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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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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Fruits of Philosophy: or, The Private Companion of Young Married Couples
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 40 p.
Notes: Pre-1877 copy of 'Fruits of Philosophy: or, The Private Companion of Young Married Couples', by Charles Knowlton, MD, printed by Austin & Co., (c.1832).
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Knowlton, Charles, 1800-1850
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1832
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Birth control
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Birth Control
Health
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Women
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THE
Logic of Death,
Qi, fclju sfyonlb i^re
fear to
?
By G. J. Holyoake.
“Even in the 'last dread scene of all’ personal conviction Is sufficient to produce
calmness and confidence. There was one, who for three months suffered agonies
unutterable, who evAla-imod in his anguish, ‘ So much torture, O God, to trill a
poor worm! Yet if by one word I could shorten this misery, I would not say it.
And at lasi^ folded his arms, and calmly said, ‘ Now I die!’ Yet this man was
an avowed infidel, and worse, an apostate priest.”—Spoken by Father Nbwmah
yn the Oratory of St. Philip Neri) of Blanco White.
[EIGHTIETH THOUSAND—
ENLARGED AND REVISED EDITION.]
LONDON:
AUSTIN & Co., JOHNSON’S COURT, E.C.
1870.
PRICE
ONE
PENNY.
�il
' I1'
Hi
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�THE LOGIC OF DEATH
When the cholera prevailed in London in 1848, many were carried
away without opportunity or power to testify to the stability of
those conclusions which had been arrived at when life was calm, and
the understanding healthy. The slightest summary of opinions,
concientiously prepared, would have been sufficient to prevent mis
representation after death, provided the person who had drawn up
such statements had strength to revert to them, and to make some sign
that a conviction of their correctness remained. Mr. Hetherington
and myself drew up brief statements of tenets which appeared to us
to be true. He, as we know, sealed his in death. In several lectures
delivered, at the time when no man could calculate on life an hour,
I recited the grounds on which the Atheist might repose, and it has
since appeared that their publication would be useful. The book, of
which a second volume has since appeared, entitled 4 The Closing
Scene,’ by the Rev. Erskine Neale (in which the old legends about
infidel death-beds are revived), lauded by the Times, and patronised
by the upper classes, is proof that there are some priests going up and
down like roaring lions, seeking consciences which they may devour,
and proof of the necessity of some protest on this subject.
Since my trial before Mr. Justice Erskine, in 1842,1 have in some
measure been identified with sceptics of theology, and many ask the
opinions of such on death. If the world ask in respect, or curiosity,
or scorn, I answer for myself alike respectfully and distinctly. I love
the world in spite of its frowning moods. For years I have felt
neither anger nor hatred of any living being, and I will not advisedly
resuscitate those distorting passions through which we see the errors
of each other as crimes.
In my youth I was in such rude contact with the orern realities of life,
that the visions with which theology surrounded my childhood were
eventually dispelled, and now (so far as I can penetrate to it) I look
at destiny face to face. Cradled in suffering and dependence, I was
emboldened to think, and I took out of the hands of the churches,
where I was taught to repose them, the great problems of Life, Time,
and Death, and attempted the solution for myself. It was not long
hidden from me that if I followed the monitions of the pulpit, the
�4
THE EOGJC OF DEATH.
Those who must answer for themselves, have the right to think for themselves.
responsibility was all my own : that at the ‘ bar of God,’ before which
I was instructed all men must one day stand, no preacher would take
my place if, through bowing to his authority, I adopted error. As I,
therefore, must be reponsible for myself, I resolved to think for
myself—and since no man would answer for me, I resolved that no
man should dictate to me the opinion I should hold: for he is impo
tent indeed, and deserves his fate, who has not the courage to act
where he is destined to suffer. My resolution was therefore taken,
and I can say with Burke, ‘ my errors, if any, are my own: I have
[and will have] no man’s proxy.’
In the shade of society my lot was cast, and there I struggled
for more light for myself and brethren. For years I toiled, with
thousands of others, who were never remunerated by the means of
paltriest comfort, and whose lives were never enlivened by real
pleasure. In turning from this I had nothing to hope, nor fear, nor lose.
Since then my days have been chequered and uncertain, but they have
never been criminal, nor servile, nor sad: for the luxury of woe, and the
superfluous refinement of despair, may be indulged in, if by any, by
those only who live in drawing-rooms—sorrow is too expensive an
article to be consumed by the cottager or garreteer. The rightminded in the lowest station may be rich, accepting the wise advice
of Carlyle:—‘ Sweep away utterly all frothiness and falsehood from
your heart: struggle unweariedly to acquire what is possible for every
man—a free, open, humble soul; speak not at all, in any wise, till
you have somewhat to speak; care not for the reward of your
speaking : but simply, and with undivided mind, for the truth of your
speaking: then be placed in what section of Space and of Time soever,
do but open your eyes, and they shall actually see, and bring you
real knowledge, wondrous, worthy of belief.’ Thus have I en
deavoured to see life; and it is from this point of view that I explain
my conceptions of death.
The gates of heaven are considered open to those only who believe
as the priest believes. The theological world acts as if we did not come
here to use our understandings, as if all religious truth was ascertained
2000 years ago, and we are counselled to accept the conclusions of the
Church, on pain of forfeiting the fraternity of men, and the favour of
God. I know the risks I am said to run, but ‘ I am in that place,’ to use
the expression of brave old Knox, ‘ in which it is demanded of me to
speak the truth; and the truth I will speak, impugn it whoso lists.'
And after all, the world is not so bad as antagonism has painted it.
It will forgive a man for speaking plainly, providing he takes care to
speak justly. To give any one pain causes me regret; but, while I
respect the feelings of others, I, as conscience and duty admonish me,
respect the truth more—and by this course I may be society’s friend,
for he who will never shock men may often deceive them.
It becomes me therefore to say that I am not a Christian. If I
could find a consistent and distinctive code of morality emanating
from Jesus I should accept it, and in that sense consent to be called
�THE LOGIC OF DEATH.
fl
The four tenets of the popular theology.
•
Christian. Butl cannot do it. Nor am I a believer in the Inspiration
of the Bible. That which so often falls below the language of men,
I cannot, without disrespect, suppose to be the language of God.
Whatever I find in the Bible below morality (and I find much), I
reject; what I find above it, I suspect; what I find coincident with
morality (whether in the Old Testament or the New), I retain. 1
make morality a standard. I am therefore the student of Moralism
rather than Christianity. It seems to me that there is nothing in
Christianity which will bear the test of discussion or the face of day,
nothing whereby it can lay hold of the world and move it, which is
not coincident with morality. Therefore morality has all the strength
of Christianity, without the mystery and bigotry of the Bible.
But I am not a Sceptic, if that is understood to imply general doubt;
for though I doubt many church dogmas, I do not doubt honour, or
truth, or humanity. I am not an Unbeliever, if that implies the
rejection of Christian truth—since all I reject is Christian error.
There are four principal dogmas of accredited Christianity which I
do not hold:—
1. The fall of man in Eden. 2. Atonement by proxy. 3. The siy
of unbelief in Christ. 4. Future punishment.
A disbeliever in all these doctrines, why should I fear to die ? I
will state the logic of death, as I conceive it, in relation to these
propositions.
1. If man fell in the Garden of Eden, who placed him there ? It is
said, God! Who placed the temptation there ? It is said, God!
Who gave him an imperfect nature—a nature of which it was fore
known that it would fall? It is said, God! To what does this amount?
If a parent placed his poor child near a fire at which he knew it
would be burnt to death, or near a well into which he knew it would
fall and be drowned, would any deference to creeds prevent our giving
speech to the indignation we should feel ? And can we pretend to
believe God has so acted, and at the same time be able to trust him ?
If God has so acted, he may so act again. This creed can afford
no consolation in death. If he who disbelieves this dogma fears to
die, he who believes it should fear death more.
2. Salvation, it is said, is offered to the fallen. But man is not
fallen, unless the tragedy of Eden really took place. And before
man can be accepted by God he must, according to Christians, own
himself a degraded sinner. But man is not degraded by the misfortune
of Adam. No man can be degraded by the act of another. Dis
honour can come only by his own hands. Man, therefore, needs not
this salvation. And if he needed it, he could not accept it. Debarred
from purchasing it himself, he must accept it as an act of grace. But
can it be required of us to go even to heaven on sufferance? We
despise the poet who is a sycophant before a patron, we despise the
citizen who crawls before a throne, and shall God be said to have
less love of self-respect than man ? He who deserves to be saved thus
hath most need to fear that he shall perish, for he seems to deserve it.
�6
THE LOGIC OF DEATH.
The offence of sin reaches not to Deity. Proof by Jonathan Edwards.
3. Then in what way can there be a sin of unbelief ? Is not the
understanding the subject of evidence ? A man, with evidence before
him, can no more help seeing it, or feeling its weight, than a man with
his eyes or ears open can help seeing the stars above him or trees
before him, or hearing the sounds made around him. If a man
disbelieve, it is because his conviction is true to his understanding.
If I.disbelieve a proposition, it is through lack of evidence; and the
act is as virtuous (so far as virtue can belong to that which is inevit
able) as the belief of it when the evidence is perfect. If it is meant
that a man is to believe, whether he see evidence or not, it means that
he is to believe certain things, whether true or false—in fine, that he
may qualify himself for heaven by intellectual deception. It is of no
use that the unbeliever is told that he will be damned if he does not
believe; what human frailty may do is another thing; but the judg
ment is clear, that a man ought not to believe, nor profess to believe,
what seems to him to be false, although he should be damned. The
believer who seeks.to propitiate Heaven by this deceit ought to fear
its wrath, not the unbeliever, who rather casts himself on its justice.
4. There is the vengeance of God. But is not the idea invalidated
as soon as you name it ? Can God have that which man ought not
to have—vengeance ? The jurisprudence of earth has reformed itself;
we no longer punish absolutely, we seek the reformation of the
offender. And shall we cherish in heaven an idea we have chased
from earth ? But what has to be punished ? Can the sins of man
disturb the peace of God? If so, as men exist in myriads, and action is
incessant, then is God, as Jonathan Edwards has shown, the most
miserable of beings and the victim of his meanest creatures. Surely
we must see, therefore, that sin against God is impossible. All sin is
finite and relative—all sin is sin against man. Will God punish
this which punishes itself ? If man errs, the bitter consequences are
ever with him. Why should he err ? Does he choose the ignorance,
incapacity, passion, and blindness through which he errs ? Why is
he precipitated, imperfectly natured, into a chaos of crime ? Is not
his destiny made for him ? and shall God punish eternally that sin
which is his misfortune rather than his fault ? Shall man be con
demned to misery in eternity because he has been made wretched,
and weak, and erring in time ? But if man has fallen at his
conscious peril—has thoughtlessly spurned salvation—has wilfully
offended God—will God therefore take vengeance ? Is God with
out magnanimity? If I do wrong to a man who does wrong to
me, I come down (has not the ancient sage warned me ?) to the
level of my enemy. Will God thus descend to the level of vindic
tive man? Who has not thrilled at the lofty question of Volumnia
to Coriolanus ?—
‘ Think’st thou it honourable for a noble man
Still to remember wrongs?’
Shall God be less honourable, and remember the wrong done against
�THE LOGIC OF DEATH.
|
Christ’s death the great testimony against eternal retribution.
him, not by his equals, but by his own frail creatures ? To be un
able to trust God is to degrade him. Those passages in the New
Testament which we feel to have most interest and dignity, are the
parables in which a servant is told to forgive a debt to one who had
forgiven him; in which a brother is to be forgiven until seventy
times seven (that is unlimitedly): and in the prayer of Christ,
where men claim forgiveness as they have themselves forgiven
others their trespasses.
What was this but erecting a high
moral argument against the relentlessness of future punishment of
erring man ? If, therefore, man is to forgive, shall God do less ?
Shall man be more just than God ? Is there anything so grand in
the life of Christ as his forgiving his enemies as he expired on the
cross ? Was it God the Sufferer behaving more nobly than will God
the Judge? Was this the magnificent teaching of fraternity to
vengeful man, or is it to be regarded as a sublime libel on the
hereafter judgments of heaven ? The infidel is infidel to falsehood, but
he believes in truth and humanity, and when he believes in God, he
will prefer to believe that which is noble of him. Holding by no
conscious error, doing no dishonour in thought, and offering his
homage to love and truth, why should the unbeliever fear to die ?
Seeing the matter in this light, of what can I recant ? The perspicuity
of truth may be dimned by the agonies of death, but no amount of
agony can alter the nature of moral evidence.
To say (which is all I do say) that theology has not sufficient
evidence to make known to us the existence of God, may startle those
who have not thought upon the matter, or who have thought through
others—but has not experience said the same thing to us all ? Where
the intellect fails to perceive the truth, it is said that the feelings
assure us of it by its relieving a sense of dependence natural to man.
How ? Man witnesses those near and dear to him perish before his
eyes, and despite his supplications. He walks through no rose-water
world, and no special Providence smoothes his path. Is not the sense
of dependence. outraged already ?
Man is weak, and a special
Providence gives him no strength—distracted, and no counsel—
ignorant, and no wisdom—in despair, and no consolation—in distress,
and no relief—in darkness, and no light. The existence of God,
therefore, whatever it may be in the hypotheses of philosophy,
seems not recognisable in daily life. It is in vain to say, ‘God
governs by general laws.’
General laws are inevitable fate.
General laws are atheistical. They say practically, ‘ We are without
God in the world—man, look to thyself: weak though thou mayest
be, Nature is thy hope.’ And even so it is. Would I escape the keen
wind’s blast, I seek shelter—from the yawning waves, I look up, not
to heaven, but to naval architecture. In the fire-damp, Davy is
more to me than the Deity of creeds. All nature cries with one voice,
‘ Science is the Providence of man.’ Help lies not in priests, nor in the
prayer : it lies in no theories, it is written in no book, it is contained
in no theological creed—it lies in science, art, courage, and industry.
�8
THE LOGIC OF DEATH.
Atheism suspensive worship.
Some who regard all profession of opinion as a mere matter of
policy, and not of the understanding, will tell me that I can believe as
I please, and that I may call the Deity of theology what name I please:
forgetful that names are founded on distinctions, and that he who does
not penetrate to them is unqualified to decide this matter. It is in
vain to say believe as I please, or entitle things as I please—philoso
phical evidence and classification leave no choice in the matter.
The existence of God is a problem to which the mathematics of
human intelligence seem to me to furnish no solution. On the
threshold of the theme we stagger under a weight of words. We
tread amid a dark quagmire bestrewed with slippery terms. Now
the clearest miss their w.Q,y, w the cautions stumble, now the
strongest fall.
If there be a Deity to whom I am indebted, anxious for my grati
tude or my service, I am as ready to render it as any one existent, so
soon as I comprehend the nature of my duty. I therefore protest
against being Cviisidered, as Christians commonly consider the
unbeliever, as one who hates God, or is without a reverential spirit.
Hatred implies knowledge of the objectionable thing, and cannot
exist where nothing is understood. I am not unwilling to believe in
God, but I am unwilling to use language which conveys no adequate
idea to my own understanding.
Deem me not blind to the magnificence of nature or the beauties of
art, because T Zflerjc’et their language differently from others. I
thrill in the presence^of the dawn of day, and exult in the glories of
the setting sun. Whether the world wears her ebon and jewelled
crown of night, or the day walks wonderingly forth over the face of
nature, to me—
‘ Not the lightest leaf but trembling teems
With golden visions and romantic dreams.’
It is not in a low, but in an exalted estimate of nature that my rejec
tion of the popular theology arises. The wondrous manifestations of
nature indispose me to degrade it to a secondary rank. I am driven
to the conclusion that the great aggregate of matter which we call
Nature is eternal, because we are unable to conceive a state of things
when nothing was. There must always have been something, or
there could be nothing now. This the dullest feel. Hence we arrive
at the idea of the eternity of matter. .And in the eternity of matter
we are assured of the self-existence of matter, and self-existence is the
most majestic of attributes, and includes all others. That which has
the power to exist independently of a God, has doubtless the power to
act without the delegation of one. It therefore seems to me that
Nature and God are one—in other words, that the God whom we
seek is the Nature which we know.
I will not encumber, obscure, or conceal my meaning with a cloud
of words. I recognise in Nature but the aggregation of matter. The
term God seems to me inapplicable to Nature. In the mouth of the
�THE LOGIC OS’ DEATH.
The distinction between the Pantheist and the Atheist.
Theist, God signifies an entity, spiritual and percipient, distinct from
matter. With Pantheists the term God signifies the aggregate of
Nature—but nature as a Being, intelligent and conscious. It is my
inability to subscribe to either of these views which prevents me
being ranked with Theists. I can conceive of nothing beyond
Nature, distinct from it, and above it. The language invented
by Pope, to the effect that ‘we look through Nature up to
Nature’s God,’ has no significance for me, as I know nothing be
sides Nature and can conceive of nothing greater. The majesty of
the universe so transcends my faculties of penetration, that I pause
in awe and silence before it. It seems not to belong to man to com
prehend its attributes and extent, and to affirm what lies beyond it.
The Theist, therefore, I leave; but while I go with the Pantheist so
far as to accept the fact of Nature in the plenitude of its diverse,
illimitable, and transcendent manifestations, I cannot go farther and
predicate with the Pantheist the unity of its intelligence and
consciousness. This is the inability, rather than any design of my
own, which has exposed me to the unacceptable designation of
Atheist.
One has said, I know not whether in the spirit of scorn or suffering,
but I repeat it in the spirit of truth—‘ What went before and what
will follow me, I regard as two black impenetrable curtains, which
hang down at the two extremities of human life, and which no living
man has yet drawn aside. Many hundreds of generations have
already stood before them with their torches, guessing anxiously what
lies behind.. On the curtain of futurity many see their own shadows,
the forms of their passions enlarged and put in motion; they shrink
in terror at this image of themselves.. Poets, philosophers,, and
founders of states, have painted this curtain with their dreams, more
smiling or more dark as the sky above them was cheerful or gloomy;
and their pictures deceive the eye when viewed from a distance.
Many jugglers, too, make profit of this our universal curiosity: by
their strange mummeries they have set the outstretched fancy in
amazement. A deep silence reigns behind this curtain ; no one once
within will answer those he has left without; all you can hear is a
hollow echo of your question, as if you shouted into a chasm.’*
Theology boasts that it has obtained an answer. What is it ? The
world will stand still to hear it. Worshipper of Jesus, of Jehovah,
of Allah, of Bramah—in conventicle, cathedral, mosque, temple, or in
unbounded nature—what is the secret of the universe, and the destiny
of man ? What knowest thou more than thy fellows, and what dost
thou adore? He has no secret to tell. You have still the old
dual answer of centuries, given in petulance or contempt—‘ All the
world have heard it, and so has youor, ‘ None can understand the
Infinite, and you must submit.’ The solution of the problem must
therefore be sought independently.
Separate individual man from the traditions of theology, and what
is his history? A few years ago he sprang into existence like 9
�It,
THE LOGIC OF DEATH.
The actuality of life apart from theology
*
bubble on the ocean, or a flower on the plain. He came from the
blank chaos of the past, where consciousness was never known, where
no gleam of the present ever pierces, no voice of the future is ever
heard. He exists—but in what age he appears, or among what people
or circumstances he is thrown, is to him a matter of accident; To him
no control, no choice is vouchsafed. His physical constitution, his
powers and susceptibilities, his proportion of health or disease, are
made for him: and fettered in nature and fixed in sphere, he goes
forth to struggle or to triumph, and encounter the war of elements
and strife of passion, and oppose himself to ignorance, error, and
interest, as best he may.
Three or four years pass away before sentient existence is lighted
with the spark of consciousness, which burns faintly, intensely, or
flickeringly till death. Gradually the phenomena of the universe
disclose themselves to man. The ocean in its majesty, or the earth in
its variety, engage him—spring is exhilarating, summer smiling,
autumn foreboding, winter stern. By day the sun, by night the moon
and stars, look down like the eyes of Time watching his movements.
Above him is inconceivable altitude—around him, unbounded dis
tance—below, unfathomable profundity; and he arrives at such idea
as man has of the infinite. What is, seems to exist of its own inherent
power. It always wvas, or it could not be. The idea of universal
non-entity is instinctively rejected. Utter annihilation never enters
into his most desultory conceptions. The sentiment of the Everlasting
seems the first fruit of meditation, as an impression of the Infinite was
the first lesson of comprehensive observation. Man stands connected
with the infinite by position, and is related to the eternal in his
origin, and an emotion of conscious dignity follows the first exercise
cf his reason—and his pride and his confidence are strengthened by
perceiving that this infinite is the infinite of phenomena, and the
eternal that of matter. He may be but the spray dashed carelessly
against the shore, or the meteor-flash that for a moment illumines a
speck of cloud—or a sand of the desert which the whirlwind sweeps
into a transient elevation with scarcely time for distinction: yet he is
sustained by conscious connection with the ever-existing,though ever
changing—his home is with the everlasting, and when he sinks, it is
into the bosom of nature, the magnificent womb and mausoleum of all
life.
As youth advances, and his experience increases, he finds his
knowledge amplified. With nothing intuitive but the aptitude to
learn, he feels that his wisdom is ever commensurate with his industry
or observation—and as even aptitude is but progressively manifested,
he perceives that to attempt the untried, is to develop his being more.
Prematurely wasted by sudden efforts to change the order of society
or influences of things, he sees that nature never hastens, and that in
measured continuity of action lies the rule of success. Neither the
* Thomas Garlyle.
�THE LOGIC Gif xmCATH.
11
The epitaph of a student of nature.
muscle of the gladiator, nor the brain of Newton, acquired at once
their volume or power—the leveling of the mountain or the raising
of the pyramid is not the result of a single hasty attempt, but of
repeated and patient efforts. Thus, while man learns that his degree
of intelligence depends upon his industry and observation, his con
quests depend on the strength of his perseverance—and he looks to
himself, to the exercise of his faculties, and the right direction of his
exertions, both for his knowledge and his power. His lot may be cast
in barbarian caves, where ignorance and wildness ever frown, or under
gilded pinnacle, where learning and refinement are lustrous : he may
have to tread the very rudimental steps of civilisation, or he may
have but to stretch forth his hand to appropriate its spoils—still what
he will be will depend on his aptitudes, and what he will acquire on
his discrimination, application, assiduity, and intrepidity.
As his improvement, so also his protection depends on his own pre
cautions. lie defends himself from the inclemency of the elements
by suitable clothing—for health he seeks the salubrious locality,
wholesome, nutritious food, exercise, recreation, and rest in due pro
portion, and observes temperance in all things. His security on land
is the well-built habitation—on the sea, the firmly-built vessel. His
relation to the external world, and the conditions of fraternity with
his fellows, are the physical and social problems he has to solve. He
sees the strength of passion and the educative force of circumstances,
and he studies them to control them. The affairs of men are a process
which he seeks to wisely regulate, not blindly and violently thwart.
The world has two ages—those of fear and love. The barbarian and
incipient past has been the epoch of fear. Even now its dark shadows
lower over us. Love has never yet emerged from poesy and passion,
has not yet put forth half its strength, nor kindness half its power.
These graceful forces of humanity, whose victory is that of peace,
have scarcely invaded the dominions of war—but Love will one day
step into the throne of Fear, the arts of peace become the business
of life, and fraternity the watch-word of joyous nations. Plainly, as
though written with the finger of Orion on the vault of night, does
man read this future in his heart. The impulse of affection that leaps
unbidden in his breast, though suppressed in competitive strife, or
withered by cankering cares, yet returns in the woodland walk and
the midnight musing, ever whispering of something better to be
realised than war, and dungeons, and isolated wealth have yet brought
us. The student of self and nature, thus impressed, goes forth in the
busy scene of life, to improve and to please. The attributes which
rationalism prescribes to man, are perennial discretion and kindness.
Thus I have believed. I accepted the order of things I found with
out complaint, and I attempted their improvement without despair—
and it might be written on my tomb,
‘ I was not troubled with the time which drova
O'er my content its strong necessities,
But let determined things to destiny
xlold unbewailed their way.’
�19
THE LOGIC OF DEATH.
The physical fear of death as groundless as the theological.
And looking out from the bed of death, over the dim sea of the
future, on which no voyager’s bark is seen returning, I can place no
dependence on priestly dogmas, which all life has belied. The paltry
visions of gilt trumpets and angels’ wings seem like the visions of
irony or levity. The reality it is more heroic to contemplate. The
darkness and mystery of the future create a longing for unravelment.
The enigma of life makes the poetry of death, and. invests with a
sublime interest the last venture on untried existence.
Many honest and intelligent persons, who do not feat the future,
fear the transit to it. Novelists and dramatists, in illustrating a false
theory of crime, adopted from the Churches, have drawn exaggerated
pictures of the aspects of death, through which the popular idea of
dying has become melodramatic, and as far from truth and nature, as
is the extravagance of melodrama from the pure tone of simple and
noble tragedy.
A little reflection will show us that the physical fear some have of
death is as groundless as the moral. Eminent physicians have shown
that death being always preceded by the depression of the nervous
system, life must always terminate without feeling While appre
hension is vivid, while a scream of terror or pain can be uttered, death
is still remote. Organic disease, or a mortal blow, may end existence
with a sudden pang, but in the majority of cases men pass out of life as
unconsciously as they came into it. To the well-informed, death, in
its gradualness and harmlessness, is, what Homer called it—the half
brother of sleep: and the wise expect it undisturbed; and if they
have no reason to welcome it, bear it like any other calamity.
Were we not from childhood the victims of superstitions, we should
always regard death thus; but priests make death the rod whereby
they whip the understanding into submission to untenable dogmas.
For men know no independence, and are at the mercy of every strong
imposition, while they fear to die. That ancient spoke a noble truth
who said nothing could harm that man—tyranny had no terrors with
which it could subdue him who had conquered the fear of the grave.
How often progress has been arrested—how often good men have
faltered in their course—how often philosophy has concealed its light,
and science denied its own demonstrations, only because the priest
has pointed to his distorted image of death!
Among people of cultivated intelligence the idea of a punishing
God is morally repulsive. It is rejected as a fact because demoralising
as an example. The Unitarian principle, which trusts God and never
fears him, is the instinct of civilisation: it gains ground every day
and in every quarter. The parent coerces his child in order to cor
rect him, because the parent wants patience, or time, or wisdom, or
humanity. But as God is assumed to want none of these qualities, he
can attain any end of government he wishes by instruction, for in
moral discipline ‘it is not conduct but character which has to be
changed.’ In Francis William Newman’s portraiture of Christian
attributes, he enumerates ‘love, compassion, patience, disinterested-
�THE LOGIC OF DEATH.
The Golden Rule considered as a maxim of the Last Judgment.
aess,’ qualities incompatible with the sentiment of eternal punishment
—and as was before observed, God cannot be supposed as falling short
of the virtues of cultivated Christians. If we accept the hypothesis of
God, we must agree with Mr. Newman that ‘ all possible perfectness
of man’s spirit must be a mere faint shadow of the divine perfection.’
‘ The thought that any should have endless woe,
Would cast a shadow on the throne of God,
And darken heaven.’
The greatest aphorism ascribed to Christ, called his Golden Rule,
tells us that we should do unto others as we would others should do
unto us. It is not moral audacity, but a logical and legitimate
application of this maxim, to say that if men shall eventually stand
before the bar of God, God will not pronounce upon any that appalling
sentence, ‘ Cast them into outer darkness : there shall be weeping and
gnashing of teeth;’ because this will not be doing to others as he, in
the same situation, would wish to be done unto himself. If frail man is
to ‘ do good to them that hate him,’ God, who is said to be also Love,
will surely not burn those who, in their misfortune and blindness,
have erred against him. He who is above us all in power, will be also
above us all in magnanimity.
Wonderful is the imbecility of the people! The rich man is con
ceded the holiest sepulchre in the Church, although his wealth be won
by extortion or chicane, or selfishly hoarded while thousands of his
brethren have perished, while children have grown up hideous for
want of food, while women have stooped consumptive over the needle,
and men have died prematurely of care and toil. The priest-soothed
conscience feels no terror on the pillow of plethoric affluence—then
why should the poor man be uneasy in death ? Kings and queens, who
cover their brows with diadems stained with human blood, and main
tain their regal splendour out of taxes extorted from struggling
industry, are, in their last hours, assured by the highest spiritual
authorities of their free admission to Heaven, and Poets-Laureat have
sung of their welcome there—then why should the obscure man be
tremulous as to acceptance at the hand of Him who is called the God
of the poor ? The aristocracy pass from time unmolested by death-bed
apprehensions, although they hold fast to privilege and splendour,
though their tenants expire on the fireless hearth, or on the friendless
mattrass of the Poor Law Union—then why should the people enter
tain dread ? While every tyrant who has fettered his country—and
every corrupt minister who has plotted for its oppression, or betrayed
its freedom to the ‘ Friends of Order ’—is committed to the grave ‘ in
the sure and certain hope of a glorious resurrection ’—why should the
indigent patriot fear to die ? While even the bishop, who federates
with the despots, and gives his vote almost uniformly against the people
—while the Priests, Catholic, Protestant, or Dissenting, work into the
hands of the government against the poor, and fulminate celestial
menaces against those whose free thoughts reject the fetters of
their creeds—while these can die in peace, what have the honest
�14
THE LOGIC OF DEATH.
It is only the slave soul that imagines a tyrant God.
and the independent to fear ?
If the insensate monarch, the
sordid millionaire, the rapacious noble, the false politician, and
the servile clergyman, meet death with assurance, surely humble
industry, patient merit, and enduring poverty, need not own a
tremor or heave a sigh ! If we choose to live as freemen, let us at
least have the dignity to die so, nor discredit the privilege of liberty
by an unmanly bearing. If we have the merit of integrity, we should
also have its peace—while we have the destiny of suffering we should
not have less than its courage !
The truth is, if we do not know how to die, it is because we do not
know how to live. If we know ourselves, we know that when we
can preserve the temper of love, and of service, by which love is
manifested, and of endurance, by which love is proved, we acquire
that healthy sense of duty done which casts out fear. They who
constantly mean well and do well, know not what it is to dread ill.
And the fearless are also the free, and the free have no foreboding.
‘It is only the slave soul which dreads a tyrant God.’* Therefore—
‘ So live, that when thy summons comes to join
The innumerable caravan, that moves
To that mysterious realm where each shall take
His chamber in the silent halls of death,
Thou go not, like the quarry slave at night
Scourged to his dungeon; but approach thy gravo
Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.’f
�THE LOGIC OF DEATH*
13
The Queen’s Views.
Since this article was written in 1849, the religions doctrine o'
death in England has entirely changed. The highest minds in
the Church of England, the most cultivated preachers among the
Dissenters have, in some cases, since originated, and in others, now
accept views similar in spirit to those advocated in these pages.
