George
III., was twenty-two years of age. The Civil List of the new
King was fixed at £800,000 a year, “ a provision,” says Phillimore, in his “ History of England,” “ that soon became inade
quate to the clandestine purposes of George III., and for the
purchase of the mercenary dependents, on the support of whom
his unconstitutional proceedings obliged him to depend.” The
Civil List of George III. was not, however, - really so large as
that of her present Majesty. The Civil List disbursements in
cluded such items as Secret Service, now charged separately ;
pensions and annuities, now charged separately ; diplomatic
salaries, now forming distinct items ; fees and salaries of min
isters and judges, now forming no part of the charge against
the Civil List. So that though ,£924,041 was the Civil List of
George III. four years after he ascended the throne, in truth to
day the Royal Family alone get much more than all the great
offices and machinery of State then cost. The Royal Family at
the present time get from the country, avowedly and secretly,
about one million sterling a year.
�32
The House of Brunswick.
“At the accession of George III.,” says Thackeray, “the
Patricians were yet at the height of their good fortune. Society
recognised their superiority, which they themselves pretty
calmly took for granted. They inherited not only titles and
estates, and seats in the House of Peers, but seats in the House
of Commons. There were a multitude of Government places,
and not merely these, but. bribes of actual ^500 notes, which
members of the House took not much shame in assuming. Fox
went into Parliament at twenty, Pitt was just of age, his father
not much older. It was the good time for Patricians.”
A change of political parties was imminent; Whig rule had
lasted seventy years, and England had become tolerably dis
gusted with the consequences.
“ Now that George II. was dead,” says Macaulay, “ a courtier
might venture to ask why England was to become a party in a
dispute between two German powers. What was it to her
whether the House of Hapsburg or the House of Brandenburg
ruled in Silesia ? Why were the best English regiments fight
ing on the Maine ? Why were the Prussian battalions paid with
English gold ? The great minister seemed to think it beneath
him to calculate the price of victory. As long as the Tower
guns were fired, as the streets were illuminated, as French ban
ners were carried in triumph through London, it was to him
matter of indifference to what extent the public burdens were
augmented. Nay, he seemed to glory in the magnitude of those
sacrifices which the people, fascinated by his eloquence and
success, had too readily made, and would long and bitterly
regret. There was no check on waste or embezzlement. Our
commissaries returned from the camp of Prince Ferdinand, to
buy boroughs, to rear palaces, to rival the magnificence of the
old aristocracy of the realm. Already had we borrowed, in four
years of war, more than the most skilful and economical govern
ment would pay in forty years of peace.”
The Church allied itself with the Tories, who assumed the
reins of government, and thenceforth totally forgot the views of
liberty they had maintained when in opposition. The policy of
all their succeeding legislation was that of mischievous retro
gression ; they sought to excel the old Whigs in their efforts to
consolidate the aristocracy at the expense of the people.
“This reactionary movement,” says Buckle, “was greatly
aided by the personal character of George III.; for he, being
despotic as well as superstitious, was equally anxious to extend
the prerogative, and strengthen the Church. Every liberal sen
timent, everything approaching to reform, nay, even the mere
mention of inquiry, was an abomination in the eyes of that nar
row and ignorant Prince. Without knowledge, without taste,
without even a glimpse of one of the sciences, or a feeling for
one of the fine arts, education had done nothing to enlarge a
mind which nature had more than usually contracted. Totally
ignorant of the history and resources of foreign countries, and
barely knowing their geographical position, his information was
�The House of Brunswick.
33
scarcely more extensive respecting the people over whom he
was called to rule. In that immense mass of evidence now
extant, and which consists of every description of private cor
respondence, records of private conversation, and of public
acts, there is not to be found the slightest proof that he knew
any one of those numerous things which the governor of a
country ought to know ; or, indeed, that he was acquainted with
a single duty of his position, except the mere mechanical routine
of ordinary business, which might have been effected by the
lowest clerk in the meanest office in his kingdom.
“ He gathered round his throne that great party, who, clinging
to the tradition of the past, have always made it their boast to
check the progress of their age. During the sixty years of his
reign, he, with the sole exception of Pitt, never willingly admitted
to his councils a single man of great ability : not one whose
name is associated with any measure of value, either in domestic
or foreign policy. Even Pitt only maintained his position in the
state by forgetting the lessons of his illustrious father, and aban
doning those liberal principles in which he had been educated,
and with which he entered public life. Because George III.
hated the idea of reform, Pitt not only relinquished what he had
before declared to be absolutely necessary, but did not hesitate
to persecute to death the party with whom he had once associated
in order to obtain it. Because George III. looked upon slavery
as one of those good old customs which the wisdom of his
ancestors had consecrated, Pitt did not dare to use his power
for procuring its abolition, but left to his successors the glory of
destroying that infamous trade, on the preservation of which his
royal master had set his heart. Because George III. detested
the French, of whom he knew as much as he knew of the in
habitants of Kamschatka or Thibet, Pitt, contrary to his own
judgment, engaged in a war with France, by which England was
seriously imperilled, and the English people burdened with a
debt that their remotest posterity will be unable to pay. But,
notwithstanding all this, when Pitt, only a few years before his
death, showed a determination to concede to the Irish a small
share of their undoubted rights, the King dismissed him from
office, and the King’s friends, as they were called, expressed their
indignation at the presumption of a minister who could oppose
the wishes of so benign and gracious a master. And when, un
happily for his own fame, this great man determined to return
to power, he could only recover office by conceding that very
point for which he had relinquished it; thus setting the mischiev
ous example of the minister of a free country sacrificing his own
judgment to the personal prejudices of the reigning sovereign.
As it was hardly possible to find other ministers who to equal
abilities would add equal subservience, it is not surprising that
the highest offices were constantly filled with men of notorious
incapacity. Indeed, the King seemed to have an instinctive
antipathy to everything great and noble. During the reign of
George II. the elder Pitt had won for himself a reputation which
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The House of Brunswick.
covered the world, and had carried to an unprecedented height
the glories of the English name. He, however, as the avowed
friend of popular rights, strenuously opposed the despotic prin
ciples of the Court; and for this reason he was hated by George
III. with a hatred that seemed barely compatible with a sane
mind. Fox was one of the greatest statesmen of the eighteenth
century, and was better acquainted than any other with the
character and resources of those foreign nations with which our
interests were intimately connected. To this rare and impor
tant knowledge he added a sweetness and amenity of temper
which extorted the praises even of his political opponents. But
he, too, was the steady supporter of civil and religious liberty ;
and he, too, was so detested by George III., that the King, with
his own hand, struck his name out of the list of Privy Council
lors, and declared that he would rather abdicate the throne than
admit him to a share in the Government.
“While this unfavourable change was taking place in the
sovereign and ministers of the country, a change equally un
favourable was being effected in the second branch of the impe
rial legislature. Until the reign of George III. the House of
Lords was decidedly superior to the House of Commons in the
liberality and general accomplishments of its members. It is
true that in both Houses there prevailed a spirit which must be
called narrow and superstitious if tried by the larger standard
of the present age.
“ The superiority of the Upper House over the Lower was, on
the whole, steadily maintained during the reign of George II.,
the ministers not being anxious to strengthen the High Church
party in the Lords, and the King himself so rarely suggesting
fresh creations as to cause a belief that he particularly disliked
increasing their numbers. It was reserved for George III., by
an unsparing use of his prerogative, entirely to change the cha
racter of the Upper House, and thus lay the foundation for that
disrepute into which, since then, the peers have been constantly
. falling. The creations he made were numerous beyond all pre
cedent, their object evidently being to neutralise the liberal spirit
hitherto prevailing, and thus turn the House of Lords into an
engine for resisting the popular wishes, and stopping the progress
of reform. How completely this plan succeeded is well known to
the readers of our history ; indeed, it was sure to be successful
considering the character of the men who were promoted. They
consisted almost entirely of two classes : of country gentlemen,
remarkable for nothing but their wealth, and the number of
votes their wealth enabled them to control; and of mere lawyers,
who had risen to judicial appointments partly from their pro
fessional learning, but chiefly from the zeal with which they
repressed the popular liberties, and favoured the royal prero
gative.
“ That this is no exaggerated description may be ascertained
by anyone who will consult the lists of the new peers made by
George III.
�The House of Brunswick.
35
“ Here and there we find an eminent man, whose public ser
vices were so notorious that it was impossible to avoid reward
ing them ; but, putting aside those who were in a manner forced
upon the sovereign, it would be idle to deny that the remainder,
and of course the overwhelming majority, were marked by a
narrowness and illiberality of sentiment which, more than any
thing else, brought the whole order into contempt. No great
thinkers, no great writers, no great orators, no great statesmen,
none of the true nobility of the land, were to be found among
the spurious nobles created by George III.”
In the early part of his reign, George III. (whom even the
courtly Alison pictures as having “ little education and no great
acquired information”) was very much under the influence of
his mother, who had, previously to his being King, often spoken
of her son with contempt. The Princess of Wales, in turn, was
almost entirely guided by Lord Bute, represented by scandal,
says Macaulay, as “ her favoured lover.” “ Of this attachment,”
says Dr. Doran, “ the Prince of Wales himself is said to have
had full knowledge, and did not object to Lord Bute taking
solitary walks, with the Princess, while he could do the same
with Lady Middlesex.” The most infamous stories were cir
culated in the Whisperer, and other journals of the time as to
the nature of the association between the Scotch Peer and the
King’s mother, and its results. Phillimore regards the Princess
of Wales as “before and after her husband’s death the mis
tress of Lord Bute.” The Princess Dowager seems to have
been a hard woman. Walpole tells us how, when the PrincessDowager reproved one of her maids of honour for irregular
habits, the latter replied, “Madame, chacun a son But." “ See
ing,” says Thackeray, “the young Duke of Gloucester silent
and unhappy once, she sharply asked him the cause of his
silence. ‘ I am thinking,’ said the poor child. ‘ Thinking, sir !
and of what ?’ 11 am thinking if ever I have a son, I will not
make him so unhappy as you make me.’ ”
John Stuart, Earl of Bute, shared with William Pitt and John
Wilkes the bulk of popular attention during the first ten years
of the King’s reign. Bute had risen rapidly to favour, having
attracted the attention of the Princess-Dowager at some private
theatricals, and he became by her influence Groom of the Stole.
His poverty and ambition made him grasp at power, both against
the great Commoner and the Pelham faction ; and a lady ob
server described the great question of the day in 1760, as being
whether the King would burn in his chamber Scotch coal, New
castle coal, or Pitt coal. Macaulay, who seems to have followed
Lord Waldegrave’s “Memoirs,” says of Bute: “A handsome
leg was among his chief qualifications for the stage.......... His
understanding was narrow, his manners cold and haughty.” His
qualifications for the part of a statesman were best described by
Prince Frederick, who often indulged in the unprincely luxury
of sneering at his dependents. “ Bute,” said his Royal High
ness, “ you are the very man to be envoy at some small proud
�36
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German Court, where there is nothing to do.” Phillimore
speaks of Lord Bute as “ a minion raised by Court favour to
a post where his ignorance, mean understanding, and disregard
of English honour, became national calamities.”
The King’s speech on his accession is said to have been
drawn up by Bute, who did not then belong to the Council,
but the terms being vehemently objected to by Pitt, it was ac
tually altered after delivery, and before it found its way to the
printer.
Whatever were the relations between Lord Bute and the
Princess-Dowager, it is quite certain that on more than one
occasion George III. condescended not only to prevaricate, but
to lie as to the influence exercised by Lord Bute. It is certain,
from the “ Memoirs” of Earl Waldegrave, and other trustworthy
sources, that the Scotch Earl, after being hissed out of office by
the people, was still secretly consulted by the King, who, like a
truly Royal Brunswick, did not hesitate to use falsehood on the
subject even to his own ministers. Phillimore, in remarkably
strong language, describes George III. as “an ignorant, dis
honest, obstinate, narrow-minded boy, at that very moment the
tool of an adulteress and her paramour.” The Duke of Bed
ford has put upon record, in his correspondence, not only his
conviction that the King behaved unfaithfully to his ministers,
but asserts that he told him so to his face.
In 1759, George was married to Hannah Lightfoot, a Quakeress,
in Curzon Street Chapel, May Fair, in the presence of his brother,
Edward, Duke of York. Great doubt has, however, been cast
on the legality of this marriage, as it would, if in all respects
valid, have rendered null as a bigamous contract the subsequent
marriage entered into by the King. Dr. Doran says that the
Prince of Wales, afterwards George IV., when needing money
in later years, used this Lightfoot marriage as a threat against
his royal parents—that is, that he threatened to expose his
mother’s shame and his own illegitimacy if the Queen would not
use her influence with Pitt. Glorious family, these Brunswicks!
Walpole affinns that early in his reign George III. admitted to
his uncle, the Duke of Cumberland, “ that it had not been
common in their family to live well together.”
On the 18th of September, 1761, George was married to the
Princess Charlotte Sophia, of Mecklenburgh Strelitz, Hannah
Lightfoot being still alive. Of the new Queen Phillimore says :
“ If to watch over the education of her children and to promote
their happiness be any part of a woman’s duty, she has little
claim to the praises that have been so lavishly bestowed on her
as a model of domestic virtue. Her religion was displayed in
the scrupulous observance of external forms. Repulsive in her
aspect, grovelling in her instincts, sordid in her habits ; steeped
from the cradle in the stupid pride which was the atmosphere
of her stolid and most insignificant race ; inexorably severe to
those who yielded to temptation from which she was protected,
not more by her situation and the vigilance of those around her,
�The House of Brunswick.
37
than by the extreme homeliness of her person ; bigoted, avari
cious, unamiable to brutality, she added dulness and gloom even
to the English court.”
In 1761, the Duke of Bedford was Lord Lieutenant of Ireland ;
that unfortunate country, for centuries governed by men who
tried to exterminate its natives, and which was used under the
first three reigns of the House of Brunswick as a sponge out of
which, regardless of much bloodshed and more misery, gold
could be squeezed for the dependents and relatives of aristocrats
in office. His reign of office in Ireland was brief. Walpole
says that “ the ill-humour of the country determined the Duke
of Bedford to quit the Government, after having amply gratified
his family and dependents with pensions.” It was this Duke of
Bedford who consented that the Princess of Hesse should have
a pension of .£6,000 a year out of the Irish revenues, and who
gave to his own relative, the Lady Betty Waldegrave, .£800 a
year from the same source. Shortly after this, Prince Charles of
Strelitz, the Queen’s brother, received ,£30,000 towards the pay
ment of the debts he owed in Germany. This ,£30,000 was
nominally given by the King out of the Civil List, but was really
paid by the nation when discharging the Civil List debts which
it increased. On the motion of Lord Barrington, ,£400,000
subsidy was granted this year to the Landgrave of Hesse, under
a secret treaty made by George II., without the knowledge or
consent of Parliament, and ,£300,000 was also voted to the
Chancery of Hanover for forage for Hanoverian, Prussian, and
Hessian Cavalry.
On August 12th, 1762, George Prince of Wales was born ; and
in the same year, with the direct connivance of George III., the
peace of Paris was made; a peace as disgraceful to England,
under the circumstances, as can be possibly imagined. Lord
Bute, who was roundly charged with receiving money from
France for his services, and this with the knowledge of the
mother of George III., most certainly communicated to the
French minister “ the most secret councils of the English Cabinet.”
This was done with the distinct concurrence of George III., who
was himself bribed by the immediate evacuation of his Hanove
rian dominions. In the debate in the Lords on the preliminaries
of peace, Horace Walpole tells us that “the Duke of Grafton,
with great weight and greater warmth, attacked them severely’
and looking full on Lord Bute, imputed to him corruption and
worse arts.” Count Virri, the disreputable agent employed in
this matter by the King and Lord Bute, was rewarded under the
false name of George Charles with a pension of f 1,000 a year
out of the Irish revenues. Phillimore may well declare that Lord
Bute was “ a minion, raised by court favour to a post where his
ignorance, mean understanding, and disregard of English honour,
became national calamities.” To carry the approval of this peace
of Paris through the Commons, Fox, afterwards Lord Holland,
was purchased with a most lucrative appointment, although only
shortly before he had published a print of George, with the
�38
The House of Brunswick.
following lines, referring to the Princess Dowager and Lord
Bute, written under the likeness :—
“ Son of a-------I could say more.”
To gain a majority in the House of Commons, Walpole tells
us “ that a shop was publicly opened at the pay office, whither
the members flocked and received the wages of their venality in
bank bills even to so low a sum as >£200, for their votes on the
treaty. .£25,000 was thus issued in one morning.” Lord Ches
terfield speaks of the large sums disbursed by the King “ for the
hire of Parliament men.”
As an illustration of the unblushing corruption of the age, the
following letter from Lord Saye and Sele to Mr. Grenville, then
Prime Minister of England, tells its own terrible tale :—
“ November 26th, 1763.
“ Honoured Sir,—I am very much obliged to you for that
freedom of converse you this morning indulged me in, which I
prize more than the lucrative advantage I then received. To show
the sincerity of my words (pardon, Sir, the over-niceness of my
disposition), I return enclosed the bill for ,£300 you favoured me
with, as good manners would not permit my refusal of it when
tendered by you.
“ Your most obliged and obedient servant,
“Saye and Sele.
“ As a free horse needs no spur, so I stand in need of no in
ducement or douceur to lend my small assistance to the King or
his friends in the present Administration.”
That this was part of the general practice of the Government
under George III., may be seen by the following extract from
an infamous letter- written about fifteen years later by the LordLieutenant of Ireland : “ No man can see the inconvenience of
increasing the Peers more forcibly than myself, but the recom
mendation of many of those persons submitted to his Majesty
for that honour, arose from engagements taken up at the press
of the moment to rescue questions upon which the English Go
vernment were very particularly anxious. My sentiments cannot
but be the same with reference to the Privy Council and pen
sions, and I had not contracted any absolute engagements of
recommendations either to peerage or pension, till difficulties
arose which necessarily occasioned so much anxiety in his
Majesty’s Cabinet, that I must have been culpable in neglecting
any possible means to secure a majority in the House of Com
mons.”
A good story is told of the great Commoner Pitt’s repartee
to Fox (afterwards Lord Holland), in one of the debates of this
period. “ Pitt,” says the London Chronicle, “ in the heat of his
declamation, proceeded so far as to attack the personal deformity
of Fox ; and represented his gloomy and lowering countenance,
�The House of Brunswick.
39
with the penthouse of his eye-brows, as Churchill phrases it, as
a true introduction of his dark and double mind. Mr. Fox was
nettled at this personal reflection, and the more so, perhaps, that
it was as just as it was cutting. He therefore got up, and after
inveighing bitterly against the indecency of his antagonist, in
descending to remark on his bodily defects, observed that his
'figure was such as God Almighty had made it, and he could not
look otherwise ; and then, in a tone between the plaintive and
indignant, cried out, ‘ How, gentlemen, shall I look ?’ Most of
the members apprehending that Mr. Pitt had gone rather too
far, were inclined to think that Mr. Fox had got the better of
him. But Mr. Pitt started up, and with one of those happy
turns, in which he so much excels, silenced his rival, and made
him sit down with a countenance, if possible, more abashed than
formerly. Look ! Sir, said he—look as you cannot look, if you
would—look as you dare' not look, if you could—look like an
honest man.”
In the London Chro'nicle for March, 1763, we find bitter com
plaints that since 1760, “every obsolete, useless place has been
revived, and every occasion of increasing salaries seized with
eagerness,” and that a great Whig leader “ has just condescended
to stipulate for an additional salary, without power, as the price
of his support to the Tory Government.”
In March, 1763, George III. gave four ships of war to the
King of Sardinia at the national expense, and in August appears
to have given a fifth vessel.
On the 23rd of April, 1763, No. 45 of the North Briton, a
journal which had been started in opposition to Lord Bute’s
paper, the Briton, was published, severely criticising the King’s
speech, and warmly attacking Lord Bute. This issue provoked
the ministers to a course of the utmost illegality. A general
warrant to seize all persons concerned in the publication of the
North Briton, without specifying their names, was immediately
issued by the Secretary of State, and a number of printers and
publishers were placed in custody, some of whom were not at
all concerned in the obnoxious publication. Late on the night
of the 29th of April, the messengers entered the house of John
Wilkes, M.P. for Aylesbury (the author of the article in
question), and produced their warrant, with which he refused
to comply.
On the following morning, however, he was
carried before the Secretaiy of State, and committed a close
prisoner to the Tower, his papers being previously seized
and sealed, and all access to his person strictly prohibited.
The warrant was . clearly an illegal one, and had only been
previously resorted to in one or two instances, and under very
extraordinary circumstances, of which there were none in the
present case. Wilkes’s friends immediately obtained a writ of
habeas corpus, which the ministers defeated by a mean subter
fuge ; and it was found necessary to obtain a second before
they could bring the prisoner before the Court of King’s Bench,
by which he was set at liberty, on the ground of his privilege
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The House of Brunswick.
as a Member of Parliament. He then opened an angry corre
spondence, followed by actions at law, against the Secretaries of
State, on the seizure of his papers, and for the wrongful arrest.
These actions abated, although in the one for the seizure of the
papers a verdict was given for £1,000 damages and costs. But
in the meantime the Attorney-General had been directed to in
stitute a prosecution against Wilkes in the King’s Bench for
libel, and the King had ordered him to be deprived of his com
mission as Colonel in the Buckinghamshire Militia. The King
further exhibited his resentment by depriving Lord Temple of
the Lord-Lieutenancy of the same county, and striking his name
out of the Council-book, for an expression of personal sym
pathy which had fallen from him. Worse than all, this King
George III. actually deprived General A’Court, M.P. for Heytesbury, of his commission as Colonel of the uth Dragoons
for having voted that the arrest of Wilkes was a breach of pri
vilege. He also caused it to be intimated to General Conway,
“ that the King cannot trust his army in the hands of a man who
votes in Parliament against him.”
The House of Commons ordered the North Briton to be
burned by the common hangman; but when the authorities
attempted to carry out the sentence, the people assembled, res
cued the number, and burned instead a large jack-boot, the
popular hieroglyphic for the unpopular minister.
Amongst the many rhymed squibs the following is worth re
petition :—
“ Because the North Briton inflamed the whole nation,
To flames they commit it to show detestation ;
But throughout old England how joy would have spread,
Had the real North Briton been burnt in its stead!”
The North Briton of the last line is, of course, the Scotch Earl
Bute.
As an illustration of the then disgraceful state of the English
law, it is enough to notice that Lord Halifax, the Secretary of
State, by availing himself of his privileges as a peer, managed
to delay John Wilkes in his action from June, 1763, to Novem
ber, 1764 ; and then, Wilkes having been outlawed, the noble
Earl appeared and pleaded the outlawry as a bar to further pro
ceedings. Ultimately, after five years’ delay, Wilkes annulled
the outlawry, and recovered £4,000 damages against Lord
Halifax. For a few months Wilkes was the popular idol, and
had he been a man of real earnestness and integrity, might
have taken a permanently leading position in the State.
In August, 1763, Frederick, Duke of York, was born. He
was created Prince Bishop of Osnaburg before he could speak.
The King and Queen were much dissatisfied because the clergy
of the diocese, who did not dispute the baby bishop’s ability to
attend to the souls of his flock, yet refused to entrust to him
the irresponsible guardianship of the episcopal funds. This
bishopric had actually been kept vacant by the King nearly
�The House of Brunswick.
41
three years, in order that he might not give it to the Duke of
York or Duke of Cumberland. The income was about ,£25,000
a year, and it was to secure this Prince Bishopric for the Duke
of Cumberland that George II. burdened the country with
several subsidies to petty European sovereigns.
The King’s sister, Augusta, was, like the rest of the Brunswick
Family, on extremely bad terms with her mother, the Princess
of Wales. The Princess Augusta was married on January 16th,
1764, to the hereditary Prince of Brunswick, who received
.£80,000, besides £8,000, a year for becoming the husband of
one of our Royal Family. In addition to this, George III. and
Queen Charlotte insulted the newly-married couple, who returned
the insult with interest. Pleasant people, these Brunswicks !
In March, 1764, the first steps were taken in the endeavour to
impose taxes on the American colonies, an endeavour which at
length resulted in their famous rebellion. The commanders of
our ships of war on the American coast were sworn in to act as
revenue officers, the consequence of which was the frequently
illegal seizures of ships and cargoes without any means of
redress for the Americans in their own colony. As though to
add to the rising disaffection, Mr. Grenville proposed a new
stamp-tax. As soon as the Stamp Act reached Boston, the
ships in the harbour hung their colours half-mast high, the bells
were rung muffled, the Act of Parliament was reprinted with a
death’s head for title, and sold in the streets as the “ Folly of
England and Ruin of America.” The Americans refused to
use stamped paper. The Government distributors of stamps
were either forced to return to England, or were obliged to re
nounce publicly and upon oath their official employment ; and
when the matter was again brought before the English House
of Commons, Pitt denied the right of Parliament to levy taxa
tion on persons who had no right to representation, and ex
claimed : “ I rejoice that America has resisted ; three millions
of people so dead to all feelings of liberty as voluntarily to
submit to be slaves, would have been fit instruments to make
slaves of all the rest.” The supporters of the Government
actually advanced the ridiculously absurd and most monstrous
pretension that America was in law represented in Parliament
as .part of the manor of East Greenwich I
The Earl of Abercom and Lord Harcourt appear to have been
consulted by the Queen as to the effect of the previous marriage
of George III. with Hannah Lightfoot, who seems to have been
got rid of by some arrangement for a second marriage between
her and a Mr. Axford, to whom a sum of money was paid. It
is alleged that this was done without the knowledge of the King,
who entreated Lord Chatham to discover where the Quakeress
had gone. No fresh communication, however, took place between
George III. and Hannah Lightfoot; and the King’s first attack
of insanity, which took place in 1764, is strongly suggested to
have followed the more than doubts as to the legality of the
second marriage and the legitimacy of the Royal Family. Hannah
E
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The House of Brunswick.
Lightfoot died in the winter of 1764, and in the early part of the
year 1765, the King being then scarcely sane, a second ceremony
of marriage with the Queen was privately performed by
the Rev. Dr. Wilmot at Kew Palace. Hannah Lightfoot left
children by George III., but of these nothing is known.
In the winter of 1764, and spring of 1765, George III. was, in
diplomatic language, labouring under an indisposition ; in truth,
he was mad. Her present Gracious Majesty often labours under
an indisposition, but no loyal subject would suggest any sort of
doubt as to her mental condition. A Bill was introduced in 1764
in the House of Lords, to provide for a Regency in case of the
recurrence of any similar attack. In the discussion on this Bill,
a doubt arose as to who were to be regarded as the Royal Family;
fortunately, the Law Lords limited it to the descendants of George
II. If a similar definition prevailed to-day, we should perhaps
not be obliged to pay the pensions to the Duke of Cambridge
and Princess Mary, which they at present receive as members of
the Royal Family.
On the 30th of October, 1765, William, Duke of Cumberland,
the King’s uncle, died. Dr. Doran says of him : “As he grew in
manhood, his heart became hardened ; he had no affection for
his family, nor fondness for the army, for which he affected
attachment. When his brother (Prince Frederick) died, pleasure,
not pain, made his heart throb, as he sarcastically exclaimed,
‘ It’s a great blow to the country, but I hope it will recover in
time.’ He was the author of what was called ‘the bloody mutiny
act.’ ‘ He was dissolute and a gambler.’ After the ‘disgraceful
surrender of Hanover and the infamous convention of Klosterseven,’ his father George II. said of him, ‘Behold the son who
has ruined me, and disgraced himself.”’ His own nephew,
George III., believed the Duke to be capable of murder. The
Dukes of Cumberland in this Brunswick family have had a most
unfortunate reputation.
In 1766, William Henry, Duke of Gloucester, brother of the
King, married Maria, Countess-Dowager of Waldegrave. This
marriage was at the time repudiated by the rest of the Royal
Family.
In October of the same year, Caroline Matilda, the King’s
sister, married Christian, King of Denmark, an unfeeling, disso
lute brute. Our Princess, who lived very unhappily, was after
wards accused of adultery, and rescued from ■ punishment by a
British man-of-war.
In the autumn of 1766, in consequence of the high price of
provisions and taxes, large gatherings took place in many parts
of the kingdom ; these assemblages were dispersed with con
siderable loss of life, of course by the military, which the House
of Brunswick was not slow to use in checking political mani
festations. At Derby the people were charged by the cavalry,
at Colton eight were shot dead, in Gloucestershire many lives
were lost; in fact, from Exeter to Berwick-on-Tweed, there was
one ferment of discontent and disaffection. The people were
�The House of Brunswick.
43
-heavily taxed, the aristocracy corrupt and careless. As an in
stance of the madness of the governing classes, it is sufficient to
point out that in 1767, while taxation was increasing, the landed,
gentry, who were rapidly appropriating common lands under
Private Enclosure Acts, most audaciously reduced the land tax
by one-fourth. During the first thirty-seven years of the reign
of George III., there were no less than 1,532 Enclosure Acts
passed, affecting in all 2,804,197 acres of land filched from the
nation by a few families. Wealth took and poverty lost; riches
got land without burden, and labour inherited burden in lieu of
land. It is worth notice that in the early part of the reign of
George III., land yielding about a sixth or seventh of its present
rental, paid the same nominal tax that it does to-day, the actual
amount paid at the present time being however smaller through
redemption ; and yet then the annual interest on the National
Debt was under ,£4,500,000, while to-day it is over ,£26,000,000.
Then the King’s Civil List covered all the expenses of our State
ministers and diplomatic representatives ; to-day, an enormous
additional sum is required, and a Prime Minister professing
economy, and well versed in history, has actually the audacity to
pretend that the country gains by its present Civil List arrange
ment.
0
In 1769, George III. announced to his faithful Commons that
he owed half a million. John Wilkes and a few others protested,
but the money was voted.
In 1770, King George III. succeeded in making several buttons
.at Kew, and as this is, as far as I am aware, the most useful work
of his life, I desire to give it full prominence. His son, after
wards George IV., made a shoebuckle. No other useful product
has resulted directly from the efforts of any male of the family.
In 1770, Henry, Duke of Cumberland, the King’s brother, was
sued by Lord Grosvenor for crim, con., and had to pay ,£10,000
damages. This same Henry, in the following year, went through
the form of marriage with a Mrs. Horton, which marriage,
being repudiated by the Court, troubled him but little, and in
the lifetime of the lady he contracted a second alliance, which
gave rise to the famous Olivia Serres legitimacy issue.
The Royal Marriage Act, a most infamous measure for en
suring the perpetuation of vice, and said to be the result of the
Lightfoot experience, was introduced to Parliament by a mes
sage from George III., on the 20th February, 1772, twelve days
after the death of the Princess-Dowager of Wales. George III.
wrote to Lord North on the 26th February : “ I expect every
nerve to be strained to carry the Bill. It is not a question re
lating to the Administration, but personally to myself, therefore
I have a right to expect a hearty support from every one in my
service, and I shall remember defaulters.”
In May, 1773, the East India Company, having to come before
Parliament for. borrowing powers, a select committee was ap
pointed, whose inquiries laid open cases of rapacity and treachery
involving the highest personages, and a resolution was carried.
�44
The House of Brunswick.
in the House of Commons affirming that Lord Clive had dis
honourably possessed himself of ^234,000 at the time of the
deposition of Surajah Dowlah, and the establishment of Meer
Jaffier. Besides this, it was proved that Lord Clive received
several other large sums in succeeding years. Phillimore describesthis transaction, in terrific language, as one of “ disgusting and
sordid turpitude,” declaring that “ individual members of the
English Government were to be paid for their treachery by a
hire, the amount of which is almost incredible.” A few yearsafter this exposure, Lord Clive committed suicide.
On the 18th of December, 1773, the celebrated cargoes of tea
were thrown overboard in Boston Harbour. The tea duty was
a trifling one, but was unfortunately insisted upon by the King’sGovernment as an assertion of the right of the British Parliament
to tax the unrepresented American colonies, a right the colonistsstrenuously and successfully denied.
The news of the firm attitude of the Bay State colonists
arrived in England early in March, 1774, and Lord North’s Go
vernment, urged by the King, first deprived Boston of her
privileges as a port; secondly, took away from the State ox
Massachusetts the whole of the executive powers granted by the
charter of William III., and vested the nomination of magis
trates of every kind in the King, or royally-appointed Governor ;
and thirdly, carried an enactment authorising persons accused
of political offences committed in Boston to be sent home toEngland to be tried.
These monstrous statutes provoked the most decided resist
ance ; all the other American colonists joined with Boston, and
a solemn league and covenant was entered into for suspending
all commercial intercourse with Great Britain until the obnoxious .
acts were repealed. On the 5th of Sept., 1774, a congress of fiftyone representatives from twelve old colonies assembled m Phila
delphia. The instructions given to them disclaimed every idea
of independence, recognised the constitutional authoiity of the:
mother country, and acknowledged the prerogatives of the crown ;
but unanimously declared that they would never give up the
rights and liberties derived to them from their ancestors asBritish subjects, and pronounced the late acts relative to the
colony of Massachusetts Bay to be unconstitutional, oppressive,
and dangerous. The first public act of the congress was a resolution declarative of their favourable disposition towards the
colony above mentioned; and by subsequent resolutions, they
formally approved the opposition it had given to the obnoxious
acts, and declared that if an attempt were made to carry them into
execution by force, the colony should be supported by all America.
The following extract is from the “ Address of the Twelve
United Provinces to the Inhabitants of Great Britain, when
force was actually used
“ We can retire beyond the reach of
your navy, and, without any sensible diminution of the necessaries
of life, enjoy a luxury, which from that period you will want
the luxury of being free?
�The House of Brunswick.
45
On the 16th November, 1775, Edmund Burke proposed the
renunciation on the part of Great Britain of the exercise of taxa
tion in America, the repeal of the obnoxious duty on tea, and
a general pardon for past political offenders. This was directly
■ opposed by the King, who had lists brought to him of how the
members spoke and voted, and was negatived in the House of
■Commons by 210 votes against 105. On the 20th November,
after consultation with George III., Lord North introduced a
Bill by which all trade and commerce with the thirteen United
■ colonies were interdicted. It authorised the seizure, whether in
harbour or on the high seas, of all vessels laden with American
property, and by a cruel stretch of refined tyranny it rendered
all persons taken on board American vessels, liable to be entered
as sailors on board British ships of war, and to serve (if required)
against their own countrymen. About the same time, as we
learn by a “ secret ” dispatch from Lord Dartmouth to General
Howe, the King had been unmanly enough to apply to the
Czarina of Russia for the loan of 20,000 Russian soldiers to
-enable him to crush his English subjects in the American
colonies. As yet the Americans had made no claim for inde
pendence. They were only petitioners for justice.
In order to crush out the spirit of liberty in the American
colonies, the Government of George III., in February, 1776,
hired 17,000 men from the Landgrave and Hereditary Prince of
Hesse Cassel, and from the Duke of Brunswick. Besides these,
there were levies of troops out of George III.’s Hanoverian
dominions, and that nothing might be wanting to our glory, the
King’s agents stirred up the Cherokee and Creek Indians to
.scalp, ravish, and plunder the disaffected colonists. Jesse says :
“ The newly-arrived troops comprised several thousand kid
napped German soldiers, whom the cupidity of the Duke of
Brunswick, of the Landgrave of Hesse Cassel, and other Ger
man Princes, had induced to let out for hire to the British Go
vernment.......... Frederick of Prussia not only denounced the
traffic as a most scandalous one, but wherever, it is said, the
unfortunate hirelings had occasion to march through any part
<of his dominions, used to levy a toll upon them, as if they had
been so many head of bullocks........... They had been sold,
.he said, as cattle, and therefore he was entitled to exact the
toll.”
The consequence of all this was, on the 4th July, 1776, the
famous declaration of the American Congress.
The history
of the reigning sovereign, they said, was a history of repeated
.-injuries and usurpations. So evidently was it his intention to
establish an absolute despotism, that it had become their duty,
.as well as their right, to secure themselves against further ag
gressions...... In every stage of these oppressions,” proceeds the
Declaration, “ we have petitioned for redress in the most humble
terms. Our petitions have been answered only by repeated in
juries. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act
which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free
�The House of Brunswick.
45
On the 16th November, 1775, Edmund Burke proposed the
renunciation on the part of Great Britain of the exercise of taxa
tion in America, the repeal of the obnoxious duty on tea, and
a general pardon for past political offenders. This was directly
■ opposed by the King, who had lists brought to him of how the
members spoke and voted, and was negatived in the House of
■Commons by 210 votes against 105. On the 20th November,
after consultation with George III., Lord North introduced a
Bill by which all trade and commerce with the thirteen United
■ colonies were interdicted. It authorised the seizure, whether in
harbour or on the high seas, of all vessels laden with American
property, and by a cruel stretch of refined tyranny it rendered
all persons taken on board American vessels, liable to be entered
as sailors on board British ships of war, and to serve (if required)
against their own countrymen. About the same time, as we
learn by a “ secret ” dispatch from Lord Dartmouth to General
Howe, the King had been unmanly enough to apply to the
Czarina of Russia for the loan of 20,000 Russian soldiers to
-enable him to crush his English subjects in the American
colonies. As yet the Americans had made no claim for inde
pendence. They were only petitioners for justice.
In order to crush out the spirit of liberty in the American
colonies, the Government of George III., in February, 1776,
hired 17,000 men from the Landgrave and Hereditary Prince of
Hesse Cassel, and from the Duke of Brunswick. Besides these,
there were levies of troops out of George III.’s Hanoverian
dominions, and that nothing might be wanting to our glory, the
King’s agents stirred up the Cherokee and Creek Indians to
.scalp, ravish, and plunder the disaffected colonists. Jesse says :
“ The newly-arrived troops comprised several thousand kid
napped German soldiers, whom the cupidity of the Duke of
Brunswick, of the Landgrave of Hesse Cassel, and other Ger
man Princes, had induced to let out for hire to the British Go
vernment.......... Frederick of Prussia not only denounced the
traffic as a most scandalous one, but wherever, it is said, the
unfortunate hirelings had occasion to march through any part
<of his dominions, used to levy a toll upon them, as if they had
been so many head of bullocks........... They had been sold,
.he said, as cattle, and therefore he was entitled to exact the
toll.”
The consequence of all this was, on the 4th July, 1776, the
famous declaration of the American Congress.
The history
of the reigning sovereign, they said, was a history of repeated
.-injuries and usurpations. So evidently was it his intention to
establish an absolute despotism, that it had become their duty,
.as well as their right, to secure themselves against further ag
gressions...... In every stage of these oppressions,” proceeds the
Declaration, “ we have petitioned for redress in the most humble
terms. Our petitions have been answered only by repeated in
juries. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act
which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free
�46
The House of Brunswick.
people.” And the United Colonies solemnly declared them
selves to be “ free and independent States.”
In 1777, during this American war, Earl Chatham, in one of
his grand speeches, after denouncing “the traffic and barter
driven with every little pitiful German Prince that sells his sub
jects to the shambles of a foreign country,” he adds : “ The
mercenary aid on which you rely, irritates to an incurable re
sentment the minds of your enemies, whom you overrun with,'
the sordid sons of rapine and of plunder, devoting them and
their possessions to the rapacity of hireling cruelty! If I were an,
American, as I am an Englishman, while a foreign troop was
landed in my country, I never would lay down my arms, never 1.
never ! never !” In reply to Lord Suffolk, who had said, in re
ference to employing the Indians, that “we were justified in
using all the means which God and nature had put into our
hands,” “ I am astonished,” exclaimed Lord Chatham, as he rose,.
“ shocked, to hear such principles confessed, to hear them avowed
in this House, or in this country ; principles equally unconstitu
tional, inhuman, and un-Christian. That God and Nature fut
into our hands ! I know not what idea that Lord may entertain
of God and nature, but I know that such abominable principles
are equally abhorrent to religion and humanity. What! attri
bute the sacred sanction of God and nature to the massacres of
the Indian scalping-knife, to the cannibal savage, torturing,
murdering, roasting, and eating; literally, my Lords, eating the
mangled victims of his barbarous battles 1”
And yet even after this we find George III. writing to Lord
North, on the 22nd of June, 1779 : “ I do not yet despair that,
with Clinton’s activity, and the Indians in their rear, the pro
vinces will soon now submit.”
Actually so late as the 27th of November, 1781, after the
surrender of Cornwallis, we find George III. saying that, “re
taining a firm confidence in the wisdom and protection of Divine
Providence,” he should be able “ by the valour of his fleets andarmies to conquer America.” Fox, in the House of Commons,
denounced this speech of the King’s as one “ breathing ven
geance, blood, misery, and rancour and “ as containing thesentiments of some arbitrary, despotic, hard-hearted, and un
feeling monarch, who, having involved his subjects in a ruinous
and unnatural war, to glut his feelings of revenge, was deter
mined to persevere in it in spite of calamity.” “ Divest the
speech,” said he, “ of its official forms, and what was its purport ?
‘ Our losses in America have been most calamitous ; the blood
of my subjects has flowed in copious streams ; the treasures of
. Great Britain have been wantonly lavished ; the load of taxes
imposed on an over-burthened country is become intolerable ;
my rage for conquest is unquenched ; my revenge unsated ; nor
can anything except the total subjugation of my American
subjects allay my animosity.’ ”
The following table shows what this disastrous war ultimately'
�The House of Brunswick.
47
cost this country in mere money ; no table can efficiently show
its cost in blood and misery :—
Year.
1775
1776
1777
1778
1779
1780
1781
1782
1783
1784
1785
Total
Taxation.
£10,138,061
10,265,405
10,604,013
10,732,405
11,192,141
12,255,214
12,454,936
12,593,297
11,962,718
12,905,519
14,871,520
Loans.
—
£2,000,000
5,500,000
6,000,000
7,000,000
12,000,000
12,000,000
13,500,000
12,000,000
12,879,341
10,990,651
£129,975,229
£^93,869,992
The American war terminated in 1783 ; but as the loans >6f
the two following years were raised to wind up the expenses of
that struggle, it is proper they should be included. The total
expense of the American war will stand thus :—
Taxes
Loans
Advances by the Bank of England
Advances by the East India Company
Increase in the Unfunded Debt ...
,£129,975,229
93,869,992
110,000
3,200,000
5,170,273
Total
Deduct expense of a peace establish
ment for eleven years, as it stood in
1774
232,325,494
Nett cost of the American war
...
113,142,403
£119,183,091
In addition to this must be noted ,£1,340,000 voted as com
pensation to American loyalists in 1788, and £4,000 a year pen
sion since, and even now, paid to the descendants of William
Penn, amounting, with compound interest, to an enormous addi
tional sum, even to the present date, without reckoning future
liability. And this glorious colony parted from us in blood and
shame, in consequence of a vain attempt to gratify the desire
of the House of Brunswick to make New England contribute
to their German greed as freely and as servilely as Old England
had done.
Encouraged by the willingness with which his former debts
had been discharged, George III., in 1777, sent a second
message, but this time for the larger sum of £600,000, which
was not only paid, but an additional allowance of £100,000 a
year was voted to his Majesty, and £40,000 was given to the
Landgrave of Hesse.
ml. •;
�48
The House of Brunswick.
As an illustration of the barbarity of our laws, it is enough to
say that in 1777, Sarah Parker was burnt for counterfeiting silver
coin. In June, 1786, Phoebe Harris was burnt for the same
offence. And this in a reign when persons in high position
accused of murder, forgery, perjury, and robbery, escaped almost
scot free.
In April, 1778, ,£60,000 a year was settled on the six younger
princes, and £) 30,000 a year on the five princesses. These pen
sions, however, were professedly paid out of the King’s Civil
List, not avowedly in addition to it, as they are to-day. The
Duke of Buckingham stated that in 1778, and again in 1782, the
King threatened to abdicate. This threat, which unfortunately
was never carried out, arose from the King’s obstinate per
sistence in the worse than insane policy against the American
colonies.
In December, 1779, in consequence of England needing Irish
soldiers to make war on America, Ireland was graciously per
mitted to export Irish woollen manufactures. The indulgences,
however, to Ireland—even while the Ministers of George III.
were trying to enlist Irishmen to kill the English, Scotch, and
Irish in America—were made most grudgingly. Pious Protestant
George III. would not consent that any Irish Catholic should
own one foot of freehold land ; and Edmund Burke, in a letter
to an Irish peer, says that it was pride, arrogance, and a spirit
of domination,” which kept up “ these unjust legal disabilities.”
On the 8th February, 1780, Sir G. Savile presented the famous
Yorkshire petition, sighed by 8,000 freeholders, praying the House
of Commons to inquire into the management and expenditure of
public money, to reduce all exorbitant emoluments, and to abolish
all sinecure places, and unmerited pensions. Three days later,
Edmund Burke proposed a reduction of the national taxation
(which was then only a sixth part of its amount to day), and a
diminution of the power of the Crown. Burke was defeated, but
shortly after, on the motion of Mr. Dunning, the House of
Commons declared, bya majority of 18 against the Government,
“ That the influence of the Crown has increased, is increasing, and.
ought to be diminished.”
On the 20th March, 1782, Lord North, in consequence of the
impossibility of subduing the American colonies, determined to
resign. The King opposed this to the last, declaring that no
difficulties should induce him to consent to a peace acknowledg
ing the Independence of America. “ So distressing,” says Jesse,
“was the conflict which prevailed in the mind of George III.,
that he not only contemplated abandoning the Crown of Eng
land for the Electorate of Hanover, but orders had actually been
issued to have the royal yacht in readiness for his flight.” . What
a blessing to the country if he had really persevered in his reso
lution.
Charles James Fox, who now came into power for a brief space,
had, says Jesse, “ taught himself to look upon his sovereign as a
mere dull, obstinate, half-crazed, and narrow-minded bigot; a
�The House of Brunswick.
49
Prince whose shallow understanding had never been improved
by education, whose prejudices it was impossible to remove,
and whose resentments it would be idle to endeavour to soften.”
In 1784, George Prince of Wales was over head and ears in
debt, and the King, who appears to have hated him, refusing
any aid, he resorted to threats. Dr. Doran says : “ A conversa
tion is spoken of as having passed between the Queen and the
Minister, in which he is reported as having said, ‘ I much fear,
your Majesty, that the Prince, in his wild moments, may allow
expressions to escape him that may be injurious to the Crown.’
‘ There is little fear of that,’ was the alleged reply of the Oueen,
< he is too well aware of the consequences of such a course of
conduct to himself. As regards that point, therefore, I can rely
upon him.’ ”
Jesse says of the Prince of Wales, that between eighteen and
twenty, “ to be carried home drunk, or to be taken into custody
by the watch, were apparently no unfrequent episodes in the
early part of the career of the Heir to the Throne. Under the
auspices of his weak and frivolous uncle, the Duke of Cumber
land, the Prince’s conversation is said to have been a compound
of the slang of grooms and the wanton vocabulary of a brothel.”
“ When we hunt together,” said the King to the Duke of Glou
cester, “ neither my son nor my brother speak to me; and lately,
when the chase ended at a little village where there was but a
.single post-chaise to be hired, my son and brother got into it,
and drove off, leaving me to go home in a cart, if I could find
one.” And this is the family Mr. Disraeli holds up for English
men to worship 1
In July, 1782, Lord Shelburne came into office ; but he
“ always complained that the King had tricked and deserted
him,” and had “secretly connived at his downfall.” He re
signed office on the 24th February, 1783. An attempt was made
to form a Coalition Ministry, under the Duke of Portland. The
King complained of being treated with personal incivility, and
the attempt failed. On the 23rd March, the. Prince of Wales,
at the Queen’s Drawing-room, said : “ The King had refused to
accept the coalition, but by God he should be made to agree to
it.” Under the great excitement, the King’s health gave way.
The Prince, says Jesse, was a member of Brooks’s Club,
where, as Walpole tells us, the members were not only
strangely licentious ” in their talk about their sovereign, but
in their zeal for the interests of the heartless young Prince,
“ even wagered on the duration of the King’s reign.” The King
repeated his threat of abandoning the Throne, and retiring to
his Hanoverian dominions ; and told the Lord-Advocate, Dun
das, that he had obtained the consent of the Queen to his taking
this extraordinary step. Young William Pitt refusing twice to
accept the Premiership, Fox and Lord North came again into
power. ^30,000 was voted for the Prince of Wales’s debts, and.
.a similar sum to enable him to furnish his house. The “ un
natural” Coalition Ministry did not last long. Fox introduced
�50
The House of Brunswick.
his famous India Bill. The King, regarding it as a blow at the
power of the Crown, caballed and canvassed the Peers against
it. “ The welfare of thirty millions of people was overlooked
in the excitement produced by selfish interests, by party zeal,
and officious loyalty.” “ Instantly,” writes Lord Macaulay, “a.
troop of Lords of the Bedchamber, of Bishops who wished to
be translated, and of Scotch peers who wished to be re-elected,
made haste to change sides.” The Bill had passed the Com
mons by large majorities. The King opposed it like a partisan,
and when it was defeated in the Lords, cried, “ Thank God ! it
is all over ; the House has thrown out the Bill, so there is an
end of Mr. Fox.” The Ministers not resigning, as the King
expected they would, his Majesty dismissed them at once, send
ing to Lord North in the middle of the night for his seals of
office.
On the 19th December, 1783, William Pitt, then twenty-four
years of age, became Prime Minister of England. The House
of Commons passed a resolution, on the motion of Lord Surrey,
remonstrating with the King for having permitted his sacred
name to be unconstitutionally used in order to influence thedeliberations of Parliament. More than once the Commons
petitioned the King to dismiss Pitt from office. Pitt, with large
majorities against him, wished to resign ; but George III. said,
“If you resign, Mr. Pitt, I must resign too,” and he again
threatened, in the event of defeat, to abandon England, and re
tire to his Hanoverian dominions. Now our monarch, if a king,,
would have no Hanoverian dominions to retire to.
In 1784, £60,000 was voted by Parliament to defray the King’s
debts. In consequence of the large debts of the Prince of Wales,,
an interview was arranged at Carlton House on the 27th April,.
1785, between the Prince and Lord Malmesbury. The King,
the Prince said, had desired him to send in an exact statement
of his debts ; there was one item, however, of £25,000, on which
the Prince of Wales would give no information. If it were a
debt, argued the King, which his son was ashamed to explain,,
it was one which he ought not to defray. The Prince threatened
to go abroad, saying, “ I am ruined if I stay in England. I shall
disgrace myself as a man ; my father hates me, and has hated
me since I was seven years old........We are too wide asunder
ever to meet. The King has deceived me ; he has made me
deceive others. I cannot trust him, and he will not believe me.”
And this is the Brunswick family to which the English nation
are required to be blindly loyal !
In 1785, George Prince of Wales was married to a Roman
Catholic lady, Mrs. Fitzherbert, a widow. It is of course known
that the Prince treated the lady badly. This was not his first
experience, the history of Mary Robinson forming but one
amongst a long list of shabby liaisons. A question havingarisen before the House of Commons, during a discussion on
the debts owing by the Prince, Charles James Fox, on the written
authority of the Prince, denied that any marriage, regular or
�The House of Brunswick.
51
irregular, bad ever taken place, and termed it “ an invention......
destitute of the slightest foundation.” Mr. Fox’s denial was
made on the distinct written authority of the Prince, who offered,
through Fox, to give in the House of Lords the “fullest assur
ances of the utter falsehood ” of the allegation ; although not
only does everybody know to-day that the denial was untrue,
but in point of fact the fullest proofs of the denied marriage
exist at this very moment in the custody of Messrs. Coutts, the
bankers. Out of all the Brunswicks England has been cursed
with, George I. is the only one against whom there is no charge
of wanton falsehood to his ministers or subjects, and it is fairly
probable that his character for such truthfulness was preserved
by his utter inability to lie in our language.
Not only did George Prince of Wales thus deny his marriage
with Mrs. Fitzherbert, but repeated voluntarily the denial after
he became King George IV. Despite this denial, the King’s
executors, the Duke of Wellington and Sir William Knighton,
were compelled by Mrs. Fitzherbert to admit the proofs. The
marriage took place on the 21st December, 1785, and Mrs. Fitz
herbert being a Roman Catholic, the legal effect was to bar
Prince George and prevent him ever becoming the lawful King
of England. The documents above referred to as being at
Coutts’s, include—1. The marriage certificate. 2. A letter written
by the Prince of Wales acknowledging the marriage. 3. A will,,
signed by him, also acknowledging it, and other documents.
And yet George, our King, whom Mr. Disraeli praises, autho
rised Charles James Fox to declare the rumour of his marriage
“ a low malicious falsehood and then the Prince went to Mrs.
Fitzherbert and, like a mean, lying, hypocrite as he was, said,
“ Oh, Maria, only conceive what Fox did yesterday, he went
down to the House and denied that you and I were man and
wife.”
Although when George Prince of Wales had attained his
majority, he had an allowance of £50,000 a year, £60,000 to
furnish Carlton House, and .an additional ,£40,000 for cash tostart with, yet he was soon after deep in debt. In 1787,
£ 160,000 was voted, and a portion of the Prince’s debts was
paid. £20,000 further was added as a vote for Carlton House.
Thackeray says : “ Lovers of long sums have added up the
millions and millions which in the course of his brilliant exist
ence this single Prince consumed. Besides his income of
£50,000, £y0,000, £100,000, £120,000 a year, we read of three
applications to Parliament; debts to the amount of £160,000,
of £650,000, besides mysterious foreign loans, whereof he poc
keted the proceeds. What did he do for all this money ? Why
was he to have it ? If he had been a manufacturing town, or a
populous rural district, or an army of five thousand men, he
would not have cost more. He, one solitary stout man, who did
not toil, nor spin, nor fight—what had any mortal done that he
should be pampered so ?”
The proposed impeachment of Warren Hastings, which ac-
�52
The House of Brunswick.
tually commenced on February 13th, 1788, and which did not
conclude until eight years afterwards, excited considerable feel
ing, it being roundly alleged that Court protection had been
purchased by the late Governor-General of India, by means of
a large diamond presented to the King. The following rhymed
squib tells its own story. It was sung about the streets to the
tune of '' Derry Down —
“ I’ll sing you a song of a diamond so fine,
That soon in the crown of the monarch will shine ;
Of its size and its value the whole country rings,
By Hastings bestowed on the best of all Kings.
Derry down, &c.
“ From India this jewel was lately brought o’er,
Though sunk in the sea, it was found on the shore,
And just in the nick to St. James’s it got,
Convey’d in a bag by the brave Major Scott.
Derry down, &c.
“ Lord Sydney stepp’d forth, when the tidings were known,
It’s his office to carry such news to the throne ;—
Though quite out of breath, to the closet he ran,
And stammer’d with joy ere his tale he began.
Derry down, &c.
‘ Here’s a jewel, my liege, there’s none such in the land ;
Major Scott, with three bows, put it into my hand :
And he swore, when he gave it, the wise ones were bit,
For it never was shown to Dundas or to Pitt.’
Derry down, &c.
For Dundas,’ cried our sovereign, 'unpolished and rough,
Give him a Scotch pebble, it’s more than enough.
And jewels to Pitt, Hastings justly refuses,
For he has already more gifts than he uses.’
Derry down, &c.
'“'But run, Jenky, run !’ adds the King in delight,
‘ Bring the Queen and Princesses here for a sight;
They never would pardon the negligence shown,
If we kept from their knowledge so glorious a stone.
Derry down, &c.
''' But guard the door, Jenky, no credit we’ll win,
If the Prince in a frolic should chance to step in :
The boy to such secrets of State we’ll ne’er call,
Let him wait till he gets our crown, income, and all.’
Derry down, &c.
'' In the Princesses run, and surprised cry, ' Ola I
’Tis big as the egg of a pigeon, papa 1’
‘And a pigeon of plumage worth plucking is he,’
Replies our good monarch, ‘ who sent it to me.’
Derry down, &c.
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53
il Madame Schwellenberg peep’d through the door ata chink,.
And tipp’d on the diamond a sly German wink ;
As much as to say, 4 Can we ever be cruel
To him who has sent us so glorious a jewel?’
Derry down, &c.
“ Now God save the Queen ! while the people I teach,
How the King may grow rich while the Commons impeach
Then let nabobs go plunder, and rob as they will,
And throw in their diamonds as grist to his mill.
Derry down, &c.”
It was believed that the King had received not one diamond,,
but a large quantity, and that they were to be the purchase
money of Hastings’s acquittal. Caricatures on the subject wereto be seen in the window of every print-shop. In one of these
Hastings was represented wheeling away in a barrow the King,
with his crown and sceptre, observing, “ What a man buys, he
may selland, in another, the King was exhibited on his kneesr
with his mouth wide open, and Warren Hastings pitching
diamonds into it. Many other prints, some of them bearing
evidence of the style of the best caricaturists of the day, kept up
the agitation on this subject. It happened that there was a quack
in the town, who pretended to eat stones, and bills of his exhibi
tion were placarded on the walls, headed, in large letters, “The
great stone-eater 1” The caricaturists took the hint, and drew
the King with a diamond between his teeth, and a heap of othersbefore him, with the inscription, “ The greatest stone-eater !”
We borrow a few sentences from Lord Macaulay to enableour readers to judge, in brief space, the nature of Warren Hastings’s position, standing impeached, as he did, on a long string of
charges, some of them most terrible in their implication of
violence, falsehood, fraud, and rapacity.. Macaulay thus pictures
the situation between the civilised Christian and his tributaries :—On one side was a band of English functionaries, daring, in
telligent, eager to be rich. On the other side was a great native
population, helpless, timid, and accustomed to crouch under
oppression.” When some new act of rapacity was resisted there'
came war; but “ a war of Bengalees against Englishmen waslike a war of sheep against wolves, of men against demons.” There
was a long period before any one dreamed that justice and mo
rality should be features of English rule in India. 44 During the
interval, the business of a servant of the Company was simply
to wring out of the natives a hundred or two hundred thousand
pounds as speedily as possible, that he might return home before
his constitution had suffered from the heat, to marry a peer’sdaughter, to buy rotten boroughs in Cornwall, and to give balls
in St. James’s Square.” Hastings was compelled to turn hisattention to foreign affairs. The object of his diplomacy was at
this time simply to get money. The finances of his government
were in an embarrassed state, and this embarrassment he was
determined to relieve by some means, fair or foul. The principle
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which directed all his dealings with his neighbours is fully ex
pressed. by the old motto of one of the great predatory families
of Teviotdale— Thou shalt want ere I want.” He seems to
have laid it down, as a fundamental proposition which could not
be disputed, that, when he had not as many lacs of rupees as the
public service lequired, he was to take them from anybody who
had. One thing, indeed, is to be said in excuse for him. The
pressure applied to him by his employers at home, was such as
only the highest virtue could have withstood, such as left him
no choice except to commit great wrongs, or to resign his high
post, and with that post all his hopes of fortune and distinction.
Hastings was in need of funds to carry on the government of
Bengal, and to send remittances to London ; and Sujah Dowlah
had an ample revenue. Sujah Dowlah was bent on subjugating
the Rohillas ; and Hastings had at his disposal the only force
‘by which the Rohillas could be subjugated. It was agreed that
an English army should be lent to Nabob Vizier, and that for
the loan he should pay four hundred thousand pounds sterling
besides defraying all the charge of the troops while employed
in his service. _ “ I really cannot see,” says Mr. Gleig, “ upon
what grounds, either of political or moral justice, this propostion
‘deserves to be stigmatised as infamous.” If we understand the
meaning of words, it is infamous to commit a wicked action for
hire, and it is wicked to engage in war without provocation. In
this particular war, scarcely one aggravating circumstance was
wanting. The object of the Rohilla war was this, to deprive a
large population, who had never done us the least harm of a '
.good government, and to place them, against their will, under an
execrably bad one...... The horrors of Indian war were let loose
on the fair valleys and cities of Rohilcund. The whole country
was in a blaze. More than a hundred thousand people fled from
their homes to pestilential jungles, preferring famine, and fever
and the haunts of tigers, to the tyranny of him to whom an
English and a Christian government had, for shameful lucre
sold their substance, and their blood, and the honour of their
wives and daughters...... Mr. Hastings had only to put down by
main force the brave struggles of innocent men fighting for their
liberty. Their military resistance crushed, his duties ended ;
and he had then only to fold his arms and look on, while their
villages were burned, their children butchered, and their women
violated...... We hasten to the end of this sad and disgraceful
story. The war ceased. The finest population in India was
subjected to a greedy, cowardly, cruel tyrant. Commerce and
agriculture languished. The rich province which had tempted
the cupidity of Sujah Dowlah became the most miserable part
even of his miserable dominions. Yet is the injured nation not
extinct. At long intervals gleams of its ancient spirit have
-flashed forth ; and even at this day valour, and self-respect, and
a chivalrous feeling rare among Asiatics, and a bitter remem
brance of the] great crime of England, distinguish that noble
Afghan race.”
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Partly in consequence of the proposed legislation by Fox on
the affairs of the East India Company, and partly from per
sonal antagonism, members of the Indian Council hostile to
Governor-General Hastings were sent out to India. Amongst
his most prominent antagonists was Francis, the reputed author
of Junius’s Letters. It was to Francis especially that the Maha
rajah Nuncomar of Bengal addressed himself. “ He put into
the hands of Francis, with great ceremony, a paper containing
several charges of the most serious description. By this docu
ment Hastings was accused of putting offices up to sale, and of
receiving bribes for suffering offenders to escape. In particular,
it was alleged that Mahommed Reza Khan had been dis
missed with impunity, in consideration of a great sum paid to
the Governor-General...... He stated that Hastings had received
a large sum for appointing Rajah Goordas treasurer of the
Nabob’s household, and for committing the care of his High
ness’s person to 'Munny Begum. He put in a letter purporting
to bear the seal of the Munny Begum, for the purpose of estab
lishing the truth of his story.”
Much evidence was taken before the Indian Council, where
there was considerable conflict between the friends and enemies
of Hastings. “ The majority, however, voted that the charge
was made out; that Hastings had corruptly received between
thirty and forty thousand pounds ; and that he ought to be com
pelled to refund.”