Bishop Colenso found that when the honest and clear thinking
Kafir of Natal was told of the “dreadful judgment of God,” which
an ignorant orthodox Missionary carried to him, he replied with
great simplicity but with natural dignity and resolution—‘ If
that be so we would rather not hear about it;’ and the
Bishop has found the means of proving, even from St. Paul him
self, that the doctrine of eternal punishment is alien to the genius
of Christianity and must be given up. Professor Maurice, the
most influential name in the Church of England, now teaches
that the conception of punishment by physical pain is a gross idea,
and that the sense of having incurred God’s moral displeasure is the
deepest natural punishment to the spiritual man. Her Majesty
the Queen has authorised the publication, since the death of the
Prince, of ‘ Meditations on Death and Eternity, of which the
*
leading idea is that even ‘ sudden death is a sudden benefit ’ to
those who live well, and that those ‘ who endeavour to make
amends for every fault by noble actions’ ought no more ‘to
dread to appear before God ’ ‘ than a child ought to fear to ap
pear before its loving parent, even though it had not yet con
quered all its faults.’ This is nobler and more humane doctrine
than was ever taught by authority in this country before. But
incomparably the finest passage in the whole compass of litera
ture, which depicts the spirit in which all should conduct life so
as to meet death in a patient and noble way, is from the pen of
Mazzini. It occurred in a criticism upon George Sand, in an
article in the Monthly Chronicle in 1839. It contains the whole
of that philosophy which has given to Italy its heroes and its
freedom, .and taught the Italian patriots in so many forlorn
struggles how to die without sadness and without regret. The
sublime passage is this—‘ Schiller, the poet of grand thoughts,
Las said, I Those only love that love without hope.” There is in
these few words more than poetry ; they contain a whole religious
philosophy that we do not yet well understand, but that futurity
will. Life is a mission; its end is not the search after happiness,
but the knowledge andfulfilment of duty. Love is not enjoyment,
it is devotedness. If on the path of duty and devotedness God
sends us some beams of happiness, let us bless God, and bask our
limbs enfeebled by the fatigues of the journey ; but let us not
suspend it for long; let us not say—“We have found the secret
of existence, for the action of the law of our existence cannot be
concentrated in ourselves; its development must be pursued from
'Without. And if we meet only suffering, still march on ; suffer and
�THE LOGIC i'F DEATH.
Mazzini’s Views.
ad. God will measure our progress towards him not by what
we have suffered, but by how much we have desired to diminish the
sufferings of others, by how much our efforts have been directed to
the saving and the perfecting our brethren.''' Of those who believe
in God intelligently, this is the language they hold—and those
who are not Theists, this is the doctrine they trust. People who
say they could not be happy with the convictions of the Atheist,
the Sceptic, or the Heretic, speak merely for themselves; they do
not speak for us. With regard to us, they speak of that of which
they know nothing, and of that of which they have no experience.
With their views what they say may be true. But different views
and different principles bring with them their own consolations.
Conviction makes all the difference. It is not the formal creed
which gives mental support, but the consciousness of truth and
integrity and pure intent. Nothing can disturb the peace of mind
of those armed by a fortitude founded on love and justice, on rec
titude and reason.
�
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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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The logic of death, or, why should the atheist fear to die?
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Edition: Enlarged and rev. ed.
Place of publication: London
Collation: 16 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: Eightieth thousand edition. From the library of Dr Moncure Conway and part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
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Holyoake, G.J.
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Austin & Co.
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1870
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Death
Atheism
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Atheism
Conway Tracts
Death
Death-Religious aspects-Comparative studies
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Text
THE
from th principle of ^rulljoug^t,
By
Gm
J. Holyoake.
Honour to him, who, self-complete, if lone,
Carves to the grave one pathway all his own;
And heeding nought that men may think or say,
Asks but his soul, if doubtful of the way.
Sib E. L. Bulweb.
[thirteenth thousand.]
LONDON:
AUSTIN & Co., JOHNSON’S COURT, E.C.
PRICE
ONE
PENNY.
�TO THE READER,
Br those who decry or depreciate Freethought, it is alleged that its principles
are either base and depraving, or loose, weak, poor, and mean; that they take
no hold upon the heart and furnish no guidance, no inspiration to those who
hold them. It is necessary to show that this impression is unfounded. It is
also said by ill-informed partisans of Freethought that when they are delivered
from the slavery of Superstition, and satisfied that the Bible is a human book;
that Theism is unproved and the Future of the Soul uncertain ; that they
have nothing more to learn and nothing more to do. If this were true, Freethought would result in a fruitless self-complacency—better certainly than a
state of terror-ridden superstition—but still rising no higher than a mere doc
*
trine of comfort, fulfilling no condition of a proud and heroic progress. To
some friends, therefore, as well as to all foes, I address these papers. I seek
to show that Secularistic Freethought, apart from all Theology, is self-acting,
self-sustaining, and necessitates the improvement of individual character.
Freethought, ever-fruitful, unfolds new aspects and applications to all who
study it. To some this brief treatise may be suggestive of overlooked duties
which the profession of Freethought implies. Such trust may be ill-founded.
Yet duty is not to be measured by result? alone—the duty which clear con
viction implies, Carlyle has expressed in his noble injunction—“ Cast forth thy
act, thy word, into the ever-living, ever-working universe; it is a seed of grain,
that cannot die; unnoticed to-day, it will be found flourishing as a banyan
grove, perhaps also as a hemlock forest, after a thousand years.”
G.J.H,
�THE
LOGIC
OF
LIFE.
The French have a saying which has always appeared to me
very instructive. It is s’orienter, which signifies “ to take one’s
bearings;” or, as the late Stanislas Worcell used to paraphrase it
for me, “We must find the East for ourselves.”* To understand
this is the first thing which can do any good to twenty-nine out
of the thirty millions of the inhabitants of Great Britain. About
one million of our population, those who inherit rank or riches,
are born with the East found for them. A great number of the
middle class know how to find that point of the compass very
well; but the great body of the nation, who, as Mr. Bright says,
“ in all countries dwell in cottages;” the workers in mine, factory,
and field; to whom sectarian disputes have denied education;
who have no well-placed connections to clear the way for them;
who must toil and endure penury—to these all ignorance is danger,
all delusion is pernicious, all hope which is not justified on a
survey of their situation, is traitorous. A working man who
intends to advance must see clearly what his own position is.
This knowledge is the first step in the logic of life to him—the
key to any extrication or improvement possible to him. He who
does not know what his social position is, is ignorant; he who
does not want to know it, is imbecile ; he who despairs on account
of it when he does know it, is a coward; he who is content with
it, if it be precarious, is a slave. Contentment with the ill which
is inevitable, is fortitude; contentment where improvement is
possible, is meanness. Therefore, in all cases of adverse destiny
“ it is,” to borrow a phrase of Fielding’s, “ of no use damning the
nature of things the sole question is their possible improvement.
Strive for this without sullenness and with a buoyant heart.
Of means which depend upon the individual, and of which every
person of sagacity, of resolution, and honesty may avail himself, I
name as first, Freethought and its consequents—Truth, Indepen
dence, and Courtesy.
These are familiar words, but the full acceptation they bear ip
* Il nous faut nous orienter nous memes.
�4
THE LOGIC OF LIFE.
Four Elements distinguished.
not at all familiar. They have hitherto been used in the world
as party words. Freethought has been understood chiefly as
opposed to slavery of mind; Truth as opposed to Falsehood;
Independence as opposed to Tyranny; Courtesy as opposed to
vulgarity of manner. In the stages through which society has
passed, these words, in these senses, were words of battle, and
very influential words too: but they have a more abiding and
fresher significance if we regard them, not as merely indicating
antagonisms, but as expressing sentiments inseparable from a
natural and manly character. In this sense they constitute the
elements of a Logic of Secular Life.
It is of little use that a poor man looks around him unless he
thinks when he looks. He will find that every inch of ground,
every flower of the field, every bird of the air, every spray of the
sea has an owner; but there is one thing at least left him—he
may be master of his own mind ; his intellect at least is in his
own keeping; and it is the first duty of man to maintain dominion
there. It is part of a wise self-defence in a man to own no master,
to brook no control, to obey no command, which contradicts his
own deliberate judgment of the right.
*
Be the interferer priest
or king, society or custom, let him bid them stand aside. Let a
man listen to those who advise ; reverence those who teach;
honour those who think, for they are donors; but let his opinions
he his own and not second-hand. Poverty of means may be caused
by others—poverty of thought is idleness or baseness of our own.
The world, except to the masters of armies, is no longer an oyster
to be opened with a sword—all conquests there by the people re
quire thought. The upward avenues of society are guarded by
the dragons of Privilege and Success. Industry may present
itself, but intellect is its passport. Self-thought, which is the
original name for Freethought, therefore, is the first means of
self-help. He who fails to exercise Freethought is defenceless—
he who relinquishes it is despised, even by those who encourage
his submission or coerce him to it. The destitute at a mine who
fear to gather the golden ore for which they have gone—the thirsty
at a well who fear to drink of the stream for which they are dying
—they who in danger see escape open to them and yet fear to flee
—are types of him who fears to use his own reason when he should.
Freethought is a primary condition of Truth: we can never
know much unless we are free to inquire into all. Freethought
is the instinct of enterprise—it proceeds, Columbus-like, upon an
f It is not intended to say that a man may disregard the alleged
“Will of God,” or a precept of high human authority, upon mere im
pulse, caprice, conceit, or antagonism. Our words are, “ his own de
liberate judgment (or conviction) of the right.” To act contrary to
this would not be to honour or worship God, but to act the hypocrite
knowingly.
�THE LOGIC OF LIFE.
5
Freethought not an agent of heresy, but of self-defence.
unknown sea to discover new lands. He who sets out knows not
that he may ever return to what he has left behind him, and
those who await his return know not what report of strange
countries he may bring back. The stationaries, the timid, or com
fortable, or component parts of vested interests, always look with
suspicion on the thinker. To-day, or to-morrow—there is no
telling when—he will raise the cry of “ Progress,” and the people
will be setting off, leaving the fixture party behind. The watch
word of the Freethinker is “ Excelsior!” “Higher!” “Forward!”
That of the fettered thinker is ‘ ‘ Lower!” “ Halt!” “ Retrograde!”
“Don’t go too far!” Cl Better to be safe!” The Freethinker is,
however, wiser. He hears the reverberations of Progress in every
footfall of the march of Nature. When the vibration of a social
earthquake is felt, apathy is fatuity. In every wreck of a human
being around us, we witness the falling of some edifice of religious,
social, or political superstition. It is in standing still when all
around is moving, or in going back when all the prudent are
escaping, which constitutes actual danger. If it be “ better to be
safe,” it is better to be a Free Inquirer, whether the object be
personal or public protection. Those who condemn Freethought
as heresy, do not understand that it is self-defence; those who
call it anarchy do not remember that order without progress is
tyranny. But in practising Freethought there may be passion
but not petulance, enthusiasm but not excitement. It must be
patient, persistent, and independent, obviously seeking two things
—truth and deliverance; and the sign of deliverance is indepen
dence, and the grace of independence is courtesy.
But if we claim to take Freethought as a fundamental and com
prehensive principle of action, we must justify the claim. Others
claim also now to act on the same principle, and to be freethinkers.
So much the better if it be so. We desire no exclusiveness here.
We will do injustice to none, but state our own case, and admit
the degree in which others approach to our own rule, and define
and explain what that rule is.
The Roman Catholic even seems to believe in Freethought,
though, as it appears, in a very limited degree, and he never
trusts it as we do. He so fears the independent use of Reason,
that lie only allows the inquirer to use it once, and that is to
light him to the Church; and when he arrives at the door thereof
the Priest meets him, takes the taper of Reason from his hand,
assures him that he will have no further need for that, and the
Priest keeps it henceforth in his possession. Once within the
Church, the Inquirer finds that his reason is never to be had even
on hire ever after. And the Roman Catholic Priest having been
obliged with your soul, soon finds occasion to trouble you for your
body. He cares for you spiritually and temporally, and woe to
that man or that nation whose liberty is in such keeping!
The Evangelical Protestant Priest will, we say it to his credit.
�0
THE LOGIC OF LIFE.
The Catholic, Protestant, and Secular conception of Freethinking.
..eave you considerable political liberty; but lie considers every
jnan utterly depraved by natu.re, and he has little more confidence
than his brother of Rome in the results of Freethought. He in«
deed places the Bible before you, and tells you to use your “ pri
*
vate judgment ” upon it; but he places the Devil on the top of it,
and Eternal Perdition at the bottom of it, and hangs up a Creed
before it, and warns you that if you do not go through the Bible
and come to that Creed, that the dark Gentleman at the top will
pay his respects to you, and conduct you to his subterranean
chambers at the bottom. And this is the Protestant idea of Freethought! This is not often said, it is not always seen to amount
to this by those who act so, and this representation of it will be
denied; but to this Protestant Freethought ever resolves itself in
the English Church, and among all the tribes of Evangelical Dis
senters.
Freethought, as the Secularist understands it, differs from the
Roman Catholic and Protestant conception of it. Freethought
from the Secular point of view, is not pride of reason (if that be
*
wrong), it is the use of reason. It is not caprice or wantonness,
or stiflf-neckedness, or wickedness, or rebellion, or enmity against
God. It is the duty of inquiry—it is rebellion against Ignorance—
it is enmity against Error. Freethinking is not “loose thinking,”
as the Rev. Charles Kingsley perversely puts it. It is the quiet,
resolute, and two-sided search for Truth without fear of the Bible,
the Priest, or the Devil—or what in these days is the same thing,
fear of that social intolerance, that tyranny of the majority, which
frightens many people as much. Freethought is sensible, not
sensual; it is fearless wherever error has to be attacked or truth
to be discovered. It proves all things, with Paul; or it proves
them in spite of Paul, if need be; it inquires if the Bible permits,
and it inquires if the Bible forbids. Its inspiration is self-develop
ment ; its object is truth; its reward self-protection; its hope
progress; its spirit is reverent and resolute.
Secular Freethought is the assertion of mental liberty. It is
the beginning of intellectual life and manhood. It is the first
step from mental slavery. It is the indication that a man is
setting up in the world of opinion on his own account. Freethought signifies free trade in intellect. It is the proof that a
man is not a toy or a tool, but that he has something in him. It
is a sign of self-respect and emulation. It implies a sense of res
ponsibility to God on the part of those who are Theists, and to
Conscience, to Truth, and to Society, on the part of him who is
not. And he who seeks to arrest Freethought by penalties, by
opprobrium, or disapproval, is the enemy of his kind, of their
liberty, growth, and development, whatever may be his motives^
base or honest.
___________________________________
* I never could see that the “ pride of reason ” is anything wrong.
To take pride in the noblest endowment of man is a good sign.
�THE LOGIC OF LIFE.
Truth the first consequent of Fireetliought.
Truth is the first issue of Freethought—certainly the first object
that the Freethinker sets before him. The miracles and wonders
of nature and life incite to thought, and to solve with requisite
advantage any mystery, thought must be free. Freethought is
but a means, truth the end. But if we lose sight of the means,
we may never reach the end. People who think for us, some
times do for us. Self-thought is policy as well as duty.
Why do we want Freethought? Plainly for self-protection
and power—and the power is the power of truth. Freethought
is labour and responsibility, irksome and onerous. It is a luxury
to lie down without ideas. One might bless the priest or politician
who would undertake the labour of thinking. The Church of
Rome, or the reign of Despotism and Toryism, is the paradise of
the lazy, the reckless, the sensual, and the supine. Freethought is
intrepidity and duty. It is the instinct of Secular and Political
safety. Freethought is the revolt of manhood, conscience, dili
gence, and the noble thirst for truth.
The definition of Truth given by Samuel Bailey is probably the
simplest and widest that can be found :—“ Truth is a term by
which is implied accuracy of knowledge and of inference.”* The
meaning here is obvious and practical. Let us inquire into the
nature of its legitimate significance. “ I am a lover, utterer, and
observer of the Truth.” How many make this boast! All in
some way think themselves entitled to make it; yet how few un
derstand what is meant by this high profession !
Let a man resolve that he will seek the truth, speak the truth,
and act the truth : what an education lies in that resolve! To
seek the truth implies the power of distinguishing it. It implies
calmness, observation, penetration, and impartiality. The ex
cited discern nothing distinctly; the unobservant miss half of
that which is to be seen; those who lack sagacity are imposed
upon by counterfeits; the partial see only half a truth, and never
know which half. The study of the truth is the study of the Real.
The real, for practical purposes, may be described as that which
we can verify by the senses and enable others to verify, or as that
of which we can furnish to others the conditions of its reproduc
tion ; which may be submitted to the most searching investigation
and experiment. Accuracy of observation is the beginning of
truth. Error is the misapprehension of nature—disaster is mis
taking the way to it. All thoughtful life is a search for the real;
all philosophy is the interpretation of it; all progress is the attain
ment of it; all art is the presentment of it; all science the mastery
of it. Here the question arises, What is the test of the real ?
How do we know that we know it ? For the purposes of ordi
nary certainty about it, we require to be able to identify the thing
we mean; to show it or demonstrate it to others; to challenge
Essay on the Pursuit of Truth, chap, i., p. L
�8
THE LOGIC OF LIFE.
The profession of Truth, and what it involves.
their resources to combat it; to dare their judgment upon it; to
give them the means of testing it; to conquer prejudice by its
force and scepticism by its proofs. In fine, in some way or other
to display or explain the immediate causation of phenomena.
Men are never satisfied—never feel beyond the chances of delusion
till then. If any one would see the influence of a simple prin
ciple like that of the search for truth over character, let him reflect
merely on the ordinary processes which common sense and com
mon power may adopt for the acquisition of truth. By observa
tion the materials of thought are collected. When we can identify
facts they become knowledge, which, as Whately was first to
teach, implies truth, proof, and conviction. When knowledge
becomes methodised, and assumes the form of science, it becomes
for the first time power. This, however, occurs late, because
science is the hardest step in attainments. It is popular to talk
of science, but science is not popular. Its strictness, its care, its
patience, its discipline, its caution, its experiments—various, la
borious, and incessant—imply qualities of which the populace,
generally speaking, are deficient. A high state of general culture
must be reached before science can be popular. Thus the pro
fession of “seeking” the truth involves the question of self
education.
Next, the resolution “ to speak” the truth tells advantageously
upon a man’s character—no undertaking is nobler. A man rises
in his own esteem the moment he enters upon it, and in that of
others as soon as he is seen acting up to his profession. Falsehood
is the mark of meanness, cowardice, and slavery the world over. A
lie is the brand of servitude. In every part of the world we in
stinctively despise the race that is weak enough to lie. The mob
are false before they are contemned. Truth is the child of courage
as •well as of honour. The high-spirited alone are habitually
frank. It is weakness to affect singularity, but it is worse than
weakness not to be singular, if the singularity lie in acting out a
conviction of the right. Better even be eccentric than false. It
is sometimes dangerous to dissent from the public, and painful to
dissent from your friends. It is often very expensive to have an
opinion of your own, and avow it; but the partizan of truth must
be content to brave many penalties; and he is badly educated in
his art if he be not apprised of this. He must leave to valetudi
narian moralists to utter timid, base, and comfort-seeking acquiescences, in the hypocrisies of sects and society.
One whose noble words have been an inspiration to the workman
of this age, and who, above all writers, has invested art and industry
with higher purposes than were felt before, tells us that “ there are
some faults slight in the sight of love, slight in the estimate of wis
dom ; but truth forgives no insult and endures no stain. We do not
enough consider this, nor enough dread the slight and continual oc
casions of offenceagainst her. We are too much in the habit oflook-
�THE LOGIC OF LIFE.
9
Mr. Ruskin’s delineation of the lies which harm.
ing at falsehood in its darkest associations and through the colour of
its worst purposes. That indignation which we profess to feel at
deceit absolute, is indeed only at deceit malicious. We resent
calumny, hypocrisy, and treachery because they harm us, not
because they are untrue. Take the detraction and the mischief
from the untruth, and we are little offended by it; turn it into
praise, and we may be pleased with it. And yet it is not calumny
nor treachery that does the largest sum of mischief in the world,
they are continually crushed and felt only in being conquered.
But it is the glistening and softly-spoken lie; the amiable fallacy ;
the patriotic lie of the historian, the provident lie of the politician,
the zealous lie of the partizan, the merciful lie of the friend, and
the careless lie of each man to himself, that cast that black mys
tery over humanity, through which any man who pierces, we
thank as we would thank one who dug a well in a desert; happy
in that the thirst for truth still remains with us even when we
have wilfully left the fountains of it.”*
The courage of Truth also implies purity; because the utter
ance of truth implies the power of publicity. Now a man who
undertakes “ to speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but
the truth ” on all occasions, must take care what he thinks and
what he knows. He must keep watch and ward over his thoughts
and his ears. There is sometimes tragedy in the resolution.
Lucius Junius Brutus had to condemn his own sons; the father
of Jeannie Deans to hang his own daughter. No virtue tries a
man’s soul like incorruptible and uncompromising veracity, nor
tries it so frequently.
Unless truth becomes the very essence of personal character, the
highest appeal of the moralist is without effect. The golden
injunction in Hamlet—
To thine own self be true;
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man,
implies that man himself must be true, or the response of his
nature will be untrue. The true echo of a false nature will be
false. You can only trust the true.
There is however capacity as well as purity implied in the pur
suit and utterance of truth. He who succeeds must know how to
test a rumour, how to avoid being imposed upon by report. He
must be cautious and wary ; suspicious of the lurking prejudice
which unconsciously distorts; quick to detect omissions in state
ments, and able by preserving measure in his own thoughts, to
repel exaggerations by instinct. He requires to judge look, tone,
language, and logic. He who undertakes to utter only the truth
undertakes not to be imposed upon by the prepossessions, malice,
* John Buskin.
�16
THE LOGIC OF LIFE.
Exactness the only measure of strength.
incompetence, or sophistry of others; else he becomes a mere
retailer of falsehood second-hand. On his own part also there are
some requirements. The truth-speaker should be master of the
art of explicit statement. He should know the value of terms and
the force of speech. He requires to explain to others not only
what he means, so that they can understand it; but, as Cobbett
puts it, “ so that they cannot possibly misunderstand it,” other wise he misleads them in spite of himself. A truth speaker must
look all round his statements to be sure that there is nothing dis
coloured reflecting a false light; nothing redundant which over
states ; nothing deficient which obscures; nothing ambiguous
which cau leave a doubt. A piece of meaning, properly expressed,
is incapable of being abridged, else it is too long : it is incapable
of being amplified, else it is too brief: the very terms are un
changeable. else they were not well chosen. The perfect expression
of a thought is a work of art, and when perfect is a study and a
delight. We see in Beranger how a studious fitness of expression
was a part of his genius. A man who has judgment to cast, and,
if need be, recast his language, may attain excellence. This suc
cess costs no money; it costs only reflection; and it may be done
at the workshop as well as in the study. If it be worth while
speaking at all, it is worth while speaking to some purpose. He
who strives to do everything well may do little; but that little
will be worth mu eh. It is a great gain to guard against that
voluble feebleness which enervates your own mind, and wastes the
time of others.
Let a man be clear as to what he really knows, and confine
himself to that, and lock round and note the effect of what be is
saying on those who credit his words, and he will often find silence
a virtue and a mercy. We make tragedies every day by our
speech. Some words are like poisoned arrows, and affect fatally
the blood of those pierced by them.
But if the policy of truth has difficulties, it has also advantages,
which ambition itself might covet. A mau whose words are
measured and independent, and can be trusted, makes a place for
himself in the esteem and deference of his contemporaries which
no other qualities can win. All exactness (if I may repeat, for
the sake of illustration here, what I have said elsewhere) imposes
restriction; but exactness is strength. The rustic dancer, who is
the admiration of the village green, hesitates to take a step in the
presence of the dancing master ; the confident instructor of the
private class faulters before the professed grammarian; the singer
who is rapturously applauded at the evening party, cannot be
prevailed upon to utter a note at a concert; the provincial actor,
who nightly “ brought down the house ” in Richard the Third, is
timorous in a rehearsal before Macready, Phelps, or Fechter; the
orator who sets the country on fire, stammers in the House of
Commons, finding that, as Canning said, “the atmosphere in which
�THE LOGIC OF LIFE.
11
independence a second consequence of Frcethoaght.
the demagogue shrinks to his natural dimensions.” These per
sons, once placed in higher society than their own, are in that light
where their defects can be seen ; and, what is more to the purpose,
where they cannot be hidden. The single step which is right;
the single sentence wThich is correct; the single note which is
perfect; the single passage rendered by the actor with cultivated
success; the shortest speech which has the grace of close sense
and suitable delivery, is a source of more confidence to the indi
vidual, and gives him more power to eommand the applause of
all whose applause is worth having, than all gyrations, display,
screaming, gabble, gesticulation, and declamation, which make up
the bulky acquisitions of the novice, the pretender, or the quack.
The moment we step into the circle of those better informed than
ourselves, we feel our deficiencies, and are suddenly contracted
down to the little that we really know. A man may deceive those
who know less than himself, or the same as himself, but he can
never deceive those who know more. Knowledge once challenged,
pierces instantly through the thickest cloak ingenious ignorance
can put on. Our actual knowledge, whatever it is, is the measure
of our actual power; and to know what that knowledge is, is to
know upon what we can rely. Truth alone is strength. As
*
Shakspere makes Mark Anthony say—
Who tells me true,
Though in the tale lie death,
I hear him as he flattered.
*
Independence is one of the high attributes of character which
the passion for truth begets as the necessity of the enjoyment of
its conquests. Independence is self-direction, self-sustainment,
but not lawlessness. It is freedom from vice, from ignorance and
superstition, from the tyranny of all power and all opinion which
violate reason and nature. It is admitted that independence so
perfect is unattainable in existing society, yet the adequate con
ception of it will assist those who desire to approximate to it.
We must not, however, suppose that there is such a thing as ab
solute independence. Independence is relative only. Man is
dependent on Nature for existence and subsistence; on the ob
servance of the laws of nature and the laws of society, legal,
social, and moral, for they are necessary for his development,
culture, happiness, and security.
Independence, as it is possible to the emulative, is attainable in
two ways; one by abridging our wants to the minimum com-
* Elsewhere I have quoted these lines, to which I am attached; and
the preceding passage occurs in another work, and I have no excuse for
repeating it except its relevance to the argument. In this licence I
follow the example of Archbishop Whately; but what has not been
forgiven in him who has the right of genius to repetition, is infinitely
less likely to be pardoned in me.
�12
THE LOGIC OF LIFE.'
Independence is self-direction and self-sustainment.
patible with wealth, the other by acquiring ample means for the
gratification of the wants we elect to retain. Of course the shortest
way is by the simplification of wants, and most persons have
something to gain by this course.
Government is necessitated by the tendency of men to injustice,
disorder, and excess. A just man capable of self-direction and
self-control, is independent of government in his own case. Rulers
are necessitated by the blind, vicious, and violent. A weak man is
at the mercy of the strong, hence a lover of independence seeks
strength and skill as resources. Intelligent love of independence will
influence personal education in many ways. In point of knowledge
the independent man endeavours to put himself on a level with
those around him, that he may not be imposed upon by the
cunning, nor defeated by the subtle, nor borne down by superiors.
Ignorance is slavery, and he acquires knowledge that he may be
free. He practises economy in the use of hi3 means—he lives
within his income, that he may be above the necessity of extreme
labour, which is serfdom. Aman’s private habits are revised when
he is animated by a spirit of independence. He chooses truth be
cause it is simple and brave, rather than falsehood, which is per
plexing and cowardly. Temperance is not with him an arduous
virtue of self-denial; but is part of that policy by which he pre
serves health, means, liberty, and power. A true freeman will
not be the slave of dress, of stimulants, or of diet, or doctors, or
custom, or opinion, any more than the slave of priests or kings.
To cover a neglect of duty, a loss of time, a defect in work-—to
conceal a petty abstraction or an overcharge—what lies, prevari
cations, and deceptions, employers often detect in the working
class. For what petty and fleeting advantages the independence
of veracity is thoughtlessly sacrificed ! The employer may be
guilty of this as well as the employed. There is often meanness
in the counting-house as well as in the workshop. The tradesman
may overcharge as well as the customer higgle; but this conduct
bears the same mark in each class: it is the badge of the slave
spirit all round.
Again, independence implies self-possession as well as selfrespect. He who is excited is no longer master of himself. He can
neither see his way nor take it if he sees it. Events, real or imagi
nary, are driving him ; he has forfeited self-direction—his liberty
is lost.
Independence also exercises other influences. Independence
must fluctuate unless there be security around. But to attain
this there must be fairness and justice to others, or antagonisms
will arise; well founded, and therefore inveterate, which .will
occupy the passions imperiously, and such stimulated and coerced
occupation is a species of slavery. Independence, therefore, un
derstood as a consistent principle, is a check upon the lawlessness
or excesses of liberty. Liberty is no longer a capricious shout
�THE LOGIC OF LIFE.
13
The principle of courtesy is the consideration of others,
taken up in irritation and persisted in in antagonism; but is a
manly, positive, persistent, and rational principle, having inspiration
and purpose—influencing personal and public character.
Courtesy is that quality of Freethought which gives to truth
its agreeableness and to independence its grace.
Without
courtesy Freethought may be perverted into wanton aggression,
truth into outrage, independence into rudeness. Conviction of
every kind must be associated with the consideration due to others,
a desire of service and a feeling of kindness to others. Conviction,
service, and kindness to others must be regarded as inseparable.
Separate them and there is danger. “ Conviction” by itself, how
ever sincere, may be ferocity, as was the case with the Puritans;
“ service” alone may become selfishness; “kindness” alone may
become weakness. Free inquiry pursued on the principle of
self-protection is invincible; made an annoyance to others it is
endangered; truth made disagreeable is betrayed; independence
which is inconsiderate of others is insolence. Bluster, objuration,
rudeness, are the crimes which cowardice, ignorance, and selfish
ness commit. If justice and considerateness to others were
widely cultivated, there would be no need of charity in the world.
If a man hate the world, the world can acquit itself by multi
tudinous retaliation. If a man will profess indifference to the
world, he may perish amid the omnipresent apathy he invokes.
But if he would serve the world, or endeavour toserve it, mankind
may not reciprocate the disposition, but such a man alone has
established a claim upon their good offices.
There is one mode of success in the world in which ambition is
itself legitimate, a mode of success available to all, in which there
is little competition; it is the unselfish service of others. The
avenues to this kind of promotion are open always and open to all,
and the porches are never crowded. Thus courtesy is good sense
as well as good feeling. The indispensability of courtesy every one
upon reflection may see. By its own nature independence is un
social. It sets up for itself, acts for itself. It proposes to keep
other persons at a distance. Its principle is to owe nothing to
others, and is therefore under no obligation to oblige them. It is
self-reliant and defiant. Without courtesy independence is re
pulsive. But courtesy practised by the independent wears the air
of chivalry.
Courtesy implies fortitude and justness. Without fortitude to
bear much himself, a person will impose or obtrude on others a
consciousness of his sufferings, at times when it will extinguish
their enjoyment, and in no way relieve his own. It implies a
sense of justness in this way^—No man, unless he is always
judicially wary and inquiring, can determine the guilt of his
neighbour in suspicious cases, and a man always on the judg
ment-seat is a nuisance. A detective dogging you is not au
agreeable follower; a detective friend is a sort of private police
man. Courtesy is trusting and unsuspicious.