Now, however, comes an item darker and more disgraceful, if
possible, than what had preceded.
“ On a sudden, Calcutta was astounded by the news that
Nuncomar had been taken up on a charge of felony, committed,
and thrown into the common gaol. The crime imputed to him
was, that six years before he had forged a bond. The osten
sible prosecutor was a native. But it was then, and still is, the
opinion of everybody, idiots and biographers excepted, that
Hastings was the real mover in the business.” The ChiefJustice Impey, one of Hastings’s creatures, pushed on a mock
trial, “a verdict of Guilty was returned, and the Chief-Justice
pronounced sentence of death on the prisoner.......... Of Impey’s
conduct it is impossible to speak too severely. He acted un
justly in refusing to respite Nuncomar. No rational- man can
doubt that he took this course in order to gratify the GovernorGeneral. If we had ever had any doubts on that point, they
would have been dispelled by a letter which Mr. Gleig has
published. Hastings, three or four years later, described Impey
as the man £ to whose support he was at one time indebted for
the safety of his fortune, honour, and reputation.’ These strong
words can refer only to the case of Nuncomar ; and they must
mean that Impey hanged Nuncomar in order to support Has
tings. It is therefore our deliberate opinion that Impey, sitting
as a judge, put a man unjustly to death in order to serve a poli
tical purpose.”
Encouraged by success, a few years later, Hastings, upon the
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most unfair pretext, made war upon and plundered the Rajah of
Benares, and a little later subjected the eunuchs of the Begums
of Oude to physical torture, to make them confess where the
royal treasure was hidden.
It is evident from Miss Burney’s diary that the King and.
Queen warmly championed the cause of Warren Hastings, who,
after a wearisome impeachment, was acquitted.
In 1788, the King’s insanity assumed a more violent form than
usual, and on a report from the Privy Council, the subject was
brought before Parliament. In the Commons, Pitt and the Tory
party contended that the right of providing for the government of
the country in cases where the monarch was unable to perform
his duties, belonged to the nation at large, to be exercised by its
representatives in Parliament. Fox and the Whigs, on the other
hand, maintained that the Prince of Wales possessed the in
herent right to assume the government. Pitt seizing this argu
ment as it fell from Fox, said, at the moment, to the member
seated nearest to him, “ I’ll unwhig the gentleman for the rest
of his life.”
During the discussions on the Regency Bill, Lord Thurlow,
who was then Lord Chancellor, acted the political rat, and
coquetted with both parties. When the King’s recovery was
announced by the royal physicians, Thurlow, to cover his
treachery, made an extravagant speech in defence of Pitt’s
views, and one laudatory of the King. After enumerating the
rewards received from the King, he said, “ and if I forget the
monarch who has thus befriended me, may my great Creator
forget me.” John Wilkes, who was present in the House of
Lords, said, in a stage aside, audible to many of the peers, “For
get you, he will see you damned first.” Phillimore, describing
Lord Chancellor Thurlow, says that he—“ either from an in
stinctive delight in all that was brutal ” (which did not prevent
him from being a gross hypocrite), “ or from a desire to please
George III.—supported the Slave Trade, and the horrors of the
Middle Passage, with the uncompromising ferocity of a Liver
pool merchant or a Guinea captain.”
It appears that the Prince of Wales and the Duke of York
exhibited what was considered somewhat indecent eagerness to
have the King declared irrecoverably insane, and on more than
one occasion the Queen refused to allow either of these Royal
Princes access to the King’s person, on the ground that their
violent conduct retarded his recovery. The Prince of Wales and
Duke of York protested in writing against the Queen’s hostility
to them, and published the protest. Happy family, these Brunswicks ! Dr. Doran declares : “There was assuredly no decency
in the conduct of the Heir-apparent, or of his next brother. They
were gaily flying from club to club, party to party, and did not
take the trouble even to assume the sentiment which they could
not feel. ‘ If we were together,’ says Lord Granville, in a letter
inserted in his Memoirs, ‘ I would tell you some particulars of
the Prince of Wales’s behaviour to the King and Queen, within
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57
these few days, that would make your blood run cold.’ It was
said that if the King could only recover and learn what had been
said and done during his illness, he would hear enough to drive
him again into insanity. The conduct of his eldest sons was
marked by its savage inhumanity.” Jesse says : “ The fact is a
painful one to relate, that on the 4th December—the day on
which Parliament assembled, and when the King’s malady was
at its worst—the graceless youth (the Duke of York) not only
held a meeting of the opposition at his own house, but afterwards
proceeded to the House of Lords, in order to hear the deposi
tions of the royal physicians read, and to listen to the painful
details of his father’s lunacy. Moreover the same evening we
track both the brothers (the Prince of Wales and the Duke of
York) to Brooks’s, where in a circle of boon companions, as irre
verent as themselves, they are said to have been in the habit
of indulging in the most shocking indecencies, of which the
King’s derangement was the topic. On such occasions, we are
told, not only did they turn their parents into ridicule, and blab
the secrets of the chamber of sickness at Windsor, but the Prince
even, went to such unnatural lengths as to employ his talents for
mimicry, in which he was surpassed by few of his contempora
ries in imitating the ravings and gestures of his stricken father.
As for the Duke of York, we are assured that ‘ the brutality of the
stupid sot disgusted even the most profligate of his associates.’ ”
Even after the King’s return to reason had been vouched by the
physicians, William Grenville, writing to Lord Buckingham,
says that the two princes “ amused themselves with spreading
the report that the King was still out of his mind.” When the
great thanksgiving for the King’s recovery took place at Saint
Paul’s, the conduct of the Prince of Wales and the Duke of
York, in the Cathedral itself, is described “ as having been in the
highest degree irreverent, if not indecent.” Sir William Young
writes to Lord Buckingham, “ The day will come when English
men will bring these Princes to their senses.” Alas for England
the day has not yet come !
’
In 1789, a great outcry was raised against the Duke of York
on account of his licentiousness. In 179°, the printer of the
Times newspaper was fined ^100 for libelling the Prince of
Wales, and a second ^100 for libelling the Duke of York. It
was in this year that the Prince of Wales, and the Dukes of
York and Clarence, issued joint and several bonds to an enor
mous amount—it is said, ,£1,000,000 sterling, and bearing 6 per
cent, interest. These bonds were taken up chiefly abroad; and
some Frenchmen who subscribed, being unable to obtain either
principal or interest, applied to the Court of Chancery, in order
to charge the revenues of the Duchy of Cornwall. Others of '
the foreign holders of bonds had recourse to other proceedings
to enforce their claims. In nearly every case the claimants
were arrested by the Secretary of State’s order, and sent out of
England under the Alien Act, and when landed in their own
country were again arrested for treasonable communication with
F
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the enemy, and perished on the scaffold. MM. De Baume,
Chaudot, Mette, Aubert, Vaucher, and others, all creditors of the
Prince, were thus arrested under the Duke of Portland’s war
rant, and on their deportation re-arrested for treason, and guillo
tined. Thus were some of the debts of the Royal Family of
Brunswick settled, if not paid. Honest family, these Brunswicks 1
George Prince of Wales and the Duke of York were con
stant patrons of prize fights, races, and gambling tables, largely
betting, and not always paying their wagers when they lost. In
the autumn of 1791 a charge was made against the Prince of
Wales that he allowed his horse Escape to run badly on the
20th of October, and when heavily betted against caused the
same horse to be ridden to win. A brother of Lord Lake, who
was friendly to the Prince, and who managed some of his
racing affairs, evidently believed there was foul play, and so did
the Jockey Club, who declared that if the Prince permitted the
same jockey, Samuel Chifney, to ride again, no gentleman
would start against him. A writer employed by George Prince
of Wales to defend his character says : “ It may be asked, why
did not the Prince of Wales declare upon his honour, that no
foul play had been used with respect to Escape’s first race ?
Such a declaration would at once have solved all difficulties,
and put an end to all embarrassments. But was it proper for
the Prince of Wales to have condescended to such a submis
sion ? Are there not sometimes suspicions of so disgraceful a
nature afloat, and at the same time so improbable withal, that
if the person, who is the object of them, condescends to reply
to them, he degrades himself? Was it to be expected of the
Prince of Wales that he should purge himself, by oath, like his
domestic ? Or was it to be looked for, that the first subject in
the realm, the personage whose simple word should have com
manded deference, respect, and belief, was to submit himself to
the examination of the Jockey Club, and answer such questions
as they might have thought proper to have proposed to him ?”
This, coming from a family like the Brunswicks, and from one
of four brothers who, like their highnesses of Wales, York, Kent,
and Cumberland, had each in turn declared himself upon honour
not guilty of some misdemeanour or felony, is worthy a note of
admiration. George, Prince of Wales, declared himself not
guilty of bigamy ; the Duke of York declared himself not guilty
of selling promotion in the army. Both these Princes publicly
declared themselves not guilty of the charge of trying to hinder
their royal father’s restoration to sanity. The Duke of Kent,
the Queen’s father, declared that he was no party to the subor
nation of witnesses against his own brother. The Duke of
Cumberland pledged his oath that he had never been guilty of
sodomy and murder.
In September, 1791, the Duke of York was married to the
Princess Frederica, daughter of the King of Prussia, with whom
he lived most unhappily for a few years. The only effect of this
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marriage on the nation was that ,£ 18,000 a year was voted as an
extra allowance to his Royal Highness the Duke of York. This
was in addition to 100,000 crowns given out of the Civil List
as a marriage portion to the Princess. Dr. Doran says of the
Duchess of York : “For six years she bore with treatment from
the ‘Commander-in-Chief’ such as no trooper under him would
have inflicted on a wife equally deserving. At the end of that
time the ill-matched pair separated.” Kind husbands, these
Brunswicks!
In a print published on the 24th May, 1792, entitled “Vices
Overlooked in the New Proclamation,” Avarice is represented
by King George and Queen Charlotte, hugging their hoarded
millions with extreme satisfaction, a book of interest tables lying
at hand. This print is divided into four compartments, repre
senting : 1. Avarice ; 2. Drunkenness, exemplified in the person
of the Prince of Wales ; 3. Gambling, the favourite amusement
of the Duke of York; and 4. Debauchery,the Duke of Clarence
and Mrs. Jordan—as the four notable vices of the Royal family
of Great Britain. If the print had to be re-issued to-day, it
would require no very vivid imagination to provide materials
from the living members of the Royal Family to refill the four
compartments.
Among various other remarkable trials occurring in 1792,
those of Daniel Holt and AVilliam Winterbottom are here wor
thy of notice, as illustrating the fashion in which the rule of the
Brunswick monarchy has trenched on our political liberties.
The former, a printer of Nottingham, was convicted and sen
tenced to two years’ imprisonment for re-publishing, verbatim
a political tract, originally circulated without prosecution by the
Thatched House Tavern Association, of which Mr. Pitt and
the Duke of Richmond had been members. The other, a dis
senting minister at Plymouth, of virtuous and highly respectable
character, was convicted of sedition, and sentenced to four
years’ imprisonment in the gaol of Newgate, for two sermons
preached m commemoration of the revolution of 1688. The
indictment charged him with affirming, “That his Majesty was
placed upon the throne on condition of keeping certain laws
and rules, and if he does- not observe them, he has no more
right to the crown than the Stuarts had.”. All the Whigs in the
kingdom might, doubtless, have been comprehended in a similar
indictment. And if the doctrine affirmed by the Rev. Mr. Win
terbottom be denied, the monstrous reverse of the proposition
follows, that the King is bound by no conditions or laws • and
that though resistance to the tyranny of the Stuarts might be
justifiable, resistance under the same circumstances to the
House of Brunswick, is not. This trial, for the cruelty and
infamy attending it, has been justly compared to the celebrated
one of Rosewell m the latter years of Charles II., to the events
of which those of 1792 exhibit, in various respects, a striking
and alarming parallel.
&
Before his election to the National Convention, Thomas Paine
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published the second part of his l< Rights of Man,” in which he
boldly promulgated principles which, though fiercely condemned
at the date of their issue, are now being gradually accepted by
the great mass of the people. Paine’s work was spread through
the kingdom with extraordinary industry, and was greedily sought
for by people of all classes. Despite the great risk of fine and
imprisonment, some of the most effective parts were printed on
pieces of paper, which were used by Republican tradesmen as
wrappers for their commodities. Proceedings were immediately
taken against Thomas Paine as author of the obnoxious book,
which was treated as a libel against the government and consti
tution, and on trial Paine was found guilty. He was defended
with great ability by Erskine, who, when he left the court, was
cheered by a crowd of people who had collected without, some of
whom took his horses from his carriage, and dragged him home
to his house in Serjeant’s Inn. The name and opinions of
Thomas Paine were at this moment gaining influence, in spite of
the exertions made to put them down. From this time for
several years, it is almost impossible to read a weekly journal
without finding some instance of persecution for publishing Mr.
Paine’s political views.
The trial of Thomas Paine was the commencement of a series
of State prosecutions, not for political offences, but for political
designs. The name of Paine had caused much apprehension,
but many even amongst the Conservatives dreaded the extension
of the practice of making the publication of a man’s abstract
opinions criminal, when unaccompanied with any direct or open
attempt to put them into effect. In the beginning of 1793,
followed prosecutions in Edinburgh, where the ministerial in
fluence was great, against men who had associated to do little
more than call for reform in Parliament; and five persons,
whose alleged crimes consisted chiefly in having read Paine’s
“ Rights of Man,” and in having expressed either a partial ap
probation of his doctrines, or a strong declaration in favour of
Parliamentary reform, were transported severally : Joseph
Gerrald, William Skirving, and Thomas Muir for fourteen, and
Thomas Fyshe Palmer and Maurice Margarot for seven years !
These men had been active in the political societies, and it was
imagined that, by an exemplary injustice of this kind, these
societies would be intimidated. Such, however, was not the
case, for, from this moment, the clubs in Edinburgh became
more active than ever, and they certainly took a more dangerous
character ; so that, before the end of the year, there was actually
a “ British Convention ” sitting in the Scottish capital. This
was dissolved by force at the beginning of 1794, and two of its
members were added to the convicts already destined for trans
portation. Their severe sentences provoked warm discussions
in the English Parliament, but the ministers were inexorable in
their resolution to put them in execution.
The extreme severity of the sentences passed on the Scottish
political martyrs, even as judged by those admitting the legality
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and justice of their conviction, was so shameful, as to rouse
general interest. Barbarous as the law of Scotland appeared
to be, it became a matter of doubt whether the Court of Justi
ciary had not exceeded its power, in substituting the punishment
of transportation for that of banishment, imposed by the Act of
Queen Anne, for the offence charged on those men.
In 1794, the debts of the Prince of Wales, then amounting to
about ,£650,000, not including the amounts due on the foreign
bonds, a marriage was suggested in order to give an excuse for
going to Parliament for a vote. This was at a time when the
Prince was living with Mrs. Fitzherbert as his wife, and when
Lady Jersey was his most prominent mistress. The bride selected
was Caroline of Brunswick. A poor woman for a wife, if Lord
Malmesbury’s picture is a true one, certainly in no sense a bad
woman. But her husband our Prince ! When she arrived in
London, George was not sober. His first words, after greeting
her, were to Lord Malmesbury, “ Get me a glass of brandy.”
Tipsy this Brunswicker went to the altar on 8th April, 1794 ; so
tipsy that he got up from his knees too soon, and the King had
to whisper him down, the Archbishop having halted in amaze in
the ceremony. Here there is no possibility of mistake. The
two Dukes who were his best men at the wedding, had their
work to keep him from falling; and to one, the Duke of Bedford,
he admitted that he had had several glasses of brandy before
coming to the chapel.
Thackeray says, “ What could be. expected from a wedding
which had such a beginning—from such a bridegroom and such
a bride ? Malmesbury gives us the beginning of the marriage
story—how the prince reeled into chapel to be married ; how he
hiccupped out his vows of fidelity—you know how he kept them ;
how he pursued the woman whom he had married ; to what a
state he brought her ; with what blows he struck her ; with what
malignity he pursued her ; what his treatment of his daughter
was ; and what his own life. He the first gentleman of Europe 1”
The Parliament not only paid the Prince of Wales’s debts, but
gave him ^28,000 for jewels and plate, and ,£26,000 for the
furnishing of Carlton House.
On the 12th of May, Mr. Henry Dundas brought down on
behalf of the government, a second message from the King, im
porting that seditious practices had been carried on by certain
societies in London, in correspondence with other societies ; that
they had lately been pursued with increasing activity and bold
ness, and had been avowedly directed to the assembling of a
pretended National Convention, in contempt and defiance of the
authority of Parliament, on principles subversive of the existing
laws and the constitution, and tending to introduce that system
of anarchy prevailing in France ; that his Majesty had given
orders for seizing the books and papers of those societies, which
were to be laid before the House, to whom it was recommended
to pursue measures necessary to counteract their pernicious ten
dency. A large collection of books and papers was, in conse
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quence, brought down to the House ; and, after an address had
been voted, a resolution was agreed to, that those papers should
be referred to a committee of secrecy. A few days after the
King’s message was delivered, the following persons were com
mitted to the Tower on a charge of high treason :—Mr. Thomas
Hardy, a shoemaker in Piccadilly, who officiated as secretary to
the London Corresponding Society ; Mr. Daniel Adams, secre
tary to the Society for Constitutional Information ; Mr. John
Horne Tooke ; Mr. Stewart Kyd ; Mr. Jeremiah Joyce, precep
tor to Lord Mahon, eldest son of the Earl of Stanhope ; and
Mr. John Thelwall, who had for some time delivered lectures on
political subjects in London.
Under the influence of excitement resulting from the Govern
ment statement of the discovery of a plot to assassinate the
King, and which plot never existed outside the brains of the
Government spies, a Special Commission of Oyer and Terminer
was issued on the ioth of September, 1794, for the trial of the
State prisoners confined in the Tower on a charge of high trea
son. On the 2nd of October, the Commission was opened at the
Sessions House, Clerkenwell, by Lord Chief Justice Eyre, in an
elaborate charge to the grand jury. Bills were then found against
all who had been taken up in May, except Daniel Adams.
Hardy was first put on his trial at the Old Bailey. The trial
commenced on the 28th of October, and continued with short
adjournments until the 5th of November. Mr Erskine was
•counsel for Hardy, and employed his great talents and brilliant
•eloquence with the most complete success. After consulting
together for thtee hours, the jury, who, though the avowed friends
•of the then administration, were men of impartiality,intelligence,
and of highly respectable characters, returned a verdict of N ot
Guilty. There has seldom been a verdict given in a British
-court of justice which afforded more general satisfaction. It is
doubtful whether there has been a verdict more important
in its consequences to the liberties of the English people. On
the 17th of November, John Horne Tooke was put on his trial.
The Duke of Richmond, Earl Camden, Mr. Pitt, and Mr. Beaufoy, were subpoenaed by the prisoner ; and the examination of
William Pitt by Mr. Tooke and his counsel, formed the most
important feature in the trial, as the evidence of the Prime
Minister tended to prove, that from the year 1780 to 1782, he
himself had been actively engaged with Mr. Tooke and many
•others in measures of agitation to procure a Parliamentary re
form, although he now not only deemed the attempt dangerous
.and improper, but sought to condemn it as treasonable, or at
least as seditious. Mr. Erskine, who was counsel for Mr. Tooke
also, in a most eloquent and powerful manner contended that
the conduct of his client was directed only to the same object as
that previously sought by Pitt himself, and that the measures
resorted to, so far from being criminal, were perfectly constitu
tional. Mr. Pitt was extremely guarded in his replies, and pro
fessed very little recollection of what passed at the meetings
�The House of Brunswick.
63
which he attended. A letter he had written to Mr. Tooke at
that time on the subject, was handed to him, which he pretended
he could scarcely recognise, and which the judge would not
permit to be read. Mr. Sheridan, who was likewise engaged in
the agitation for political reform, and subpoenaed by Mr. Tooke,
gave unqualified evidence in favour of Mr. Tooke respecting the
proceedings at those meetings. The trial continued till the
Saturday following, when the jury were out of court only six
minutes, and returned a verdict of Not Guilty !
The opening of Parliament was looked forward to with great
anxiety, on account of the extreme distress under which the
country was labouring. As the time approached, popular meet
ings were held in the metropolis, and preparations were made
for an imposing demonstration. During the morning of the 29th
of October, the day on which the King was to open the session
in person, crowds of men continued pouring into the town from
the various open spaces outside, where simultaneous meetings
had been called by placards and advertisements ; and before
the King left Buckingham House, on his way to St. James’s, the
number of people collected on the ground over which he had to
pass is admitted in the papers of the day to have been not less,
than two hundred thousand. At first the state carriage was
allowed to move on through this dense mass in sullen silence,
no hats being taken off, nor any other mark of respect being
shown. This was followed by a general outburst of hisses and
groans, mingled with shouts of “ Give us peace and bread 1”
No war!” “No King !” “ Down with him ! down with George!”
and the like ; and this tumult continued unabated until the King
reached the House of Lords, the Guards with difficulty keeping
the mob from closing on the carriage. As it passed through
Margaret Street the populace seemed determined to attack it,
and when opposite the Ordnance Office a stone passed through
the glass of the carriage window. ' A verse published the follow
ing day says:—
“ Folks say it was lucky the stone missed the head,
When lately at Caesar ’twas thrown ;
I think very different from thousands indeed,
’Twas a lucky escape for the stone.”
The demonstration was, if anything, more fierce on the King’s
return, and he had some difficulty in reaching St. James’s Palace
without injury ; for the mob threw stones at the state carriage
and damaged it considerably. After remaining a short time at
St. James’s, he proceeded in his private coach to Buckingham
House, but the carriage was stopped in the Park by the popu
lace, who pressed round it, shouting, “ Bread, bread ! Peace,
peace !” until the King was rescued from this unpleasant situa
tion by a strong body of the Guards.
Treason and sedition Acts were hurried through Parliament
to repress the cries of the hungry for bread, whilst additional
taxes were imposed to make the poor poorer.
�64
The House of Brunswick.
That the terrible French war—of which it is impossible to
give any account in the limits of this essay, a war which cost
Great Britain at least ^1,000,000,000 in hard cash, without
reckoning the hundreds of thousands of killed, wounded, and
pauperised, and which Buckle calls 11 the most hateful, the most
unjust, and the most atrocious war England has ever waged
against any country ”—directly resulted from our government
under the Brunswick family, is a point on which it is impossible
for any one who has examined the facts, to have serious doubt.
Sir Archibald Alison tells us that early in 1791, “The King of
England took a vivid interest in the misfortunes of the Royal
Family of France, promising, as Elector of Hanover, to concur
in any measures which might be deemed necessary to extricate
them from their embarrassments ; and he sent Lord Elgin to
Leopold, who was then travelling in Italy, to concert measures
for the common object.” It was as Elector of Hanover also that
his grandfather, George II., had sacrificed English honour and
welfare to the personal interest and family connections of these
wretched Brunswicks.- It is certain too that after years of
terrible war, on one of the Occasions of negotiation for peace,
hindrances arose because our Government insisted on describing
George III., in the preliminaries, as “King of France.” The
French naturally said, first, your King George never has been
King of any part of France at any time ; and next, we, having
just declared France a Republic, cannot in a solemn treaty re
cognise the continued existence of a claim to Monarchy over us.
The following table, which we insert at this stage to save the
need for further reference, shows how the labour of the British
nation was burdened for generations to come, by the insane
affection of the House of Brunswick for the House of Bourbon :—
Years.
1793
1794
1795
1796
1797
1798
1799
1800
1801
1802
1803
1804
1805
1806
1807
1808
1809
1810
1811
...
Taxes.
^17,656,418
17,170,400
17,308,411
17,858,454
18,737,760
20,654,650
30,202,915
35,229,968
33,896,464
35,415,296
37,240,213
37,677,063
45,359,442
49,659,281
53,3O4<254
58,390,255
61,538,207
63,405,294
66,681,366
Loans.
^25,926,526
—
51,705,698
56,945,566
25,350,000
35,624,250
21,875,300
29,045,000
44,816,250
41,489,438
16,000,000
18,200,000
39,543,124
29,880,000
18,373,200
13,693,254
21,278,122
19,811,108
29,244,711
�65
The House of Brunswick.
Years.
1812
1813
1814
1815
Taxes.
£64,763,870
63,169,845
66,925,835
69,684,192
Loans.
^40,743,031
54,780,324
63,645,930
70,888,402
£768,858,934
Total
■■ £981,929,853
After making some deductions on account of the operations of
the loyalty loan, and the transfer of annuities, the total debt con
tracted from 1793 to 1815, amounts to £762,537,445. If to this
sum be added the increase in the unfunded debt during that
period, and the additional sums raised by taxes in consequence
of hostilities, we shall have the total expenditure, owing to the
French war, as follows :—
Debt contracted from 1793 to 1815 • •• £762,537,445
50,194,060
Increase in the Unfunded Debt
614,488,459
War taxes
1,427,219,964
Total
Deduct sum paid to the Commissioners
for reduction of the National Debt ...
173,309,383
Total cost of the French war .............. £1,253,910,581
Lord Fife, in the House of Lords, said that “ in this horrid
war had he first witnessed the blood and treasure of the nation
expended in the extravagant folly of secret expeditions, which
had invariably proved either abortive or unsuccessful. Grievous
and heavy taxes had been laid on the people, and wasted in ex
pensive embassies, and in subsidising proud, treacherous, and
useless foreign princes.”
In 1795 King George and his advisers tried by statute to put
a stop for ever in this country to all political or religious discus
sion. No meeting was to be held, except on five days’ duly
advertised notice, to be signed by householders ; and if for lec
tures or debates, on special licence by a magistrate. Power was
given to any magistrate to put an end in his discretion to any
meeting, and to use military force in the event of twelve persons
remaining one hour after notice. If a man lent books, news
papers, or pamphlets without license, he might be fined twenty
pounds for every offence. If he permitted lectures or debates
on any subject whatever, he might be fined one hundred pounds
a day. And yet people dare to tell us that we owe our liberties
to these Brunswicks.
On the 1st of June, 1795, Gillray, in a caricature entitled
“ John Bull Ground Down,” had represented Pitt grinding John
Bull into money, which was flowing out in an immense stream
beneath the mill. The Prince of Wales is drawing off a large
portion, to pay the debts incurred by his extravagance ; while
Dundas, Burke, and Loughborough, as the representatives of
ministerial pensioners, are scrambling for the rest. King George
s
�I
66
The House of Brunswick.
encourages Pitt to grind without mercy. Another caricature by
Gillray, published on the 4th of June, represents Pitt as Death
on the White Horse (the horse of Hanover) riding over a drove
of pigs, the representatives of what Burke had termed the “ swi
nish multitude.”
On the 7th of January, 1796, the Princess Charlotte of Wales
was born, and on the 30th of April, George Prince of Wales
wrote to the Princess Caroline, stating that he did not intend to
live with her any more. The Prince had some time previously
sent by Lord Cholmondeley a verbal message to the same effect,
which, however, the Princess had refused to accept. The
. mistress reigning over the Prince of Wales at this time was
Lady Jersey.
No impeachment of the House of Brunswick would be even
tolerably supported which did not contain some reference to the
terrible misgovernment of Ireland under the rule of this obsti
nate and vicious family, and yet these few pages afford but little
space in which to show how beneficent the authority of King
George III. has proved to our Irish brethren.
During the war, when there were no troops in Ireland, and
when, under Flood and Grattan, the volunteers were in arms,
some concessions had been made to the Irish people. A few
obnoxious laws had been repealed, and promises had been held
out of some relaxation of the fearfully oppressive laws against
the Catholics. From the correspondence of Earl Temple, it is
clear that in 1782 not only was the King against any further
concession whatever, but that his Majesty and Lord Shelburne
actually manoeuvred to render the steps already taken as fruit
less as possible. We find W. W. Grenville admitting, on the
15th December, 1782, “that the [Irish] people are really miser
able and oppressed to a degree I had not at all conceived.” The
Government acted dishonestly to Ireland. The consequence
was, continued misery and disaffection ; and I assert, without
fear of contradiction, that this state of things is directly trace
able to the King’s wilfulness on Irish affairs. As an illustration
of the character of the Government, it is worth notice that Lord
Temple, when Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, wrote to his brother
in cipher, because his letters were opened in the Post Office by
Lord Shelburne. The Parliament of Ireland was in great part
owned by absentee peers, and each change of Lord-Lieutenancy
was marked by heavy addition to the Pension List. The con
tinuance of the Catholic disabilities rendered permanent quiet
impossible. Three-fourths of the nation were legally and socially
almost outlawed. The national discontent was excited by the
arbitrary conduct of the authorities, and hopes of successful
revolution were encouraged, after 1789, by the progress of the
Revolution in France.
About 1790, the “United Irishmen ” first began to be heard
of. Their object was “a complete reform in the legislature,
founded on the principles of civil, political, and religious liberty.”'
The clubs soon became secret associations, and were naturally
�The House of Brunswick.
67
soon betrayed. Prosecutions for sedition in 1793 were soon
followed by military repression.
Lord Moira in the House of Lords in 1797, in a powerful
speech, which has remained without any refutation, described
the Government of Ireland as “ the most absurd, as well as the
most disgusting, tyranny that any nation ever groaned under.”
He said : “ If such a tyranny be persevered in, the consequence
must inevitably be the deepest and most universal discontent,
and even hatred to the English name. I have seen in that
country a marked distinction made between the English and
Irish. I have seen troops that have been sent full of this preju
dice—that every inhabitant in that kingdom is a rebel to the
British Govenment. I have seen the most wanton insults prac
tised upon men of all ranks and conditions. I have seen the most
grievous oppressions exercised, in consequence of a presumption
that the person who was the unfortunate object of such oppres
sion was in hostility to the Government ; and yet that has been
done in a part of the country as quiet and as free from disturb
ance as the city of London.” His Lordship then observed that,
“ from education and early habits, the curfew vr&s, ever con
sidered by Britons as a badge of slavery and oppression. It was
then practised in Ireland with brutal rigour. He had known an
instance where the master of a house had in vain pleaded to be
allowed the use of a candle, to enable the mother to administer
relief to her daughter struggling in convulsive fits. In former
times, it had been the custom for Englishmen to hold the in
famous proceedings of the Inquisition in detestation. One of
the greatest horrors with which it was attended was that the
person, ignorant of the crime laid to his charge, or of his accuser,
was torn from his family, immured in a prison, and kept in the
most cruel uncertainty as to the period of his confinement, or
the fate which awaited him. To this injustice, abhorred by Pro
testants in the practice of the Inquisition, were the people of
Ireland exposed. All confidence, all security, were taken away.
When a man was taken up on suspicion he was put to the tor
ture ; nay, if he were merely accused of concealing the guilt of
another. The rack, indeed, was not at hand ; but the punish
ment of picqueting was in practice, which had been for some
years abolished as too inhuman, even in the dragoon service.
He had known a man, in order to extort a confession of a sup
posed crime, or of that of some of his neighbours, picqueted till
he actually fainted—picqueted a second time till he fainted
again, and as soon as he came to himself, picqueted a third time
till he once more fainted ; and all upon mere suspicion ! Nor
was this the only species of torture. Men had been taken and
hung up till they were half dead, and then threatened with a
repetition of the cruel treatment, unless they made confession
of the imputed guilt. These were not particular acts of
cruelty, exercised by men abusing the power committed
to them, but they formed part of our system. They were
notorious, and no petson could say who would be the
�68
The House of Brunswick.
next victim of this oppression and cruelty, which he saw
others endure. This, however, was not all; their lord
ships, no doubt, would recollect the famous proclamation issued
by a military commander in Ireland, requiring the people
to give up their arms. It never was denied that this proclama
tion was illegal, though defended on some supposed necessity ;
but it was not surprising that some reluctance had been shown
to comply with it by men who conceived the Constitution gave
them a right to keep arms in their houses fortheir own defence ;
and they could not but feel indignation in being called upon to
give up their right. In the execution of the order the greatest
cruelties had been committed. If anyone was suspected to have
concealed weapons of defence, his house, his furniture, and all
his property were burnt; but this was not all. If it were sup
posed that any district had not surrendered all the arms which
it contained, a party was sent out to collect the number at which
it was rated; and in execution of this order, thirty houses were
sometimes burnt down in a single night. Officers took upon
themselves to decide discretionary the quantity of arms ; and
upon their opinions the fatal consequences followed. These
facts were well known in Ireland, but they could not be made
public through the channel of the newspapers, for fear of that
summary mode of punishment which had been practised towards
the Northern Star, when a party of troops in open day, and in
a town where the General’s headquarters were, went and de
stroyed all the offices and property belonging to that paper. It
was thus authenticated accounts were suppressed.”
Can any one wonder that the ineffectual attempt at revolution
of 1798 followed such a state of things ? And when, in the
London Chronicle and Cambridge Intelligencer, and other jour
nals by no means favourable to Ireland or its people, we read
the horrid stories of women ravished, men tortured, and farms
pillaged, all in the name of law and order, and this by King
George’s soldiers, not more than seventy years ago, can we feel
astonishment that the Wexford peasants have grown up to hate
the Saxon oppressor ? And this we owe to a family of kings
who used their pretended Protestantism as a cloak for the illtreatment of our Catholic brethren in Ireland. In impeaching
the Brunswicks, we remind the people of proclamations of
ficially issued in the King’s name, threatening to burn and de
vastate whole parishes, and we allege that the disaffection in
Ireland at the present moment, is the natural fruit of the utter
regardlessness, on the part of these Guelphs, for human liberty,
or happiness, or life. The grossest excesses were perpetrated in
Ireland by King George II I.’s foreign auxiliaries. The troops
from Hesse Cassel, from Hesse Darmstadt, and from Hanover,
earned an unenviable notoriety by their cruelty, rapacity, and
licentiousness. And these we owe entirely to the Brunswicks.
A letter from the War Office, dated April nth, 1798, shows
how foreigners were specially selected for the regiments sent
over to Ireland. Sir Ralph Abercromby publicly rebuked the
�The House of Brunswick.
69
King’s army, of which he was the Commander-in-Chief, for their
disgraceful irregularities and licentiousness. Even LieutenantGeneral Lake admits that “ the determination of the troops to
destroy every one they think a rebel is beyond description, and
needs correction.”
In 1801, it was announced that King George III. was suffering
from severe cold and sore throat, and could not therefore go out
in public. His disease, however, was more mental than bodily.
Her present Majesty has also suffered from severe cold and sore
throat, but no allegation is ventured that her mental condition
is such as to unfit her for her Royal duties.
On March 29, 1802, the sum of .£990,053 was voted for pay
ment of the King’s debts.
In 1803, the Prince of Wales being again in debt, a further
vote was passed of ,£60,000 a year for three years and a half.
Endeavours were made to increase this grant, but marvellous to
relate, the House of Commons actually acted as if it had some
slight interest in the welfare of the people, and rejected a motion
of Mr. Calcraft for a further vote of money to enable his Royal
Highness to maintain his state and dignity. The real effect of
the vote actually carried, was to provide for ,£800,649 of the
Prince’s debts, including the vote of 1794.
On July 21, 1763, ,£60,000 cash, and a pension of ,£16,000 a
year, were voted to the Prince of Orange.
In 1804, King George was very mad, but Mr. Addington ex
plained to Parliament, that there was nothing in his Majesty’s
indisposition to prevent his discharging the Royal functions.
Mr. Gladstone also recently explained to Parliament, that there
would be no delay in the prorogation of Parliament in conse
quence of her gracious Majesty’s indisposition and absence.
In 1805, the House of Commons directed the criminal prose
cution of Lord Melville, for corrupt conduct and embezzlement of
public money, as first Lord of the Admiralty. For this, how
ever, impeachment was substituted, and on his trial before the
House of Peers, he was acquitted, as out of 136 peers, only 59
said that they thought him guilty, although he had admitted the
misapplication of ,£10,000.
On the 29th of March, 1806, a warrant was signed by King
George III., directed to Lord Chancellor Erskine, to Lord
Grenville, the Prime Minister, to Lord Ellenborough, then Lord
Chief Justice of England, and to Earl Spencer, commanding
them to inquire into the conduct of Her Royal Highness the
Princess of Wales. Before these Lords, Charlotte Lady Douglas
swore that she had visited the Princess, who confessed to having
committed adultery, saying “ that she got a bedfellow whenever
she could, that nothing was more wholesome.” Lady Douglas
further swore to the Princess’s pregnancy, and evidence was
given to prove that she had been delivered of a male child. The
whole of this evidence was found to be perjury, and Lady Douglas
was recommended for prosecution. The only person to be benefitted was George Prince of Wales, who desired to be divorced
�70
The House of Brunswick.
from his wife, and it is alleged that he suborned these witnesses
to commit perjury against her. At this time the Prince of Wales
himself had just added Lady Hertford to the almost intermin
able muster-roll of his loves, and was mixed up in a still more
strange and disgraceful transaction, in which he used his per
sonal influence to canvass Peers—sitting as the highest law court
in the realm—-in order to induce them to vote the guardianship
of Miss Seymour, a niece of Lady Hertford, to Mrs. Fitzherbert.
Spencer Perceval, who acted for the Princess of Wales, being
about to publish the whole of the proceedings of the Royal Com
missioners, with the evidence and their verdict, his book was
quietly suppressed, and he received a reward—a post in the
Cabinet. It is said that Ceorge III. directed the report of the
Commissioners to be destroyed, and every trace of the whole
affair to be buried in oblivion.
For some years rumours had been current of corruption in
the administration of military promotion under the Duke of
York, just as for some time past rumours have been current of
abuse of patronage under his Royal Highness the present Duke
of Cambridge. A Major Hogan, in 1808, published a declara
tion that he had lost his promotion because he had refused to
give the sum of ^600 to the Duke of York’s “ Venus.”
On the 27th January, 1809, Colonel Wardle—who is said to
have been prompted to the course by his Royal Highness the
Duke of Kent—rose in his place in the House of Commons,
and formally charged his Royal Highness Frederick Duke of
York with corruption in the administration of army patronage.
It is difficult to determine how far credit should be given to
the statements of Mrs. Clarke, who positively alleges that she
was bribed to betray the Duke of York by his brother, the
Duke of Kent, the father of her present Majesty. It is quite
certain that Major Dodd, the private secretary of the Duke of
Kent, was most active in collecting and marshalling the evi
dence in support of the various charges made in the Commons
against the Duke of York. The Duke of Kent, however, after
the whole business was over, formally and officially denied that
he was directly or indirectly mixed up in the business. It is
clear that much bitter feeling had for some time existed between
the Dukes of York and Kent. In a pamphlet published about
that time, we find the following remarkable passages relating to
the Duke of Kent’s removal from his military command at Gib
raltar :—“ It is, however, certain that the creatures whom we
could name, and who are most in his [the Duke of York’s] con
fidence, were, to a man, instructed and industriously employed
in traducing the character and well-merited fame of the Duke
of Kent, by misrepresenting his conduct with all the baseness
of well-trained sycophants. Moreover, we need not hesitate
in saying that this efficient Commander-in-Chief, contrary to the
real sentiments of his Majesty, made use of his truly dangerous
and undue influence with the confidential servants of the Crown
to get his brother recalled from the Government of Gibraltar,
�The House of Brunswick.
71
under a disingenuous pretext, and at the risk of promoting sedi
tion in the army.”
In another pamphlet, dated 1808, apparently printed on behalf
of the Duke of Kent, we find it suggested that the Duke of
York had used Sir Hew Dalrymple as a spy on his brothei' the
Duke of Kent at Gibraltar. Whether the Duke of York slan
dered the Duke of Kent, and whether the Queen's father re
venged himself by getting up the case for Colonel Wardle, others
must decide. The following extracts from this gentleman’s
address to the House of Commons, are sufficient to put the
material points before our readers :—
“ In the year 1803, his Royal Highness the Commander-inChief took a handsome house, set up a full retinue of servants
and horses, and also a lady of the name of Clarke. Captain
Tonyn, of the 48th Regiment, was introduced by Captain Sandon, of the Royal Waggon Train, to this Mrs. Clarke, and it was
agreed that, upon his being promoted to the majority of the 31st
Regiment, he should pay her ^500. The ^500 lodged, with Mr.
Donovan by Captain Sandon, was paid by him to Mrs. Clarke.
The difference between a company and a majority is ^1100 ;
this lady received only ^500, while the half-pay fund lost the
whole sum, for the purpose of putting ^500 into the pocket of
Mrs. Clarke. This ^500 was paid by Mrs. Clarke to Mr. Per
kins, a silversmith, in part payment for a service of plate ; that
the Commander-in-Chief made good the remainder, and that the
goods were sent to his house in Gloucester Place. From this I
infer, first, that Mrs. Clarke possesses the power of military pro
motion ; secondly, that she received a pecuniary consideration
for such promotion ; and thirdly, that the Commander-in-Chief
was a partaker in the benefit arising from such transactions. In
this case, there are no less than five different persons as wit
nesses—viz., Major Tonyn, Mrs. Clarke, Mr. Donovan, Captain
Sandon, and the executor of Mr. Perkins, the silversmith.
“The next instance is of Lieutenant Colebrooke, of the 56th
Regiment. It was agreed that Mrs. Clarke should receive /200
upon Lieutenant Colebrooke’s name appearing in the Gazette for
promotion. At that moment, this lady was anxious to go on an
excursion into the country, and she stated to his Royal High
ness that she had an opportunity of getting ^200 to defray the
expenses of it, without applying to him. This was stated upon
a Thursday, and on the Saturday following this officer’s name
appeared in the Gazette, and he was accordingly promoted; upon
which Mr. Tuck waited on the lady and paid her the money. To
this transaction the witnesses are Lieutenant Colebrooke, Mr
Tuck, and Mrs. Clarke.”
After instancing further cases, Colonel Wardle stated that :—
“ At this very hour there is a public office in the city where
commissions are still offered at the reduced prices which Mrs.
Clarke chooses to exact for them. The agents there have de
clared to me that they are now employed by the present favourite,
Mrs. Carey. They have not only declared this as relative to
�72
The House of Brunswick.
military commissions, but they have carried it much farther;
for, in addition to commissions in the army, places of all desscriptions, both in Church and State, are transacted at their
office ; and these agents do not hesitate to give it under their
own hands, that they are employed by many of the first officers
in his Majesty’s service.”
On the examination of witnesses, and general inquiry, which
lasted seven weeks, the evidence was overwhelming, but the
Duke of York having written a letter, pledging his honour as a
Prince that he was innocent, was acquitted, although at least
112 Members of Parliament voted for a verdict of condemna
tion. In the course of the debate, Lord Temple said that “he
found the Duke of York deeply criminal in allowing this woman
to interfere in his official duties. The evidence brought forward
by accident furnished convincing proofs of this crime. It was
evident in French’s levy. It was evident in the case of Dr.
O’Meara, this minister of purity, this mirror of virtue, who, pro
fessing a call from God, could so far debase himself, so far abuse
his sacred vocation, as to solicit a recommendation from such a
person as Mrs. Clarke, by which, with an eye to a bishopric,
he obtained an opportunity of preaching before the King. What
could be said in justification of his Royal Highness for allowing
this hypocrite to come down to Weymouth under a patronage,
unbecoming his duty, rank, and situation ?”
Mr. Tierney—in reply to a taunt of the Chancellor of the
Exchequer, that Colonel Wardle had been tutored by “ cooler
heads ”—said : “ He would state that the Duke of York had got
his letter drawn up by weaker heads ; he would, indeed, add
something worse, if it were not unparliamentary to express it.
The Duke of York was, he was persuaded, too manly to sub
scribe that letter, if he were aware of the base, unworthy, and
mean purposes to which it was to be applied. It was easy to
conceive that his Royal Highness would have been prompt to
declare his innocence upon a vital point ; but why declare it
upon the 1 honour of a Prince,’ for the thing had no meaning ?”
Mr. Lyttleton declared that “ if it were in the power of the
House to send down to posterity the character of the Duke of
York unsullied—if their proceedings did not extend beyond
their journals, he should be almost inclined to concur in the
vote of acquittal, even in opposition to his sense of duty. But
though the House should acquit his Royal Highness, the proofs
would still remain, and the public opinion would be guided by
them, and not by the decision of the House. It was in the
power of the House to save its own character, but not that of
the Commander-in-Chief.”
It is alleged that the Queen herself by no means stood with
clean hands ; that in connection with Lady Jersey and a Doctor
Randolph, her Majesty realised an enormous sum by the sale of
cadetships for the East Indies.
On the 31st May, 1810, London was startled by the narrative
of a terrible tragedy. His Royal Highness Ernest Augustus,
�The House of Brunswick.
73
Duke of Cumberland, afterwards King of Hanover, and who,
while King of Hanover, drew ,£24,000 a year from the pockets
of English taxpayers, was wounded in his own room in the dead
of the night, by some man whom he did not see, although the
room was lighted by a lamp, although his Royal Highness saw
“a letter” which lay on a night tableland which letter was
“covered with blood.” The wounds are said to have been
sword wounds inflicted with an intent to assassinate, by Joseph
Sellis, a valet of the Duke, who is also said to have immediately
afterwards committed suicide by cutting his own throat. General
Sir B. Stephenson, who saw the body of Sellis, but who was
not examined at the inquest, swore that “ the head was nearly
severed from the body.” Sellis’s cravat had been cut through
and taken off his neck. Sir Everard Home and Sir Henry
Halford were the physicians present at St. James’s Palace the
day of this tragedy, and two surgeons were present at the in
quest, but no 'medical or surgical evidence was taken as to
whether or not the death of Sellis was the result of suicide or
murder; but a cheesemonger was called to prove that twelve
years before he had heard Sellis say, “ Damn the King and the
Royal Family and a maid servant was called to prove that
fourteen years before Sellis had said, “ Damn the Almighty.”
Despite this conclusive evidence, many horrible rumours were
current, which, at the time, were left uncontradicted ; but on
the 17th April, 1832, his Hoyal Highness the Duke of Cumber
land made an affidavit in which he swore that he had not mur
dered Sellis himself, and that “ in case the said person named
Sellis did not die by his own hands,” then that he, the Duke,
was not any way, in any manner, privy or accessory to his
death.” His Royal Highness also swore that “ he never did com
mit, nor had any intention of committing, the detestable crime,”
which it had been pretended Sellis had discovered the Duke in
the act of committing. This of course entirely clears the Queen’s
uncle from all suspicion. Daniel O’Connell, indeed, described
him as “ the mighty great liarbut with the general character for
truthfulness of the family, it would be in the highest degree im
proper to suggest even the semblance of a doubt. It was proved
upon the inquest that Seliis was a sober, quiet man, in the
habit of daily shaving the Duke, and that he had never exhibited
any suicidal or homicidal tendencies. It therefore appears that
he tried to wound or kill his Royal Highness without any motive,
and under circumstances in which he knew discovery was inevit
able, and that he then killed himself with a razor, cutting his
head almost off his body, severing it to the bone. When
Matthew Henry Graslin first saw the body, he “ told them all
that Sellis had been murdered,” and although he was cafed on
the inquest, he does not say one word as to the condition of
Sellis’s body, or as to whether or not he believes it to have been
a suicide. Of all the persons who saw the body of Sellis, and
they appear to be many, only one, a sergeant in the Coldstreams,
gave the slightest evidence as to the state in which the body was
H
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The House of Brunswick.
found, and no description whatever was given on the inquest, of
the nature of the fearful wound which had nearly severed Sellis’s
head from his body ; nor, although it was afterwards proved by
sworn evidence that Sellis’s cravat “was cut through the whole
of the folds, and the inside fold was tinged with blood,” was any
evidence offered as to this on the inquest, although it shows that
Sellis must have first tried to cut his throat through his cravat,
and that having partially but ineffectively cut his throat, he then
took off his cravat and gave himself with tremendous force the
gash which caused his death. It is said that the razor with which
Sellis killed himself was found two feet from the bed, and on
the left-hand side ; but although it was stated that Sellis was a
left-handed man, no evidence was offered of this, and on the
contrary, the bloody hand marks, said to have been made by
Sellis on the doors, were all on the right-hand. It is a great
nuisance when people you are mixed up with commit suicide.
Undoubtedly, Sellis must have killed himself. The journals tell
us how Lord Graves killed himself long years afterward. The
Duke of Cumberland and Lady Graves, the widow, rode out
together very shortly after the suicide.
In the Rev. Erskine Neale’s Life of the Duke of Kent it is
stated that a surgeon of note, who saw Sellis after his death,
declared that there were several wounds on the back of the
neck which it was physically impossible Sellis could have
self-inflicted. In a lecture to his pupils the surgeon repeated
this in strong language, declaring that “no man can behead
himself.”
The madness of George III. having become too violent and
too continual to permit it to be any longer hidden from the
people, the Prince of Wales was, in 1811, declared Regent, with
limited powers, and ^70,000 a year additional was voted for
the Regent’s expenses, and a further 10,000 a year also granted
to the Queen as custodian of her husband. The grant to the
Queen was the more outrageous, as her great wealth and
miserly conduct were well known. When the Regent was first
appointed, he authorised the Chancellor of the Exchequer to
declare officially to the House of Commons, that he woulcj
not add to the burdens of the nation ; and yet, in 1812, the
allowance voted was made retrospective, so as to include every
hour of his office.
In the discussion in Parliament on the proposed Regency,
it appeared that the people had been for a considerable period
utterly deceived on the subject of the King’s illness ; and that
although his Majesty had been for some time blind, deaf, and
delirious, the Ministry representing the King to be competent,
had dared to carry on the Government whilst George III.
was in every sense incapacitated. It is worthy of notice th'at
the Right Honourable Benjamin Disraeli, the leader of the
great Conservative party in this country, publicly declared on
September 26th, 1871, that her present Majesty, Queen Victoria,
was both “ physically and morally ” incapable of performing her
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75
regal functions. One advantage of having the telegraph wires
in the hands of Government is shown by the fact that all the
telegraphic summaries omitted the most momentous words of
Mr. Disraeli’s speech. During the debate in the session of
1811, it was shown that when the King was mad in the month
of March, 1804, he had on the 4th been represented by Lord
Eldon as if he had given his assent to a Bill granting certain
lands to the Duke of York, and on the 9th as if he had signed a
commission.
Earl Grey stated that it was notorious that on two occasions
the Great Seal had been employed as if by his Majesty’s com
mand, while he was insane. The noble earl also declared that
in 1801, the King was mad for some weeks, and yet during that
time councils were held, members sworn to it, and acts done re
quiring the King’s sanction. Sir Francis Burdett said, “ that to
have a person at the head of affairs who had long been incapable
of signing his name to a document without some one to guide
his hand ; a person long incapable of receiving petitions, of even
holding a levee, or discharging the most ordinary functions of
his office, and now afflicted with this mental malady, was a most
mischievous example to the people of this country, while it had
a tendency to expose the Government to the contempt of foreign
nations.”
One of the earliest acts of the Prince Regent was to reappoint
his brother, the Duke of York, to the office of Commander-inChief. A motion was proposed by Lord Milton, in the House
of Commons, declaring this appointment to be “highly improper
and indecorous.” The Ministry were, however, sufficiently
powerful to negative this resolution by a large majority. Though
his Royal Highness had resigned his high office when assailed
with charges of the grossest corruption, he was permitted to re
sume the command of the army without even a protest, save
from a minority of the House of Commons, and from a few of the
unrepresented masses. The chief mistress of the Prince Regent
at this time was the Marchioness of Hertford ; and the Courier,
then the ministerial journal, had the cool impudence to speak of
her as “Britain’s guardian angel,” because her influence had
been used to hinder the carrying any measure for the relief of the
Irish Catholics. Amongst the early measures under the Regency,
was the issue in Ireland of a circular letter addressed to the
Sheriffs and Lord Lieutenants of the counties, forbidding the
meetings of Catholics, and threatening all Catholic committees
with arrest and imprisonment. This, however, was so grossly
illegal, that it had shortly after to be abandoned, a Protestant
jury having refused to convict the first prisoners brought to
trial. It is curious to read the arguments against Catholic Eman
cipation pleaded in the Courier, one being that during the whole
of his reign, George III. “ is known to have felt the most con
scientious and irrevocable objections ” to any such measure of
justice to his unfortunate Irish subjects.
In 1812 we had much poverty in England ; and though this
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The House of Brunswick.
was not dealt with by Parliament, £^100,000 was granted to Lord
Wellington, and ,£200,000 voted for Russian sufferers by the
French war. We had a few months previously voted .£100,000
for the relief of the Portuguese against the French. On a
message from the Prince Regent, annuities of £3,000 each were
also granted to the four Princesses, exclusive of ,£4,000 from
the Civil List. The message from the Prince Regent for the
relief of the “Russian sufferers” was brought down on the
17th of December; and it is a curious fact that while Lord
Castlereagh and Lord Liverpool were eulogising the Russians
for their “heroic patriotism” in burning Moscow, the Rus
sians themselves were declaring in the St. Petersburgh Gazette
that the deed was actually committed by “the impious French,”
on whose heads the Gazette invoked the vengeance of God.
In 1812, the Prince Regent gave a sinecure office, that of
Paymaster of Widows’ Pensions, to his “ confidential servant,”
Colonel Macmahon. The nature of the sort of private services
which had been for some years performed by this gallant
colonel for this virtuous Prince may be better guessed than
described. Mr. Henry Brougham declared the appointment to
be an insult to Parliament. It was vigorously attacked indoors
and out of doors, and in obedience to the voice of popular
opinion the Commons voted the immediate abolition of the
office. To recompense Colonel Macmahon for the loss of his
place, he was immediately appointed Keeper of the Privy Purse
and Private Secretary to the Prince Regent. This appoint
ment was also severely criticised; and although the Govern
ment were sufficiently powerful to defeat the attack in the
Commons, they were yet compelled, by the strong protest made
by the public against such an improper appointment, to nomi
nally transfer the salary to the Regent’s privy purse. The trans
fer was not real, as, the Civil List being always in debt, the
nation had in fact ultimately to pay the money.
In 1813, foreign subsidies to the amount of ,£ 11,000,000, and
100,000 stand of arms, were voted by the English Parliament.
Out of the above, Portugal received £,2,000,000, Sicily ,£400,000,
Spain £3,000,000, Sweden £3,000,000, Russia and Prussia
£3,000,000, Austria £3,000,000, besides stores sent to Germany
to the amount of £3,000,000 more.
This year his Royal Highness the Prince Regent went to
Ascot races, where he was publicly dunned by a Mr. Vauxhall
Clarke for a betting debt incurred some years before, and left
unpaid.
Great excitement was created in and out of Parliament by
the complaint of the Princess of Wales that she was not allowed
to see her daughter, the Princess Charlotte. The Prince Re
gent formally declared, through the Speaker of the House of
Commons, that he would not meet, on any occasion, public or
private, the Princess of Wales (whom it was urged that “ he had
been forced to marry ”) ; while the Princess of Wales wrote a
formal letter to Parliament complaining that her character
�The House of Brunswick.
77
had been “traduced by suborned perjury.” Princess Char
lotte refused to be presented at Court except by her mother
who was not allowed to go there. In the House of Commons’
Mr. Whitbread charged the Lords Commissioners with unduly
straining the evidence, by leading questions ; and Lord Ellenborough, in his place in the House of Peers, declared that the
accusation was “ as false as hell.” Ultimately, it was admitted
that the grave charges against the Princess of Wales were
groundless, and ^35,000 a year was voted to her, she agree
ing to travel abroad. Mr. Bathurst, a sinecurist pensioner,
pleading on behalf of the Prince Regent that the House of
Commons ought not to interfere, urged that it was no unusual
thing to have dissensions in the Royal Family, and that they
had been frequent in the reigns of George I. and George II.
Mr. Stuart Wortley, in the course of a severe speech in reply
to Lord Castlereagh, declared that “we had a Royal Family
which took no warning from what was said or thought about
them, and seemed to be the only persons in the country who
were wholly regardless of their own welfare and respectability.”
The Princess Charlotte of Wales was at this time residing in
Warwick House, and some curiosity was aroused by the dis
missal, by order of the Prince Regent, of all her servants. This
was immediately followed by the flight of the Princess from the
custody of her father to the residence of her mother, the Princess
of Wales. Persuaded to return to the Prince Regent by her
mother, Lord Eldon, and others, she appears to have been
really detained as a sort of prisoner, for we find the Duke of
Sussex soon after complaining in the House of Lords that he
was unable to obtain access to the Princess, and asking by
whose authority she was kept in durance. Happy family these
Brunswicks.
In 1814, ^100,000 further was voted to the Duke of Wellington
together with an annuity of ,£10,000 a year, to be at any time
commuted for ,£300,000. The income of the Duke of Wellington
from places, pensions, and grants, amounted to an enormous
sum. At present we pay his heir ,£4000 a year for having in
herited his father’s riches.
th® year i^i4j .£118,857 was voted for payment of the
Civil List debts.
The Emperor of Russia and King of Prussia, after the resto.ratmn of Louis XVIII., visited the Prince Regent in this country,
when the following squib was published :—
“ There be princes three,
Two of them come from a far countrie,
And for valour and prudence their names shall be
Enrolled in the annals of glorie.
The third is said at a bottle to be
More than a match for his whole armie,
And fonder of fur caps and fripperie
Than any recorded in storie.
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The House of Brunswick.
Those from the North great warriors be,
And warriors have in their companie,
But he of the South must stare to see
Himself in such goodly companie.
For to say what his usual consorts be,
Would make but a pitiful storie.”
On the 12th of August, 1814, the Princess of Wales quitted
England, and it is alleged that on the evening prior to her de
parture, the Prince Regent, having as usual drunk much wine,
proposed a toast, “To the Princess of Wales damnation, and
may she never return to England.” Whether this story, which
Dr. Doran repeats, be true or false, it is certain that the Prince
Regent hated his wife with a thoroughly merciless hatred. When
the death of Napoleon was known in England, a gentleman,
thinking to gain favour with George IV., said, “ Your Majesty’s
bitterest enemy is dead.” The “first gentleman of Europe”
thought only of his wife, and replied, “ Is she, by God !”
The highly esteemed and virtuous Duke of Cumberland was
married at Berlin to the Princess of Salms, a widow who had
been twice married, once betrothed, and once divorced. The
lady was niece to the Oueen of England, who refused to receive
her publicly or privately. On this refusal being known, a letter
was published in the newspapers, written and signed by the
Queen herself, to her brother the Duke of Mecklenburgh-Strelitz,
the father of the bride, in which letter the Queen gave assurances
of a kind reception to the bride on her arrival in England. The
Queen’s friends replied that the Queen’s letter was only written to
be shown to the German Courts on the condition that the Duchess
should not come to England. Curious notions of truth and
honour seem current among these Brunswicks.
On the 27th of June, the Lords, on a message from the Prince
Regent, voted an additional allowance of £6,000 a year to the
Duke of Cumberland in consequence of the marriage. In the
House of Commons, after a series of very warm debates, in which
Lord Castlereagh objected to answer “ any interrogatories tend
ing to vilify the Royal Family,” the House ultimately refused to
grant the allowance by 126 votes against 125.
One historian says : “ The demeanour of the Duchess of
Cumberland in this country has been, to say the least, unobtru
sive and unimpeached; but it must be confessed that a disastrous
fatality—something inauspicious and indescribable—attaches to
the Prince, her husband.”
This year ,£200,000 further was voted to the Duke of Welling
ton, for the purchase of an estate, although it appeared from one
Member of Parliament’s speech that the vote should rather have
been to the Prince Regent. “Who,” he asked, “ had rendered
the army efficient ? The Prince Regent—by restoring the Duke
of York to the Horse Guards. Who had gained the Battle of
Waterloo ? The Prince Regent—by giving the command of the
army to the Duke of Wellington 1! ” The Prince Regent him
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79
self had even a stronger opinion on the matter. Thackeray says:
“ I believe it is certain about George IV. that he had heard so
much of the war, knighted so many people, and worn such a
prodigious quantity of marshal’s uniforms, cocked hats, cocks’
feathers, scarlet and bullion in general, that he actually fancied
he had been present at some campaigns, and under the name of
General Brock led a tremendous charge of the German legion at
Waterloo.”
In 1816, Prince Leopold of Coburg Saalfeld, a very petty Ger
man Prince, without estate or position, married the Princess
Charlotte of Wales as if he were a Protestant, although he most
certainly on other occasions acted as if he belonged to the
Catholic Church. A grant of £60,000 a year was made to the
royal couple; ,£60,000 was given for the wedding outfit, and
£50,000 secured to Prince Leopold for life, in the event of his
surviving the Princess. And although this was done, it was well
known to the Prince Regent and the members of the Govern
ment, that on the 2nd January of the previous year, a marriage
ceremony, according to the rites of the Roman Catholic Church,
had been performed, by which the Prince Leopold was united to
the Countess of Cohaky. Bigamy appears to be a fashionable
vice, and one to which these Brunswicks never raise any objec
tion.
On the 9th December, the City of London presented an
address to the Prince Regent, in which they complained of
immense subsidies to foreign powers to defend their own
territories, or to commit aggressions on those of their neigh-,
hours,” “ of an unconstitutional and unprecedented military force
in time of peace, of the unexampled and increasing magnitude
of the Civil List, of the enormous sums paid for unmerited pen
sions and sinecures, and of a long course of the most lavish and
improvident expenditure of the public money throughout every
branch of the Government.” This address appears to have
deeply wounded the Regent, and the expressions of stern rebuke
he used in replying, coupled with a rude sulkiness of manner,
were ungracious and unwarrantable. He emphasised his answer
with pauses and frowns, and turned on his heel as soon as he
had delivered it. And yet at this moment hundreds of thousands
m England were starving. Kind monarchs these Brunswicks.
Early in 1817, the general distress experienced in all parts
of England, and which had been for some time on the increase,
was of a most severe character. Meetings in London, and the
provinces grew frequent, and were most numerously attended,
and on February 3rd, in consequence of a message from the
Prince Regent, Committees of Secrecy were appointed by the
Lords and Commons, to inquire into the character of the various
movements. The Government was weak and corrupt, but the
people lacked large-minded leaders, and the wide-spread discon
tent of the masses of the population rendered sqme of their
number easy victims to the police spies who manufactured
political plots.
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The House of Brunswick.
On the 6th of November, 1817, Princess Charlotte of Wales
died. Complaints were raised that the Princess had not been
fairly treated, and some excitement was created by the fact that
Sir Richard Croft, the doctor who attended her, soon after com
mitted suicide, and that the public and the reporters were not
allowed to be present at the inquest. No notice whatever of the
Princess’s death was forwarded to her mother, the Princess of
Wales. In a letter to the Duke of Buckingham, Mr. Wynn
speaks of this as “ the most brutal omission I ever remember,
and one which would attach disgrace in private life.” At this
very time a large sum of money was being wasted in the employ
ment of persons to watch the Princess of Wales on her foreign
travels. In her correspondence we find the Princess complain
ing that her letters were opened and read, and that she was sur
rounded with spies. From the moment that George III. was
declared incurable, and his death approaching, there seems little
doubt that desperate means were resorted to to manufacture
evidence against the Princess to warrant a divorce.
On July 13th, 1818, his Royal Highness the Duke of Clarence
married Adelaide, Princess of Saxe Meiningen, and his Royal
Highness the Duke of Kent married Her Serene Highness
Victoria, Princess of Leiningen. The Duke of Clarence, of
course, had voted to him an additional allowance of ,£6,000 a
year on entering the married state, although he was already re
ceiving from the country more than ,£21,000 a year in cash, and
a house rent free. It is highly edifying to read that during the
debates in Parliament, and when some objection was raised to
the extra sums proposed to be voted to one of the Royal Dukes,
Mr. Canning pleaded as a reason for the payment, that his Royal
Highness was not marrying “ for his own private gratification,but
because he had been advised to do so for the political purposes
of providing succession to the throne.” Pleasant this for the
lady, and glorious for the country—Royal breeding machines!
The Duke of Kent, who had the same additional vote, had about
^£25,000 a year, besides a grant of ,£20,000 towards the pay
ment of his debts, and a loan of .£6,000 advanced in 1806, of
which up to the time of his marriage only ,£1,000 had been repaid.
Of Edward Augustus Duke of Kent, father of her present
Majesty, it is only necessary to say a few words. The fourth
son of George III. was somewhat better than his brothers, and
perhaps for this very reason he seems always to have been dis
liked, and kept at a distance by his father, mother, and brothers.
Nor was the Duke of Kent less disliked amongst the army,
which he afterwards commanded. Very7 few of the officers
loved him, and the bulk of the privates seem to have regarded
him with the most hostile feelings. Kept very short of money
by his miserly father and mother, he had even before his ma
jority incurred considerable debts ; and coming to England in
1790, in order to try and induce the King to make him some
sufficient allowance, he was ordered to quit England in ten days.
While allowances were made to all the other sons of George,
�The House of Brunswick.
81
the Duke of Kent had no Parliamentary vote until he was
thirty-three years of age. In 1802 he was appointed Governor
of Gibraltar, where a mutiny took place, and the Duke had a
narrow escape of his life. The Duke of Kent’s friends allege
that this mutiny was encouraged by officers of the highest rank,
secretly sustained by the Duke of York. The Duke of York’s
friends, on the contrary, maintain that the overbearing conduct
of the Duke of Kent, his severity in details, and general harsh
ness in command, alone produced the result. The Duke of Kent
was recalled from the Government of Gibraltar, and for some
months the pamphleteers were busy on behalf of the two Dukes,
each seeking to prove that the Royal brother of his Royal
client was a dishonourable man. Pleasant people, these Bruns
wicks 1 If either side wrote the truth, one of the Dukes was a
rascal. If neither side wrote the truth, both were. The follow
ing extract from a pamphlet by Mary Anne Clarke, mistress of
the Duke of York, will serve to show the nature of the publica
tions I refer to : “I believe there is scarcely a military man in
the kingdom who was at Gibraltar during the Duke of Kent’s
command of that fortress but is satisfied that the Duke of
York’s refusal of a court martial to his Royal brother af
forded an incontestible proof of his regard for the military
character and honour of the Duke of Kent ; for if a court
martial had been granted to the Governor of Gibraltar, I
always understood there was but one opinion as to what
would have been the result; and then the Duke of Kent
would have lost several thousands a year, and incurred such
public reflections that would, most probably, have been pain
ful to his honourable and acute feelings. It was, however,
this act of affection for the Duke of Kent that laid the
foundation of that hatred which has followed the Commander
in-Chief up to the present moment; and to this unnatural
feeling he is solely indebted for all the misfortunes and dis
grace to which he has been introduced. In one of the many
conversations which I had with Majors Dodd and Glennie,
upon the meditated ruin of the Duke of York, they informed
me that their royal friend had made every endeavour in his power
to poison the King's ear against the Commander-in-Chief, but
as Colonel Taylor was so much about the person of his Majesty,
all his efforts had proved ineffectual; and to have spoken his
sentiments before Colonel Taylor would have been very inju
dicious, as he would immediately have communicated them to
the Commander-in-Chief, who, though he knew this time (said
these confidential and worthy patriots) that the Duke of Kent
was supporting persons to write against him, and that some
parliamentary proceedings were upon the eve of bursting upon
the public attention, yet deported himself towards his royal
brother as if they lived but for each other’s honour and happi
ness ; and the Duke of Kent, to keep up appearances, was more
particular in his attentions to the Duke of York than he had
ever been before.”
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The House of Brunswick.
Despite the Duke of Kent’s recall, he continued to receive
salary and allowances as Governor. After the celebration of the
marriage, he resided abroad, and was on such unfriendly terms
with his family that when he returned from Amorbach to England,
it was against the express orders of the Prince Regent, who,
shortly after meeting his brother at the Spanish Ambassador’s,
took not the slightest notice of him.
On the 17th November, 1818, the Queen died, and the custody
of the body of the mad, deaf, and blind monarch of England was
nominally transferred to the Duke of York, who was voted an
extra ,£10,000 a year for performing the duty of visiting his royal
father twice a week. Objection was ineffectually raised that his
Royal Highness had also his income as Commander-in-Chief
and General Officer, and it might have also been added, his
pensions and his income as Prince Bishop of Osnaburg. Mr.
Curwen said : “ Considering how complete the revenue of his
Royal Highness was from public emoluments, he could not con
sent to grant him one shilling upon the present occasion.”
In 1819, the Duke of Kent tried to get up a lottery for the sale
of his Castlebar estate, in order to pay his debts, which were
then about ,£70,000, but the project being opposed by the Prince
Regent, fell to the ground.
On the 24th of May, 1819, her present Majesty was bom;
and on the 23rd January, 1820, the Duke of Kent, her father,
died.
On the 29th January, 1820, after a sixty years’ reign—in which
debt, dishonour, and disgrace accrued to the nation he reigned
over—George III. died. The National Debt at the date of his
accession to the throne was about £ 150,000,000, at his death it
was about ,£900,000,000.
Phillimore asks : “ Had it not been for the unlimited power
of borrowing, how many unjust and capricious wars would
have been avoided. How different would be our condition, and
the condition of our posterity. If half the sum lavished to prevent
any one bearing the name of Napoleon from residing in France,
for replacing the Bourbons on the thrones of France and Naples,
for giving Belgium to Holland, Norway to Sweden, Finland
to Russia, Venice and Lombardy to Austria, had been employed
by individual enterprise, what would now be the resources of
England.”
An extract, giving Lord Brougham’s summary of George III.’s
life and character, may, we think, fairly serve to close this
chapter :—“ Of a narrow understanding, which no culture had
enlarged ; of an obstinate disposition, which no education per
haps could have humanised ; of strong feelings in ordinary
things, and a resolute attachment to all his own opinions and
predilections, George III. possessed much of the firmness of
purpose which, being exhibited by men of contracted mind
without any discrimination, and as pertinaciously when they are
in the wrong as when they are in the right, lends to their cha
racters an appearance of inflexible consistency, which is often
�The House of Brunswick.
83
mistaken for greatness of mind, and not seldom received as a
substitute for honesty. In all that related to his kingly office he
was the slave of deep-rooted selfishness ; and no fueling of a
kindly nature ever was allowed access to his bosom whenever
his power was concerned.”
CHAP. V.
THE REIGN OF GEORGE IV.
The wretched reign of George IV. commenced on the 30th
January, 1820. Mr. Buckle speaks of “the incredible baseness
of that ignoble voluptuary who succeeded George III. on the
throne.” The coronation was delayed for a considerable period,
partly in consequence of the hostility between the King and his
unfortunate wife, and partly because of the cost. We find the
Right Hon. Thomas Grenville writing of the coronation : “ I
think it probable that it will be put off, because the King will
not like it unless it be expensive, and Vansittart knows not how
to pay for it if it is.” Generous monarchs, these Brunswicks !
Thousands at that moment were in a state of starvation in
England, Scotland, and Ireland. Lord Cassilis writes : “ There
seems nothing but chaos and desolation whatever way a man
may turn himself.......... the lower orders existing only from the
circumstance of the produce of the land being unmarketable.
.......... The weavers are certainly employed, but they cannot
earn more than from six to eight shillings a week. Such is our
state.” When the coronation did ultimately take place, some
strange expenses crept in. Diamonds were charged for to the
extent, it is said, of ,£80,000, which found their way to one of
the King’s favoured mistresses. The crown itself was made up
with hired jewels, which were kept for twenty-one months after
the coronation, and for the hire of which alone the country
paid ^11,000. The charge for coronation robes was ,£24,000.
It was in consequence of Sir Benjamin Bloomfield having to
account for some of the diamonds purchased that he resigned
his position in the King’s household. Rather than be suspected
of dishonesty, he preferred revealing that they had reached the
hands of Lady Conyngham. Sir George Naylor, in an infa
mously servile publication, for which book alone the country
paid,£3,000, describes “the superb habiliments which his Ma
jesty, not less regardful of the prosperity of the people than of
the splendour of his throne, was pleased to enjoin should be
worn upon the occasion of his Majesty’s sacred coronation.”
Sir William Knighton declares that on the news of the King’s
death reaching the Prince Regent, “ the fatal tidings were re
ceived with a burst of grief that was very affecting.” The King
had been mad and blind and deaf for ten years, and the Queen,
years before, had complained of the Prince’s conduct as unfilial,
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if not inhuman. With the Prince Regent’s known character,
this sudden burst of grief is really “ very affecting.”
On the 23rd of February, London was startled with the news
of what since has been described as the Cato Street Conspiracy.
The trial of Arthur Thistlewood and his misguided associates,
is valuable for one lesson. The man who found money for the
secret conspirators, and who incited them to treason and murder,
was one George Edwards. This Edwards was well described by
one of the journals of the period, “ as neither more nor less than
the confidential agent of the original conspirators, to hire for
them the treasons they have a purpose in detecting.” By origi
nal conspirators were meant Lord Castlereagh and Lord Sidmouth. In the House of Commons, Mr. Aiderman Wood moved
formally, “ That George Edwards be brought to the bar of the
House on a breach of privilege. He pledged himself, if he had
this incendiary in his hands, to convict him of the crimes im
puted ; he hoped he had not been suffered to escape beyond
seas ; otherwise there were hon. gentlemen who were in pos
session of him, so that he might be produced ”—meaning by this
that he was kept out of the way by the Government. “ He re
garded him as the sole author and contriver of the Cato Street
plot. It was strange how such a man should be going about
from public-house to public-house, nay, from one private house
to another, boldly and openly instigating to such plots ; and, in
the midst of this, should become, from abject poverty, suddenly
flush with money, providing arms, and supplying all conspirators.”
Mr. Hume seconded the motion. “ It appeared by the deposi
tions, not of one person only, but of a great many persons, that
the individual in question had gone about from house to house
with hand-grenades, and, up to twenty-four hours only preceding
the 23rd of February, had been unceasingly urging persons to
join with him in the atrocious plot to assassinate his Majesty’s
Ministers. All of a sudden he became quite rich, and was buy
ing arms in every quarter, at every price, and of every descrip
tion ; still urging a variety of persons to unite with him. Now
it was very fitting for the interest of the country, that thecountry
should know who the individuals were who supplied him with
the money.”
As a fair specimen of the disposition of the King in dealing
with his Ministry, I give the following extract from a memoran
dum of Lord Chancellor Eldon, dated April 26th, 1820 : “ Our
royal master seems to have got into temper again, so far as I
could judge from his conversation with me this morning. He
has been pretty well disposed to part with us all, because we
would not make additions to his revenue. This we thought
conscientiously we could not do in the present state of the
country, and of the distresses of the middle and lower orders of
the people—to which we might add, too, that of the higher orders.
My own individual opinion was such that I could not bring my
self to oppress the country at present by additional taxation for
that purpose.”
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On the 23rd of March, Henry Hunt, John Knight, Joseph
Johnson, Joseph Healey, and Samuel Bamford, were, after six
days’ trial at York, found guilty of unlawfully assembling. Lord
Grenville feared that if acquitted, Peterloo might form a terrible
bill of indictment against the Ministry. His Lordship writes on
March 29th, to the Marquis of Buckingham : “It would have
been a dreadful thing if it had been established by the result of
that trial that the Manchester meeting was under all its cir
cumstances a legal assembly.” His Lordship knew that the
magistrates and yeomanry cavalry might have been indicted for
murder had the meeting been declared legal. Sir C. Wolseley
and the Rev. J. Harrison were at this time being prosecuted
for seditious speaking, and were ultimately found guilty on April
10th. In May the state of the country was terrible; even
Baring, the Conservative banker, on May 7th, described the
“ state of England ” to a full House of Commons, “ in the most
lamentable terms.” On the 8th we find Mr. W. H. Fremantle
saying of the King, “ His language is only about the Coronation
and Lady Conyngham [his then favourite sultana] ; very little of
the state of the country.” Early in June, it being known that
Queen Caroline was about to return to England, and that she
intended to be present at the Coronation, the King offered her
£50,000 a year for life to remain on the Continent, and forbear
from claiming the title of Queen of England. This Caroline
indignantly refused. The Queen’s name had, by an order in
Council, and on the King’s direction, been omitted from the
Liturgy as that of a person unfit to be prayed for, and on the
6th July a bill of pains and penalties was introduced by Lord
Liverpool, alleging adultery between the Queen and one Barto
lomeo Bergami. To wade through the mass of disgusting evi
dence offered by the advisers of the King in support of the Bill,
is terrible work. It seems clear that many of the witnesses
committed perjury. It is certain that the diplomatic force of
England was used to prevent the Queen from obtaining wit
nesses on her behalf. Large sums of the taxpayers’ money were
shown to have been spent in surrounding the Princess of Wales
with spies in Italy and Switzerland. Naturally the people took
sides with the Queen. To use the language of William Cobbett :
u The joy of the people, of all ranks, except nobility, clergy, and
the army and the navy, who in fact were theirs, was boundless ;
and they expressed it in every possible way that people can
express their joy. They had heard rumours about a lewd life,
and about an adulterous intercourse. They could not but believe
that there was some foundation for something of this kind ; but
they, in their justice, went back to the time when she was in fact
turned out of her husband’s house, with a child in her arms,
without blame of any sort ever having been imputed to her.
They compared what they had heard of the wife with what they
had seen of the husband, and they came to their determination
accordingly. As far as related to the question of guilt or inno
cence they cared not a straw; they took a large view of the
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matter ; they went over her whole history ; they determined that
she had been wronged, and they resolved to uphold her.”
On the 6th of August, the Duchess of York died. Dr. Doran
thus writes her epitaph :—“ Her married life had been unhappy,
and every day of it was a disgrace to her profligate, unprincipled,
and good-tempered husband.”
In the month of September Lord Castlereagh was compelled
to admit that the expenses incurred in obtaining evidence from
abroad against the Queen, had been defrayed out of the Secret
Service money. The trial of Queen Caroline lasted from the
17th of August until the 10th of November, when in a house of
307 peers, the Queen was found guilty by a majority of 9 votes.
On this, Lord Liverpool said that “ as the public sentiment had
been expressed so decidedly against the measure,” he would
withdraw the Bill. Amongst those who voted against the Queen,
the names appear of Frederick Duke of York and William
Henry Duke of Clarence. They had been most active in
attacking the Queen, and now were shameless enough to vote as
her judges. While the trial was proceeding, the Duke of York’s
private conversation “ was violent against the Queen.” He ought
surely, for very shame’s sake, this Prince-Bishop, to have re
membered the diamonds sent by the King his father to Princess
Caroline Amelia Elizabeth of Brunswick. Being the bearer of
the jewels, his Royal Highness the Duke of York and PrinceBishop of Osnaburg, stole them, and presented them to Mrs.
Mary Anne Clarke. Mr. Denman, the Queen’s Solicitor-General,
was grandly audacious in his indictment of the King’s brothers for
their cowardly conduct. In the presence of the assembled Lords,
he, without actually referring to him by name, denounced the
Dukeof Clarence as acalumniator. Hecalled on the Duke to come
forward openly, saying, “ Come forth, thou slanderer.” And this
slanderer was afterwards our King ! The Queen, in a protest
against the Bill, declared that “those who avowed themselves her
prosecutors have presumed to sit in judgment upon the question
between the Queen and themselves. Peers have given their voices
against her, who had heard the whole evidence for the charge, and
absented themselves during her defence. Others have come to
the discussion from the Secret Committee with minds biassed by
a mass of slander, which her enemies have not dared to bring
forward in the light.” Lord Dacre in presenting the protest to
the assembled peers, added : “ Her Majesty complained that the
individuals who formed her prosecutors in this odious measure,
sat in judgment against her. My Lords, I need not express an
opinion upon this complaint; delicacy alone ought to have, in
my opinion, prevented their becoming her accusers, and also her
judges.”
George IV. was guilty of the vindictive folly of stripping
Brougham of his King’s Counsel gown, as a punishment for his
brilliant defence of the Queen.
While the trial of the Queen was going on, it might have been
thought that the King would at any rate affect a decency of con-
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duct. But these Brunswicks are shameless. Speaking of the
cottage at Windsor, on August nth, Mr. Fremantle says
“ The principal object is of course the Lady Conyngham, who
is here. The King and her always together, separated from the
rest, they ride every day or go on the water, and in the evening
sitting alone.......... The excess of his attentions and enjouement
is beyond all belief.” On December 17th, Mr. Fremantle finds
the King ill, and says : “ The impression of my mind is that
the complaint is in the head.” Most of the Brunswicks have
been affected in the head. Either George I. was insane, or
George II. was not his son. George II. himself had certainly
one or two delusions, if not more. George III.’s sanity is not
affirmed by any one. It may be a question whether or not any
allegation of hereditary affection is enough however to justify
an appeal to Parliament for a re-arrangement of the succession
to the throne.
On the 9th of January, 1821, King George IV. wrote a private
letter to Lord Chancellor Eldon, in the “ double capacity as a
friend and as a minister,” in order to influence the proceedings
then pending in the law courts “ against vendors of treason and
libellers.”
On the 8th of June, on the motion of Lord Londonderry, and
after an ineffectual opposition by Mr. Hume, ,£6,000 a year ad
ditional was voted to the Duke of Clarence. The vote was
made retrospective, and thus gave the Duke ,£18,000 extra in
cash. Besides this, we find a charge of .£9,166 for fitting up
the Duke’s apartments.
On the 5th of July, Mr. Scarlett moved the court on behalf of
Olivia Wilmot Serres, claiming to be the legitimate daughter of
the Duke of Cumberland, who was brother of George III. Mr.
Scarlett submitted that he had documents proving the accuracy
of the statement, but on a technical point the matter was not
gone into.
In August, 1821, King George IV. visited Ireland. Knowing
his habits, and the customs of some other members of the
family, it excites little surprise to read that, on the voyage to
Dublin, “ his Majesty partook most abundantly of goose pie
and whiskey,” and landed in Ireland “ in the last stage of in
toxication.” And this was a king ! This journey to Ireland
cost the country ,£58,261. In a speech publicly made by the
King in Ireland within a few hours after receiving the news of
Queen Caroline’s death, the monarch said : “ This is one of the
happiest days of my life.”
On the 7th of August Queen Caroline died. In Thelwall’s
Champion there is a full account of the disgraceful conduct of
the King’s Government with reference to the funeral. On the
morning of the 14th, after a disgusting contest between her
executors and the King’s Government for the possession of her
remains, they were removed from Brandenburgh House towards
Harwich, on their way to interment at Brunswick. The ministers,
to gratify personal feelings of unworthy rancour beyond the
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grave, gave orders that the funeral should take a circuit, to avoid
manifestations of sympathy from the Corporation and the people
along the direct route through London. At Kensington, the
procession found every road but that of London barricaded by
the people, and was constrained to take the forbidden route,
with the intention of passing through Hyde Park into the
northern road. The Park gate was closed and barricaded, but
was forced by the military. The upper gate was also barricaded.
Here a conflict took place between the military and the people,
and two persons were shot by the soldiers. The procession
moved on, the conflict was renewed, the people triumphed, and
the corpse was borne through the City. Sir Robert Wilson re
monstrated with some soldiers and an officer on duty ; but his
humane interference caused his removal from the army. In re
turn, a large sum was subscribed by the public to compensate
Sir Robert Wilson for his loss. The directing civil magistrate
present, for having consulted his humanity in preference to his
orders, and to prevent bloodshed yielded to the wishes of the
multitude, was also deprived of his commission. On the in
quest on the body of one of the men shot, the coroner’s jury,
vindicating the rights of the people, returned a verdict of “ Wilful
murder ” against the Life Guardsman who fired.
While the King was in Ireland he paraded his connection
with the Marchioness of Conyngham in the most glaring man
ner. Fremantle says : “ I never in my life heard of anything to
equal the King’s infatuation and conduct towards Lady Conyng
ham. She lived exclusively with him during the whole time he
was in Ireland, at the Phoenix Park. When he went to Slane,
she received him dressed out as for a drawing-room. He saluted
her, and they then retired alone to her apartments.”
If it be objected that I am making too great a feature of the
Marchioness of Conyngham’s connection with the King, I plead
my justification in Henry W. Wynn’s declaration of “her folly
and rapacity,” affirming that this folly and rapacity have left
their clear traces on the conduct of affairs, and in the increase
of the national burdens. Her husband, as a reward for her
virtue, was made an English peer in 1821. Lord Mount Charles,
his eldest son, was made Master of the Robes, Groom of his
Majesty’s Bedchamber, and ultimately became a member of the
Government. On this, Bulwer said : “ He may prove himself an
admirable statesman, but there is no reason to suppose it.”
In order that the student of history may fairly judge the ac
count of the rapturous reception given to the King in Ireland,
it is needful to add that political discontent was manifest on all
sides. Poverty and misery prevailed in Limerick, Mayo, Cavan,
and Tipperary, which counties were proclaimed, and occupied
by a large military force. Executions, imprisonments, and
tumults filled the pages of the daily journals.
In the autumn of 1821, King George IV. visited Hanover, and
if the Duke of Buckingham’s correspondence be reliable,
« Lord Liverpool put a final stop to the visit by declaring that
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no more drafts could be honoured, except for the direct return
home.”
On the 12th August, 1822, Castlereagh, the most noble the
Marquis of Londonderry, sent himself to heaven, from North
Cray Farm, Bexley, at the age of fifty-three. He was buried in
Westminster Abbey. Meaner clay would have been got rid of
at some cross roads.
“ The death,” says Wallace,“ of a public man in England—
especially a death so sudden and lamentable—greatly assuages
the political resentments against him in his life ; and there was
a reaction in aristocratic circles in favour of Lord Londonderry
when he ceased to live. His servile complaisance to despots
abroad, his predilection for the worst engines of government at
home, were for a moment forgotten. But the honest hatred of
the populace, deep-rooted, sincere, and savage, remained un
touched, and spoke in a fearful yell of triumphant execration
over his remains whilst his coffin was descending into the grave
in Westminster Abbey.”
No language could do fitting justice to Robert Stewart, Mar
quis of Londonderry. Words would be too weak to describe
Castlereagh’s cruelty and baseness towards his own country
men, or his infernal conduct in connection with the Government
of England. All that can be fittingly said is, that he was pre
eminently suited to be Minister of State under a Brunswick.
In 1823, the thanks of Parliament were presented to George
IV. for “ having munificently presented to the nation a library
formed by George III.” Unfortunately, the thanks were un
deserved. George IV. was discreditable enough to accept
thanks for a donation he had never made. The truth is, says
the Daily News, “ that the King being, as was his wont, in ur
gent need of money, entertained a proposal to sell his father’s
library to the Emperor of Russia for a good round sum. The
books were actually packed up, and the cases directed in due
form, when representations were made to Lord Sidmouth, then
Home Secretary, on the subject. The Minister resolved, if
possible, to hinder the iniquity from being perpetrated. Accord
ingly, he represented his view of the matter to the King.
George IV. graciously consented, after a good deal of solicita
tion, to present the library to the nation, conditionally on his re
ceiving in return the same sum as he would have received had
the sale of it to the Emperor of Russia been completed. What
the nation did was, firstly, to pay the money ; secondly, to erect
a room for the library at the cost of ,£140,000; and thirdly, to
return fulsome thanks to the sovereign for his unparalleled
munificence.”
On the 24th of April, 1825, the Duke of York spoke in the
House of Lords against Catholic Emancipation. His speech
was made, if not by the direction, most certainly with the con
sent, of the King. George IV.’s reluctance to Catholic Emanci
pation was deep-rooted and violent. The bare mention of the
subject exasperated him. He was known to say, and only in his
I
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milder mood, “I wish those Catholics were damned or eman
cipated.” The angered despotism of this alternative still afforded
the hope that his intolerance might be overcome by his selfish
love of ease. The Duke of York’s address to his brother peers
closed with the declaration that he would, to the last moment
of his life, whatever his situation, resist the emancipation of the
Catholics, “ so help him God !” All tyrants think themselves
immortal ; the Catholics and their cause outlived the Duke of
York, and triumphed. His speech, however, coming from the
presumptive heir to the Crown, had a great share in deciding
the majority of the Lords against the measure ; and acted with
great effect upon the congenial mass of brute ignorance and
bigotry which is found ready to deny civil rights to all outside
the pale of their own Church.
On the 5th January, 1827, the Duke of York died. Wallace,
in his “ Life of George IV.,” says : “ Standing in the relation of
heir-presumptive to the Throne; obstinately and obtuselyfortified
against all concession to the Catholics ; serving as a ready and
authoritative medium of Toryism and intolerance to reach, un
observed, the Royal ear—his death had a great influence upon
the state of parties, and was especially favourable to the ascend
ancy of Mr. Canning. He, some weeks only before he died, and
when his illness had already commenced, strenuously urged the
King to render the Government uniform and anti-Catholic—in
other words, to dismiss Mr. Canning ; and, had he recovered,
Mr. Canning must have ceased to be Foreign Minister, or the
Duke to be Commander-in-Chief. The Duke of York was not
without personal good qualities, which scarcely deserved the
name of private virtues, and were over-clouded by his private
vices. He was constant in his friendships—but who were his
friends and associates? Were they persons distinguished in
the State, in literature, in science, in arts, or even in his own
profession of arms ? Were they not the companions and sharers
of his dissipations and prodigalities? He did not exact from his
associates subserviency or form ; but it was notorious that, from
the meaness of his capacity, or the vulgarity of his tastes, he
descended very low before he found himself at his own social
level. His services to the army as Commander-in-Chief were
beyond all measure over-rated. Easy access, diligence, a me
chanical regularity of system, which seldom yielded to solicita
tion, and never discerned merit ; an unenvying, perhaps un
scrupulous, willingness to act upon the adviceland appropriate the
measures of others more able and informed than himself; these
were his chief merits at the Horse Guards. But, it will be said,
he had an uncompromising, conscientious fidelity to his public
principles ; this amounts to no more than that his bigotry was
honest and unenlightened. His death, perhaps, was opportune ;
his non-accession fortunate for the peace of the country and the
stability of his family on the Throne. Alike incapable of fear
and foresight, he would have risked the integrity of the United
Kingdom rather than concede the Catholic claims ; and the
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whole Monarchy rather than sanction Reform. It would be easy
to suggest a parallel, and not always to his advantage, between
the constitution of his mind and that of James, Duke of York,
afterwards James II., whose obstinate bigotry forced the nation
to choose between their liberties and his deposition from the
Throne.”
In 1827, the Duke of Clarence obtained, after much opposi
tion, a further vote of £8,000 a year to himself, besides £6,000
a year to the Duchess. The Duke of Clarence also had £3,000
a year further, consequent on the death of the Duke of York,
making his allowance £43,000 a year.
In April, 1829, the infamous Duke of Cumberland had stated,
that if the King gave his assent to the Catholic Emancipation
Bill, he (the Duke) would quit England never to return to it.
The Right Honourable Thomas Grenville says, in a letter dated
April 9th : “ There is some fear that a declaration to that effect
may produce a very general cheer even in the dignified assem
bly of the House of Lords.” How loved these Brunswicks have
been even by their fellow peers !
On the 10th of April, the Roman Catholic Emancipation Bill
passed the House of Lords, the Duke of Wellington confessing
that civil war was imminent, if the relief afforded by the measure
was longer delayed.
On June 26th, 1830, the Royal physicians issued a bulletin,
stating that “ it has pleased Almighty God to take from this
world the King’s most excellent majesty.” Most excellent
majesty ! ! A son who threatened his mother to make public
the invalidity of her marriage ; a lover utterly regardless of the
well-being of any one of his mistresses ; a bigamous husband,
who behaved most basely to his first wife, and acted the part of
a dishonourable scoundrel to the second; a brother at utter
enmity with the Duke of Kent; a son who sought to aggravate
the madness of his Royal father ; a cheat in gaming and racing.
He dies because lust and luxury have, through his lazy life, done
their work on his bloated carcass, and England sorrows for the
King’s “most excellent majesty 1”
George IV. was a great King. Mrs. J. R. Greer, in her work
on “ Quakerism,” says that he once went to a woman’s meeting
in Quaker dress. “ His dress was all right; a grey silk gown,
a brown cloth shawl, a little white silk handkerchief with hemmed
edge round his neck, and a very well poked friend’s bonnet,
with the neatly-crimped border of his clear muslin cap tied
under the chin, completed his disguise.” Royal George was
detected, but we are told that the Quakers, who recognised their
visitor, were careful to treat him with courtesy and deference !
In the ten years’ reign, the official expenditure for George IV.
and his Royal Family, was at the very least £ 16,000,000 sterling.
Windsor Castle cost £894,500, the Pavilion at Brighton is said
to have cost a million, and another half-million is alleged to
have been expended on the famous “ Cottage.” After the King’s
death his old clothes realised £ 15,000.
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Thackeray says of him that he “ never resisted any tempta
tion ; never had a desire but he coddled it and pampered it; if
he ever had any nerve, he frittered it away among cooks, and
tailors, and barbers, and furniture-mongers, and opera dancers
.......... all fiddling, and flowers, and feasting, and flattery, and
folly.......... a monstrous image of pride, vanity, and weakness.”
Wallace says : “ Monarchy, doubtless, has its advantages;
but it is a matter of serious reflection that under a government
called free, among a people called civilised, the claims of millions,
and the contingent horrors of a civil war, should be thus depen
dent upon the distempered humours and paramount will of a
single unit of the species.”
CHAP. VI.
THE REIGN OF WILLIAM IV.
William Henry, Duke of Clarence, Admiral of the Fleet, and
third son of George III., born August 21st, 1765, succeeded his
brother George IV. as King of England, on the 26th June, 1830.
The new King was then 65 years of age, and had been married,
July nth, 1818, to Adelaide Amelia Louisa Teresa Caroline,
Princess of Saxe-Meiningen. Mrs. Dorothy Jordan, with whom
William had lived, and who had borne him ten children, had
fled to France to avoid her creditors, and had there died,
neglected by the world, deserted by William, and in the greatest
poverty. This Mrs. Jordan was sold to William by one Richard
Ford, her former lover, who, amongst other rewards of virtue,
was created a Knight, and made Police Magistrate at Bow Street.
Mrs. Jordan’s children bore the name of “ Fitzclarence,” and
great dissatisfaction was expressed against the King, who, too
mean to maintain them out of his large income, contrived to
find them all posts at the public cost. At the date of William
IV.’s accession, the imperial taxation was about ^47,000,000 ;
to-day it has increased at least ^25,000,000.
The annual allowances to the junior branches of the Royal
Family in 1830, formerly included in the Civil List, and now
paid separately, were as follows :—■
The Duke of Cumberland ,£21,0'00. He had no increase on
his marriage ; the House of Commons rejected a motion to that
effect; but an allowance of £6,000 a year for his son. Prince
George, had been issued to him since he became a resident in
this country. This is the Duke of Cumberland, who so loved
his brother, William IV., that he intrigued with the Orange
men to force William’s abdication, and to get made King in his
stead.
The Duke of Sussex received £21,000.
The Duke of Cambridge, father of the present Duke, had
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£27,000. He obtained an increase on his marriage of £6,000
a year. This Prince was charged with the government of the
family territory, the kingdom of Hanover, and consequently re
sided but little in England.
Princess Augusta, £ 13,000.
The Princess Elizabeth of Hesse Homburg, £13,000.
Princess Sophia, £ 13,000.
The Duchess of Kent, including the allowance granted in
1831, for her daughter, the Princess Victoria, heir-presumptive
to the Throne, £22,000.
The Duke of Gloucester, including £13,000 which he received
as the husband of the Princess Mary, £27,000.
The Princess Sophia of Gloucester, his sister, £7,000.
Queen Adelaide had £'100,000 a year, and the residence at
Bushey, granted to her for life.
Mrs. Fitzherbert, as the widow of George IV., was in receipt
of £6,000 a year, and the ten Fitzclarences also enjoyed places
and pensions.
The Duke of Wellington and Sir Robert Peel were the King’s
Ministers ; and, although there was some personal hostility be
tween William and the Iron Duke, they were at first his willing
coadjutors. in opposing either reduction of expenditure, or any
kind of political or social reform. The quarrel between Wil
liam as Duke of Clarence and the Duke of Wellington had
arisen when William was Lord High Admiral. William had
given improper orders to a military officer, named Cockburn,
which the latter had refused to obey. The Duke of Wellington
refused to sacrifice Cockburn, and ultimately the Duke of Cla
rence resigned his office as Lord High Admiral, for which, says
the Rev. Mr. Molesworth, “ he was ill-qualified, and in which
he was doing great mischief.”
In November, 1830, Earl Grey, Lord Brougham, Lord Mel
bourne, and Lord Althorp came into office as leaders of the
Whig party. With slight exception, in 1806, the Whigs had
not been before in office during the present century, and very
little indeed since 1762. The Whigs encouraged the Radical
Reformers so far as to ensure their own accession to power ; but
it is evident that the Whig Cabinet only considered how little
they could grant, and yet retain office. In finance, as well as
reform, they were disloyal to the mass of the people who pushed
them into power.
The Duke of Wellington and his Ministry resigned office in
November, 1830, because the House of Commons wished to
appoint a Select Committee to examine the Civil List. King
William IV., according to the words of a letter written by him
to Earl Grey, on December 1st, 1830, felt considerable “alarm
and uneasiness ” because Joseph Hume, and other Radical
members, wished to put some check on the growing and already
extravagant Royal expenditure. He objects “most strenu
ously,” and says, referring on this especially to the Duchy of
Lancaster :—“ Earl Grey cannot be surprised that the King
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The House of Brunswick.
should view with jealousy any idea of Parliamentary interference
with the only remaining pittance of an independent possession,
which has been enjoyed by his ancestors, during many cen
turies, as their private and independent estate, and has now,
as such, lawfully devolved upon him in right of succession.
That he should feel that any successful attempt to deprive the
Sovereign of this independent possession, will be to lower and
degrade him into the state and condition of absolute and entire
dependence, as a pensioner of the House of Commons, to place
him in the condition of an individual violating or surrendering
a trust which had been held sacred by his ancestors, and which
he is bound to transmit to his successors. The King cannot
indeed conceive upon what plea such a national invasion of the
private rights, and such a seizure of the private estates, of the
Sovereign could be justified.”
William IV. reminds Earl Grey, that the Chancellor of the
Duchy is sworn to do all things “ for the weal and profit of the
King’s Highness. And his Majesty has fair reason to expect
that a pledge so solemnly taken will be fulfilled, and that he will
be supported in his assertion of these private rights, not only of
himself, but of his heirs and successors, as they have devolved
upon him, separate from all other his possessions jure coronce,
and consequently, as his separate personal and private, estate,
vested in his Majesty, by descent from Henry VII. in his body
natural, and not in his body politic as King.”
Earl Grey naturally promised to prevent Radical financial
reformers from becoming too annoying to Royalty. The Whigs
love to talk of economy out of office, and to avoid it when in
place.
Daniel O’Connell appears to have much troubled the King.
Directly after the Dublin meeting in December, 1830, Sir Henry
Taylor says : “ The King observed, that he would have been
better pleased if this assembly of people had not dispersed
quietly at his bidding, as the control which he has successfully
exercised upon various occasions in this way, appears to his
Majesty the most striking proof of the influence he has acquired
over a portion of the lower classes in Ireland.”
It is pretended in the Cabinet Register for 1831, and vfas
stated by Lord Althorp in Parliament, that “ his Majesty m ost
nobly and patriotically declined to add to the burdens of his
people by accepting an outfit for his royal consort, though ,£54,000
had been granted by Parliament to the Oueen of George III.,
as an outfit to purchase jewels, &c.” This is so little true, that
it appears from the correspondence between the King and Earl
Grey, that a grant for the Queen’s outfit had been agreed to by
the outgoing Tories, and would have been proposed by the new
Whig Government, had not one of the Cabinet (probably Lord
Brougham) decidedly objected, on the ground “ that proposing
a grant for this purpose would have a bad effect on the House
of Commons, and on public opinion and by a letter dated
February 4th, 1831, from the King, it is clear that he only aban
�The House of Brunswick.
95
doned the claim when he found he could not get it. There is
not a word about “ the burdens of the people,” although many at
that time were in a starving condition. On the contrary, the
secretary of the King says on the 6th of February, that “ the
disinclination shown in the House of Commons ” to grant the
outfit, had “produced a very painful impression on his Majesty.”
The King, afraid of the spread of Reform opinions, says that
he “ trusts that the Lord-Lieutenants and Deputy-Lieutenants
of counties will be cautioned to scrutinise the ballots for the
militia as far as possible, so as to endeavour to exclude from its
ranks men of dangerous and designing character, whose influ
ence might prove very pernicious upon newly-established corps,
and before they shall' have acquired habits of discipline and
subordination.” And to show his desire for .Reform, he urges
the Ministers to check the public gatherings, saying, “ I am ig
norant to what extent it may be in contemplation to increase the
military means, either by calling out the militia partially, or by
any addition to the regular force ; but I am convinced that the
latter would be not only the most efficient, but the cheapest; and
it would have the advantage of being applicable to all purposes.”
The Reformer King—for this pretence has been made—in
another letter says : “ His Majesty is satisfied that he may rely
upon Earl Grey’s strenuous support in his determination to re
sist all attempts which may be made to sap the established rights
of the Crown, and to destroy those institutions under which&this
country has so long prospered, while others have been suffering
so severely from the effects of revolutionary projects, and from
the admission of what are called Radical remedies....;....He is
induced thus pointedly to notice the proposal of introducing
Election by Ballot, in order to declare that nothing should ever
induce him to yield to it, or to sanction a practice which would
in his opinion, be a protection to concealment, would abolish
the influence of fear and shame, and would be inconsistent with
the manly spirit and the free avowal of opinion which distinguish
the people of England. His Majesty need scarcely add that his
opposition to the introduction of another, yet more objectionable
proposal, the adoption of Universal Suffrage, one of the wild
projects which have sprung from revolutionary speculation
would have been still more decided.”
’
How William IV. could ever have been suspected of being
favourable to Reform, is difficult to comprehend. As Duke of
Clarence he had spoken in favour of the Slave Trade, and had
declared that its abolition should meet with his most serious
and most unqualified opposition.” When the Reform Bill actually
became law, although William IV. did not dare to veto it he re
fused to give the royal assent in person.
’
In this chapter there is not space enough to go through the
higory of the Reform agitation of 1832. In Molesworth’s
u J^s.tory °f the Reform Bill,” and Roebuck’s account of the
Whig Ministry, the reader will find the story fully told It is not
enough to say here that the King not only hindered Reform until
�96
Ths House of Brunswick.
Revolution was imminent, and the flames of burning castles and
mansions were rising in different parts of England, but it may be
stated that he condescended to deceive his Ministers; that he
allowed his children to canvass peers against the Bill, and would
have resorted to force to crush the Birmingham Political Union,
if he could have thrown the responsibility of this tyranny upon
the Cabinet. In the King’s eyes the people were “ the rabble.”
We find him “ impatient ” for the return of the Tories to power,
and bitterly discontented when the orderly character of popular
demonstrations rendered the employment of the military im
possible.
The Earl of Munster, one of the King’s ten children by Mrs.
Jordan, and who was Governor of Windsor Castle, Colonel in the
Army, Aide-de-Camp to the King, Lieutenant of the Tower,
Tory and State pensioner, being charged with having “ unhand
somely intrigued against Earl Grey’s Government,” made the
curious defence“ that for six months before and for twenty-four
hours after the resignation ” of the Grey Government, “ it was
from certain circumstances out of his power to act in the matter
imputed to him.”
It is worthy of notice, as against Mr. Frederic Harrison’s
opinion, that no English monarch could now really interfere
with the course of government in Great Britain, that in April,
1832, William IV. gave written directions to Earl Grey, “that
no instructions should be sent ” to foreign ambassadors until
they had “ obtained his previous concurrence.” And it is clear,
from a letter of the King’s private secretary, that William gave
these orders because he was afraid there was a “disposition
...... to unite with France in support of the introduction of liberal
opinions and measures agreeably to the spirit of the times.”
Although the newspapers praised William, he does not seem to
have been very grateful in private. In 1832, he declared to his
confidential secretary that he had “ long ceased to consider the
press (the newspaper family) in any other light than as the
vehicle of all that is false and infamous.”
In January, 1833, in a speech, not written for him, but made
extemporaneously after dinner, William IV. said, to compliment
the American Ambassador, “ that it had always been a matter
of serious regret to him that he had not been born a free, inde
pendent American.” We regret that the whole family have not
lon°- since naturalised themselves as American citizens. But
such a sentiment from the son of George III., from one who in
his youth had used the most extravagant phraseology in denun
ciation of the American rebels ! !
The family insanity, shown in the case of George 11. by his
persistence in wearing his Dettingen old clothes ; more notorious
and less possible of concealment in that of George III.; well
known to all but the people as to George IV., who actually tried
to persuade the Duke of Wellington that he (George) had led
a regiment at Waterloo, was also marked in William IV. In
April, 1832, the King’s own secretary admits “distressing symp
�The House of Brunswick.
97
toms ” and “ nervous excitement,” but says that the attack “ is
now subsiding.” Raikes, a Tory, and also a king-worshipper,
in his “ Diary,” under date May the 27th, 1834, says, after speak
ing of the King’s “ excitement ” and “rather extraordinary”
conduct, that11 at the levee a considerable sensation was created
the other day by his insisting that an unfortunate wooden-legged
lieutenant should kneel down.” On June nth, visiting the Royal
Academy, the President showed the King, amongst others, the
portrait of Admiral Napier, and was astonished to hear his
Majesty at once cry out : “ Captain Napier may be damned, sir,
and you may be damned, sir ; and if the Queen was not here,
sir, I would kick you down stairs, sir.”- The King’s brother, his
Royal Highness the Duke of Gloucester, died November 20th,
1834. Raikes says of him : “He was not a man of talent, as
may be inferred from his nickname of Silly Billy.” This is the
Royal Family, the head of which, according to Mr. Disraeli, was
physically and mentally incapable of performing the regal
functions, and which yet, according to that brilliant statesman,
so fitly represents the intelligence and honour of Great Britain.
In 1836, Sir William Knighton died. He had been made
private secretary to the late King, and had made his fortune by
means of some papers which Colonel Macmahon, confidant of
George IV., had when dying, and which came into Knighton’s
hands as medical attendant of the dying man. Sir W. Knighton
was made a “ Grand Cross,” not for his bravery in war, or in
telligence in the State, but for his adroit manipulation of secrets
relating to Lady Jersey, Mrs. Fitzherbert, and the Marchioness
of Conyngham. Sir William Knighton and the latter lady were
supposed to have made free with ^300,000 ; but great larcenies
win honour, and Sir W. Knighton died respected.
In August, 1836, William—hearing that the Duke of Bedford
had helped O Connell with money—ordered the Duke’s bust,
then in the Gallery at Windsor, to be taken down, and thrown
into the lifne kilns.
On June 20th, 1837, William IV. died. Ernest, Duke of Cum
berland, by William s death, became King of Hanover, and was
on the same day publicly hissed in the Green Park. Naturally,
in this loving family there was considerable disagreement for
some time previous to the King’s death between his Majesty and
the Duchess of Kent.
The. Edinburgh Review, soon after the King’s death, while
admitting that his understanding may not have been of as high
an order as his good nature,” says : “ We have learned to forget
|he ’au(:s °f the Duke of Clarence in the merits of William IV.”
Where were these merits shown ? Was it in “ brooding ”—(to
use the expression of his own private secretary)— over questions
of whether he could, during the commencement of his reign,
personally appropriate sums of money outside the Civil List
votes ? Was it in desiring that Colonel Napier might be “ struck
on the half-pay list,” for having made a speech at Devizes in
lavoui of 1 arliamentary Reform ? W as it when he tried to perK
�98
The House of Brunsivick.
suade Earl Grey to make Parliament pay Rundell and Bridge’s
bill for plate—and this when the masses were in a starving con
dition? Was it when he declared that he was by “ no means
dissatisfied” that a proposed meeting was likely to be so
“violent, and in other respects so objectionable,” as it would
afford the excuse for suppressing by force the orderly meetings
which, says his secretary, “ the King orders me to say he cannot
too often describe as being, in his opinion, far more mischievous
and dangerous ” than those of “ a more avowed and violent
character.”
CHAP. VII.
THE PRESENT REIGN.
Her present Majesty, Alexandrina Victoria, was born May 24th,
1819, and ascended the throne June 20th, 1837, as representing
her father, the Duke of Kent, fourth son of George III. On
February 10th, j 840, it being the general etiquette for the Bruns
wick family to intermarry amongst themselves, she was married
to her cousin, Prince Albert of Saxe Coburg, who received an
allowance from the nation of £30,000, to compensate him for
becoming the husband of his wife. The Queen, more sensible
than others of the arduous position of a Prince Consort, wished
her loyal husband to have £ 100,000 a year. The Government
reduced this to £50,000; Joseph Hume and the Radicals re
duced it still further to ,£30,000, For this annual payment the
Prince undertook to submit to naturalisation, to be the first sub
ject in England, to reside rent free in the Royal Palaces re
paired at the cost of the nation. He also, on his own account,
and for his own profit, attended to various building speculations
at the West End of London, and died very rich. He is known
as Prince Albert the Good. His goodness is marked—not by
parks given to the people, as in the case of Sir Francis Crossley;
not by improved dwellings for the people, as in the case of
George Peabody ; not by a large and costly market place, freely
given, as in the case of Miss Burdett Coutts—Peeress without
her patent of Baroness;—but by statues erected in his honour
in many cities and boroughs by a loyal people. As an employer
of labour, the Prince’s reputation for generosity is marked solely
by these statues. As a Prince, he felt in his lifetime how much
and how truly he was loved by his people ; and at a dinner given
to the Guards, Prince Albert, in a speech probably not revised
beforehand, told the Household troops how he relied on them
to protect the throne against any assaults. The memory of the
Prince is dear to the people ; he has left us nine children to
keep out of the taxpayers’ pockets, his own large private accu
mulations of wealth being inapplicable to their maintenance.
When her Majesty ascended the throne, poor rates averaged
5s. 4^d. per head per annum ; to-day they exceed 7s. During
�The House of Brunswick.
99
the last fifteen years alone there has been an increase of more
than 250,000 paupers in England and Wales, and one person
out of every twenty-two is in receipt of workhouse relief. Every
body, however, agrees that the country is prosperous and happy.
In Scotland there has been an increase of 9,048 paupers in the
last ten years. Two out of every fifty-three Scotchmen are at
this moment paupers. In Ireland in the last ten years the out
door paupers have increased 19,504. As, however, we have,
during the reign of her present most gracious Majesty, driven
away the bulk of the Irish population, there are considerably
fewer paupers in Ireland than there are in Scotland. The
average Imperial taxation during the first ten years of her
Majesty’s reign was under ^50,000,000 a year. The average
taxation at the present day is over ,£70,000,000 a year. Pauper
ism and local and Imperial taxation are all on the increase, and,
despite agricultural labourers’ outcries and workmen’s strikes, it
is agreed that her Majesty’s reign has brought us many blessings.
On March 20th, 1842, the Earl of Munster, eldest son of
William IV., and who had been made Constable of Windsor
Castle by her Majesty, committed suicide. Although the eldest
son of the late King, his position as a natural child excluded
him from heaven, according to the Bible, and from all right to
the Throrfe, according to our law.
Her Majesty’s eldest daughter, the Princess Royal, Victoria
Adelaide Mary Louisa, is married to the Prince Imperial,
Frederick William of Germany, and, as it would have been
manifestly unreasonable to expect either the Queen or the Prince
Consort, out of their large private fortunes, to provide a dowry
for their daughter, the English nation pays ,£8,000 a year to the
Princess.
Her Majesty’s eldest son, Albert Edward, Prince of Wales,
Duke of Saxony, Cornwall, and Rothesay, and Earl of Dublin,
has earned already so wide a fame that notice here is almost
needless. As a writer, his letters—a few of which have been
published by the kind permission of Sir Charles Mordaunt—
illustrate the grasp of mind peculiar to the family, and mark in
strong relief the nobility of character of the Royal author. As a
military chieftain, the Autumn Manoeuvres of 1871 demonstrated
the tact and speed he could display in a strategic movement of
masterly retreat. As an investigator of social problems, he has
surpassed the Lords Townshend and Shaftesbury, and at Mabille
and in London has, by experience, entitled himself to speak with
authority. As a pigeon shooter, he can only be judged by com
parison with the respectable ex-bushranger now claiming the
Tichborne estates. Here, it is true, the latter is a man of more
weight. The Prince of Wales receives ,£40,000 a year, and we
give his wife ,£10,000 a year as a slight acknowledgment for the
position she has to occupy as Princess of Wales. With the
history of the wives of the two last Princes of Wales to guide
them, it is almost wonderful that the advisers of the Princess did
not insist on a much higher premium against the risks of the
�100
The House of Brunswick.
position. When his Royal Highness came of age, he found ac
cumulations of the Duchy of Cornwall of more than a million
sterling, which, invested in Consols, would bring him in at least
a further £40,000 per annum. His Royal Highness also has the
income of the Duchy of Cornwall, amounting net to about £63,000
a year. In addition to this, the Prince of Wales is entitled to
military salary as Colonel of the Rifle Brigade and 10th Hussars.
Last year—conscious that it is unfair to expect a Prince to live on
£153,000 a year—Z7>6oo were voted by Parliament for the repair
of the house in which he sometimes resides when in London.
A few years ago his Royal Highness was in Paris, and certain
scurrilous foreign prints pretended that on the Boulevard des
Italiens, in the face of France, he had forgotten that one day he
would seek to be King of England. It is written, “ In vino
■veritas” and if the proverb hold, the Prince is more than half
his time a man remarkable for his truthfulness. Some time
later, the Royal Leamington Chronicle, which, in his mercy, the
Prince of Wales never prosecuted, coupled his reputation with
infamy. Later, his Royal Highness was ill, and the nation wept.
Then came recovery and Thanksgiving at St. Paul’s.
“ So when the devil was sick,
The devil a saint would be ;
When the devil got well again,
The devil a saint was he.”
The Prince of Wales has since been to Paris, and, according to
La Liberte, has honoured Mabille with his Royal presence.
Her Majesty’s second son is Alfred Ernest, Duke of Edin
burgh. His Royal Highness, when serving on board the Galatea,
had leave to go on shore at Marseilles. Journeying to Paris, he
overstayed his leave, refused to return when summoned, and
stayed there, so Paris journals said, till his debts were thousands.
Any other officer in the navy would have been cashiered ; his
Royal Highness has since been promoted. The Duke of Edin
burgh visited our Colonies, and the nation voted about £3>5°°
for presents made by the Prince. The presents the Prince re
ceived were, of course, his own, and the vote enabled the Duke
o do justice to the generous sentiments of his family. The
Colonists pretended at the time that some of the presents were
not paid for by the Duke of Edinburgh ; nay, they went so far
as to allege that some of the Duke’s debts had to be discharged
by the Colonist Reception Committee. Representing the honour
of England, his Royal Highness earned himself a fame and a
name by the associates he chose. In visiting India, a special
sum of, we believe, £10,000 was taken from the Indian revenues
and handed to the Duke, so that an English Prince might be
liberal in his gifts to Indians at their own cost. Ihe Duke or
Edinburgh has £15,000 a year. Three years ago he borrowed
£450 from the pay-chest of the Galatea. I have no means ot
knowing whether it has since been paid back ; all I can afnim
is, that the country made up the deficient sum in the pay-chest
�The House of Brunswick.
101
without a word from any M.P. Had the borrower been a pay
sergeant, he would have been sent to a District Military Prison;
if a commissioned officer, other than a Royal one, he would
have been dismissed the service. The difference between the
Prince of Wales and the Duke of Edinburgh is this : in the first
case, the virtues of the Prince equal his intelligence ; in the
second case, the intelligence of the Duke is more developed than
are his virtues.
In the case of Broadwood v. the Duke of St. Albans, both the
Royal brothers were permitted to guard a pleasant incognito.
The judge who allowed this concealment was soon afterwards
created a Peer of the Realm.
Our army and navy, without reckoning the Indian Establish
ment, cost more to-day, by about £9,000,000 a year, than when
her Majesty ascended the throne. Her Majesty’s cousin, George
William Frederick, Duke of Cambridge, is Commander-in-Chief
of the Army, and for this service receives ,£4,432 per annum.
His Royal Highness also receives the sum of £12,000 in con
sequence of his being the cousin of the Queen. His Royal High
ness is also Field-Marshal, and Colonel of four distinct regi
ments, for which he gets more than ,£5,000 annually. Naturally,
in the Duke is found embodied the whole military talent of the
Royal Family. His great-uncle, the Duke of Cumberland,
carved “Klosterseven” on the Brunswick monuments. Frederick
Duke of York, the uncle of the Duke of Cambridge, recalled
from the field of battle, that he might wear in peace at home
the laurels he had won abroad, added “ Clarke ” and “ Tonyn ”
as names to vie with Cressy or Waterloo. The present Duke
of Cambridge was, when Prince George, stationed in Yorkshire,
in the famous “ plug plot ” times, and his valiancy then threat
ened most lustily what he would do against the factory “ turn
outs,” poor starved wretches clamouring for bread. In the
army, the normal schoolmasters can tell how this brave Brunswicker rendered education difficult, and drove out, one by one,
many of the best teachers. Soldiers who think too much make
bad machines. It was the father of the present Duke of Cam
bridge who publicly expressed his disbelief in 1844—5, of the
failure of the potato crop in Ireland, “ because he had always
found the potatoes at his own table very good 1”
For many years her Majesty’s most constant attendant has
been a Scotsman, John Brown. This person so seldom leaves
her Majesty thatfit is said that some years since the Queen in
sisted on his presence when diplomatic communications were
made to her Majesty ; and that, when escorting the Queen to
Camden House, on a visit to the ex-Emperor Napoleon, Mr.
Brown offered her his arm from the carriage to the door.
Afterwards, when an idiotic small boy—armed with a broken
pistol, loaded with red flannel, and without gunpowder—made a
sham attack on her Majesty, Mr. Brown courageously rushed
to the Queen’s aid, and has since received a medal to mark his
valour.
�102
. The House of Brunswick.
For many years her Majesty has taken but little part in the
show ceremonials of State. Parliament is usually opened and
closed by commission—a robe on an empty throne, and a speech
read by deputy, satisfying the Sovereign’s loyal subjects. It is,
however, the fact that in real State policy her interference has
been most mischievous, and this especially where it affected her
Prusso-German relatives. In the case of Denmark attacked by
Prussia and Austria, and in the case of the Franco-Prussian
War, English Court influences have most indecently affected
our foreign relations.
Her Majesty is now enormously rich, and—as she is like her
Royal grandmother—grows richer daily. She is also generous,
Parliament annually voting her moneys to enable her to be so
without touching her own purse.
It is charged against me that I have unfairly touched private
character. In no instance have I done so, except as I have
found the conduct of the individuals attacked affecting the
honour and welfare of the nation. My sayings and writings are
denounced in many of the journals, and in the House of Lords
as seditious, and even treasonable. My answer is, that fortu
nately, Hardy, Tooke, and Thelwall heard “ Not Guilty” given
as the shield against a criticism which dared to experiment on
persecution. In case of need, I rely on a like deliverance. I
I do not pretend here to have pleaded for Republicanism; I
have only pleaded against the White Horse of Hanover. I ad
mire the German intellect, training the world to think. I loathe
these small German breast-bestarred wanderers, whose only
merit is their loving hatred of one another. In their own land
they vegetate and wither unnoticed ; here we pay them highly
to marry and perpetuate a pauper prince-race. If they do
nothing, they are “ good.” If they de ill, loyalty gilds the vice
till it looks like virtue.
�
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Victorian Blogging
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The impeachment of the House of Brunswick
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Edition: 2nd. ed. rev. and largely re-written
Place of publication: London
Collation: iv, 102 p. ; 18 cm.
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Bradlaugh, Charles
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Austin & Co.
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1883
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Republicanism
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House of Hanover
Monarchy
Republicanism
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THE LAWS
RELATING TO
BLASPHEMY AND HERESY:
AN ADDRESS TO FREETHINKERS.
BY
CHARLES BRADLAUGH.
LONDON:
FREETHOUGHT PUBLISHING COMPANY,
28, Stonecutter Street, E.C.
�LONDON :
PRINTED BY ANNIE BESANT AND CHARLES BRADLAUGH,
28, STONECUTTER STREET, E.C.
�THE LAWS
RELATING TO BLASPHEMY AND HERESY:
AN ADDRESS TO FREETHINKERS
By Charles Bradlaugh.
-------- —>------------
Laws to punish differences of opinion are as useless as
they are monstrous. Differences of opinion on politics are
denounced and punished as seditious, on religious topics as
blasphemous, and on social questions as immoral and
obscene. Yet the sedition, blasphemy, and immorality
punished in one age are often found to be the accepted,
and sometimes] the admired, political, religious, and social
teaching of a more educated period.
Heresies are the
evidence of some attempts on the part of the masses to find
opinions for themselves. The attempts may be often foolish,
but should never be regarded as deserving of punishment.
Buckle tells us that it was “ Early in the eleventh century
the clergy first began systematically to repress independent
inquiries by punishing men who attempted to think for them
selves” (Compare Sismondi, “Hist, des Frangais,” vol. iv.,
pp. 145, 146 ; Neander’s “Hist, of the Church,” vol. vi., pp.
365, 366; Prescott’s “Hist, of Ferdinand and Isabella,”
vol. i., p. 261, note). Before this, such a policy, as Sismondi
justly observes, was not required : “ For several centuries
the Church had not been troubled by any heresy, the
ignorance was too complete, the submission too servile,,
the faith too blind.”
As knowledge advanced, the
opposition between inquiry and belief became more
marked; the Church redoubled her efforts, ahd at the
end of the twelfth century the Popes first formally
called on the secular power to punish heretics; and
the arliest constitution addressed inquisitoribus hcerczticce
pravitaiis is one by Alexander IV. (Meyer, “Inst. Jud.,”
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THE LAWS RELATING TO
vol. ii., pp. 554, 556. See also on this movement, Llorente,
“ Hist, de l’lnquisition,” vol. i.,p. 125 ; vol. iv., p. 284.) In
1222 a synod assembled at Oxford caused an apostate to be
burned ; and this, says Lingard (“ Hist, of England,” vol.
ii., p. 148), “is, I believe, the first instance of capital punish
ment in England on the ground of religion.”
Opinion, however erroneous, or held by however few or
many, should never be subject of legal penalty or stigma.
J. S. Mill says: “ If all mankind, minus one, were of one
opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion,
mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one
person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in
silencing mankind.”
Lecky, in his “ History of Rationalism,” shows us how
earnest faith in exclusive salvation tends to create a persecut
ing spirit:—
“ If men believe with an intense and realising faith that
their own view of a disputed question is true beyond all
possibility of mistake, if they further believe that those who
adopt other views will be doomed by the Almighty to an
eternity of misery, which, with the same moral disposition,
but with a different belief, they would have escaped, these
men will, sooner or later, persecute to the full extent of their
power. . If you speak to them of the physical and mental
suffering which persecution produces, or of the sincerity and
unselfish heroism of its victims, they will reply that such
arguments rest altogether on the inadequacy of your realisa
tion of the doctrine they believe. What suffering that man
can inflict can be comparable to the eternal misery of all who
embrace the doctrine of the heretic? What claim can human
virtues have to our forbearance if the Almighty punishes
the mere profession of error as a crime of the deepest
turpitude ? If you encountered a lunatic, who, in his
frenzy, was inflicting on multitudes around him a death of
the most prolonged and excruciating agony, would you not
feel justified in arresting his career by every means in your
power—by taking his life if you could not otherwise attain
your object ? But if you knew that this man was inflicting
not temporal, but eternal death, if he was not a guiltless,
though dangerous madman, but one whose conduct you
believed to involve the most hideous criminality, would
you not act with still less compunction or hesitation ? ”
In the House of Lords, in the month of May, 1877, Lord
�BLASPHEMY AND HERESY.