�14
THE LOGIC OF LIFE.
Courtesy is something distinct from etiquette and politeness.
It is to be understood that, by courtesy, I do not mean mere
etiquette, compliments, or conventional politeness, which may co
exist with hypocrisy and hateful selfishness. I do not mean a
ceremony, but a sentiment. By courtesy, I mean service—the
disinterested service of others in thought, speech, and act. I
mean that sentiment which, in the family circle, in company, in
society, in all human intercourse, pauses to ask, “ How can I pro
mote, or avoid impairing, the personal comfort or convenience of
others ?” Courtesy is often shown more by what it does,not dp,
than by what it does. The thoughtless word, the irritating tone,
the vexatious remark, anger, and impatience; observations upon
the appearance or manners of others, which do not affect us, nor
injure us, nor concern us, and which we are not called upon to
correct, and which are part of the proper personal liberty of
others—these are the wanton crimes of social tyrants, from whom
there is no escape. This is misery which all have the power to
inflict, and many inflict it all their lives without appearing to
know it. The simple and considerate omission of these things
would be true courtesy, though no acts of kindness or attention
were added. Courtesy may be known by this—it gives what
your neighbour or your friend cannot ask ; the grace of it con
sists in this—that it volunteers what cannot be exacted. The
poorest man who understands it may distribute around him the
riches of enjoyment. It needs no wealth but that of the,, mind,
and is the sign of a nobler character than wealth itself. Wealth
is but the emblem of refinement; courtesy is the possession of it.
Independence consults its own interests. Courtesy consults that
of others. The difference between etiquette and courtesy may
be seen in this—etiquette lies no deeper than the manners, cour
tesy has its seat in the judgment; one is the creature of the
accredited custom of the hour; the other is a dictate of moral
thoughtfulness. Etiquette is conventionality, courtesy is a con
viction. Mere etiquette begins in politeness and ends in proprie
ties ; it is fair spoken to your face, and may scoff at you, defame
you, and revile you behind your back; while true courtesy denotes,
the spirit; it is honesty as well as kindness; it is the same in
your absence as in your presence. It pays unseen compliments; if it
professes regard, it is a perpetual regard upon which you may count.
Such are some of the obvious significations involved in the fami
liar terms, Freethought, Truth, Independence, and Courtesy. In
pointing them out, I have no doubt laid myself open to the objection
of all who have something to excuse in themselves, and of others
who have not reflected upon the subject; that I set up a standard
so high that ordinary men, despairing of attaining excellence,
will be discouraged from attempting improvement. To such I
answer, that I do not exact perfection; I only give information,
and contend that every man should understand the nature and
purport of his own profession, for no one is likely ever to advance
unless he is made clearly conscious of what it is that he ought, in
�THE LOGIC O? LIFE.
15
The principles of a Secular Logic of Life.
consistency, to attempt. If he does mean what his words imply,
he will not object to be judged by them. If he does not mean
that, let him choose other terms which express what he does
mean, and no longer dilute high words with weak meanings.
The reason why great words grow pale in the memory of men,
and tame in their influence, is because their high significance is
not insisted upon. I hold that it may be no reproach that a man
does not excel ; but it is a reproach if he never strives after
excellence, and does not even know in what it consists. But
how can any one be expected to strive after it, unless it be shown
to him ? The majority of men do not do their duty, because they
have never been clearly shown what their duty is.
I sum up the Logic of Life in four inter-dependent things,
easy to remember, essential to practise, and which I endeavour
explicity to insist upon—namely, Freethought Truth, Indepen
dence, Courtesy.
Freethought is self-instruction and self-defence. Truth is
guidance, discipline, and mastery. Independence is self-direction
and security. Courtesy is tenderness and courage, and a perpetual
letter of recommendation, which each may provide for himself,
everybody respect. These are personal qualities that must under
lie all manly character: they are as inseparable from, and as
essential to, excellence, as temperance to health, as exercise to
growth, as air and food to life. These are qualities which ought
to exist in all conditions, and which are possible in the lowest.
The points which I have enumerated comprise a Logic of Life
which can be self-acquired, and is, therefore, as possible to him
who graduates in a workshop—to whom the priceless advantages
of learning are unknown—as to him who graduates in a college.
In the school of experience to which all the world go, every
scholar may be proficient, who has the sagacity to observe and
the patience to think. Of course a man may know with advantage
more than the four things I have enumerated, but he ought not to
know less ; and he will be able to conduct his life with intelligence
and dignity if he knows as much.
Of the connection of these views with the future little need be
said. He who lives a life of truth and service is always fitted to
die. If a religion of reason exists, it is one in which priests, have
no monopoly of interest, and God no sectarian partialities—it is
one in which work is worship, and good intent the .passport to sal
vation.
This is not an argument against Christianism. It is one inde
pendent of it. It dpes not question the pretensions of Christianity,
it advances others. Christianity may even indulge in an exagge
rated estimate of its powers and influences. Nothing is here said
to the contrary. Undoubtedly Christianity is a Logic of Life to
those who accept it. This argument is addressed to those who do
not, Christianity may claim to appeal to noble passions, and to
�1ft
THE LOGIC OF LIFE.
The relation of the whole argument to Christianity.
inspire lofty hopes, but it cannot deny that there are other prin
ciples, other appeals, other guidance independently of it.
An intrepid, two-sided Freethought is hardly the growth of
Christian soil. It is one thing to tolerate inquiry, it is quite a dif
ferent thing to inculcate inquiry as a duty. Secularism regards
the love of truth as native to the heart of man—as an instinct of
human nature—as deeper than Christianity—as the austere power
of character which bends all influences before it: which exists in
dependently, acts independently, and acts for ever. The simple
precept, seek the truth, respect the truth, speak the truth, and live
the truth, is one without which no character can be perfect; and
*
it is one which will make a character for a man though he never
read a line of theology, never listened to a single sermon, never
entered the portals of a church.
Mental independence can scarcely be said to be cultivated by
Christianity. All Evangelical religion is the wail of helplessness.
It teaches that self-reliance, that iron string to which all noble
pagan hearts have vibrated, in all ages of the world, is mere sinful
self-sufficiency. Yet an intelligent sentiment of Independence,
which trusts the right, works for the right, which guards and holds
it, is a lion precept, considerate, equitable, impassable.
It would be well wrere I wrong in maintaining that courtesy is an
independent Secular sentiment. Unfortunately popular Christianity
recognises no sincerity, no good intention in opponents. It keeps
no terms with unbelievers. An outrage upon them it regards as
faithfulness to Christ. It still denies them social recognition and
civil rights.
• >
It is necessary, therefore, to find other ground of inspiration
and guidance, and such Secular Freethought furnishes. There iff
reason to maintain that soon after a man makes the simple pro
fession of Freethought, and understands all that that implies, and
acts up to it, he becomes another person, that his whole character
changes, and his whole mind begins to grew, and never ends till
death.
' The Principle of Freethought, with its consequents of Truth,
of Independence, of Courtesy, is capable of influence for good
where Theology is detrimental or powerless. I do not say, nor
assume (my argument does not require it), that there is no light
or guidance elsewhere; but I do say what is sufficient for the
purpose, and what I maintain is—that there is light and guidance
here ; that the light of Nature is neither dim nor flickering, but
bright and steady: that those who accuse Secularism of being
merely negative; who allege that it pulls down and does not build
up; that its instinct is to destroy, and that it has no capacity for
construction ; that it points out what is wrong and never what is
right; that it finds fault, and never commits itself to the respond
sibility of indicating what should be or might be; accuse Secu
larism without knowledge or accuse it in suite of it.
�
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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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Conway Hall Library & Archives
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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The logic of life, reduced from the principle of freethought
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Holyoake, G.J.
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 16 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: Thirteenth thousand edition. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
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Austin & Co.
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1870
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G4959
N311
N312
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Free thought
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Free Thought
Life
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Text
THE BOOK OF ESTHER:
A SPECIMEN OF WHAT PASSES AS THE INSPIRED
WORD OF GOD.
BY AUSTIN HOLYOAKB.
The Book of Esther ! What is there in that worthy of special notice ?
It is a part of Holy Writ seldom or never referred to in the controver
sies of the time, and rarely used to point an argument or adorn a tale
in pulpit sermons. Some may say, why drag an obscure, unimportant
book into prominence, and attack that which is not of much moment
even to Christians ? To this it may be answered, that to a true believer,
nothing in the sacred book is trivial—all is inspired, and therefore all
is vital truth. If we view it in that light, it will be found to be our
strongest argument. The Book of Esther is still retained in all autho
rised editions of the Bible, and the most orthodox members of the
Church maintain that you cannot eliminate a single word or passage
withoiit incurring the wrath of Almighty God ; and we see how even
a bishop may bring down upon his devoted head the severest eccle
siastical censure, and be maligned, and shunned, and prosecuted by his
brethren of the cloth for daring to doubt the accuracy of some accounts
of events which never could have taken place as there related. But it
is not necessary now to go particularly into the question of inspiration.
We will take the book as we find it, and see what passes as the inspired
Word of God, and by following the text closely see how much better it
is than other writings. It must strike any observant reader that there
is nothing whatever on the surface of this part of the Bible that can
account for its being placed as a canonical book. It does not relate
any of God’s doings among his favourite children ; the Lord does not
direct the massacres ; Jehovah is not the patron of Mordecai and his
amiable niece—in short, neither God, the Lord, nor Jehovah are men
tioned at all throughout the whole ten chapters. One might say, if he
possessed the confidence of a priest, that this book was never inspired
by God. There are thousands who believe this book to be inspired,
because they dare not doubt. They have been taught to believe, and
they do believe. The human mind, once given to a belief in the super
natural, is open to receive anything as truth, however absurd or con
trary to experience it may be. Where are you to stop ? What are to
be the bounds of belief? Is not everything possible to a God of infinite
power ? And shall petty mortals dare to limit the eternal ? If an oc
currence is not easily comprehensible, what a relief it is to one’s head
to say, “ God did it.” That is sufficient, with some people, to account
for anything.
The Book of Esther, if perused as a narrative, will be found to be a
plain, unvarnished tale, possessing but few of the graces of rhetoric,
and chronicling the doings of by no means brilliant characters.
In the year 518 before Christ, commenced the reign of Ahasuerus, a
very small hero in his way, but through whose influence and by whose
sanction many extraordinary deeds were done, and many atrocities com
mitted. He was a king reigning over a vast region, extending from
�2
The Book of Esther.
India to Ethiopia, and including a hundred and twenty-seven provinces.
Marian Evans, in her translation of Feuerbach, says something to the
effect that Christianity is a religion of gourmands, as throughout the
Bible there is a continual record of feasting and jollity. Even the
Lord himself was entertained at dinner by Abraham. Accordingly, the
Book of Esther opens with an account of a great feast given by the
king, in the third year of his reign, to all his princes and his servants;
the power of Persia and of Media, the nobles and princes of the pro
vinces being before him. This carouse lasted a hundred and four score
days, during which time he showed the riches of his glorious kingdom
and the honour of his excellent majesty. Not content with the first
feast, at the end of this time he commenced again, and made a feast
unto all the people that were in Shushan the palace, both unto great
and small, seven days, in the court of the garden of the palace. The
number seven is frequently used in this book, and it is a favourite number
with Bible writers, and no doubt accounts for the fact that the whole
book is in a state of “ sixes and sevens 1” A minute account is given
of the upholstery of the apartments, and of the metal of which the
drinking cups were made. There was royal wine in abundance, and
the drinking was according to law—that is, every man was to do accord
ing to his pleasure, and no doubt many of them took more than was
good for them, for the king himself set the example. Also Vashti, the
queen, made a feast for the women in the royal house. Now, Vashti
is the only woman in the book who displays any virtues or qualities
worthy of admiration ; but her virtues, which should have been her
glory and protection, are her ruin, and the treatment she received can
not be justified in modern times upon any principle of justice or morality.
On the seventh day, when the heart of the king was merry with wine
(in plain English, when he was intoxicated), he commanded his seven
chamberlains to bring Vashti, the queen, before him, with the crown
royal, to show the people and the princes her beauty, for she was fair
to look on. But, like a modest and sedate woman, she refused to pre
sent herself to the rude gaze of the king and his court. Therefore was
the king very wroth, and his anger burned in him. He at once went
to law about the matter, by consulting the wise men who understood
the law, also the seven princes of Persia and Media, among whom wa$
one Memucan. The king asked what should be done with Vashti for
disobeying his orders, for he seemed terribly afraid of a disobedient
wife. Memucan answered and said, the queen hath not done wrong to
the king only, but also to all the princes, and to all the people that are
in all the provinces, when it should become known, for the wives would
despise their husbands if they should learn that the king had allowed
the queen to disobey his commands without rebuke. This noble prince
ended his address for the prosecution by the following suggestion : If
it please the king, let there go a royal commandment from him, ana
let it be written among the laws of the Persians and the Medes, that it
be not altered, that Vashti come no more before King Ahasuerus ; and
let the king give her royal estate unto another that is better than she.
And when the king’s decree which he shall make shall be published
throughout all his empire (for it is great), all the wives shall give to
their husbands honour, both to the great and small. . The queen was
never called upon to offer an explanation or justification of her conduct,
there was no speech for the defence, and the king, who sat as Judge
Ordinary, decided on his own case, and immediately pronounced a
decree nisi, condemning the respondent in all costs. And thus poor
�The Book of Esther.
3
Vashti was divorced and disgraced for possessing a virtue which is
universally admired among enlightened and refined people.
Now if there is any meaning at all in this disgraceful transaction—
and of course there must be a meaning of deep import in every word
of the sacred book, for do not preachers and commentators weave won
derful discourses out of half lines and incomplete sentences, showing
what the inspired penmen meant to say, and even what the Deity him
self was thinking of, but which unfortunately the text itself in its
entirety furnishes no clue to ?—now if there is any meaning in this dis
graceful divorcement of Queen Vashti, it is, that women are to be
subject to their husbands in all things, whether their personal liberty
be endangered or their moral sense outraged or not. The translators
have called it “the decree of men’s sovereignty.” It is a transaction,
nevertheless, in which all the honour attaches to the queen who was
punished, and the odium to the king who is praised for the deed. It
is continually so with Bible morality—the good is put as the bad, and
the bad as the good. But, happily for humanity, they are rapidly out
growing such misleading teaching.
And out of this questionable transaction arise all the subsequent blood
and murder recorded in this delectable book. If any good is supposed
to have accrued to the world from the doings of Mordecai and Esther,
the Lord does indeed work in mysterious ways ! After the decree had
gone forth, the king cooled down, and when he became sober he thought
of Vashti, and how harsh he had been to her • but those who had coun
selled her banishment, not wishing him to relent, lest their own wives
might expect to be forgiven after having been condemned, suggested
that all the officers in all the provinces should be commissioned with
the very agreeable task of collecting together all the pretty girls they
could find and bringing them to Shushan, for the king to choose one from,
who should be queen instead of Vashti. This idea pleased him, and
he ordered it to be done. Now as the kingdom consisted of 127 pro
vinces, and all the pretty girls were collected together, the bevy of
beauties at Shushan must have been the finest ever seen at one exhibi
tion. But notwithstanding all these charms and counter-charms, the
king was really able to make a choice. The wonder is that the poor
man was not so overpowered, that he resolved to keep the whole of
them ! However, it took him nearly four years to make up his mind.
His choice ultimately fell upon Esther, the lady whose name furnishes
the title to the sacred book in which her career is recorded. She had
seven maidens to wait upon her, and was chosen in the seventh year of
thè reign of the king. We are not told what her age was at this time ;
but that is not remarkable, as it is generally very difficult to learn what
any lady’s age is I Esther was an orphan and a Jewess, but this latter
fact was carefully concealed from the king by order of Mordecai, the
“nursing father” of Esther, as he is called—as fine a specimen of the
cunning Hebrew as is to be found on record. The Jews at this time
were in captivity—a state little better than slavery. Mordecai and
Esther were first cousins, and Mordecai promptly availed himself of the
opportunity of selling his interesting relative to the highest bidder, but
with a shrewd eye to his own interests at the same time. During the
long while Esther was waiting her turn to be presented to the king,
Mordecai walked every day before the court of the women’s house, to
know how Esther did, and what should become of her. As soon as
Esther was crowned, Mordecai came forward, and “sat in the gate of
the king.” It is not clear what this means—it is very much like being
�4
The Book of Esther.
allowed to sit on the door step. Whilst he was thus “hanging about,”
he overheard two of the door-keepers express some intention of laying
hands on the king. This was an opportunity sent by Providence to
enable Mordecai to show his loyalty. He at once improved the occa
sion, and told Esther, who told the king, at the same time making the
king understand to whom he was indebted for the information. The
two conspirators were hanged, but Mordecai was not rewarded for his
zeal.
Haman was promoted to be chief over all the princes. All the king’s
servants, as in duty bound, bowed down and reverenced Haman ; but
Mordecai, being annoyed at being passed over, refused to bow down,
notwithstanding he was spoken to about it daily. He threw off his
reserve now that his cousin was queen, and told them that he belonged
to the “stiff-necked” race. This incensed Haman very much, and he
resolved to be revenged not alone on Mordecai, but upon his whole tribe.
Haman told the king that there was a certain people scattered abroad
and dispersed among the provinces of the kingdom, whose laws were
different, and who did not obey the king’s laws, therefore it was not for
the king’s profit to suffer them—mildly suggesting that they should be
destroyed, and offering ten thousand talents of silver to the hands of
those who should have the charge of the slaughter. As in the case of
poorVashti, the king without hesitation acquiesced, and seemed in a
hurry to get that bit of business off his hands. Letters were despatched
into every province, written in all the languages of the people, and
sealed with the king’s ring, with orders “ to destroy, to kill, and to
cause to perish, all Jews, both young and old, little children and women,
in one day, and to take the spoil of them for a prey.” After this,
“ the king and Haman sat down to drink.”
It is the fashion with some people to praise Mordecai for his stubborn
will and manly spirit in refusing to bow down to the First Minister of
State, as though he had done it from a wholesome contempt of the
pomp and pride of court hirelings. But there is nothing in the text to
warrant that interpretation. In fact, no word is vouchsafed in explana
tion of why he refused, except that he was a Jew, and that certainly
gave him no virtue in the matter, for if he objected to the pride of
Haman the Gentile, it was only with the greater pride of Mordecai the
Jew. Mordecai belonged to the “ chosen people,” and we see in our
own day how people will strut and plume - themselves when clothed in
the garments of self-righteousness.
When Mordecai heard of the sanguinary decree, of course he was very
much alarmed, and did that silly and dirty trick peculiar to the favour
ites of the Lord—he tore his clothes and put on sack-cloth and ashes.
He went before the palace crying with a loud and bitter cry, but he was
too dusty to be allowed to enter into the king’s gate. Information of
Mordecai’s grief was conveyed to Esther, also of the state of his ward
robe, when she immediately sent him fresh raiment, with orders to take
away the sack-cloth and ashes ; but he preferred his rags and dirt.
Then the queen sent her chamberlain to Mordecai to know what troubled
him, and how it was. He sent her a copy of the decree, together with
all the particulars, with a request that she would go to the king and
make supplication for her people. There was some danger attendant
upon the carrying out of this request, as a law existed whereby all who
came to the king into the inner court without being called, should be
put to death, unless the king pardoned them ; and as the queen had not
seen her loving husband for a month, she was afraid to go to him un-
�The Book of Esther.
5
called. This was conveyed to Mordecai, wno replied—“ Think not
with thyself that thou shalt escape in the king’s house, more than all
the Jews.” This determined Esther, who told Mordecai to gather to
gether all the Jews who were in town, and with them to fast three days
and three nights, and she and her maidens would do likewise. This
species of praying for success, is at best but an empty supplication.
Paine says the Jews never prayed but when they were in trouble, and
never for anything but victory, vengeance, and riches. But she said —
‘ ‘ I will go to the king, which is not according to the law : and if I
perish, I perish.” This was noble—this was daring, and worthy of a
heroine. One might expect from this that Esther was full of all noble
qualities. On the contrary, she had the smoothness of the leopard
with the ferocity of the tiger. Here she resolved, at all hazards to
herself, to beg for the lives of the Jews. But listen to the result of her
mission.
On the third day she ventured unbidden into the royal presence, and
to her great relief the king was overjoyed to see her, and said : “ What
wilt thou, Queen Esther ? and what is thy request ? it shall be even
given thee to the half of the kingdom ?” The king was a mighty man
at a feast, and Esther, knowing his strong point, and also anticipating
it would be favourably received, had prepared a banquet, to which she
invited him, including Haman in the invitation. Throughout Bible
history, it will be found that the pot and the platter formed either the
prelude or the sequel to nearly all great undertakings or events. Of
course the king accepted the invitation to dine out in his own house,
and Haman was only too happy and proud to attend him. After the
wine had gone round, the king again repeated his offer, that whatever
request Esther made, even to the half of his kingdom, it should be
granted. She was still cautious and hesitating, not being sure that the
roystering monarch was fed up to the proper pitch for her purpose; so
she said that if the king and Haman would come to another feast on the
following day, she would then make known her request. This was
agreed to. Then went Haman forth that day joyful and with a glad
heart. But his exultation was of short duration, for he had not gone
far before he nearly fell over that obstinate old Mordecai, who refused
to get up or move out of his way. This filled him with indignation,
but still he restrained himself till he reached home, when he sent for
his friends and for.Zeresh, his wife. “ And Haman told them of the
glory of his riches, and the multitude of his children, and all the things
wherein the king had promoted him,” for he was a man of great self
importance, and was quite overpowered if he did not receive a proper
amount of deference from his presumed inferiors. After recounting
his wonderful position, he said : “Yet all this availeth me nothing so
long a,s I.see Mordecai the Jew sitting at the king’s gate.” His wife
and his friends told him to cheer up, and get a gallows made fifty cubits
high, and at the morrow’s banquet to speak unto the king that Mor
decai might be hanged thereon. This humane suggestion pleased
Haman much, and, like a modern Governor Eyre, he thereupon issued
his order for the erection of that neat piece of architecture—an instru
ment still used in this country to finish the education which the priest
begins.
It so happened, and very fortunately so for Mordecai, that the night
before this second banquet the king was not able to sleep, so he thought
he would read awhile, and therefore ordered the book of records to be
brought, and in this he found chronicled the name and services of Mor*
�6
The Book of Esther.
decai in informing of the two doorkeepers who had got up a little con
spiracy agaifist himself. The king asked what honour and dignity had
been done to Mordecai for this. He was told nothing. He exclaimed,
Who is in the court ? He was answered, Haman. Now, Haman, un
fortunately for himself, had gone there post haste, not waiting till the
morning, to crave the boon of being allowed to elevate poor Mordecai
fifty cubits high. It was an ominous moment for him. He was ordered
into the king’s presence, who, not giving him time to speak, asked :
“What shall be done unto the man whom the king delighteth to
honour?” Now, Haman thought in his heart, To whom would the
king delight to do honour more than to myself? He therefore resolved
not to underdo the matter, and modestly proposed that the happy indi
vidual should be decked out in the royal apparel, the crown put upon
his head, the whole mounted upon the king’s horse, and led through
the streets of the city by one of the noblest princes, and to be pro
claimed before him, “ Thus shall it be done to the man whom the king
delighteth to honour.” But what was Haman’s utter astonishment and
consternation when he was told to make haste and do all he had said
unto Mordecai the Jew, the man whom he hated above all other men.
But this was not the last time in which Haman was destined to be
caught in his own trap. He hurried home hiding his head, and told
his wife and friends of his disappointment. He was a fallen Minister,
and they all felt that Mordecai, the Benjamin Disraeli of his time, would
lead the Opposition on to the Treasury benches. And while they were
talking, the messenger came to summons Haman to the second banquet
which Esther had prepared. But he was in no mood for eating. He
had not yet digested the bitter pill of Mordecai’s advancement. The
king again asked Esther what boon she craved. She said : “ Let my
life be given me at my petition, and my people at my request. For we
are sold, I and my people, to be destroyed, to be slain, and to perish.”
Though five years had elapsed since their marriage, this appears to have
been the first time the king knew that his wife was a Jewess. He
asked, ‘ ‘ Who is he, and where is he, that durst presume in his heart
to do so ?” The king had forgotten all about the decree he had made
and signed with his own ring, for the utter destruction of the people
who were scattered throughout all his provinces. That was too small
a matter to dwell in his memory. Esther answered and said, “The
adversary and enemy is this wicked Haman.” Thq king rushed into
the garden in great fury, and whilst he was gone Haman became much
alarmed for his own»safety ; and when the king returned he found
Haman on his knees beseeching Esther to intercede with the king on
his behalf. The king mistook the meaning of the supplication, and
became jealous as well as angry. This sealed the fate of poor Haman,
who was immediately seized and his face covered. An obliging cham
berlain who was standing by, with the usual readiness of court syco
phants to help a fallen favourite, told the king that Haman had got
a gallows already erected, which was intended for Mordecai, the rising
minister. Upon this hint the king spake, and told them to hang Haman
thereon. “ So they hanged Haman on the gallows that he had pre
pared for Mordecai. Then was the king’s wrath pacified.” Thus
Haman was literally the architect of his own fortune, and ultimately
graced his own structure. But the king was not blameless in the matter
—he was more to blame than Haman himself, for he signed a san
guinary decree at the first time of asking, and without making the
slightest inquiry into the justice of what he was about to do. Yet this
�The Book of Esther.
7
is the man into whose hands God had committed the care of a portion
of his “ chosen people. ” This justifies the saying that Christianity is
much indebted for its preservation to the vilest and silliest characters in
all ages and countries.
The king, as is the wont of monarchs, bestowed the dead man’s pro
perty upon his favourite, and Esther became enriched by Haman’s
death. Mordecai also experienced rapid promotion, as he was for the
first time introduced to the king as Esther’s relative. And the king
took off his ring, which he had taken from Haman, and gave it unto
Mordecai ; and Esther set Mordecai over Jhe House of Haman. The
Jews’ star was now in the ascendant. The queen then besought the
king to revoke his edict against the Jews, which had been issued at
the instigation of Haman. Being a most yielding man, and having the
amiable weakness of granting everything to everybody at the moment
of asking, whether it was the slaughter of a whole race, or the hanging
of an individual even on his own new gallows, he consented without a
murmur to reverse what he had done a short time before, and com
manded Mordecai, saying—“ Write ye also for the Jews, as it liketh
you, in the king’s name, and seal it with the king’s ring ; for the writ
ing which is written in the king’s name, and sealed with the king’s ring,
may no man reverse. ” Mordecai’s patience and perseverance were at
length rewarded, and his day of triumph had arrived. Having carte
blanche from the king, he availed himself of it to the fullest extent. He
■sent proclamations into all the provinces, in which he said “ the king
had granted the Jews in every city to gather themselves together, and
to stand for their life, to destroy, to slay, and to cause to perish, all
the power of the people and province that would assault them, both
little ones and women, and to take the spoil of them for a prey.” Not
content with telling the Jews they might destroy, slay, and cause to
perish all who assaulted them, he ordered them all to be in readiness
on the thirteenth day of the twelfth month to avenge themselves on their
enemies. Mordecai then strutted out like a peacock to show his fine
feathers. He went out “ in royal apparel of blue and white, and with
a great crown of gold, and with a garment of fine linen and purple :
and the city of Shushan rejoiced and was glad. The Jews had light,
and, gladness, and joy, and honour. And in every province, and in
every city, whithersoever the king’s commandment and his decree came,
the Jews had joy and gladness, a feast and a good day. And many of
the people of the land became Jews ; for the fear of the Jews fell upon
them.”
V
Accordingly, on the fatal thirteenth of the twelfth month, the day on
which the Jews were to have been killed, the order of things was re
versed, for the Jews gathered themselves together in all the cities to lay
hands on such as sought their hurt ; and no man could withstand them ;
for the fear of them fell upon all people. All the king’s officials,
throughout the kingdom, like true time-servers and worshippers of
power, because the Prime Minister was a Jew, joined with the Jews
against their own countrymen ; and thus as bloody a coup a'état was
perpetrated in Asia in the year 509 before Christ, as that which took
place in France on the 2nd of December, 1851 years after this precious
Gospel came to bless mankind ! “ Thus the Jews smote all their
enemies with the stroke of the sword, and slaughter, and destruction,
and did what they would unto those that hated them. And in Shushan
the palace, the Jews slew and destroyed five hundred men.” The ten
sons of Haman slew they, thus carrying out the barbarous doctrine
�8
The Book of Esther.
taught in this holy book, of visiting the sins of the father upon the
children. “On that day the number of those that were slain in Shushan
were brought before the king. And the king said unto Esther the
queen—The Jews have slain and destroyed five hundred men in Shushan
the palace, and the ten sons of Haman ; what have they done in the
rest of the king’s provinces ? now what is thy petition ? and it shall be
granted thee : or what is thy request further? And it shall be done.”
Mark the fiendish answer of this tigress, sent of course by God to be
an instrument in the preservation of his favourite people. “ Then said
Esther—If it please the kin£, let it be granted to the Jews which are in
Shushan to do to-morrow also according unto this day’s decree, and let
Haman’s ten sons be hanged upon the gallows ! And the king com
manded it so to be done ; and the decree was given at Shushan ; and
they hanged Haman’s ten sons.” This was diabolical ferocity, prompted
by the direst spirit of revenge. Esther could not have forgotten that a
few minutes before the king had told her that the ten sons of Haman
had been slain, and therefore to hang them on the gallows was not with
the idea of killing them a second time, but merely for the gratification
of gloating over the ghastly corpses of ten men who had never injured
her, but who had the misfortune to be the sons of her enemy. This is
Bible morality, of which there are innumerable instances in this sacred
word of God. And so the slaughter went on, and the Jews gathered
themselves together on the fourteenth day, and in Shushan butchered
three hundred more men, and those in the provinces made up the total
number of victims seventy-five thousand. After this the Jews fell to
feasting and rejoicing, and called it a day of gladness, and resolved, at the
suggestion of Mordecai, to celebrate both the thirteenth and fourteenth
of the twelfth month as a festival every year. “ Then Esther the queen,
and Mordecai the Jew, wrote with all authority to confirm this, and
sent letters unto all the Jews in the 127 provinces, with words of peace
and truth.” “For Mordecai the Jew was next unto King Ahasuerus,
and great among the Jqws, and accepted of the multitude of his brethren,
seeking the wealth of bis people, and speaking peace to all his seed. ”
And thus ends this eventful history.
We close this blood-stained Book of Esther with feelings of loathing
and disgust. There is not one principle of morality inculcated through
out the entire narrative ; there is but one estimable or worthy character
depicted therein, and she is a victim ; the incidents recorded are inci
dents of drunkenness, domestic tyranny, lust, ambition, vacillation,
revenge, and wholesale and brutal murder of innocent men, women,
and children. There is no inspiration, no instruction, no moral eleva
tion in it. It is one dull, dead level of brutality aud animal indul
gence. The first chapter commences with a gross outrage upon the
delicacy of a sensitive woman, and ends by her being divorced and
disgraced, that “ man’s sovereignty ” may be upheld and proclaimed.
This can be quoted as an argument in favour of the oppression of one
half the human race, for does it not tally with that other passage in the
Bible, which says that woman shall be subject to the man ? Chapter
ii. enters into particulars of the utterly immoral way in which the king
chose a wife in succession to Vashti, and the calculating manner in
which Mordecai brought his foster daughter and relative to the market,
and sold her to the highest bidder. Chapter iii. is an account of an
ambitious minister, who, on being irritated and annoyed by a man
belonging to a despised race, who presumed upon his relationship to
�The Book of Esther.
9
the queen, seeks to have his enemy and his enemy’s race destroyed ;
and where a king, who should be the guardian of his people, condemns
to death a large number of his subjects at the mere request of one man.
Chapter iv. depicts the real cause of all this mischief and commotion
in a state of the most abject fear. There is no reason why Mordecai
should have hated and annoyed Haman, unless it was from a feeling of
envy at his elevation and good fortune. Chapter v. shows a man so
engrossed with a feeling of hatred, that he builds a gallows of his own
on which to hang his enemy. Chapter vi. pretends to relate how a
king can honour a subject who has served him ; but the story is so
overdone that it becomes outrageously improbable. Chapter vii. is an
attempt to pourtray an instance of retributive justice, but it is a failure,
for the wicked Haman, who dies on his own gallows, is not hanged for
seeking the lives of the Jews, but because the king in his mad fury
mistook the meaning of his subject’s supplication. Chapter viii. shows
a vacillating and sanguinary tyrant playing with the lives of his subjects
at the merest caprice, sparing neither women nor little innocent chil
dren. Chapter ix. contains an account of deeds worthy only of fiends,
the bear recital of which makes one shudder, but over which God’s
chosen cannibals rejoice and make merry, and call it a good day, which
they will celebrate with feasting and rejoicing through all coming time.
And Esther, the heroine of the book, God’s appointed agent to save
his peculiar people, when told of the glorious slaughter which her
brethren had had the first day, begged the boon of one more day of
the hellish work, that the agony might be prolonged, that more wives
might be made widows, that there should be more children made
orphans, that the desolation might be more widespread, and that the
wail of despair might again resound through the affrighted city. And
chapter x. closes the book with the pompous parade of Mordecai’s
greatness in the eyes of the multitude, and of his ‘ ‘ seeking the wealth
of his people, and speaking peace to all his seed.” Oh, bitter mockery !
the peace he had won was the peace of the grave and the silence of
death.
And this is the inspired word of God ; and these are the people for
whom the Lord had an especial liking. What could have been the
object of the concoctors of the Bible in including this book among the
canonical gospels ? It could not have been intended as a compliment
to the Deity, because his name is never mentioned in it under any one
title by which he is known. It does not point the way to mansions in
the skies ; for though death, in all its ghastliness, is constantly present,
any supposed immortality is never alluded to. Even the most besotted
bigot could scarcely maintain that it was intended to convey a moral
lesson in any one chapter or verse. Nothing could be more ferocious
and imbecile than this king, who grants everything that is asked of him
by every favourite of the hour, and who not even by accident performs
a good action. The queen too, who to graces of person should have
added beauties of heart and mind, on the only occasion on which she
possessed the power of doing anything great or good, manifested a dis
position which would disgrace a North American savage when on the
war trail. Then what is the object of this book? It can only be in
tended to show the “providential” preservation of the Jews from a
great peril, and, being the children of God, it was necessary that they
should be spared to carry out God’s plans upon earth. Was anything
ever more monstrous than this ? If what is recorded of the Jews in the
Bible be true, they are as vile a race as ever trod the earth.
�10
The Book of Esther.
And this book is read in Sunday-schools, and these are the lessons
implanted in the young and tender minds of children. From the
earliest moment they are taught to reverence this volume as the sacred
word of God, and not to doubt or call in question, on pain of eternal,
never-ending torments, a single line or word therein ? What does
Theodore Parker say on this point ?—
“To the Bible the minister prostitutes his mind and conscience,
heart and soul ; on the authority of an anonymous Hebrew book, he
will justify the slaughter of innocent men, women, and children, by the
thousand ; and, on that of an anonymous Greek book, he will believe,
or at least command others to believe, that man is born totally de
praved, and God will perpetually slaughter men in hell by the million,
though they had committed no fault, except that" of not believing an
absurd doctrine they had never heard of. Ministers take the Bible in
the lump as divine; all between the lids of the book is equally the
‘ Word of God,’ infallible and miraculous : he that believeth it shall
be saved, and he that believeth not shall be damned ; no amount of
piety and morality can make up for not believing this. No doctor is
ever so subordinate to his drug, no lawyer lies so prone before statute
and custom, as the mass of ministers before the Bible, the great fetish
of Protestant Christendom. The Ephesians did not so worship their
great goddess Diana and the meteoric stone which fell down from
Jupiter. ‘We can believe anything,’ say they, ‘which has a “ Thus
saith the Lord ” before or after it.’ The Bible is not only master of
the soul, it is also a talisman to keep men from harm ; bodily contact
with it, through hand or eye, is a part of religion ; so it lies in railroad
stations, in the parlours and sleeping chambers of taverns, and the
cabins of ships, only to be seen and touched, not read. The pious
mother puts it in the trunk of her prodigal son about to travel, and
while she knows he is Wasting her substance in riotous living, she con
tents herself with the thought that ‘ he has got his Bible with him, and
promised to read a chapter every day !’ So the Catholic mother uses
an image of the ‘Virgin Mother of God,’ and the Rocky Mountain
savage a bundle of grass : it is a fetish."
Now, a God of mercy, and justice, and lovingkindness can never
approve of this. This delusion is perpetuated, and this evil is kept up
by some from interested motives ; by others from ignorance of the real
nature of the book they were taught in their infancy to prostrate their
reason before, and by most from a feeling of fanaticism and supersti
tion. Thomas Paine, who speaks as a Deist, says :—
“ It has been the practice of all Christian commentators on the Bible,
and of all Christian priests and preachers, to impose the Bible on the
world as a mass of truth, and as the word of God ; they have disputed
and wrangled, and have anathematised each other about the supposable
meaning of particular parts and passages therein—one has said and
insisted that such a passage meant such a thing ; another that it meant K
directly the contrary ; and a third, that it neither meant one nor the
other, but something different from both—and this they call understand
ing the Bible. There are matters in that book, said to be done by the
express command of God, that are as shocking to humanity, and to every
idea we have of moral justice, as anything done by Robespierre, by
Carrier, by Joseph le Bon, in France ; by the English Government in
the East Indies ; or by any other assassin in modem times. When we
read in the books ascribed to Moses, Joshua, &c., that the Israelites
came by stealth upon whole nations of people, who, as the history it
�The Book of Esther.
11
self shows, had given them no offence—that they put all those nations
to the sword; that they spared neither age nor infancy; that they utterly
destroyed men, women, and children; that they left- not a soul to
breathe ; expressions that are repeated over and over again in those
books, and that too with exulting ferocity ; are we sure these things are
facts ? Are we sure that the Creator of man commissioned these things
to be done ? Are we sure that the books which tell us so were written
by his authority ? To charge the commission of acts upon the Almighty,
which in their nature, and by every rule of moral justice, are crimes—
as all assassination is, and more especially the assassination of infants—
is matter of serious concern. The Bible tells us that these assassinations
were done by the express commartd of God. To believe therefore the
Bible to be true, we must unbelieve all our belief in the moral justice of
God : for wherein could crying or smiling infants offend ? And to read
the Bible without horror, we must undo everything that is tender,
sympathising, and benevolent in the heart of man. Speaking for my
self, if I had no other evidence that the Bible is fabulous, than the
sacrifice I must make to believe it to be true, that alone would be suf
ficient to determine my choice.”
What can be done to sweep this delusion from the minds of men,
which for nearly eighteen hundred years has been preached to them by
the aid of church and cannon, sword and surplice? For ages the
pioneer of truth was always its martyr, till despair almost entered the
heart of those who sought the service of humanity. But there still re
mained a heroic few who nobly passed the banner of truth from gene
ration to generation, till it has reached our time, and now waves more
freely in the breezes of awakened intelligence, which ere long will swell
i.nto a whirlwind of enlightenment, which shall sweep before it every
vestige of the dark clouds of ignorance and superstition which have
overshadowed the fair face of nature, and been the prolific parents of
all those calamities which have befallen poor humanity groping its way
through the darkness of ignorance, and stumbling at every step over
those things which might be turned into stepping-stones to assist their
onward march, if they had but more mental light with which to illumine
their path through life.
If I were a believer in a Special Providence answering the supplica
tions of men, I would kneel at the “throne of grace,” and importune
the Deity to end this war, and strife, and hatred among his children.
Not with a scoffing tongue do I now say it, but in all seriousness, as
becomes the solemnity of such a task, and I would offer up this
PRAYER.
O God, who art omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent; allpowerful, all-wise, and all-just; who existed before time was, and who
made all-things ; who searchest the hearts of all, and knowest our most
secret thoughts—vouchsafe but one word that shall stop at once and
for ever all the horrors that are committed in thy name; utter it in the
thunder that all may hear to the remotest comers of the earth, or write
it across the heavens in characters that all, of every nation and every
tongue, may read and understand. Thou knowest, in thy infinite
wisdom, that men, groping their way by the dim light of ages past,
fail to see the truth they fain would reach. Some by accident find the
precious treasure; others clutch error, and, clinging to it with the
tenacity of despair, make war upon all around them. O thou bene
ficent Deity, one word from thee would open the eyes of all, making
�12
The Book of Esther.
the blind to see and the dull to understand. This Bible, for which men
lie, and cheat, and persecute—which inculcates doctrines the most con
tradictory, immoral, and revolting—which records deeds done in thy
name at which humanity shudders aghast—can it be thy message of
mercy to mankind? Didst thou, in thy boundless benevolence, in
spire its pages, and in thy immutable justice send it as a guide for the
human race ? Is it serving thee for the professors of Bible religion to
rend one another? In one country, Catholic Christians imprison and
torture their Protestant brethren ; in another, the Protestants tax,
persecute, and oppress their Catholio fellow-subjects, and all in thy
name. Eighteen hundred years ago a Jew who preached a new doc
trine was cruelly put to death. An effigy of his mangled and bleeding
body, nailed to a cross, is the emblem of Christians, under which they
have made war, and slaughtered tens and hundreds of thousands of
their fellow creatures. This murdered man is called thy Son, and all
are commanded to worship him, on pain of death in some countries,
and of social persecution and hatred in others. Are we justified, O
God, in thy sight in regarding this symbol of blood and suffering as a
sign of thy love for the family of man ? In England (this small speck
in thy immense universe), there are thousands of thy creatures steeped
in the deepest poverty and crime; thousands lolling in the lap of luxury,
extravagance, and wealth ; thousands of priests paid millions a year,
wrung from the hard earnings of industry, to preach what is called thy
“holy word,” which in one part declares “the poor will not cease
from out the land.” Is this, O Lord, the most perfect state of society to
which men can attain ? Every despot in Europe, who oppresses his
subjects, and slaughters them if they complain, is styled “ Most Chris
tian Majesty,” and he declares that he rules by right divine derived
direct from thee. The Pope of Rome, the head of an ecclesiastical
despotism, which keeps men ignorant and rules them as slaves, is called
thy Vicegerent upon earth. All claim Bible sanction for what they do.
My sense of right revolts at all this, and I beseech thee, O thou God
of justice and righteousness, to direct me in the right path, if I am
erring in my judgment of thy goodness and truth. Rather would I
say, the vast majority of the populations of the world are tortured and
enslaved by the dominant few who rule in thy name, because the
masses are ignorant and therefore helpless. In anguish I cry unto
thee—
“ When wilt thou save the people,
O God of mercy, when ?
Not crowns and thrones, but nations;
Not kings and lords, but men ?”
One word from thy everlasting lips would bind all hearts in one; would
reconcile man to man the world over; would inaugurate the reign of
love and peace, and banish hate and all uncharitableness. Speak this
word, O Lord, I implore thee, that man may go on his way rejoicing,
giving and receiving pleasure ; shed thy radiance on mankind, that they
may feel thy kingdom has come ; establish thy Paradise upon earth ;
and thine be the kingdom, the power, and the glory, for ever and ever.
PRICE TWOPENCE.
London : Printed and Published by Austin & Co., I7> Johnson’s
Court, Fleet Street, E.C.
�
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The book of Esther: a specimen of what passes as the inspired word of God
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Holyoake, Austin [1826-1874]
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Collation: 12 p. ; 19 cm.
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Atheism
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PDF Text
Text
THE
Principles of Secularism
Sllustratem
BY
GEORGE JACOB
HOLYOAKE.
“Do the duty nearest hand,”—Goethe.
[third
edition, revised.]
LONDON:
BOOK STORE, 282, STRAND ;
Austin
& co.,
17,
Johnson’s court, fleet street.
1870
t
• XMt i i
m J C 4^4
t**A.-M4* *-I
»
�“ If you think it right to differ from the times, and to make a stand for any
valuable point of morals, do it, however rustic, however antiquated, how
ever pedantic it may appear ; do it, not for insolence, but seriously—as a
man who wore a soul of his own in his bosom, and did not wait till it was
breathed into him by the breath of fashion.”—'The Rev. Sidney Smith,
Canon of St. Paul’s.
�CONTENTS.
•PAGE.
Chapter
I.—Introductory.
Chapter
II.—The Term Secularism.
5
8
Chapter
III.—Principles of Secularism Defined,
11
Chapter
IV.—Laws of Secular Controversy.
Chapter
V.—Maxims of Association.
•14
16
Chapter
VI.—The Secular Guild.
18
Chapter VII.—Organization Indicated.
2'1
Chapter VIII.—The Place of Secularism.
25
Chapter
IX.—Characteristics of Secularism,
2.7
��5
INTRODUCTORY.
CHAPTER I.
N a passage of characteristic sagacity, Dr. J. H. Newman
has depicted the partisan aimlessness more descriptive
of the period when this little book first appeared, sixteen years
ago, than it is now. But it will be long before its relevance and
instruction have passed away. I therefore take the liberty of
still quoting his words :—
“ When persons for the first time look upon the world of
politics or religion, all that they find there meets their mind’s
eye, as a landscape addresses itself for the first time to a
person who has just gained his bodily sight. One thing is as
far off as another; there is no perspective. The connection
of fact with fact, truth with truth, the bearing of fact
upon truth, and truth upon fact,. what leads to what,
what are points primary and what secondary, all this
they have yet to learn. It is all a new science to them,
and they do not even know their ignorance of it. Moreover,
the world of to-day has no connection in their minds with the
world of yesterday; time is not a stream, but stands before
them round and full, like the moon. They do not know what
happened ten years ago, much less the annals of a century:
the past does not live to them in the present; they do not
understand the worth of contested points; names have no
associations for them, and persons kindle no recollections.
They hear of men, and things, and projects, and struggles,
and principles; but everything comes and goes like the wind;
nothing makes an impression, nothing penetrates, nothing has
its place in their minds. They locate nothing : they have no
system. They hear and they forget ; or they just recollect
what they have once heard, they cannot tell where. Thus
they have no consistency in their arguments; that is, they
argue one way to-day, and not exactly the other way
to-morrow, but indirectly the other way at random. Their
�6
INTRODUCTORY.
lines of argument diverge ; nothing comes to a point; there
is no one centre in which their mind sits, on which their
judgment of men and things proceeds. This is the state of
many men all through life; and miserable politicians or Church
men they make, unless by good luck they are in safe hands,
and ruled by others, or are pledged to a course. Else they
are at the mercy of the wind and waves ; and without being
Radical, Whig, Tory, or Conservative, High Church or Low
Church, they do Whig acts, Tory acts, Catholic acts, and
Heretical acts, as the fit takes them, or as events or parties
drive them. And sometimes when their self importance is
hurt, they take refuge in the idea that all this is a proof that
they are unfettered, moderate, dispassionate, that they observe
the mean, that they are no ‘ party menwhen they are, in
fact, the most helpless of slaves; for our strength in this world
is, to be the subjects of the reason and our liberty, to be
captives of the truth.”*
How the organization of ideas has fared with higher class
societies others can tell: the working class have been left so
much in want of initiative direction that almost everything has
to be done among them, and an imperfect and brief attempt
to direct those interested in Freethought may meet with some
acceptance. To clamour for objects without being able to
connect them with principles; to smart under contumely with
out knowing how to protect themselves; to bear some lofty
name without understanding the manner in which character
should correspond to profession—this is the amount of the
popular attainment.
In this new Edition I find little to alter and less to add. In
a passage on page 27, the distinction between Secular instruc
tion and Secularism is explained, in these words :—“ Secular
education is by some confounded with Secularism, whereas the
distinction between them is very wide. Secular education
simply means imparting Secular knowledge separately—by
itself, without admixture of Theology with it. The advocate
of Secular education may be, and generally is, also an
advocate of religion; but he would teach religion at another
time and treat it as a distinct subject, too sacred for coercive
admixture into the hard and vexatious routine of a school. He
* “ Loss and Gain,” ascribed to the Rev. Father Newman.
�INTRODUCTORY.
7
would confine the inculcation of religion to fitting seasons and
chosen instruments. He holds also that one subject at a time
is mental economy in learning. Secular education is the policy
of a school—Secularism is the policy of life to those who do
not accept Theology.”
Very few persons admitted that these distinctions existed
when this passage was written in 1854. This year, 1870, they
have been substantially admitted by the Legislature in con
cession made in the National Education Bill. It only remains
to add that the whole text has been revised and re-arranged
in an order which seems more consecutive. The portion on
Secular Organizations has been abridged, in part re-written,
explaining particulars as to the Secular Guild.
A distinctive summary of Secular principles may be read
under the article “ Secularism,” in Chambers’s Cyclopaedia.
�8
THE TERM SECULARISM.
THE TERM SECULARISM.
CHAPTER II.
“ The adoption of the term Secularism is justified by its including a large
number of persons who are not Atheists, and uniting them for action which
has Secularism for its object, and not Atheism. On this ground, and because,
by the adoption of a new term, a vast amount of impediment from prejudice
is got rid of, the use of the name Secularism is found advantageous.”—
Harriet Martineau. Boston Liberator.—Letter to Lloyd Garrison,
November, 1853.
VERY one observant of public- controversy in England,
is aware of its improved tone of late years. This im
proved tone is part of a wider progress. Increase of wealth
has led to improvement of taste, and the diffusion of knowledge
to refinement of sentiment. The mass are better dressed,
better mannered, better spoken than formerly. A coffeeroom discussion, conducted by mechanics, is now a more
decorous exhibition than a debate in Parliament was in the
days of Canning * Boisterousness at the tables of the rich,
and insolence in the language of the poor, are fast disappear
ing. “ Good society ” is now that society in which people
practise the art of being genial, without being familiar, and in
which an evincible courtesey of speech is no longer regarded
as timidity or effeminacy, but rather as proof of a disciplined
spirit, which chooses to avoid all offence, the better to maintain
the right peremptorily punishing wanton insult. Theologians,
more inveterate in speech than politicians, now observe a
respectfulness to opponents before unknown. That diversity
of opinion once ascribed to “badness of heart” is now, with
more discrimination, referred to defect or diversity of under
standing—a change which, discarding invective, recognizes
instruction as the agent of uniformity.
Amid all this newness of conception it must be obvious that
* From whose lips the House of Commons cheered a reference to a
political adversary as “ the revered and ruptured Ogden.”
�THE TERM SECULARISM;
9
many old terms of theological controversy are obsolete. The
idea of an “ Atheist ” as one warring against moral restraints
—of an “Infidel” as one treacherous to the truth—of a
“ Freethinker ” as a “ loose thinker,”* arose in the darkness
of past times, when men fought by the flickering light of their
hatreds—times which tradition has peopled with monsters of
divinity as well as of nature. But the glaring colours in which
the party names invented by past priests were dyed, no
longer harmonize with the quieter taste of the present day.
The more sober spirit of modern controversy has, therefore,
need of new terms, and if the term “ Secularism ” was merely
a neutral substitute for “ Freethinking,” there would be
reason for its adoption. Dissenters might as well continue
the designation of “ Schismatics,” or Political Reformers that
of “ Anarchists,” as that the students of Positive Philosophy
should continue the designation “Atheism,” “Infidelism,” or
any similar term by which their opponents have contrived to
brand their opinions. It is as though a merchant vessel should
consent to carry a pirate flag. Freethinker is, however,
getting an acceptable term. Upon the platform, Christian
disputants frequently claim it, and resent the exclusive
assumption of it by others. These new claimants say, “We
are as much Freethinkers as yourselves,” so that it is neces
sary to define Freethinking. It is fearless thinking, based
upon impartial inquiry, searching on both sides, not regarding
doubt as a crime, or opposite conclusions as a species of moral
poison. Those who inquire with sinister pre-possessions will
never inquire fairly. The Freethinker fears not to follow a
conclusion to the utmost limits of truth, whether it coincides
with the Bible or contradicts it. If therefore any pronounce
the term “ Secularism ” “ a concealment or a disguise,” they
can do so legitimately only after detecting some false meaning
it is intended to convey, and not on the mere ground of its
being a change of name, since nothing can more completely
“ conceal and disguise ” the purposes of Freethought than the
old names imposed upon it by its adversaries, which associate
with guilt its conscientious conclusions and impute to it as out
rages, its acts of self-defence.
Besides the term Secularism, there was another term which
seemed to promise also distinctiveness of meaning—namely,
As the Reverend Canon Kingsley has perversely rendered it.
�IO
THE TERM SECULARISM.
Cosmism, under which adherents would have taken the designa
tion of Cosmists. But this name scientific men would have under
stood in a purely physical sense, after the great example of
Humboldt, and the public would not all have understood it—
besides, it was open to easy perversion in one of its declinations.
Next to this, as a name, stands that of Realism—intrinsically
good. A Society of Realists would have been intelligible,
but many would have supposed it to be some revival of the
old Realists. Moralism, a sound name in itself, is under
Evangelical condemnation as “ mere morality.” Naturalism
would seem an obvious name, were it not that we should
be confounded with Naturalists, to say no more. Some
name must be taken, as was the case with the Theophilanthropists of Paris. Many of them would rather not have
assumed any denomination, but they yielded to the reason
able argument, that if they did not choose one for them
selves, the public would bestow upon them one which
would be less to their liking. Those who took the name
of Philantropes found it exposed them to a pun, which
greatly damaged them: Philantropes was turned into filoux
en troupe.
Historical characteristics, however, seemed to point to a
term which expressed the Secular element in life; a term
deeply engrafted in literature; of irreproachable associations;
a term found and respected in the dictionaries of opponents,
and to which, therefore, they might dispute our right, but
which they could not damage. Instead, therefore, of finding
ourselves self-branded or caricatured by this designation, we
have found opponents claiming it, and disputing with us for
its possession.
�PRINCIPLES OF SECULARISM DEFINED.
II
PRINCIPLES OF SECULARISM DEFINED.
CHAPTER III.
I.
ECULARISM is the study of promoting- human welfare
by material means ; measuring human welfare by the
utilitarian rule, and making the service of others a duty of life.
Secularism relates to the present existence of man, and to action,
the issues of which can be tested by the experience of this life—
having for its objects the development of the physical, moral,
and intellectual nature of man to the highest perceivable
point, as the immediate duty of society: inculcating the
practical sufficiency of natural morality apart from Atheism,
Theism, or Christianity: engaging its adherents in the pro
motion of human improvement by material means, and making
these agreements the ground of common unity for all who
would regulate life by reason and ennoble it by service. The
Secular is sacred in its influence on life, for by purity of mate
rial conditions the loftiest natures are best sustained, and the
lower the most surely elevated. Secularism is a series of
principles intended for the guidance of those who find
Theology indefinite, or inadequate, or deem it unreliable.
It replaces theology, which mainly regards life as a sinful
necessity, as a scene of tribulation through which we pass to a
better world. Secularism rejoices in this life, and regards it as
the sphere of those duties which educate men to fitness for any
future and better life, should such transpire.
A Secularist guides himself by maxims of Positivism,
seeking to discern what is in Nature—what ought to be in
morals—selecting the affirmative in exposition, concerning him
self with the real, the right, and the constructive. Positive
principles are principles which are provable. “A positive
�12
PRINCIPLES OF SECULARISM DEFINED.
precept,” says Bishop Butler> “is a precept the reason of
which we see.” Positivism is policy of material progress.
III.
Science is the available Providence of life. The problem to
be solved by a science of Society, is to find that situation in
which it shall be impossible for a man to be depraved or poor.
Mankind are saved by being served. Spiritual sympathy is a
lesser mercy than that forethought which anticipates and ex
tirpates the causes of suffering. Deliverance from sorrow or
injustice is before consolation—doing well is higher than mean
ing well—work is worship to those who accept Theism, and
duty to those who do not.
IV.
Sincerity, though not errorless, involves the least chance of
error, and is without moral guilt. Sincerity is well-informed,
conscientious conviction, arrived at by intelligent examination,
animating those who possess that conviction to carry it into
practice from a sense of duty. Virtue in relation to opinion
consists neither in conformity nor non-conformity, but in sincere
beliefs, and in living up to them.
V.
Conscience is higher than *
Consequence.
VI.
All pursuit of good objects with pure intent is religiousness
in the best sense in which this term appears to be used. A
“ good object ” is an object consistent with truth, honour,
justice, love. A pure “ intent ” is the intent of serving
humanity. Immediate service of humanity is not intended
to mean instant gratification, but “ immediate ” in contradistinc
tion to the interest of another life. The distinctive peculiarity
of the Secularist is, that he seeks that good which is dictated
by Nature, which is attainable by material means, and which
is of immediate service to humanity—a religiousness to which
the idea of God is not essential, nor the denial of the idea
necessary.
Vide Mr. Holdreths’ Papers.
�PRINCIPLES OF SECULARISM DEFINED.
13
VII.
Nearly all inferior natures are susceptible of moral
and physical improvability; this improvability can be indefinitely secured by supplying- proper material conditions;
these conditions may one day be supplied by a system of wise
and fraternal co-operation, which primarily entrenches itself
in common prudence, which enacts service according1 to
industrial capacity, and distributes wealth according- to rational
needs. Secular principles involve for mankind a future,
where there shall exist unity of condition with infinite diversity
of intellect, where the subsistence of ignorance and selfishness
shall leave men equal, and universal purity enable all things
—noble society, the treasures of art, and the riches of
the world—to be had in common.
VIII.
Since it is not capable of demonstration whether the
i nequalties ofhuman condition will be compensated for in another
life—it is the business of intelligence to rectify them in this
world. The speculative worship of superior beings, who
cannot need it, seems a lesser duty than the patient service
•of known inferior natures, and the mitigation of harsh
destiny, so that the ignorant may be enlightened and the
low elevated.
,t
�LAWS OF SECULAR CONTROVERSY.
LAWS OF SECULAR CONTROVERSY.
CHAPTER IV.
I.
IGHTS of Reason. As a means of developing- and
establishing- Secular principles, and as security that the
principles of Nature and the habit of reason may prevail,
Secularism uses itself, and maintains for others, as rights of
reason:—
The Free Search for Truth, without which its full attainment
is impossible.
The Free Utterance of the result, without which the increase
of Truth is limited.
The Free Criticism of alleged Truth, without which its
identity must remain uncertain.
The Fair Action of Conviction thus attained, without which
conscience will be impotent on practice.
II.
Standard of Appeal. “Secularism accepts no authority
but that of Nature, adopts no methods but those of science
and philosophy, and respects in practice no rule but that of
the conscience, illustrated by the common sense of mankind.
It values the lessons of the past, and looks to tradition as
presenting a storehouse of raw materials to thought, and in
many cases results of high wisdom for our reverence; but it
utterly disowns tradition as a ground of belief, whether
miracles and supernaturalism be claimed or not claimed on its
side. No sacred scripture or ancient church can be made
a basis of belief, for the obvious reason that their claims always
need to be proved, and cannot without absurdity be assumed.
The association leaves to its individual members to yield
whatever respect their own good sense judges to be due to
the opinions of great men, living or dead, spoken or written,
�LAWS OF SECULAR CONTROVERSY.
15
as also to the practice of ancient communities, national or
ecclesiastical. But it disowns all appeal to such authorities as
final tests of truth.”*
III.
Sphere of Controversy. Since the principles of Secular
ism rest on grounds apart from Theism, Atheism, or Christianism, it is not logically necessary for Secularists to debate the
truth of these subjects. In controversy, Secularism concerns
itself with the assertion and maintenance of its own affirma
tive propositions, combating only views of Theology and
Christianity so far as they interfere with, discourage, or dispa
rage Secular action, which may be done without digressing
into the discussion of the truth of Theism or divine origin of
the Bible.
IV.
Personal Controversy.
A Secularist will avoid indis
criminate disparagement of bodies or antagonism of persons,
and will place before himself simply the instruction and service
of an opponent, whose sincerity he will not question, whose
motives he will not impugn, always holding that a m.an whom
it is not worth while confuting courteously, is not worth while
confuting at all. Such disparagements as are included in the
explicit condemnation of erroneous principles are, we believe,
all that the public defence of opinion requires, and are the only
kind of disparagement a Secularist proposes to employ.
V.
Justification of Controversy.
The universal fair and open
discussion of opinion is the highest guarantee of public
truth—only that theory which is submitted to that ordeal is to
be regarded, since only that which endures it can be trusted.
Secularism encourages men to trust reason throughout, and
to trust nothing that reason does not establish—to examine
all things hopeful, respect all things probable, but rely upon
nothing without precaution which does not come within the
range of science and experience.
* “Programme of Freethought
(Reasoner, No. 388.)
Societies,” by F. W.
Newman.
�16
MAXIMS OF ASSOCIATION,
MAXIMS
OF ASSOCIATION.
CHAPTER V,
I.
T is the duty of every man to regulate his personal
and family interests so as to admit of some exertions
for the improvement of society. It is only by serving
those beyond ourselves that we can secure for ourselves
protection, sympathy, or honour. The neglect of home for
public affairs endangers philanthropy, by making it the enemy
of the household. To suffer, on the other hand, the interests
of the family to degenerate into mere selfism, is a dangerous
example to rulers.
II.
“ No man or woman is accountable to others for an^
conduct by which others are not injured or damaged.”*
III.
Social freedom consists in being subject to just rule and
to none other.
IV.
Service and endurance are the chief personal duties
of man.
V.
Secularism holds it to be the duty of every man to reserve
a portion of his means and energies for the public service, and
so to cultivate and cherish his powers, mental and physical, as
* D. in the Leader, 1850, who, as a correspondent, first expressed
this aphorism thus.
�MAXIMS OF ASSOCIATION.