5
Selborne, in the debate on the Burials Bill, called attention
to the existing laws of this country as affecting heresy. It
is proposed in this address to state those laws as exactly as
possible, and this the more especially as some unthinking
persons seem to imagine that the right of free speech in this
country has been completely won, and that there is, therefore,
no longer any necessity for petitioning parliament either for
the repeal of the statutory penalties or for the removal of
the common law disabilities and abolition of the common
law offence.
A very able legist, to whom I am indebted for some most
valuable suggestions, classifies the penalties and disabilities
for heresy under the following heads :—
1. The infliction of punishment for the publication of
words hostile to the Established Church or religion.
2. Deprivation of civil rights in consequence merely of
holding what are called unsound views.
3. Mere social penalties or denial of justice, not by the
law but by abuse of the law.
Here the legal positions are alone treated.
In 1857, in the Queen v. Thomas Pooley, Mr. Justice
Coleridge, at Bodmin, directed the jury that “ Publications
intended in good faith to propagate opinions on religious
subjects, which the person who publishes them regards as
true, are not blasphemous merely because their publication
is likely to wound the feelings of those who believe such
opinions to be false.”
This dictum of Mr. Justice Coleridge, while wise and
humane, is distinctly at variance with the rulings by other
judges, who have held that any denial of Christianity is
blasphemous and punishable by the common law. The
view of Mr. Justice Coleridge is also opposed to the statute
9 and 10 Will. III., c. 32, which statute makes mere denial
of the truth of the Bible a blasphemous libel.
In Sir James Fitzjames Stephen’s “Digest of the Criminal
Law,” chap, xvii., p. 97, “Offences Against Religion,” he
gives the following alternative definitions of blasphemy:
“ Every publication is said to be blasphemous which com
tains, 1 st, Matter relating to God, Jesus Christ, the Bible,
or the Book of Common Prayer, intended to wound the
feelings of mankind, or to excite contempt and hatred
against the Church by law established, or to promote
immorality. Publications intended in good faith to propa
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THE LAWS RELATING TO
gate opinions on religious subjects, which the person who
publishes them regards as true, are not blasphemous
(within the meaning of this definition) merely because their
publication is likely to wound the feelings of those who
believe such opinions to be false, or because their general
adoption might lead, by lawful means, to alterations in the
constitution of the Church by law established;” or, 2nd,
“ a denial of the truth of Christianity in general, or of the
existence of God, whether the terms of such publication are
decent or otherwise;” and, 3rd, “any contemptuous reviling
or ludicrous matter relating to God, Jesus Christ, or the
Bible, or the formularies of the Church of England, as by
law established, whatever may be the occasion of the publi
cation thereof, and whether the matter intended to be
published is, or is not, intended in good faith as an argu
ment against any doctrine or opinion.”
Very much would depend on the temper of the judge and
jury who tried the case, as to which of the above definitions
would be adopted, and it is submitted that this uncertainty
ought not to be allowed to continue, for in time of excite
ment and against an unpopular defendant the common law
is susceptible of being interpreted with great harshness.
Sir James Stephen says that there is authority for each of
the above views, and that Lord Coleridge allows him to say
that the first definition correctly states the law as laid down
in the Queen v. Pooley, tried at Bodmin Summer Assizes, in
1857, before Mr. Justice Coleridge.
Folkard, “Law of Slander and Libel,” chap. 33, p. 593,
says (see also “ Russell on Crimes,” by Prentice, vol. iii.,
P- T93):—“The first grand offence of speech and writing is,
speaking blasphemously against God, or reproachfully con
cerning religion, with an intent to subvert man’s faith in
God or to impair his reverence of him ;” and on p. 594 he
says: “ Blasphemy against the Almighty, by denying his
being or providence, contumelious reflections upon the life
and character of Jesus, and, in general, scoffing, flippant
and indecorous remarks and comments upon the Scriptures,
are offences against the common law.”
The law as laid down by Folkard goes farther than Sir J.
F. Stephen’s first proposition, and I am inclined to think
that a hostile judge would have justification for the harder
vievy.
The cases decided declare that the statutory law on bias-
�BLASPHEMY AND HERESY.
1
phemy is intended to supplement the common law, not in
any way to annul it or abrogate it. This decision goes
against the usual and fairer doctrine that where a statute
prescribes a particular mode of proceeding, and affixes a
particular punishment to the offence, there, unless there be
an express saving of the common law, the only mode of
proceeding is under the statute. In the case of the King v.
Richard Carlile, in 1819, Lord Chief Justice Abbott said
(3 Barnewall and Adolphus, p. 162):—
“I consider it to be perfectly clear that the 9 and 10 Will. III.,
c. 32, did not take away the common law punishment for this offence.
Its title is ‘ An Act for the more effectual suppressing of Blasphemy
and Prophaneness,’ and the preamble recites the object to be ‘for the
more effectual suppressing of the said detestable crimes.’ And, for
this purpose, it imposes certain disabilities on persons convicted, which
are of a very high and severe nature. But it appears to me that the
legislature intended not to repeal the common law on this subject, but
to introduce certain peculiar disabilities as cumulative upon the penalties
previously inflicted by the common law. The very severe nature of
these disabilities might well induce them to introduce provisions of
the nature contained in the second and third sections of the Act.”
And Mr. Justice Bayley, concurring, said:—“ Here Taylor's case decided that blasphemy was a misdemeanour
at common law, and the statute does not make it more than a misde
meanour. The punishment, therefore, given by the Act is cumulative
on the punishment at common law.”
Mr. Justice Holroyd was of the same opinion, and Mr.
Justice Best said :—
“ So far from the statute of William containing provisions so incon
sistent with the common law as to operate as a repeal by implication,
as far as it applies to the offence of libel, it seems intended to aid the
common law. It is called ‘ An Act for the more effectual suppression
of Blasphemy and Prophaneness.’ It would ill deserve that name if it
abrogated the common law, inasmuch as, for the first offence, it only
operates against those who are in possession of offices, or in expecta
tion of them. The rest of the world might with impunity blaspheme
God, and prophane the ordinances and institutions of religion, if the
common law punishment is put an end to. But the legislature, in
passing this Act, had not the punishment of blasphemy so much in
view, as the protecting the Government of the country, by preventing
infidels from getting into places of trust. In the age of toleration in
which that statute passed, neither Churchmen nor sectarians wished to
protect in their infidelity those who disbelieved the Holy Scriptures.
On the contrary, all agreed that as the system of morals which regu
lated their conduct was built on these Scriptures, none were to be
trusted with offices who showed they were under no religious responsi
bility. This Act is not confined to those who libel religion, but
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THE LAWS RELATING TO
extends to those who, in their most private intercourse by advised con
versation admit that they disbelieve the Scriptures. Both the common
law and the statute are necessary, the first to guard the morals of
this people, the second for the immediate protection of the Govern
ment.”
The “ Commentaries on the Laws of England,” by N
Broom and E. A. Hadley, devote chapter 5 to offences
against religion; but Broom and Hadley are quite wrong in
writing (p. 53) as if the enactment of 9 and 10 William III.,
cap. 32, was the first step of the civil power to interpose for
the punishment of blasphemy.
The statute 9 William III., cap. 35, usually known as the
9 and 10 William III., c. 32, is as follows :—“ An Act for the more effectual suppressing of Blasphemy and Pro
faneness.
“ Whereas many persons have of late years openly avowed and pub
lished many blasphemous and impious opinions contrary to the doctrines
and principles of the Christian religion, greatly tending to the dishonour
°f Almighty God, and may prove destructive to the peace and welfare of
this kingdom ; Wherefore, for the more effectual suppressing of the
said detestable crimes, be it enacted by the King’s most excellent
Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the lords spiritual and
temporal, and the commons of this present Parliament assembled,
and by the authority of the same, that if any person or persons having
been educated in, or at anytime having made profession of, the
Christian religion within this realm shal, by writing, printing, teach
ing, or advised speaking, deny any one of the persons in the Holy Trinity
to be God, or shal assert or maintain there are more gods than one, or
shal deny the Christian religion to be true, or the Holy Scriptures of
the.Old and New Testament to be of divine authority, and shal, upon
indictment or information in any of his Majesties Courts at West
minster, or at the assizes, be thereof lawfully convicted by the oath of
two or more credible witnesses, such person or persons for the first
offence shal be adjudged incapable and disabled in law to all intents
and purposes whatsoever to have or enjoy any office or offices,
imployment or imployments, ecclesiastical, civil, or military, or
any part in them, or any profit or advantage appertaining to them,
or any of them. And if any person or persons so convicted as
aforesaid shal at the time of his or their conviction, enjoy or possess
any office, place, or imployment, such office, place, or imployment
shal be voyd, and is hereby declared void. And if such person or
persons shall be a second time lawfully convicted, as aforesaid, of all
or any the aforesaid crime or crimes that then he or they shal from
thenceforth be disabled to sue, prosecute, plead, or use any action or
information in any court of law or equity, or to be guardian of any
child, or executor or administrator of any person, or capable of any
legacie or deed of gift, or to bear any office, civil or military, or
benefice ecclesiastical for ever within this realm, and shall also suffer
imprisonment for the space of three years, without bail or mainprize
from the time of such conviction.
�BLASPHEMY AND HERESY.
9
“Provided always, and be it enacted by the authority aforesaid, that
no person shall be prosecuted by virtue of this Act for any words
spoken, unless the information of such words shal be given upon oath
before one or more justice or justices of the peace within four days after
such words spoken, and the proscution of such offence be within three
months after such information.
“ Provided also, and be it enacted by the authority aforsesaid, that
any person or persons convicted of all, or any, of the aforesaid crime
or crimes in manner aforesaid, shal, for the first offence (upon his, her,
or their acknowledgment and renunciation of such offence, or erronious
opinions, in the same court where such person or persons was or were
convicted, as aforesaid, within the space of four months after his, her,
or their conviction) be discharged from all penalties and disabilities
incurred by such conviction, any thing in this Act contained to the con
trary thereof in any wise notwithstanding.”
The words italicised were repealed by the 53 Geo. III.,
c. 160, but this last-mentioned Act is now treated as a spent
statute, and no longer appears in the revised statute book.
How far Unitarians are again liable to indictment in conse
quence of 53rd Geo. III., c. 160, having been erased from
the statute book, is a matter for their legal advisers.
The statute 60 Geo. III. and 1 Geo. IV., c. 9, contained
various provisions for securing, by recognizances with sure
ties, the payment of fines inflicted for the publication of
blasphemous libels in newspapers and pamphlets. The
last prosecution under this statute was “ The Attorney
General v. Bradlaugh,” and on this failing, in 1869, the
statute itself was repealed by the 32nd and 33rd Viet.,
c. 24.
Short says, 11 Law of Libel,” p. 310 :—
“ The Scotch law is not different from the English law on the sub
ject of blasphemous libels. An Act of 6 Geo. IV., c. 47, after reciting
the expediency of making the crime punishable in the same manner as
if committed in England, enacted that any person convicted of blas
phemy shall be liable to be punished only by fine or imprisonment, or
both, at the discretion of the Court ; and that if any person after being
so convicted shall offend a second time and be convicted, he may be
adjudged, at the discretion of the Court, either to suffer the punishment
of fine or imprisonment, or both, or to be banished from the United
Kingdom, and all other parts of the Sovereign’s dominions, for such
term of years as the Court in which such conviction shall take place
shall order; and in case the person so adjudged to be banished shall
not depart from the United Kingdom within thirty days after the pro
nouncing of such sentence, for the purpose of going into banishment,
he may be conveyed to such parts out of the dominions of the Sove
reign, as the Sovereign, by the advice of the Privy Council, may
direct. If the person sentenced to be banished, after the end of forty
days from the time the sentence has been pronounced, is at large within
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THE LAWS RELATING TO
any part of the United Kingdom, or any other part of the Sovereign’s
dominions, without some lawful cause, before the expiration of the term
tor which the offender has been adjudged to be banished, every such
offender being so at large and being thereof convicted, shall be transported to such place as the Sovereign shall appoint for any term not
exceeding fourteen years. This statute still remains in force with the
exception of the provisions as to punishment by banishment, which are
repealed by 7 Will. IV. and 1 Viet., c. 5.”
I shall not trouble here as to the jurisdiction of the
Ecclesiastical Courts j the legist I referred to early in this
address writes : “ So recently as 1842 and 1845 proceedings
have been taken in the Ecclesiastical Courts for publishing
doctrines contrary to the articles of religion ; but it may, I
think, be regarded as certain that this jurisdiction, so far as
laymen are concerned, is extinct to the extent to which the
temporal courts have assumed jurisdiction to punish blas
phemy.”
. The common . law is, in every matter, gathered from the
dicta of judges in reported cases, and the leading cases are
mostly collected in Folkard. The first instance, he says,
of a “ prosecution for words reflecting on religion,” is of
one Atwood, convicted in the 15th year of James I. (Croke’s
Reports, Jacobus, 421), for saying, “ the religion now pro
fessed was a new religion within fifty years; preaching is
but prating and hearing of service more edifying than two
hours’ preaching.” I cannot tell why Folkard calls this the
first prosecution for words against religion, as I find several
other reported cases earlier in date, the first reported being
that of John Wickliffe, 51st Edward III. (1377), and in
6th Richard II. (1383); then the case of William Sautre,
2nd Henry IV. (1400); of William Thorpe, 8th Henry IV.
(I4°7)l J°hn Badby, 10th Henry IV. (1409); Sir John
Oldcastle, 1st Henry V. (1413). The case of Sautre is the
only one specially important here, and this only because of
the legal notes on the statutes against heresy of Richard III.,
c- 5? 2nd Henry IV., c. 15, 1st and 2nd Philip and Mary,
c. 6, added to the report. As the 1st Elizabeth, c. 1, s. 6,
repealed all the then existing statutes as to heresy, I quote
only the final note :—
“ So that at this day a person convicted of heresy is liable only to
excommunication, and such pains and disabilities as persons standing
excommunicated for any other offence (which, however, are not very
light), for if the excommunicate person be not reconciled to Holy
Church within forty days, he is liable to be taken by the civil powers
�BLASPHEMY AND HERESY.
II
- under the writ de excommunicato capiendo, and to, be imprisoned until he
be so reconciled.”—(Cobbett’s “ State Trials,” Vol. i., p. 176.)
This, apparently, might still be enforced, and. Corner’s.
“ Crown Practice ” provides for the issue and execution of
the writ de excommunicato capiendo.
The next case reported in Cobbett’s “State Trials,” vol. v.,
801, is of proceedings in the House of Commons against
James Nayler for blasphemy. James Nayler is incorrectly
called a Quaker, but seems to have been a religious mad
man who had been formerly an officer under Cromwell.
His case is only important here from the language of the
Lord Commissioner Whitelocke in giving judgment. It
was sought to put Nayler to death, and Whitelocke, who
■ gave judgment against this punishment, said : “ I think it
not improper first to consider the signification of the word
blasphemy, and what it comprehends in the extensiveness
of it; and I take it to comprehend, the reviling or cursing
the name of God, or of our neighbour.” And Gregorius
Turonensis, in his appendix, Cap. 51, has, 1 Liberare
poteras de blasphemia hanc causam.’ From whence the
French word Blasme (now written blatne} and our English
Blame. Spelman says it is £ increpare, vel convitiis aliquam
afficere.’ Params derives it from /3>Awtsj tA (pufBiv, i,e. lsesio
famae. And this in relation to men as well as to God.”
The Lord Commissioner Whitelocke further said:—
“It is held that the Ordinance of the Long Parliament concerning
blasphemy is not now in force, and I do agree to that opinion ; nor do
I know any other law in that case. That ordinance cost much debate,
and therein was a. great diversity of judgments ; and so I presume we
shall again find it, whensoever these matters shall fall under considera
tion. The objection was very weightily urged : That there is a law in
force against heresy, as appear by the writ De Haretico combtirendo,
which (they say) was by the Common Law ; and that blasphemy is an
heresy within.that law, by which he may be put to death. This objec
tion may receive a clear answer.
“I am not of opinion, that heresy was punishable by the Common
Law with death, notwithstanding the writ De Hceretico comburendo be
m the Register ; for it is not in the ancient manuscript registers, which,
indeed, is a true part and demonstration of the Common Law.
But this writ was of later date, and brought in by Arundel, Arch
bishop of Canterbury, in Henry IV. ’s time, for the punishment and
suppression of Lollards, who were good Christians, and of the same
profession that we are. But the bloody practice of that prelate did not
work with the effect he intended, as appears (blessed be God) at this
<ak" pet, if it should be admitted that heresy was punishable by death
at the Common Law, that cannot include blasphemy.
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THE LAWS RELATING TO
“ They are offences of a different nature; heresy is Crimen Judicii, an
erroneous opinion ; blasphemy is Crimen Malitia, a reviling the name
and honour of God. Heresy was to be declared in particular, and by
tie four first General Councils. But the blasphemy in this Vote is gene
ral ; and I do not find it reckoned in those Councils for heresy.
“ I remember a case in our Book of Henry VII., where the bishop
committed one to prison for a heretic, and the heresy was denying ‘ that
tythes were due to his parson.’ This at that time was a very great
heresy, but now I believe some are inclinable to think that to say
‘ tythes are due to the parson,’ is a kind of heresy.
“ So in this case, that which now may be accounted blasphemy, and
the offender to be put to death for it, in another age the contrary may
be esteemed blasphemy, and the offender likewise put to death for
that.”
The writ de heretico comburendo was abolished in 1677 by
the.following statute of 29 Charles II., cap. 9, which I quote
entire, because of the importance of its final clause—
“An Act for takeing away the Writt De Heretico cumburendo.
Bee it enacted by the Kings most excellent Majestie by and with the
advice and consent of the lords spirituall and temporall and commons
in this present Parlyament assembled and by the authoritie of the same
that the writt commonly called breve de heretico comburendo with all
processe and proceedings thereupon in order to the executeing such
writt or following or depending thereupon and all punishment by death
in pursuance of any ecclesiasticall censures be from henceforth utterly
taken away and abolished any law statute canon constitution custome or
usage to the contrary heretofore or now in force in any wise notwith
standing.
“ Provided alwayes that nothing in this Act shall extend or be con
strued to take away or abridge the jurisdiction of Protestant Arch
bishops or bishops or any other judges of any ecclesiasticall courts in
cases of atheisme blasphemy heresie or schisme and other damnable
doctrines and opinions but that they may proceede to punish the same
according to his Majesties ecclesiasticall lawes by excommunication
deprivation degradation and other ecclesiasticall censures not extending
to death in such sort and noe other as they might have done before the
makeing of this Act anything in this law contained to the contrary in
any wise notwithstanding.”
The Ordinance of the Long Parliament referred to by
the Lord Commissioner Whitelocke, was dated 2nd May,
1648, and ordains, that whoever should maintain any one of
the several opinions (there called Errors), unless he would
abjure the same, or after abjuration shall relapse, should be
guilty of felony without benefit of clergy. While it is clear
that this ordinance ceased, the statute book does not enable
me to trace its repeal, nor do I know how it was determined.
Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, under the head “ Heresies,”
says :—
“ Every person who is guilty of atheism, blasphemy, heresy, schism,
�BLASPHEMY AND HERESY.
13
or any other damnable doctrine or opinion (not punishable at common
law) may, upon conviction thereof before a competent ecclesiastical
court, be directed to recant the same and to do penance therefor, and to
be excommunicated and imprisoned for such term, not exceeding six
months, as the Court pronouncing the sentence of excommunication
may direct.”
Under the head “ Denying Truth of Christianity,” &c.,
Stephen says :—
“Everyone commits a misdemeanour and upon conviction thereof is
liable to the punishments hereinbefore mentioned, who having been
educated in, or at any time having made profession of, the Christian
religion within this realm, by writing, printing, teaching, or advised
speaking, denies the Christian religion to be true, or the holy scriptures
of the Old and New Testament to be of Divine authority.”
Folkard says in Rex v. Taylor the defendant was con
victed upon an information for saying that “Jesus Christ
was a bastard and whoremaster ; religion was a cheat; and
that he neither feared God, the devil, nor man.” Hale, C.J.,
obseryed: “ that such kind of wicked and blasphemous
words were not only an offence against God and religion,
but a crime against the laws, state, and government, and,
therefore, punishable in this (?>., King’s Bench) court; that
to say religion is a cheat is to dissolve all those obligations
whereby civil societies are preserved ; and Christianity being
parcel of the laws of England, therefore, to reproach the
Christian religion is to speak in subversion of the law.” It
seems clear that this poor man was a raving lunatic. He
claimed to be Christ’s younger brother.
To quote once more my legist friend
“ If we consider the observations of Lord Justice Hale, we shall be
led to doubt whether a judgment was ever pronounced in a civilized
country, by an eminent man, which contrived to pack so much
nonsense in so little space. His observation that Christianity is part
of the law of England, introduced a legal conundrum of which gene
rations of lawyers have gravely tried to find the meaning, though,
hitherto, without any success. What follows is an amusing nonseqtiitur. If Christianity is part of the law, surely, like all other parts
of the law, it may be spoken against. We have not yet got to the point
that it is a crime to object to a bad law, or propose a good one. When
the learned judge tells us that to say religion is a cheat is to dissolve
all the obligations of society, he omits a few rather essential links. It
contains no fewer than five assumptions. First of all, he assumes that
no society can exist which has no religion. Secondly, he assumes
that no society can exist which does not profess the Christian religion.
Thirdly, he forgets that before society can be dissolved, religion must
first be dissolved ; he assumes that if anyone expresses his opinion that
religion ought to be dissolved, that is the same thing as actually per
suading everyone to adopt his views. A bedlamist blows the trumpet
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THE LAWS RELATING TO
and forthwith the whole edifice of religion falls to the ground. Every
one of these assumptions is contradicted by every-day experience, and
yet it. is upon such a tissue of puerile and unproved assumptions that
the criminal court in England have assumed jurisdiction to punish any
person who contradicts the generally received opinions on religion. It
is worthy of notice that the excellent man who simply repeated on the
Bench the nonsense he had been taught in school, was a firm believer
in witchcraft, and quotes both Scripture and legislators in favour of the
doctrine that we ought not to suffer a witch to live. In 1664 Sir
Matthew Hale sentenced two old women to be hung in Suffolk He
said the reality of witchcraft could not be disputed, ‘ for, first the
Scriptures had affirmed so much; and, secondly, the wisdom of all
nations had provided laws against such persons, which is an argument
of their confidence of such a crime (Lecky, 1., p. no).”
In the cases of Clendon and Hall,'5 says Folkard, <£ the
defendants were convicted of having published libellous
reflections on the Trinity j and it does not seem to have
been doubted in those cases that they were offences at
common law.”
The note on these cases in Strange’s “ Reports ” is very
brief, and the point which Folkard. says was not doubted,
does not seem to have been argued.
“ In the case of Rex v. Woolston, the defendant had been
convicted of publishing five libels, wherein the miracles of
Jesus Christ were turned into ridicule, and his life and con
versation exposed and vilified. It was moved in arrest of
judgment that the offence was not punishable in the tem
poral courts ; but the Court declared they would not suffer
it to be debated whether to write against Christianity in
general was not an offence of temporal cognisance. It was
contended on the part of the defendant, that the intent of the
book was merely to show that the miracles of Jesus were not
to be taken in a literal but in an allegorical sense, and, there
fore, that the book could not be considered as aimed at
Christianity in general, but merely as attacking one proof of
the divine mission. But the Court was of opinion that the
attacking Christianity in that way was attempting to destroy
the very foundation of it; and though there were professions
in the book to the effect that the design of it was to establish
Christianity upon a true foundation, by considering those
narratives in Scripture as emblematical and prophetical,
yet that such professions could not be credited ; and that
the rule was allegatio contra factum non est admittenda.
And the Court, in declaring that they would not suffer it to
be debated whether writing against Christianity in general was
�BLASPHEMY AND HERESY.
15
a temporal offence, devised that it might be noticed that
they laid their stress upon the term general, and did not in
tend to include disputes between learned men upon parti
cular controverted points; and Lord Raymond, C.J., in
delivering the opinion of the Court, said, ‘ I would have it
taken notice of, that we do not meddle with any differences
in opinion, and that we interfere only where the very root
of Christianity is struck at; ’ and with him agreed the whole
Court.”
This case is reported in Strange, 834, Fitzgibbon, 64, and
Barnard, 162 ; but the difficulty is that a judge trying the
question, say on Colenso’s “ Commentary on the Penta
teuch,” might hold that in parts of this you had the very
root of Christianity assailed.
The following is the report of Woolston’s case, given in
Fitzgibbon Pasch, 2 George II., B. R. page 64 :—
“The defendant having published several discourses on the Miracles
of Christ, in which he maintained that the same are not to be taken
in a literal sense, but that the whole relation of the life and miracles of
our Lord Christ in the New Testament is but an allegory, several in
formations were brought against him, in which it was laid that the
defendant published those discourses with an intent to vilify and sub
vert the Christian religion ; and he, being found guilty, Mr. Morley
moved in arrest of judgment, that those discourses did not amount to
a libel upon Christianity, since the Scriptures are not denied, but
construed and taken in a different meaning from that they are usually
understood in ; and by the same reason that making such a construction,
should be punishable by the common law, so it would have been
punishable by the common law before the Reformation, to have taken
the doctrine of TransubStantiation allegorically; now as the common
law has continued the same since the Reformation that it was before
whatever was punishable by it before, continues so likewise since the
Reformation ; so that this being not now a crime by the common law,
nor was it before the Reformation, when it was held literally a part of
Christianity ; neither is the allegory made by the defendant, by the
same reason, a crime punishable by the common law ; so that if this
be a crime, it must be of ecclesiastical conusance ; and it may be of a
very dangerous tendency to encourage prosecutions of this nature in
the temporal couits, since it may give occasion to the carrying on of
prosecutions for a meer difference in opinion, which is tolerated by
law : he urged that the defendant would have been proceeded against
upon the Statute 10, W. III., cap. 32, by which, for denying
Christianity, the first offence incapacitates the offender to hold any
office, &c., so that this Act having chalk’d out a special method of
punishment, and being made for the benefit of the subject, the defen
dant should be proceeded against according to its direction ; then he
offered, that though it should be admitted, the discourses did amount
to a libel upon Christianity, yet the common law has not cognisance of
such an offence ; but it being opposed, that this should now be made a
�16
THE LAWS RELATING TO
question, it having been settled in Taylor’s case, I Vent., 293, and in
other instances ’twas answered by—
“Raymond, Chief Justice: Christianity in general is parcel of the
common law of England, and therefore to be protected by it; now
■whatever strikes at the very root of Christianity, tends manifestly to a
dissolution of the civil government, and so was the opinion of my
Lord Hale in Taylor’s case; so that to say an attempt to subvert the
established religion is not punishable by those laws upon which it is
established is an absurdity ; if this were an entirely new case, I should
not think it a proper question to be made; I would have it taken
notice of, that we do not meddle with any differences in opinion, and
that we interfere only where the very root of Christianity is struck at,
as it plainly is by this allegorical scheme, the New Testament, and the
whole relation of the life and miracles of Christ being denied ; and
who can find this allegory.
“As to the 9 and 10 W. III., ’Tis true, where a statute introduces
a new law, and inflicts a new punishment, it must be followed ; but
w’hen an Act of Parliament only inflicts a new punishment for an
offence at common law, it remains an offence still punishable as it
was before the Act; so ’tis in a case of forgery, which notwithstanding
the 5 Eliz. remains still punishable, as it was before the statute; and
with him agreed the whole Court.”
The next case in Folkard is that of Jacob Ilive. “An
information was filed against him by the AttorneyGeneral (afterwards the famous Lord Camden), for
publishing a profane and blasphemous libel, tending to
vilify and subvert the Christian religion, and to blaspheme
our Saviour Jesus Christ, to cause his divinity to be denied,
to represent him as an impostor, to scandalize, ridicule,
and bring into contempt his most holy life and doctrine,
and to cause the truth of the Christian religion to be
disbelieved and totally rejected, by representing the same
as spurious and chimerical, and a piece of forgery and
priestcraft.” This case is to be found in the reports of
Hilary Term, 1756.
“ In the case of Peter Annett an information was ex
hibited against him in Michaelmas Term, 1763, by the
Attorney-General, for a certain malignant, profane, and
blasphemous libel, entitled ‘ The Free Inquirer,’ tending to
blaspheme Almighty God, and to ridicule, traduce, and dis
credit his Holy Scriptures, particularly the Pentateuch, and
to represent, and cause it to be believed, that the prophet
Moses was an imposter, and that the sacred truths and
miracles recorded and set forth in the Pentateuch were im
positions and false inventions, and thereby to diffuse and
propagate irreligious and diabolical opinions in the minds of
�BLASPHEMY AND HERESY.
His Majesty’s subjects, and to shake the foundations of the
Christian religion, and of the civil and ecclesiastical govern
ment established in this kingdom. Being convicted on this
information, the defendant was sentenced by the Court of
King’s Bench to one month’s imprisonment in Newgate, to
stand twice in the pillory (once at Charing Cross and once
at the Royal Exchange), then to be confined in Bridewell
gaol, and kept to hard labour for one year, and to find
security for his good behaviour for the remainder of his
life.” The punishment of pillory was finally abolished on
30th June, 1837, by 1st Victoria, cap. 23, having been
already swept away in many cases by 56 Geo. Ill,
cap. 138.
“ In the case of John Wilkes, an information was exhibited
against him in Hilary Term, 1763, by the Attorney-General
(Sir Fletcher Norton), for publishing an obscene and impious
libel, tending to vitiate and corrupt the minds and manners
of His Majesty’s subjects; to introduce a total contempt of
religion, modesty, and virtue ; to blaspheme Almighty God;
and to ridicule our Saviour and the Christian religion ” (see
Jesse’s “Life of George III.,” vol. i., p. 210; Phillimore’s
“ George III.,” vol. i., p. 374).
“ In The King v. Williams the defendant was (tried at
Guildhall, before Lord Chief Justice Kenyon, and) convicted
of having published a libel, intituled, ‘ Paine’s Age of
Reason,’ which denied the authority of the Old and New
Testament, and asserted that reason was the only rule by
which the conduct of men ought to be guided, and ridiculed
the prophets, Jesus Christ, his disciples and the Scriptures.
Upon being brought up for sentence, Mr. Justice Ashurst
observed that such doctrines were an offence not only
against God, but against law and government, from their
direct tendency to dissolve all the bonds and obligations of
civil society ; and upon that ground it was that the Chris
tian religion constituted part of the law of the land; that if
the name of our Redeemer was suffered to be traduced,
and his holy religion treated with contempt, the solemnity
of an oath, on which the due administration of justice de
pended, would be destroyed, and the law would be stripped
of one of its principal sanctions—the dread of future
punishment.” It this ruling be correct, it would involve
that all argument against eternal torment would be in
dictable.
B
�THE LAWS RELATING TO
The case of Kingw. Williams is reported in 26 How;ell’s
“ State Trials,” p. 664, and is specially noteworthy for the
brave defence made by the counsel for the prisoner, Mr.
Stewart Kyd, who was frequently interrupted by Lord
Kenyon, but who persevered most gallantly. Mr. Erskine,
who was counsel for the prosecution, said : “ Every man has
a right to investigate, with decency, controversial points
of the Christian religion; but no man, consistently with a
law which only exists under its sanction, has a right to deny
its very existence,” and he contended that “ the law of
England does not permit the reasonings of Deists against
the existence of Christianity itself.” Mr. Kyd, in the course
of his defence, examined the words “ blasphemously, impi
ously, and profanely,” used in the indictment. He said,
“ Blasphemously” is derived from two Greek words, which
signify, “ to hurt, to injure, or to wound, the fame, character,
reputation, or good opinion.” “ Profanely ” is derived more
immediately from a Latin word, which signifies “ a sacred
place, a place set apart for the local worship of some
divinity; a place where the favoured votaries may be
received to a more immediate communication with the
object of their adoration : in the language of ancient legends,
a fane.” “ Profane,” when applied to place, comprehends
all that 'is not thus considered as holy ground : when applied
to men it is considered as a term of reproach; implying
that they are unworthy to approach the sacred spot; un
worthy to have communication with the favoured votaries :
to do anything “ profanely,” therefore, is to do it “ in a
manner, or with an intention, to offend that which is
esteemed holy;” or, as all subordinate divinities are now
banished from hence, “ in a manner, or with an intention
to offend the one supreme God.” “ Impiously” is derived
from the Latin word pius, which expresses the attachment,
affection, respect, or reverence which is due from man to
some other being to whom he stands in the relation of an
inferior; as between a son and a father, it expresses filial
affection; as between man and the Deity, it expresses the
constant and habitual reverence due from the former to the
latter; to do anything “ impiously,” therefore, is to do it
££ in a manner or with an intention inconsistent with
that reverence which is due from a man to his Creator.”
It is plain, therefore, that according to the different
systems of religious opinions which men embrace, they will
�BLASPHEMY AND HERESY.
I9
apply the epithets of blasphemous, impious, and profane
reciprocally to each other, and frequently, I will venture to
say, with equal justice.”
“ In the case of the King v. Eaton, in Easter Term,
1812, the defendant was convicted upon an information
filed by Sir Vicary Gibbs, the Attorney-General, of having
published an impious libel, representing Jesus Christ as an
impostor, the Christian religion as a mere fable, and those
who believed in it as infidels to God. Upon being brought
up to receive judgment, though his counsel addressed
the Court in mitigation of punishment, no exception was
taken to the legality or propriety of the conviction. It
appears, therefore, to have been long ago settled that blas
phemy against the Deity in general, or an attack upon the
Christian religion individually, for the purpose of exposing
its doctrines to contempt and ridicule, is indictable and
punishable as a temporal offence at common law. The
same doctrine has been fully recognised in several subse
quent cases. [The King v. Eaton is reported in 31 Howell’s
“State Trials,”927. Lord Ellenborough,in summing up,said:
“ In a free country, where religion is fenced round by the
laws, and where that religion depends on the doctrines that
are derived from the sacred writings, to deny the truth of the
book which is the foundation of our faith, has never been per
mitted.” Eaton was sentenced to the pillory and to eighteen
months’imprisonment.] In Rex v. Carlile, where the defendant,
having been convicted of publishing two blasphemous libels,
was in Mich. 7, 60 Geo. III., sentenced to pay a fine of
^1500, to be imprisoned for three years, and to find sure
ties for his good behaviour for the term of his life.
“ Also, in the case of Rex v. Waddington, and in Rex v.
Taylor, who was sentenced to pay a fine, and to suffer one
year’s imprisonment, for a blasphemous discourse. And in
a still more recent case, it was held to be an indictable
offence at common law to publish a blasphemous libel of
and concerning the Old. Testament, and Lord Denman,
Chief Justice, directed the jury that if they thought the
publication tended to question or cast disgrace upon the
Old Testament, it was a libel.”
The King against Waddington is reported in Barnewall
and Creswell, vol. i., p. 26, and was argued 14th November,
1822, as follows :—
“ This was an information by the Attorney-General against the defen
�20
THE LAWS RELATING TO
dant for a blasphemous libel. The effect of the libel set out in the in
formation was to impugn the authenticity of the Scriptures; and one
part of it stated that Jesus Christ was an impostor and a murderer in
principle, and a fanatic. The defendant was tried at the Middlesex
sittings after last Trinity Term and convicted. Before the verdict was
pronounced, one of the jurymen asked the Lord Chief Justice whether
a work which denied the divinity of our Saviour was a libel. The
Lord Chief Justice answered that a work speaking of Jesus Christ in
the language used in the publication in question was a libel, Christianity
being a part of the law of the land. The defendant, in person, now
moved for a new trial, and urged that the Lord Chief Justice had mis
directed the jury by stating that any publication in which the divinity
of Jesus Christ was denied was an unlawful libel; and he argued, that
since the 53 Geo. III., c. 160, was passed, the denying one of the
persons of the Trinity to be God was no offence, and, consequently,
that a publication in support of such a position was not a libel.
“Abbott, C.J.—I told the jury that apy publication in which our
Saviour was spoken of in the language used in the publication for
which the defendant was prosecuted was a libel. I have no doubt
whatever that it is a libel to publish that our Saviour was an impostor
and a murderer in principle.
“Bayley, J.—It appears to me that the direction of my Lord Chief
Justice was perfectly right. The 53 Geo. iii., c. 160, removes the penal
ties imposed by certain statutes referred to in the Act, and leaves the
common law as it stood before. There cannot be any doubt that a
work which does not merely deny the Godhead of Jesus Christ, but
which states him to be an impostor and a murderer in principle was, at
Common Law, and still is, a libel.
“ Holroyd, J.—I have no doubt whatever that any publication in
which our Saviour is spoken of in the language used in the work which
was the subject of this prosecution is a libel. The direction of the
Lord Chief Justice was therefore right in point of law, and there is no
ground for a new trial.
“Best, J.—My Lord Chief Justice reports to us that he told the jury
that it was an indictable offence to speak of Jesus Christ in the manner
that he is spoken of in the publication for which this defendant is in
dicted. I cannot admit of the least doubt that this direction was
correct. The 53 Geo. III., c. 160, has made no alteration in the Com
mon Law relative to libel. If previous to the passing of that statute, it
would have been a libel to deny in any printed work the divinity of the
second person in the Trinity, the same publication would be a libel
now. The 53 Geo. III., c. 160, as its title expresses, is an Act to re
lieve persons who impugn the doctrine of the Trinity from certain
penalties. If we look at the body of the Act to see from what
penalties such persons are relieved,- we find that they are the
penalties from which the 1 Wm. and Mary, sec. I, c. 18, exempted all
Protestant Dissenters, except such as denied the Trinity, and the penal
ties or disabilities which the 9 and 10 Wm. III. imposed on those who
denied the Trinity. The 1 Wm. and Mary, sec. 1, c. 18, is, as it has
been usually called, an Act of Toleration, or one which allows Dissenters
to worship God in the mode that is agreeable to their religious opinions,
and exempts them from punishment lor non-attendance at the Estab
lished Church, and non-conformity to its rites.
The legislature in
passing that Act only thought of easing the consciences of Dissenters,
�BLASPHEMY AND HERESY.
2T
and not of allowing them to attempt to weaken the faith of the mem
bers of the Church. The 9 and 10 Wm. III. was to give security to
the Government, by rendering men incapable of office who entertained
opinions hostile to the established religion. The only penalty imposed
by that statute is exclusion from office ; and that penalty is incurred
by any manifestations of the dangerous opinion, without proof of in
tention in the person entertaining it either to induce others to be of
that opinion, or in any manner to disturb persons of a different per
suasion.
“ This statute rested on the principle of the Test Laws, and did not in
terfere with the common law relative to blasphemous libels. It is not
necessary for me to say, whether it be libellous to argue from the Scrip
tures against the divinity of Christ ; that is not what the defendant
professes to do. He argues against the divinity of Christ by denying
the truth of the Scriptures. A work containing such arguments, pub
lished maliciously (which the jury in this case have found), is by the
common law a libel; and the legislature has never altered this law,
nor can it ever do so whilst the Christian religion is considered to be
the basis of that law.”
In the case of Rex v. Burdett, 4 Barnewall and Alder-,
son, p. 132, Mr. Justice Best said : “ Every man may fear
lessly advance any new doctrines, provided he does so
with proper respect to the religion and government of the
country.”
The more recent case above referred to by Folkard is
the case of the Queen v. Henry Hetherington, reported in 5
Jurist, p. 330 (Hilary Term, 1841). Mr. Thomas, counsel
for Henry Hetherington, moved in arrest of judgment or
for a new trial—
“ L. C. J. Denman.—You are too late to move for a new trial; the
practice is to move within the first four days of Term, and then to
postpone the argument until the party is brought up for judgment.
. “ Mr. Thomas then, in arrest of judgment.—The offence laid in the in
dictment is not punishable at Common Law. The indictment sets out a
libel only upon the Old Testament, and there is no caseof an indictment
for a publication in discussing matters contained in the Old Testament.
All the cases of indictment for blasphemy against the Holy Scriptures
are for matters directed against Christianity and religion together. The
first case which is said to have decided that Christianity is part and
parcel of the Common Law of England is in the Year Book (34 Hen. VI.,
p. 40); but that opinion seems to be founded on a mistranslation
[The case was quare impedit against the Bishop of Lincoln ; and the
passage, which is obscure, is as follows
Priast. Atielx Leis que ils
de Saint Eglise ont en ancien Scripture, covient a nous a donner
credence ; car ceo Common Ley sur quel touts mannieres Leis sont
fondes. Et anxy, Sir, nous sumus obliges de connotre lour Ley de Saint
Eglise ; et semblablement ils sont obliges de connotre nostre Ley.” It
may be thus translated :—“As to such laws as they of the Holy Church
have in ancient Scripture, it is proper for us to give credence; for that
�22
THE LAWS RELATING TO
[as it were] common law, on which all sorts [of] laws are founded.
And thus, Sir, we are obliged to take cognisance of their law of Holy
Church ; and likewise they are obliged to take the same cognisance of
our law.” Wingate evidently grounds his third maxim on the above
passage : “ To such lawes as have warrant in Holy Scripture, our law
giveth credence, et contra.” Maximes, p. 6] ; and all the cases down
to R. v. Woolston, 2 Str. 834, S. C. more fully in Fitzg. 64, proceed
upon that mistranslation. R. v. Taylor (3 Keb. 607 ; 1 Ventr. 293),
in which Hale, C.J., said ‘The Christian religion is a part and parcel
of the laws of England, ’ is a leading authority ; but what reliance can
be placed on the opinion of that judge on this matter, seeing he held
witchcraft punishable at common law ? (6 How. “ St. Tr.,” 701, 702).
[Lord Chief Justice Denman.—Hale, C.B., refers to the enactments
of the statute law, and expressly to the Act of Parliament “which,” he
says, “hath provided punishments proportionable to the quality of the
offence.”] Besides, at the time of the case referred to, all witnesses
must have been sworn on the Bible or New Testament, but that is now
altered ; and, therefore, the reason for holding that an attack upon
Christianity would dissolve and weaken the bonds of society, viz., by
overthrowing or weakening the confidence of testimony given in courts,
of justice, no longer exists.
“ Lord Chief Justice Denman.—There is no ground for granting a
rule in this case. Though in most of the cases, I believe not in all, the
libel has been against the New Testament ; yet the Old Testament is
so connected with the New that it is impossible that such a publication
as this could be uttered without reflecting upon Christianity in general;
and, therefore, I think an attack upon the Old Testament of the nature
described in the indictment is clearly indictable. It is our duty to
abide by the law as laid down by our predecessors, and, taking the cases
which have been referred to as assigning the limits within which a publi
cation becomes a blasphemous libel, the publication in question is one.
As to the argument, that the relaxation of oaths is a reason for depart
ing from the law laid down in the old cases, we could not accede to it
without saying that there is no mode by which religion holds society
together but the administration of oaths ; but that is not so, for religion,
without reference to oaths, contains the most powerful sanctions for
good conduct ; and, I may observe, that those who have desired the
dispensation from the taking of oaths to be extended, have done so from
respect to religion, not from indifference to it.
“ Littledale, J.—The Old Testament, independently of its connection
with and of its prospective reference to Christianity, contains the law of
Almighty God ; and, therefore, I have no doubt that this is a libel in
law as it has been found to be in fact by the jury.
“Patterson, J.—The alleged mistranslation of a passage in the Year
Book referred to is not material, because there are other abundant
authorities ; and it is certain that the Christian religion is part of the
law of the land. The argument is reduced to this, that an indictment
for libel is to be confined to blasphemy against the New Testament.
But such an argument is scarcely worth anything because it is impossible
to say that the Old and the New Testament rare not so intimately con
nected, that if the one is true, the other is true also ; and the evidence
of Christianity partly consists of the prophecies in the Old Testament
• “ Rule refused.”
�BLASPHEMY AND HERESY.
23
The following are the notes of W. C. Townsend, Recorder
of Macclesfield, appended to his extremely imperfect report
of the trial of Mr. Moxon, who, on June 23, 1841, was, on
the prosecution of Henry Hetherington, found guilty of
blasphemy in publishing Shelley’s Works, and I give these
notes here as bearing upon the ruling in Taylor’s case;—
“ Archbishop Whately, in his preface to the ‘ Elements of
Rhetoric,’ has cited a declaration of the highest legal autho
rity, that Christianity is part of the law of the land, and,
consequently, any one who impugns it is liable to prosecu
tion. What is the precise meaning of the above legal maxim
I do not profess to determine, having never met with any one
who could explain it to me, but evidently the mere circum
stance that we have religion by law established does not of
itself imply the' illegality of arguing against that religion.
It seems difficult to render more intelligible a maxim
which has perplexed so learned a critic. Christianity was
pronounced to be part of the common law7, in contradistinc
tion to the ecclesiastical law, for the purpose of proving that
the temporal courts, as well as the courts spiritual, had juris
diction over offences against it. Blasphemies against God
and religion are properly cognizable by the law of the land,
as they disturb the foundations on which the peace and good
order of society rest, root up the principle of positive laws
and penal restraints, and remove the chief sanctions for
truth, without which no question of property could be
decided, and no criminal brought to justice. Christianity
is part of the common law as its root and branch, its main
stay and pillar—as much a component part of that law as
the government and maintenance of social order. The
inference of the learned archbishop seems scarcely accurate,
that all who impugn this part of the law7 must be prosecuted.
It does not follow, because Christianity is part of the law of
England, that every one who impugns it is liable to prose
cution. The manner of and motives for the assault are the
true tests and criteria. Scoffing, flippant, railing comments,
not serious arguments, are considered offences at common
law, and justly punished, because they shock the pious no
less than deprave the ignorant and young. The law is
clearly laid down in 4 Blackstone, 59 ; 1 Hawkins’s ‘ Pleas
of the Crown,’ c. 5 ; 1 Viner’s Abrid., p. 293 ; 2 Strange,
p. 834; and 1 Ventris, 293. We may argue against the
government by kings, lords, and commons, but must not
slander and revile them.
�:4
THE LAWS RELATING TO
“The meaning of Chief Justice Hale cannot be expressed
more plainly than in his own words. An information was
exhibited against one Taylor, for uttering blasphemous
expressions too horrible to repeat. Hale, C. J., observed
that:
“‘Such kind of wicked, blasphemous words were not only an
offence to God and religion, but a crime against the laws, state, and
government, and, therefore, punishable in the Court of King’s Bench.
For to say religion is a cheat, is to subvert all those obligations whereby
civil society is preserved; that Christianity is part of the laws of
England, and to reproach the Christian religion is to speak in subversion
of the law.’
“To remove all possibility of further doubt the Commis
sioners on Criminal Law have thus clearly explained their
sense of the celebrated passage :—•
“ ‘The meaning of the expression used by Lord Hale that “Chris
tianity was parcel of the laws of England,” though often cited in sub
sequent cases, has, we think, been much misunderstood. It appears
to us that the expression can only mean, either that as a great part of
the securities of our legal system consist of judicial and official oaths
sworn upon the gospels, Christianity is closely interwoven with our
municipal law ; or that the laws of England, like all municipal laws of
a Christian country, must, on principles of general jurisprudence, be
subservient to the positive rules of Christianity. In this sense Chris
tianity may justly be said to be incorporated with the law of England,
so as to form parcel of it; and it was probably in this sense that Lord
Hale intended the expression should be understood. At all events, in
whatsoever sense the expression is to be understood, it does not
appear to us to supply any reason in favour of the rule that arguments
may not be used against it; for it is not criminal to speak or write
either against the common law of England generally or against par
ticular portions of it, provided it be not done in such a manner as to
endanger the public peace by exciting forcible resistance, so that the
statement that Christianity is parcel of the law of England, which has
been so often urged in justification of laws against blasphemy, however
true it may be as a general proposition, certainly furnishes no addi
tional argument for the propriety of such laws.’
“ If blasphemy means a railing accusation, then it is, and
ought to be, forbidden.
“ The following judicious opinion of the Commissioners
on Criminal Law, in their sixth report, will, we think, meet
with general assent:—
“ ‘ The course hitherto adopted in England respecting offences of
this kind has been to withhold the application of the penal law, unless
in cases where insulting or contumacious language is used, and where it
may fairly be presumed that the intention of the offender is not grave
�BLASPHEMY AND HERESY.
25
discussion but a mischievous design to wound the feelings of others, or
to injure the authority of Christianity, with the vulgar and unthinking,
by improper means. For although the law distinctly forbids all denial
of the being and providence of God, or the truth of the Christian reli
gion, works in which infidelity is professed and defended have been
frequently published, and have undergone no legal question or prosecu
tion ; and it is only where irreligion has assumed the form of blasphemy
in its true and primitive meaning, and has constituted an insult both to
God and man, that the interference of criminal law has taken place.
There is no instance, we believe, of the prosecution of a writer or
speaker, who has applied himself seriously to examine into the truth in
this most important of all subjects, and who, arriving in his own con
victions of scepticism or even unbelief, has gravely and decorously
submitted his opinions to others, without any wanton and malevolent
design to do xmischief. Such conduct, indeed, could not be properly
considered as blasphemy or profaneness; and at the present day, a
prosecution in such a case would probably not meet with general appro
bation. On the other hand, the good sense and right feeling of mankind
have always declared strongly against the employment of abuse and
ribaldry upon subjects of this nature, and although many judicious and
pious persons have thought with Dr. Lardner that it was prudent and
proper to allow great latitude to manner, the application of the penal
law to cases of this kind has usually met with the cordial acquiescence
of public opinion.’ ”
The difficulty is, that what a prosecuting counsel or a
bigoted jury may consider ribald and abusive in one case,
an enlightened judge and tolerant jury may hold to be fair
argument in another. Shelley’s poems were then held to be
blasphemous, and as the law stands could be again indicted
to-day, yet one may certainly affirm that public opinion
would now unanimously ridicule any such indictment.
It is a curious illustration of the growth of public opinion
that the present Lord Blackburn on delivering judgment in
the Queen v. Hicklin, said : “ I hope I may not be under
stood to agree with what the jury found, that the publica
tion of ‘Queen Mab’ was sufficient to make it an indictable
offence.”
The most modern amongst the reported cases are found
in Scotland, Paterson’s case, i Brown, 627, and Robinson’s
case, 1 Brown, 643. Paterson’s case is thus summarised by
Shortt, p. 309 :—
“A person accused of wickedly and feloniously publishing, vend
ing, and exposing for sale certain blasphemous books containing a denial
of the truth and authority of the Holy Scriptures and the Christian
religion, and devised, contrived, and intended to asperse, vilify, ridi
cule, and bring them into contempt, was not allowed, in his speech to
the jury, to quote passages from-the Bible for the purpose of justifying
his opinion of it. ‘No animadversions,’ said the Lord Justice Clerk,
�26
THE LAWS RELATING TO
‘ can have the slightest effect in making the Court swerve from its duty
We tell you what the law is, that the publication of works tending to
vilify the Christian religion is an offence in law; and it is no an ,wer
to say that, in your opinion, the passages contained in those works are
true, and that the Bible deserves the character ascribed to it. If you
can show that the Lord Advocate has mistaken the meaning of these
passages, that they do not deny the truth of the Bible, that they do
not vilify it, that is a point of which the jury will judge.”
In charging the jury, his lordship thus stated the law :—
“The Holy Scriptures and Christian religion are part of the statute
law of the land ; and whatever vilifies them is therefore an infringement
of the law. There can be no controversy in a court of justice as to the
merits or demerits of a law. Our duty is to interpret and explain the
law as established, while it is yours to apply it. Now the law of
Scotland, apart from all questions of Church Establishment or Church
government, has declared that the Holy Scriptures are of supreme
authority. It gives every man the right of regulating his faith or not
by the standard of the Holy Scriptures, and gives full scope to private
judgment regarding the doctrines contained therein ; but it expressly
provides that all ‘blasphemies shall be suppressed,’ and th. t they who
publish opinions ‘contrary to the known principles of Christianity,’
may be lawfully called to account, and proceeded against by the civil
magistrate. This law does not impose on individuals any obligation
as to their belief. It leaves free and independent the right of private
belief, but it carefully protects that which was established as part of
the law from being brought into contempt.”
All deeds, contracts, agreements, trusts or bequests,
which are for the purpose of promoting the utterance or
publication of blasphemy or heresy are void or voidable.
A limited liability company for a hall avowedly for antiChristian lectures would be an illegal undertaking. A
trustee shown to entertain heretical opinions may be re
moved from his trusteeship if that trusteeship involves the
guardianship or education of any child, and if the child
be made a ward of court; a legacy left avowedly for the
propagation of views legally definable as blasphemous or
heretical will be void. The only course for any one desirous
by bequest to aid Freethought is to leave the money, without
restriction in words, to an individual deemed reliable, but
there is then no remedy if the legatee misapplies the funds.
In the case of Bradlaugh v. Edwards, an action brought for
arresting the plaintiff, when he had only uttered the words,
“ Friends, I am about to address you on the Bible,” Lord
Chief Justice Erie, in the Court of Common Pleas, declared
that a wrongful imprisonment, which might have prevented
the intended utterance of heretical views, was not a tort for
which the plaintiff could recover any damages.
�BLASPHEMY AND HERESY.
27
In the case of Cowan v. Milbourn, on appeal from the
Court of Passage at Liverpool, it was held by the Court of
Exchequer that,—
“ The delivery of lectures with the object of endeavouring to show
that the character of Christ was defective, and his teachings erroneous,
and that the Bible was no more inspired than any other book, is
illegal; and where the defendant having agreed to let certain rooms to
the plaintiff for the purpose of delivering lectures afterwards discovered
that the object of the lectures was to propound such doctrines, declined
to allow the rooms to be used for such purposes, in an action by the
plaintiff for breach of contract, it was held, that the defendant might
justify on the ground that the plaintiff intended to use the rooms for
illegal purposes, and a plea to that effect was held to be an answer to
the action.*
This case is reported in Exchequer Reports, and it must
not be forgotten that this is a very modern decision.
Referring particularly to this case, the above-quoted legist
writes :—“ It follows clearly, that if contradicting the pre
vailing religious opinion is a crime, that the courts of law
will be bound to withhold their support to any legal trans
action which is tainted with heresy. Therefore, any con
tract having for its object the publication or promulgation
of opinions which the law will regard as blasphemy, will
necessarily be illegal. The point was decided, if I may
say so, with every circumstance of aggravation, in the
Court of Exchequer in 1867.
The Secretary of the
Liverpool Secular Society hired rooms for two lectures
the subjects of which were advertised in these terms—‘ The Character and Teachings of Christ; the former
defective, the latter misleading,’ and ‘ The Bible shown to
be no more inspired that any other book.’ The Court of
Exchequer, on the authority of the statutes 9 and 10
Will. III., held that ‘it was illegal to deny the Christian
religion to be true or the Holy Scriptures to be of divine
authority. That was the ground taken by Baron Bramwell.
Chief Baron Kelly went, however, a great deal farther, and
said that to maintain that the character of Christ was
defective or his teaching misleading ‘ is a violation of the
first principle of the law, and cannot be done without
blasphemy.’ Baron Martin was apparently ashamed of the
law which he had to administer, and said ‘ I protest against
the notion that this is any punishment of the person advo
cating these opinions. It is merely the case of the owner
of property exercising his rights over its use.’ Here the
�28
THE LAWS RELATING TO
learned Baron was wrong, for he had by contract parted
with his right to use for the times at which the lectures
were to be delivered. Nevertheless, it is but right we
should acknowledge a protest against bigotry from the
Bench.”
Any building, lecture-hall, room, or public place open for
discussion or lectures on Sunday, by payment or ticket, for
which payment has been made, is illegal, and the proprietor
and promoters may be prosecuted for penalties.
Formerly all persons who disbelieved in God, or in a
future state of rewards and punishments, were held to be
incompetent as witnesses ; but after the argument of the
case of Bradlaugh v. De Rin a statute was passed, 32 and
33 Viet., c. 68 (Evidence Amendment Act, 1869), which
enacts—
“ That if any person called to give evidence in any court, whether in
a civil or criminal proceeding, shall object to take an oath, or shall be
objected to as incompetent to take an oath, such person shall, if the
presiding judge is satisfied that the taking of an oath would have no
binding effect on his conscience, make the promise and declaration, the
form of which is contained in the same section.”
The 33 and 34 Viet., c. 49, s. 1, passed after Mr. Brad
laugh’s evidence had been refused by an arbitrator, enacted
that “presiding judge” shall be deemed to include any
person having authority to administer oaths (see Russell on
Crimes, by S. Prentice, vol. iii., p. 28).
And in consequence of the proceedings taken by the
National Secular Society in the case of ex parte Lennard,
on April 20, 1875, Lord Chief Justice Cockburn and Jus
tices Blackburn, Mellor, and Field, sitting in Banco in the
Court of Queen’s Bench, made a rule absolute for a manda
mus to compel Mr. Woolrych, the magistrate, to take the
evidence of a witness who had declared himself an Atheist.
This does not apply to Scotland, where Atheists and unbe
lievers are still incompetent as witnesses.
Following the above cases the Supreme Court at Sydney
has decided in a recent case, Reg. v. Lewis, that by 40 Viet.,
No. 8, s. 3, known as the Evidence Further Amendment
Act, 1876, and which is founded on the English Act 32 and
33 Viet., c. 68, a person who has no religious belief is com
petent to give evidence.
Heretical jurymen are still in a position of doubt and
difficulty, for although many judges of superior courts and
�BLASPHEMY AND HERESY.
29
many coroners are now allowing jurymen who object to be
sworn to affirm under the Evidence Amendment Acts, 1869
and 1870, it is by no means clear that jurymen are covered
by those statutes.
On this I again let my legist speak :—“ One of the most
common, as it certainly is one of the most absurd, argu
ments for religious prosecution has been that the admini
stration of justice rests upon oaths, and oaths rest upon
religion, and, therefore, everything tending to weaken
religion tends to destroy the basis of justice. Even when
I turn to a great American work on criminal law, published
so recently as 1868, I find that venerable old fallacy trotted
out with all the innocence imaginable. I do not mean, of
course, that a man whose mind is imbued with religion is
indifferent to the solemnity of an oath, but such a man
would not be indifferent to truth or justice.
The oath has
a value only in the case where a man is so destitute of moral
principles that he would readily bear false witness against
his neighbour, but is so miserably superstitious that he will
tell the truth under an oath from fear of hell fire. The
fact is, that it is the authority of the Courts to punish
perjury with imprisonment which alone gives any semblance
of reality to oaths.
When no temporal punishment is
annexed to false swearing we never find that all the terrible
sanctions of an oath have the smallest effect on even
religious men. So far is it from being true that the admini
stration of justice rests upon oaths, on the contrary, the
value of the oaths depends on the substantial fact that
perjury is a misdemeanour.”
Under the head of “ Depraving the Book of Common
Prayer,” Sir J. Stephen says:—
“ Every one commits a misdemeanour and is liable upon conviction
thereof to the punishments hereinafter mentioned, who does any of the
following things, that is to say :
“ Who in any interlude, play, song, rhymes, or other open words,
declares or speaks anything in derogation, depraving, or despising of
the Book of Common Prayer, or of anything therein contained, or any
part thereof; or,
“ Who by open fact, deed, or open threatenings, compels, causes, or
otherwise procures or maintains any parson, vicar, or other minister, in
any cathedral or parish church or chapel, or in any other place, to sing
or say any common or open prayer, or to minister any sacrament other
wise or in any other manner or form than is mentioned in the said
book.
“ Who by any of the said means unlawfully interrupts and lets any
�3°
THE LAWS RELATING TO
parson, vicar, or other minister, in any cathedral or parish church or
chapel, in singing or saying common or open prayer, or ministering the
sacraments, or any of them, in the manner mentioned in the said book.
“For the first offence the offender must be fined one hundred marks,
and in default of payment within six weeks after his conviction, must
be imprisoned for six months.
“For the second offence the offender must be fined four hundred
marks, and in default of payment as aforesaid must be imprisoned for
twelve months.
“For the third offence the offender must forfeit to the Queen all his
goods and chattels and be imprisoned for life. ”
And he has also the further offence of “ Depraving the
Lord’s Supper”—
“ Everyone commits a misdemeanour who depraves, despises, or
contemns, the sacrament of the supper and table of the Lord, in con
tempt thereof by any contemptuous words, or by any words of depraving,
despising, or reviling, or by advisedly in any other wise contemning,
despising, or reviling the said sacrament.”
Shortt, in “ The Law relating to Literature and Works of
Art,” says (p. 304)
“In America the question has been more fully discussed than with us
and the doctrines laid down by the Courts of that country are much
more consonant to the tolerant views of the present, day than any which
can be extracted from our own authorities.
“In the People v. Ruggles, after a verdict and sentence for
blasphemous words spoken against Jesus Christ, Kent, C.J., on
appeal, said :—‘ After conviction we must intend that the words were
uttered in a wanton manner and, as they evidently import, with a wicked
and malicious disposition, and not in a serious discussion upon any
controverted point in religion. The language was blasphemous, not
only in a popular, but in a legal sense; for blasphemy, according to
the most precise definitions, consists in maliciously reviling God or
religion, and this was reviling Christianity through its Author. The
jury have passed upon the intent, or quo animo, and if those words
spoken, in any case, will amount to a misdemeanour the indictment is
good. . . . The free, equal, and undisturbed enjoyment of religious
opinion, whatever it may be, and free and decent discussions on any
religious subject, are granted and secured ; but to revile, wiih malicious
and blasphemous contempt, the religion professed by almost the whole
community, is an abuse of that right.’ Another American judge speaks
still more plainly : ‘No author or printer,’ says Duncan, J., ‘who
fairly and conscientiously promulgates opinions with whose truth he is
impressed, for the benefit of others, is answerable as a criminal. A
malicious and mischievous intention is, in such a case, the broad bound
ary between right and wrong; it is to be collected from the offensive
levity, scurrilous and opprobrious language, and other circumstances,
whether the act of the party was malicious.’ And the criminal code of
New York speaks in a similar tone—Art. 31, extracting a definition
from existing common law decisions, describes blasphemy as consisting
in ‘ wantonly uttering or publishing words, casting contumacious
�BLASPHEMY AND HERESY.
31
reproach or profane ridicule upon God, Jesus Christ, the Holy Ghost,
the Holy Scriptures, or the Christian religion
and Art. 32 adds—‘If
it appears beyond reasonable doubt that the words complained of were
used in the course of serious discussion, and with intent to make known
or recommend opinions entertained by the accused, such words are not
blasphemy.’ ”
Shortt adds that—“ No such liberal exception as obtains
in America in favour of the honest and temperate expression
of opinions opposed to the received doctrines of religion is
made by any of our authorities.”
The object of the foregoing address is to induce Free
thinkers to agitate more earnestly for such changes as shall
render the law more fair in its operation. The changes
needed are—1. The repeal of all the statutes inflicting penalties for
opinion (as the 9 and 10 William III., c. 35) or placing
hindrances in the way of lectures and discussions (as the
21 Geo. III., c. 49.)
2. The introduction into the repealing Act of some
words which shall annul the present penal and disabling
effect of the common law.
Or, failing the above,
3. That no prosecution for blasphemous libel shall be
permitted unless authorised by the fiat of the AttorneyGeneral, and that upon any such prosecution so authorised
it shall be lawful for the accused to plead that the words
complained of were bona fide used in the advocacy of
and with intent to make known or defend opinions enter
tained by the accused, and that if the jury find such plea
proved it shall be a good defence to any indictment.
It is also necessary to extend the Evidence Amend
ment Act (1869) and the Evidence Further Amendment
Act (1870) Scotland.
5. To make the provisions of those Acts as clearly applic
able in England, Ireland, and Wales to jurymen as they now
are to witnesses.
' To those who contend that religious persons should be
protected from words of coarse insult against their faith or
ceremonies, I will once more quote my legist friend:__
“ There may undoubtedly be occasions where masses of
antagonistic and inflammatory religious opinions are heaped
�32
THE LAWS RELATING TO BLASPHEMY AND HERESY.
up ready for a conflagration, and that a word of insult may
be sufficient to set it on fire; but surely it would be better
to deal with such an act simply on the ground of its being
calculated to lead to a breach of the peace. There is, on
the other hand, always a danger that a jury may see insult
where none was intended. We were made familiar last year,
in the record of French tribunals, with a new and singular
offence, called ‘ insulting the Marshal;’ and we have ob
served that remarks which outside the heated atmosphere of
a French election contest would be regarded as fair, not to
say tame, criticism have been declared by the sensitive judges
of France to be ‘insults.’ Moreover, so long as clergymen
habitually insult and grossly libel their opponents, it is
hardly fair that the punishment should be always on one
side. If the clergy would set the example of fairness and
moderation and decency in controversy, it would be quite un
necessary to pass laws to protect their tender feeling from the
rough handling of Freethought lecturers. And we must re
member that the demented creature Pooley was sentenced to
twenty-one months’imprisonment for ‘insulting’the estab
lished religion. In the present state of feeling in this country
there is very little harm done in the way of insulting the
dominant faith, but there is no small danger that when reli
gious antipathies are once excited we shall have construc
tive insults readily found by those who wish to send men
to prison.”
�
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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The laws relating to blasphemy and heresy: an address to freethinkers
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Bradlaugh, Charles
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 32 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Printed by Annie Besant and Charles Bradlaugh., 28, Stonecutter Street, E.C. Date of publication from KVK.
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1878
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Blasphemy
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Blasphemy
Conway Tracts
Free Thought
Heresy
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■
--------- ~
V,
Tlut^Js k^w?i> tX-| tvJ<Si>,
“IS IT REASONABLE
TO
WORSHIP GO D?”
VERBATIM REPORT
OF
TWO NIGHTS’ DEBATE AT NOTTINGHAM
BETWEEN
THE REV. R. A. ARMSTRONG
AND
CHARLES BRADLAUGH.
LONDON:
FREETHOUGHT PUBLISHING COMPANY,.
28, Stonecutter Street, E.C.
1878.
I
�LONDON :
PRINTED BY ANNIE BESANT AND CHARLES BRADLAUGH
28, STONECUTTER STREET.
�PREFACE.
I have been invited to prefix a few sentences to this
debate in its published form, and I am glad to avail myself
of the opportunity so courteously accorded.
Many have criticised my conduct in consenting to meet
in public debate one whose teachings, both theological
(or anti-theological) and social, they and I alike regard as.
in many respects of pernicious tendency. My reply is, that
those teachings are influencing large numbers of men and
women; that to denounce them, is simply to intensify their
influence in some quarters; and that they must be met
face to face if their force is to be diminished. I regard oral
public discussion as one of the least efficient methods for
the discovery of truth; but I cannot blind myself to the
fact that it is almost the only method by which what I hold
to be true, can get the ear and the attention of some classes
of the community; and I perceive that if a man can trust
his temper and is also interested in his cause and not in
himself, he may in this way do some good which he can do
in no other. If it be given him to touch one heart or
enlighten one soul, it is a cheap price to pay, that a laugh
may go against him, or even that some good and sincere
persons may think he has acted wrongly.
The debate itself can only touch the edge of subjects so
stupendous as Theism and Worship. But some may be
�IV
PREFACE.
led by it to thought or to study, on which they would not
otherwise have entered.
I select three points in this debate for a further word or
two :
(i.) I said Mr. Bradlaugh could not “ conceive a better
world.” The expression is ambiguous. He and I both con
ceive and strive to promote a better state of things than that
now existing. But we can conceive no better constitution
for a world than that of a world so constituted as to evoke
the effort of mankind to advance its progress and improve
ment. The evil is not in itself good; it is only the
necessary condition of good. The moment you conceive
a world existing from first to last without evil, you conceive
a world destitute of the necessary conditions for the
evolution of noble character; and so, in eliminating the evil,
you eliminate a good which a thousand times outweighs
the evil.
(2.) “ Either,” argues Mr. Bradlaugh, in effect, “ God could
make a world without suffering, or he could not. If he could
and did not, he is not all-good. It he could not, he is not
all-powerful.” The reply is, What do you mean by allpowerful? If you mean having power to reconcile things
in themselves contradictory, we do not hold that God is
all-powerful. But a humanity, from the first enjoying
immunity from suffering, and yet possessed of nobility of
character, is a self-contradictory conception.
(3.) I have ventured upon alleging an Intelligent Cause
of the phenomena of the universe; in spite of the fact that
in several of his writings Mr. Bradlaugh has described
intelligence as implying limitations. But though intelli
gence, as known to us in man, is always hedged within
limits, there is no difficulty in conceiving each and every
limit as removed. In that case the essential conception of
�V
PREFACE.
intelligence remains the same precisely, although the change
of conditions revolutionises its mode of working.
The metaphysical argument for Theism, though I hold
it in the last resort to be unanswerable, can never be the
real basis of personal religion. That must rest on the facts
of consciousness verified by the results in character flowing
from the candid recognition of those facts. It is useless, as
well as unscientific, for the Atheist either to deny or to
ignore those facts. The hopeless task that lies before him,
ere Theism can be overturned, is to prove that experiences
which to many a Theist are more real and more unquestion
able than the deliverances of sight, of hearing, or of touch,
are mere phantasies of the brain.
I addressed the following letter to the Editor of the
National Reformer after the debate.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE “ NATIONAL REFORMER.”
Sir,—Some of those who heard or may read the recent discussion
between Mr. Bradlaugh, and myself may be willing to pursue the
positive argument for Theism and Worship which I adopted—-as distin
guished from and supplementary to the ordinary metaphysical argument
—at greater length than the limits of time permitted me to expound it in
the debate. Will you allow me to recommend to such persons three
works which will specially serve their purpose ? These are—Theodore
Parker’s “Discourse of Matters Pertaining to Religion” (eighteenpence, British and Foreign Unitarian Association, 37, Norfolk Street,
Strand) ; F. W. Newman’s “ Hebrew Theism ” (half-a-crown, Triibner);
and the Rev. Charles Voysey’s “Mystery of Pain, Death, and Sin”
(Williams & Norgate, 1878). I would gladly add to these Professor
Blackie’s “ Natural History of Atheism ”—a book of much intellectual
force—were it not that he indulges too often in a strain of superior
contempt with which I have no sympathy.—I am, &c.,
Richard A. Armstrong.
Nottingham,
Sept, <pth, 1878.
�vi
PREFACE.
I only now further desire to refer the reader to Mr. Brown
low Maitland’s “Theismor Agnosticism” (eighteen-pencer
Christian Knowledge Society, 1878).
Tennyson shall utter. for me my last plea with the
doubter to throw himself upon the bosom of God in
prayer:—
“Speak to him, thou, for he hears, and spirit with spirit can.
meet,—
Closer is he than breathing, and nearer than hands and feet.”
R. A. Armstrong.
Nottingham,
Sept. 23rd, 1878.
�Is it Reasonable to Worship God?”
The first of two nights’ debate in the Co-operative Hall,
Nottingham, between the Rev. R. A. Armstrong and Mr.
Charles Bradlaugh; G. B. Rothera, Esq., in the chair.
The Chairman : Ladies and Gentlemen,—I have had
the pleasure, during the last few weeks, of spending a very
pleasant holiday on the heather-covered mountains of
Scotland. On reaching Edinburgh on my way homeward,
I received a letter from my friend, Mr. Armstrong, inform
ing me of the arrangements for to-night’s debate, and
of the wish that was felt that I should preside. Though a
private communication, yet as it contains the grounds
upon which the request was made, and in part also
those upon which I was induced to comply, I shall
be glad if Mr. Armstrong will kindly give me per
mission to read that letter to you. It is as follows :—“ My Dear Sir,—I have obtained your address from your
son, and you must blame him for enabling me to molest you
with my importunities in the midst of your holiday.
“ Circumstances have led to my receiving an invitation from
the local branch of the National Secular Society, and from Mr.
Bradlaugh, to debate with the latter on the reasonableness of
religious worship. At first strongly disposed to decline, I have
been led, together with the friends whom I have consulted, to
believe that it was my duty to accept the task, and, however
distasteful, I am now in for it.
“ It is to take place at the Co-operative Hall, on two consecu
tive nights, Thursday and Friday, September 5 and 6, and we
are most anxious to secure the services—which I hope will be
chiefly formal—of a competent chairman who will possess the
respect of both parties. My own friends and the Secularists
independently suggested your name, and we all feel that we
should be deeply indebted to you if you would preside over us
on the two nights. My earnest desire is to throw such a tone
into the meetings as shall make them really helpful to genuine
�8
truth-seekers, and I have good ground for believing that manysuch will be present.
■ “ I sincerely hope you will do us all this favour. I do not
know where else to turn for a chairman that will be so acceptable
to all concerned. Your speedy and favourable reply will be very
welcome to yours truly,
R. A. Armstrong.
“Burns Street, Nottingham, Aug. 24, 1878.
“ G. B. Rothera, Esq.”
Now, ladies and gentlemen, on receiving that letter my
first impulse was, I think naturally, to decline, and that
for two reasons—first, I find that as one gets on in life there
is a stronger and stronger disposition to avoid the excite
ment of public meetings, to seek more and more the ease
of one’s own arm-chair, and to enjoy that best of all society,
our books (hear). Beyond this I had real misgivings as to
my ability to fill, as I ought, the duties sought to be put upon
me. Nevertheless, on slight reflection, these difficulties
vanished. I felt that there were occasions, of which this,
probably, was one, when it becomes us to lay aside con
siderations of personal ease and convenience in the hope to
meet the wishes of, and to be useful to, one’s neighbours
and friends. Now, in occupying this position I must not
be considered to identify myself with either the one party
or the other (hear). I may agree with either, or with
neither. I am here, as I believe you are here, interested in
a question of the gravest concern to all of us, as an earnest
inquirer, anxious to learn and not afraid to hear (applause).
My position, I take it, is very much akin to that of the
Speaker of the House of Commons. I have simply to
regulate the order of debate, and to ask at your hands
—what I am sure I shall receive—such orderly and consis
tent behaviour as will become an assembly of English gentle
men. Now,in those who have charged themselves with the
responsibility of this debate we have men of acknowledged
ability and high culture (applause)—men who, I am sure
will know well how to reconcile the duties of courtesy with
the earnestness of debate. In addressing themselves to the
present question, it must, I think, be clearly understood
that the question, as it appears upon the paper, is not to be
narrowed to a simple inquiry whether it is reasonable that
we should worship God. A much wider issue must be
covered by the debate, if it is to satisfy the expectations
of this audience. The question is one, I take, it between
�9
Theism and Atheism. It is not enough to postulate a Deity,
and then ask whether it is reasonable or not to worship him.
What I think we have a right to ask is, tfyat the gentle
man charged with the affirmative of the proposition
shall adduce such evidence as will establish satisfactorily
the conclusion that there is a Deity to worship.
The
position of the Atheist, I take it, is not one of disbelief,
but of simple unbelief.
He does not say that God
is not, but he affirms the lack of evidence for the
position that God is (hear). He does not even say
that there may not be a God. What he does say is that
if there is a God he has failed to manifest himself, either by
the utterance of his voice, in audible revelation, or by the
impression of his hand upon visible nature. I take it, there
fore, and think Mr. Armstrong will be prepared to
accept the position, that it will be incumbent upon him, at
the outset of the discussion, to address himself to a con
sideration of the proofs in favour of the position that there
is a God to worship. If he succeed in this, then, I
think, there will be a very difficult and trying ordeal before
Mr. Bradlaugh to prove that, God, being existent, is not
entitled to the reasonable worship of his creatures (applause).
Pardon me these remarks by way of introduction. Before
calling on Mr. Armstrong to open the debate, I may just say
that, by arrangement between them, Mr. Armstrong, upon
whom the affirmative rests, is to be allowed half-an-hour
to open the discussion; Mr. Bradlaugh half-an-hour in
reply ; that then the next hour will be divided into quarters,
each speaker having a quarter of an hour alternately
(applause). The result of this arrangement will be that
Mr. Armstrong will open the debate to-night, which will
be closed by Mr. Bradlaugh, while to-morrow night Mr.
Bradlaugh will open the debate and Mr. Armstrong will
■close it. This, I think, you will regard as a satisfactory
arrangement, and a liberal one, inasmuch as Mr. Bradlaugh
concedes to Mr. Armstrong the advantage of the last word
(applause).
Mr. Armstrong, who was cordially received, said : Mr.
Chairman and friends—I wish to say two or three words at
the outset of this debate as to its origin. You are many of
you aware that a short time ago Mr. Bradlaugh visited this
town, and gave a lecture in defence of Atheism, from this plat
form, in answer to Professor Max Muller’s Hibbert lectures.
I was led to be present then, and I offered some remarks
�IO
at the close. Mr. Bradlaugh rejoined, and in the course of
his rejoinder threw out, in a courteous manner, a challenge
for me to meet him and discuss these weighty matters at fur
ther length. I thought no more of it then, not conceiving it
to be my duty to take up that challenge. A few days after
wards, however, I received a letter from the Secretary of
the Nottingham branch of the National Secular Society
stating that many persons had been much interested in the
words that fell from me, and that they would consider it an
obligation conferred upon them, and others earnestly in pur
suit of truth, if I consented to meet Mr. Bradlaugh in this
manner. I replied, that for my own part, I was but little
sanguine of any good effects, or a balance of good effects,
resulting from such a meeting; but that the invitation being
couched in such courteous and earnest terms, I would con
sult with friends on whose judgment I placed reliance, before
finally replying. I consulted these friends, and at the same time
thought the matter over further; and I came to the conclusion
that, though it has undoubtedly happened that on too many
occasions theological debates have been the root of bitter
ness and strife, yet, nevertheless, two men really in earnest
about what they have to say, and speaking to persons also
in earnest, who have come neither for amusement nor ex
citement—-I came to the conclusion that a debate, con
ducted with tact and temper on both sides, might (may I
say by the blessing of God ?) conduce rather to good than
to evil (applause). Under these circumstances, I accepted
the challenge. I did so, though, as I said in my letter to
the chairman, it is distasteful to me, because if I make any
thing of this occasion it can only be by exhibiting to you
my inmost heart. We are not going to talk in a superficial
manner—we are not going to bandy compliments, nor, I
hope, exchange rebukes; but, each of us is going to search
his inner consciousness, and try to express to the audience
that which he finds therein. It is, perhaps, more distasteful
to me on this occasion than to Mr. Bradlaugh, since I find,
or believe myself to find, in my inner consciousness certain
facts which Mr. Bradlaugh will no doubt tell you he does
not find in his inner consciousness. These facts are to me
of the most solemn and sacred nature conceivable, and to
expose them before a large and public audience is a thing
very like a sort of martyrdom. If I were not confident
that, however little you may sympathise with what I say,
you will treat it with respect or consideration, I woul
�11
never consent to drag the sacred thoughts of my soul before
you to hold them up as an exhibition (hear). I am to
maintain to-night—not to demonstrate (as you will see
if you look at the bills)—the proposition that it is
reasonable to worship God. Mr. Bradlaugh has not
necessarily to disprove, but to impugn, that proposition.
Now, all I have any hope of doing to-night is this—to
show that it is reasonable for me and for others conscious of
mental phenomena in themselves more or less akin to those
of which I am conscious, to worship God. Would that I
could touch you with the beauty and the sweetness
of this belief—would that I could hold up before you, in all
its glory and sublimity, in all its strength and holiness, the
beauty and the sweetness of the worship of God. Could
I succeed in doing so, I should take your imaginations
captive. I think I should get the suffrage of your reason.
It is as though, sir, to-night, I had been called upon to
prove that my dearest friend is worthy to be loved—ay,
•even that my dearest friend exists; for, if God is aught to
us, he is our dearest, nearest friend—present when all
others are taken from us, a sure refuge in every moment of
temptation and of woe ; the very highest and most intimate
reality of which the mind can conceive—the sum and sub
stance of all existence. Well, now, how do I know this
God ? Who is this God of whom I speak ? Let me try to
tell you how it seems to me that I have made acquaintance
with him. I find that at certain moments of my life there
is that which I can best describe aS a voice—though it is a
metaphor—addressed to me, influencing largely my conduct.
I find that there are in me, as in all men, strong instincts,
strong desires, strong self-interests—some lower, some
higher, some less worthy, some more worthy, than others.
I find that but for this voice of which I speak I should be
entirely swayed thereby, as, so far as I can see, the brutes
of the field and the forest are swayed thereby. But I find
that sometimes, at moments when these instincts are the
very strongest within me, and when I am about to throw
myself into their realisation and give them expression in
■fact—I find, sometimes, at these moments that there comes
to me somewhat which, so far as my consciousness delivers,
is not myself. There comes to me somewhat stopping me
from indulging these instincts and bidding me to curb them.
Ifindatothertimesthatmyinstinctsof self-preservation, of self
regard, of pleasure-loving, and so forth—my appetites—
�12
would lead me to hold back from a certain course of action.
So far as I can judge, looking into my own mind, myself is
against that course of action. It appears to my reasoning
powers and inclinations that I had better keep out of it.
But there comes now somewhat which comes from outside,,
and which is no part of myself, which says, “ Go and do it.”
That was so when I received the invitation to this debate.
Again, I find that on certain occasions—alas! that I should
have to say it—I have defied this monitor, I have done that
which it told me not to do, or not done that which it bade
me to do. I find then that there enter into me from some
where—I know not from whence—pangs of remorse keener
than ever came from any personal sorrow, more biting than
ever came from any physical pain. There have been times,
however—let me thank God I can say so !—when I have
obeyed this voice, followed its dictates in spite of all myself
seeming to drag me from it; and my experience is that on
these occasions there has entered my soul, from whence I
cannot tell you, a peace surpassing that given us in any
other circumstances—a peace in the light of which the
sorrows that at other times might cut me to the heart seem
light and small, a peace in the beauty and holiness of which
these'sorrows seem wonderfully diminished. I will tell you what
I call the source of that voice which I fancy speaks to me
in that fourfold manner. I call the source of that voice
“ God,” and that is the first thing I mean by God. I call the
source of all these monitions and admonitions, these ex
hortations and rebukes, this voice of reproval and of
approval, the voice of God; because I must give it some
name, and that seems to me the simplest and the truest name
I can give it. I might, perhaps, be inclined to doubt
whether all this was not fancy (though I hardly think I
should) if, so far as I could gather, it were an unique experi
ence of my own; but I find that it is not so. I find that
this voice is recognised by every true man and woman I
meet. They may obey it or not, but they recognise it, and
allow that it is there. I behold the picture by Millais
of the day before the awful massacre of St. Bartho
lomew. I see the maiden leaning on her lover’s bosom
whilst he looks down upon her with looks of love and
tenderness, and she strives to tie around his arm a scarf.
She knows of the impending massacre, that all Protestants
are to be slaughtered, and she would fain put this badge
upon his arm as a secret signal to preserve him from the
�13
sword. Does he accept this method of escape ? Although
his inclination is to remain with his beloved, the strength of
his right hand is given to tear the badge from his arm, and
he faces death, not with joy, but with an exceeding bitter
sorrow for the moment—he faces death in simple loyalty
and obedience to the voice which has spoken to his heart.
That is an experience which you will all recognise—one
which, in less or in greater force, we have all had. What
ever explanation may be given—and, doubtless, Mr. Brad’
laugh has an explanation of his own—this voice of con
science is to me one of the primary evidences of the exist
ence of God. Nay, I will not call it an evidence; it
is God speaking to me (applause). This conscience
has been described by Mr. Voysey, in his recentlypublished sermons in refutation of Atheism, as fol
lows : “ The collision is so complete between the higher
voice and the impelling instinct, that one can only feel that
the two are radically different in nature, and. must have had
a different source. . . .To have the power of doing
intentionally what one shrinks from doing, and to
deny one’s self the pleasure which is so fascinating,
and which one longs to do, is to prove the immense superi
ority of our inner selves over the visible universe.”
To have the power, as that man, that Huguenot, must have
had it, to deny one’s self the pleasure which is so fascinating,
and for which one longs, is to prove the immense superiority
of our inner selves when hearing the voice of God over the
visible universe. Again, speaking of conscience, Voysey says :
“The conscience which makes us mortify our flesh with its
affections and lusts, and which often mars our happiness and
embitters our pleasure, upbraids us with reproaches and
stings us with remorse, that voice which hushes our cry for
happiness, which will not endure a single selfish plea, but
demands unquestioning obedience, and bids us fall down in
the very dust before the Majesty of Duty—we all, in our
secret hearts, revere this power, whether or not we obey it
as we should. At least, we pay to it the homage of our inmost
souls, and feel how great and grand it is to be its slave.”
Now, sir, I desire to pass on to another method, by which it
seems to me that I apprehend this being. Having made the
acquaintance with this awful voice—and the philosopher
Kant said two things filled him with awe, the starry
heavens and the moral nature in man—I pass on to another
matter. Behold the starry heaven itself. I know not how
�14
it is with you, but I will tell you my experience—and we are
told by scientific men that we must bring everything to the test
of experience. Sometimes when I have been out oftemper—as I
am sometimes, like other people—sometimes, when I have been
much distracted with cares, when troubles and pains have
been thick upon me, it falls to my lot to go out beneath the
starry heaven. What is it that I experience in my soul ? I
go through no process of metaphysical reasoning, I do not
argue with myself, but I simply feel that there is a Divine
presence there, in whose hand are all these stars and all
these worlds—a great voice singing, “ I am strong and I am
good, and you are safe nestling in my hand.” I know not
if that corresponds with the experience of all here,
but that it corresponds with the experience of many, I
feel sure ; and let me ask such not to drive away these
holy feelings, but to trust them as the assurance which
God gives of his presence. It may be that in those lakes
and mountains which you, sir, have seen of late, you
may have heard a message whispering to your soul of a
peace beyond the peace of earth—of a presence before
which all things are well. In others, not so sensitive per
haps to the beauties of natural scenery, such experience
comes in the tones of music—in some grand symphony or
some sweet song; and they feel lifted away from the things
of earth,' and they feel lifted into some presence in which it
is a joy to be, and which fills their soul with peace. That
presence I call, having no other name for it, the presence of
God. Observe, that in this I am not philosophising about
the cause—I am not saying that God is the cause and so
on; I am only relating the experience of my consciousness,
reported to you as faithfully and truly as I can read it. Let
me read what Professor Blackie wrote the other day:
“ Many things can be known only by being felt, all vital
forces are fundamentally unknowable.” And, says Francis
Newman, that arch-heretic : “ The astronomer is ever aware
of the presence of gravitation and the electrician sees all
things pervaded by electricity—powers descried by the mind,
unwitnessed by any sense, long unknown to the wise, still
unknown or undiscerned by the vulgar j yet this percep
tion of things hidden is not esteemed cloudy.” Now,
having made some acquaintance with this awful, inscrutable
something, to which I venture to give the name of God, I
venture to lift up to it the voice of my soul, and strive
to throw myself towards that Being. And what is my
�i5
experience ? Let us go to experience again: I find
when my mind is bewildered and in doubt, when it
is all involved with difficulties, that somehow, when I
address that Being, there comes to my soul . “ clear
shining,” and I see things plainer and more beautiful than
before. I appeal to him in pain and sorrow—not with the
coward’s prayer, but simply asking that I may feel his pre
sence, to endure it j and the pain and sorrow have become
light on the instant assurance that God is there to comfort
and console. I pray to him in weakness, when my strength
fails, and what is the result? That a new manhood
comes to me, and I feel that wondrous power which
over-arches all the worlds, and I feel that I have in me
also somewhat of his strength. I appeal to him, last of all,
in temptation, when the wrong deed presses closely on my
inclinations, and what do I find ? That strength is given
me to stand up against temptation, and he answers
according to the immemorial prayer of Christendom:
deliver us from temptation, This is experience, or I fancy
it is. It is not theory. Again, I am in gladness. When
is my gladness greatest, and when is it richest? Why,
when it flows up and out, in thankfulness and adoration, to
the source to which I trace it. Then my gladness seems to
receive an influence which lifts it up above. No gladness
is the true gladness without that. Let me conclude this
half-hour by reading a very short extract from Professor
Newman. Speaking of the instincts of mankind, he says:—
And the instinct of Religion is the noblest of them all,
The bravest, the most enduring, the most fruitful in mighty
deeds,
The source of earliest grandeur, unitress of scattered tribes ;
Even in the crudeness of its infancy,when unpurified by science,
Yet teeming with civilisation, with statesmanship, with letters.
Mistress of all high art, and parent of glorious martyrs.
And if from it have come wars, and bigotries, and cruelties,
Through infantine hot-headedness and unripeness of mind,
We take your aid, O Sceptics ! to purge it from all such evils,
And kindly honour we pay to you for your battles against super
stition ;
Yet the very evils ye deplore, prove Religion’s mighty energy,
And the grasp deeply seated which she has within human
hearts.”
(Loud applause.)
Mr. Bradlaugh : Thanking you, sir, for acceding to the
request which I would have gladly joined in had I had any
�right of acquaintance to entitle me to make it; thanking you
for undertaking what is always a troublesome duty, however
well a debate may be conducted, of presiding over a dis
cussion, permit me to say one word only as to the opening
which fell from your lips. There is only one phrase in that
which I desire to note, so as to save myself from the possi
bility of misapprehension. I quite agree with the view you
put of the position the Atheist takes, except that if Dualism
be affirmed, if more than Monism be affirmed, if more than
one existence be affirmed, and if it be the beyond of that one
existence which is called God, then the Atheist does not
say there may be one, but says there cannot be one; and
that is the only distinction I wish to put as against the very
kind words with which you introduced the speakers this
evening The question for our debate is : “ Is it reasonable
to worship God ?” and to determine this question it is
necessary to define the words “worship” and “God,”and next
to decide whether belief in God is reasonable or unreason
able ; and, secondly, whether worship is, under any, and
if any, what,. circumstances, reasonable or unreasonable.
And I am afraid I must here except that, in the speech to
which I have just listened, and which, from its tone and
kindly style, is perfectly unexceptionable, there is not one
word at present—it may possibly come later on—which may
fairly be taken as approaching a definition either of the word
“ God ” or the word “ worship. ” By worship I mean act of rever
ence, respect, adoration, homage, offered to some person.
According to this definition, worship cannot be offered to the
impersonal, and according to this definition it would be
unreasonable to advocate worship to be offered to the im
personal. Under the term “worship” I include prayer—which
is, evidently, from the opening, also included in the term
“worship” by the rev. gentleman who maintains the opposite
position to myself—praise, sacrifice, offerings, solemn ser
vices, adoration, personal prostration. For the word “God,”
not having a definition of my own, I take—not having yet
gathered, in what has fallen from Mr. Armstrong, enough to
enable me to say that I understand what he means by it—I
take the definition of “ God” given in Professor Flint’s Baird
lectures ; not meaning by that that Mr. Armstrong is bound
by that definition, but asking him to be kind enough to note
where he thinks that definition is incorrect, and to kindly tell
me so, for my guidance in the latter portions of the debate.
By “ God,” for the purpose of this debate, I shall mean a self-
�i7
existent, eternal being, infinite in power and in wisdom, and
perfect in holiness and goodness ; the maker of heaven
and earth. And by “self-existent" I mean, that, the con
ception of which does not require the conception of
antecedent to it. For example, this glass is phenomenal,
conceived, as all phenomena must be conceived, by the
characteristics or qualities which enable you to think
and identify it in your mind, but which cannot be con
ceived except as that of which there is possible ante
cedent and consequent, and which, therefore, cannot be
considered as self-existent according to my definition. By
“eternal”and by “infinite” I only mean illimitable, indefinite,
tome—applying the term “eternal ” to duration, and the word
“ infinite ” to extension. I take Professor Flint, or whoever
may hold the definition I have given of God, by “ maker ”
to mean originator; and then I am in the difficulty that the
word “ creator,” in the sense of origin, is, to me, a word
without meaning. I only know creation as change ; origin
of phenomena, not of existence; origin of condition, not
origin of substance. The words “ creation ” and “ de
struction ” are both words which have no other
meaning to my mind than the meaning of change.
I will now try to address myself to some of the argu
ments that were put forward by Mr. Armstrong. He
said that to him the notion of entering into this debate was
distasteful to him, and he addressed somewhat of an in
quiry as to my own feeling on the matter. No ! the dis
cussion of no one subject more than any other is distasteful
to me, unless it be of a personal character, in which it might
involve my having to say things upon which I should not like
to mislead and upon which it would be painful to me to
state the facts. Then a discussion would be distasteful to
me; but such a discussion as this is not any more distaste
ful to me than the discussion of an astronomical or geolo
gical problem; and I will urge to those who go even further
and say, that not only is such a matter distasteful, but that the
discussion of Theism is really immoral, to such I would read
from a recent volume entitled “ A Candid Examination of
Theism”:—“If there is no God, where can be the harm
in our examining the spurious evidence of his existence ?
If there is a God,- surely our first duty towards him must
be to exert to our utmost, in our attempts to find him, the
most noble faculty with which he has endowed us—as care
fully to investigate the evidence which he has seen fit to
�furnish of his own existence, as we investigate the evidence
of inferior things in his dependent creation. To say that
there is one rule or method for ascertaining truth in the
latter case which it is not legitimate to apply in the former
case, is merely a covert way of saying that the Deity—if
he exists—has not supplied us with rational evidence of
his existence.” Now, that is the position I am going to
put to you; and there ought to be nothing distasteful
to anyone in proving most thoroughly the whole of the
evidence upon which his supposed belief in God’s existence
rests. The grounds of his belief ought to be clear to him
self, or they are no sufficient grounds for his belief, even to
himself. If they are clear to himself they ought to be
clearly stateable to others; because, if not, they lie under
the suspicion of not being clear to himself. That which is
sufficient to him to convince him, is either capable of being
clearly stated—although it may not carry conviction to
another—or it is not. If it is not capable of being clearly
stated, I would suggest it is because it does not clearly exist
in his own mind. Now Mr. Armstrong says that he feels as if
called upon to prove that his dearest friend ought to be
loved, as if called upon to prove that his dearest friend
exists. He spoke of God as being to him his dearest
friend, and he followed that with some words as to which I am
not quite sure whether he intended to use them in the sense in
which they fell upon my ears. He described God as “ the
sum and substance of all existence.” I do not want to
make any verbal trick, and if I am putting more on Mr.
Armstrong than he meant to convey I should like to be put
right when he rises again, and I will ask him if he considers
God to be the sum and substance of all existing; and, if
he does not, I will ask him in what respect he distinguishes
between God, in his mind, and the sum and substance of
all existence ; because clearly, when he used those words he
had some meaning in his mind, and I should like to know
these two things : First, do you identify God in your mind
with the sum and substance of all existence ? If not, in
what respects do you distinguish God in your mind from
the sum and substance of all existence ? If you say that
you identify God with the sum and substance of all exist
ence, then I ask, are we included in that, sum and substance
of all existence ? And if we are included in that sum and
substance of all existence, is it reasonable for one phe
nomenon or for a number of phenomena, to offer worship
�T9
to any of, and to how much of, what remains ? Then he
addressed himself to the very old argument, which he put
so beautifully, when he said : “How do I know God?” and
launched into what is known as the argument from conscience,
an argument very fully stated by Professor Flint in the
Baird lectures to which I have referred. Mr. Armstrong
said, and here I will take a little exception; he said : “ In
me, as in all men here, are strong instincts; in me, as in all
men, there are strong desires; in me, as in all men, there is
a voice.” That is just the blunder; that is not true. I do
not mean that in any sort of disrespectful sense. If you
take a volume like Topinard’s “ Anthropology ” you find
that men’s desires, men’s emotions, and men’s instincts all
vary with race, all vary with locality, with type, all vary with
what Buckle called “Food, climate, soil, and life surround
ings and I ask, if there be this variance in individuals of
different races, nay, more, if there be this variance in in
dividuals of the same race at the same moment, and if the
members of the same race vary in different places and ages,
as to their instincts, desires, and emotions, I ask you whether
there has been the same variation in the source of it? You
say the source is God, and if so, how can a variable source
be a reliable object of worship ? Then let us see a little
more. “ I do not desire to do something, but my monitor
says ‘ Do ” or the reverse; and thus voice is the evidence
of Deity. I should have been obliged if Mr. Armstrong
had defined exactly what it was he meant by conscience,
because here we are going terribly to disagree. I am going
to deny the existence of conscience altogether, except as a
result of development upon organisation, including in that,
transmitted predisposition of ability to possible thought or
action. But if that be so, what becomes of this “ still small
voice,” of those desires and instincts? The mere fact
that the mother may have worked in a cotton-mill while
childbearing and have had bad food, or that the father may
have beaten her—his brutality may result in the awakening
of a desire and instinct exactly the opposite of that which Mr.
Armstrong has, and the organisation fitted for repeating
which may be handed down through generations. I stood
this morning for other purposes at the doors of Coldbath
fields Prison. One man who came out gave a sort of shrill
whistle and plunged into the crowd with a defiant and a
mocking air, showing that his conscience, his monitor, said
nothing to him except that he was glad he was outside, and
�20
ready to war with the world again (applause). I am not
wishing to press this view in any fashion unkindly or unfairly; '
I am only wanting to put the thing as it appears to me. I
want to.know: “ Does Mr. Armstrong contend that there is a
faculty identical in every human being which he calls con
science, which does decide for each human being, and
always decides, in the same manner, what is right and what
is wrong ? Or does he mean that this ‘ monitor,’ as he calls
it, decides differently in different men and in different
countries ? And if ‘ yes,’ is the source different in each case
where there is a different expression ? And if ‘ yes,’ is it
justifiable and reasonable to offer worship to an uncertain
source, or to a source which speaks with a different voice, or
to a source which is only one of a number, and of which you
do not know how far its limit extends, and where its juris
diction begins or ends ? ” Let us follow this out a little
more. We have not only to define conscience, but we have
also to define right and wrong, and I did not hear Mr. Arm
strong do that. I did hear him say that when he had done
something in opposition to his monitor he felt remorse. I
did hear him say there was struggling between himself and
his monitor, and here I had another difficulty. What is the
himself that struggles, as distinguished in his mind from the
monitor that he struggles against ? If the struggle is a
mental one, what is mind struggling against ? and if it is not,
how does Mr. Armstrong explain it ? Let us, if you please,
go to right and wrong. By moral I mean useful. I mean
that that is right which tends to the greatest happiness of the
greatest number, with the least injury to any. I am only
following Jeremy Bentham. That is my definition of right.
Many matters which have been held to come within that
definition in one age have been found in another age not to
come within it, and the great march of civilisation is that
from day to day it instructs us in what is useful. I submit
that instead of adoring the source of contradictory verdicts
it is more reasonable to find out for ourselves some rule we
can apply. For example, here Mr. Armstrong’s conscience
would not raise any particular objection to his taking animal
food, unless he happens to be a vegetarian, and then, I am
sure, he would conscientiously carry it out; but the majority
of people’s consciences in England would raise no great
objection to taking animal food. Yet in China and in
Hindustan hundreds of thousands of human beings have
died because vegetable food was not there for them, and
«
�21
their consciences made them prefer death to tasting
animal food' I want to know whether the conscience is
from the same source here as in Hindustan, and I want to
know, if that is so, which people are justified in worshipping
the source ? Take the case of murder. Mr. Armstrong’s
conscience would clearly tell him that it was wrong to murder
me. And yet there are many people in this country who
would not go to that extent. But I am going to take a
stronger illustration. There are a number of people who
think it perfectly right to bless the flags of a regiment, and to
pray to the God whom Mr. Armstrong asks me to worship,
that a particular regiment, whose flags are blessed, may kill
the people of some other particular regiment as rapidly as
possible. This shows that there are confusions of mind as
to what is meant by murder, and a like confusion exists on
a number of other matters on which the monitor is
misrepresenting.
And then Mr. Armstrong has said^
“ I mean by God the source of admonition, rebukes,
remorse, trouble,” and he says: “ It is a conscience-voice
which is recognised by every true man and woman.”
I am sure he would not wish to put any position
stronger than it should be put, and he put it, too, that this
was the feature in which man differed from the brutes. I
am inclined to tell him that not only there is not that recog
nition to-day amongst the physiological and psychological
teachers, but that we have a number of. men whose re
searches have been collected for us, who show us that what
you call the “ still small voice,” this monitor, these desires,
instincts, emotions, are to be found—varied, it is true
—right through the whole scale of animal life. Whereever there is a nervous encephalic apparatus sufficient
you have—except in the fact of language—wider distinc
tion between the highest order of human race and the
lowest, than you have between the lowest order of human
beings and those whom you are pleased to call brutes. I
will now only take the illustration of the eve of St. Bartho
lomew, which is fatal to the argument of Mr. Armstrong.
He gave the Protestant lover—a very fine character—reject
ing the symbolic bandage, and preferring to die for his faithy
or, .as Mr. Armstrong put it, “ to face death in simple
loyalty rather than play the hypocrite, and the source of that
feeling was God.” Was that the source of the feeling
which led Bruno to be burnt at the stake as if for Atheism,
or for Vanini, burnt for Atheism ; or for Lescynski, burnt
�for Atheism; or for Mrs. Besant, robbed of her child because
of her avowal of Atheism (hisses) ? You are hissing ; wait
whilst I answer. Is the source of your hissing, God ? Then
what a cowardly and weak thing, and little fitted for worship
must be that source (applause). I desire to deal with this
subject in all gravity, in all sincerity, in all kindness, but I
plead for a cause—weakly, it is true—for which great and
brave men and women have died, and I will permit no insult
to it in my presence—(cheers)—knowingly I will pass none.
I believe my antagonist to meet me loyally, honourably, and
honestly, and I believe him to meet me earnestly and
sincerely. I believe he has no desire to wound my feel
ings, and I 'do not wish to wound his ; and I ask you, the
jury here, to try to follow the same example set by him
in this debate (cheers).
Mr. Armstrong, being received with cheers, said:
It is very difficult indeed to think on these deep
problems under consideration with excitement amongst
the audience present, therefore I hope that you will be as
quiet as you can. I will begin at once with a confession
—and this, at any rate, will be a testimony of my candour—
by saying that the moment I had spoken certain words in
my opening speech I thought: “'Mr. Bradlaugh will have
me there;” and he had me (laughter). The words
were those in which I spoke of God as the sum and
substance of all existence. Now, to me, God is a much
simpler word than the phrase, “ sum and substance of all
existence.” Whether God be the “ sum and substance of
all existence ” I know not, for those words convey to me
less clear meaning than the word “God” conveys to me. The
source, moreover, of my immediate knowledge of God is
such that it can make no asseverations whatever upon deep
questions of metaphysics, as to what the “ sum and sub
stance of all existence” may consist. Mr. Bradlaugh has taken
a definition of God from Professor Flint. He is a Scotchman,
and Scotchmen are very fond of definitions (a laugh). Very
often, too, their definitions obscure their subject-matter, and
it is far harder to get any proper significance from them than
in the thing which they intended to define. I am
utterly incapable of saying whether that definition of Pro
fessor Flint’s is an accurate definition of God or not. What I
mean by “God,” and perhaps Mr. Bradlaugh will take it as the
best definition I can here give, is the source, whatever it be, of
this metaphorical voice—of these intimations or monitions,
�23
that come to me in certain experiences which I have. Mr.
Bradlaugh, of course, devoted much time to answering Pro
fessor Flint. He asked whether God was the source of that
loyalty with which the Atheists he mentioned went to the
stake, and’I say from the bottom of my heart, that he was. God
knows the Atheist though the Atheist knows not him. God
is the source of loyalty of heart, in whomsoever it may be.
If others are led to propound propositions which I believe
to be false, and if they dispute other propositions which I
believe to be true, do you think that God is going to judge
them for that, so long as they have been true and faithful to
their own reasoning powers (applause) ? Mr. Bradlaugh
noticed the phrase which fell from me, about a discussion
like this being distasteful to me. I did not say that the
matter under discussion was distasteful to me. I did not say
that a discussion under other conditions would be distasteful
to me. I did not say that it was at all distasteful to me to
search the grounds of my own belief, for my own belief
would be poor indeed were not such search my constant
practice (hear, hear). Mr. Bradlaugh laid great stress,
during the greater part of his speech, upon what
appear to be, in different races and in different
climes, the different and contradictory deliverances of
conscience. That difficulty is one which has been
felt by many persons, and dealt with, well and ill, by
various writers. The difficulty is one of importance, and it
arises, perhaps, from the word “ conscience ” being used in
various different senses. My use of the word “ conscience ” is
simply as being that voice of God (as I still call it) which says,
“Do the right; don’t do the wrong.” It does not in anyway say
what is right or what is wrong. That which I call the right,
like so much of our manhood, is the gradual development
and evolution of history, and it is largely dependent, as
Mr. Bradlaugh, says, upon climate and other external sur
roundings. We have to reason about what is right and wrong.
We must have gradual education of the individual and
of the race to get a clearer and more worthy conception of
the right and wrong ; and all I claim for conscience is that
the man, having resolved in his own mind what is right and
what is wrong,this conscience says, “Do the right,and do not
the wrong.” Therefore, instates of barbarous society, where
misled reason has induced persons to think certain things
were right which we look upon as crimes, still the voice of
conscience must necessarily tell them to do the right. The
�24
thing is right to the individual if he thinks it right. It may
be a terrible mistake of his—it may be a terrible mistake to
believe or teach certain things; nevertheless, the voice of
conscience says, “ Do the rightit does not define what
the right is. That is one of the things which God leaves to
be developed in humanity by slow degrees. Thank God, we
see that the idea of the right and the wrong is purifying—is
clarifying in the course of history. The conception of what
is right and what is wrong is better now than it was a
hundred years ago; the conception of what is right
and what is wrong is better still than it was a thou
sand years ago.
Many of the things then considered
laudable are now considered base; and many of the things
then considered base are now considered laudable. This
voice of which I speak, however, like all other voices, may
not be equally perceived at all times. Supposing that you
were at school, and a certain bell rang at six o’clock every
morning. If you accustom yourself to rising when the bell
rings, you will naturally enough go on hearing it; but if you
get into the habit of disregarding it, and turning over on the
other side for another nap, the bell may sound loudly but
you will cease to hear it. So it is, I take it, with the voice
of God, which ever speaks—which ever pleads—but against
which man may deafen himself. He may make himself so
dull of understanding that he may not hear it clearly. Not
only the individual man’s own obstinacy may make
him dull of hearing, but it must be conceded that this
dulness of hearing may descend to him from long
generations of those from whom he proceeds. It may
be a part of his inheritance. But it does not follow that
this voice does not exist, and that it does not still plead with
him if he had the ear to hear it. No man is so lost but that
if he strives to hear, that voice will become to him clearer and
more clear. I ask you here whether you find any difficulty
in deciding what, to you, is right or wrong? Mr. Bradlaugh
is very fond of definitions. The words “right’’and “wrong’’are
so simple that any definition of them would only obscure
them. I know, andyou know, what you m ean by right and wrong.
If I say of a thing, “ That is not right, don’t do it,” you know
what I mean. Can I speak in any plainer way than to say
of a thing, “ That is not right ” ? If there is no better way
of explaining what you mean than this—if there is no plainer
way—it is best not to attempt to define the word, because
the definition would only tend to obscure it. Not being
4
>
�25
much accustomed to debates of this description, much of
what I desired to say in the first half-hour was not said. I
am told that all this experience which I have been trying
to relate to you is fancy, and I am asked to prove that there
is some being who can be imagined to be this God whom I
believe I hear speaking to me. I might ask : “ Is it not
enough that not only do I think I hear this voice, but that
so many hundreds and thousands of the great and good
have also thought so ? Is it not enough that many of the
great reformers, many of the great leaders in the paths of
righteousness and mercy, in this England of ours, tell us that
they hear this voice ? You must, if you deny it, either think
they lie or that they are deluded. When Newman, Voysey,
Theodore Parker—the glorious abolitionist of America—
say that it is their most intimate experience, it is somewhat
shallow to assert that there is nothing in it. I am not one
of those who think that the existence of a God can be
proved to the understanding of every one in a large audience
on a priori grounds. At the same time the balance of
probability on a priori grounds seems to be, to me, strongly
in favour of Theism. I find that there is, in my own.
mental constitution, a demand for cause of some kind for
every phenomenon. I want to know what has led to thephenomenon, and I find a good many other people are apt to
inquire in the like direction. Even very little children,
before they are sophisticated by us teachers and parsons,
want to be informed as to the causes of things. Another
point — I cannot help believing that all cause must beintelligent. Yes, I knew that would go down in Mr. Brad
laugh’s notes; but I say again, I cannot conceive of any
cause which is not intelligent in some sort of way (applause).
Mr. Brad laugh : There are two things which are evidently
quite certain so far as my opponent is concerned; one is that
we shall have a good-tempered debate, and the other that we
shall have a candid debate. Mr. Armstrong has said frankly,
with reference to the definition of God, that he is perfectly in
capable of saying whether the definition of Professor Flint is
correct or not, and he has, I think I may say, complained that
I am too fond of definitions. Will he permit me on this to read
him an extract from Professor Max Muller’s recent lecture :
“ It was, I think, a very good old custom never to enter
upon the discussion of any scientific problem without giving,
beforehand definitions of the principal terms that had to be
employed. A book on logic or grammar generally opened
�with the question, What is logic? What is grammar ? No
one would write on minerals without first explaining what he
meant by a mineral, or on art, without defining, as well as
he might, his idea of art. No doubt it was often as trouble
some for the author to give such preliminary definitions as
it seemed useless to the reader, who was generally quite
incapable in the beginning of appreciating their full value.
Thus it happened that the rule of giving verbal definitions
came to be looked upon after a time as useless and obsolete.
Some authors actually took credit for no longer giving these
definitions, and it soon became the fashion to say that the
only true and complete definition of what was meant by
logic or grammar, by law or religion, was contained in the
books themselves which treated of these subjects. But
what has been the result ? Endless misunderstandings and
controversies which might have been avoided in many cases
if both sides had clearly defined what they did and what
they did not understand by certain words.” I will show you
presently where this need of accurate definition comes so
very strongly. Mr. Armstrong is quite clear that he knows
what right means ; he is also quite clear that you know
what he means. That may be true, but it also may not, and
I will show you the difficulty.
Suppose there were a
thorough disciple, say of some bishop or church, who thought
it right to put to death a man holding my opinions. That
man would think the capital punishment for heresy right,
Mr. Armstrong would not. That man’s conscience would
decide that it was right, Mr. Armstrong’s would decide that
it was not. What is the use of saying you both know what
is right ? The word right is a word by which you label
certain things, thoughts, and actions, the rightness of which
you have decided on some grounds known only to yourselves.
It may be they are pleasant to you or disagreeable to your
antagonist. I, in defining morality, gave you my reason for
labelling the thing with the name “right.” Mr. Armstrong has
given you no reason whatever. Mr. Armstrong says that
conscience is the voice of God which says : “ Do that which
is right, don’t do that which is wrong.” Yet the divine voice
does not tell you what is right and what is wrong. Hence
that conscience talking to the cannibal: “ It is right to eat
that man, he’s tender; it’s wrong to eat that man, he’s
tough ”—(laughter)—and the voice of God says : “eat the
tender men because it is right; don’t eat the tough men
because it is wrong.” I ask how that illustration is to be
�27
dealt with? If the voice does not in any way enable you to
determine the character of the act, then it simply means
that what you call the voice of God asks you to continue
committing every error which has been bequeathed you
from past times as right, and to avoid every good thing
because in past times it has been condemned and is yet con
demned as wrong. If that is to be the conclusion, then
I say that the voice of God is not a voice to be worshipped,
and that it is not reasonable to worship such a voice
and taking that to be the definition I submit that upon
that a negative answer must be given in this debate.
Mr. Armstrong very frankly and candidly says that the
conception of what is right and wrong is being cleared
and purified ‘ day by day. That is, the conception now is
different to what it was one hundred years ago, and better
still than it was a thousand years ago; but the voice of
God, a thousand years ago, told the Armstrong and Brad
laugh then living, to do that which conscience said to them
was right, and which the conscience to-day says is wrong.
Was God governed by the mis-education, the mis-informa
tion, and the mis-apprehension of the time ? If the God
was outside the ignorance of the day, why did he not set the
people right ? Was he powerless to do it ? In which case,
how do you make out that he is God ? Or had he never the
willingness to do it ? In which case how do you make out
that he was God good ? And if he preferred to leave them
in blindness, how do you reconcile that? Then we are told
the voice is not always clear, but that you may make it more
clear by a habit of obedience. That is so I suppose. And you
may transmit the predisposition to the habit of galloping tohorses on this side the ocean, the predisposition to the
habit of trotting to horses on the other side the ocean;' tothinking MahommedanisminTurkey,and to thinking another
“ ism ” in England, and some other “ism” in Hindustan.
You do not transmit the actual thought any more than you
transmit the actual gallop or trot, but you transmit the pre
disposition, given the appropriate surroundings to reproduce
any action physical or mental. And the source of this is
God, is it ? I vow I do not understand how the Theist is to
meet the contradiction thus involved. Then, Mr. Arm
strong says that when he uses the word “ right,” he defies
anyone to make it plainer. Let us see what that means :
I forge a cheque; Mr. Armstrong says that’s wrong. Why?
Oh ! it is a dishonest and dishonourable thing, it tends to
�28
injure, and so on. But let us see whether you are always
quite clear about these things ? When you are annexing a
country, for example; praying to your God that you may
annex successfully, and that he will protect you when you
have annexed, does not your conscience run away with you,
or does not God mislead you in some of these things ? Is
it not true that the moment you get outside the definition
of the word “ right,” and the moment you say : “ I have a
standard of right which I will not tell you, because nothing
I tell you will make it clear ” you are launched at once into
a heap of absurdities and contradictions ? You think it is
right to have one wife, the Turk thinks it right to have two.
How are you to determine between them ? It only means,
that one of you has labelled bigamy “ right ” and the other
has labelled it “ wrong.” You must have some kind of ex
planation to justify what you are talking about it. We had
an argument offered by Mr. Armstrong which, if it meant
anything, meant that the voice of the majority should pre
vail. Mr. Armstrong said, that it was not only his experience
but that of thousands of others. Does he mean to tell me
that problems of this kind are to be determined by an un
trained majority, or by the verdict of a skilled minority ?
If by a majority, I have something to say to him, and if by
the skilled minority, how are you to select them ? In his
first speech, which I did not quite finish replying to, we
were told that God’s peace and beauty were apprehended in
lakes and mountains. But I have seen one lake—-Michigan—
the reverse of peace and beauty; I have seen little vessels
knocked about by the waves, and dashed to pieces ; and I
have seen Mount Vesuvius when it has been the
very opposite of calm and beautiful, and I have
heard of the houses at Torre del Grecco—though I
have never seen it—being burned in the night by the fiery
lava stream. Where is the peace and beauty of that scene ?
You can take peace. Given a lake, and I can show you a
tornado. Given a mountain and I can give you Vesuvius
with the fiery stream burning the huts of the fishers on the
slope of Torre del Grecco. Did God do this ? Did God
run the two vessels into one another on the Thames and
have those hundreds of people drowned? If you take
credit for the beauty you must also take debit for the
pain and misery (applause). Well, then, I am told that re
ligion is the noblest of all instincts. Max Muller tells us—
whether that be true or not, as Francis Newman puts it—that
�29
religion is a word about which people never have agreed in
any age of the world; about which there have been more
quarrels than about any other word, and about which people
have done more mischief than about any other word; and
I will ask our friend to explain, if it be the noblest of all
instincts, how is it that people have racked each other, and
beheaded each other, and tortured each other by, or in the
name of, this religion ? We are told, and I am thankful to
hear it, that we sceptics have purged it of a great deal of
mischief, and we hope to do more in that way as we go on
(applause). And here—and I want to speak with as much
reverence as I can on the subject of prayer, and it is ex
tremely difficult to touch upon it without giving my oppo
nent pain—so I will deal with it as a general, and not a
personal question. Mr. Armstrong said, after speaking of
how he prayed against temptation : “ He answered me as he
has answered the immemorial prayer of Christendom and
delivered me from temptation.” Why does he not deliver
from the temptation that misery, poverty, and ignorance
bring to the little one who did not choose that he should be
born in a narrow lane, or a back street, in an atmosphere
redolent of squalor and filth ? This little one, whom God
can lift out of temptation, but whom he lets still be cold and
miserable, whom he sees famishing for food, him whom he
sees go famishing to the baker’s, watching to steal the
loaf to relieve his hunger—why won’t he deliver this little
one ? Does Mr. Armstrong say: “ Oh, the little one must
know how to pray before God will answer him ” ? Oh, but
what a mockery to us that the source of all power places
within the reach of the temptation—nay, puts as though
surrounded by a mighty temptation trap, so that there should
be no possible escape—that little one, and then gives way to the
skilled entreaty, high tone, habit-cultured voice which Mr.
Armstrong uses, while he is deaf to the rough pleading of the
little one, and allows him to sink down, making no effort
for his recovery ! I have only one or two words more to
say to you before I again finish, and I would use these to
ask Mr. Armstrong to tell me what he meant by the word
“ cause,” and what he meant by saying “ cause must be
intelligent ” ? By cause, I mean, all that without which an
event cannot happen—the means towards an end, and by
intelligence I mean the totality of mental ability—its activity
and its results in each animal capable of it.
Mr. Armstrong: Mr. Bradlaugh has just been re-
�3°
buking me for my laxness with respect to defini
tions, and has come down upon me with a great autho
rity. Now, it is a habit of mine not to think much
of authorities as authorities, but rather of the value
of what they say. Mr. Bradlaugh came down upon
me with Max Muller, and read a sentence in reference to the
value of definitions, to the effect that they were wonderful
things for preventing and avoiding controversies and dis
putes. Is it, I ask, Mr. Bradlaugh’s experience that the
number of definitions given from public platforms in his
presence has tended to less controversy or to more ? Has
there been more or less talk with all these definitions, than
there would have been without them ? I fancied that Mr.
Bradlaugh’s career had been one very much connected with
controversies, and that the definitions which he has been ac
customed to give have not had the effect of leaving him in peace
from controversy. I am perfectly amazed at Mr. Brad
laugh’s memory, at the wonderful manner in which he
manages to remember, with tolerable accuracy, what I have
said, and to get down as he does the chief points of my
speeches.
I have, unfortunately, a miserable memory,
although I have an excellent shorthand which I can write,
and I cannot generally read it (laughter). Trusting, however,
to those two guides, I must endeavour to reply. Mr. Brad
laugh unintentionally misrepresented me when he alleged
that I had said that the voice of God, called conscience, was
not always clear. I did not say that that voice was not always
clear -—- what I said was that it was not always clearly
heard. I illustrated this by the simile of the bell, the sound
of which was perfectly clear of itself, but which was not
heard by those who would not heed.
Mr. Bradlaugh
also accused me of going in for the authority of majori
ties, because I quoted a number of names and said
that I might quote many more who concurred in the
belief in Deity grounded upon the sort of experi
ence which I said that I had myself enjoyed. Now, the
opinions of the majority have no authority—at least they go
for what they are worth, but are not a binding or an absolute
authority. But the experience of a majority, or of a minority,
or of a single individual, has authority. The experience
of a single man is a fact, and all the rest of the world not
having had that experience, or thinking that they have not
had it, does not make it less the fact. Therefore, if you
have half-a-dozen men upon whose words you can rely, who
�3i
say that they have had a certain experience, because Mr.
Bradlaugh says he has not had such experience, that makes
it none the less the fact. Now I approach that awful question
which stares in the face of the Theist—and which
ioften seems to stare most cruelly—this question of the evil
in the world. It is a question upon which the greatest
intellects of mankind have broken themselves, one which
has never been really explained or made clear, either by
the Theist or the Atheist, but which is probably beyond the
solution of the human faculties. All that we can do is to
fringe the edge of the mystery, and to see whether the best
feelings within us seem to guide us to anything approaching
a solution. Do you think that these things of which Mr.
Bradlaugh has spoken do not touch me as they touch
him ? Look, say, at the poor child born in misery, and
living in suffering; it would absolutely break my heart if I
thought that this could be the end of all. I believe that it
would weigh me down so that I could not stand upon a
public platform, or perform the ordinary business of life, if I
believed that there were beings in the world of whom misery
and sin were the beginning and the end. But I thank God that
I am enabled to maintain my reason upon its seat, and my
trust intact. I know, or I think I know, God as a friend. If he
be a friend to me, shall he not be a friend to all ? If I know
by my own experience his wondrous loving kindness, can I
not trust him for all the rest of the world, through all the
ages of eternity ? You may see a son who shall be familiar
with his father’s kindness, who shall always be kindly treated
by his father ; and there shall be a great warm love between
them. But the child sees certain actions on the part of his
father which he cannot explain. He beholds suffering
apparently brought by his father upon others, and is,
perhaps, inclined to rebel against his father’s authority. But
which is the truest child—the child who, having himself
experienced his father’s love, says : “ Well, this is strange, it
is a mystery; I would it were not so, but I know that my father
is good, and will bring some good out of this which could
not have been obtained otherwiseor the child who says :
“All my experience of my father’s goodness shall go to the
winds. I see a problem which I cannot explain, and I will,
therefore, throw up my trust, rebel against the paternal
goodness, and believe in my father’s love no more ! ” It
would be base in such of you as may be Atheisst
to rest in such a trust, since vou do not know the
�32
love of God; but were you touched with that love
this trust would come to you. It would come to you in
your best and truest moments, the moments when you feel
that you are most akin with all that is good and holy, and
when you feel, as it were, lifted above what is base. ’ This
problem of the evil in the world, I have said, surpasses the
faculties of humanity to solve, either from the platform of
the Theist, the Atheist, or the Pantheist. . I ask you what
you conceive to be the highest good to humanity ? Is not
the highest good, virtue ? You say, it may be, happiness is
better. Take the Huguenot. One way, with him, led to
happiness, the other to destruction. Was the choice he made
the better or the worse ? You say the better ? Then you
hold that virtueis betterthan happiness. Withregardto virtue
imagine, if you can, a world free from every sort of suffer
ing, from every sort of temptation, every sort of trial, what
a very nice world to live in, but what very poor creatures we
should all be ! Where would be virtue, where valour, where
greatness, where nobility, where would be all thos’e high
functions which call forth our reverence, and make
us look up from men to the God of man ? The world
is not made of sugar-plums. I, for my own part, can
not conceive how virtue, the highest good which we can
conceive, could possibly come about in human character
unless human character had evil against which it had to
contend (applause). If you can tell me how we could have
a world in which men should be great, and good, and
chivalrous, and possess all such qualities as raise feelings of
reverence in our bosoms, where nevertheless all should be
smooth and easy, you will have told me of something which,
I think, has never been told to any human being (applause).
Mr. Bradlaugh : A large number of definitions lead to
more controversy or to less. If the definitions are offered
to the minds of people well educated, and thoroughly
understanding them—to much less controversy and to more
accuracy; and when they are offered to people who are yet
ignorant, and have yet to understand them, then they lead
to more controversy, but even there, also, to more accuracy.
I am asked: Can you tell me how to make a world ? I
cannot. Do you intend to base your conclusions on my
ignorance ? If there be an onus, it lies on you, not on me.
It is your business to show that the maker you say ought to
be adored, has made the world as good as it can be. It is
not my business at all to enter upon world-making. Then
�33
I am not sure—while I am quite ready to be set right upon
a verbal inaccuracy—I am not sure there is very much dis
tinction between the voice not being heard, and not being
clearly heard. It is said to be the voice of God that speaks;
but he made the deafness or otherwise of the person to
whom he speaks, or he is not the creator, preserver, “ the
dearest friend in whom I trust, on whom I rely”—these
are Mr. Armstrong’s words. If God cannot prevent the
deafness, then the reliance is misplaced; if he made rhe
deafness, it is of no use that he is talking plainly; if he
has made the person too deaf to hear his voice, then the
voice is a mockery. Then I had it put to me, that the
opinions of majorities were not binding as authority; they
only had their value as expressions of opinion ; but that i
the experiences of individuals are binding. What does
that mean? Is there such a certitude in consciousness
that there can be no mistake in experience ? What do
you mean? When you have a notion you have had an
experience, and I have a notion you have not had it?