17
to have them ever ready to perform service, as efficient as
possible, to the well-being of humanity. No weakness, no
passion, no wavering, should be found among those who are
battling for the cause of human welfare, which such errors
may fatally injure. Self-control, self-culture, self-sacrifice, are
all essential to those who would serve that cause, and wouldnot bring discredit upon their comrades in that service.
*
VI.
To promote in good faith and good temper the immedi
ate and material welfare of humanity, in accordance with the
laws of Nature, is the study and duty of a Secularist,
and this is the unity of principle which prevails amid whatever
diversity of opinion may subsist in a Secular Society, the bond
of union being the common convictions of the duty of advancing
the Secular good of this life, of the authority of natural
morality, and of the utility of material effort in the work of
human improvement. In other words, Secularist union implies
the concerted action of all who believe it right to promote the
Secular good of this life, to teach morality, founded upon the
laws of Nature, and to seek human improvement by material
methods, irrespective of any other opinions held, and irre
spective of any diversity of reasons for holding these.
* Mr. L. H. Holdreth, Religion of Duty.
�i8
THE SECULAR GUILD.
THE SECULAR GUILD.
CHAPTER VI.
EVERAL expositors of Secular principles, able to act
together, have for many years endeavoured by counsel,
by aid and by publication to promote Secular organiza
tion. At one time they conducted a Secular Institute in Fleet
Street, London—in 1854. The object was to form Secular
Societies for teaching the positive results of Freethought. In
the first edition of this work it was held to be desirable that there
should be a centre of reference for all inquirers upon Secular
principles at home and abroad. Attention should be guar
anteed to distant correspondents and visitors, so that means of
communication and publication of all advanced opinions in soci
ology, theology, and politics might exist, and be able to com
mand publicity, when expressed dispassionately, impersonally,
and with ordinary good taste.
It has been generally admitted that the operations at that
time conducted, helped to impart a new character to Freethought advocacy, and many of its recommendations have
since been copied by associations subsequently formed. The
promoters of Secularism alluded to, have not ceased in the
Reasoner and other publications, by lectures, by statements, by
articles, by pamphlets to urge a definite and consistent repre
sentation of Secular and Freethought principles: as many
mistake merely mechanical association for the organization
of ideas.
The promoters in question have since adopted the form of
action of a Secular Guild, and continue the Reasoner (of which
there is now issued a “ Review Series ”) as their organ. The
objects of a Council of the Guild is to promote, as far as means
may permit, or counsel prevail, organization of ideas:—
I.—To train Advocates of Secular principles.
�THE SECULAR GUILD.
19
2. —To advise an impersonal policy of advocacy, which seeking to carry its
ends by force of exposition, rather than of denunciation, shall command the
attention and respect of those who influence public affairs.
3. —To promote solution of political, social, and educational questions on
Secular and unsectarian grounds.
*
4. —To point out new Books of Secular relevance, and where possible, to
accredit Advocates of Secularism that the public may have some guidance,
and the party be no longer liable to be judged by whoever may appeai
to write or speak on the subject.
5. —To assist in the protection and defence of those injured, or attempted to
be injured on account of Freethought or Secularist opinion.
6. —To provide for the administration of property bequeathed for Secular
purposes, of which so much has been lost through the injustice of the law,
and machinations of persons opposed to Liberal views.
7. —When a member has been honourably counted on the side of Secularism,
has been a Subscriber or a Worker for a term of years, the Guild, keeping
a record of such Service, proposes to give a Certificate of it which among
Friends of Freethought may be a passport to recognition and esteem. To
constitute some such Freemasonry in Freethought, may elevate associa
tion in England. A certificate of Illuminism or of Carbonarism in Italy
was once handed down from father to son as an heirloom of honour, while
in England you have to supplicate men to join a society of progression,
instead of membership being a distinction which men shall covet. At
present a man who has given the best years of his life to the public service
is liable (if from any necessity he ceases to act) to be counted a renegade
by men who have never rendered twelve months’ consecutive or costly
service themselves. There ought to be a fixed term of Service, which, if
honourably and effectively rendered, should entitle a man to be considered
free, as a soldier after leaving the army, and his certificate of having
belonged to the Order of Secularism should entitle him to distinction and
to authority when his opinion was sought, and to exemption from all but
voluntary service. At present the soldiers of Progress, w’hen no longer
able to serve, are dismissed from the public eye, like the race-horse to the
cab stand, to obscurity and neglect. This needs correction before men can
be counted upon in the battle of Truth. A man is to be estimated
according to the aims of the party to which he is allied. He is to be
esteemed in consequence of sacrifices of time, and discipline of conduct,
which he contributes to the service and reputation of his cause.
In foreign countries many persons reside interested in
Secularism; in Great Britain indeed many friends reside where
* This has been done to some extent in the discussion of the National
Education question. The Proposer of the Guild contributed what he could
to this end by reading the paper published in the proceedings of the Con
ference of the Birmingham Education League, by letters like that to the
Daily News, commented upon by the Bishop of Peterborough, at Leicester
[see official publications of the Manchester National Education Union,] by
discussions as those with the Revs. Pringle and Baldwin, at Norwich, and
with Mr. Chas. Bradlaugh, at the Old Street Hall of Science, London; and
by Lectures during the time the question of National Education has been
before Parliament.
�20
THE SECULAR GUILD.
no Secular Society is formed; and in these cases membership
of the Guild would be advantageous to them, affording means
of introduction to publicists of similar views: and even in
instances of towns where Secular Societies do exist, persons in
direct relation to the Secular Guild would be able to furnish
Secular direction where the tradition and usage of a Secular
Society are unknown, or unfamiliar.
�ORGANIZATION INDICATED.
21
ORGANIZATION INDICATED.
CHAPTER VII.
S the aim of the Guild is not to fetter independent thought,
but to concert practical action, it is mainly required
of each member that he undertakes to perform, in good
faith, the duties which he shall consent to have assigned to him;
and generally so to comport himself that his principles shall not
be likely to suffer, if judged by his conduct. He will be expected
to treat every colleague as equal with himself in veracity, in
honour, and in loyalty to his cause. And every form of speech
which casts a doubt upon the truth, or imputes, or assumes a
want of honour on the part of any member, will be deemed a
breach of order. If any member intends such an accusation
of another, it must be made the matter of a formal charge,
after leave obtained to prefer it.
What it is desirable to know about new members is this: —
Do they, in their conception of Secularism, see in it that which seeks not
the sensual but the good, and a good which the conscience can be engaged
in pursuing and promoting; a Moralism in accordance with the laws of
•Nature and capable of intrinsic proof: a Materialism which is definite
without dogmatism or grossness ; and a unity on the ground of these com
mon agreements, for convictions which imply no apostolate are neither
earnest nor generous. No one ought to be encouraged to take sides with
Secularism, unless his conscience is satisfied of the moral rightfulness of its
principles and duties both for life and death.
It is not desirable to accept persons of that class who decry
parties—who boast of being of no party—who preach up
isolation, and lament the want of unity—who think party the
madness of the many, for the gain of the few. Seek rather
the partisan who is wise enough to know that the disparage
ment of party is the madness of the few, leading to the utter im
potence of the many. A party, in an associative and defen
sible sense, is a class of persons taking sides upon some
�22
ORGANIZATION INDICATED.
definite question, and acting- together for necessary ends,
having principles, aims, policy, authority, and discipline.
*
With respect to proposed members, it may be well to
ascertain whether neglect, or rudeness, or insult, or unfairness
from colleagues, or overwork being imposed upon him, or
incapacity of others, would divert him from his duty. These
accidents or necessities might occur: but if a society is to be
strong it must be able to count upon its members, and to be
able to count upon them it must be known what they will
bear without insubordination; and what they will bear will
depend upon the frankness and completeness of information
they receive as to the social risks all run who unite to carry
out any course of duty or public service.
Always assuming that a candidate cares for the objects for
which he proposes to associate, and that it is worth while
knowing whom it is with whom you propose to work them
out; answers to such inquiries as the following would tend to
impart a working knowledge and quality to the society:—
Is he a person previously or recently acquainted with the principles he is
about to profess ?
Does he understand what is meant by “ taking sides ” with a public
party ? Would he be faithful to the special ideas of Secularism so long as he
felt them to be true ? Would he make sacrifices to spread them and vindicate
them, or enable others to do so ? Would he conceive of Secularism as a
cause to be served loyally, which he would support as well as he was able,
if unable to support it as well as he Could wish ?
Is he of decent, moral character, and tolerably reliable as to his future
conduct ?
In presenting his views to others, would he be likely to render them in
an attractive spirit, or to make them disagreeable to others ?
Is he of an impulsive nature, ardent for a time, and then apathetic or
reactionary—likely to antagonize to-morrow the persons he applauds
to-day ?
Is he a person who would commit the fault of provoking persecution ?
Would ridicule or persecution chill him if it occurred? Is he a man to
stand by an obscure and friendless cause—or are notoriety, success, applause,
and the company of others, indispensable to his fidelity ?
Is he a man of any mark of esteem among his friends—a man whose
promise is sure, whose word has weight ?
Is his idea of obedience, obedience simply to his own will? Would he
acquiesce in the authority of the laws of the Society, or the decision of the
Society where the laws were silent ? Would he acknowledge in democracy
the despotism of principles self-consented to—or as an arena for the
* In a school there is usually teaching, training, discipline, science, system,
authorities, tradition, and development.—Times, 1846.
�ORGANIZATION INDICATED.
23
assertion of Individualism before winning the consent of colleagues to the
discussion of special views ?
The membership sought may be granted, provided the
actual knowledge of Secular principles be satisfactory, and
evident earnestness to practise them be apparent. The purport
of the whole of the questions is to enable a clear opinion
to be formed as to what is to be expected of the new
member—how far he is likely to be reliable—how long he is
likely to remain with us—under what circumstances he is
likely to fail us—what work may be assigned him—what
confidences he may be entrusted with, and in what terms he
shculd be introduced to colleagues, and spoken of to others.
The Membership here described would and should be no
restricted and exclusive society, where only one pattern of
efficiency prevails; but a society where all diversities of
capacity, energy, and. worth, may be found, so far as it is
honest and trustworthy. A Society, like the State, requires the
existence of the people, as well as public officers—men who
can act, as well as men who can think and direct Many men
who lack refinement, and even discretion, possess courage and
energy, and will go out on the inevitable “ forlorn hopes ” of
progress; which the merely prudent avoid, arid from which
the cultivated too often shrink. Our work requires all orders
of men, but efficiency requires that we know which is which,
that none may be employed in the dark.
In every public organization there are- persons who promote
and aid unconnected with the Society.
Active members are those who engage to perform specific
duties; such as reporting lectures, sermons, and public meet
ings, so far as they refer to Secularism.
*
To give notice of meetings and sermons about to be held or
delivered for or against Secularism.
To note and report passages in books, newspapers, maga
zines, and reviews referring to Secularism.
Each active member should possess some working efficiency,
or be willing to acquire it. To be able to explain his views
by tongue or pen with simple directness, to observe carefully,
* In reporting, each member should be careful to understate rather than
overstate facts, distinguishing carefully what is matter of knowledge from
rumour, conjecture, or opinion.
�24
ORGANIZATION INDICATED.
to report judiciously, to reason dispassionately, to put the best
construction on every act that needs interpretation, are desir
able accomplishments in a Propagandist.
In all public proceeding’s of the Society, written speeches
should be preferred from the young-, because such speeches
admit of preconsidered brevity, consecutiveness, and purpose,
and exist for reference. In the deliberations and discussions
of any Society, it might usefully be deemed a qualification to
make a contribution to the subject in speeches brief and
direct.
Non-reliableness in discharge of duties, or moral disqualifi
cation, shall be a ground of annulling membership, which
may be done after the member objected to has had a fair
opportunity of defending himself from the specific disqualifi
cations alleged against him and communicated to him, and has
failed therein.
The duties assigned to each member should be such as are
within his means, as respects power and opportunity; such,
indeed, as interfere neither with his social nor civil obligations ;
the intention being that the membership of the Society shall
not as a rule be incompatible with the preservation of health,
and the primary service due to family and the State.
*
Any persons acquainted with the “Principles of Secularism ’’
here given, who shall generally agree therein, and associate
under any name to promote such objects, and to act in concert
with all who seek similar objects, and will receive and take
into official consideration the instructions of the Guild, and to
make one subscription yearly among its members and friends on
behalf of its Propagandist Funds, shall be recognized as a
Branch of it.
* As a general rule, it will be found that any one who sacrifices more
than one-fifth of his time and means will become before long reactionary,
and not only do nothing himself, but discourage others.
�THE PLACE OF SECULARISM.
25
THE PLACE OF SECULARISM.
CHAPTER VIII.
“ We do not, however, deny that, false as the whole theory [of Secularism]
appears to us, it is capable of attracting the belief of large numbers of
people, and of exercising considerable influence over their conduct; and we
should admit that the influence so exercised is considerably better than no
influence at all.”—Saturday Review, July 2, 1859-
HIS first step is to win, from public opinion, a standing place
for Secularism. So long as people believe Secularism
not to be wanted, indeed impossible to be wanted—that it is
error, wickedness, and unmitigated evil, it will receive no
attention, no respect, and make no way. But show that it
occupies a vacant place, supplies a want, is a direction
where no other party supplies any—and it at once appears
indispensable. It is proved to be a service to somebody,
and from that moment it is tolerated if not respected. It
may be like war, or medicine, or work, or law, disagreeable
or unpalatable, but when seen to be necessary, it will have
recognition and support. We are sure this case can be
made out for Secularism. It is not only true, but it is known;
it is not only known, but it is notorious, that there are thou
sands and tens of thousands of persons in every district of
this and most European countries, who are without the pale
of Christianity. They reject it, they disprove it, they dis
like it, or they do not understand it. Some have vices and
passions which Christianity, as preached around them, con
demns. As Devils are said to do, they “ believe and tremble,”
and so disown what they have not the virtue to practise.
Faith does not touch them, and reason is not tried—indeed
reason is decried by the evangelically religious, so that not
being converted in one way, no other way is open to them.
Others are absorbed or insensate; they are busy, or stupid,
or defiant, and regard Christianity as a waste of time, or as
monotonous or offensive. It bores them or threatens them.
They are already dull, therefore it does not attract them—
they have some rude sense of independence and some feeling
of courage, and they object either to be snubbed into con
formity or kicked into heaven. Another and a yearly
increasing portion of the people have, after patiently and
�26
THE PLACE OF SECULARISM.
painfully thinking over Christianity, come to believe it to be
untrue; unfounded historically; wrong morally, and a dis
creditable imputation upon God. It outrages their affections,
it baffles their understandings. It is double tongued. Its
expounders are always multiplying, and the more they increase
the less they agree, and hence sceptics the more abound.
Disbelievers therefore exist; they augment: they can neither
be convinced, converted, nor conciliated, because they will yield
no allegiance to a system which has no hold on their conscience.
It is, we repeat, more than known, it is notorious that these
persons live and die in scepticism. These facts are the cry of
the pulpit, the theme of the platform, the burden of the
religious tract. Now, is nothing to be done with these people ?
You cannot exterminate them, the Church cannot direct them.
The Bible is no authority to them—the “ will of God,” as the
clergy call it, in their eyes is mere arbitrary, capricious, dog
matical assumption; sometimes, indeed, wise precept, but
oftener a cloak for knavery or a pretext for despotism. To
open the eyes of such persons to the omnipresent teachings of
Nature, to make reason an authority with them, to inspire them
with precepts which experience can verify—to connect con
science with intelligence, right with interest, duty with selfrespect, and goodness with love, must surely be useful. If
Secularism accomplishes some such work, where Christianity
confessedly accomplishes nothing, it certainly has a place of
its own. It is no answer to it to claim that Christianity is higher,
more complete, better. The advocates of every old religion, say
the same. Christianity may be higher, more complete, better
—for somebody else. But nothing can be high, complete, or
good, for those who do not see it, accept it, want it, or act
upon it. That is first which is fit—that is supreme which is
most productive of practical virtue. No comparison (which
would be as irrelevant as offensive) between Secularism and
Christianity is set up here. The question is—is Secularism
useful, or may it be useful to anybody ? The question is not—
does it contain all truth ? but does it contain as much as may
be serviceable to many minds, otherwise uninfluenced for good ?
Arithmetic is useful though Algebra is more compendious.
Mensuration performs good offices in hands ignorant of Euclid.
There may be logic without Whately, and melody without
Beethoven; and there may be Secular ethics which shall be
useful without the pretension of Christianity.
�CHARACTERISTICS OF SECULARISM.
27
CHARACTERISTICS OF SECULARISM.
CHAPTER IX.
I.
ECULARISM means the moral duty of man in this life
deduced from considerations which pertain to this life
alone. Secular education is by some confounded with
Secularism, whereas the distinction between them is very wide.
Secular education simply means imparting Secular knowledge
separately—by itself, without admixture of Theology with it.
The advocate of Secular education may be, and generally is, also
an advocate of religion • but he would teach religion at another
time and treat it as a distinct subject, too sacred for coercive ad
mixture into the hard and vexatious routine of a school. He would
confine the inculcation of religion to fitting seasons and chosen
instruments. He holds also that one subject at a time is
mental economy in learning. Secular education is the policy
of a school—Secularism is a policy of life to those who do
not accept Theology. Secularity draws the line of separation
between the things of time and the things of eternity. That
is Secular which pertains to this world. The distinction may
be seen in the fact that the cardinal propositions of Theology
are provable only in the next life, and not in this. If I believe
in a given creed it may turn out to be the true one; but
one must die to find that out. On this side of the grave
all is doubt; the truth of Biblical creeds is an affair of
hope and anxiety, while the truth of things Secular becomes
apparent in time. The advantages arising from the practice
of veracity, justice, and temperance can be ascertained from
human experience. If we are told to “ fear God and keep
His commandments,” lest His judgments overtake us, the in
direct action of this doctrine on human character may make a
vicious timid man better in this life, supposing the interpretation
ofthe will of God,and the commandments selected to be enforced,
are moral; but such teaching is not Secular, because its main
�28
CHARACTERISTICS OF SECULARISM.
object is to fit men for eternity. Pure Secular principles have
for their object to fit men for time, making- the fulfilment of
human duty here the standard of fitness for any accruing
future. Secularism purposes to regulate human affairs by
considerations purely human.
Its principles are founded
upon Nature, and its object is to render man as perfect as
possible in this life. Its problem is this: Supposing- no other
life to be before us, what is the wisest use of this ? As the Rev.
Thomas Binney puts it, “ I believe * * that even * * if
there were really no God over him, no heaven above, or eternity
in prospect, thing-s are so constituted that man may turn the
materials of his little life poem, if not always into a grand
epic, mostly into something of interest and beauty; and it is
worth his while doing so, even if there should be no sequel
to the piece.’’* Chalmers, Archbishop Whately, and earlier
distinguished divines of the Church of England, the most con
spicuous of whom is Bishop Butler, have admitted the
independent existence of morality, but we here cite Mr.
Binney’s words because among Dissenters this truth is less
readily admitted. A true Secular life does not exclude any from
supplementary speculations. Not until we have fulfilled our
duty to man, as far as we can ascertain that duty, can we
consistently pretend to comprehend the more difficult relations
of man to God. Our duties to humanity, understood and dis
charged to the best of our ability, will in no way unfit us to
il reverently meditate on things far beyond us, on Power un
limited, on space unfathomed, on time uncounted, on
‘ whence ’ we came, and ‘ whither ’ we go.”f The leading
ideas of Secularism are humanism, moralism, materialism,
utilitarian unity: Humanism, the physical perfection of this
life—Moralism, founded on the laws of Nature, as the guid
ance of this life—Materialism, as the means of Nature for the
Secular improvement of this life—Unity of thought and action
upon these practical grounds. Secularism teaches that the
good of the present life is the immediate concern of man, and
that it should be his first endeavour to raise it. Secularism
inculcates a Morality founded independently upon the laws of
Nature. It seeks human improvement through purity and suit
ableness of material conditions as being a method at once
moral, practical, universal, and sure.
* “ How to make the best of both worlds,” p. 11.
t F. W. Newman.
�CHARACTERISTICS OF SECULARISM.
29
II.
The province of Positivism is not speculation upon the
origin, but study of the laws of Nature—its policy is to destroy
error by superseding it. Auguste Comte quotes, as a cardinal
maxim of scientific progress, the words “ nothing is destroyed
until it is replaced,” a proverbial form of a wise saying of
M. Necker that in political progress “ nothing is destroyed for
which we do not find a substitute.” Negations, useful in their
place, are iconoclastic—not constructive. Unless substitution
succeeds destruction—there can be no sustained progress.
The Secularist is known by setting up and maintaining affirm
ative propositions.. He replaces negations by affirmations,
and substitutes demonstration for denunciation. He asserts
truths of Nature and humanity, and reverses the position of
the priest who appears as the sceptic, the denier, the dis
believer in Nature and humanity. Statesmen, not otherwise
eager for improvement, will regard affirmative proposals.
Lord Palmerston could say—“ Show me a good and I will
realize it—not an abuse to correct.”
III.
“All science,” says M. Comte, “ has prevision for its end, an
axiom which separates science from erudition, which relates to
events of the past without any regard to the future. No accumula
tion of facts can effect prevision until the facts are made the basis
of reasonings. A knowledge of phenomena leads to pre
vision, and prevision to actionor, in other words, when we
can foresee what will happen under given circumstances, we
can provide against it. It by no means follows that every
Secularist will be scientific, but to discern the value of
science, to appreciate and promote it, may be possible to most.
Science requires high qualities of accurate observation, close
attention, careful experiment, caution, patience, labour. Its
value to mankind is inestimable. One physician will do more
to alleviate human suffering than ten priests. One physical
discovery will do more to advance civilization than a generation
of prayer-makers. “ To get acquaintance with the usual course
of Nature (which Science alone can teach us), is a kind of
knowledge which pays very good interest.”* The value of this
knowledge becomes more apparent the longer we live. There
* Athenaeum, No. 1,637, March 12, 1859.
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CHARACTERISTICS OF SECULARISM.
may be a general superintending Providence—there may be
a Special Providence, but the first does not interfere in human
affairs, and the interpositions of the second are no longer to
be counted upon. The age of Prayer for temporal deliver
ance has confessedly passed away. But without disputing
these points, it is clear that the only help available to man,
the sole dependence upon which he can calculate, is that of
Science. Nothing can be more impotent than the fate of that
man who seeks social elevation by mere Faith. All human
affairs are a process, and he alone who acts upon this know
ledge can hope to control results. Loyola foresaw the neces
sity of men acting for human purposes, as though there were
no God. “ Let us pray,” said he, “ as if we had no help in our
selves ; let us labour as if there was no help for us in heaven.”
Society is a blunder, not a science, until it ensures good sense
and competence for the many. Why this process is tardy,
is that creedists get credit for hoping and meaning well.
Creedists of good intent, who make no improvement and
attempt none, are very much in the way of human betterance.
The spiritualist regards the world theoretically as a gross
element, which he is rather to struggle against than to work
with. This makes human service a mortification instead of
pure passion. We would not deify the world, that is, set up
the sensualism of the body, as spiritualism is set up as the
sensualism of the soul. Secularism seeks the material purity
of the present life, which is at once the means and end of Secular
endeavour. The most reliable means of progress is the im
provement of material condition, and “purity” implies “improve
ment,” for there can be no improvement without it. The aim
of all improvement is higher purity. All power, art, civiliza
tion and progress are summed up in the result—purer life.
Strength, intellect, love are measured by it. Duty, study,
temperance, patience are but ministers to this. “ There is that,”
says Ruskin, “ to be seen in every street and lane of every city,
that to be found and felt in every human heart and countenance,
that to be loved in every road-side weed and moss-grown wall,
which, in the hands of faithful men, may convey emotions
of glory and sublimity continual and exalted.”
IV.
It is necessary to point out that Sincerity does not im
ply infallibility. “ There is a truth, which could it be stamped
�CHARACTERISTICS OF SECULARISM.
31
on every human mind, would exterminate all bigotry and
persecution. I mean the truth, that worth of character and true
integrity, and, consequently, God’s acceptance, are not neces
sarily connected with any particular set of opinions.”* If you
admit that Mark and Paul were honest, most Christians take
that to be an admission of the truth of all related under their
names. Yet if a man in defending his opinions, affirm his
own sincerity, Christians quickly see that is no proof of
their truth, and proceed to disprove them. Sincerity may
account for a man holding his opinions, but it does not account
for the opinions themselves. Nothing is more common than
uninformed, misinformed, mistaken, or self-deluded honesty.
But sincere error, though dangerous enough, has not the
attribute of crime about it—personal intention of mischief.
“ Because human nature is frail and fallible, the ground of
our acceptance with God, under the Gospel, is sincerity. A
sincere desire to know and do the will of God, is the only con
dition of obtaining the Christian salvation. Every honest man
will be saved.But Sincerity, if the reader recurs to our
definition of it, includes a short intellectual and moral
education with respect to it. Those worthy of the high
descriptive “ sincere,” are those who have thought, in
quired, examined, are in earnest, have a sense of duty with
regard to their conviction, which is only satisfied by acting
upon it. These processes may not bring a man to the truth,
but they bring him near to it. The chances of error are
reduced hereby as far as human care can reduce them. Secu
larism holds that the Protestant right of private judgment
includes the moral innocency of that judgment, when conscien
tiously formed, whether for or against received opinion; that
though all sincere opinion is not equally true, nor equally
useful, it is yet equally without sin; that it is not sameness of
belief but sincerity of belief which justifies conduct, whether
regard be had to the esteem of men or the approval of God.
Sincerity, we repeat, is not infallibility. The conscientious
are often as mischievous as the false, but he who acts ac
cording to the best of his belief is free from criminal
intention. The sincerity commended by the Secularist is an
active sentiment seeking the truth and acting upon it—not the
* Dr. Price.
t John Foster’s Tracts on Heresy.
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CHARACTERISTICS OF SECULARISM.
fortuitous, insipid, apathetic, inherited consent, which so often
passes for honesty, because too indolent or too cowardly to
inquire, and too stupid to doubt. The man who holds merely
ready-made opinions is not to be placed on the same level
with him whose convictions are derived from experience. True
sincerity is an educated and earnest sentiment.
V.
In the formation and judgment of opinions we must
take into account the consequences to mankind involved in
their adoption. But when an opinion seems true in itself
and beneficial to society, the consequences in the way of in
convenience to ourselves is not sufficient reason for refusing- to
act upon it. If a particular time of enforcing- it seem to be
one when it will be disregarded, or misunderstood, or put
back, and the sacrifice of ourselves on its behalf produce no
adequate advantage to society, it may be lawful to seek a
better opportunity. We must, however, take care that this
view of the matter is not made a pretext of cowardice or
evasion of duty. And in no case is it justifiable to belie con
science or profess a belief the contrary of that which we
believe to be true. There may in extreme cases be neutrality
with regard to truth, but in no case should there be com
plicity in falsehood. So much with respect to this life. With
respect to Deity or another life, we may in all cases rely upon
this, that in truth alone is safety. With God, conscience
can have no penal consequences. Conscience is the voice of
honesty, and honesty, with all its errors, a God of Truth will
regard. “We have,” says Blanco White, “no revealed rule
which will ascertain, with moral certainty, which doctrines are
right and which are wrong—that is, as they are known to
God.” * * “ Salvation, therefore, cannot depend on ortho
doxy ; it cannot consist in abstract doctrines, about which
men of equal abilities, virtue, and sincerity are, and always
have been, divided.” * * “ No error on abstract doctrines
can be heresy, in the sense of a wrong belief which endangers
the soul.” - “The Father of the Universe accommodates not
His judgments to the wretched wranglings of pedantic theolo
gians, but every one who seeks truth, whether he findeth it w not,
and worketh righteousness, will be accepted of Him.”* Thomas
Bishop Watson’s Theological Tracts.
Introductory.
�CHARACTERISTICS OF SECULARISM.
33
Carlyle was the first English writer, having the ear of the pub
lic, who declared in England that “ sincere doubt is as much
entitled to respect as sincere belief. ”
VI.
Going to a distant town to mitigate some calamity there, will
illustrate the principle of action prescribed by Secularism.
One man will go on this errand from pure sympathy with
the unfortunate ; this is goodness. Another goes because his
priest bids him ; this is obedience. Another goes because the
twenty-fifth chapter of Matthew tells him that all such per
sons will pass to the right hand of the Father ; this is calcula
tion. Another goes because he believes God commands him ;
this is piety. Another goes because he believes that the
neglect of suffering will not answer; this is utilitarianism.
But another goes on the errand of mercy, because it is an
errand of mercy, because it is an immediate service to human
ity ; and he goes to attempt material amelioration rather than
spiritual consolation; this is Secularism, which teaches that
goodness is sanctity, that Nature is guidance, that reason is
authority, that service is duty, and that Materialism is help.
VII.
The policy of S.ecular controversy is to distinguish and
assert its own affirmative propositions. It is the policy of Secu
larism not so much to say to error “ It is false,” as to say of
truth “ This is true.” Thus, instead of leaving to the popular
theology the prestige of exclusive affirmation accorded to it
by the world, although it is solely employed in the incessant
re-assertion of error, Secularism causes it to own and publish
its denial of positive principle; when the popular theology
proves itself to be but an organized negation of the moral
guidance of nature and its tendencies to progress. A Secu
larist sees clearly upon what he relies as a Secularist. To
him the teaching of Nature is as clear as the teaching of the
Bible: and since, if God exists, Nature is certainly His work,
while it is not so clear that the Bible is—the teaching of Nature
will be preferred and followed where the teaching of the Bible
appears to conflict with it. A Secular Society, contemplating
intellectual and moral progress, must provide for the freest
expression of opinion on all subjects which its members may
deem conducive to their common objects. Christianism, Theism,
I
�34
CHARACTERISTICS OE SECULARISM.
Materialism, and Atheism will be regarded as open questions,
subject to unreserved discussion. But these occasions will be
the opportunity of the members, not the business of the society.
All public proceedings accredited by the society should relate
to topics consistent with the common principles of Secularism.
“Innecessary things, unity: in doubtful things, liberty: in all
things, charity.”* The destruction of religious servitude may
be attempted in two ways. It may be denounced, which
will irritate it, or it may be superseded by the servitude of
humanity. Attacking it by denunciation, generally inflames and
precipitates the persecution of the many upon the few; when
the weak are liable to be scattered, the cowardly to recant,
and the brave to perish.
VIIL
The essential rule upon which personal association can
be permanent, or controversy be maintained in the spirit in which
truth can be evolved, is that of never imputing evil motives
nor putting the worst construction on any act. Free Inquiry
has no limits but truth, Free Speech no limits but exactness,
Policy (here the law of speech) no limits but usefulness. Un
fettered and uncompromising are they who pursue free inquiry
throughout—measured and impassable may those become,
who hold to a generous veracity. Far both from outrage
or servility—too proud to court and too strong to hate—are
those who learn to discard all arts but that of the austere
service of others, exacting no thanks and pausing at no
curse. Wise words of counsel to Theological controversialists
have been addressed in a powerful quarter of public opinion:
“ Religious controversy has already lost much of its bitterness.