Supposing, for example, a man says : “ I have ex
perience of a room which raced with the Great Northern
train to London ; it was an ordinary room, with chairs and
tables in it, and none of them were upset, and it managed
to run a dead heat with the Great Northern express.” You
would say : “ My good man, if you are speaking seriously,
you are a lunatic.” “ No,” he would say, “ that is my ex
perience.” Mr. Armstrong says that that experience de
serves weight. I submit not unless you have this : that the
experience must be of facts coming within the possible range
of other people’s experience; and mustbe experience which is
testable by other people’s experience, with an ability on the
part of the person relating to clearly explain his ex
perience, and that each phenomenon he vouches to you, to
be the subject possible of criticism on examination by your
self, and that no experience which is perfectly abnormal,
and which is against yours, has any weight whatever with
you, or ought to have, except, perhaps, as deserving ex
amination. When it possibly can be made part of your
experience, yes; when it admittedly cannot be made part
of your experience, no. A man with several glasses of
whisky sees six chandeliers in this room ; that is his ex
perience—not mine. I do not refuse to see; I cannot see
more than three. Mr. Armstrong says the problem of evil
never has been made clear by Atheist or Theist. There is
D
�34
no burden on us to make it clear. The burden is upon
the person who considers that he has an all-powerful friend
of loving kindness, to show how that evil exists in con
nection with his statement that that friend could prevent
it. If he will not prevent it, he is not of that loving
kindness which is pretended. Mr. Armstrong says: “My
dear friend is kind to me, shall I not believe that he is
kind to the little lad who is starving?” What, kind
to the lad whom he leaves unsheltered and ill-clad
in winter, whose mother is drunken because the place
is foul, whose father has been committed to gaol ?
Where is the evidence to that lad of God’s loving kind
ness to him ? God, who stands by whilst the little child
steals something; God, who sets the policeman to catch
him, knowing he will go amongst other criminals, where he
will become daily the more corrupted; God, who tells him
from the Bench through the mouth of the justice, that he
has given way to the temptation of the devil, when it is the
very God has been the almighty devil (applause). That
may be a reason for Mr. Armstrong adoring his friend, but
it is no reason for this poor boy to adore. “ Ah,” Mr.
Armstrong says, “ my reason for homage is this. I should
be dissatisfied if this were going to last for ever, or if this
were to be the whole of it; that is so bad I should be in
anguish were there no recompense.” You condemn it if it
is to continue. How can you worship the being who allows
that even temporarily which your reason condemns ? Has
he marked his right to be adored as God by the
little girl who is born of a shame-marked mother in the
shadow of the workhouse walls, who did not select the
womb from which she should come, and whose career, con
sequent on her birth, is one of shame and perhaps crime
too. Ah ! that friend you love, how his love is evidenced
to that little girl is yet to be made clear to me. Then
comes another problem of thought which I am not sure I
shall deal fairly with. Is the highest good virtue or happi
ness ? But the highest happiness is virtue. That act is
virtuous which tends to the greatest happiness of the greatest
number, and which inflicts the least injury on any—that
which does not so result in this is vice. When you put happi
ness and virtue as being utterly distinguished, in your mind
they may be so, but not in my mind. You have confused
the definition of morality which I gave on the first opening;
you have, without explaining it, substituted another in lieu
�35
•of it. You would be right to say my definition is wrong,
■and give another definition, but you have no right to ignore
my definition and use my word in precisely the opposite
sense to that in which I used it. A very few words now will
determine this question for this evening, and I will ask you
to remember the position in which we are here. I am
Atheist, our friend is Theist. He has told you practically
that the word “ God ” is incapable of exact definition,
and if this is so, then it is incapable of exact belief. If it is
incapable of exact definition, it is incapable of exact
thought. If thought is confused you may have prostration of
the intellect, and this is all you can have. Our friend says
that he prays and that his prayer is answered daily, but he
forgot the millions of prayers to whom God is deaf. In his
peaceful mountains and lakes—Vesuvius and Lake Michi
gan escaped him. The fishers in Torre del Grecco, they on
whom the lava stream came down in the night, had their
lips framed no cry for mercy ? Did not some of those
hundreds who were carried to death on the tide of the muddy
Thames, did not they call out in their despair ? and yet he
was deaf to them. He listened to you, but it is of those
to whom he did not listen of whom I have to speak. If
he listens to you and not to them he is a respecter of
persons. He may be one for you to render homage to, but
not for me. First, then, the question is : “ Is it reasonable
to worship God?” and the word “worship” has been left
indistinctly defined. I defy anyone who has listened to
Mr. Armstrong to understand how much or how little he
would exclude or include in worship. I made it clear how
much I would include. Our friend has said nothing
whatever relating to the subject with which we have had to
deal.. His word “God” has been left utterly undefined;
the words “ virtue ” and “ happiness,” and the words “ right”
and “ wrong,” are left equally unexplained; the questions I
put to him of cause and intelligence have been left as
though they were not spoken. I do not make this a re
proach to him, because I know it is the difficulty of the
subject with which he has to deal. The moment you tell
people what you mean, that moment you shiver the Vene
tian glass which contains the liquor that is not to be touched.
I plead under great difficulty.
I plead for opinions that
have been made unpopular; I appeal for persons who, in
the mouths of their antagonists, often have associated with
them all that is vicious. It is true that Mr. Armstrong has
B 2
�36
no such reproach. He says that God will only try me
by that judgment of my own reason, and he makes my
standard higher than God’s on the judgment day. God
made Bruno; do you mean that Bruno’s heresy ranks as
high as faith, and that Bruno at the judgment will stand
amongst the saints ? This may be high humanity, but it is
no part of theology. Our friend can only put it that because
in his own goodness he makes an altar where he can worship,
and a church where he would make a God kind and loving
as himself, and that as he is ready to bless his fellows, so
must his God be; but he has shown no God for me to
worship, and he has made out no reasonableness to wor
ship God except for himself, to whom, he says, God is kind.
Alas ! that so many know nothing of his kindness (applause).
I beg to move the thanks of this meeting to Mr. Rothera
for presiding this evening.
Mr. Armstrong : I wish to second that.
Carried unanimously.
The Chairman : Permit me just to express the obliga
tions I feel under to you for having made my duty so
simple and pleasant. My position as chairman necessarily
and properly excludes me from making any judgment what
ever upon the character and quality of what has been
addressed to you. Notwithstanding that, I may say this i
that it is, I believe, a healthy sign of the times when a num
ber of men and women, such as have met together in this
room, can listen to such addresses as have been made to
night, for it will help on our civilisation. And if you want
a definition of what is right, I say that our business is to
learn what is true, then we shall do what is right (applause).
�37
SECOND
NIGHT.
The Chairman, who was much applauded, said : Ladies
and Gentlemen—It is with much satisfaction that I re
sume my duties as chairman this evening. No one occupy
ing this position could fail to be gratified with the high tone
and excellent temper of the debate which we listened to
last night (hear, hear), or, in noting as I did, the earnest,
sustained, and intelligent attention of a large and much
over-crowded audience (applause). I regard this as a health
ful sign of the times. There are those who look upon such
a discussion as this as dangerous and irreverent. I do not
share in that opinion (hear, hear). There is an intelligence
abroad that no longer permits men to cast the burden of
their beliefs upon mere authority, but which compels them
to seek for reasons for the faith that is in them (hear, hear).
To those, I think, such discussion as this, maintained in the
spirit of last evening, cannot fail to be useful. It is obvious
that the first requisite of religion is, that it be true. Fear of
the results of investigation, therefore, should deter no one
from inquiry. That which is true in religion, cannot be
shaken, and that which is false no one should desire to pre
serve (applause). Now, as you are aware, Mr. Armstrong in
this discussion is charged with the duty of maintaining the
proposition that it is reasonable in us to worship God. The
negative of that proposition is supported by Mr. Bradlaugh.
Under the arrangement for the debate, Mr. Bradlaugh is to
night entitled to half-an-hour for his opening, Mr. Arm
strong to half-an-hour for his reply. After that a quarterhour will be given to each alternately, until Mr. Armstrong
will conclude the debate at ten o’clock. I have now great
pleasure in asking Mr. Bradlaugh to open the discussion
(applause).
Mr. Bradlaugh, who was very warmly received, said :
In contending that it is not reasonable to worship God, it
seemed to me that I ought to make clear to you, at any
�38
rate, the words I used, and the sense in which I used them,
and to do that I laid before you last night several definitions,
not meaning that my definitions should necessarily bind
Mr. Armstrong, but meaning that, unless he supplied some
other and better explanations for the words, the meaning
I gave should be, in each case, taken to be my meaning all
through. I did not mean that he was to be concluded by
the form of my definition if he were able to correct it, or if
he were able to give a better instead ; but I think I am now
entitled to say that he ought to be concluded by my defini
tions, and this, from the answer he has given (hear, hear).
The answer was frank—very frank—(hear) and I feel
reluctant to base more upon it than I ought to do in a dis
cussion conducted as this has been. If I were meeting an
antagonist who strove to take every verbal advantage, I
might be tempted to pursue only the same course; but
when I find a man speaking with evident earnestness, using
language which seems to be the utter abandonment of his
cause, I would rather ask him whether some amendment
of the language he used might not put his case in a
better position. His declaration was that he was perfectly
incapable of saying whether the definition, which I had taken
from Professsor Flint, of God, was correct or not (hear,
hear). Now, I will ask him, and you, too, to consider the
consequence of that admission. No definition whatever is
given by him of the word “ God.” There was not even the
semblance, or attempt of it. The only words we got which
were akin to a definition, except some words which, it
appears, I took down hastily, and which Mr. Armstrong
abandoned in his next speech, the only words bearing even
the semblance of a definition, are “ an awful inscrutable
somewhat” (laughter and hear, hear). Except these words,
there have been no words in the arguments and in the
speeches of Mr. Armstrong which enabled me, in any
fashion, to identify any meaning which he may have of it,
except phrases which contradict each other as soon as you
examine them (applause). Now, what is the definition of which
Mr. Armstrong says that he is incapable of saying whether or
not it is correct? “ That God is a self-existent, eternal being,
infinite in power and wisdom, and perfect in holiness and
goodness, the maker of heaven and earth.” Now, does
Mr. Armstrong mean that each division of the definition
comes within his answer ? Does he mean that in relation to
no part of that which is predicated in this definition is he
�39
capable of saying whether it is correct or not ? Because, if
he does, he is answered by his own speech, as a portion of
this defines God as being perfect in holiness and goodness,
in power and wisdom; and it defines him as eternal in
duration and infinite in his existence; and also defines him
as being the creator of the universe. Now, if Mr. Armstrong
means that “ as a whole, I can’t say whether it is correct or
not,” or if, in defending his position, he means that, haying
divided the definition in its parts, he cannot say whether it is,
in any one part, correct or not, then I must remind him that,
in this debate, the onus lies upon him of saying what it is he
worships, and what it is he contends it is reasonable of us
to worship (hear, hear). If he cannot give us a clear and
concise notion of what he worships, and of what he says it
is reasonable for us to worship, I say that his case has fallen
to the ground. It must be unreasonable to worship that of
which you, in thought, cannot predicate anything in any way
—accurately or inaccurately (applause). Mr. Armstrong
evidently felt—I hope that you will not think that the feel
ing was justified—that there was a tendency on my part to
make too much of, and to be too precise as to, the meaning
of words used. Permit me to say it is impossible to be too
precise; it is impossible to be too clear ; it is impossible to
be too distinct—(hear, hear)—especially when you are dis
cussing a subject in terms which are not used by everybody
in the same sense, and which are sometimes not used by the
mass of those to whom you are addressing yourself at all
(applause). It is still more necessary to be precise when
many of those terms have been appropriated by the teachers
of different theologies and mythologies, such teachers having
alleged that the use of the words meant something which, on
the face of it, contradicted itself, and by other teachers who,
if they have not been self-contradictory, have attached meanings
widely different to those given by their fellows (hear, hear).
I will ask you, then, to insist with me that what is meant by
God should be given us in such words that we can clearly
and easily identify it (hear, hear). If you cannot even in
thought identify God, it is unreasonable—absolutely un
reasonable—to talk of worshipping “ it ” (applause). What
is “ it ” you are going to worship ? Can you think clearly
what it is you are going to worship ? If you can think clearly
for yourself what it is, tell me in what words you think it.
It may be that my brain may not be skilled enough to fully
comprehend that, but, at any rate, we shall then have an
�4°
opportunity of testing for ourselves how little or how much
clear thought you may have on the subject (laughter and ap
plause). If you are obliged to state that it is impossible to
put your thoughts in words so clear and so distinct that I may
understand the meaning of it as clearly as you do, or that
a person of ordinary capacity cannot comprehend the words
in which you describe it—if that is impossible, then it is un
reasonable to ask me to worship it (loud applause). I say it
is unreasonable to ask me to worship an unknown quantity
—an unrecognisable symbol expressing nothing whatever.
If you know what it is you worship—if you think you know
what it is you worship—I say it is your duty to put into
words what you think you know (hear, hear). We have had
in this debate some pleas put forward, which, if they had
remained unchallenged, might have been some sort of pleas
for the existence of a. Deity, but each of those pleas has in
turn failed. I do not want to use too strong a phrase, so I
will say that each in turn has been abandoned. Take, for
instance, the plea of beauty, harmony, and calmness of
the world, as illustrated by lakes and mountains, to
which I contrasted storms and volcanoes. Mr. Arm
strong’s reply to that was: “ But this involves problems
which are alike insoluble by Theist and Atheist.” If it is
so, why do you worship what is non-capable of solution ?
If there be no solution, why do you put that word “ God ”
as representative of the solution which you say is unattain
able, and ask me to prostrate myself before it and adore it ?
(applause).
We must have consistency of phraseology.
Either the problem is soluble—then the onus is upon you
to state it in reasonable terms; or it is insoluble, and then
you have abandoned the point you set out to prove, because
it must be unreasonable to worship an insoluble proposition
(applause). Howdoyou know anything of that God you askus
to worship ? I must avow that, after listening carefully to what
has fallen from Mr. Armstrong, I have been unable to glean
what he knows of God or how he knows it (hear, hear). I
remember he has said something about a “ voice of God,”
but he has frankly admitted that the voice in question has
spoken differently and in contradictory senses in different
ages (loud cries of “no, no,”)—and those who say “no,”
will do better to leave Mr. Armstrong to answer for him
self as to the accuracy of what I state (hear, hear). I say
he frankly admitted that the voice he alluded to had spoken
differently and contradictorily in different ages. (Renewed
�4i
cries of “ no ”). I say yes, and I will give the evidence of
my yes. (Cries of “ no, no,” “ order,” and “ hear, hear.”)
I say yes, and I will give the evidence of my yes (hear,
hear, and applause).
Mr. Armstrong said that in one
hundred years there had been a purification, and an
amelioration, and a clearing away; and that that change
had been vaster still since one thousand years ago (ap
plause). He is responsible for admitting what I said
about the definition of morality being different in one
age and amongst one people, to what it is in another
age and amongst another people; and if that does not mean
exactly what I put substantially to you, it has no meaning
at all (loud applause).
I strive not to misrepresent
that which I have to answer; I will do my best to under
stand what it is that is urged against me. Those who hold
a different judgment should try, at least, to suspend it until I
have finished (hear, hear, and applause). In the Baird
Lectures, to which I referred last night—and let me here
say that I don’t think that any complaint can be fairly made
of my quoting from them—something was said last night
about my using great men as an authority. Now I do not do
that; but if I find that a man, whose position and learning
gave him advantages with regard to a subject upon which
I am speaking, and he has expressed what I wished to say
better than I can do—if I use his language it is right
I should say from where I have taken my words (hear, hear)
And if I remember right, we had, last night, quotations from
Charles Voysey, Professor Newman, Professor Blackie, and
a host of similar writers on the other side. I take it they
were given in the same fashion that I intended in giving the
names of the writers of the quotations I have cited—not for
the purpose of overwhelming me with their authority, but
simply to inform me and you from whence were got the
words used (hear, hear). Now, Professor Flint, in his book
on Atheism, directed against the position taken up by men
like myself, says : “ The child is born, not into the religion
of nature but into blank ignorance; and, if left entirely to
itself, would probably never find out as much religious truth
as the most ignorant of parents can teach it.” Again, on page
23 he says : “The belief that there is one God, infinite in
power, wisdom, and goodness, has certainly not been
wrought out by each one of us for himself, but has been
passed on from man to man, from parent to child: tradi
tion, education, common consent, the social medium, have
�42
exerted great influence in determining its acceptance and
prevalence.” Now, what I want to put to you from this is
that, just as Max Muller and others have done, you must try
to find out whether what is to be understood by the word
“ God ” is to be worshipped or not, by tracing backwards
the origin and growth of what is to-day called religion. You
will have to search out the traditions of the world, should
there fail to be any comprehensible meaning come from the
other side. Now, what God is it that we are to worship ?
Is it the Jewish God? Is it the Mahometan God? Is it
the God of the Trinitarian Christian ? Is it one of the
gods of the Hindus ? Or is it one of the gods of the old
Greeks or Italians, and, if so, which of them ? And in each
case from what source are we to get an accurate definition
of either of those gods ? Perhaps Mr. Armstrong will say
that it is none of these. He will probably decline to
have any of these Gods fastened upon him as the proper
God to worship ; but the very fact that there are so many
different gods—different with every variety of people—contra
dictory in their attributes and qualities—the very fact that
there is a wide difference in believers in a God makes it but
right that I should require that the God we are asked to
worship should be accurately defined (applause). In
the current number of the /Jonteinporary Review, Professor
Monier Williams, dealing with the development of Indian
religious thought, has a paragraph which is most appro
priate to this debate. He says, on page 246 : “ The early
religion of the Indo-Aryans was a development of a still earlier
belief in man’s subjection to the powers of nature and his
need of conciliating them. It was an unsettled system,
which at one time assigned all the phenomena of the uni
verse to one first Cause; at another, attributed them to
several Causes operating independently; at another, sup
posed the whole visible creation to be a simple evolution
from an eternal creative germ. It was a belief which,
according to the character and inclination of the
worshipper was now monotheism, now tritheism, now
polytheism, now pantheism.
But it was not yet
idolatry. Though the forces of nature were thought of as
controlled by divine persons, such persons were not yet
idolised. There is no evidence from the Vedic hymns that
images were employed. The mode of divine worship con
tinued to be determined from a consideration of human
liking and dislikings. Every worshipper praised the gods
'
�43
because he liked to be praised himself. He honoured them
with offerings because he liked to receive presents himself.
This appears to have been the simple origin of the sacrificial
system, afterwards closely interwoven with the whole re
ligious system. And here comes the difficult question—
What were the various ideas expressed by the term sacrifice?
In its purest and simplest form it denoted a dedication of
some simple gift as an expression of gratitude for blessings
received. Soon the act of sacrifice became an act of pro
pitiation for purely selfish ends. The favour of celestial
beings who were capable of conferring good or inflicting
harm on crops, flocks, and herds, was conciliated by offerings
and oblations of all kinds. First, the gods were invited to
join their worshippers at the every-day meal. Then they
were invoked at festive gatherings, and offered a share of
the food consumed. Their bodies were believed to be com
posed of ethereal particles, dependent for nourishment on
the indivisible elementary essence of the substances presented
to them, and to be furnished with senses capable of being
gratified by the aroma of butter and grain offered in fire
(homa); and especially by the fumes arising from libations
of the exhilarating juice extracted from the Soma plant.”
I will allege that .you cannot give me a definition of
God that does not originate in the ignorance of man as to
the causes of phenomena which are abnormal to him, and
which he cannot explain. The wonderful, the extraordinary,
the terrific, the mysterious, the mighty, the grand, the
furious, the good, the highly beneficent—all these
that he did not understand became to him God. He
might have understood them on careful investigation
had his mind then been capable for the search,
but instead of that he attributed them to huge per
sonifications of the Unknown—the word behind which
to-day is God, and it is the equivalent for all he observed,
but did not comprehend, for all that happened of which he
knew not the meaning (applause). It was not education but
ignorance which gave birth to the so-called idea of a God
(hear, hear). And I will submit to you that, in truth, all
forms of worship have arisen from exaggeration and mis
application of what men have seen in their fellow-men and
fellow-women. A man found that a big furious man might
be pacified and calmed by soothing words; that a big
avaricious man might be satisfied and pleased with plenteous
gifts ; that this one might be compelled to do something by
�44
angry words or harsh treatment; and that this one could be
won by supplications to comply with his wishes—and what
he imagined or observed as to his fellows he applied to the
unknown, thinking, no doubt, that that which he had found
efficacious in the known experience, might also be efficacious
in that in which he had no experience. And what did you
find ? You found the sailor at sea, who’did not understand
navigation, offering candles to his Deity, or special saint,
and promising more offerings of a similar character if the
Deity brought him safe into port. I say it is more reason
able to teach him how to steer than how to worship, and also
more reasonable to know something about the science of
navigation. That would prove much more serviceable than
worship, for when he relied upon candles, he ran upon rocks
and reefs, but as soon as he understood navigation, he
could bring his own ship safely into port (applause).
Prayer is spoken of by Mr. Armstrong as an act of wor
ship. What does it imply ? It implies a belief held on the
part of the person who prays, that he may be noticed by the
being to whom he prays; and it also implies that he is
asking that being to do something which he would have left
undone but for that prayer. Then does he think that he can
influence the person whom he addresses by his rank or by his
position ? Does he think he can influence his Deity by his
emotion ? Does he think that as he would win a woman’s
love, so he would gain God, by passionate devotion ?
Does he think that, as he would frighten a man,
so he would influence God through fear ? Does he appeal
to God’s logic, or to his pity? Does he appeal to his
mercy or to his justice ? or does he hope to tell God one
thing he could not know without the prayer ? (loud applause.)
I want an answer, here, clear and thorough, from one
who says that prayer is a reasonable worship to be offered to
God (renewed applause). Something was said last night
about a cause being necessarily intelligent, and I think, in
my speech afterwards, I challenged the assertion. Nothing
was said to explain what was meant, nothing was done to
further explain the matter, and although I defined what I
meant by cause, and defined what I meant by intelligence,
no objection was taken. Now, I have seen a hut crushed
by an avalanche falling on it, as I have been crossing the
Alps.
Does Mr. Armstrong mean to tell me that the
avalanche which crushed the hut was intelligent, or that it
had an intelligent wielder? If the avalanche is intelligent,
�45
why does he think so ? If the avalanche has an intelli
gent wielder, please explain to me the goodness of that
intelligent wielder who dashes the avalanche on the cottage ?
(applause). If you tell me that it is a mystery which you
cannot explain, I say it is unreasonable to ask me to worship
such a mystery—(renewed applause)—and as long as you
call it a mystery, and treat it as that which you cannot explain,
so long you have no right to ask me to adore it. There was
a time when man worshipped the lightning and thunder,
and looked upon them as Deity. But now he has grown
wiser, and, having investigated the subject, instead of
worshipping the lightning as a Deity, he erects lightningconductors and electric wires, and chains the lightning and
thunder God; knowledge is more potent than prayer (ap
plause). As long as they were worshipped • science could
do nothing, but now we see to what uses electricity has been
brought. When they knew that the lightning-conductor
was more powerful than the God they worshipped, then
science was recognised the mighty master and ruler, instead
of ignorant faith (applause). I have already submitted that
there has not been the semblance of proof or authority for
the existence of any being identifiable in words to whom it
would be reasonable to offer worship, and I will show you
the need for pressing that upon you. A strong statement
was made last night which amounted to an admission that
there was wrong here which should not be, and that, but for
the hope on the part of the speaker that that wrong would
be remedied at some future time, he would be in a state of
terrible despair. He gave no reason for the hope, and no
evidence why he held the hope. He only contended that
things were so bad here that they would be indefensible
except for the hope that they woutd be remedied. This
admission is fatal to the affirmation of God to be worshipped
in the way here mentioned.
Then we had something said
about experience. All experience must be experience of the
senses : you can have no other experience whatever. To
quote again from Max Muller: “ All consciousness begins
with sensuous perception, with what we feel, and hear, and
see. Out of this we construct what may be called con
ceptual knowledge, consisting of collective and abstract
concepts. What we call thinking consists simply in addi
tion and subtraction of precepts and concepts. Conceptual
knowledge differs from sensuous knowledge, not in sub
stance, but in form only. As far as the material is con
�46
cerned, nothing exists in the intellect except what existed
before in the senses.” It is the old proposition put in
different, forms , by Locke, Spinoza, and others, over and
over again, but it has to be taken with this qualification that
you have innumerable instances of hallucinations of the
senses. Delusions on religious matters are open to the re
mark that of all hallucinations of the senses—as Dr H
Maudsley shows in the Fortnightly Review—all halluci
nations of the senses those on religious matters only keep
current with the religious teachings of the day. Sight, touch
smell, hearing, feeling—all are the subject of illusion as is
shown over and over again. Any man bringing as evidence
to us the report of experience which is only of an abnor
mal character, is bound to submit it to a test which is some
thing beyond in severity that which we should apply to
normal events. . The more abnormal it is the more par
ticularity in detail do I wish, in order to examine it, so that
I may be able to identify it; and the more curious the state
ment the more carefully do I wish to test it. Loose words in
theology will not do, and here I submit that at present
we stand, with, at any rate, on one side, nothing whatever
affirmed against me. I gathered last night—I hope incor
rectly—I gathered last night—I hope the words were spoken
incautiously—that Mr. Armstrong held it to be natural that
a man should have to struggle against wrong, vice, and folly,
for the purpose of bringing out the higher qualities, and that
it was alleged that it was to that struggle we were indebted
for our virtue. If that were a real thought on the part of
Mr. Armstrong it is but a sorry encouragement to any
attempts, at reformation and civilisation. Why strive to re
move misery and wrong if the struggle against them is con
ducive to.virtue ? It would take a long time to bring about
any ameliorating change in society if such doctrine were
widely held (loud applause).
The Rev. R. A. Armstrong, who was applauded on rising,,
said : Mr. Chairman and Friends—I wish, in justice to
myself, to say that I freely offered Mr. Bradlaugh the choice
of parts as to the order of speaking. I know not which way
the balance of advantage lies; but after the speech we
have listened to, I think you will agree with me that he who
speaks, first the second night has a considerable pull (laughter).
Last night as I passed down that awful flight of stairs, which
they must climb who, in this town, would soar from the nether
world to the celestial realms of Secularism, I heard many
�47
•comments, and among others one man just behind me said:
“Oh ! Armstrong is nowhere in Bradlaugh’s hands. Bradlaugh
can do just what he likes with him ” (laughter). Now, my
friend said the very truth in a certain sense. As a debater
I am nowhere compared with Mr. Bradlaugh. He has
fluency-—I compute that in thirty minutes I can string
together some 4,000 words, while, I fancy, Mr. Bradlaugh’s
score would be just about 6,000—so that to equalise our
mere mechanical advantages I ought really to have three
minutes to every two of his. If I have omitted many things
which I ought to have said, it is due to this reason (laughter
and hear, hear)—for I have not been silent during the time
assigned to me. Of course, I do not complain of this.
Then, to say nothing of Mr.'Bradlaugh’s powerful intellect, to
which I do not pretend, and his wide reading, he is in
constant practice at this work so new to me, so much so that
I find almost every thought he expressed last night, and in
almost—sometimes precisely—identical language, printed in
his pamphlets, and much of it even spoken in one or other o
his numerous debates. Take this, along with his prodigious
memory, and you will see that the doctrine of Atheism has,
indeed, in him, the very ablest defender that its friends could
wish. And if what he says is not enough to demolish
Theism, then you may be sure that Theism cannot be
demolished (applause). But then, friends, I do want you not to
look on this as a personal struggle between Mr. Bradlaugh
and myself at all. I no more accept it in that light than I would
accept a challenge from him to a boxing match, and I think
you will all agree with me that in that case, in discretion I should
show the better part of valour (hear, hear, and laughter).
We are both speaking in all earnestness of what we hold to be the
truth. Neither of us, I presume, in the least, expects to make
converts on the spot: converts so quickly made would be
like enough to be swayed back the other way next week.
But we do desire that the seed of our words should sink
into your minds; that you should give them your reverent
attention, that, in due season, so far as they are good
and true, they may ripen into matured convictions of
the. truth (applause). And now let me look back at the
position in which this conference was left last night. I am
the more at liberty to do so, as to-night Mr. Bradlaugh has
only—or chiefly—done two things, namely, repeated some
things whichhe saidlast night, andanswered certain arguments
of Professor Flint. That is perfectly fair, but it is equally fair
�48
for me to leave Professor Flint to answer for himself (hear
hear, and applause). And I complain that Mr. Bradlaugh
either did not listen to, or did not understand, what I
endeavoured to put in plainest words about the function of
that voice of God which we call conscience (hear, hear).
Observe, that while in different climesand ages, ay, in the same
manat different times, the conceptions of the particular deeds
that come under the head of right differ, the idea of rightness
itself, of rectitude, is always and invariably the same, from its
first faint glimmer in the savage little removed comparatively
from the lower animal, from which he is said to be
developed, to the season of its clear shining, luminous and
glorious, in hero, prophet, martyr, saint—in Elizabeth Fry,
in Mary. Carpenter, in Florence Nightingale. To speak
metaphysically, the abstract subjective idea of right is the
same and one, but our ideas of the concrete and objective
right develop and progress ever towards a purer and more
beautiful ideal. We have by our own powers to satisfy our
selves as best we can what is right. But when we have
made up our minds, the voice of God sounds clear as a
bell upon the soul and bids us do it (applause). This I
stated again and again last night, yet to-night again Mr.
Bradlaugh has confounded the two things. Mr. Bradlaugh
raised a laugh with his story of the cannibal objecting to the
tough, and choosing the tender meal. That cannibal, in so
far, does but illustrate how a man is swayed by those lower
instincts and desires which I rigorously and definitely'dis
tinguished and separated from conscience. Why Mr. Brad
laugh confounded this with a case of the deliverance of
conscience I cannot think, because I am so sure it wasneither to make you grin nor to confuse your minds (hear,
hear). The latter part of the first night’s debate turned on
the mystery of evil. But Mr. Bradlaugh did not then ven
ture to allege the possibility of a world in which noble character
could be developed without the contact with suffering and
pain (hear, hear). He said he was not called upon to make
a world ; happily not; but at any rate he should not question
the excellence of the world in which he lives unless he can at
least conceive abetter—(loud applause)—and I say that where
evil had never been, or what we call evil, manliness, bravery,
generosity, sympathy, tenderness, could never be (applause).
A world without temptation would be a world without
virtue (hear, hear). A world all pleasurable would be a
world without goodness, and even the pleasurable itself
�49
would cease by sheer monotony to give any pleasure at all. A
world not developed out of the conflict of good and evil,
or joy and pain, would necessarily be an absolutely neutral
world, without emotion of any sort. Unless the whole
tint is to be neutral, you must have light and shade; and the
only test by which to judge whether the power controlling the
world is good or evil—God or Devil, as Mr. Bradlaugh says—
(applause)—is to note whether light or darkness preponderates;
and not only that, but whether the movement, the tendency,
the development, the drift of things is towards the gradual
swallowing up of darkness by the light, or light by darkness;
w'hether freedom, happiness, virtue, are in the procession
of the ages losing their ground, or slowly, surely wanning
ever fresh accession (applause). I take it, then, that if we
are to have a final predominance of goodness—nay, even of
happiness, if you make that the highest good—it can only be
by these things winning their way by degrees out of the evil
which is their shadow. And I invite you once more to test
this from experience. My own experience, clear and sure,
and that of every other devout man, is simply this : that
whatever sorrow, whatever pain we suffer, though it wring
our very heart, the time is sure to come when, looking back
thereon, we thank God that it was given us, perceiving that
it was good, not evil, that befel us, being the means, in
some wray or other, of our further advance in happiness or
goodness, or nearness to our heavenly Father. You tell meit is
all very well for me; but you point to those whose lot is cast in
less pleasant places, and ask me what of them ? Is God
good to them? Well, I will take you to a dark and dismal
cellar beneath the reeking streets of a mighty city. And
this picture is not drawn from fancy, it is a photograph
from the life of one I know of. In that dark and poor abode you
shall enter, and you shall see an aged woman to whom that
spot is home. She is eaten up with disease, the inheritance,
doubtless, of her forefathers’ sin. For fifty years her simple
story has been of alternations between less pain and more.
Beside her are two orphan children, no kith or kin of hers,
but adopted by her out of the large love which she nurtures
in her heart, to share the pence she wins from the mangle,
every turn of which is, to her, physical pain. Well, surely,
she knows nought of God, has none of those “ experiences ”
which Mr. Bradlaugh treats as if they were luxuries confined
to the comfortable Theist in his easy-chair, or on his softlypillowed bed. Ay, but she is rising from her knees to
�5°
turn to the dry crust on the board, which is all she has to
share with the children. And what says she as you enter ?
“ Oh, sir, I was only thanking God for his good
ness, and teaching these poor children so.” Now,
if Mr. Bradlaugh is right in declaring we can know
nought of God, then that old woman ought never
to have eased her laden heart by the outburst of her prayer,
ought to have cast out of her as a freak of lunacy the peace
that stole upon her there as she rose from her knees, ought to
have shunned teaching those children, whose lot was like to be
as hard as hers, one word about the reliance that she had
on God (applause). Instead of that she taught the pros
perous man who stumbled down the broken stair into her
abode, a lesson of trust and faith in the goodness and pre
sence of God, which he never forgot as long as he lived
(hear, hear and applause). I sat the other day beside a
dying girl. Her body was in hideous pain, but her face was lit
with a light of beauty and of love which told a wondrous tale of
her spirit’s life. She died, and her mother and her sisters
weep to-day. But a new love, a new gentleness, a new
sense of the nearness of the spirit - world has already
blossomed in their home, and, I am not sure that they
would call her back even if their voices could avail. So it
is; this woe which we call evil is the sacred spring of all
that is beautiful and good (hear, hear). To the Atheist the
world’s sorrow must, indeed, be insupportable. If he be
sincere and have a heart, I do not know how he can ever
eat and drink and make merry, still less how he can make a
jest and raise a titter in the very same speech in which he
dwells with all the skill of practised eloquence upon that
woe (applause). If I were an Atheist I hardly think I could
ever throw off the darkness of this shadow. But, believing
in God, whom I personally know, and know as full of love,
I am constrained to trust that, though this evil be a mystery
the full significance of which I cannot understand, and
though relatively to the little sum of things here and now it
seem great, yet that relatively to the whole plan and sum of
the universe it is very small, and that that poor child, born
of sin and shame, who knew no better than to steal the loaf,
shall one day wear a diadem of celestial glory, and be by no
means least in the Kingdom of Heaven. And when I see
the Atheist smiling, laughing, having apparentlya lightheart in
him, I am bound to suppose that he too, somehow, trusts that
..goodness and happiness are going to win in the end—that
�is, that goodness is the ultimately overruling power. And.
if he believes that, he believes in the power which men
call God (applause). Now, Mr. Bradlaugh has casti
gated me with some severity for not obliging him
with definitions. It is impossible, he says, to be too
precise in the use of words, and I agree with him.
But by definitions I cannot make the simplest words
in the English language more plain to you (hear, hear).
He, himself, has given us some . specimens of defini
tions which I do not think have made things much clearer
than they were before. There are three words of import
ance in the title of this debate, and I will try, since Mr.
Bradlaugh has experienced difficulty in understanding me,
whether I can tell him more distinctly what I mean by them.
Those three words are “ reasonable,” “ worship,” “ God.”
When I say it is reasonable to do a thing, I do not mean
that I can demonstrate to you with the precision of, mathe
matics that every proposition, the truth of which is assumed
in that act, is true; but Ido mean that the propositions, on the
assumption of which the act proceeds, are, at least, sufficiently
probable to win the verdict of an unbiassed judgment, and
that the act itself is likely to be found to be a good. Mr.
Bradlaugh himself has defined “ worship ” as including
“ prayer, praise, sacrifice, offerings, solemn services, adora
tion, and personal prostration.” If Mr. Bradlaugh will kindly
occupy his next fifteen minutes by defining to me exactly
what he means by each of those terms, I may be better able
to tell him whether I include them all in worship, and
whether he has left anything out. But at present I do not
find that any one of them is simpler or more comprehensible
than the term worship, while “prayer, praise, sacrifice, and
offerings,’’each might mean at least two very different things
“ solemn services ” is hopelessly vague ; “ adoration,” as I
understand it, is included in some of the others; and before
we know what “personal prostration” means, we must
define “ person ”—no easy matter—and then explain what'
we mean by the “ prostration ” of that person (laughter and.
applause). Meanwhile, I have described, at the very outset,
that energy of my soul which I call worship, namely, that in
which I address myself to God as to one immeasurably sur
passing me in goodness, in wisdom, in power, in love (hear,
hear). I don’t think this is plainer than the good old Saxon
word “worship;” I think that word conveys a pretty clear
meaning to most men. But Mr. Bradlaugh finds it easier to
�52
understand long phrases than simple Saxon words; and my
. only fear now is that he will want me to define all the
words in my definition—(laughter)—and though I am ready
enough to do that, I fear it would take a week (renewed
laughter, and hear, hear). God:—You ask me to define God,
and you say I have not in any way done so. You quote
the metaphysical definition of Flint, and want me to enter
into metaphysics. What do you mean by defining ? Do
you mean to draw a circle round God, so as to separate him
from all else ? If you do, I reply, I can’t; because, as far as
I can see, or my imagination can extend, I discern no
boundaries to God. But if you mean to ask simply what I
mean by God, I mean—and I said this again and again
last night—the source of the command that comes to me
to do right, to abjure wrong ; the source of the peace
that comes to me even in pain, when I have done right,
and of the remorse that comes to me even in prosperity
when I have done ill. I mean also the source—which
I believe to be identical — of the wondrous sense of
a divine presence which seizes me in the midst of
nature’s sublimest scenes — ay, and even of nature’s
awful catastrophes. I mean also the source of the
moral and spiritual strength that comes to me in response to
the worship which my soul pours forth; and if you want to
know what I mean by my soul, I mean myself. What else
besides the source of these things God maybe, I cannot tell you.
It is only so—in his relation to me—that I directly know him.
Beyond that he is the subject of philosophy, but not of im
mediate knowledge. I believe him to be very much more;
but that does not affect the reasonableness of worshipping
him, and that is the subject of our debate (hear, hear). So
that I cannot define God in the way I can define Notting
ham, or Europe, or the earth (hear, hear). I cannot tell
how much is included in his being \ how much, if any, is
excluded. I can tell you what he is to me, in relation to me—
and that is the only way in which any entity can be defined—
and I can tell you what other men testify by word, by deed,
by martyrdom, he is to them (hear, hear). Beyond that I
have no instruments by which to measure; and therefore
I take up no pen with which to write down the measure
ments, or define (applause). But Mr. Bradlaugh says if
we cannot exactly define an object we are incapable of exact
thought or belief concerning it. Did Mr. Bradlaugh do al
gebra at school ? That most exact and prosaic science con-
�•sists largely in reasoning about unknown quantities ; that is,
about some x or_y, of which you only know that it has some
one or perhaps two definite relations to certain other things.
You don’t know what x or y is in itself—only some function
by which it is related to a and b and c. From that relation you
reason, and sometimes from it you get by subtle processes
to infer a vast deal more, and it will perhaps prove just from
that relation that x must be such and such a number, or that
it must be infinite. Does Mr. Bradlaugh say we can have
no exact thought about the x in the algebraic equation,
before we have worked out the whole sum ? Yes, we know
it in its relations or some of them. Yet the very essence
of algebra is that x is undefined. The human soul is the a, b,
•or q the well-known, the familiar; God is the x, related wondrously thereto, yet none has ever yet worked out that sum.
The supremestphilosophers, who hereare school-boys indeed,
have only displayed workings on their slates which, to
use again mathematical language, show that x approaches
towards a limit which is equal to infinity (hear, hear). But
Mr. Bradlaugh says there should be no belief in that which we
•cannot define. Now, I challenge Mr. Bradlaugh in all re
spect and sincerity to define himself (applause). If he de
clines or fails, I will not say we must cease to believe in Mr.
Bradlaugh, but that is the necessary inference from his
maxims. Mr. Bradlaugh says all experience must be the
experience of the senses. By which sense does he experience
love, indignation, or all the varied sentiments which bind him
to his fellow-men and women (applause) ? Mr. Bradlaugh
told us in his concluding speech last night that no ex
perience of another man’s can be anything at all to him
until tested by his own. Is, then, a man born blind un
reasonable if he believes that others have experience of
some wonderful sensation, making objects very vividly
present to them, which they call sight ? Shall the man born
■deaf say he does not believe there is such a thing as sound ?
I know not whether Mr. Bradlaugh has any personal ex
perience of the heat of the torrid zone. Does he believe
it ? Has he tested the height of Mont Blanc ? If not, does
he hold his belief in suspense as to whether it is 15,000 feet
high or not ? The fact is the enormous majority of the
beliefs on which we act every day of our lives with perfect
•confidence are founded either on sheer Faith, untested and by
us untestable, or on Testimony, that is the recorded experience
■of others which we have not tested. But Mr. Brad
�54
laugh says that if the alleged experience of another
is “ abnormal ” we must not believe it. He did
not define “abnormal,” and I want to know who is
to be judge whether my experience of the command that
comes to me in conscience is abnormal or not. Mr. Brad
laugh ? This audience ? With confidence I accept the ver
dict of any gathering of my fellow-men and women, knowing
that my experience herein has a sure echo in their own. But
Mr. Bradlaugh says, if someone said a room ran a race,
you would call him a lunatic. That argument means
nothing, or else it means that Martineau and Newman, and
all great and good who have recognised God—ay, and Voltaire
and Thomas Paine—Theistsboth—are to be counted lunatics
(hear, hear). Time has prevented—I hope it may not still
prevent—my stating clearly what I mean, when I proceed on
philosophical grounds to allege my belief that there is an
intelligent cause. “Intelligent ” I shall not stop to define,
unless I am challenged to it, because I presume intelligence
in you (applause). “ If there were no such supreme intelli
gence,” says Mr. Voysey, “ the universe, supposing it to be
self-evolved (and of course unconscious, since it is not intel
ligent) has only just come into self-consciousness through
one of its parts—viz., man. It had been, so to speak,
asleep all these cycles of ages till man was born and his
intellect dawned upon the world, and, for the first time, the
universe realised its own existence through the intelligent
consciousness of one of its products. I do not think
absurdity could go further than that. If there be no self
conscious intelligence but man, then the universe is only
just now, through man, becoming aware of its own exist
ence ” (hear, hear, and applause). “ Cause,” Mr. Brad
laugh, I think, has defined, in language which in
cluded the words, “ means towards an end.” A mean o:
means, however, is, by the very conception of the word, the
second term in a series of three of which the end is the
third, and “means” implies some power making use of
those means, and that power is the first term in the series.
Now, I claim that cause is that first term, whether there be
two more, or only one. By “ cause ” I mean—and you
mean, if you will search your thought—the initiating power,
that which begins to produce an effect. Now, my mind is so
constituted that to speak to me of a power which initiates
effects, yet is not conscious, intelligent, is sheer nonsense;
therefore I hold the power which displays itself as one in the
�55
%
uniformity of the laws of nature, and lies behind all phe
nomena—the growth of the grass, the rush of the cataract,
the breath of the air, the stately sailing of the stars through
their geometric paths, to be intelligent, conscious, to do it
all by distinct purpose; and I can in no way otherwise con
ceive. I conceive this source of the geometric motion of
all the spheres and of the minutest dance of protoplasm in the
nettle’s sting as always, everywhere, ofpurpose producing these
effects. And the worship which I gave God as I know him
in relationship to me is refined and glorified by the conception which thus dawns on me of his being. And in the
words of Francois Marie Arouet Voltaire, I commune thus
with myself: “ Where,” says he, “ is the eternal geometrician ?
Is he in one place, or in all places without occupying space ?
I know not. Has he arranged all things of his own sub
stance? I know not. Is he immense without quantity
and without quality ? I know not. All I know is, that we
must adore him and be just ” (loud applause).
Mr. Bradlaugh : It is perfectly true that what I have said
here I have said before, and very much of what I have said I
have printed before. I am quite sure that Mr. Armstrong
did not intend that as any blame upon me. [Mr. Arm
strong : Certainly not.] In fact, if any advantage accrued,
it would accrue to him, because, having what I had to say
on the subject to refer to, he would be better able to answer
it by previous preparation. Why I mention it is because
one person seemed to think that it was very reprehensible on
my part to say here anything that was not perfectly new.
I make no claim to originality, but try to say the truest
thing I can in the clearest way I can (hear, hear, and
applause). Then I am told that I did not pay attention
enough to what was said last night about the functions of
the voice of God. I have been told to-night that the idea of
righteousness and rectitude has always been one and the
same amongst all human beings, from the savage to the
highest intellect. If telling me so is evidence of it, then,
of course, I must be content. But, unfortunately, I am not
content, but say that the evidence is all the other way (hear,
hear, and a laugh). I have read carefully Wake’s latest book
on the evolutions of morality, tracing out the growth of
notions of morality amongst savages. I have read Tylor,
Broca, Lubbock, Agassiz, Gliddon, Pritchard, Lawrence,
and I think I am familiar with the best of ancient and
modern authors on the subject; and I say it is
�56
absolutely contrary to the fact that the notions of
morality are, and always have been identical from
the lowest savage to the highest intellect. It is abso
lutely contrary to the fact that one and the same idea of
right always and everywhere prevails (hear, hear). It is not
a question of my opinion ; it is a question of the conclusive
evidence laboriously collected on the subject, and I am
sorry to have to put it in that plain and distinct way (hear,
hear). Then I am told, and I am sure Mr. Armstrong
would not have said that unless he thought he did, that he care
fully separated last night the lower instincts which were not
included in conscience from the higher mental qualities.
But to my memory this was not so, and I have read the
whole of the speeches to-day in the reporter’s notes, and I
must say I found nothing of the kind. Now we have a.
greater difficulty. How much and how many—how much
of the mental instincts, and how many of the mental faculties
—are we to class as going to make up conscience, and how
much not ? I do not pretend to make the classification.
It rests upon the person who has the burden of proof here..
I deny there has been, as yet, even an attempt at classifica
tion, and I call for some statement which shall enable me
to understand that; without it is to be foregone. Then I
had it returned upon me that I had no right to criticise this
world unless I could conceive a better. The very act of
criticism involves the conception of the better. When I
point out something insufficient or wrong, that criticism
implies the conception of something conceivably better if’
that were changed. If you want, now, an illustration of
something possibly better, I would point to the famine in
China. There, actually, millions of people are dying for
want of food, and, for the purpose of sustaining life a little
longer in themselves, the members of families are eating
their own relations. If I were God I should not tolerate
that—(applause)—nor could I worship a God who does.
Mr. Armstrong, in his speech, pointed out what he terms an
intelligent purpose. It may be for an intelligent purpose that
millions of the Chinese should die of starvation, and actually
eat one another for want of food ; but if it is, I cannot
understand the goodness of the intelligent purposer. You
cannot take one illustration and say that it is the work of an
intelligent person, and then take another and say that it is.
not. If it is the intelligence of God displayed in one caseit must be in another, unless Mr. Armstrong contends that
�57
there are a number of Gods, amongst which number there
must be a good many devils (laughter and loud applause).
There are many things of a similar kind I could point out,
and ask the same question with regard to; where is the intelli
gence of God as displayed in permitting the Bulgarian
atrocities, the Russo-Turkish war, the Greek insurrection—
or in the world nearer home, its crime, misery, and want
(hear, hear, and applause). I do not draw the same moral
from the story of the starving woman that Mr. Armstrong
would draw. While you thank God for the crime, pauperism,
misery, and poverty, I say that you are degrading yourself.
The Atheist deplores the misery, the poverty, and the crime,
and does all he can to prevent it by assisting the sufferers to
extricate themselves, instead of spending his time in blessing
and praising a God for sending the woe and attributing it to
his superior intelligence (applause). Then there was an
astounding statement which came more in the sermon part
of the speech than in the argumentative portion of it
(laughter). Perhaps that may account for the wealth of its
assumption, and also for deficiency of its basis. It was that
freedom, happiness, and virtue, through the power of God,
were continually winning their way. How is it that an intelli
gent and omnipotent God does not look after them more,
and see that they overcome opposition a little faster than
they have done ? Mr. Armstrong says that I fight shy of
experience. I don’t do anything of the kind. I fight shy of
experience which will not submit itself to any test; I fight
shy of experience which cannot bear examination and
investigation; I fight shy of such experience only. Our
friend gives us the experience of a dying girl. Now, I do
not mean to say that every religion in the world has not
been a consolation to dying people—that belief in a God
has not been a consolation to persons who have enjoyed the
full power of their mental faculties on their death-beds. Since
I was in America some time ago I saw a copy of a sermon
preached by a New York clergyman, who had attended,
what he believed to be the dying bed of an Atheist, and he
said that he hoped that Christians would learn to die as
bravely and as calmly as the Atheist seemed prepared to
die. Luckily that Atheist did not die. He is alive to
night to answer for himself (applause and hear, hear). I
don t think an illustration of personal experience in that way
can go for much. The man and woman who die in possession
of their faculties, with strong opinions, will generally die
�strong in those opinions. Men have been martyred for
false gods as well as for the one you would have me worship.
It is useless to make this kind of an appeal in a discussion,
in which there was room and need for much else. Heavenly
stars, a crown, and that kind of thing are not as certain as
they ought to be in order to be treated as material
in this discussion. And then Mr. Armstrong says what he
would do and how he would feel if he were an Atheist.
Charles Reade wrote a novel, which he entitled “ Put yourself
in his Place.” Mr. Armstrong has been trying to put him
self in the Atheist’s place, but he has not been very success
ful (hear, hear). The Atheist does not think that all the
evil which exists in this world is without remedyj he does
not think that there is no possible redemption from sorrow,
or that there is no salvation from misery (hear, hear). He
thinks and believes that the knowledge of to-day a little,
and to-morrow more, and the greater knowledge of the day
that will yet come, will help to redeem, will help to rescue
the inhabitants of this world from their miserable position ;
and further, that this is not to be in some world that is to
come, but in the world of the present, in which the salva
tion is self-worked out (loud applause). The Atheist will
not make promises of something in the future as a compen
sation for the present miseries of man. Instead of saying
that for prayers and worship the poor woman or man will
have the bread of life in future, he tries to give her and him
the strength to win bread here to sustain and preserve life as
long as it is possible to do so (applause). The diadems,
too—which our friend has to offer to the poor—which are to
be worn in heaven by those who have had no clothes here
—possess no attraction to the Atheist; therefore he does nor
offer them, but, instead, tries to develop such self-reliant
effort as may clothe and feed those who are naked and
hungry while they are here. He directs his efforts towards
human happiness in the present, and believes that in the
future humanity must be triumphant over misery, want, and
wrong (applause). A diadem of celestial glory may or may
not be a very good thing; of that I do not look upon my
self as a judge, so long as I have no belief in its possibility.
That there is much misery and suffering in the world I
know, and it rests with Mr. Armstrong to prove whether it
is better to try and remedy it here or to worship its author
in the doubtful endeavour to obtain as recompense a crown
of celestial glory (hear, hear, and applause). But which
�59
God is it that we are to worship ? Is it the Mahometan
God, or the Jewish God? Is it one of the Gods of the
Hindus ? Is it the Christian’s God ? If so, which sect of
Christians? You must not use phrases which mean
different things in different mouths (hear, hear). Then we
come to definitions, and, having objected that there was
no necessity for defining, or having objected that defining
would not make things more clear, with the skill and tact of
a practical debater, my friend goes through every word
(laughter). Prayer, we were told, has two distinct meanings.
Might I ask in which sense it was used in the first speech
made last night? You did not tell us then that prayer had
two senses. I ask why you did not tell us ? I might have
thought it was one fashion when you meant another. I ask
what meaning you meant when you used it ? What two
senses has prayer towards God ?—in which of the two senses
did you use prayer—and, knowing it had two meanings,
why did you not tell us in which sense you used it ? Then
praise, too, you said, is to thank God for his goodness; and
as you used the word many times last night you knew what
you meant by it, having relied upon it so firmly that it
seemed to be an evidence of God’s existence (applause).
By sacrifice I mean an act of real cowardice. The coward
does not dare to pay in his own person for the wrong which
he has done, so he offers something or somebody weaker in
his stead. He tries by offering a sacrifice to avert the ven
geance which would fall—and, according to his creed,
ought to fall—upon himself. Sacrifice is the act of a
coward (applause). Offerings are of flowers, of fruits;
offerings of young animals, lambs, kids; sometimes the
offerings are things which come the nearest to their hands;
sometimes the sacrifice consists of inanimate things which
had a special value to the worshipper; sometimes the
first fruits of their fields or flocks, which they offer
to the source, as they think, of the plenty in those
fields and flocks.
In later times, offerings have got
to be much more complex; but even now you will still find
them, in modified fashions, in the Churches of England
and Rome. The mutual system is that which operates in
every form of worship which makes any sort of claim to re
ligion. The word “ worship ” was only used as a general
word which covers the whole of those forms, leaving our
friends to select and repudiate, and in any case the burden
is on Mr. Armstrong to make the meaning clear (hear,
�6o
hear). I read the whole of the speeches of last night with
out finding any repudiation or question about the definitions
I presented ; and I submit it is scarcely fair, after what has
passed, to ask me to further define them at this late stage
of the debate. I should have had no objection had it been
invited at the earliest outset (applause). Well, now, we
have worship defined as “ the energy of my soul.” Well,
but you have not explained your soul. Why do you call it
soul ? Where is its place in your body ? Is there any
thing about soul you can notice so as to enable me to know
anything at all about it ? Will you take your definition of
soul from Voltaire, whom you have quoted against me?
When you reply, will you tell us what Voltaire, Professor
Newman, Paine, or Martineau say upon the subject of God,
and in which of their writings you will find that which all
the others would accept as a definition ? You must
remember the Theist of Paine’s time is not the Theist of
to-day, and I want you to tell us what are the specific
opinions of each of those you have quoted—of Francis
William Newman, of John William Newman, of Martineau,
of Thomas Paine, of Voltaire—as to the questions I have
asked (applause). Which of the Gods is it that I am to
understand Mr. Armstrong as defending and asking me to
worship (loud applause) ?
Mr. Armstrong : Mr. Chairman, Ladies, and Gentle
men,—I am somewhat at a loss as to which of the numerous
questions I am to answer first. I shall not take them in
any logical order, but simply pick out of my note-book
the most important of them. Mr. Bradlaugh has said
that the act of criticism of the world implied the conception
of a better world. Mr. Bradlaugh has tried to describe his
conception of the better world, and I have tried in my pre
vious speeches to show that he would not make it better.
And I again submit that, instead of being better, it would
be worse (hear, hear). He says he does not draw the same
conclusion from that poor woman in the cellar that I
do. He says that while you are content to suffer, you de
grade yourself. Now, there are two kinds of content.
You may be content like the sloth or the sluggard, or you
may be content like that poor woman, who while trying to
improve her position, still remained poor to the end of her
days, and yet at the same time felt the peace of God in
her heart.
Does the belief in a God, as a fact,
make men less energetic and vigorous in improving
�6i
their own condition, or trying to improve that of
others ? I don’t believe it does (applause). I believe you
have Theists as well as Atheists, who devote their kindly
sympathies to the good of their fellow creatures. They are
content in one sense and discontent in another sense.
They have that holy discontent which makes them anxious
to remedy the world’s evil, and that content which makes
them see God, who is working from evil to good (applause).
We have been told by Mr. Bradlaugh what the Atheist will
do ; how he will give the bread of this life to the hungry
child; the Theist will do the same (applause). The
Theist will—but no, I will not institute these comparisons ;
we are each, I feel sure, striving to do our best; so I won’t
enter into comparisons (rounds of applause). He says it
is unreasonable to worship an insoluble proposition. A
proposition is a grammatical term signifying a statement,
and I am not aware that I asked anyone to worship a
statement or proposition at all. I have called upon you
to worship God (applause). He says I did not separate
the lower instincts from the higher mental qualities in
man. I do not say I did. But I did separate the lower
instincts from the voice of God in conscience. I said that
it was entirely distinct from the lower instincts in man. I
said that the voice had a right to command and rule these
lower instincts (hear, hear). He asks me which God it is
that I am preaching. I will tell you what God I ask you to
worship—the best that you can conceive, whatsoever it is
(applause). I want you all to worship the best that you can
conceive (rounds of applause). If the Hindu’s idea is the
best he can conceive, let him, by all means, worship it
(hear, hear). If the Jew’s God is the best he can imagine,
let him pay homage to it. If the Christian’s idea of God
is the highest he can conceive, let him be true to it and
worship it, and it will make him a nobler man (applause).
It is not mere names which signify in a matter of this
kind. Though each sect may give him different names,
it is still the same God (hear, hear). Mr. Bradlaugh
wants to know which of them all I uphold as God ;
which of the different types I acknowledge, or ask you
to acknowledge.
Is it the God of Martineau, of New
man, of Parker, or of whom else ? I say it is that which is
common among them all—namely, the conception of good
ness and excellence which you will find in every one
of their definitions.
It is that God which they
�62
-all recognise, and concerning which they only go wrong
when they begin to try and define it metaphysically
{hear, hear). Mr. Bradlaugh wants me to define God;
further than I have done so, I cannot. In the words of
the Athanasian Creed an attempt is made to define the undefinable. The Athanasian Creed tries to explain the whole
of that which overrules the universe instead of describing
simply that which is in relationship to you. I have always
been under the supposition that that was a practice of the
theologian which had greatly retarded the progress of the
world. Mr. Bradlaugh spoke of prayer as implying a hope
—a hope to induce God to do what he would not do with
out prayer; and he wanted to know in what sense I used
the word “prayer” in my speeches. I have not used the
word “ prayer ” without describing what I meant. At least,
I have not done so to my knowledge ; if I have, I am
sorry for it (applause). Mr. Bradlaugh says that prayer im
plies a hope of inducing God to do what he would not do
without it. For my part, I doubt whether some things
that have been called prayers, such as the prayers for the
recovery of the Prince of Wales—(loud hisses and laughter)
—for wet weather, and for fine weather, have very much
influenced the divine counsels (hear, hear and applause).
But what do I mean by prayer ? As I have said before,
the addressing of my soul to this power which I feel and
recognise above me; and the law of the answer of prayer—
and it is as much a law as any law of nature—is that they
who do thus energise themselves towards Godbecomethereby
more susceptible to the energising of God towards them. The
law is that he who energises or addresses himself towards
God, consciously, reverently, and of set purpose, thereby sets
at motion a law by which he becomes more susceptible to
God’s addressing of himself to him, and so he gains to him
self the strength, moral and spiritual, which we find in prayer
(hear, hear). Mr. Bradlaugh picked out one of the words from
his own definition of worship. By sacrifice he said he meant
the act of a man who was too cowardly to bear the result of his
own actions. As far as that definition goes, I may say I do
not include it in my idea of worship (applause). Now, sir,
I have striven to the best of my power to be precise and
clear in my words. It is true I have not dealt with the
matter from a platform purely metaphysical. lama positivist
in most things, understanding by a positivist one who founds
his philosophy on observed phenomena. I have passed out
�63
of the stage in which men believe that theological theories
will solve all the problems of the universe. I have passed
out of the stage in which Mr. Bradlaugh now is, in which
metaphysics are looked upon as the best ground of reason
ing we can have. I have passed into the stage in which
positive thought, the recognition of phenomena, is recog
nised as the best starting-point we can have from which
to get at the truth. Auguste Comte traces the progress of
the thought of the world and of the individual from the
theological stage to the metaphysical stage, and from that
to the positive stage. I invite Mr. Bradlaugh to look
at things from that stage, and to see whether he cannot
make his thoughts clearer by the use of the positive method
than by the use of the metaphysical (loud applause).
Mr. Bradlaugh : The curious thing is that I have never
used the word metaphysics, and I have offered to affirm no
proposition that does not relate to phenomena. I am as
tounded to hear that I am a metaphysician (laughter and
applause). Is it because I only used language which I can
make clear that my opponent gave me that title ? It is
because he does not use language that is related to phe
nomena that he is obliged to commend his Theism by
speaking of it as a problem which is insoluble (applause).
I have not done anything, as far as my case is concerned,
except use language relating to phenomena. Now, I have
only a few moments, and this speech will be my last in this
debate. I would, therefore, like you to see the position in
which we stand. I am told that the improvement I would
suggest would in no sense tend to virtue. I must refer again
to the state of things in China, where the members of the
same family are eating each other for want of food. Would
it not tend to virtue if their condition was remedied (ap
plause) ? I wish my friend and myself to look at things
from this point of view, and, as he is in the positive way of
thinking, let him put himself in the same state as they are,
and then ask whether an amendment of the condition
would not tend to greater virtue (renewed applause). What
God is it that we are to worship ? Oh, the God it is reasonable
to worship is the best we can conceive—but no conception has
yet been put before us. You have been told a great deal
about stars, but the more important facts and arguments
still remain unchallenged (hear, hear). Now, I am asked,
does belief in God hinder philanthropy ? Yes, when it is
held as those do hold it in some parts of the world, who.