Open abuse and exchange of foul names are exploded, and
even the indirect imputation of unworthy motives is falling
into disuse. Another step will be made when theologians
have learnt to extend their intellectual as well as their moral
sympathies, to feel that most truths are double edged, and not
to wage an unnecessary war against, opinion which, strange,
incongruous, and unlovely as they may at first appear, are
built, perhaps, on as firm a foundation, and are held with
equal sincerity and good faith, as their own.”f This is advice
which both sides should remember.
* Maxim (much unused) of the Roman Catholic Church,
t Times Leader of November 8, 1855.
�CHARACTERISTICS OF SECULARISM.
35
IX.
“ No society can be in a healthy state in which eccentricity
is a matter of reproach.” Conventionality is the tyranny
of the average man, and a despicable tyranny it is. The
tyranny of genius is hard to be borne—that of mediocrity
is humiliating. That idea of freedom which consists in the
absence of all government is either mere lawlessness, or refers
to the distant period when each man having attained perfec
tion will be a law unto himself. Just rule is indispensable rule,
and none other. The fewer laws consistent with the public
preservation the better—there is, then, as Mr. Mill has shown
in his “Liberty,” the more room for that ever-recurring
originality which keeps intellect alive in the world. Towards
law kept within the limits of reason, obedience is the first of
virtues. “ Order and Progress,” says Comte, which we
should express thus:—Order, without which Progress is im
possible ; Progress, without which Order, is Tyranny. The
, world is clogged with men of dead principles. Principles
that cannot be acted upon are probably either obsolete or false.
One certain way to improvement is to exact consistency between
profession and practice; and the way to bring this about is to
teach that the highest merit consists in having earnest views
and in endeavouring to realize them—and this whether the
convictions be contained within or without accredited creeds.
There will be no progress except within the stereotyped limits of
creeds, unless means are found to justify independent convic
tions to the conscience. To the philosopher you have merely
to show that a thing is true, to the statesman, that it is useful,
but to a Christian, that it is safe. The grace of service lies in
its patience. To promote the welfare of others, irrespective
of their gratitude or claims, is to reach the nature of the
Gods. It is a higher sentiment than is ascribed to the Deity
of the Bible. The abiding disposition to serve others is the
end of all philosophy. The vow of principle is always one of
poverty and obedience, - and few are they who take it—and
fewer who keep it. If hate obscure for a period the path of
duty, let us remember nothing should shake our attachment
to that supreme thought, which at once stills human anger and
educates human endeavour—the perception that “ the suffer
ings and errors of mankind arise out of want of knowledge
rather than defect of goodness.”
fl
�36
CHARACTERISTICS OF SECULARISM.
X.
A leading object of Secularism is the promotion of the
material purity of the present life—“ material purity,” which
includes personal as well as external condition. The question
of Spiritualism (without employing it and without disparaging
it) it regards as a distinct question, and hence the methods
by which Secularists attempt “improvement” will be “material”
as being the most reliable. The tacit or expressed aim of all
Freethinking, has ever been true thinking and pure thinking.
It has been a continued protest against the errors Theology
has introduced, and the vicious relations it has conserved and
sanctified. It is necessary to mark this, and it can be done by
insisting and keeping distinctly evident that the aim of Secular
ism is the purity of material influences. This precludes the
possibility of Secularism being charged either with conscious
grossness or intentional sin. Secularism concerns itself with
the work of to-day. “ It is always yesterday or to-morrow,
and never to-day,”* is a fair description of life according to
theologies. Secularism,' on the contrary, concerns itself with
the things of “ to-day.”
To know
That which before us lies in daily life
Is the prime wisdom.
The cardinal idea of the “ popular Theology ” is the neces
sity of Revelation. It believes that the light of Nature is
darkness, that Reason affords no guidance, that the Scriptures
are the true chart, the sole chart, and the sufficient chart of
man, and it regards all attempts to delineate a chart of
Nature as impious, as impracticable, and as a covert attack
upon the Biblical chart in possession of the churches. Know
ing no other guidance than that of the Bible, and disbelieving
the possibility of any other, theology denounces Doubt, which
inspires it with a sense of insecurity—it fears Inquiry, which
may invalidate its trust—and deprecates Criticism, which may
expose it, if deficient. Having nothing to gain, it is reluctant
to incur risk—having all to lose, it dreads to be disturbed—
having no strength but in Faith, it fears those who Reason—
and less from ill-will than from the tenderness of its position,
it persecutes in self-defence. Such are the restrictions and the
logic of Theology.
Story of Boots, by Dickens.
�CHARACTERISTICS OF SECULARISM.
37
XI.
On the other hand, Rationalism (which is the logic of Nature )
is in attitude and spirit quite the reverse. It observes that
numbers are unconvinced of the fact of Revelation, and feel
the insufficiency, for their guidance, of that offered to them.
To them the pages of Nature seem clearer than those of the
Apostles. Reason, which existed before all Religions and
decides upon all—else the false can never be distinguished
from the true—seems self-dependent and capable of furnishing
personal direction. Hence Rationalism instructed by facts,
winning secrets by experiments, establishing principles by
reflection, is assured of a morality founded upon the laws of
Nature. Without the advantage of inductive science to assist
discoveries, or the printing press to record corroborations of
them, the Pre-Christian world created ethics, and Socrates
and Epictetus, and Zoroaster and Confucius, delivered precepts,
to which this age accords a high place. Modern Rationalists
therefore sought, with their new advantages, to augment and
systematize these conquests. They tested the claims of the
Church by the truths of Nature. That Freethought which
had won these truths applied them to creeJs, and criticism
became its weapon of Propagandism. Its consciousness of
new truth stimulated its aggression on old error. The preten
sions of reason being denied as false, and rationalists them
selves persecuted as dangerous, they had no alternative but
to criticise in order to vindicate their own principles, and
weaken the credit and power of their opponents. To attack
the misleading dogmas of Theology was to the early Free
thinkers well understood self-defence. In some hands and
under the provocations of vindictive bigotry, this work, no
doubt, became wholly antagonistic, but the main aspiration
of the majority was the determination of teaching the people
t( to be a law unto themselves.” They found prevailing a
religion of unreasoning faith. They sought to create a
religion of intelligent conviction, whose uniformity consisted
in sincerity. Its believers did not all hold the same tenets,
but they all sought the same truth and pursued it with the
same earnestness. It was this inspiration which sustained
Vanini, Hamont, Lewes, K.ett, Legate, and Wightman at the
stake, and which armed Servetus to prefer the fires of Calvin
to the. creed of Calvin, which supported Annet in the pillory,
and Woolston and Carlile in their imprisonments. It was no
«
.* /it
�38
CHARACTERISTICS OF SECULARISM.
capricious taste for negations which dictated these deliberate
sacrifices, but a sentiment purer than interest and stronger
than self-love—it was the generous passion for unfriended truth.
XII.
The intellectual, no less than the heroic characteristics of
Freethought have presented features of obvious unity. Tindal,
Shaftesbury, Voltaire, Paine, and Bentham, all vindicated
principles of Natural Morality. Shelley struggled that a pure
and lofty ideal of life should prevail, and Byron had passionate
words of reverence for the human character of Christ.
*
The
distrust of Prayer for temporal help was accompanied by trust
in Science, and all saw in material effort an available deliver
ance from countless ills which the Church can merely deplore.
Those who held that a future life was “ unproven,” taught that
attention to this life was of primary importance, at least
highly serviceable to humanity, even if a future sphere be
certain. All strove for Free Inquiry—Rationalism owed its
existence to it; all required Free Speech—Rationalism was
diffused by it; all vindicated Free Criticism—Rationalism
established itself with it; all demanded to act out their
opinions—Rationalism was denuded of conscience without this
right. In all its mutations, and aberrations, and conquests,
Freethought has uniformly sought the truth, and shown the
courage to trust the truth. Freethought uses no persecution,
for it fears no opposition, for opposition is its opportunity. It
is the cause of Enterprise and Progress, of Reason and Duty
—and now seeking the definite and the practical, it selects for
its guidance the principle that “ human affairs should be regu* Thus we read, Canto xv. stanza xviii., of Don Juan
Was it not so, great Locke ? and greater Bacon ?
Great Socrates ? And thou Diviner still
Whose lot it is by man to be mistaken,
And thy pure creed made sanctions of all ill ?
Redeeming world to be by bigots shaken,
How was thy toil rewarded ?
To this stanza Lord Byron adds this note :—
“ As it is necessary in these times to avoid ambiguity, I say that I
mean by “ Diviner still ” Christ. If ever God was man—or man God—
he was both. I never arraigned his creed, but the use—or abuse—made
of it.”
t L. H. Holdreth.
�CHARACTERISTICS OF SECULARISM.
39
lated by considerations purely human.”f These—the
characteristics which the term Secularism was designed
• to express—are therefore not inventions, not assump
tions, but the general agreements of the Freethought party,
inherent, traditional, and historic. That which is new, and of
the nature of a development, is the perception that the positiv
ism of Freethought principles should be extended, should be
clearly distinguished and made the subject of energetic
assertion—that the Freethought party which has so loudly
demanded toleration for itself, should be able to exercise it
towards all earnest thinkers, and especially towards all co
workers—that those who have protested against the isolation
of human effort by sectarian exclusiveness, should themselves
set the example of offering, in good faith, practical conditions
of unity, not for the glory of sects, or coteries, or schools, but
for the immediate service of humanity.
XIII.
The Relation of Secularism to the future demands a few
words. To seek after the purity and perfection of the Present
Life neither disproves another Life beyond this, nor disqualifies
man for it. “ Nor is Secularism opposed to the Future so far
as that Future belongs to the present world—to determine
which we have definite science susceptible of trial and verifi
cation. The conditions of a future life being unknown, and
there being no imaginable means of benefiting ourselves and
others in it except by aiming after present goodness, we shall
confessedly gain less towards the happiness of a future life by
speculation than by simply devoting ourselves to the energetic
improvement of this life.”* Men have a right to look beyond
this world, but not to overlook it. Men, if they can, may
connect themselves with eternity, but they cannot disconnect
themselves from humanity without sacrificing duty. Secular
knowledge relates to this life. Religious knowledge to
another life. Secular instruction teaches the duties to man.
Religious instruction the duties to God apart from man. Reli
gious knowledge relates to celestial creeds. Secular know
ledge relates to human duties to be performed. The religious
teacher instructs us how to please God by creeds. The Secu
lar teacher how to serve man by sympathy and science.
* F. W. Newman
�40
CHARACTERISTICS OF SECULARISM.
Archbishop Whately tells the story of a lady at Bath, who,
being- afraid to cross a tottering bridge lest it should give way
under her, fortunately bethought herself of the expedient of «
calling for a sedan chair, and was carried over in that convey
ance. Some of our critics think that we shall resemble this
ingenious lady. But those who fear to trust themselves to the
ancient and tottering Biblical bridge, will hardly get into the
sedan chair of obsolete orthodoxy, and add the weight of that
to the danger. They prefer going round by the way of
reason and fearless private judgment.
XIV.
Secularism, we have said, concerns itself with four rights:—
1. The right to Think for one’s self, which most Christians
now admit, at least in theory.
2. The right to Differ, without which the right to think is
nothing worth.
3. The right to Assert difference of opinion, without which
the right to differ is of no practical use.
4. The right to Debate all vital opinion, without which
there is no intellectual equality—no defence against the errors
of the state or the pulpit.
It is of no use that the Protestant concedes the right to think
unless he concedes the right to differ. We may as well be
Catholic unless we are free to dissent. Rome will concede
our right to think for ourselves, provided we agree with the
Church when we have done; and when Protestantism affects
to award us the right of private judgment, and requires us to
agree with the thirty-nine Articles in the end—or when Evan
gelical Ministers tell us we are free to think for ourselves, but
must believe in the Bible nevertheless, both parties reason on the
Papist principle; both mock us with a show of freedom, and
impose the reality of mental slavery upon us. It is mere irony
to say “ Search the Scriptures,” when the meaning is—you
must accept the Scriptures whether they seem true or not.
Of the temper in which theological opinions ought to be
formed, we have the instruction of one as eminent as he was
capable. Jefferson remarks, “ In considering this subject,
divest yourself of all bias, shake off all fears and servile pre
judices, under which weak minds crouch: fix reason in her
�CHARACTERISTICS OF SECULARISM.
41
seat firmly; question with boldness, even the existence of God ;
because, if there be one, he must approve the homage of
reason more than that of blindfolded fear. Read the Bible as
you would Tacitus or Livy. Those facts in the Bible which
contradict the laws of Nature must be examined with care.
The New Testament is the history of a person called Jesus.
Keep in your eye what is related. They say he was begotten
by God, but born of a virgin (how reconcile this ?) ; that he
was crucified to death, and buried ; that he rose and ascended
bodily into heaven: thus reversing the laws of Nature. Do
not be frightened from this inquiry by any fear, and if it ends
in a belief that the story is not true, or that there is not a God,
you will find other incitements to virtue and goodness. In
fine, lay aside all prejudices on both sides, neither believe nor
reject anything because others have rejected or disbelieved it.
Your reason is the only oracle given you by heaven, and you
are answerable, not for the rightness, but for the uprightness
of your opinion ; and never mind evangelists, or pseudo-evan
gelists, who pretend to inspiration.”* It is in vain the Chris
tian quotes the Pauline injunction, “Prove all things; hold
fast that which is good,” if we are to hold fast to his good,
which may be evil to us. For a man to prove all things need
ful, and hold fast to that which he considers good, is the true
maxim of freedom and progress. Secularism, therefore, proclaims and justifies the right to Differ, and the right to assert
conscientious difference on the platform, through the press, in
civil institutions, in Parliament, in courts of law, where it
demands that the affirmation of those who reject Christi
anity shall be as valid as the oath of those who accept it.
XV.
Yet some opponents have professed that Secular cannot be
distinguished from Christian rights. Is this so ? The right to
think for ourselves has been emphatically and reiteratedly
declared to be a Christian right ;f it “ belongs essentially to
Christianity.” Now Christianity has no such right. It has the
right to think the Bible true, and nothing else. The Christian
* “Jefferson : Memoirs.” Vol. II. Quoted by Sir G. Cockbum, in his
“ Confessions of Faith, by a Philosopher,” pages 4 and 5.
f “ Six Chapters on Secularism,” by Dr. Parker, Cavendish Pulpit,
Manchester.
�42
CHARACTERISTICS OF SECULARISM.
has no right to think Christianity untrue, however untrue it
may appear. He dare not think it false. He dare no more
think it false than the Catholic dare differ from the dictum of
the Church, or the Mahomedan differ from the text of the
Koran, or the Hindoo differ from the precepts of the
■Brahmin. Therefore, the Christian’s right to think for himself
is simply a compulsion, to believe. A right implies relative
freedom of action; but the Christian has no freedom. He has no
choice but to believe, or perish everlastingly. The Christian
right to think for himself is, therefore, not the same as the
Secular right. We mean by the right to think, what the
term right always implies—freedom and independence, and
absence of all crime, or danger of penalty through the honest
exercise of thought and maintenance of honest conclusions,
whether in favour of or against Christianity. Our assertion is
that “Private judgment is free and guiltless.” The Christian
is good enough to say, we have “ a right to think, provided
we think rightly.” But what dofes he mean by “ rightly ?”
He means that we should think as he thinks. This is his
interpretation of “ rightly.” Whoever does not fall in with
his views, is generally, in his vocabulary, a dishonest perverter
of scripture. Now, if we really have the right to differ, we
have the right to differ from the Minister or from the Bible, if
we see good reason to do so, without being exposed to the
censure of our neighbours, or disapprobation of God. The
question is not—does man give us the right to think for our
selves ? but, does God give it to us ? If we must come to a
given opinion, our private judgment is unnecessary. Let us
know at once what we are to believe, that we may believe
it at once, and secure safety. If possible disbelief in Chris
tianity will lead to eternal perdition, the right of private
judgment is a snare. We had better be without that perilous
privilege, and we come to regard the Roman Catholic as
penetrative when he paints private judgment as the suggestion
of Satan, and the Roman Catholic no less merciful than con
sistent when he proscribes it altogether. We must feel
astonishment at him who declares the Secular right to be
essentially a Christian right, when it is quite a different
thing, is understood in an entirely different sense, and has
an application unknown and unadmitted by Christianity.
This is not merely loose thinking, it is reckless thinking.
�CHARACTERISTICS OF SECULARISM.
43
XVI.
It has been asserted that the second right, “ the right to
differ,” is also a Christian right. “ Christianity recognizes the
claim to difference of opinion. Christians are not careful to
maintain uniformity at the expense of private judgment.”
This is omitting a part of the truth. Christians often permit
difference of opinion upon details, but not upon essentials, and
this is the suppression made. The Christian may differ on
points of church discipline, but if he differ upon the essential
articles of his creed, the minister at once warns him that he
is in “danger of the judgment.” Let any minister try it him
self, and his congregation will soon warn him to depart, and
also warn him of that higher Power, who will bid him depart
“ into outer darkness, where there will be wailing and gnashing
of teeth.” With respect to the third right, “ the right of asserting
difference of opinion,” this is declared to be not peculiar to
Secularism ; that “ Christian churches, chapels, literature and
services, are so many confirmations of the statement that
Christians claim the right of speaking wliat they think,
whether it be affirmative or negative.” Yes, so long as what
they speak agrees with the Bible. This is the Christian limit;
yet this is the limit which Secularism expressly passes and
discards. It is the unfettered right which makes Secularism
to differ from Christianity, and to excel it.
XVII.
The right of private judgment, always in set terms conceded
to us, means nothing, unless it leads to a new understanding
as to the terms in which we are to be addressed. In the
“ Bible and the People,” it is described as “ an insolence to
ignore Christianity.”* We do not understand this language.
It would be insolence to Deity to ignore a message which we
can recognize as coming from Him, but it may rather imply
reverence for God to reject the reports of many who speak in
His name. Were we to require Christians to read our books
or think as we think, they would resent the requirement as an
impertinence; and we have yet to learn that it is less an
impertinence when Christians make these demands of us. If
Christians are under no obligation to hold our opinions,
neither are we under obligation to hold theirs. By our own
* No. I. Vol. I., p. 8. Edited by the Rev. Brewin Grant.
�44
CHARACTERISTICS OF SECULARISM.
act, or at their solicitation, we may study “ sacred ” writing’s,
but at dictation, never ! So long- as Secularists obey the laws
enacted for the common security, so long as they perform the
duties of good citizens, it is nothing to Christians what opinions
they hold. We neither seek their counsel nor desire their
sentiments—except they concede them on terms of equality.
The light by which we walk is sufficient for us; and as at
the last day, of which Christians speak, we shall there have,
according to their own showing, to answer for ourselves, we
prefer to think for ourselves; and since they do not propose
to take our responsibility, we decline to take their doctrines.
Where we are to be responsible, we will be free; and no man
shall dictate to us the opinions we shall hold. We shall
probably know as well as any Christian how to live with
freedom and to die without fear. It is in vain for Christians
to tell us that Newton and Locke differed from us. What is
that to us unless Newton and Locke will answer for us ? The
world may differ from a man, but what is the world to him,
unless it will take his place at the judgment-day ? Who is
Paul or Apollos, or Matthew or Mark, that we should venture
our eternal salvation on his word, any more than on that of a
Mahomedan prophet, or a Buddhist priest ? Where the dan
ger is our own, the faith shall be pur own. Secularism is not
an act conceived in the spirit of pride, or vanity, or self-will,
or eccentricity, or singularity, or stiff-neckedness. It is simply
well-understood self-defence. If men have the right of
private judgment, that right has set them free; and we own
no law but reason, no limits but the truth, and have no fear
but that of guilt. We may say we believe in honour, which
is respecting the truth—in morality, which is acting the truth
—in love, which is serving the truth—and in independence,
which is defending the truth.
XVIII.
Confucius declared that the foundation of all religion wa’s
reverence and obedience.
*
The Religious sentiment is the
intentional reverence of God. The Christian is ever persuaded
that there is only one way of doing this, and he arrogantly
assumes that he has that way. Whereas the ways are as
* Sir John Bowring.
�CHARACTERISTICS OF SECULARISM.
45
diverse as human genius. Let those who deny that Secular
Truth meets' the emotional part of their nature, settle what is
the nature of the emotions they desiderate. The miser wants
money—the sensualist wants the cook—the scholar wants
knowledge—and the mother desires the life, growth, and
happiness of her child. But what can man want in a rational
sense which Nature and humanity may not supply ? Do we not
meet the demand of the many when we show that Secularism
is sufficient for progress; that it is moral, and therefore suffi
cient for trust; that it builds only upon the known, and is
therefore reliable ? It is the highest and most unpresumptuous
form of unconscious worship. It is practical reverence without
the arrogance of theoretical homage. We at least feel con
fident of this, that the future, if it come, will not be miserable.
, There may be a future—this remains to awaken interest and
perennial curiosity. If Nature be conscious, it will still design
the happiness of man, which it now permits—this assurance
remains, stilling fear and teaching trust.
XIX.
In surveying the position of Christianism in Great Britain,
there is found to exist a large outlying class, daily increasing,
who for conscientious reasons reject its cardinal tenets. Hence
arises the question :—Are good citizenship and virtuous life on
Secular principles, possible to these persons ? Secularism
answers, Yes. To these, excluded by the letter of scripture,
by the narrowness of churches, by the intrinsic error and
moral repulsiveness of doctrine, Secularism addresses itself;
to these it is the word of Recognition, of Concert and Morality.
It points them to an educated conscience as a security of
morals, to the study of Nature as a source of help, and seeks
to win the indifferent by appeals to the inherent goodness of
human Nature and the authority of reason, which Christianism
cannot use and dare not trust. If, however, the Secularist
elects to walk by the light of Nature, will he be able to see ?
Is the light of Nature a fitful lamp, or a brief torch, which
accident may upset, or a gust extinguish ? On the contrary,
the light of Nature may burn steady, clear, and full, over the
entire field of human life. On this point we have the testi
mony of an adversary, who was understood to address us,
a testimony as remarkable for its quality as for its felicity of
*
expression:—“ There is the ethical mind, calm, level, and clear;
�46
CHARACTERISTICS OF SECULARISM.
chiefly'intent on the good ordering of this life; judging all things
by their tendency to this end, and impatient of every oscillation
of our nature that swings beyond it. There is nothing low or
unworthy in the attachment which keeps this spirit close to
the present world, and watchful for its affairs. It is not a
selfish feeling, but often one intensely social and humane, not
any mean fascination with mere material interests, but a
devotion to justice and right, and an assertion of the sacred
authority of human duties and affections. A man thus tempered
deals chiefly with this visible life and his comrades in it,
because, as nearest to him, they are better known. He plants
his standard on the present, as on a vantage ground, where
he can survey his field, and manoeuvre all his force, and com
pute the battle he is to fight. Whatever his bearings fervours
towards beyond his range, he has no insensibility to the claims
that fall within his acknowledged province, and that appeal to
him in the native speech of his humanity. He so reverences
veracity, honour, and good faith, as to expect them like the
daylight, and hears of their violation with a flush of scorn.
His word is a rock, and he expects that yours will not be a
quicksand. If you are lax, you cannot hope for his trust; but
if you are in trouble, you easily move his pity. And the sight
of a real oppression, though the sufferer be no ornamental
hero, but black, unsightly, and disreputable, suffices perhaps
to set him to work for life, that he may expunge the disgrace
from the records, of mankind. Such men as he constitute for
our world its moral centre of gravity; and whoever would
compute the path of improvement that has brought it thus far
on its way, or trace its sweep into a brighter future, must take
account of their steady mass. The effect of this style of thought
and taste on the religion of its possessor, is not difficult to
trace. It may, no doubt, stop short of avowed and conscious
religion altogether; its basis being simply moral, and its scene
temporal, its conditions may be imagined as complete, without
any acknowledgment of higher relations.”*
XX.
Nature is, That which is, is the primary subject of study.
The study of Nature reveals the laws of Nature. The laws of
* Professor Martineau, in Octagon Chapel, Norwich, 1856.
�CHARACTERISTICS OF SECULARISM.
47
Nature furnish safe guidance to humanity. Safe guidance is
to help available in daily life—to happiness, self-contained—
to service, which krjows how “to labour and to wait.” For
authority, Nature refers us to Experience and to Reason. For
help, to Science, the nearest available help of man. Science
implies disciplined powers on the part of the people, and con
cert in their use, to realize the security and sufficiency neces
sary to happiness. Happiness depends on moral, no less
than on physical conditions. The moral condition is the full
and fearless discharge of Duty. Duty is devotion to the
Right. Right is that which is morally expedient. That is
morally expedient which is conducive to the happiness of the
greatest numbers. The service of others is the practical form
of -duty; and endurance in the service of others, the highest,
form of happiness. It is pleasure, peace, security, and desert.
XXL
We believe there is sufficient soundness in Secular principles
to make way in the world. All that is wanted is that advocates
of them shall have clear notions of the value of method in their
work. To the novice in advocacy policy seems a crime—at
least, many so describe it. Unable himself to see his way, the
tyro fights at everything and everybody equally; and too
vain to own his failure, he declares that the right way. Not
knowing that progress is an art, and an art requiring the
union of many qualities, he denies all art, cries down policy,
and erects blundering into a virtue. Compare the way which
Havelock reached Lucknow, and the way in which Sir Colin
Campbell performed the same feat, and you see the difference
between courage without, and courage with' strategy. It
was because magnitudes existed, which were inaccessible
and incapable of direct measurement, that mathematics arose.
Finding direct measurement so often impossible, men were
compelled to find means of ascertaining magnitude and distance
indirectly. Hence mathematics became a scientific policy.
Mathematics is but policy of measurement—grammar but the
policy of speech—logic but the policy of reason—arithmetic
but the policy of calculation—temperance’ but the policy of
health-—trigonometry but the policy of navigation—roads but
the policy of transit—music but the policy of controlling
sound—art but the policy of beauty—law but the policy of
protection—discipline but the policy of strength—love but the
�48
CHARACTERISTICS OF SECULARISM.
policy of affection. An enemy may object to our having- a
policy, because it suits his purpose that we should be without
one; but that a friend should object to our having- a policy
is one of those incredible infatuations which converts partisans
into unconscious traitors. The policy adopted may be a bad
policy, and no policy at all is idiotcy. If a policy be bad,
criticise and amend it; but to denounce all policy is to com
mit your cause to the providence of Bedlam. If, therefore,
throughout all intelligent control of Nature and humanity,
policy is the one supreme mark of wisdom, why should it
be dishonourable to study the policy of opinion ? He who con
sistently objects to policy, would build railway engines without
safety valves, and dismiss them from stations without drivers;
he would abolish turnpike roads and streets, and leave us
to find our way at random; he would recommend that
vessels be made without helms, and sail without captains,
that armies fight without discipline, and artillery-men should
fire before loading, and when pointing their guns, should aim
at nothing. In fine, a man without policy, honestly and intelli
gently opposed to policy, would build his house with the roof
downwards, and plant his trees with their roots in the air; he
would kick his friend and hug his enemy; he would pay wages
to servants who would not work, govern without rule, speak
without thought, think without reason, act without purpose, be
a knave by accident, and a fool by design.
�INDEX.
PAGE.
Action, Secular and Theological
Affirmative Policy......................
Association, its Maxims..............
Atheists, angry origin of the term
Atheistic maxim of Loyola .......
33
33
16
9
30
PAGE.
Future, the, separated but not
prejudged ............... 39
Guides of the Secularist ........... 11
Guild, Secular.............................. 18
„ its uses in Foreign countries 20
Bond of Union .......................... 17
Heresy no sin, Blanco White,
Branch of the Secular Guild,
upon..................................
defined........................... 24
Byron Lord, his passionate
Imputation of motives ...............
Christianism ............... 3g Inferior natures, religious duty
towards them...............
Characteristics of Secularism ... 27
Christian rights.......................... 42 Infidel, an imputative term .......
„
distinguished
from Secular rights
Comte on prevision ,.................
Controversy, new tone of...........
Conscience higher than con
sequence..................
Controversy, sphere of ...............
„
personal..................
Construction of conduct...............
Conventionality..........................
Degrees of progress ..................
Distinction between Secular
Instruction and Secularism
Emotional nature, its variety ...
Ethical life, Professor Martineau’s
view..........................
Features of the Future ...............
Fleet Street Secular Institute ...
Freethinking, true-thinking .......
32
34
13
9
Jefferson, on boldness of inquiry 41
43 Justification of Controversy....... 15
29
8 Knowledge, a remunerative
investment............... 29
12 Laws of Secular Controversy ... 14
15 Legitimate topics of Secular
15
Societies .................. 34
34 Limits of Imputation................... 21
9
35 Loose-thinking .......
12
Maxims of association ............... 16
Martineau Harriet, on the term
5
Secularism ............... 8
45 Membership, diversities of ........ 23
Method, material and spiritual... 36
46 Mill, J. S. on originality ............ 35
45 Morality, its independence of
theology ........................ 28
18
36 Neckar’s maxim............................ 29
�50
INDEX.
PAGE.
Newman, Dr. J. IT. on organiz
ation.............................. 5
Objects of Secular Guild ...........
Open questions ..........................
Organization of ideas.................
„
indicated...............
Outlying classes..........................
19
33
18
21
45
Persistence in Opinion ............... 2
Personal duty.............................. 16
Place of Secularism ................... 25
Positivism, its subjects of study 29
Policy, its Secular necessity... 47-48
Private judgment absolute ... 43-44
Principles of Secularism defined 11
Public duty.................................. 16
Qualities of new members........... 21
„
of active members....... 23
Rationalism, its securities...........
Reason, its self-dependence .......
Religiousness, its moral meaning
Revelation, its absolute chart ...
Rights of Reason .....................
Ruskin, on the morality of
realism..........................
37
37
12
36
14
30
Science, its social problem ....... 12
Secularism, its relative influence 25
„
persons whom it
addresses.................. 25
„
compared with Chris
tianity ...................... 26
„
the sum of Freethought agreements 38
Secularity, its line of demarcation 27
Sincerity defined..... v.............. ... 12
„
distinguished from in
fallibility .................. 30
Sincerity distinguished from sin 31
Spiritualism, the sensualism of
the soul .................. 30
Standard of appeal...................... 14
Summary of Secularism.............. 47
Term Secularism, not a disguise 9
Trustworthiness of Candidates..- 22
Utilitarian action ...................... 33
Various terms of Freethought ... 10
Vow of principle, its nature..... 35
Written speeches ...................... 24
�THE
REASONER
(ESTABLISHED 1846.)
Advocates the Free Search., Free Utterance, Free Criticism, the
Free Action of Secular Principles.
REVIEW
SERIES.
[The following extracts are given as the only independent means of indicating to
strangers and Christian readers (who commonly have prepossessions that the advocacy
of Freethought must be outrage and sin) the spirit in which it has been the endeavour
of the Editor to conduct the heasoner—the title of which does not assume perfection in
reasoning, but is merely a sign that principles and criticisms will, by preference, be
urged upon grounds of reason. For as Professor Martineau observes, “ In every en
deavour to elevate ourselves above reason, we are seeking to rise beyond the atmosphere,
with wings which cannot soar but by beating the air.” Of the remarks which follow,
the chief, it will be seen, must apply to contributors.]