�64
think that God has designed, in his thought and intelligence,
and for good purposes, that a famine should take place, such
as the one in China (hear, hear). There are at least people
among the Mahometans and the Hindus whose virtue has
been clearly shown to have suffered much more from religion
than from civilisation (applause). The case put as to prayer is
one which I think has something peculiar about it. We are
told first of the law of prayer, which is said to be as much
a law of nature as any other law. Well, now, by law of
nature (Mr. Armstrong : Hear, hear)—I don’t know if I am
misrepresenting you—I only mean observed order of
happening (pouring water from glass); I do not mean
that there has been some direction given that this water shall
fall, but that, given the conditions, the event ensues. Law
of nature is order of sequence or concurrence, the observed
order of phenomena. What observed order of phenomena
is there in the order of prayer ? When the prayer prays
“ himself he sets a law in motion.” Is this so? We are
told that the prayer for the recovery of the Prince of
Wales did not much tend to alter the divine counsel. Mr.
Armstrong did not tell you how he knew that.
His
own admission here proves that prayer is sometimes
offered in vain, taking the observed order of its phenomena
(hear, hear). He spoke of the holy discontent in pious
men which set them to seek to remedy evil. Holy discon
tent against the state of things which God in his intelligent
purpose has caused ! Then the holy discontent is dissatis
faction with God’s doings. How can you worship the God
with whom you are dissatisfied (applause) ? But what is the
truth of the matter ? In the early ages of the world man
saw the river angry and prayed to the river-god; but science
has dispelled the river-god, and has substituted for prayer,
weirs, locks, dykes, levels, and flood-gates (hear, hear). You
see the same thing over the face of nature wherever you go.
What you have found is this : that in the early ages of the
world gods were frightful, gods were monstrous, gods were
numerous, because ignorance predominated in the minds of
men. The things they came in contact with were not under
stood, and no investigation then took place ; men wor
shipped. But gradually men learned first dimly, then more
clearly, and god after god has been demolished as science
has grown. The best attempt at conception of God is
always the last conception of him, and this because God
has to give way to science. The best conception of God is
�65
in substituting humanity for deity, the getting rid of, and
turning away from, the whole of those conceptions and
fancies which men called God in the past, and which they
have ceased to call God now (applause). Mr. Armstrong
thought that it was because men had given different names to
God that I tried to embarrass him by bidding him choose
between them. It was not so; it is the different characteristics
and not the different names that I pointed out as a difficulty.
We have gods of peace, gods of war, gods of love, a god of
this people, or of that tribe, a god of the Christians, a
god of misery, of terror, of beneficence—these are all
different suppositions held by men of the gods they have
created. It has well been said that the gods have not
created the men, but the men have created the gods, and
you can see the marks of human handicraft in each divine
lineament (applause). I cannot hope, pleading here to
night, to make many converts. I can and do hope that all
of you will believe that the subject treated wants examina
tion far beyond the limits of this short debate. I have a very
good hopeindeed,and reallybelieve thatsome good has been
done when it can be shown that two men of strong opinions,
and earnest in their expressions, can come together without
one disrespectful word to each other, or want of respect in
any way; without any want of due courtesy to the other;
and with a great desire to separate the truth and the false
hood (applause). If there has been unwittingly anything
disrespectful on my part, I am sorry for it. I have to thank
Mr. Armstrong for coming forward in the manner in which
he has done, and I can only ask all to use their services in
making the spread of virtue, truth, and justice easier than
it has been. I am aware that I have nominally a vast
majority against me, but I do not fear on that ground, and
still shall continue to point out falsehood wherever I may
find it. At any rate, the right of speech is all I ask, and
that you have conceded. I have only an earnest endeavour
to find out as much as I can that will be useful to my
fellows, and to tell them as truly as I can how much I
grasp. It is for you—-with the great harvest of the unreaped
before you—who can do more than I, to gather and show
what you have gathered; it is for you who have more truth
to tell it more efficiently; and when you answer me I put it
to you that so far as the world has redeemed itself at all, it
has only redeemed itself by shaking off in turn the Theistic
religions which have grown and decayed. So far, it seems
c
�to be a real and solid redemption (applause). When re
ligion was supreme through the ignorance of men, the people
were low down indeed, and a few devoted men had to
grapple with the hereafter theory and all the content with
present wrong which the belief in it maintained. Take a
few hundred years ago, when there was little or no scepticism
in the world. Only a very few able to be heretical—the mass
unable and too weak to doubt or endure doubt. Look at the
state of things then, and look at it now. Could a discussion
like this have taken place then ? No. But it can since the print
ing-press has helped us; it can since the right of speech has
been in good part won. Two hundred years ago it could not
have been. Two hundred years ago I could not have got the
mass of people together to listen as you have listened last night
and to-night, and had not men treated your religion as I treat it,
we should not have therightof meeting even now (applause)’
If you want to convince men like myself, hear us; answer
us if you can—say what you have to say without making it
more bitter than we can bear. We must believe it if it is
reasonable, and if not we must reject it. So long as there
is any wrong to redeem we shall try to redeem it our■selves (applause). We may be wrong in this, but at
least we do our part.
I do not mean that in the same
ranks as my friend there are not men as sincere and as earnest,
men as devoted, men as human-redemption seeking as myself,
but I, or the best of those for whom I plead, urge that their
humanity is not the outcome of their theology (applause).
Then their experience of right, their hope of life, and their
experience of truth rest entirely on what they do here. And
I will ask you this : do you not think it is quite possible, as
Lessing says, that he who thinks he grasps the whole truth
may not even grasp it at all ? like the one deceived by the
juggler's trick, he may think he holds something in his hand,
but when it is opened it is empty (hear, hear). Take the
truth as you can—not from me, not from him, not from any
one man. There is none of the bad which is all bad, none of
the good all good, none of the truth all true: it is for you to
select, to weigh, to test for yourselves (hear, hear). Many
of us stumble in trying to carry the torch in dark places in
the search for truth, but even in our trembling steps the
sparks we scatter may enable some to find the grains of truth
we miss ourselves (loud and prolonged applause).
Mr. Armstrong : Mr. Bradlaugh, the body to which I
belong also have the majority against them; over that
�we can shake hands. Let us try, each in our own way, as
may best seem to us, to serve what we hold to be true (ap
plause). Depend upon it, whether there be a God or
not, we each shall do best so. If there be no God, then
you tell me I shall still do well to serve humanity. And
if there be a God, he will gather you also, my brother, to
his arms, so long as you are true—true and absolutely sincere
in those convictions which come to you from the reason
which he has given you (loud applause). You have
told us that while religion held sway men were down-trodden.
While superstition held sway it is true they were (applause) ;
while false ideas of a cruel and lustful God held sway, it is
true they were (applause); but just in proportion as men’s
thoughts of Godt have purified and clarified, just in pro
portion as they have restored to Christianity its sweet
meaning, just in that proportion religion has risen to be a
power in the world of all that is good and sweet and holy
(applause). Now, sir, to speak of what I said about the
prayers for the recovery of the Prince of Wales. I said I
thought they had been of little avail.
But the prayer for
spiritual purity from a Christian man does win its answer by
a law—a law of nature, I will now say, since you have defined .
a law of nature as the observed sequence of phenomena;
but I dared not so call it until I knew what your definition
■of nature might be. But let us come back from these philo.sophisings, in which it is so easy to go wrong, to the test of
experience. Mr. Bradlaugh says I do not submit the ex
periences of which I have spoken, to the test. I invite you to
test them, and see whether Mr. Bradlaugh has upset them
or not. If you test them fairly and then find them false,
then come and tell me so. They are neither uncommon
nor abnormal experiences, but the experiences of nearly every
man and woman. It may be that their hearing is dull, but
still they know the voice. You all know those in which the
initiative comes from God, the voice of conscience, of which
I spoke ; you all know the solemn feeling which comes over
you in the presence of the majesty of nature. You all may know
the other things in which you have to take the initiative.
Heed those things whether you believe they come from God
or not, and you all may know the other—that of worship
—and its answer. My contention solely is, that it would
be reasonable for you to seek for that experience, that it is
reasonable in us to practise it (hear, hear). And now I will
tell you a little story for the end of this debate, of a little
�68
family of children; and as I shall not found any argument upon
. it, I do not think it will be unfair. They sat one Christ
mas Eve in a chamber where the wintry gloom of early
twilight fell. The eldest son sat and talked of the good
ness of their father, and how, from the earliest days he
could recollect, his tenderness had sheltered him, and how
he seemed to have a heart to love every little child all
through the world, and how he was surely even now prepar
ing some sweet surprise for them every one But John, the
second boy, had lived all his life at a school on the far sea
coast, where he had been sent, that rough ocean breezes might
strengthen his weakly frame, and now, tanned and burly,
he had just come home for Christmas, and he had not even,
seen his father yet. And he said he did not believe they
had a father ; that Theophilus, declaring he had seen him,
was nothing to him, for if there was one thing he had learned
at school, it was not to trust the experience of other people
till tested by his own. But Edward said he, too, knew they
had a father; he, too, had seen him, but he was very stern,
and he thought they could all do as well without him, and
what could be more unkind than to leave them there in
. twilight solitude on Christmas Eve. And little Tom sat
apart in the very darkest corner of the room, with a tearstained face, crying as if his heart would break, over
the hard sums set him there to do, and thinking that
his brothers were a selfish lot of fellows, to talk and talk, and.
not care for him and his hard task. And Theophilus had
just come to steal his arm around little Tom’s waist, and dry
his tears, and try if he could not help him to do his sum,
when the door of the next room was thrown open and a
blaze of light flashed upon their faces, and one after the other
they all rushed in and beheld their father standing by such a
glorious Christmas-tree as boys never beheld before. And
for each and all there were gifts so rare and precious—the
very things they had longed for all the by-gone half. And for
John, who had been so far away and had not known his father,
there was a grasp of the father’s hand so strong and tender,
and a kiss from the father’s lips so sweet and loving, that he
felt as if he had known that dear father all his life ; and as
for little Tom, all his tears were dissolved in rippling
laughter, and he quite lorgot his sum, for on his brow was
set the brightest coronet on all the tree, and they told him
he should be king through all the long Christmasday to follow. And now, dear friends, may the peace of
�69
God which passeth all understanding, that peace which the
perishing things of the world can neither give nor take away,
that peace promised to the weary by our dear brother,
Jesus Christ, even in the midst of all his suffering and woe,
be with you for ever. Amen (applause).
Mr. Armstrong having sat down, rose again and said,
—And now, Mr. Chairman, I desire to move to you the
hearty thanks of this meeting for your conduct in the chair,
for your impartial manner of ruling over us, and the kind
words you have spoken. I thank you, Mr. Bradlaugh, for
the courtesy and fairness with which you have conducted
your part in this debate; and I thank you, sir, for presiding
over us (applause).
Mr. Bradlaugh : I second that motion. I cannot say
that we can thank you for your fairness, for, fortunately, you
have had no opportunity of showing it. But I thank you most
heartily for accepting a position which might have been one
of great difficulty and the taking of which may cause you
to be misrepresented. I also thank Mr. Armstrong for having
met me, and for the kindly manner in which he has spoken
(applause).
The vote of thanks was put and carried unanimously.
The Chairman : Ladies and Gentlemen,—the thanks
which have been given to me are due rather to the gentle
men who have spoken. I cannot but praise the admirable
way in which they have rendered my position almost a
sinecure. This debate has shown that a subject of such
great importance can be discussed fairly, liberally, honestly,
as this has been, and that no danger threatens him who
occupies the chair, or those who lay their honest and earnest
views before you. I feel that I have derived much know
ledge from the truth which has been laid before us ; and I
do feel that there is a growing interest in things of this
sort, which is itself a proof that discussions of this kind are
very useful (applause).
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Is it reasonable to worship God?
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Armstrong, R.A. [Rev.]
Bradlaugh, Charles
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 69 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: Verbatim report of two nights' debate at Nottingham between the Rev. R. A. Armstrong and Charles Bradlaugh. Inscription in ink: "Mr M.D. Conway, with RAA's kind regards." From the library of Dr Moncure Conway.
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1878
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CT78
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work ("Is it reasonable to worship God?"), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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Atheism
Free Thought
Theism
Apologetics
Atheism
Conway Tracts
Free Thought-Controversial Literature
Religious Disputations
Theism
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Text
WHAT DOES
CHRISTIAN THEISM TEACH?
VERBATIM REPORT OF THE
TWO NIGHTS’ DISCUSSION
BETWEEN THE REV.
A. J. HARRISON AND C. BRADLAUGH.
Held at the New Hall of Science, Old Street, on Tuesday
and Wednesday, January yth and xoth, 1872.
J. R. ROBERTSON, ESQ., IN THE CHAIR.
LONDON |
Austin & Co., 17, Johnson’s Court, Fleet Street, E.C.
PRICE SIXPENCE.
��FIRST NIGHT.
Subject of debate: A Certain Passage on page twentytwo of Mr. C. Bradlaugh’s pamphlet entitled “ A Plea for
Atheism.”
The Chairman, in opening the proceedings, said: Ladies
and Gentlemen,—My duty is a simple one, and with your
assistance it will be a very easy one. I have simply to read
now the subject of discussion this evening. Mr. Bradlaugh
is to prove the fairness of the following passage :—
What does Christian Theism teach ? That the first man made perfect
by the all-powerful, all-wise, all-good God, was nevertheless inperfect,
and by his imperfection brought misery into the world, where the
all-good God must have intended misery should never come. That
this God made men to share this misery, men whose fault was their
being what he made them. That this God begets a son, who is
nevertheless his unbegotten self, and that by belief in the birth of
God’s eternal son, and in the death of the undying who died to satisfy
God’s vengeance, man may escape the consequences of the first man’s
error. Christian Theism declares that belief alone can save man, and
yet recognises the fact that man’s belief results from teaching, by
establishing missionary societies to spread the faith. Christian
Theism teaches that God, though no respecter of persons, selected
as his favourites one nation in preference to all others ; that man
can do no God of himself or without God’s aid, but yet that each
man has a free will; that God is all-powerful, but that few go to
heaven and the majority to hell; that all are to. love God, who
has predestined from eternity that by far the largest number of human
beings are to be burning in hell for ever. Yet the advocates for
Theism venture to upbraid those who argue against such a faith.
Mr. Harrison is to take the negative.
Mr. Harrison, who was warmly cheered, said: My
friends, it is somewhat unusual for the speaker who opens
the debate, to take the negative; but the circumstances
under which we assemble here to-night are themselves
unusual, and may justify the departure in this case from the
customary rule of debates. The fact is, indeed, that the
affirmative is supposed to be already given; and the affirma
tive having been read to you by the Chairman in his address,
what I have to do is to show that Christian Theism does
not teach what it is asserted in the “ Plea for Atheism,” page
2.2, that it does teach, and that the passage as a whole is not
�4
CHRISTIAN THEISM.
a fair representation of what I should call Christianity, but
of what Mr. Bradlaugh calls Christian Theism. That is the
subject. Now this debate is to last two evenings. I pur
pose, then, dividing the passage into two parts, taking one
chiefly to-night, and the other chiefly to-morrow night. I
shall read to you the precise words I intend to criticise, and
then to criticise it: “ What does Christian Theism teach ?
That the first man made perfect by the all-powerful, all-wise,
all-good God, was nevertheless imperfect, and by his imper
fection brought misery into the world, where the all-good
God must have intended misery should never come. That
this God made men to share this misery, men whose fault
was their being what he made them.” So much I purpose
dealing with to-night. Now first of all, as to the method I
pursued in the study of this subject, and which I think a
fair method to pursue, I must state in a few words. It
appears-to me that the only fair way in dealing with the
teaching of Christian Theism is not to break it up into
several parts—no; even to destroy the consistency of the
parts themselves is to deal with it fragmentarily, but to take
it fairly as a whole, and gather its impressions of its practices,
principles, and instructions from the whole. (Hear, hear.)
That is precisely the course I should pursue with any scien
tific investigation whatever. A few facts taken isolatedly would
prove nothing. Taking the largest number of facts I can
obtain, I draw my conclusion from that number; and if I
find that the theory I adopt is in harmony with the larger
proportion of the facts, that theory is the most probable in
my estimation. If I find in the Bible certain statements all
bearing upon a particular teaching, I adopt that teaching,
whether it is to be found in the Old or in the New Testament.
If the several parts take form, I draw my conclusion from
them all. (Hear, hear.) With reference to the passage I
have cited, I make this preliminary remark, that in criticising
this particular passage, I have chosen what I considered the
best of sceptical views held by what I think is now known
as theSecular party. Mr. Bradlaugh will perhaps admitthat the
writings in the National Reformerxt\%y be taken as awhole as
the exponents of the views of the majority of Secularists, but
not of particular theories. Had I chosen to take the utter
ances of some obscure person, it might have been said that
that person was not a representative man, and that what
might therefore be said against Secularism or scepticism
�CHRISTIAN THEISM.
5
would be as nothing. That being a fair rule, all I ask in re
turn is, the application of precisely the same principle. I
ask that when Mr. Bradlaugh breaks utterance to prove
what Christian Theism teaches, he will not speak of utter
ances which have not been heard of except within a limited
circle, but that he will go to the Scriptures, and show from
the Bible that his view of Christian Theism is the fair one.
(Cheers.) The passage which I have to criticise to-night
may be regarded as dealing, first, with the Christian doctrine
of God; and next, with the Christian doctrine of man. First
then ; we have it here stated “ that the first man made per
fect by the all-powerful, all-wise, all-good God, was never
theless imperfect.” Now the question before us is not
whether Mr. Bradlaugh draws this inference for himself, but
the question is, whether Christian Theism teaches that ?
(Hear, hear.) Does Christian Theism teach this doctrine,
that the first man made perfect by the all-powerful, all-wise,
all-good God, was nevertheless imperfect? Does it, in
short, teach that God made a man that was perfect and
yet imperfect ? I confess I do not know of a single
passage of Scripture which teaches that, and I do not
know even of any competent writer who asserts such
a thing. It would be unwise now to go into detail on
this subject, but my challenge is a broad one to Mr. Brad
laugh—namely, I challenge him to find any passages in the
Bible that teach such a thing, or any competent authorities that
teach such a thing. I object, not perhaps by any fault of
Mr. Bradlaugh, but by, may be, an unavoidable obscurity
of language ; but I object to the way in which this
thing is attributed to Deity. We are told that this man,
“by his imperfection brought misery into the world, where
the all-good God must have intended misery should never
come.” The word intended here, may be taken in several
senses. If Mr. Bradlaugh means that Christian Theists
believe God decreed that misery should never come into the
world, then I affirm that neither the Bible nor any intelligent
Theist teaches any such thing. If anything else than this is
meant, I suppose Mr. Bradlaugh will inform us by and bye.
Here, too, he has put together the words perfect and
imperfect in such proximity, that we are led to suppose that
Mr. Bradlaugh is referring to the same period of time, when
God made man perfect and yet imperfect. What is the real
teaching on that subject? Is it not that God made man
�6
CHRISTIAN THEISM,
perfect ? and that man by his sin brought misery into the
world ? I do not think any passage of Scripture affirms that
God compelled Adam or any other man to sin. If any such
passage can be found, Mr. Bradlaugh will have such in his
favour; but if there is nothing of the sort, then I think the
only conclusion at which you can arrive is, that the state
ment is not a fair representation of the facts. (Cheers.)
Now what appears to me to be the Christian doctrine in rela
tion to God, is simply this—that God is indeed all-wise, all
good, all-powerful, as Mr. Bradlaugh here asserts, but we do
not regard it as within the purpose or scope of Christianity
to account for the origin of evil, as it does not account for
its continuance. If the Bible were a philosophical book,
accounting for the strange problems of human life, then we
should expect to have an account of the origin of evil; but
it is not, and does not. The object for which the Bible was
given was not to account for the origin ot evil, but to help
to take evil away. (Cheers.) Now as the subject is not
Atheism versus Theism, it is enough for me to say that any
arguments that are brought forward as against the Bible, tell
with equal force as arguments for Theism. Mr. Bradlaugh
is not here to doubt the existence of a God. That he is an
Atheist we know; but as far as this particular statement is
concerned, he is not professing to show that there is no God,
only what Christian Theism teaches. I say that Christian
Theism does not teach this. Not only so, but the state
ment is made “that this God made men to share this
misery, men whose fault was their being what he made
them.” If any Christian Theist has taught that in so
many words, or in principle and essence, then I say I
hope that such a Christian Theist will not get many
persons to listen to him for the future. (Hear, hear.)
I never heard of any Theist who taught such nonsense as is
here given. I ask what is meant by the statement “ that God
made men to share this misery ?” Does it mean that he
created men for the purpose of sharing this misery ? because
if Mr. Bradlaugh means this, I ask for the proof of such an
extraordinary statement Does it mean that God compelled
men to share this misery ? because if it does, I ask where is the
proof to be found. I will deal with the answers when they are
given; I only put before you now the points upon which I
think it is right I should have satisfactory answers. The
view which Christians take of the Bible teaching is just this
�CHRISTIAN THEISM.
7
—that God is indeed all-wise, all-good, all-powerful, but that
he has not violated, and that he will not violate, the consti
tution of man as he gave that constitution to him at first. I
grant to Mr. Bradlaugh, most readily, that the difficulties
around us on the subject of the existence of evil are very •
great. With the utmost frankness I admit that the origin of
evil, and its continuance, is a subject so involved in mystery,
that I know of .no way out of it; but what then? I have
never professed to account for the origin of evil or its con
tinuance; but here is a system which professes to teach
me what no dissertation of philosophy will do—viz., to
overcome the evil I have found in myself, and others around
me. (Cheers.) As to the theoretical difficulties which
environ the subject, the views of Christian Theists amount
to this—that though there are difficulties which we cannot
now account for, we must remember the doctrine of the
immortality of man, and we must take the several parts of
Christianity in one connected scheme; and if we are asked
to suspend judgment on as much as we are not competent
to attain, there is greater knowledge hereafter. What is dark
now may appear distinct and light then : and probably the
time will come when all that is perplexing and difficult here,
will be satisfactorily explained; but I must always remember
that as this world is intended to last a great deal longer than
I shall last in it, and has been in existence for a long period
of time, I am not competent to take in all the principles that
govern the world. It requires a mightier intellect than mine,
and therefore it is only reasonable that there are difficulties
which I cannot solve, and doubts which I cannot clear up.
(Cheers.) The second point is the Christian doctrine of
man’s nature. It is here assumed that it is not men’s fault
that they suffer for sin. If it were affirmed simply that there
was much suffering that originated with sin, but not the in
dividual sin of men and women, then there is no one that
would doubt the proposition; but if it is asserted that sin,
which first originated human misery, was a sin compelled by
God, then I say the doctrine is as false as it is blasphemous.
(Cheers.) Mr. Bradlaugh will perhaps draw his own infer
ences on the matter, but it is not inferences we want, but
the standard authority which we possess, and which must be
taken as proof, the Bible itself. I think th$ teaching is this
—that whilst man was made perfect, he was yet made free;
and the great problem is yet to be solved how it was possible
�CHRISTIAN THEISM.
to make man with any goodness whatever' if that goodness
was not voluntary. How could a man be good, and true,
and right, if he had no choice in the matter, and had no will
in the matter ? How could that man be perfect whose con
duct was not voluntary? (Hear, hear.) I think this is
the doctrine of Christian Theism—not that man was made
imperfect, but that he was made as he should be made, a
being of free will and free moral agency, and therefore with
a possibility of sinning. This is a different assertion from
the passage I have read. From this one would suppose that
Mr. Bradlaugh wished us to suppose that the first man could
not sin, according to the Bible. Is it to be found in the
Bible, or even in the works of the most eminent Christian
Theists ? That there have been widely different views of
Christian doctrine, in different parts of the Christian Church,
may be readily granted, but not once that I know of has
any Christian Church ever represented Christianity as Mr.
Bradlaugh has represented it here. As far as I know, neither
on the continent of Europe, nor America—where great and
eminent men have lived and written—nor in England itself,
has any such representation been taken from the Christian
side, as here represented. With all desire to take Mr.
Bradlaugh’s words as fairly as I can, I must say that I should
never have understood what he meant from what is here
represented. It is only from the question, “What does
Christian Theism teach ?” that I am able to discover what
he is talking about. If I should find in the Bible what is
stated here in this passage, I should be inclined to doubt
whether the Bible has any right to my allegiance at all. It
would be impossible for me to teach a system which had
doctrines so monstrous as is here attributed; but when I find
upon a simple comparison of Mr. Bradlaugh’s statement with
the Bible itself, that the difference between them is as great as
darkness and light, I am literally and logically compelled to
come to the conclusion that Mr. Bradlaugh has yet to under
stand what Christianity is. (Cheers.) This is not, after all,
a harsh statement, for it appears to me that an Atheist is
rendered unable to understand Christianity, for the first
position which an Atheist must take is the position of
Theism ; that he must first be convinced that God is, and
then that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.
So strongly is this impressed upon my mind, that I have
always declined to discuss the origin of the Bible with an
�CHRISTIAN THEISM.
9
Atheist, for the simple reason that he will not admit that
there is a God to give a Bible. Why have I undertaken this
discussion then ? Because it is not the origin of the Bible,
but whether Mr. Bradlaugh has fairly represented the Bible.
It is not whether the Bible is true or false; but is Mr.
Bradlaugh’s representation of it true or false ? This then is
the limit of the discussion, and within which I hope it will
be confined; for I simply put before you this point—I say,
if I succeed in showing that Mr. Bradlaugh is unfair, I shall
have done something to discredit him when he speaks upon
Christianity. I mean simply to show that Mr. Bradlaugh
is not trustworthy when he comes to the doctrine of Chris
tianity, that he does not understand it, and that he cannot
fairly speak of it. (Loud cheering.) I will recall your
attention to the words, “ and by his imperfection brought
misery into the world, where the all-good God must have
intended misery should never come. That this God made
men to share this misery, men whose fault was their being
what he made them.” I must ask you to remember that, in
all human probability, the Old Testament would never have
been given if it was not intended that it should be succeeded
by the New Testament. That is proved from the Old Tes
tament itself. In the Old Testament you hear of promises
of one that is to be a great deliverer, and they increase in
force till the canon of die Old Testament was completed.
But this would have had no meaning if it was not intended
that the New Testament should have succeeded. Is it fair
then to take any passage in the Old Testament, and take it
out of its just relation to the New? I say the whole of the
“fall” must be taken in connection with the redemption.
Mr. Bradlaugh has no right to take the fall, and dissociate it
from the New Testament. Mr. Bradlaugh may think as
little of the New as of the Old Testament; but what
ever he thinks, I only ask for fairness, and that he will not
attribute to the Old or New Testament what it does not
state. And I say there is no statement in either the Old
or New Testament such as here described. (Cheers.)
If you study the Old Testament Scriptures, you will find
many passages which throw light upon the New; and there
is a unity of meaning there which would otherwise be in
visible to your sight. But I only ask you to judge for
yourselves whether the ordinary English Bible which you
possess does or does not teach that which is affirmed here
�............
IO
CHRISTIAN THEISM.
of it. That man is everywhere in the Bible spoken of as a
moral agent, and that he is again and again appealed to
to take his choice of two given courses; and that he may
choose I think is self-evident; therefore I think it is mon
strously unjust to say that Christian Theism teaches that
all this sin and misery came into the world without any
fault upon man’s part; that man, in short, could not be
other than he was; or, to adhere to the words literally as
they are here, “ that this God made men to share this
misery, men whose fault was their being what he made them.”’
(Loud cheers.)
The Chairman, before calling upon Mr. Bradlaugh,
requested that expressions of dissent or approval from the
audience might be quick, and soon finished, in order not to
waste the time of the speakers, which was limited to half-anhour.
Mr. Bradlaugh, who was also met with a very hearty
reception, said : This discussion is one of the simplest that
could possibly take place. It is whether or not the view of
Christian Theism contained in the words read by the Chair
man at the commencement of this debate, is a fair view;
that is all I am bound to prove. Mr. Harrison is to negate
that—to show that it is unfair; and he has told you that by
comparison of the words of the Bible with my words, that he
has arrived at two conclusions; one, that what I say is non
sense ; next, that it is what no intelligent Christian ever
taught. Now, if Mr. Harrison had given us the word's of
the Bible that he had compared with my words, I might
have been able more accurately than I can now, to estimate
the process by which he had entitled himself so to denounce'
my passage; but at present I do not know what part of the
Bible he has read. (Hear, hear.) He has deliberately
denied the truth of the whole of the statement, and given
nothing but the most general phrases in support of his
denial. My course, therefore, is a very simple one. With •
all respect to Mr. Harrison, I shall (except so far as it suits
my purpose) treat the speech just delivered as if it had not
been uttered \ and I shall prove the truth of every statement
I have made. Mr. Harrison did not attempt to define
Christian Theism from his point of view, or otherwise, and
it might be asked, Is it Roman Catholicism ? is it Church of
�CHRISTIAN THEISM.
II
Englandism ? is it Presbyterianism ? is it Wesleyanism ?
Do the Baptists teach Christian Theism ? or do the Inde
pendents ? or the Quakers ? or the Lutherans ? or the Greek
Church? (Laughter.) I do not intend myself to meddle
with any other Christian Theism than that which is declared
to be so by the law of England, under the 9th and 10th of
William III., chap. 32, section 1, and which is to be found
in the Bible and die book of Common Prayer. It is
from the Bible and the Thirty-nine Articles, and the creeds
included in those articles, that I intend to prove every word
of the passage which has been read, except one, and that
Mr. Harrison has been pleased to admit, I should have
had some difficulty in proving that the Bible taught thatman
had a free will, but Mr. Harrison has distinctly admitted
that, and it may be taken as proved. (Laughter.) All the
rest I will undertake to prove by texts of Scripture, without
the slightest possibility of doubt about them. First, Is God
all-powerful ? With reference to that I will read Matt. xix.
26 : “With God all things are possible.” I will read you.
Genesis xviii. 14: “Is anything too hard for the Lord?” I
will read you Jeremiah xxxii. 17 and 27. I should mention,
however, that I do not always read the whole of the verses ;
only such as suits my purpose. (Oh, oh, and laughter.) If
there is any other portion of the verse that contradicts or
explains, then it is open to Mr. Harrison to avail himself of
his time to show that I have read it unfairly. I thought it
right to mention this, so as not to mislead you or Mr. Har
rison. The 17th and 27th verses are: “Ah Lord God! behold,
thou hast made the heaven and the earth by thy great
power and stretched-out arm, and there is nothing too hard
for thee,” and—“ Is there anything too hard for me ?” (A
voice: Read it through, please.) If you will cultivate decency
I should be obliged. (Hear, hear.) Then, Luke i. 37:
“ For with God nothing shall be impossible.” Luke xviii.
27, says I “The things which are impossible with men are
possible with God.” I submit that I have proved in the
words of my pamphlet that God is all-powerful; but, lest
there should be any doubt on the point, I will read the
explicit words from the first of the Thirty-nine Articles,
which declares that God has. “ infinite power.” I admit
that something may be said on the contrary. I do not say
that Mr. Harrison may not quote texts in direct opposition
sometimes to what I have quoted—(laughter)—and as he
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CHRISTIAN THEISM.
says that he avails himself of the majority of facts, then if
the majority of texts are against me, that will be fair argu
ment for him, subject to one or two comments which I may
make. There is something which may be said against
God’s all-powerfulness. Mr. Harrison may quote Genesis
vi. 3, which says : “ My spirit shall not always strive with
man,” and he may urge that an omnipotent God does not
—could not—strive with man at all; or he may quote from
Judges i. 19 : “And the Lord was with Judah; and he
drave out the inhabitants of the mountain; but could
not drive out the inhabitants of the valley, because they had
chariots of iron.” I will not presume to urge that that con
tradicts God’s omnipotence, because while the grammar is
'doubtful the translation is worse; and probably our friend
may tell you that in some other version it does not quite
mean what it says here. (Cheers.) As he has limited him
self to the Bible I will do the same, and I think I have
made out a fair case that Christian Theism teaches that God
is all-powerful. Does it teach that God is all-wise? In
order to show you this I will read from Job xxiv. 23 : “ For
his eyes are upon the ways of man, and he seeth all his
doings.” That is not quite clear; but the Bible has the dis
advantage of not being always clear; and, as in the Tichborne case, if I cannot get one good witness, I must call a
number of bad ones. (Laughter.) Proverbs xv. 3 : “The
eyes of the Lord are in every place, beholding the evil and
the good.” That is a little stronger, but not so strong as it
might be. Jeremiah xxxii. 19: “Great in counsel, and
mighty in work; for thine eyes are open upon all the ways
of the sons of men.” 1 Chron. xxviii. 9 : “ For the Lord
searcheth all hearts, and understandeth all the imaginations
of the thoughts.” Then in Acts i. 24, you will find this
statement: “ Thou, Lord, which knowest the hearts of all
men,” and prayer founded upon that declaration. In Acts
xv. 18 there is another declaration: “ Known unto God
are all his works from the beginning of the world.” If
you think these quotations are not conclusive—and I
admit they want patching together—then I will read in
support of my statement the first article of the Christian
religion, that declares “God is of infinite wisdom,” and
I think that last witness makes up for any little defects
that may have gone before in the others. But my posi
tion here, I grant, is not unassilable. Mr. Harrison
�CHRISTIAN THEISM.
*3
may quote Genesis xviii. 20, 21, and say, “What do you
mean by declaring God is all-wise, when I read ‘ The cry
of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is
very grievous; I will go down now, and see whether they
have done altogether according to the cry of it which is come
unto me; and if not, I will know.’ How can a God be all
wise when he says he does not know what was happening at
Sodom and Gomorrah?” (Loud cheers.) I admit that that
is a weak point in my case, and I admit there are forty or
fifty such passages in the Bible; but when I have the articles
of religion declaring that “ God is all-wise,” then I think it
is not unfair to say that Christian Theism teaches that God
is all-wise as well as all-powerful. Then comes, “Is God all
good ?” Those are the only points as to attributes of Deity.
I will read Psalm xcii. 15. It says, “ The Lord is upright;
he is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in him.” Deut.
Xxxii. 4 says, “ He is the rock, his work is perfect; for all
his ways are judgment; a God of truth and without iniquity,
just and right is he.” Then the first article of the Christian
religion also declares God to be “of infinite goodness,” so I
think I have proved that Christian Theism teaches that God
is all-good. I know Mr. Harrison may make out a case on
the other side; so I will deal with that too. He may read
Romans ix. 10, 11, 12, and 13, which are in these words :
“And not only this; but when Rebecca also had con
ceived by one, even by our father Isaac (for the children
being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil,
that the purpose of God according to election might stand,
not of works, but of him that calleth); it was said unto her,
The elder shall serve the younger. As it is written, Jacob
have I loved, but Esau have I hated.” Mr. Harrison may say,
“How could the good God love and hate children yet un
born, and whom he had created for the purpose of loving
and hating?” I will admit that my case is very weak there.
(Laughter.) He may quote to me Ezekiel xx. 25, “ Where
fore I gave them also statutes that were not good, and judg
ments whereby they should not live.”* If he puts that, I
must tell him it is a wretched translation, and that he must
not rely too much upon that. That being so, I think I may
take it as proved that God is all-wise, all-powerful, and all
good. Now I will take it that that God is all-perfect. In
Genesis i. 27, it says: “So God created man in his own
image, in the image of God created he him.” Then in the
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CHRISTIAN THEISM.
31st verse we have : “ God saw everything that he had made,,
and behold it was very good.” I think that should be
sufficient proof that God made man perfect; but there is.
something to be said as to general Christian teaching, in
order that it may not be said I am drawing a doctrine that,
nobody else takes. (Hear, hear.) John Pye Smith, in
his work on “ Theology,” for those who teach in pulpits,,
declares: “ The first human pair must have been created
in a state of maturity and perfection as to the immediate use
of powers, organs, and faculties of every kind.” I submit
that under the text in Genesis, it is proven that God made
man perfect; but I ought not to rob my friend of one advan
tage, which he may use. He may quote Psalm viii. 5 :
“ For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels ;”
and he may ask how God could make man so ? Well, if he
will kindly explain to me the precise condition of the angels,
I will at once frankly give up anything that that text drives
out of my position; but till he does that I may say that God
made man perfect. (Cheers.) Next: “ Man by his imper
fection brought misery into the world.” I propose to read
to you first, Romans v. 12 : “ By one man sin entered into
the world, and death by sin.” The 14th verse : “ Neverthe-less death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them
that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam’s transgres
sion.” Then part of the 18th verse : “ By the offence of
one, judgment came upon all men to condemnation.” Part
of the 19th verse : “For by one man’s disobedience many;
were made sinners.” Then I will read to you from 1 Cor.
xv. 21, 22, which are as follows : “ By one man came death;,
in Adam all die.” Those are parts of the verses which seem
to support my case. I may in addition to that urge that.
Calvin figured to some extent in Christianity, although’
I do not put him upon my friend as unanswerable. In>
Calvin’s Institutes, book 2, cap. i., sections 5, 6, and 8
“We derive an innate depravity from our very birth; thedenial of this is an instance of consummate impudence. . . ..
All children, without a single exception, are polluted as;
soon as they exist. Infants, themselves, as they bring their
condemnation into the world with them, are rendered,
obnoxious to punishment by their own sinfulness.
For
though they have not yet produced the fruits of their iniquity,,
yet they have the whole seed of it in them, their whole
nature cannot but be odious, and abominable to God.’1
�CHRISTIAN THEISM.
15
Then I think I show that this one man by his imperfection
brought misery into the world. (Cheers.) Then I propose
to prove that this all-wise and omnipotent God, made men
to share that misery. I propose to prove that by reading to
you the first article of the Christian faith, which says that
“ God is the maker and preserver of all things •” and I urge
that if God is the maker of all things—all-wise and all
knowing—as I have proved, then he knew what the result
of his manufacture would be before he manufactured it.
(Loud cheers.) I quote, also to you the Nicene Creed,
which teaches the same doctrine as the first article; and then
I quote the 17th Article of the Church of England, which is
in these words : “ Predestination to life is the everlasting
purpose of God, whereby (before the foundations of the
world were laid) he hath constantly decreed by his counsel,
secret to us, to deliver from curse and damnation those whom
he hath chosen in Christ out of mankind;” and “ Predestu
nation is a most dangerous downfall, whereby the devil doth
thrust them either into desperation, or into recklessness of
most unclean living, no less perilous than desperation.” Then
Romans viii. 29 : “ For whom he did foreknow, he also did
predestinate.” 30th verse : “ Moreover, whom he did predes
tinate, them he also called.” 31st verse : “What shall we say
then to these things ? If God be for us, who can be against
us ?” Then I read from Ephesians i. 5 : “ Having predes
tinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to
himself, according to the good pleasure of his will.” And
from Isaiah xlvi. 9, 10: “I am God, and there is none else;
I am God, and there is none like me. Declaring the end
from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that
are not yet done.” I allege that these things prove that
God knew before the beginning what was to happen—
predestined what was to happen, and made men for the pur
pose of taking their part in the things so happening.
(Cheers.) I submit that I have proved, in the words of my
pamphlet, that “ God made men to share this misery.”
Next, “ that God begets a son, who is nevertheless his un
begotten self.” I will read to you from the second article
of the Christian faith: •“ The Son, which is the Word of
the Father, begotten from everlasting of the Father, the very
and eternal God, and of one substance with the Father.”
Also from the Nicene Creed: “And in one Lord Jesus
Christ, the only begotten son of God, begotten of his Father
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CHRISTIAN THEISM.
before all worlds; God of God, Light of Light, very God
of very God; begotten, not made; being of one substance
with the Father, by whom all things were made?’ And
from the Athanasian Creed: “ God is one; such as the
Father is, such is the Son, and such is the Holy Ghost.
The Father incomprehensible, the Son incomprehensible,
and the Holy Ghost incomprehensible. And yet there are
not three Gods, but one God.” (Laughter.) I say, in the
words of my pamphlet, then, “ That this God begets a son,
who is nevertheless his unbegotten self.” I am now ap
proaching that stage in which my time will end; therefore,
I may not go farther, for it would be useless to try to prove
another proposition, which will take a longer time than I
have at my disposal. But I ask you to deal with the posi
tion as we occupy it. Mr. Harrison says that if I mean,
when I urge that an all-good God intended misery should
come into the world, that he decreed misery should come
into the world, then it is not so. Well, when I find that
God predestined and declared that misery should exist, I
have the right to say he both decreed it, and knew it. When
Mr. Harrison says he cannot account for the origin of evil,
I will read in my next speech passages which show that God
made it. (Loud and prolonged cheering.)
Mr. Harrison : I am very much surprised to discover
that Mr. Bradlaugh has so early in the debate given up his
whole case. (“ Oh, oh,” and laughter.) Not one single pas
sage that Mr. Bradlaugh has quoted, proves a statement
contained in the “ Plea for Atheism,” except points upon
which there was no dispute. (Hear, hear.) I will say in
passing, in reference to the verse upon which Mr. Bradlaugh
could not quote from Judges without a smile, that any intel
ligent or fair man—Christian or infidel—could not read that
passage, and think it referred to God. No intelligent man
thinks that the He there spoken of, who could not drive out
the inhabitants that had chariots of iron, is God. Mr. Brad
laugh himself gave the clue to the answer when he said the
translation was a wretched one. If he knew the translation
was wretched, jthen his unfairness in quoting the passage
was wretched also. (Loud cheers.) He brings forward a
passage, not in reply, for the greater part of the speech had
nothing to do with the subject of debate. (“ Oh, oh.”)
Allow me to say a word to you Secularists : I have ventured
�CHRISTIAN THEISM.
17
to face the lion inhis den—the Douglas in his hall. (Hisses.)
I have come among you trusting to fair play, and thinking
the Secularists of London were as fair as the Secularists of
the provinces. (Hear, hear.) I think Mr. Bradlaugh is a man
capable of defending himself, therefore do not take the
credit out of his hands. That is a friendly hint in passing. I
say that Mr. Bradlaugh, in the majority of the passages
quoted, was simply wasting time ; for what I want from
him is not inferential statements of his, but I want decisive
proof that the doctrine he teaches is taught in the Bible,
or by Christian Theists. What does he do ? He takes the
passages, and travels over different parts of the Bible, and
brings those passages into the connection which he manu
factures for them, instead of the connection in which they
stand; and then he boasts of the success of the assertions in
his pamphlet, which he has not even attempted to prove.
If it were a discussion as to the consistency of the Bible
in all its parts, or a defence of Christianity, I should
show that his objections are only seeming objections, for he
has brain enough to know the rules upon the subject, and
the interpretations given by scholars. If this were a discus
sion upon Christianity generally, I would undertake to
show that the phrases quoted as to God going down in
relation to Sodom, and as to hatred in the Romans, are
expressions in harmony with the usages of speech, and
which scholars often use; and that the majority of Sun
day-school teachers in this country have knowledge
enough of the Bible to explain those passages very easily
indeed. (Cheers.) But that is not the question before us,
and I object to have dust thrown in my eyes by Mr. Brad
laugh’s hand, or any other man’s hand. I asked him to
give positive proof—which he has not given—that God
made men for the purpose of suffering this misery, and
that they had to suffer it through the fault of God, who
made them what they were. If we look for a moment or
two at his statements, you will see how little there is in
them. He brings forward passages which I have not denied
—the omnipotence of God, and the goodness of God. I
thought he was hard up to know how to fill up his full time,
and that therefore he resorted to an expedient of this kind.
But I thank him for even what he has done, for if the
passages which he has given be read when the report of this
discussion is printed, some Secularists will become acquainted
�'
18
tM-'
■ ••»
; •
'■. yUX'1."?
CHRISTIAN THEISM.
with many passages with which they were not acquainted
before. But let it be granted that God was all-wise and all
good, and that he knew from the beginning what would
happen. There it is where Mr. Bradlaugh breaks down; he
thinks that whereas God foreknew all that would occur, that
he, foreknowing it, compelled it. There is a great difference
between the two things. (Hear, hear.) But assuming that
it is as he says, but which I deny, then I say that upon his
own showing, even upon the identity of foreknowledge and
foreordination, it is not proven that the Bible teaches God
compelled man to sin. The point is not whether it is logical
inference, but does the Bible state it ? I have heard nothing
yet of it, but only some of Mr. Bradlaugh’s inferences, which
he is so fond of drawing. I ask you to notice this. He waxed
eloquent, as if he was weak in his logic. He says to us that
God foreknew what would be the result of man’s being
made. Can he tell us the ultimate result of man’s creation?
I say, as in opening, that if it be true that God foreknew the
misery, and created man in relation to that misery, on Mr.
Bradlaugh’s own showing it is equally true that God fore
saw redemption, and created man in relation to that redemp
tion. (Cheers.) Mr. Bradlaugh in teaching what he holds
to be the doctrines of divine omnipotence, forgets one thing
—that nowhere in the Bible or anywhere else is it ever held
that the omnipotence includes the doing of impossibility. It
is perfectly true that what is impossible to men is possible toGod; but there is this which I hold to be impossible in its.
very essence—that a perfectly righteous and wise being
should act unwisely or unrighteously. What is the position I
take ? Why simply this; that as we have so limited a com
prehension as to be able to understand but a small portion
of the phenomena presented to us, it is not to be expected
that we can judge of the wisdom or the unwisdom of the
creation of man. But my opinion is, that the wisdom of God
in the fulness of time will appear to all, and that all these
things in the Bible should be taken together in connection
with the doctrine of immortality and the life to come. But
the point is, not whether it is true or false, but whether the
Bible teaches what Mr. Bradlaugh affirms it teaches, and
which I affirm he has not proved that it does. (Hisses.)For if you will consider all the passages which he has cited,
you will find that he has proved these things. They show
the omnipotence, the omniscience, and the perfection of God ;
�CHRISTIAN THEISM.
19
that God created men perfect; that afterwards, man became
sinful; but they do not show that God made man to sin. They
show that God had predestinated or foreordained offices and
men for a great purpose in the providential government of the
world; they showa doctrine of predestination; but they do not
prove Mr. Bradlaugh’s doctrine of predestination. The point
where his argument fails is, that he has failed to show that the
teaching which he infers is the teaching of the Bible itself.
Nothing but the Scripture can suffice for this. He brings a
multitude of charges, but these are not to be determined by
false witnesses but by honest reading of the Bible; and by
such a means is he to prove his position if such passages are
to be found. He found fault with me for not citing passages
with which I had compared the “ Plea for Atheism.” Was
there not an excellent reason why I should not do such a
thing ? You know that according to the rules of this debate
the affirmative is to be found in the “ Plea for Atheism,”
and he does not give one single passage there to prove his
point. (Cheers.)
Mr. Bradlaugh : As to one or two adjectives and ad
verbs in Mr. Harrison’s remarks in the course of his speech,.
I will take the liberty of leaving them, because the debate
will be reported and printed. He has said I have wrenched
my passages from their context. That may be so, but I
think I have not, and I invite him to show me where I
have done so. The only one to which he referred was
Judges i. 19, and he says no intelligent person could
have so used that text, while admitting that the translation
was wretched. I hold in my hand a French print of the
Hebrew Scriptures, with Cahen’s notes to the passages and
verses; and I say, assuming that Mr. Harrison knew what
the original text was, he has said that which within his own
knowledge was not true, if Mr. Harrison be right. I will
read Cahen’s translation, and translate it roughly in these
words:—“L’Eternel fut avec Jehouda, il d^blaya la montagne, mais il ne put expulser les habitans de la plaine qui
avaient des chars de fer.” “The Eternal [this is the word
in our version rendered Lord] was with Judah; he swept
the mountain, but he could not expel the inhabitants of the
plain, who had chariots of iron.” (Cheers.) I say, that if
the “ he ” was intended to apply to Judah, it would have
read qui, instead of il, he. Fortunately, this construction
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CHRISTIAN THEISM.
does not rely upon my view, because Cahen, who was a
great scholar (which I do not pretend to be) and a devout
man (which I do not pretend to be), has actually published
the precise criticisms on the disputed words in the notes at
the bottom of the page, which I place at Mr. Harrison’s
service. (Cheers.) I do not know that I have yet made
any “ boast ” in this debate; it is too early to boast in one’s
first speech, and I will therefore not trouble you at all with
that. Whether it is correct or not correct that I was
specially eloquent in order to cover any weak point
of argument is really of little consequence. (Hear, hear.)
I daresay if I wanted to cover a weakness I have the acute
ness to do so, and I hope Mr. Harrison will exhibit at least
as much acuteness in discovering my weaknesses as he has
manifested in this instance. (Laughter.) As to foreknow
ledge, there was Jonathan Edwards, “an intelligent Chris
tian,” who wrote : “ The existence of a perfect and certain
foreknowledge implies the certainty of the objects foreknown;
otherwise it would not be knowledge but conjecture, and if
the objects or events did not come to pass, it would be false
conjecture.” Mr. Harrison said that it was. mpossible a
perfectly righteous being should not act righteously. When
we find God declaring to Moses in Exodus xxxii. io: “Let
me alone, that my wrath may wax hot against them, and that
I may consume them,” what are we to think, especially
when we find that he repented of the evil upon a few
words of expostulation from Mose’s ? Mr. Harrison was quite
right in saying that I had not proved my case; I will go on
to do so now. I have declared in the “ Plea for Atheism,”
“ that by belief in the birth of God’s eternal son, and in
the death of the undying who died to satisfy God’s vengeance,
Christian Theism teaches that man may escape the conse
quences of the first man’s error.” I ought to notice that
Mr. Harrison says : “ If God foreknow the fall, he also fore
knew of the redemption.” That would be very convenient
for the few redeemed, but most unfortunate for the many
who died before the redemption. I proved from the eigh
teenth article of the Christian faith—and it is strange that
Mr. Harrison did not think it necessary to speak of it;
probably my case was so weak that it did not require it:—
“ That they are to be accursed who presume to say that every
man shall be saved by the law or sect which he professeth,
so that he be diligent to frame his life according to that
�CHRISTIAN THEISM.
21
law, and the light of nature. For Holy Scripture doth set
out unto us only the name of Jesus Christ, whereby men
must be saved.” And in Mark xvi. 16, we have these words :
“ He that believeth and is baptised, shall be saved; but he
that believeth not shall be damned.” And then in John iii. 16,
that “ God so loved the world, that he gave his only be
gotten son, that whosoever believeth in him should not
perish, but have everlasting life.” That is not only my own
opinion, but Luther, in his “ De Captivitate Babylonica,”
says : “ Thus you find ”—and I only give a part of it,
but you can give the context—“ how richly gifted is a Chris
tian and baptised man, who, even if >he wills it, cannot
forfeit his salvation by how many sins soever, unless he is
unwilling to believe. For no sins have power to damn
him, save only the sin of incredulity.” If you have
listened to the sermons of Mr. Spurgeon you will re
member how he puts the monster sin of unbelief as worse
than all other crime; and therefore I think I have
proved that Christian Theism does teach that man may
escape the consequences of the first man’s error by belief in
the birth and death of God’s eternal son. I have not only
proved that through belief in the death of his son we are
saved, by the Scripture, but I have proved it from the
Athanasian Creed. And now I will prove from the Nicene
Creed and the third article, as “ Christ died for us, and
was buried; so also is it to be believed that he went down
into hell.” The next point is : “ That God, though no re' specter of persons, selected as his favourites one nation in
preference to all others.” I will read to you Romans ii. 11:
“ For there is no respect of persons with God.” Then I
will read to you Psalm cv. 5 to 15 : “Remember his mar
vellous works that he hath done; his wonders, and the
judgments of his mouth; O ye seed of Abraham, his ser
vant, ye children of Jacob his chosen. He is the Lord our
God; his judgments are in all the earth. He hath remem
bered his covenant for ever, the word which he commanded
to a thousand generations. Which covenant he made with
Abraham, and his oath unto Isaac; and confirmed the same
unto Jacob for a law, and to Israel for an everlasting
covenant. Saying, unto thee will I give the land of Canaan,
the lot of your inheritance ; when they were but few men in
number; yea, very few, and strangers in it. When they
went from one nation to another, from one kingdom to
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CHRISTIAN THEISM.
another people; He suffered no man to do them wrong-;
yea, he reproved kings for their sakes ; saying, Touch not
mine anointed, and do my prophets no harm.” If Mr.
Harrison should say there is not overwhelming evidence in
the Bible that the Jews were cared for more than other nationsin the world, I will read a hundred or two texts to prove
that they were. (Laughter.) Then the next point is
“ That man can do no good of himself or without God’s
aid.” I will read part of the 9th and 10th articles of
religion: “ Original sin is the fault and corruption of the
nature of every man, that naturally is engendered of the
offspring of Adam; whereby man is very far gone from
original righteousness, and is of his own nature inclined toevil, so that the flesh lusteth always contrary to the spirit;
and therefore in every person bom into this world, it deservethGod’s wrath and damnation.” “ The condition of man is
such, that he cannot turn and prepare himself, by his own
natural strength and good works, to faith and calling upon
God. Wherefore we have no power to do good works plea
sant and acceptable to God, without the grace of God.” I
will also read Genesis viii. 21, in which it appears that God
was so convinced of this, that after he had drowned the whole
world with the exception of one family, he found it was
inutile : “ And the Lord said in his heart, I will not again
curse the ground any more for man’s sake, for the imagina
tion of man’s heart is evil from his youth.” I will read from
Psalms xiv. 2, 3, where you will find it said: “ The Lord
looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see
if there were any that did understand and seek God. They
are all gone aside, they are altogether become filthy; there isnone that doeth good, no, not one.” Jeremiah xvii. 9
“ The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately
wicked.” Romans vii. 18 to 20—this is Paul speaking, sup
posing him to have been the writer: “ For I know that in me
dwelleth no good thing; for the good that I would I do not;
but the evil which I would not, that I do. Now if I do
that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that
dwelleth in me.” Then in part of Article eleven, I find that
men cannot be justified before God by their own strength,,
merits, or works, but they are justified for Christ’s sake when
they believe they are received into favour. I think now I
have proved that man can do nothing of himself. I have
not proved that man has free will, for Mr. Harrison has ad
�CHRISTIAN THEISM.
23
mitted that in his first speech. Then I have said “ that few
men go to heaven and the majority to hell.” I will read
Luke xiii. 2 4, where you will find these words: ‘‘ Strive to enter in
at the strait gate; for many will seek to enter in, and shall
not be able.” Matthew xxii. 16 : “ For many are called, but
few are chosen.” But I need not give you any further
proof, for I have said that it is only by belief in Christ that we
can be saved. The population of the world is computed at
1,375,000,000, of whom only 306,269,000 are Christians,
therefore 1,068,000,000 must be damned. And out of the
306,000,000, the small minority only are Protestant Chris
tians. (Cheers.)
Mr. Harrison : Mr. Bradlaugh has practically charged me
with having stated that which I have not stated. I will refer to
the words, and when this debate is printed you will judge for
yourselves whether I have used the words with which I am
charged. ' I said I knew not how any man could read these
words without knowing that they did not refer to the Lord.
♦Thewords were these:—“And the Lord was with Judah,and
he drove out the inhabitants of the mountains; but could
not drive out the inhabitants of the valley, because they had
chariots of iron.” I maintain still that they refer to Judah,
and not to the Lord. (Cheers.) But next, Mr. Bradlaugh,
instead of trying to show the translation was a wretched one,
tried to show that the translation was practically right;
whereas, it was his statement that the translation was a
wretched one, and not mine, and that it did not fairly give
the original. If he knew this, he should not have availed
himself of the translation at all. (Hisses.) Now I am glad
to find that he has kept a little more to the subject in his last
speech, for we might have had enough to do to settle the
proposition in my first speech. But having travelled out of
the way at first, he has dealt with it more practically than
heretofore. I will deal with him in the same way. As to the
two passages stated, I think I have grave ground to complain
of his unfairness. The words are in the present tense:
“ He tnat believeth, and he that believeth not,” and the verse
refers to the present time, and the then present audience, we
might say, and the only fair conclusion which any man can
arrive at is this—that you must take into account that the
Gospel had been preached to those to whom the words re
ferred, and that those words did not refer to the persons to
�24
CHRISTIAN THEISM.
whom the Gospel was never preached. (Cheers.) You
must take fairly into account not only the words uttered, but
the circumstances in which the words were uttered, if you
are to give a true and accurate representation. I contend
that so far from the words having the meaning ascribed to
them by Mr. Bradlaugh, they have the very reverse. Chris
tian teaching, so far as I know it, sets forth a very different
doctrine. And I will say that, while I agree with a great deal
in the authorities he has quoted, I do not see how they bear
out his argument. I may be dull of apprehension, and that
may account for it; but as I do not see how most of those pas
sages quoted by Mr. Bradlaugh bear upon the subject, I must
pass them by. I will deal with those passages which do bear
upon it; and I think it would be an unfair and unjust thing
to take the two verses quoted, and say they referred to those
who had never heard the Gospel at all. Upon that general
subject, if I turn to Paul’s Epistle to the Romans, I find
there is a general argument which bears upon the subject.
If I could have known all the passages Mr. Bradlaugh
might quote, I would have had all the passages that explained
them marked also; but you must give me time. (Oh, oh.)
Well now, be fair ! how can I do so now ? In this passage
from Romans, St. Paul affirms that the Gentiles who have
not the law, are a law unto themselves—that not having the
same privileges in fact that Christians have, they have the
law written in their hearts, and that that law accuses or ex
cuses them. If you admit that, I think you will find it as
unlike Christian Theism as given by Mr. Bradlaugh, as it is
possible to be. (Hear, hear.) I fail to find the exact
words now, but I will find them presently. (Laughter.)
Never mind ! I will give Mr. Bradlaugh both chapter and
verse. I will now refer to another, in Romans v. i,
where you will find that we have these words: “ There
fore being justified by faith, we have peace with God
through our Lord Jesus Christ.” Justification therefore
is by faith. I turn to Matthew xxv., and I find here,
in reading the whole account of the general judgment, some
thing like the following words : “ Then shall the King say
unto them on his righthand, come, ye blessed of my Father,
inherit the kingdom prepared for you 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,
�CHRISTIAN THEISM.
25
and ye visited me; I was in prison, and ye came unto me.”
Then follows the account of those who have not done So.
In 2 Corinthians v. you will find the perfect consistency of
the whole word of God. You find, first, that justification is
by faith, and secondly, that judgment is by works. If a man
would receive justification, in reference to law, for sins that
are past, he must trust in the atonement of the Lord Jesus
Christ, if the opportunity has been presented to him; but
after that justification by faith. After the man’s lifehasbecome
a new one, if he thinks he may live any sort of life because
he is justified, he will find a terrible mistake in the day of
judgment. He will find that “ every one shall be judged
according to the deeds done in the body.” You have the
same necessity for individual action with Christianity as you
have to get anything else, only more so, because at the same
time a man’s conduct shall decide his position hereafter.
(Cheers.) If there be any passage to which I have referred
to-night, and not given the exact verse, I will do so to-morrow
night, if I should have to travel over the same ground. I
pray you to remember that Mr. Bradlaugh practically ad
mitted that his whole argument depended upon the sub
ject of predestination. (“No, no.”) Well, you will remember
what he said about all this being predestined; but I will
withdraw the words “practically admitted”—Mr. Bradlaugh
is not in the habit of admitting much. (Hisses.) Why Mr.
Bradlaugh says the Bible teaches that it is predestined the
greater portion of the world will be burning in hell for ever.
(“ No, no,” and hisses.) Well, if it is not predestined, then
his argument falls to the ground. But I may say that I
believe Christ’s work was foreordained and that it was pre
destined that men should benefit by that work. But if they had
not an opportunity of hearing of the atonement, they would
not be held accountable for their unbelief. Mr. Bradlaugh
has not shown that any of the heathen will be lost for not
believing the Gospel of which they never heard. This strikes
me as being so painful a perversion of Christian teaching
that I feel at a loss to know how he has arrived at the con
clusion. And I think it is not right, while we have the
supreme court of appeal, the Bible, that he should bring
strange objections from uninspired authors, and thrust them
down my throat. The question is not to be determined
thus. No Protestant thinks that even the Augsburg Con
fession, or the Articles of the Church of England, are
�26
CHRISTIAN THEISM.
infallible. (Hear, hear.) No one holds such a view as
that; but we will believe in any creed as we find it in har
mony with the word of God. At the same time, I find
nothing in them that proves Mr. Bradlaugh’s position.
But I must say that creeds are valueless except as they set
before us the Christian teaching of the New Testament.
We hold our creeds in subjection to the word of God,
and we claim the right, every now and then, to go into the
silence of our own studies, and see if anything in the creed
is contrary to the Word, and bring it into harmony with the
Word if we find it erring. (Cheers.)
Mr. Brad laugh : Surely Mr. Harrison forgot what I read
from the articles of the Church of England. I find it said :
“ They also are to be had accursed that presume to say
that every man shall be saved by the law or sect which he
professeth, so that he be diligent to frame his life according
to that law, and the light of nature.” According to Chris
tian Theism, Mr. Harrison is accursed from the doctrine to
which he has given utterance. If he intended to join the
Church of England, that article would shut him out. (Hear,
hear.) Mr. Harrison says these articles are not infallible;
then why is there a statute on the statute book rendering me
liable to indictment and imprisonment under the Act 9th
and 10th ofWilliam III., chap. 32, if I attempt to affix any
new sense to—if I deny the truth of—any article ? (Cheers.)
I have in this debate nothing to do with any other question
than what is Christian Theism. I have to prove nothing
more than this : That my representation of Christian Theism
is a fair representation. That I intend to prove. Mr.
Harrison says that at first I said that the text of Judges i. 19,
was a wretched translation, and then I showed that it was
right. If he had attended to what I said, he would have
heard what I quoted from Cahen, and that the Hebrew is
not as our text. But it did not affect the all-powerfulness
of the Deity! If, supposing it to be true—which it is not
—that the Hebrew means that Judah could not drive out
the inhabitants, but that God could—(and I say that the
Lord could not)—if it was the Lord, then it was not Judah
alone, it was the Lordplus Judah. (Cheers.) Mr. Harrison
has not ventured to give you any texts in answer to those I
have read. He referred to a text in Romans, but said he
could not find it, and will deal with it to-morrow. Then I
�CHRISTIAN THEISM.
27
will do the same. He said : “ I will read to you from Mat
thew xxv.and he made a proper statement when he in
timated that, as he did not know what I would quote, it was
too much to expect him to answer to-night. (Laughter.)
If he is not sufficiently acquainted with the Bible to put his
texts to you, as I have done—(loud cheers, mingled with
hisses)—and as I will try to do, although I cannot possibly
tell what he will quote, it is only fair that he should have
reasonable time to do so. I do not complain of that.
(Hisses.) I will allow for your uneasiness, for, as Mr. Har
rison says, people do wax warm when they feel they are
getting the worst of it. He quoted from Matthew xxvi.,
beginning with the 34th verse; if he had read you the 29th
verse, he would have found an interesting text which would
have helped his explanation : “ For unto everyone that hath
shall be given, and he shall have abundance; but from him
that hath not shall be taken away even that which he
hath.” It so thoroughly helps out the doctrine of good
works, that I wonder it escaped the notice of my friend. I
do not suggest that he avoided it, but in the hurry it no
doubt escaped him, and he will be obliged to me that I
have quoted it for him. (Laughter.) He is good enough
also to tell you that the text which I read from Mark, that
I forgot to tell you that it was in the present tense. It is
possibly so; but I don’t think it is. I will show you how
much it is in the present tense. I will read the text: “ He
said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the
gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptised
shall be saved, but he that believeth not shall be damned.”
It was not in the present tense, but it was in the future;
and what the future tense means is very clear, for the Athaaasian Creed says : “ This is the Catholick faith, which, ex
cept a man believe faithfully, he cannot be saved.” And
the articles say, a man is to be accursed who presumes to
say that he can be saved by any other agency than that of
the Lord Jesus Christ. (A voice : “ Bosh.”) It is “bosh,”
you are quite right. (Laughter.) I am indebted to the
sensible Christian friend who helped me out to condemn his
creed in one word, in a way in which I should not probably
have succeeded. Then Mr. Harrison says that I practically
admit that the whole argument rests upon predestination.
Allow me to say that, without supposing the slightest wish
to misrepresent me, he had better have said that the one
�2S
CHRISTIAN THEISM.
particular argument was affected by the Church article as to
predestination—just that little portion of it; but the making
men to sin, and punishing them for it, depend upon other
texts as well. He says that in his opinion the people
who have no opportunity of hearing about Christianity will
be saved. I am delighted that he holds that doctrine;
but, then, why do Christians send missionaries to the
heathens to preach possible damnation to them ? (Loud
cheers.) Mr. Harrison’s doctrine is a very good one—I ex
pected it from him. From what I knew of him I thought
his doctrine was that people who have not the opportunity
of hearing of Christianity will not be damned; but there is
this unfairness, that those who do hear it, but will not
believe it, are placed in a more horrible position. For
example, suppose- a man who had never heard anybody on
Christianity, then that man would go to heaven. (No, no.)
Well, if it did not mean that, it meant nothing. Then the
moment Mr. Harrison, or somebody else, preaches Chris
tianity, the man has a fair opportunity of being damned.
When my time expired in my last speech, I was engaged in
proving that more men go to hell than to heaven, and I
read passages to show that it was only the believers who
went to heaven. I said there was a surplus of 1,068,000,000
of people in the year 1868 who were not Christians, and
that out of 306,000,000 who were Christians, 195,194,000
were Roman Catholics. Only about 110,000,000, then, are
left as Protestants, and they include all sects—Independents,
Baptists, Muggletonians, Presbyterians, and every one,
taking in ourselves, too, for we are all lumped in as well.
(Cheers.) This is not my view alone. Martin Luther, a
Christian of some authority—although I do not put him at
too much importance—says that God in this world has
scarcely a tenth part of the people, and that the smallest
number only will be saved. This is in his “Table Talk,”
pages 41 and 43 : “ If you would know why so few are
saved, and so infinitely many are damned, this is the cause
—the world will not hear Christ.” I think I have now
amply shown that I have fairly put the representation of
Christian Theism; I was not bound to prove every state
ment as precisely as I have done. Mr. Harrison says I
have proved statements which were not called in question;
but, in truth, I have, as I think, proved everything in the
selected passage of my pamphlet; and I defy him to lay
�CHRISTIAN THEISM.
29
his hand upon a sentence which is not susceptible of proof
from the Bible, the creeds, or the articles. Mr. Harrison
says the articles are not infallible; but he opened them for
me in his first speech, when he said : “ I take representative
men; you take the same.” I have not, I contend, taken
one man who is not entitled to be considered a fair repre
sentative of Christian Theism. If Mr. Harrison says that
the Church of England teachings do not represent Christian
Theism, then I say why is it thrust drown my throat, from
the cradle to the grave, as Christian Theism ? (Hear, hear.)
I will not deal with a word of what has fallen from him as
to “ subterfuge ” or “ misrepresentation,” till he at least tries
to show that the charge is warranted, by dealing with the
text itself. The imputation stands self-answered by the
absence of any sort of attempt to prove the serious allega
tion in the words themselves. I will only say that I could
have wished no better platform to stand upon; I could have
wished no pamphlet better to defend. I do not stand here
as the representative of Freethought, but simply as the re
presentative of the views of my pamphlet, bound to prove
that they are reasonably fair. It is perfectly true that I
dress up the Christian creeds in these arguments ; but you
have only to show that the clothes selected are not taken
from your wardrobe, and not of your making. Don’t speak
of the misfit until you show it is of some other faith. I have
quoted outside your Bible and Prayer Book from no one
except Luther, Calvin, Pye Smith, Jonathan Edwards, and
the Augsburg confession. This is not going back to the
old councils. The creeds are the law of England at the
present moment. Those who do not receive them are, on
conviction, forbidden to be plaintiffs, defendants, executors,
or trustees; they cannot receive legacies, or hold civil or
military office. I have used nothing which will not fairly
show thatjny case is now proved. (Loud and continued
cheering.)
A vote of thanks to the Chairman, moved by Mr. Brad
laugh, seconded by Mr. Harrison, and energetically carried,
brought the evening to a close.
�SECOND NIGHT.
The Hall was more crowded <than on the previous night,
vast audiences assembling on each occasion, and the interest
in the debate seemed to have intensified, if possible. J. R.
Robertson, Esq., again occupied the chair, and briefly in
troduced the first speaker—
Mr. Harrison, who again met with a very cordial reception,
said: Mr. Chairman and friends, there was a misunderstanding
last night, to which I must of necessity make some reference
this evening. Mr. Bradlaugh, in his closing speech, reiterated
his statement respecting that verse in Judges i., and Mr.
’Bradlaugh appeared to be very triumphant in the manner in
which he quoted from a certain work, and brought his quota
tion to bear on my rendering of the passage. I do not pre
tend to answer the question as to the relative merits of Mr.
Bradlaugh and myself as to scholarship ; but I will state to
you the reasons which I have to give for the conclusions at
which I arrived last night. And I will give you what I
think a fair explanation of the passage. I am sorry that there
is any necessity for that, because it keeps us from the
proper subject of debate, and because that passage has
nothing to do with the subject under discussion. I mention
it only that I might vindicate myself from the charge brought
against me by Mr. Bradlaugh. In turning to the “ Rules of
Interpretation,” by Dr. Angus, in his “ Bible Hand-Book,”
I find on page 60, and paragraphs 126 and 127, that—“ The
analysis of the chapters of the Bible, and the titles and sub
scriptions of the books of the New Testament, form no
part of the inspired writings. The present division of the
Scriptures, too, into chapters and verses, and the order of
the several books, are not of Divine origin, nor are they of
great antiquity.” And I find on page 61, that: “As a rule
no importance is to be attached to the division of verses, or of
chapters, unless it coincide with the division of paragraphs.”
That is the rule which is laid down here, and which, I think,
must commend itself as a perfectly fair rule. (Hear, hear.)
I proceed to apply this rule to the passage in question. Now,
the passage cited by Mr. Bradlaugh last night was this:
“ And the Lord was with Judah; and he drave out the inha
�CHRISTIAN THEISM.
3r
bitants of the mountain; but could not drive out the inha
bitants of the valley, because they had chariots of iron.”
Against Mr. Bradlaugh’s interpretation I contended that the
meaning of the English words was this—that it was Judah
that was not able to drive out the inhabitants of the valley;
and the reason why Judah could not drive them out was
because they had chariots of iron. Mr. Bradlaugh said it
was a wretched translation ■ I retorted that if it was so, he
should not have made use of it at all. (Hear, hear.) I am
not seeking to gain any point whatever; but only to inform
you of what took place last night. Adopting the rule which
I have quoted from the “ Hand-Book,” I take the context,
and read in the eighteenth verse of the same chapter, these
words : “ Also Judah took Gaza, with the coast thereof, and
Askelon, with the coast thereof, and Ekron, with the coast
thereof.” And by this rule, I am justified in adding “And the
Lord was with Judah” to the 18th verse. Then the nineteenth
verse would read thus: “And he”—that is Judah,’who is the
principal subject of the previous sentence, which is united
by the conjunction “ and”—“drave out the inhabitants of the
mountain, but could not drive out the inhabitants of the
valley, because they had chariots of iron.” It appears to
me therefore, reading the passage thus, as I have a right to
do, there is no difficulty; and you will notice that I
am not making any alteration in the words, but am
simply putting the full stop a little further on than in the
English version, without any change whatever, directly or
indirectly, in the words themselves. (Hear, hear.) I will
just further make this remark as to the inability of Judah to
to drive out the inhabitants of the valley. The remark is
this—that if you turn back to Numbers xxxiii. 55, you wiD
read: “But if ye will not drive out the inhabitants of the
land from before you, then it shall come to pass, that
those which ye let remain of them shall be pricks in your
eyes, and thorns in your sides, and shall vex you in the land
wherein ye dwell.” In Judges ii. 14, 15, I find: “And
the anger of the Lord was hot against Israel, and he delivered
them into the hands of spoilers that spoiled them, and he
sold them into the hands of their enemies round about, so
that they could not any longer stand before their enemies.
Whithersoever they went out the hand of the Lord was
against them for evil, as the Lord had said, and as the Lord
had sworn unto them; and they were greatly distressed.”
�32
CHRISTIAN THEISM.
What is the bearing of the passage before us ? This passage
shows clearly enough that the Israelites had about this
time disobeyed God, and the judgment which was
prophesied came upon them for their disobedience.
It is not unfair then, I think, to draw from the pas
sage before us the conclusion that Judah’s inability was
occasioned by the fact that he had sinned against the Lord,
and therefore the Lord’s help was withdrawn from him.
(Cheers.) I do not mean to say that Mr. Bradlaugh can find
no fault with this view. There is nothing in the world that
he cannot find fault with—he is a remarkably keen critic
as you know. (Laughter.) But I appeal to your sense of
fairness whether it is not a perfectly intelligible and perfectly
legitimate interpretation of the passage in question. (Cheers.)
I do not care to go further in the matter; 1 stated my view
because I wished to vindicate myself against the charge last
night But as far as the discussion of this evening is con
cerned, I hope we shall be able to keep it within the proper
limits, or it will terminate unfortunately both for the Secular
and Christian parties. There is an important difference
between the two lines of debate as carried on by Mr. Brad
laugh and myself. I cannot help feeling that all Mr. Brad
laugh’s arguments last night were based upon a misunder
standing of the direct object of the discussion. (Oh, oh,
and cheers.) I say misunderstanding, because I do not
wish to impugn Mr. Bradlaugh’s honesty—(hisses)—I say mis
understanding, because I do not wish to say he is a deliberate
trickster—(hisses)—and I say misunderstanding, because I
believe that Mr. Bradlaugh is not a trickster, but that he did
through ignorance misunderstand the point under discussion
last night. (Renewed hissing.) I think this gives very little
cause for hissing. But hear me out; the question of discus
sion was not what inferences he might draw from Christian
Theism; that was not the subject, but that was what he dis
cussed. As far as I know, the whole subject taken up by
him was not the question directly of Christian teaching, but
the inferences which Mr. Bradlaugh drew from that teaching.
Now I will show you the importance of this distinction if you
will hear for a little time. There are some persons who hold
that Atheism is an exceedingly bad thing; there are others
who think there may be drawn from the tenets of Atheism
much that seems to justify theft and murder, and I know not
what besides ; but if such persons were to turn round, and
�CHRISTIAN THEISM.
33
say that Atheists teach it is right to thieve and murder, it
would be a monstrous slander upon Atheists. (Hear, hear.)
I claim no more than this distinction. I say there is a vast
difference between the teaching of Atheism and the infer
ences drawn from that teaching ; so I say there is a vast
difference between what Christian Theism teaches, and the
inferences drawn from that teaching. (Cheers.) I was sorry
that so many quotations were taken from authors last night,
because they had not anything to do with the several state
ments contained in the “ Plea for Atheism.” I will put these
two things before you, and ask you to judge for yourselves,
and I am confident that the most enthusiastic admirer of
Mr. Bradlaugh will admit that not one of the statements in
the “ Plea for Atheism ” was to be found in the authorities
whom he quoted last night. Notwithstanding that I hold it
is a waste of time when we have a Bible, to go to Luther and
others, I will say of the passages quoted from different
authorities, not one of them contained the statements in the
“ Plea for Atheism“ That the first man made perfect by
the all-powerful, all-wise, all-good God, was nevertheless
imperfect.” Did the quotation from Luther contain that
statement? No! Did the Augsburg Confession ? No! Did
the quotation from Pye Smith or the Thirty-nine Articles ?
No ! But, after all, the question is, whether the Bible teaches
those things ? If he can bring forward the words in the
“ Plea for Atheism ” in the texts quoted by him, he will be
able to do what he was utterly unable to do last night
(Cheers.) I turn now to certain passages cited by Mr. Brad
laugh last evening, and with those passages I hope to deal.
(But I here give the reference which I quoted last night.
—Romans ii., 13,14* and 15.) I will deal with that passage
which he especially referred to. It is in Matthew xxv., and
he asked me to deal with Matthew xxv. 29, saying too that
I had better take the context. I will take the precise
passage which he read as containing something wonderful.
It was: “ For unto everyone that hath shall be given, and he
shall have abundance; but from him that hath not, shall be
taken away even that which he hath.” That was the
passage. (Laughter.) That is the passage which he wished
me to read last night. I find in this passage the greatest
confirmatory evidence that my view was correct. What is
the context of the passage itself? We have the Parable of
the Talents. I will read it: “For the kingdom of heaven is
�34
CHRTSTIAN. THETSM.
as a man travelling into a far country, who called his own
servants, and delivered unto them his goods. And unto one
he gave five talents,, to another two, and to another one ; to
every man according- to- his several ability; and straightway
took his journey. Then he that had' received the five talents
went and traded with the same, and made them other five talents.
And likewise he that had received two, he also gained other
two. But he that had received one, went and digged in the
earth, and hid his lord's- money. After a long time the lord
of those servants cometh, and reckoneth with them. And so
he that had received five talents came and brought other five
talents, saying, Lord, thou deliveredst unto me five talents;
behold, I have gained beside them five talents more. HisLord said unto him, Well done, thou good and faithful ser
vant ; thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make
thee ruler over many things; enter into the joy of thy Lord.
He also that had received two talents came and said, Lord,
thou deliveredst unto me two talents; behold, I have gained
two other talents beside them. His Lord said unto him,
Well done good and faithful servant; thou hast been faithful
over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things ;
enter thou into the joy of thy Lord. Then he which had re
ceived the one talent came and said, Lord, I knew thee that
thou art an hard man, reapingwhere thou hast not sown, and
gathering where thou hast not strawed; and I was afraid,
and went and hid thy talent in the earth ; lo, there thou
hast that is thine. His Lord answered and said unto
him, Thou wicked and slothful servant, thou knewest that
I reap where I sowed not, and gather where I have not
strawed; thou ought est therefore to have put my money to the
exchangers, and then at my coming I sWould have received
mine own with usury.” Allow me by the way, to say that
the word “ usury” simply means, with interest. (Laughter.)
I hope I shall be allowed the time lost by these interruptions.
Allow me to say to those who laugh at it only show that
they have not carefully read the passage, or they are not
acquainted with the history of the English language. (“ Oh,,
oh.”) There is no intelligent reader of that history
who does not know that the word “ usury ” took
the general meaning of interest. (Hear, hear.) Then ::
“ Take therefore the talent from him, and give it unto him
who hath ten talents. For unto every one that hath shall begiven, and he shall have abundance; but from him that hath
�CHRISTIAN THEISM.
35
not shall be taken away even that which he hath.” The
whole passage of the parable goes directly to show that my
statement was correct, that judgment hereafter would be ac
cording to man’s conduct; that he who has one talent is
rewarded in proportion to it, and the manner in which he
uses it. There is my argument, and there is the confirma
tion of it. (Cheers.) But I have marked passages brought
forward by Mr. Bradlaugh last night, and one, which was
intended to prove that man was made imperfect was this,
Psalm viii. 5 : “For thou hast made him a little lower than
the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour.”
That was the passage cited. Now I ask whether any fair
man would find in that a proof that man was made imper
fect ? I should find very different from that. If I were
Asked to believe that because the elm is not an oak, that
therefore the elm is imperfect, it would be absurd; but to say
that because a man is not an angel, that therefore he is im
perfect, is equally absurd. I should think that everybody
knew that man was not an angel. (Cheers.) It is a fact
About which, in Mr. Bradlaugh’s case as in my own, I have
no doubt; we are neither of us angels. This passage then,
upon which Mr. Bradlaugh seems to have laid some stress,
disappears from the list of passages which may be brought
Against the view I advocated. I take John iii. 18, and the
passage in Mark. Mr. Bradlaugh appeared to think I had
been inaccurate in the use of the present tense; yet you will
find the present tense was used so far as “he that believeth”
is concerned. I will read you the passage : “ He that
believeth on him is not condemned.” Perhaps it is only
fair to ask, whether those who did not hear of the gospel
would be lost because they had not heard of the gospel ?
But I said nothing of the sort. I said those who had not
heard of the gospel would be judged by another standard.
■“ He that believeth on him is not condemned; but he that
believeth not is condemned already.” It cannot refer to
future punishment, because it says : “ He is condemned
Already.” “ This is the condemnation, that light is come
into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light,
because their deeds were evil,” which makes it apparent, as
far as this verse is concerned, that the condemnation was
by.themselves unto themselves. (Hear, hear.) Mr. Brad
laugh also cited Mark xvi. 16 : “ He that believeth and is
baptised shall be saved ; but he that believeth not shall be
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CHRISTIAN THEISM.
damned.” He appeared to think that this proved his posi
tion ; that this passage, at least, if not the other, was con
clusive that those who did not hear the gospel should
be lost for not believing. But let us take the context in the
15th verse: “He said unto them, Go ye into all the world,
and preach the gospel to every creature,” which shows dis
tinctly that this passage refers only to those who heard the
gospel. For the previous verse shows that they were to
preach the gospel, and that by all fair rules of interpretation
it was only when people had heard the gospel, and having
had an opportunity of hearing it, still rejected it, that they
should be condemned. (Cheers.) I have now cited, and
criticised for your attention, the principal passages that
appeared to me to bear upon the subject of debate last
night. I am not able to find that one of those passages
proved what Mr. Bradlaugh asserted; whereas I find that they
prove what I asserted last night. I purpose now taking up
what he referred to last night—that this inference might be
drawn from my teaching—viz., that a man who had heard the
gospel from my lips was worse off than if he had not heard
it. Mr. Bradlaugh made a statement to that effect, and
he made it appear that I hold that those persons who had
not heard the gospel were saved on account of not hearing
the gospel. I never said anything of the kind; I made no
such statement. I will tell you (and I hope you will listen
patiently) that my judgment is that the atonement of Jesus
Christ was for all mankind; and on account of his atone
ment his Spirit is given to all mankind—aye, even to
Atheists. (Cheers.) That all men who are striving to live
up to the light within them, are thus brought within the
scope of the atonement; and that these men are thus bene
fited by it, though they hear not the Gospel; and that if they
live by the light thus given them, these men will be saved.
But that is very different from saying that men will be saved
because they did not hear the gospel. To those who have
heard the gospel, and have had the opportunity of believing
in it, it is a question of faith; and the standard of judg
ment will be our whole conduct here, because in the 2
Corinthians v. it is distinctly stated that we shall have our
reward according as we have done in this world, whether what
we have done be good or bad. (Cheers.)
Mr. Bradlaugh, who on rising was enthusiastically
cheered, said: With reference to Judges i. 19, you who
�CHRISTIAN THEISM.
37
were present last night will remember that the argument
that was put to you was not precisely the argument which
has been put to-night by Mr. Harrison. It was in effect
that the pronoun he applied to Judah and not to the Lord ;
and I will tell you why Mr. Harrison has to-night amended
that statement. It is because on looking to-day to authori
ties, he found that Dr. Adam Clarke had given the reason
which you have heard this evening; and those who have
quoted Dr. Clarke since have represented it that the words
“ the Lord was with Judah,” should end the verse. I am
quoting Barrett’s “ Synopsis,” a book where, for the use of
the clergy, the various religious and critical commentaries
are collected. If he had referred to Dr. Kennicott, he
would have found that the verse was not as he has put it; on
the contrary, he would have found that there was not a
word in the Hebrew for “could.” It should, according to
Kennicott, read: “ J ehovah was with Judah, so that he drove
out the inhabitants of the mountain, but not to drive out
the inhabitants of the valley.” (Cheers.) I have put this
to Mr. Harrison, because he said “ that to speak of the
translation as being wretched, and then to use it as I have
read it, was unfair.” When I quoted the passage I was
arguing as to the all-powerfulness of God, which point I
contend has not been dealt with at all by Mr. Harrison;
and when he says that I have changed my tactics, I ask
him what right he has to say that the words “ the Lord
was with Judah,” belong to verse 18 ? It is not true that
the Hebrew text gives him any right to do so. I have all
the authorities here for and against; and he is welcome
to have them. I deny that there is a particle of ground to
warrant the conclusion at which he has arrived. He says
that the passage has nothing to do with the subject. I
thought it had to do with the subject, for one portion of my
task was to show whether or not I was right in arguing that
God was all-powerful: and I thought that anything that
threw light on the omnipotence of the Deity would have
something to do with the subject. Suppose that even the
translation is wretched; I am not to be debarred therefore
from touching the Bible. It was a piece of candour on
my part, I think, to suggest what I did U and I think if
the passage is wretched, that the wretchedness or unfair
ness of user is in the Christian people who translated it.
I confess I am astounded by the supplement made by Mr.
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CHRISTIAN THEISM.
Harrison, who says: “I will read the 18th and 19th
verses together, in this way: I will read the words ‘ and the
Lord was with Judah ’ at the end of the 18th verse; and I will
then show that what I say is a prophecy from Numbers.”
Then he says : “ The Israelites by this time had disobeyed
God.” I ask, where is there proof of it happening between
the 18th and 19th verses? The Lord is with Judah in
the first of these verses ! I do not deny the fact that he
may not have been with him in the 19th; but I ask for the
slightest proof of the statement that Judah had. sinned and
the Lord had ceased to be with him. But then Mr. Harrison
is good enough to say that my citations last night were
founded upon a misunderstanding; and he says that he would
believe me ignorant rather than a deliberate trickster. He
adds that this is a mild way of putting it I make allowances
for his feelings and offer no reply. (Laughter.) Then he
said, I took up so much time in quoting authors. I quoted
a few passages from Luther, Calvin, the Augsburg Confes
sion, and Pye Smith, but the bulk of my quotations were
from the Bible. (Hear, hear.) “But,” says Mr. Harrison,
“ with reference to the quotations read from Luther,
Calvin, Augsburg Confession, and Pye Smith, they do
not prove the statement that “ the first man made perfect
was nevertheless imperfect.” They were not read to prove
that. The passages read to prove that he was perfect were
Genesis i. 27 and 31, and the passage read from Pye Smith,
with Psalm viii. 5 rather arguing against it. The passages
to prove that one man’s imperfection brought misery into the
world, were from Romans v. 12, 14, 18, 19; 1 Corinthians
xv. 21, 22; and one quotation from Calvin’s “Institutes,”
which you have not touched. Our friend, from having too
many texts to night, has passed over the whole of those
given, in an extraordinary way. I tried to give deliberate
proof—chapter and verse of everything I said; and I deli
berately read the words and applied them to what I was
stating, instead of drawing inferences. But he said: “I
will give you what I promised last night from the Romans,
to show—against what Mr. Bradlaugh says, ‘ that man is
saved by faith ’—that we require works as well as faith to
save a man.” I will show that that is not so. Mr. Harrison
has not answered the texts I read on the subject; but I will
quote to you from Romans iii. 20, which says: “ Therefore
by the deeds of the law, there shall no flesh be justified in
�CHRISTIAN THEISM.
39
his sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin.” Then
the 27th and 28th verses : “Where is boasting then? It is
excluded. By what law ? of works ? Nay: but by the law
of faith. Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by
faith without the deeds of the law.” Romans iv. 2 : “ For
if Abraham were justified by works, he hath whereof to
glory ; but not before God. For what saith the Scripture?
Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto, him for
righteousness.” Galatians ii. 16: “Knowing that a man is
not justified by the works of the law, but by faith of Jesus
Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might
be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of
the law; for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justi
fied.” If those verses are not as conclusive as anything
could be, that it is by faith alone that man is to be justified,
then I do not understand what meaning language can be
intended to convey. But, says Mr. Harrison, “ man is to
be judged by conduct; and those who have not the Gospel,
are to be judged by some other standard.” Why, he has
forgotten the articles which I read last night, which say:
“ They also are to be had accursed who presume to say, That
every man shall be saved by the law or sect which he professeth, so that he be diligent to frame his life according to that
law, and the light of nature. For Holy Scripture doth set
out unto us only the name of Jesus Christ, whereby men
must be saved.” Then, I did not contend “that men were
to be saved because they had not heard,” but I did contend
that, according to Mr. Harrison’s doctrine, they were to be
saved, although they had riot heard; and I said it was an
advantage to a man who had not heard ; and that to send
out missionaries to the heathen was to bring men into a
position of danger. (Hear, hear.) But now Mr. Harrison
reads Mark xvi. 1, which has been referred to several times,
and he says, “ Clearly here, according to the words of the
text itself, the penalty is only to those who hear and will
not believe.” For he says the passage is : “ Go ye into all
the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature. He
that believeth and is baptised, shall be saved.” He says it
is only those who have heard and do not believe that shall
be damned. If he turn to Matthew x. 14, he will find a very
different doctrtne, for he will find the doctrine : “Whosoever
shall not receive you, nor hear your words, it shall be more
tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of
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CHRISTIAN THEISM.
judgment than for that city.” So that it is not only the men
who have heard the Gospel, but the men who have not heard
it at all. (Cheers.) Mr. Harrison says that I am afraid of the
context; was there anything last night to show that I was
afraid ? Every time I read a part of the verse, I said it was
a part. A man who was afraid of the context, would not
have done this. There is nothing else in the speech to which
we have just listened, because when he tells you that Jesus
died for all mankind, it is for him not to give us his view of
the matter, but to give chapter and verse as testimony.
There are one or two matters arising out of last night, upon
which I have to comment. Mr. Harrison says the Old
Testament would never have been given, if the New was not
intended by God to succeed it. He did not give any proof
of it. He should at least quote some authority. (Hear,
hear.) Then referring to my words “ that God made men
to share this misery, which was brought into the world
by his imperfection,” Mr. Harrison says that no intelli
gent Christian teaches it, or believes that the Bible teaches
it. Well, I will show that the Bible does. In Amos
iii. 6, you will find these words: “Shall there be evil in a
city, and the Lord hath not done it ?” In Isaiah you will
find: “I make peace, and create evil; I the Lord do all
these things.” In Proverbs : “The Lord had made all
things for himself; yea, even the wicked for the day of evil.”
(Loud cheers.) In Romans ix. 21, 22, and 23, we have:
“ Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump
to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dis
honour ? What if God, willing to show his wrath, and to
make his power known, endured wtth much long-suffering the
vessels of wrath fitted to destruction : and that he might
make knowm the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy,
which he had afore prepared unto glory.” So much for the
text; now for an intelligent Christian. Luther, in his tract
“ De Servo Arbitrio,” discussed in Hamilton’s book, says :
“ All things take place by the eternal and invariable will of God,
which blasts and shatters in pieces the freedom of the human
will. God creates in us the evil, in like manner as the good.
The high perfection of faith, is to believe that God is just,
notwithstanding that by his will he renders us necessarily
damnable, and seemeth to find pleasure in the torments of
the miserable.” But Mr. Harrison said no intelligent Chris
tian ever taught this. Take Calvin’s “Institutes,” book i.
�CHRISTIAN THEISM.
4i
He says: “ Sin and crime occur by the will of God,” and he
declares: “ That while God by means of the wicked fulfils
his secret decrees, they are not excusable.” “But,” says
Mr. Harrison, “ there is one virtue which must not be over
looked, that the Bible teaches the doctrine of immortality.”
I am not so sure of that. I do not say he cannot quote texts
in favour of immortality, but there are others on the oppo
site side, which make it doubtful. I quote from Job: “ O
remember that my life is wind; as the cloud is consumed
and vanisheth away, so he that goeth down to the grave
shall come up no more.” Ecclesiastes iii. 18, 19 : “I said
in mine heart concerning the estate of the sons of men, that
God might manifest them, and that they might see that they
themselves are beasts. For that which befalleth the sons of
men befalleth beasts; even one thing befalleth them: as the
one dieth, so dieth the other; yea, they have all one breath;
so that a man hath no pre-eminence above a beast.” Then
Ecclesiastes ix. 4, 5, and 6 : “ For to him that is joined to
all the living there is hope; for a living dog is better than
a dead lion. For the living know that they shall die; but the
dead know not anything,neither have they any more a reward;
for the memory of them is forgotten. Also their love, and their
hatred, and their envy, is now perished; neither have they any
moreaportion for ever in anything that is done under the sun.”
Isaiah xxvi. 14: “ They are dead, they shall not live; they are
deceased, they-shall not rise; therefore hast thou visited and
destroyed them, and made all their memory to perish.” Psalm
ciii. 15, 16 : “As for man, his days are as grass; as a flower
of the field, so he flourisheth. For the wind passeth over it,
and it is gone; and the place thereof shall know it no more.”
I am aware that in one of these quotations, Ecclesiastes iii., I
have passed an important part of the context; but I dare my
friend to take it up where I left off. He said there is nothing
in the Bible teaching us that God compelled man to sin. I
will take 2 Samuel xxiv. 1: “And again the anger of the Lord
was kindled against Israel, and he moved David against
them to say, Go, number Israel and Judah.” You will
find that that numbering was sin for which God killed
70,000 of the people. Mr. Harrison may say from other
verses that he can show it was the devil and not God that
moved David; and as I cannot sometimes distinguish
properly between God and the Devil in the Bible, I will
leave it for him to prove. Exodus vii. 3 : “ I will harden
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CHRISTIAN THEISM.
Pharaoh's heart, and multiply my signs and my wonders in
the land of Egypt. But Pharaoh shall not hearken unto
you, that I may lay my hand upon Egypt.” Yet Mr. Har
rison says there is no text alleging that God compelled man
to sin 1 Then in i Kings xxii. 19, to 23 : “ He said, I saw
the Lord sitting on his throne, and all the host of heaven
standing by him on his right hand and on his left. And
the Lord said, Who shall persuade Ahab, that he may go
up and fall at Ramothgilead ? And one said on this
manner, and another said on that manner. And there came
forth a spirit, and stood before the Lord, and said, I will per
suade him. And the Lord said unto him, Wherewith ? And
he said, I will go forth, and I will be a lying spirit in the
mouth of all his prophets. And he said, Thou shalt per
suade him, and prevail also; go forth, and do so. Now,
therefore, behold, the Lord hath put a lying spirit in the
mouth of all these thy prophets.” Then Numbers xxxi.
17 and 18 : “Now, therefore, kill every male among the
little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by
lying with him. But all the women children, that have not
known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves.”
(A voice: “Awful!”) I did not make it; here it is.
(Cheers.) It is because I thought it awful that I wrote thispamphlet; it was because I thought it awful that I attack
Christian Theism. Deuteronomy xx. 16: “But of the
cities of these people, which the Lord thy God doth give
thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that
breatheth.” 2 Thessalonians ii. 11 and 12: “For this cause
God shall send them strong delusion, that they should
believe a lie; that they all might be damned who believe
not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.” Deut.
ii. 30 : “ But Sihon King of Heshbon would not let us pass
by him; for the Lord thy God hardened his spirit, and
made his heart obstinate, that he might deliver him into
thy hand.” How, then, dare Mr. Harrison say there is no
text in the Bible which shows or alleges that God com
pelled man to sin ? I could have hoped there would have
been some attempt to have gone through some of the mass
of texts which it was my duty to read to you last night;
but we have only one reference to Judges, and one in
Matthew which was introduced by myself. There has been
not the slightest wish or attempt to go through these texts..
Mr. Harrison says I have gone to other writers; but 1
�CHRISTIAN THEISM.
43
have quoted the Bible, and the creeds, and the Thirty-nine
Articles. (Hear, hear.) I have something to say about
the justice of Mr. Harrison’s remarks concerning the texts. I
ask whetherin common fairness a debate should be conducted
as this debate is ? I do not pretend that the texts I have
quoted are intended for more than to prove the passage in
my pamphlet; but I think there was a duty devolving on
my antagonist, to show from the Bible that the texts I have
used were not a correct representation of it. But we have
been assured “that in precise words you have not been told in
the Bible that the first man made perfect by the allpowerful, all-wise, all-good God, was nevertheless imper
fect, and by his imperfection brought misery into the world.”
Of course you have not, but you find this set forth in effect.
You cannot perhaps find it all in any one text, but you can
by comparing one text with another. If I did not know
that my friend is too honest to do so, I should be inclined
to think that this objection of his was in subtle language an
avoidance of the subject. I neither suspect my friend,
however, of deliberate trickery, nor of being ignorant. He
of course naturally wants to make the best he can of this
debate. I know the best ought to be on his side, because on
his side all the literature, language, learning, and wealth of
the country are with him. The articles of the Church of
England have been maintained by men of the most won
drous ability, therefore every evidence that skill could collect
should be at his hand and service; and I was ready pre
pared with the quotations which I thought he would use.
But he keeps from any matter of proof—wisely, I admit;
skilfully, I grant; for it is a skilful general who never puts
his forces in danger of being killed. (Cheers.)
Mr. Harrison : There is one preliminary remark I desire to
make concerning that passage in Judges i., of which I think
you have already heard enough. The remark is this : that
I do not see wherein the line of argument I took last night
differs from that of to-night. On one side Mr. Bradlaugh
has represented Dr. Clarke, and on the other, Dr. Kennicott;
but neither of them finds in the passage any proof that God
was not omnipotent. Mr. Bradlaugh became very warm and
very eloquent in his denunciation of me and Christianity,
just now. (“ No, no.”) Well he looks warm ; and he was
■eloquent, I am sure. (Hisses; which were only quelled by
�......
44
CHRISTIAN THEISM.
the interference of the chairman.) Mr. Bradlaugh read a
number of passages to-night, and I do him the justice to say
they had a deal more to do with the subject of discussion than
anything he brought forward last night He has tried to
prove that God created evil, in the sense of wickedness and
sin; and he has quoted from Numbers xxxi. 17, 18; but I do
not find that these words were spoken by God at all. I will
read the passage from Numbers xxxi. 13 •; “ And Moses, and
Eleazar the priest, and all the princes of the congregation
went forth to meet them without the camp. And Moses
was wroth with the officers of the host, with the captains
over thousands, and captains over hundreds, which came
from the battle. And Moses said unto them, Have ye saved
all the women alive ? Behold, these caused the children of
Israel, through the counsel of Balaam, to commit trespass
against the Lord, in the matter of Peor, and there was a
plague among the congregation of the Lord. Now therefore
kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman
that hath known man by lying with him. But all the women
children that have not known a man by lying with him, keep
alive for yourselves. And do ye abide without the camp
seven days; whosoever hath killed any person, and whoso
ever hath touched any slain, purify both yourselves and your
captives on the third day, and on the seventh day.” (Cheers.)
Do you want any more? I have read what he read, and a
great deal more. I do not think it is fair of him to put this
matter in this light. I hope that when Mr. Bradlaugh has
again occasion to bring forth any statement as being from the
mouth of God, he will be a little more accurate in his state
ments. (Hear, hear.) I admit that it is possible to take a
1 umber of texts from the New and Old Testaments, and
make them to all appearance contradict each other. But
there is a well known rule of interpretation which you should
bear in mind: if you find different passages which appear to
be in opposition to each other, do not take a part of them,
but take them all, and then form your conclusion from the
whole. One remark may deal with the passages about im
mortality. I will not take them in detail, because they are
not the main subject of debate. Mr. Bradlaugh has not
denied that the New Testament has anything in its doctrines
which teaches the doctrine of immortality; therefore I need
not speak of them in the New Testament. But when you
compare them in the New and Old, I think you will find
�CHRISTIAN THEISM.
45
that the writers in the Old Testament are not speaking of
the spirit of man, but speaking of his body and life here,
and not speaking of what becomes of the spirit when it parts
company with the body. Mr. Bradlaugh has cited those
passages from Isaiah and Amos, and so on; and as I think
it is impossible to deal with all in ten minutes, I will deal
with the most severe and important. I will take those from
Isaiah. He tells us that the Lord creates evil—both peace
and evil. It is not speaking of good and evil—not of holiness
and sin. If by evil Mr. Bradlaugh means punishment treads
on the heels of sin, I have not denied it. If he means that
the evil is wickedness, I say it is not the meaning, nor any
thing approaching to it. Then the passage from Proverbs,
that the Lord had made the wicked for the day of evil. Does
it say he made them wicked? It is no such thing. The
punishment of the wicked is appointed, and it is certain that
the day of evil will come upon the wicked man. That is
different from affirming that the Lord made them wicked.
Then from Amos, in which we have a question : “ Shall
there be evil in a city, and the Lord hath not done it?” But
if I turn to the verse it appears plain to me that it is not
referring to God’s having done wickedness itself—not having
any reference to sin; but evil—that is, taken in the physical
sense, which follows slowly upon the transgression of the
sinner. I will ask you to pay attention to the passage; you
have it in Amos iii. 6. Further down in the chapter you
have : “ Publish in the palaces of Ashdod, and in the palaces
in the land of Egypt, and say, Assemble yourselves upon the
mountains of Samaria, and behold the great tumults in the
midst thereof, and the oppressed in the midst thereof. For
they know not to do right, saith the Lord, who store up
violence and robbery in their palaces.” So here you see the
sin is denounced instead of God creating sin. (Cheers.)
Now I do not care to waste your time by the consideration
of passages which do not bear with equal force upon the
point; but I grant that he has brought forward passages
which I shall deal with if time allows, and if I do not deal
with them it is because they do not bear with equal force
as the passages which I have quoted. I think it is only
fair that I should take those that appear to bear most against
myself. I find the statement then of Mr. Bradlaugh, about
God creating sin, that it is contrary to the whole tenour
of God’s word, and it is contrary to the whole spirit and
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CHRISTIAN THEISM.
genius of the Testament.
If we take evil as meaning
punishment, we shall find that it harmonises with and ex
plains the passages quoted by Mr. Bradlaugh. Let it be
granted that there is a God—and that ought to be granted,
and if not granted it should be dealt with as a separate sub
ject, and dealt with before the Bible comes up—then grant
ing that there is a God, we shall find that these passages
harmonise with the doctrine of Christian Theism, that God
rewards the good, and brings evil upon the wicked. Every
thing that lies against the door of Theism lies against the
door of Atheism. All the evils are but a repetition of what
we find in nature itself. The facts of nature, the facts of
providence, all tend to show that judgment shall overtake
nations and tribes. Let the principle be admitted, that
there is a dual principle of justice and mercy, and then I
think every passage which Mr. Bradlaugh has quoted, will
be explained as justice, as mercy, that God should punish for
sins, but while doing so, that sinners may be saved from sin
itself—not from hell only, but the evil that is in the heart.
It is requisite that there should be a justice punishing it,
while there is a mercy promising to take it away. All the
passages which Mr. Bradlaugh has read, are perfectly strong
against me on the assumption that there is no God at all—
they tell against me, because it is taken that there is no God.
The ground I have taken before Mr. Bradlaugh is—that the
only fair and logical way of discussing Christian Theism, is to
take the principle of divine existence as granted. When this is
done, I will show therq is not a difficulty which can be
brought against the God of the Bible which cannot equally
be brought against the God of nature. (Cheers.) I only
ask that in dealing with these passages Mr. Bradlaugh should
take them in the spirit I have indicated, remembering that
it is only right and fair that we should take as the exposition
of Christian Theism, Christianity itself as contained in the
New Testament Scriptures. (Cheers.)
Mr. Bradlaugh : Doubtless from thorough forgetfulness,
Mr. Harrison omitted to show where Judah disobeyed the
Lord, between Judges i. i8and 19. Perhaps he overlooked
it. Then he is good enough to say—and he is quite right—
that the whole chapter of Numbers is from the mouth of
Moses. Well, I had an impression that the bulk of the
Pentateuch was put in that way. If it is right to say that
Moses was not the mouthpiece of God to the Jews, then I
�CHRISTIAN THEISM.
47
am wrong, but the general view is, that he was God’s mouth
piece to the children of Israel. But I concede Mr. Harrison
any advantage that arises from that, although I do not see
that by giving him. that advantage it very much helps him ;
for the texts I afterwards quoted plainly showed that the
Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart, and the heart of Sihon,
King of Heshbon; and that he sent the lying spirit; and
that he tempted David to a sin, for which he killed some
70,000 people afterwards. Perhaps Mr. Harrison did not
consider these of sufficient importance to warrant notice.
I dp not pretend to judge of their relative importance in
quoting these texts; he does, and I shall be glad to hear
his views. He says that the texts in Isaiah and in Proverbs,
do not mean that God made moral evil, but declares that
Isaiah means physical evil. Oh, does he ? I should not
have thought so from reading the text; I am delighted to
have my friend’s explanation. That is one good of debate,
you learn. (Laughter.) I should not have got this view
but from the debate. “ I form the light, and create dark
ness ; I make peace, and create evil.” The one is the anti
thesis of the other; but don’t it look like—very much like
—moral mischief there ? And if God is all-wise, and allpowerful, and predestined everything—if God did not create
the moral evil, who did? (Cheers.) No one, in spite of
God, for God is proved from various texts to be all-powerful.
No one beyond his knowledge, for he is all-wise. No one
out of his dominion, because he planned everything.
(Cheers.) “ But,” says Mr. Harrison, “ in order to show
that Mr. Bradlaugh is wrong, I will read the passage in
Amos, and take the context.” I learn continually by what
Mr. Harrison does; I never knew what the “ context ” was
before to-night; that is, if his interpretation of it is the
right one. (Laughter.) I read the passage which finishes
at the sixth verse; but he begins at the ninth verse, and
takes that up as the context—a new paragraph ! I do not
say it is not the context—it may be from a theological
standpoint; but I find nothing to connect it with previous
verses. (Laughter.) He says too: “ Having dealt with
Numbers, I won’t deal with the other texts; they are not of
equal importance.” There was the case from Samuel, of
David and the numbering of the people; the case from
Exodus of the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart; the case from
Kings of the lying spirit; the case of killing everybody
�48
CHRISTIAN THEISM.
without mercy, from Deuteronomy; the case in Thessalo
nians, that people who believed the lie sent to them by God
should be damned I and one or two little matters of that
kind, all these of no importance. (Laughter.) And the case
in Romans of God being compared to the potter, and that
he had a right to make bad vessels if he likes. Mr. Harrison,
in effect, says the way to dispose of these is to allege that
there are in the Bible texts totally the contrary to these.
But suppose that this be true; that would prove that the
Bible flatly contradicts itself. He then says : “ Let it be
granted that there is a dual principle of justice and mercy
going through the Bible.” But I cannot grant it. I do not
see the justice of hardening Pharaoh’s heart; and the killing
of the people; and the justice of killing one woman at the
mill, and leaving the other; or the justice and mercy of
numbering the people, and killing 70,000 ■ or sending a lying
spirit to tempt a king into the battle to get his people
destroyed; nor the justice of the bloodthirsty and whole
sale murderings in Deuteronomy and in Numbers, which
are amongst the most cruel of anything you will find
in history. (Cheers.) Mr. Harrison says : “ The cases
of evil are cases of judgment on the part of the Deity,
that sin may not be loved nor practised.” In what way
was sin not to be loved nor practised, in tempting David to
number his people ? And the same with tempting two nations
by sending them into battle ? and sending a delusion to be
a lie, so that people might be damned ? In what way was
sin not to be loved or practised by hardening Pharaoh’s
heart ? It is an extraordinary perversion of language to put
it this way. I have dealt, I think, with everything that he
has put to me. There are nineteen-twentieths of the texts
marked out to-night, that are not answered; and as this debate
is to be printed, if Mr. Harrison thinks them of importance,
he will confer a favour upon me by noticing any of them he
wishes to be dealt with. I cannot help admiring the peculiar
constitution of his intellect in regarding the death of the
undying God, and the begetting of the eternal son of the un
begotten undying Father, as matters of too little importance
to be noticed. I will take the liberty of reading to you, to
show that there is something to be said on both sides, a work
by a very able clergyman of the Church of England. It is in
reply to Canon Liddon. He says : “ Supposing that Christ
is God, and that his words have been handed down with un-
�CHRISTIAN THEISM.
49
erring correctness, would lift His sayings above all criticism
and the application of any moral standard; but, if the rules
of human veracity and sincerity could be applied, Christ
would be convicted of untruthfulness, and a cruelly mislead
ing phraseology, when knowing Himself to be God, and
knowing also that faith in His Godhead was to be a vital
necessity, He, without elucidating and guarding explanations,
expressed Himself as follows : ‘ Why callest thou me good ?
None is good except one, that is God.’ (Markx. 18; Luke
xviii. 19.) ‘The spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he
hath anointed me,’ &c. (Luke iv. 18, 19, comp. Matt. xii. 18.)
‘ Of that day or that hour knoweth no one, neither the angels
in heaven, nor the Son, but the Father.’ (Mark xiii. 32; comp.
Matt. xxiv. 36, and Acts i. 7.) ‘To sit on my right hand,
and on my left, is not mine to give, except to those for whom
it has been prepared by my Father.’ (Matt xx. 23; Mark
x. 40.) ‘ Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my
Father, and he will furnish me with more than twelve legions
of angels ?’ (Matt. xxvi. 53.) ‘ My Father, if it be possible,
let this cup pass from me ; nevertheless, not as I will, but
as thou wilt.’ (Matt. xxvi. 39, 42; Mark xiv. 34, 36; Luke
xxii. 42.) ‘ My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me ?’
(Matt, xxvii. 46 ; Mark xv. 34.)’” Then this book teaches
that Jesus, who was the eternal God himself—for this is the
declaration of the creed itself that I read: “ The very God
of very God, of one substance with the Father”—absolutely
and deliberately lies 1 So Christian Theism teaches. (Cheers.)
As I cannot tell what I should have to reply to, I will save
one quotation about the Unity of the Father and Son till
the next speech; but when Mr. Harrison talks about what
he might do under other circumstances, permit me to say
that if it came from any other man, I should consider it
as idle talk; but as nothing that falls from my opponent is
idle talk, I will deal with the matter. He said he could
have explained certain passages last night if he had liked.
He has no right to say so. He has told you what he would do
“ if the divine existence were to be discussed.” That is not
the subject of discussion; it is what Mr. Bradlaugh has said
about Christian Theism in his “ Plea for Atheism.” (Hear,
hear.) Mr. Harrison has had months to consider it; he
has gone round the country, and his committee have reputed
him as having defeated those with whom he had discussed,
and that he had defeated me, and perhaps would again win
�5»
CHRISTIAN THEISM.
the same laurels. I have little doubt that Mr. Harrison?
thought his committee were entitled to say all this, or he
would have repudiated the announcement made on hisbehalf. I am glad to meet a man so far greater than
myself; I am always ready to sit at the feet of Gamaliel, and
am willing to learn from such an one. At present, however,
I challenge him to- say whether this passage is true or not;
that is the question which we have to- debate. (Loud and
continued cheering.)
Mr. Harrison : As-1 am now coming to' my last speech,,
in closing this debate I hope that you will be patient with
me, and not cause me to lose any time by interruption.
Now I put it clearly before this audience, as I put it before
the more extensive audience who will probably read thedebate, that Mr. Bradlaugh has, from first to last, misunder
stood me. (“ Oh, oh,” and hisses.) Cannot you bear with
me ? I appeal to your sense of fair play. Though I may
say things unpalatable to you,, let me say them as it is
my last time. I said I thought he had- misunderstood my
position, and the object for which I accepted his challenge
to this debate. I want it to be distinctly understood that in
the lecture to which he has just referred, I said I thought I
could show that, if occasion turned up, the passage on page22 of the “Plea for Atheism,” was not a fair representation
of the teachings of Christian Theism. He asked me to this?
discussion. I said that a discussion as to the truth or false
hood of Christianity would be a blunder, that such a subject
was only fairly discussable with a man who took common
ground as to Theism; with whom- I could then discusswhether the Bible is from God. I did not come here to
discuss the general truth- or falsehood of Christianity; but
only to show whether Mr. Bradlaugh had dealt fairly with
what Christianity was> I think the majority of passages
brought forward by Mr. Bradlaugh, go to show that in his
judgment there are contradictions in the Bible itself. I am
justified, therefore, if they do not prove his position, in
saying that the contradictions do not exist. Then I was
justified in saying that if that were the subject of debate, I
could give a very easy explanation; but I have only wanted1
to show to the infidels here, that there- is something more tobe said for Christianity, that he has not even hinted at. Mr.
Bradlaugh has said here, that he did not come with
�CHRISTIAN THEISM*
5J
the purpose of making the best o£ his opponent’s case,
but with making the best of his own case. That is
laudable enough within a certain range • but neither Mr.
Bradlaugh nor any other man will ever , make the best of
his own case who does not deal fairly with his opponent’s
case ; and I think he has not. Have Christians ever taught
“that God died ?” I think we have never had that taught.
Sure am I that I never taught such, a thing; and I am bound
to say, from the lips of no public teacher have I ever heard
it. But I have heard that: “ In the beginning was the
word, and the word was with God, and the word was God.”
I have heard (as I read from John i.) : “ That the word was
made flesh, and dwelt among us
I have heard, as I read
in the Philippians, that Jesus, “ being in the form of God,
thought it not robbery to be equal with God; but made him
self of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a ser
vant, and was made in the likeness of men.” That is our
teaching-.on the subject, and I think it is a fairly representa
tive teaching of Christian Theism. Our teaching is, that the
Son of God became incarnate; and that the God man,
the Lord Jesus Christ, died upon the cross for human sin.;
therefore it is .not that the Deity died, but that the
Lord Jesus Christ offered himself for human sin as a
sacrifice. There is a vast difference between this state
ment and the statement that God died. (Hear, hear.) Our
position is fairly this : That as we say the spirit of man does
not die when it leaves the body, so when we say .that Jesus
died we do not assert that God died, though in his two-fold
separation there was death. Those who listen to this will at
•once see, I believe, that there is a vast difference between such
teaching and that of the “ Plea for Atheism.” The question
which Mir. Bradlaugh has brought up is not an instance of
God compelling men to sin, but it is a question of the
punishment which follows sin. We see it in the moral con
stitution of man to-day, that the habit of committing sin has
.a tendency to harden a man in sin. It is a punishment for
sin ; but-is it just to say that therefore God causes the sin ?
Then in Pharaoh’s case, the word translated hardened, may
be translated, without any straining of the meaning, that what
God is represented in our English version as doing, is done
naturally by the moral laws of the human constitution; and
taken whether in the light of the text, or of a more accu
rate translation, it surely must appear fair that there should
�52
CHRISTIAN THEISM.
be punishment following upon sin. But if you find it says
the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart, it says also, several
times before, that Pharaoh hardened his own heart. If the
Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart, you will find it coming as a
punishment, and that Pharaoh first hardened his own heart.
As to “ peace and evil,” Mr. Bradlaugh only gave a part of
my statement. I said there was physical evil in the case of
punishment for sin, and it is right to say that God does make
that evil, for he does punish men for transgression. But
Mr. Bradlaugh says there are other passages I have not
noticed. With reference to the “ context,” it is true I did
not read two verses between.the passage I read, and the
verses read subsequently. I did not read them, but if Mr.
Bradlaugh will show that they modify what I said, I shall
be sorry that I did not read them. The only reason why I
did not read them was, because they did not appear to bear
upon the subject, and I thought it would simply waste your
time. In the three or four minutes left, will you allow me
to give—for I have no opportunity to speak again—will you
allow me to give my representation of Christianity, winding
up the debate as opposed to Mr. Bradlaugh ? (Hear, hear.)
Then I hold that, first of all, from the independent evidence
of the universe around us, there is proof of divine existence.
I find after that proof that there are difficulties as to the
origin of evil and its continuance which I am not able to
explain, but upon which Atheism is equally powerless. But
is there any plan to escape from the evil in my own heart—
using the words in a moral sense—and is there any plan to
help man in escaping ? I come to the New Testament, and
find God’s pitying love, and the doctrine that Jesus Christ
was given for the express purpose of offering up an atone
ment for human guilt. And it is said in John i., that He was a
light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world.
(A voice : “Bless him.”) I hold this then, as I pointed out
in this debate, that in consequence of the love and pity of
God, in consequence of the atonement of J esus Christ, there
is diffused throughout the world the spirit of enlightenment,
that will aid men to live to the best of their knowledge.
But if they will not do so, then they shall be judged accord
ing to their conduct, and condemned for not so living..
Then, why do I send Christianity to the heathen ? I want
men to live a nobler and more blessed life. (Cheers.)
I find in this country, where Christianity is, that there are
�CHRISTIAN THEISM.
53
numbers of persons who are not living according to the
light within them, and I would bring them to a higher life.
I think that Mr. Bradlaugh has been unfair to the cause
which I represent. (Hisses.) I will not say that he is in
tentionally unfair—my own judgment is, that he has such a
passionate antagonism to Christianity, that when he comes
to speak of it, he cannot fairly discuss it. (Oh, oh; and
cheers.)
Mr. Brad laugh said he wished to ask through the Chair
man, before Mr. Harrison sat down, what was the exact
Hebrew word alleged to be mistranslated as hardened, and
what was the precise rendering Mr. Harrison would give;
also where, in the Bible, it was said several times, before
Exodus vii. 3 : “ That Pharaoh hardened his own heart ?”
Mr. Harrison : I think I have a right to protest against
this interruption as unfair. I have only one minute left, and
the question cannot be answered in that time. It is unfair
to ask the question now. (No, no.; and disorder.)
‘ The Chairman interfered, and said he thought Mr. Brad
laugh had a perfect right to ask the question through him,
and, at the same time, Mr. Harrison had an equal right to
reply that he would not answer it. (Laughter.)
Mr. Bradlaugh then said : As Mr. Harrison, in the exer
cise of his discretion, which he has a perfect right so to exercise,
has declined to answer the question I put—(disorder; occa
sioned by Mr. Harrison rising to protest)—at present I shall
make no comment upon Mr. Harrison’s argument that the
word which is translated hardened, ought to be translated
some other word, except this, that when we get the new
version of the Bible, we may get some light on Christian
Theism which we have not now. That some’Bible may
contain the several times in which Pharaoh hardened his
heart before the 7th chapter of Exodus, is possible, but I do
not know any version amongst the number which my small
acquaintance with the Bible has given me access to.
(Laughter.) Mr. Harrison says that the greatest portion of
my speeches yesterday “ went to show there are contradic
tions in the Bible.” Surely that is a mistake. On the ques
tion as to God being all-powerful, I quoted five texts and
one Article in proof, and I quoted two texts on the
other side. So, in every case, I proved every statement;
and it was only in relation to some of them that I thought
it right to bring the texts which seemed contradictory. But
�54
,
CHRISTIAN THEISM.
it was not for the purpose alone of proving contradiction,
although I in truth sought to damage the Bible as much as
I could, and it was perfectly legitimate for me to do so if I
thought proper. But I think I proved my case from the
texts I brought before you, and I think you will be of that
opinion also when you come to read the debate. Has it
been shown that the texts have been quoted unfairly, or a
false construction put upon them ? I think not, therefore
the inuendo is not right, and an honest man should be
ashamed of having made it. Then he says that “ Christian
Theism never taught that God diedand he says further
that “ no public teacher had ever taught it.” Well, I thought
I had read to him the Third Article of the Church of
England, which declared that Jesus died.
Mr. Harrison : He is not God..
Mr. Brad laugh : Well, I thought I read these words in
the Nicene Creed : “The Lord Jesus Christ, the only be
gotten son of God, begotten of his Father before all worlds ;
God of God, Light of Light, very God of very Godand
I ask whether any stronger language can be used ? If lan
guage is to have no meaning, then Mr. Harrison may have
made out something; but at any rate, he was bound to deal
with this. He says : “We do not teach that God died; we
teach that he became incarnate, and that Jesus Christ
offered himself for all sinners.” He did not try to
prove it, or I would have shown you that Jesus said:
■“ I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of
Israel.” He says the natures of God and man were united,
but were separated when J esus died on the cross. Which
died ? Was it a mockery for God to pretend to bear upon
him bur punishment? Where did the separation begin ?
Was it in the garden of Gethsemane, when the agony as of
bloody sweat came upon him, and he prayed to himself for
help ? Was it when he cried in his dying agony : “ My
God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” If Mr. Harrison
believes Jesus &as very God of very God, he must have
been very God always. His creed says that Jesus was very
God of very God before all worlds, long before the world
was made ; and I ask whether this, if it were in anything else
than a discussion on Christianity, would not be considered
the vilest subterfuge of language, to say that Jesus was very
God of very God, and yet was not God at one and the same
time ? But Mr. Harrison says, “ our position is so and so.”
�CHRISTIAN THEISM.
55
Whose position? I asked you at the commencement of this
debate, whether Roman Catholics, Church of England,
Baptists, Wesleyans, Independents, and so on ? You gave
no explanation. I told you what I took, and I now say that
if.you took the Bible, the Creed, and the Articles as by law
established, they taught nothing of the kind you have stated ;
and if you have taken any other Christian Theism, you have
carefully hidden it from us. But here is an extraordinary
proposition in metaphysics as to the two-fold nature of J esus
Christ—there was a separation! A separation from God the
infinite. Nothing beyond God, no possibility of getting out
side God, and yet man is taken away from him ? Inside or
outside—where? Why it is one of the most ridiculous
phrases in the language. (Cheers.) Then as to the passage
in Amos, he says the two verses, between “did not bear on
the subject.” That is not the question; it is, whether he
took a new paragraph when professing to read the con
text. He has not, even after all my appeal, shown the
text between the two verses of Judges proving where
Judah sinned, as alleged by him. I cannot attempt to
measure my representation of Christianity against Mr.
Harrison, but as he has told you his representation of Chris
tianity, hear me while I give one, founded on the Bible.
Thence I will take it that God made the world in the begin
ning with nothing inside and no shape outside; that he
made everything very good, with a devil included ; that he
made man after the animals, but created man before all the
other animals; that he made the world good, and cursed it
afterwards; that he had no respect for persons, but picked
out one family in preference to all others, and then, being
a loving God, gave his chosen ones a mission of blood and
murder among the rest of his children; that he, having laid
a patent trap in the garden of Eden for the first man to fall
into, damns to eternity in a bottomless pit of fire and brim
stone, everyone bom of the race of Eve. Then, after thou
sands of yeaifc, during which he will not be just, and cannot
pardon, because, having punished the only sinner, there is
no crime to be pardoned, he determined to be born as a
babe from a virgin’s womb, without a father, his mother’s
husband having two fathers, living in one country and in
another country at the same time; that he performed miracles
among people who did not believe he performed them;
then he said if all other people don’t believe what these
�56
CHRISTIAN THEISM.
people won’t and can’t believe, then they shall be punished
in torment for ever. Here is Christianity ! You have had
all the literature of Europe in your hands; all the power in
your hands for 1500 years, and you kept mankind enslaved;
all the education, and you kept men ignorant; but Freethought has given battle to Christianity, and we see liberty
raising her head in spite of your accursed creed. (Loud
cheers, again and again repeated, a vast number rising and
waving hats.)
Mr. Harrison then moved a vote of thanks to the Chair
man and the Committee who had arranged the preliminaries
in connection with the debate, all of whom he considered
had acted with perfect fairness to both disputants. He also
thanked the leaders of the Secular party in London for the
courtesy with which they had treated him in their own hall.
Mr. Bradlaugh seconded the proposition, and in so
doing, corroborated the remarks of Mr. Harrison as to the
impartiality of the Chairman.
The vote of thanks was accorded unanimously.
The Chairman, in response, intimated that he was a
Christian, and believed that it was only by free discussion
that the truth, for which all ought to seek, can be attained.
He concluded by thanking the audience—which on both
nights seemed to fill the spacious building—for the atten
tion and good conduct they had exhibited.
The proceedings then terminated.
London : Printed and published by Austin & Co., 17, Johnson’s
Court, Fleet Street.
�
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Victorian Blogging
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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What does Christian theism teach?: verbatim report of the two nights' discussion between the Rev. A.J. Harrison and C. Bradlaugh. Held at the New Hall of Science, Old Street, on Tuesday and Wednesday, January 9th and 10th, 1972.
Creator
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Harrison, A.J.
Bradlaugh, Charles
Description
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 56 p. : 18 cm.
Notes: Chaired by J.R. Robertson.
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Austin & Co.
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[1872]
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G4946
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Theism
Christianity
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (What does Christian theism teach?: verbatim report of the two nights' discussion between the Rev. A.J. Harrison and C. Bradlaugh. Held at the New Hall of Science, Old Street, on Tuesday and Wednesday, January 9th and 10th, 1972.), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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English
Theism