“The Reasoner . . . edited by G. J. Holyoake, is written with considerable
ability, and conducted with no small amount of tact. It addresses itself to that large
and constantly increasing class in English society—the class of artizans; men who de
mand to be dealt with logically. The Reasoner is calm, affectedly dispassionate, im
personal ; piques itself upon being scrupulously exact in its statement of facts, rigorous
in its inductions, and charitable and tolerant in its judgment. This air, which seems
partly real, is eminently calculated to prepossess its readers with the idea of its strength
and' firmness. Its conductors are by no means common-place men. There is evidently
a great deal of ability in them. Such men may not be dispised, nor their doings over
looked. The writers of the other works which we have classed with this have no object
beyond the miserable pittance which their labour brings them. These men have a
creed. They apparently have principles, too, at stake.”—Daily News, Nov. 2, 1848.
“The adoption of the term Secularism is justified by its including a large number
of persons who are not Atheists, and uniting them for action which has Secularism for
its object, and not Atheism. On this ground, and because, by the adoption of a new
term, a vast amount of impediment from prejudice is got rid of, the use of the name
Secularism is found advantageous; but it in no way interferes with Mr. Holyoake’s
profession of his own unaltered views on the subject of a First Cause. As I am writing
this letter, I may just say, for myself, that I constantly and eagerly read Mr.
Holyoake’s writings, though many of them are on subjects—or occupied with stages of
subjects—that would not otherwise detain me, because I find myself morally the better
for the influence of the noble spirit of the man; for the calm courage, the composed
temper, the genuine liberality, and unremitting justice with which he treats all manner
of persons, incidents, and topics. I certainly consider the conspicious example of Mr.
Holyoake’s kind of heroism to be one of our popular educational advantages at this
time.”— Harriet Martineau. Letter. to Uoyd Garrison, editor of the Liberator,
Boston, U.S., Nov. 1, 1853.
“ You inform me that the Reasoner is to be enlarged into a political magazine, and
you ask my permission to insert in it, as Political Fragments,various articles which have
already appeared from my pen in provincial newspapers or elsewhere. In giving you
full permission to make your own selection, and authorising you to tell the public that
you have that permission, I think it due to you to put on record why I most cordialy
accede to your request. It is because I think you so remarkably unite the two qualities
—uncompromising hostility to false or unjust systems, and a tender and just allowance
for the men who carry on those systems—that I rejoice in your becoming a political
spokesman for English operatives, who are too often carried away by violent invective
against persons—invective which always fails to effect reform. I know you to be a
reasonable man as well as a “ reasoner,” and though I do not entirely go along with
jtour politics any more than with your anti-theology, yet I have a deep belief in your
moral soundness; and the want of this is, after all, our greatest national weakness.—
Professor Newman, March 8, 1855. Reasoner, No. 459.
�“1. I do not know any other man who so consistently vindicates the right of every
opinion to its own free utterance. 2. I do not know any other man who is so un
swervingly firm in paying a candid, courteous, and painstaking attention to the state
ment of opinions opposed to his own.”—Thornton Leigh Hunt, Aug. 23, 1858.
“ You are welcome to any writing or fragment of mine, which you may wish to re
print for the Reasoner. Thought, according to me, is, as soon as publicly uttered, the
property of all, not an individual one. In this special case, it is with true pleasure
that I give the the consentment you ask for. The deep esteem I entertain for your
personal character, for your sincere love of truth, perseverance, and nobly tolerant
habits, makes me wish to do more; and time and events allowing, I shall. But,
whilst gladly granting your kind request, I feel bound in my turn to address one to you,
and it is to grant me the selection of the two first fragments. They will shield my own
individuality against all possible misinterpretations, and state at once the limits within
which we commune; these limits are political and moral, not philosophical. We pur
sue the same; progressive improvement, association, transformation of the corrupted
medium in which we are now living, overthrow of all idolatries, shams, lies and conventialities. We both want man to be, not the poor, passive, cowardly, phantasma
goric unreality of the actual time, thinking in one way and acting in another; bending
to power which he hates and despises; carrying empty popish, or thirty-nine article
formulas on his brow and none within ; but a fragment of the living truth, a real in
dividual being linked to collective humanity, the bold seeker of things to.come; the
gentle, mild, loving, yet firm, uncompromising, inexorable apostle of all that is just
and heroic, the Priest, the Poet, and the Prophet. We widely differ as to the how
and why.”—Joseph Mazzini, June 8, 1855. Reasoner, No. 472.
“ Here we have before us a weekly publication, written with an ability superior to
that displayed by the majority of English provincial journals, which has been regularly
issued for the last nine years, and yet the name of which is now for the first time men
tioned to the Indian reader. It is an unstamped journal, containing nothing that can
legally be taken as news, but enforcing with all the regularity and power of a wellconducted newspaper, a certain defined set of opinions. These opinions are, in regard
to politics, democratic to the extent of being socialistic; and in regard to religion (for
religion is discussed in the columns of this journal) rationalistic to the extent of being
atheistic. The conductors of this journal openly avow their objects to be—1. To test
religion by reason, to which in these days the most advanced churches appeal. 2. To
found public action on secular principles—which, being based on experience, all men
are enabled to judge them; and being unsectarian, all liberal men can unite about
them. 3. To train the working class to take part in public affairs, English and foreign;
developing the ability of self-government, personal, local, and national; cultivating
sentiments of inflexible truth, justice, and good-will; because a people in such respects
self-consistent may, by vigilantly contrasting the conduct of their rulers with the pre
cepts they deliver to the people, force them into integrity, or shame them into privacy.’ ’
— Hindoo Patriot, June 28, 1855.
“ I am not fond of substituting authorities for arguments, and there is only one other
witness I will call. There are many members of this house, and many more of the
working classes, who are familiar with the name of Mr. Holyoake. He is chiefly known
in connection with philosophical speculations of an unpopular character, and also as
warmly and earnestly sympathising with the cause of democratic institutions in Europe.
No one is a more fitting representative in that respect of the feelings of that section of
the working class which interests itself most strongly in politics. Mr. Holyoake may
fairly be taken to represent the feelings of persons of extreme political opinions, and it
is with his political opinions alone with which I have to do.”—Speech of Lord Stanley,
House of Commons, Miarch 21, 1859. Vide The Times, March 22.
“ Who can tell us anything about the working man ? Are they the mere dupes of
interested leaders, as men of Mr. Bright’s order invariably assure us <vhen they have
to contend with strikes and labour leagues? Are they anxious for nothing but
relief from taxation? Are they brimful of undeveloped energies, as Mr. Kingsley
seems to think; or running over with potential religious unction, as our High Church
lady novelists insinuate in multitudinous single volumes; Do they believe in Mr. Ernest
Jones as they believed in Mr. Feargus O’Conner ? Do they listen to such instructors as
Mr. Holyoake, as Lord Stanley hinted to the House of Commons, not without some
facts to back him ?—The Saturday Review, March 26, 1859.
�
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The principles of secularism illustrated
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Edition: 3rd rev. ed.
Place of publication: London
Collation: 50 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: Contains bibliographical references and index. Illustrations at the head of chapter headings. Extracts of reviews of The Reasoner, from various sources, on unnumbered pages at the end.
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Holyoake, George Jacob
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Austin & Co.
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1870
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Secularism
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Secularism
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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.
�4
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'
6
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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HEAVEN & HELL: WHERE SITUATED?
A. SEABCH AFTEIi THE OBJECTS OP
MAN’S FERVENT HOPE & ABIDING TERROR.
BY AUSTIN HOLYOAKE.
Heaven ia the hope of the Christian —Hell is his dread, his fear, his
abiding terror. What would Christianity be—that is, the modern faith
of Europe—without these two ideas, or sentiments, or beliefs, or whatever
they may be called? Simply a mild kind of superstition. The hope of an
eternal reward for doing right, appeals with much force, there can be no
doubt, to the selfish; and the fear of eternal, never-ending torments, will
keep many a wretch in awe. But all who are swayed by such motives
must be inferior morally to those who do good because it is right to do so,
and because it will benefit men individually, and society generally, regard
less of all consideration as to whether the doers of good will receive
advantage themselves. Man’s clear duty is to do right, to speak the truth,
not only without reward, but even at his own cost if need be.
I say at the outset, that I do not believe in the Christian’s Heaven. It
involves too many difficultiss and contradictions for me to comprehend, or
for anyone to explain. To disturb the Christian’s greatest hope, to destroy
his fondest illusion, to rob him of his sole consolation, without giving him
an equivalent in return, is denounced from every pulpit and every religious
tract, as a deadly sin. But if the Christian is trusting to a delusion, if
he is self-deceived, who is to blame? Surely not he who points out the
error—the blame lies rather with those who have deceived him, or, it may
be, with himself, for not having examined more closely the foundations of
his belief. Ministers every day in the year preach about and promise to
their devotees a heaven of bliss, when they have not the minutest particle
of evidence upon the subject to justify their promises. Thus is the world
deluded; and out of the delusion thousands thrive and fatten, while the
bulk of the nation are taxed to uphold the deception.
For many centuries, and in many countries, the idea of a future state,
or world beyond the grave, has existed. How this idea first arose, we have
no clear conception. That it has varied in different countries, according
to the amount of intelligence or civilisation possessed by each, is certain.
The poor savage, whose untutored mind
Sees God in clouds, and hears him in the wind,
has pictured to himself the happy hunting grounds of the Great Spirit,
covered with boundless herds of wild buffaloes and other animals dear to
the heart of the child of the prairie, which he will be always chasing and
always catching. The Mahomedan of the East believes in and hopes for
a Paradise where all his sensuous enjoyments will be increased tenfold—
shady groves, refreshing springs, and beautiful houris. The Christian
believes in a future state of spiritual existence, where all his earthly
wants and necessities will leave him, where hunger and thirst, pain and
sorrow, will torment him no more. In short, he expects to live in a state
of ecstatic delirium for ever and ever. We will examine how far this
belief is warranted by facts.
�2
Heaven and Hell.
What is the Christian’s Heaven? Where is it situated? In what part
of the so-called Sacred Writings shall we find a clear and intelligible
description of this abode of bliss—this promised land of never-ending
pleasures, which is to be the reward of all true believers ? It appears to be
situated, by common consent, up above—beyond the clouds—beyond im
measurable space—and yet in the clouds. Whether in the torrid or the
frigid zone, we are not informed. What its climate will be no man
knoweth. Will there be there the severe winter, with its snows and
chilling blasts; the genial and budding spring, giving promise of the
warm and sunny summer, when all nature, in the plenitude of her wealth
and beauty, showers her blessings on mankind; to be followed by the mellow
and glowing autumn, when the seasons, resting as it were from the labours
of production, smile upon the bounties scattered broadcast over the earth?
Men of all climes are to go to Heaven, who believe in the proper number
of orthodox nostrums, but how will the Laplander fare in a climate which
is suitable to the Asiatic ? How will the Englishman live and be happy,
where the African can thrive, or the Russian of the wilds of Siberia will be
at home ? Are all to be dumb there, or are all to speak one language ? If
all are to have the power of articulation, are those only of one country to
talk together, except the happy few who may possess the gift of tongues ?
If so, it will be but a repetition of the educational inequalities of this
world, which the schoolmaster is now making strenuous efforts to rectify.
Will all retain the same intellectual power which they possessed when on
earth ? If so, what gratification will the change bring to the idiots from
birth, who are not capable of comprehending anything ? They cannot be
restored to their senses, seeing that they never possessed any. After death
they would have to be reorganised. Will the cripples be made perfect, and
those who have lost limbs have them restored to them ? These may seem
to the Christian considerations beside the question, but on reflection he
will be bound to admit that they are questions needing an answer.
It is in vain for the Christian to say that man in Heaven will be a
spiritual, and not a material being. In the first place, we have no con
ception, and cannot possibly convey to another, an idea of what a spiritual
being is. There is a contradiction in the very terms, and we have no
analogy by which to judge. This involves the interminable controversy
about spiritual substance, etherealised bodies, and so on. But is it not
manifestly absurd to promise to man eternal happiness in a future state of
existence, when you take away from him all those faculties whereby he
will be alone capable of feeling either pleasure or pain, joy or sorrow? See
the insurmountable difficulties involved in this notion of life after death.
I am promised all this bliss; then, unless I go to that land beyond the
grave as I am—that is, with all my human faculties unimpaired—1 cannot
enjoy it ? I am known from others to all who see me by my outward form,
and by what they hear me say and see me do. I receive pleasure from certain
things, and experience pain in virtue of being what I am. Destroy my
individuality, my body, and where am I ? Ano longer exist. That same
principle of life which animates my body has animated countless millions of
other human beings ; but my form as it now exists has never been pos
sessed by another. What attraction is it to me to be told that when I die
I shall go to another and a better world, if I am not to be I when I get
there ? It is a place clearly intended for a different race of beings or exist
ences, whose happiness will depend, not upon what they may have believed
or disbelieved here, but upon the suitability to their constitution or
organisation of the circumstances surrounding them. No Christian can
imagine himself to be other than he is on this earth. Disguise the fact as
�Heaven and Hell.
3
they may, those who desire a life after death believe it will be one calcu
lated to promote their own special enjoyments.
Some time ago, the Rev. J. C. Ryle, B.A., Vicar of Stradbroke, pub
lished in the Quiver—a publication issued by Cassell & Co.—an essay en
titled “ Shall we know one another?” in which he singularly confirms this
view of the matter. He is a Churchman, and of course quite orthodox.
He quotes three short passages from Thessalonians (1, iv. 13,14), which he
says “ all imply the same great truth, that saints in heaven shall know
one another. They shall have the same body and the same character
that they had on earth—a body perfected and transformed like Christ’s in
his transfiguration, but still the same body—a character perfected and
purified from all sin, but still the same character. But in the moment
that we who are saved shall meet our several friends in heaven, we shall
at once know them, and they will at once know us.” But this declaration
complicates the subject farther than ever. What does he mean by the same
body ? How can it be the same body if it be “ perfected and transformed?”
It is as unintelligible as Daniel’s dreams or St. John’s visions. The rev.
gentleman candidly remarks:—“ I grant freely that there are not many
texts in the Bible which touch the subject at all. I admit fully that pious
and learned divines are not of one mind with me about the matter.”
The best Scriptural description to be found of Heaven, appears to be in
the Revelation of St.John; and as it is put as the grand climax or perora
tion to the sacred writings, we must accept it as the only authoritative
account to be had. St. John “ writeth his revelation to the seven churches
of Asia, signified by the seven golden candlesticks.” What light
does John put into these said candlesticks, which is supposed to
illumine a benighted and ruined world ? This revelation is the most in
coherent jumble that perhaps ever came from the mouth of a sane man.
In fact, it is only equalled by the insane ravings continually heard from
those unfortunate creatures, now too often to be met with, who have been
stricken with the revival mania. We shall be told that some parts are
symbolical, and are not to be taken as written. As they stand, there is
no earthly meaning in them; but where does the symbolical end, and the
literal begin ? There is no internal evidence to guide U3; then who is to
be the sworn interpreter ? The Catholic Church has settled that question
for itself, but in the Protestant Church we go upon the principle, if not the
practice, of each judging for himself. We in England have some thousands
of ordained and self-appointed ministers and expounders of the Gospel, who
do the interpretation business for the multitude, and for such as are too
indolent or too much occupied to think for themselves. What light do we
get from them to guide us through the perilous paths of life which lead
from the cradle to the grave? Too many of them are like St. John’s seven
candlesticks—they are merely sticks, and have no light in them, not even
so much as the glimmer of a rushlight to shed on the dark pages of Gospel
history.
Any one who takes the trouble to search for authentic information
about the locality and nature of the Heaven in which all Christians pro
fess to believe, will find a total absence of any knowledge upon the subject.
Like the alleged existence of God, it is simply a belief, and not a reality.
Yet all the Churches speak of this phantom of the imagination with as
much confidence as though the “ celestial regions ’’ had been surveyed and
mapped like a tract of country, and their boundaries placed beyond the
possibility of dispute. But so long as people will not think, but content
themselves with believing, there will be no lack of traders upon their cre
dulity.
�4
Heaven and Hell.
We now turn to the second part of our subject. What shall we say
about that other place of abode for departed spirits, the climate of which is
so warm that the natives of centraPAfrica will find it uncomfortable ? Where
is it situated ? Ob, down below, of course; all Christians say so, and they
alone know. Did not Christ descend into Hell ? And yet it cannot be far
from Heaven, for did not Dives and Lazarus hold a conversation toge
ther from their respective abodes ? We are not quite sure that Hell is not
in Heaven itself, for in Revelation xiv. 9 and 10, it says, “ If any man
worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in
his hand, the same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is
poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be
tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and
in the presence of the Lamb.” We are not to suppose that a little hell is
kept among the holy angels for special use, or that they often go where
Lucifer alone is King; and yet we cannot tell how men are to be tortured in
their presence unless Hell is in Heaven. However that may be, we are
assured that God himself is in Hell. If you doubt it, you need do no more
than go to that royal prophet, that inspired writer, that man after God’s
own heart, who, in one of those sacred oracles which the Holy Spirit itself
has dictated to him, acknowledges and owns it. “Whither shall I go,”
says David, “ from thy spirit ? or whither shall I flee from thy presence 1
If I ascend up into Heaven, thou art there ; if I make my bed in Hell,
behold thou art there." We have Psalm 139 for our authority, and no
one dare dispute that.
There seems to be no doubt in the minds of Christians, that the brim
stone pit is somewhere within the interior of 7 A is planet, but that the
Abode of Bliss is up in the clouds, or beyond them. Now if the other
planetary bodies are inhabited by human beings—and scientific men are
not aware of any reason why they should not be—if the Maker of all things
punishes his children with burning torments who do not believe in Christ
and Him crucified, where are the inhabitants of other planets to be sent
when their hour comes? Are they sent here, or has each of the other vast
worlds in space a nice little Hell of its own in which to put its erring sub
jects ? If they come here, an enlargement of the premises must be con
stantly taking place. If Heaven is not upon this earth, and is never to be
realised here—I prefer believing that Hell also is far up in the clouds, and
a very long way too, so that the journey thither may take as much time as
possible in its accomplishment.
The warm world beyond the grave is popularly known by many names.
Hell is perhaps the most general term used by Christians; though it is
sometimes designated by the appellations of Infernal Regions, Perdition,
Abode of the Damned, and so on. Most orthodox Christians mean by the
term Hell the everlasting lake of brimstone and fire; though there are still
some in the Church, and we believe they are of the best, who do not believe
at ali in a literal Hell of fire. The Catholics have a place which they call
Purgatory, which is a sort of House of Detention, and not the penal settle
ment our Hell is supposed to be. There sinnerscan be released on tickets-ofleave after certain regulations have been complied with; our religious
convicts are condemned for life (or death, whichever it may be) without the
slightest hope of pardon. The Catholics themselves admit, that once in
Hell, you are in it for ever, Michael Angelo, the celebrated painter,
executed, by command of Pope Julius IT., a splendid picture representing
the Day of Judgment. Now Michael Angelo had placed among his other
figures in his scene of Hell, several cardinals and prelates. They had pro.
bably been guilty, like Bishop Colenso and some of the most intelligent men
�Heaven and Hell.
5
of our Church, of thinking for themselves, and, worst of all, of publishing
the result of their thinkings. And this, we know, has been sufficient in all
Christian ages to render any man quite unfit for the company of saints.
However, some of the dignified and proper churchmen of Julius’s time, who
had probably never been guilty of an original thought in their lives, were
extremely enraged at the picture, and made complaint of it to his Holi
ness, and entreated that he would lay his injunctions on the painter to
efface them. To whom the Pope replied—“ My dear brethren, Heaven
has indeed given me the power of recovering as many souls from Pur
gatory as I think proper; but as to Hell, you know as well as I do, that
my power does not extend so far, and those who once go thither, must
remain there for ever!”
What is Hell? Where is it? Is it really the lake of fire some repre
sent it to be? You will be eternally bewildered and completely con
founded if you try to determine this question from the Bible itself. If
Hell be below, it must be contained within the earth, for wherever you
go en the surface of this globe, you will find the firmament still above and
around you. If within, which is the way to it? Strange that no one has
ever even by accident discovered it. The only entrance one can imagine
to it, is the mouth of Vesuvius. But that cannot be the way, as it is not
a brimstone pit, though sulphurous exhalations arise from it. No devil
that we ever heard of, was seen to emerge from it—not even by the
miracle-working monks who infest the country round about. We know
the right place has a door or grating, and that St. John saw the angel who
kept the key. But it is bottomless, and therefore who knows but that
Vesuvius is the other side—the front door in the rear, out of which the
Devil pops when he wants to go roaring up and down the world ? A
bottomless pit full of liquid must be like a pot without a bottom filled with
water, where all things are not only in a state of solution, but the solution
itself is held in suspension 1
We continually hear pious Christians say that the souls of unbelievers
have gone, or are going, to Perdition. But there is a consolation in know
ing that it is not Hell. Revelation xvii. 8, says that the beast which was
so obliging as to carry the scarlet lady of Babylon, ‘ ‘ shall ascend out of
the bottomless pit and shall go into Perdition.” Perhaps Perdition is the
Catholic’s Purgatory 1 Who knows ? But then there is no mistake that
Hell is Hell, and that the Freethinker will go there 1 Not quite so sure.
Read Revelation xx. 14 —“And Death and Hell were cast into the lake
of fire.” Where does this lead us? We have heard of a house being
turned out of window, but we never heard of a pit being thrown into
itself 1 This is one of those mysteries which “ passeth all understanding.”
We still have the lake of fire, where human beings are to be burnt for
ever and ever, and yet never consumed. Now this is simply an impossi
bility. The human body, if thrown into a large fire, would be utterly
destroyed in a very short time, and nothing could prevent it. “ Men
cannot live in fire. It is the nature of fire to burn up, to destroy, to
decompose any animal or vegetable substance that is cast into it. It would
require the properties of life to be altered before men could live in it for
ever. Some will say, God can work a miracle. But we have no reason
to suppose that he can. We know nothing of what God can do—we only
know what is, and miracles do not take place.” We must discard the
idea of a burning Hell as a fiction conceived by a brutal and revengeful
monster in human form, and afterwards taken up and added to by fanatics,
whose minds had been worked upon by superstition, till they believed as
a reality, that which existed only in their own disordered imaginations.
�6
Heaven and Hell.
The believers in what is called philosophical religion, to the credit of
their better nature, reject the brimstone part of the Bible, but cling to the
fascinating hope of an abode after death of everlasting bliss. But they
occupy a wholly illogical position. They have no more reason for
believing in the existence of the one place than in the other, as both rest on
precisely the same foundation—that of belief anti. not knowledge. They
say that the Heaven of the Bible is real, but that, the Hell is figurative,
and that the suffering will be only spiritual, and not material. But it
is in vain to say that men in Hell will suffer all the torments promised to
the damned, in the spirit, and not in the flesh. This is absurd. Besides,
the Bible, with its usual disregard of probabilities or possibilities, says that
in the regions of the damned will be heard weeping, and wailing, and
gnashing of teeth. These are material operations, and who knows what
are phantom grinders, spiritual molars, or immaterial jaws ?
There are some sects of Christians who reject the brimstone Hell as a
fiction, but they scarcely go so far as to say that all mankind will go to
Heaven. They firmly believe that man is immortal, therefore he must go
somewhere after he leaves this earth. Wherever it may be, it must be a
region inhabited by the choicest spirits the world has produced. By
painters, poets, sculptors, orators, statesmen, warriors, authors, reformers,
philanthropists, beautiful and gifted women, and innocent children, who
died without the redeeming blessing of Baptism. Every man, woman, and
child, without exception, born before the Christian era, must be in this
glorious land. They had no Christ crucified to take them to the Heaven
of St. John, inhabited by angels and beasts. In this new world (assum
ing that men live after death), may be expected to be met with, all the
most grave and gifted personages of antiquity — Aristotle, Socrates,
Plato, Demosthenes, Pythagoras, Epictetus, Seneca, Pliny, Herodotus,
Thucydides, Polybius, Livy, Suetonius, Tacitus, Plutarch, Anaxagoras,
Ptolemy, Cicero, Homer, Pindar, Euripides, Sophocles, Ovid, and
Horace, all assembled in one grand philosophic academy. And what a
glorious phalanx of earth’s mightiest intellects and greatest benefactors
have been sent thither since their day! And only think that of all those
who are alive now, and who adorn the age in which we live, how few will
find their way into the heaven of Revelation. St. John and his beasts
will have none but the saints, the hypocrites, the miserable sinners, the
priests, the criminals, both on the throne and in the hovel. They will
reject John Stuart Mill, and accept Richard Weaver; shut the door in the
face of Bishop Colenso, but open it wide for Wright the converted thief;
receive Louis Napoleon with a flourish of trumpets, but hurl anathemas at
Garibaldi; welcome the Pope with incense, but threaten with brimstone
and fire the noble Joseph Mazzini.
Who, with human sympathies and affections, would like to go to a place
where the nearest and dearest ties are broken? Where the husband is
separated from the wife, the parent from the child, the brother from the
sister ? And not only separated, but where you will know that those you
loved are writhing in agony unutterable. It is a doctrine which requires a
fiend or a saint to believe it. We are told that a certain king of the
Frisons, named Redbord, when on the very point of being baptised, took
it into his head to ask the Bishop, who was preparing to perform the cere
mony, whether in the paradise which had been promised him in conse
quence of his changing his religion, he should find his ancestors and pre
decessors. The Bishop having told him, that as they had all died Pagans,
they could enjoy no portion of the heavenly inheritance, but were all in
Hell, “Nay, then,’’ replied the King, lifting his foot out of the font into
�Heaven and Hell.
7
■which he had already dipped it, ‘ ‘ if that be the case, take back again
your baptism and your paradise; I had much rather go to Hell, and be
there amongst a good and numerous company, with my illustrious ances
tors, and other persons of my own rank, than to your Paradise, from which
you have shut out all these brave people, and filled it up with none but
paupers, miscreants, and people of no note.”
And is not Heaven filled with miscreants, if the Christian theory be
correct ? Who is the most acceptable to Heaven ? Is it not the repentant
sinner? Have not men of the most notoriously abandoned and profligate
lives, who, when they were too ill to sin any more, expressed their sorrow
for what they had done, in the hope of being rewarded with happiness in
another world ? And have not priests in all times assured these monsters
of a sure and certain resurrection to eternal bliss ? How forcibly, how
beautifully has Thomas Moore depicted this hateful doctrine in his en
chanting poem of “ Paradise and the Peri.” A Peri in the East is sup
posed to be one of those beautiful creatures of the air who live upon per
fumes, but still is a kind of fallen angel, who mourns after Paradise—
“ And weeps to think her recreant race
Should ere have lost that glorious place.”
The Peri is represented as hovering about the entrance to heaven, and the
angel who keeps the gates hears her weeping, and taking pity on her, gives
her a chance of re-entering Paradise. The angel imagined by Moore, who
is a much more estimable person than St. Peter, speaks thus:—
“ Nymph of a fair but erring line!”
Gently he said—“ One hope is thine.
’Tis written in the Book of Fate
The Peri yet may be forgiven
Who brings to this eternal gate
The gift that is most dear to heaven!
Go, seek it, and redeem thy sin—
’Tis sweet to let the pardoned in.”
She then starts on her mission, and with a true human instinct, thinks that
the patriot who dies nobly for his country, will be a welcome guest among
the blessed. She goes to the field of carnage, where a battle for freedom
has been raging, but where might and not right has triumphed. She
catches the dying sigh of the patriot, who has fallen in his country’s
cause, and takes that to the celestial gatekeeper:—
“ ‘ Sweet,’ said the Angel, as she gave
The gift into his radiant hand,
‘ Sweet is our welcome of the Brave
Who die thus for their native Land.
But see—alas!—the crystal bar
Of Eden moves not—holier far
Than e’en this drop the boon must be
That opes the gates of Heav’n for thee!’ ”
Oh no! Heaven is no place for patriots. They are disliked there. They
have been meddling people, disturbing the reign of divinely-appointed
rulers — a thing very obnoxious to the ministers of God’s holy word.
Lazarus, as soon as he got to heaven, refused a drop of water to cool the
parching lips of Dives, showing what moral effect that place had upon him.
Now comes the orthodox climax to this tale of injustice. The Peri takes
�8
Heaven and Hell.
her last flight over the vale of Balbec.
from his horse, with a brow—
She there sees a ruffian dismount
“ Sullenly fierce—a mixture dire,
Like thunder-clouds of gloom and fire 1
,
In which the Peri’s eyes could read
Dark tales of many a ruthless deed:
The ruined maid—the shrine profaned—
Oaths broken—and the threshold stain’d
With blood of guests—there written, all,
Black as the damning drops that fall
From the denouncing Angel’s pen,
Ere mercy weeps them out again.”
This guilt-stained wretch sees a child at play, who, when the vesper calls
to prayer, begins to pray. He thought of his own childhood:
‘ * He hung his head—each nobler aim
And hope and feeling which had slept
From boyhood’s hour, that instant came
Fresh o’er him, and he wept—he wept!”
And it is with this crocodile tear that the Peri returns to the Gates of
Light, and instead of its being spurned’with^contempfifit is pronounced
the gift most dear to heaven, and she is rewarded with admission into the
Eden which is made up of such characters as this. Well might Redbord
exclaim, that such a heaven is filled with none but paupers, miscreants,
and people of no note.
This Heaven, for which Christians yearn, and for which they fight, per
secute, and murder, is a creation of the brain, appearing to each what
each desires. There is no line in the Revelation which will warrant the
belief that it is the abode of bliss some would have us believe. There is
no love, no sympathy, no warmth of affection, which can alone make life
endurable. Who would be happy in the presence of angels, who pour out
the vials of the wrath of the Lord upon all mankind? We have had too
much of this wrath from his ministers on earth, who seem never able to
exhaust the vials.
The Bible, or any other book, which teaches the doctrine of Hell tor
ments, is not, cannot be, a revelation from a God of mercy and love. It
is the crude production of an ignorant, a superstitious, a priest-ridden, and
brutal people. The Bible alone, of all books in the world, first promul
gated the monstrous, the fiendish doctrine of eternal, never-ending tor
ments prepared for all men, not one-millionth part of whom ever saw or
heard of it. This doctrine, so far from keeping men good, makes good
men bad, and brutalises all who believe in it. It distracts men’s minds
from the duties of this life, and deludes them into the belief of another
which, when looked at calmly and with reason, will be seen to contain no
element worthy of their acceptance, or capable of promoting their perma
nent happiness.
PRICE ONE PENNY.
London: Printed and Published by Austin & Co., 17, Johnson’s Court,
Fleet Street, E.C.
�
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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 Library & Archives
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Heaven and hell: where situated? a search after the objects of Man's fervent hope and abiding terror
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Holyoake, Austin [1826-1874]
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 8 p. ; 19 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Presented in Memory of Dr. Moncure D. Conway by his children, July Nineteen hundred & eight.
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Austin & Co.
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[187-?]
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CT18
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Heaven
Hell
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Christian Doctrine
Conway Tracts
Heaven
Hell
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Text
THE
LOGIC AND PHILOSOPHY
OF
’ATHEISM.
WYTTS.
BY JOHN
4-e
LONDON :
Austin & Co., 17, Johnson’s Couet, Fleet Street, E.C.
1 865.
PBICE THE EEPENCE.
��e
THE
LOGIC AND PHILOSOPHY OF ATHEISM.
BY
JOHN
WATTS.
If any apology be necessary for calling attention to a sub
ject that has been so often previously investigated, it may
be found in the fact that current literature generally receives
more patronage from the multitude than older, and, in many
cases, abler productions. And further, every writer and
every speaker will, as a rule, treat any given subject from
a different point of view, and make especially clear some one
point in connection with the particular question under con
sideration-. And as Theistic advocates are so numerous,
their advocacy so varied, and their expositions so frequent,
no advantage that legitimately belongs to Atheistic propagandism should be lost sight of, and no effort omitted to be
made that is calculated to set forth in all their strength
those truths represented by the term Atheism. It would
be the climax of folly to suppose that because error has
once been exposed, the reign of truth is not far distant.
That “ truth is great and must prevail ” we doubt not; but
its speedy or deferred victory will depend, to a very great
extent at least, upon the wisdom, the valour, and the per
sistency of those who undertake to secure its triumph. In
the present instance nothing more will be attempted than to
give a kind of panoramic view of the Atheist’s position, and
to exhibit the immense advantage he possesses over the or
thodox Christian. Originality we care not to claim, as our
�4
THE LOGIC AND PHILOSOPHY
desire is rather to prove useful thanto be considered great.
It is not new truths that mankind requires—it is the under
standing and adoption of those already proclaimed. Our
duty, therefore, is to recapitulate the nature and tendency
of the principles in which we believe, until misunderstand
ing or misrepresentation shall be impossible.
Perhaps*it will be advisable at this preliminary stage to
notice a supposition entertained by Christians as to the
audacity of any man daring to call in question the existence
of their supposed Deity. It is said that every nation, hea
then or otherwise, believes in such a Being, and that it is
only the few corrupt minds in any country who “ make the
wish father to the thought,” and blaspheme that power in
whom they “ live, move, and have their being.’’ In the
first place we frankly say that did this presumed universal
belief in Deity actually exist, it would have not the slighest
weight with us ; neither should Christians desire it to have
any. When they tell us that we are each to be held res
ponsible for our own beliefs and actions, they surely cannot
deny the justice of each investigating for himself, and form
ing his own conclusions, independently of any other person
or all other nations. It is useless to tell an Atheist what
another man believes ; he very properly answers that it is
not another’s faith but his own reason which he accepts as a
guide. With Drummond he declares that “ he who will not
reason is a bigot; he who cannot is a fool; and he. who
dares not is a slave.” But this oft-repeated statement in re
ference to the universality of belief is very far from being true,
and we need not therefore further notice it. Any one who
will take the trouble to read M. Pouchet’s recently published
volume on the “Plurality of the Human Race,” will find
instances cited of nations having no idea whatever of Divi
nity. Speaking of various African and Oceanic tribes, he
describes them as having no notion of anything outside
themselves. “ Ideas, abstract ideas, arise from their own
domain; the past, that which preceded their birth; the
future, that which follows their death, does not occupy their
attention ; the present is their only business in life. They
do not demand ‘ Whence do I come ?’ What am I ?
Where am I going ?’ And they have no idea whatsoever of
�OF ATHEISM.
5
a Divinity !”* These cases, it should be remembered, are
not the only ones; almost all travellers bear the same or
similar testimony. It follows, therefore, that Christians are
neither right as to the truth of a universal belief in God, nor
in the inference they would draw from such belief did it
really exist. Instead of the idea of God being universal, we
should rather say that in no country, nor in any one person
is it to be found. Nothing is more easy or more prevalent
than to pronounce the word God, and to say in him I be
lieve. But in whom or in what ? Ask a thousand persons
to give some definition of God, or to explain their ideas of
what he really is, or what they believe him to be, and you
would have to pause for a reply. Strange as it may appear,
we will venture the statement that the most logical answer
would, we think, come from the Atheist. In the words of
Allen Davenport, he may say:—
“ You ask me what is God ? And I
Am no way puzzled to reply.
My inward lights so clearly shine
That heavenly things I may divine;
And although but a finite creature,
Tell what is God and what is Nature.
Whatever can be seen or felt,
Whatever can be heard or smelt,
Whatever can be tasted, and all the mind can understand,
All that our wisdom can conceive,
All that in which we can believe;
All o’er where Fancy ever trod, is Nature;
All the rest is God ”
And what the “rest” is no Theist ever told us. He that
can form an idea of something more than everything is the
man and the only man that can have any “ idea ” of God.
Locke, who is often quoted as a Christian authority, was
conscious of the confusion that existed in men’s minds as to
what “ God ” is. His words are :—“ How many amongst
us are to be found, upon inquiry, to fancy God in the shape
of a man sitting in heaven, and to have other absurd and
unfit conceptions of him. Christians as well as Turks have
had whole sects owning or contending earnestly for it, that
the Deity was corporeal and of human shape.” To do Locke
Quoted by M, Pouchet, page 29.
�6
THE LOGIC AND PHILOSOPHY
justice, however, we are bound to say that he considered
such conceptions of “ Deity ” to be confined to the “ igno
rant and uninstructed.” But that equally absurd notions
have obtained among the most learned philosophers the
history of the world will readily prove. Socrates, for in
stance, defined God as the cause of the universe, a defini
tion as unintelligible as the word God itself is. A selfexistent universe never could have had a cause; and were the
universe not self-existent, its cause must have been the effect
of some previous cause, and so on ad infinitum. To speak
of & first cause is only to indulge in Christian babblement,
Aristotle, too, considered God to be “ a mind immutable and
impassable, an eternal and most perfect animal, perpetually
employed in imparting motion to the universe.” Upon
reading which the late Julian Hibbert justly remarked, “It
must be dull work to be eternally trundling a wheel-barrow,
and perhaps hard work too for an incorporeal Being.”
Synesius, however, would make no compromise with com
mon sense, but resolved (if the expression be allowable) to
“ go the whole hog.” Apostrophising “ Deity,” he says,
“ Thou art a father and a mother, a male and a female ; thou
art voice and silence ; thou art the fruitful nature of natures ;
thou art the father of all fathers; and being without a
father, thou art thine own father and son. 0 source of
sources, principle of principles, root of roots, thou art the
unity of unities, the number of numbers, being both unity
and number. Thou art one and all things, one of all
things, and one before all things.” Now if Synesius
were not right in any one of his many descriptions,
who can hope ever (o successfully guess what the “ Deity ”
really is ? And it is useless for modern Christians to
say that their idea of God is more rational than the des
criptions just given ; for whilst they are less wordy in their
so-called definition, they are equally absurd. To say, as
they do, that God is a spirit, is only to use another word
of which they know nothing, to describe the nature of a
Being in whom they believe, but of whom they have no idea,
nor can they form of him the slightest conception.
If the preceding statements be true, are we not justified
in saying, as Mr. Southwell has often remarked to us, that
�OF ATHEISM.
7
Atheism is man’s normal state, and that Theists are just
like fishes out of water ? The position of the Atheist may
be described in a few words. He believes that something
is, and that something always has been. He believes in the
existence of Nature, by which he means the aggregate of
matter or substance. And as the totality of things is all
that he can form any conception of, together with his un
avoidable belief that something always was, he is forced to
the conclusion that Nature is eternal, without beginning
and without end. Being eternal, he can only view it as
self-existent, and as self-existence is the climax of attributes,
it doubtless, he considers, includes all other attributes.
Here the Atheist, who is generally spoken of as a negation
ist, appears as decidedly a positivist as it is possible to be.
The Theist comes forth as the negationist, and assures the
Atheist that in believing only in everything, he is in error.
To be right he must believe in something more than every
thing, in a Being that existed before anything was, who
occupies some place outside everywhere, and who created
all that exists. The Atheist very properly replies, that it
seems to him impossible that there ever was a time when
nothing was; and if Nature were produced from something
already in existence, whence came that something ? It
could never have been created if it as “ something ” always
existed. The Atheist then inquires what this existence or
something is which the Theist calls God. It cannot, he
conceives, be matter, or it would be part of Nature, and the
part could never be the cause of the whole. If it be not
matter, it can neither be the part nor the whole of anything.
If the universe be boundless and material, nothing imma
terial can possibly exist. If a Being really do exist who
created all things, the obvious question at once is, where
was this Being before anything else existed? “ Was there
a time when the God over all, was God over nothing?
Can we believe that a God over nothing began to be out of
nothing, and to create all things when there was nothing.
Is it, therefore, not easier to believe that this stupendous
and mighty frame of Nature always was, infinite and eter
nal ?” This appears to the Atheist to be the true state of
the case, and although it explains not the why and the
�8
THE LOGIC AND PHILOSOPHY
wherefore of existence, it is far more consistent and logical
than the gigantic assumptions of the Theist, who is favoured
with no more light on the subject than the Atheist possesses.
“ What I hold to be the truth,” says a well-known German
writer, “ shall be welcome to me, let it sound as it may;
but I will know, and should this be impossible, thus much
at least I will know—that it is not possible to know.” This
is the spirit underlying the logic and philosophy of Atheism.
We adopt, therefore, without the slightest hesitation, those
forcible words translated by Thomas Carlyle :—“ What went
before and what will follow me I regard as two black impene
trable curtains which hang down at the two extremities of
human life, and which no living man has yet drawn aside.
Many hundreds of generations have already stood before
them, with their torches, guessing anxiously what lies behind.
On the curtain of futurity many see their own shadows,
the forms of their passions enlarged and put in motion; they
shrink in terror at this image of themselves. Poets, philo
sophers, and founders of states have painted this curtain
with their dreams, more smiling or more dark as the sky
above them was cheerful or gloomy; and their pictures
deceive the eye when viewed from a distance. Many jug
glers, too, make profit of this our universal curiosity; by
their strange mummeries they have set the outstretched
fancy in amazement. A deep silence reigns behind this cur
tain; no one once within will answer those he has left
without; all you can hear is a hollow echo of your question,
as if you shouted into a chasm.” Atheists, recognising the
truth of these remarks, are content to leave to Theists the
unenviable presumption of being able to draw back the cur
tain and present a clear view of what has been and of what
is to be. They should remember, however, that even from
their own stand-point:—
“Divines can say but what themselves believe;
Strong proofs they have, but not demonstrative;
For were all sure, then all minds would agree,
And faith itself be lost in certainty.
To live uprightly, then, is sure the best;
To save ourselves, and not to damn the rest.”
The Theist comes forward, however, with what he considers
to be a crushing argument. Thomas Cooper has taken it as
�Or ATHEISM.
travelling companion through. England and Scotland for
some years past, and he makes it do duty still. It is said
that things cannot produce what they have not. . Matter
hath not mind, or every atom of matter would contain mind.
A table or a stone would be as intelligent as Thomas
Cooper or Richard Weaver. If matter be not necessarily
intelligent, mind must exist independently of matter, which
cannot therefore be infinite or eternal. First, we would
observe that to our minds it by no means follows that for
intelligence to be a quality of matter it must necessarily
belong to every atom of matter. Brightness is a quality of
matter, but all matter is not bright. Neither is all matter
hard—in fact we find a great quantity, with “ intelligence,”
to be very soft. The same may be said of colours and other
qualities. The position taken by our friend Iconoclast in
his various debates on this question is in reality the only
strong and logical one. One substance—infinite or bound
less—is affirmed; call it matter if you will—numerous
modes of that substance exist. Each mode has its essential
quality, and we should be no more surprised to find some
matter without the quality of intelligence, than we are at
finding some minus the quality of brightness. It is not
true, either, that compound bodies do not possess qualities
and properties not to be found in their elementary consti
tuents. Any chemist could prove the contrary. Our old
friend Robert Taylor used to keep his opponents to this
point. “ How is it that sulphur and oxygen by combination
produce acid ? For neither sulphur nor oxygen have acid.
How is it that cold bodies produce heat (caloric)?” “ How
is it that nitrate of silver is a powerful caustic, when neither
of its elementary constituents has the least causticity ?
These constituents are silver, nitrogen, and oxygen.” When
these questions were recently put to Thomas Cooper, he
replied by saying he did not believe in their truth. Mr.
Taylor naturally smiled at so great a man being ignorant
of these simple truths, and recommended him to publish
“ Chemistry made Easy for Pious Flats,” ignoring all ex
perimental facts in connection with the science. He then
quoted for Mr. Cooper’s enlightenment from Professor
Fownes’s “ Rudiments of Chemistry,” wherein he says—
�10
THE LOGIC AND PHILOSOPHY
“ The various rocks, clays, sands, and soils, which compose
the solid earth : the water of seas and rivers, the materials
of plants and animals, are of a compound nature—that is,
made up of two or more other substances, united or com
bined together in a manner so close and intimate, as not to
be generally separable by any common means, and the com
pound so produced is almost always different in properties
and appearance from the substances of which it is really
composed.” This being true,' why should we deny that
under certain combinations of matter intelligence should be
one of its qualities ? But we are asked if we can conceive
how non-intelligence can in any way produce intelligence.
We, without the least reluctance, answer in the negative.
And in return we may ask the Theist whether he can con
ceive the possibility of an immaterial Being, having neither
“ body, parts, nor passions
having nothing whatever in
common with material substance, working upon, moulding,
and fashioning the entire universe, and all in it that lives,
and moves, and has being ? We, having only partial know
ledge of Nature’s properties, remain suspensive.
The
Theist, with no more knowledge, undertakes to answer au
thoritatively, and to solve the great problem of human ex
istence. Which is the more consistent we need not here
state.
Theists should never accuse Atheists of dogmatism ; for
no one can be more dogmatic than the Theist. He says,
for instance, that matter cannot be eterftal, for whatever is
eternal exists of necessity ; that whatever exists of necessity
must exist everywhere; that matter is not everywhere, or
there could be no locomotion. This is certainly clearly,
although not modestly stated. Why, we ask, is locomotion
impossible if matter be everywhere ? We find locomotion
going on every day in places where matter is certainly not
absent. A cab, for instance, may be driven along the public
thoroughfare, and meet with no impediment to its locomo
tion from the air, which is matter, or from collision with a
dog, or any small object. But if a house were to fall across
the road locomotion would be impeded. The fact is, one
kind, or rather one mode of matter is constantly replacing
another, without the absence of matter in any one known
�OF ATHEISM.
11
place. The argument too about the mind being distinct
from and independent of the body is equally worthless.
Theists say very pompously that we all know our minds
are not our bodies, and our bodies not our minds. Of
course we do ; and we also know that our teeth are not our
toe nails; but both our teeth and toe nails form parts of
our body when it is in a perfect state. But from disease of
some kind we may lose both our nails and our teeth, and
from disease we may also lose our mind. That is, the
normal functional activity of the brain may be arrested,
and that intelligence, which is the result of such activity—
by us called mind—is more or less lost also. If, on the
contrary, the mind were something independent of the
body ; if it were some divine and immaterial principle, ex
isting before the body did, and destined to live when the
body has passed into other modes; surely the temporary
disturbance of its present tenement would not affect its
manifestation or destroy its power. If so, what hope can
be entertained of immortality when the body is entirely
transformed ? If a healthy constitution is now necessary to
the existence of mind, upon what principle of reasoning is
it supposed that when the body ceases altogether to existthe mind will live for ever in that world of w’hich Christians
dream ? '
It is argued, too, that mind must be independent of matter,
from the fact that within an average period of about seven
years every particle of matter constituting the human body
is removed and a new body consequently formed, while
memory, one of the attributes of mind, may continue cog
nisant of all the principal events of a lifetime, showing
therefore thatzi had not changed with the material particles.
But this conclusion falls to the ground immediately in face
of the equally potent fact that the scar of a severe wound
received in infancy by an octogenarian, may accompany him
to the grave, notwithstanding that his body has been a dozen
times renewed. The new particles of matter adapt them
selves to the altered configuration of the injured part, and
the scar therefore remains, and, by parity of reasoning, the
new particles of matter constituting the mental organism
also take to themselves the conditions of existence of those
�12
THE LOGIC AND PHILOSOPHY
which they have replaced. The muscular power of an arm,
or the suppleness of the fingers of a pianist, may be the re
sult of forty years of training, although the actual muscles
themselves are but of seven years’ growth ; the vigour and
clearness of the intellect may be the result of as many years
of educational exercise, although acting through the medium
of tissues equally recent in their formation as the muscular
ones.
Paley admits in the thirty-third chapter of his “ Natural
Theology” the nonsensical idea of Deity. He says, “The
Deity, it is true, is the object of none of our senses.” This
statement exactly coincides with our opinion ; and yet men
undertake to demonstrate his existence. Can it be that
such men have lost their senses, and suppose that their
fellow-men are suffering from the same calamity ? A peru
sal of Gillespie’s “Necessary Existence of God” would
tend to confirm some such theory. Thomas Cooper, although
a disciple, has written of Gillespie as being “ eccentric,” a
very mild term, we imagine, if he be in the same state of
mind as he was when he wrote his book. Iconoclast has
just published “A Plea for Atheism,” which is mostly de
voted to an examination and complete refutation of Gilles
pie’s propositions. We need not, therefore, refer to them
at any great length. The propositions consist of wellselected jargon. The wTord Infinity is so much used that
one would think Mr. Gillespie knew all about its significa
tion, and yet there is no word upon which so much mis
understanding exists. It expresses simply a negation. As
Sir William Hamilton says, “ Infinite directly denotes only
the negation of limits.” The same author gives instances
of the folly of talking about the infinite as though it could
be comprehended. Here is one—“ A quantity, say a foot,
has an infinity of parts. Any part of this quantity, say an
inch, has also an infinity. But one infinity is not larger
than another. Therefore an inch is equal to a foot.” We
will only add in the words of Dr. Thomas Brown, in re
ference to this a priori argument—“ It is a relic of the
mere verbal logic of the schools, as little capable of produc
ing conviction as any of the wildest and most absurd of the
scholastic reasonings on the properties, or supposed pro
�OF ATHEISM.
13
perties, of entity and non-entity.” This we verily believe,
and having not the slightest faith in its efficacy to convince
either one way or the other, we pass on to the considera
tion of an argument more calculated to arrest the attention
and to convince the mind of the inquirer.
The. so-called Design argument is considered by many
Christians—lay and clerical—to be a complete answer to all
Atheistic objections to Theistic theories. Very few of those
who have escaped from the Theistic maze have had the good
fortune to get clear without encountering in more than one
avenue that terrible antagonist—“ Design.’’ He would
point to the heavens, direct your attention to the stars and
various planets, bid you consider their wonderful arrange
ment, and the regularity of their movements, and then
demand to know if it be not true that—
The spangled heavens—their shining frame
Their Great Original proclaim ?
He would then bring you back to earth, and expatiate on.
the marvellous arrangements of terrestrial objects. The eye
and the telescope, the watch and the human frame, are
eagerly compared, preparatory to the final blow to all scep
ticism in this question.. If we cannot believe that the tele
scope and the watch, with their marks of contrivance, were
produced without an intelligent artificer, why should we for
one moment doubt that the human frame, so wonderfully
made,.had not also an intelligent Being for its maker?
Dallacious. as this argument must appear to those wh-o have
properly investigated it, there are, it must be admitted,
thousands who consider it conclusive evidence of Deity’s
existence. Paley is, we know, with many Theists, consi
dered out of date, but with a vast majority of orthodox
Christians his arguments are still considered to be unmis
takably convincing. Thomas Cooper repudiates the idea of
Paley not being conclusive and convincing; and although a
long list of eminent names may be quoted against Paley’s
entire reasoning, Mr. Cooper, in unison with the general
orthodox Christians, maintain that Paley has never vet been
answered. “ Paley Refuted in his Own Words,” by Mr. G.
J. Holyoake, is haughtily pooh-poohed by the peevish
“ Lecturer on Christianity.” To our minds, however, no
�14
THE LOGIC AND PHILOSOPHY
thing could be more conclusive than Mr. Holyoake’s little
volume. Paley concludes his chapter “ Of the Personality
of the Deity ” in these words :—“ Upon the whole, after all
the schemes and struggles of a reluctant philosophy, the
necessary resort is to a Deity. The marks of Design are too
strong to be gotten over. Design must have had a designer.
That designer must have been a person. That person is God.”
Now it should be borne in mind why Paley uses the word
“ must.” Design must have had a designer. That designer
must be a person. That person must be God. Why, we
ask, must design prove a designer ? Why must a designer
be a person ? Paley answers, because experience tells us so.
Granted, say we. But then we also add, that experience
also tells us that every “ person ” is an organised being.
And if Deity be the designer of Nature, and if that designer
be a person, then Deity must be an organised being; and as
every organised being, according to Paley, bears marks of
contrivance, Deity himself was' designed. The designer of
him must also have been designed; and go back as far as we
may, we should never reach the “ First Cause ” of the Chris
tian. Mr. Cooper and others say that a person need not
imply an organised being, but an immaterial principle, an
“ unorganised Divine Being.” In reply, we ask on what
authority is such a statement made ? It is certainly not
made on Paley’s authority—experience. Our experience
has never proved any unorganised person ; and Paley’s en
tire argument is based on experience, and whatever that fails >
to prove weakens in the same ratio Paley’s position. Mr.
Holyoake’s words are these:—“We ask why does design
imply a designer ? Paley answers, experience tells us so.
Why does a designer imply a person ? Paley answers, ex
perience tells us so. Why does a person imply organisation ?
Nature gives the same answer, experience tells us so. The
Natural Theologian asserts that the Designer of Nature
must be a person, because, as he observes, we never knew
design proceed except from a person. To which it may be
added, that we never knew a person unassociated with or
ganisation.” If Mr. Thomas Cooper, or any one else, can
refute these statements from Paley’s position of experience,
we will willingly listen to the refutation. Until that is
�OF ATHEISM.
15
done, however, we shall insist that Paley has been refuted
in his own words. But there is another fallacy in connec
tion with this so-called Design argument—a fallacy that has
often been exposed, and one that must be obvious at the
very threshold of thought. Assuming, for a moment, that
man, like a watch, was designed by some person, then the
analogy is by no means complete. The watchmaker is not
a creator of the material out of which the watch is made :
he simply puts into certain order material placed before him.
To make the analogy complete, a watchmaker should be
placed in an empty room with no material allowed him, and
told to produce forthwith a fine gold chronometer, just to
“ oblige Benson.” The Being believed in by Paley had no
thing out of which to make the world. He first had to
create something out of nothing, and then produce every
thing out of this something, of which no one knows any
thing.
Enough, then, of this so-called Design argument. A more
important question is, “ Is there Design in the universe ?”
We are disposed to reply in the negative. Of course in
stances may be cited where there is w’hat appears to us to
be perfect and harmonious arrangements of means to ends.
Man’s eve is adapted for sight, his hands and arms for
various necessary uses, his legs and feet for locomotion.
The air and food are found to be necessary to life. The
rain descends to nourish the earth, and the sun shinfe? to
produce vegetation, and to cheer the heart of man. All
this, and much more, is quite true. But because we find
such admirable adaptation in Nature, are we bound to con
clude that it has been all designed by some external cause ?
May there not be in Nature an inherent adaptative power,
and each mode of its manifestation have its essential cha
racteristic ? Natural occurrences seem to corroborate such
a supposition. Certain modes of life continue only so long
as the conditions continue necessary to their existence.
And they exist, not because they were designed to exist,
but because they cannot help existing. And when any in
terference of the necessary conditions takes place, by the
action of some natural law, life becomes extinct, one species
dies out, and another species takes its place. Humboldt,
�16
THE LOGIC AND PHILOSOPHY
with his giant-intellect, observed what we believe to be
perfectly true, that were man not a designer we should
never hear anything of design. Or as Kant says, “ It is
reflecting reason which brought design into the world, and
which admires a wonder created by itself.” When we see
any given organ suited for the purpose to which it is
assigned, we, or rather some persons, at once say, “ There’s
design ! without such a provision such and such an animal
could not live.” This general exclamation simply amounts
to this. If a bird had not wings he could not fly, any more
than a man could w’alk without legs. But, as Dr. Louis
Buchner says, “ The stag was not endowed with long legs to
enable him to run fast, but he runs fast because his legs are
long. He might have become a very courageous animal
instead of a timid one, had his legs been unfit for running.
The mole has short spatulated feet for digging; had they
been different it would have never occurred to him to dig.
Things are just as they are, and we should not have
found them less full of design, had they been different.”*
In the serpent tribe feet are partly developed, although
perfectly useless. Was this designed ? Rudimentary organs
which answer no purpose appear in various species of animals.
Are they specially designed? Or, shall we not rather look
upon them as forming links in the development of one
species to another. The author just quoted further ob
serves in his chapter on “ Design in Nature ”—“ Is it by
design that a foetus should fix itself and become developed
in any other but its natural place, the uterus?—a case
which frequently occurs, and conduces to the death of the
mother. Or even that in such extra-uterine pregnancies,
after the lapse of the normal time, pains are felt in the
uterus, though nothing is to be expelled? There is a healing
power of nature in its usual sense, as little as there is a
vital power. The organism proceeding in certain definite
directions frequently adjusts morbid disturbances. At other
times the contrary occurs. The existence of certain specifics
against certain diseases, is frequently quoted as a striking
argument in favour of design in nature. But there are no
* Force and Matter.
Page 91.
�OF ATHEISM.
17
remedies which heal definite diseases with certainty and
under all circumstances, and can be looked upon as intended
to heal them. All rational physicians deny the existence of
specific remedies in the above sense, and are of opinion that
the effects of medicines are not the result of a specific neu
tralisation of the disease, but must be ascribed to very
different causes, mostly accidental. Hence we must also
abandon the theory that nature has created various plants
to act as antidotes—a theory which imputes an absurdity to
a creative power, which is to have created an evil with its
antidote, instead of omitting the creation of either. A crea
tive power acting with design could not have been guilty of
so useless an act.” “ One of the most important facts which
speaks againt the theory that nature acts with conscious
design, is the production of monstrosities. The unsophis
ticated human mind could so little reconcile these pheno
mena with the belief in a creator acting with design, that
they were formerly considered as indicative of the wrath of
the gods ; and they are, even at present, not unfrequently
looked upon as punishments from heaven. The author saw
in a veterinary cabinet, a goat fully developed in every part,
but born without a head. Can we imagine anything more
absurd than the development of an animal, the existence of
which is impossible from the beginning ?” “ The existence
of dangerous animals has ever been a thorn in the side of
theologians, and the most comical arguments have been used
to justify their existence; with what little success, is proved
by the assumption of those religious systems which consider
sin as the cause of that abnormity. According to Meyer
and Stilling, dangerous reptiles and insects are the conse
quence of the curse pronounced on the earth and its inha
bitants. Their frequently monstrous form, etc., is made to
represent sin and destruction! The old German heathens
looked upon these animals as evil spirits, from which all
diseases originated. These whimsical explanatory attempts
prove how little was effected in showing the usefulness or
the design in tfeese troublesome and disgusting creatures.
We know, on the other hand, that very innocent, or even
useful, animals have become extinct, without nature taking
any means to preserve their existence. Such, within his-
�18
THE LOGIC AND PHILOSOPHY
torical times, was the case with the Irish elk, the rytina
stelleri, the dodo, etc. There are other useful animals which
are constantly diminishing, threatening to become extinct;
whilst very many injurious animals, as field mice, are so
fruitful, that their extinction cannot be thought of. Locusts
and migratory pigeons form swarms which darken the hori
zon, and bring destruction, famine, and death over the spots
they alight upon. ‘ Whoever,’ says Giebel, ‘ expects to find
in nature nothing but wisdom, conformity, and design, let
him exercise his acumen in the study of the natural history
of the tape-worm. The main object of its life consists in
the production of eggs, the development of which can only
be effected by the sufferings of other creatures. Millions
of such eggs perish; some few are developed and trans
formed into a sucking and productive scolex, the progeny
of which again produce eggs which putrify in the excre
ments.
In this process there is, according to human
conception, neither beauty, wisdom, nor design.’ ” “ If
green woodpeckers,” says Darwin, “alone had existed,
and we did not know that there were black and pied
kinds, I dare say that we should have thought that the
green colour was a beautiful adaptation to hide this tree
frequenting bird from its enemies.” The author of the
“ Trial of Theism ” puts the fallacy of this design argument
in a very comic yet forcible manner. “ The Natural Theo
logian praises the divine contrivance which has given man
two eyes. They would have been equally rapturous had he
had four, so that he could have looked east, west, north,
and south at the same time; and successive Paleys would
have celebrated the providential arrangement which enabled
policemen and sentinels to conduct four-fold observations
without turning their heads. Again, if man, like Poly
phemus, had but one eye given him, Dr. Paley would have
proved it impossible that he could ever have seen at all
with two; or if he had, that he would see double. . . .
Had man only one arm no Natural Theologian would have
missed the other ; had he three they would find reason to
praise the Trinitarian arrangement, and no doubt declare it
to be a mystic symbol for the confutation of Unitarians.”
This nassage, although funny, is not devoid of serious truth.
�OF ATHEISM.
19
And we can only now add that whoever relies on the socalled design argument to prove the existence of the Chris
tian’s Deity, relies indeed upon a broken reed.
We come now to the really practical part of the logic and
philosophy of Atheism. To prove that some kind of Deity
exists would not satisfy the Christian. His attributes must
be demonstrated. He must be shown not only to be power
ful, but to be also wise and good ; not only to be our
Creator but also our loving Father. It must be shown that
he not only desired to see us live, but that he also wished us
to live happily. And the happiness enjoyed by one must
be equally attainable by all, for the Christian’s God is no
respector of persons. In combatting such theories the
Atheist really proves himself to be a friend to the human
race. He sees the many organised systems of superstition
that have grown out of a belief in Deity. He knows how
these systems tend to enslave the mind and to tax the mate
rial resources of the great mass of mankind. He knows
how much happier the world in general would be if the
chain of superstition could once be snapped, and if
men could be taught to know the truth, to obey the
truth, and to be guided by the truth. He knows it
to be impossible for the Christian’s Deity to exist, with
all his reputed attributes, simultaneously with such an illgoverned world as that in which we live. And he looks
upon Christian teachers, who are constantly preaching the
contrary doctrine, as the great enemies of human improve
ment. This belief is a sufficient justification for Atheistic
propagandism, and a sufficient answer to those who say
that we are mere hair-splitting negationists, or noisy logic
choppers. If Theism were simply a speculative question,
to be discussed at our leisure or avoided at our pleasure,
having no practical influence over human society, producing
no hatred in families and impeding no progress in states,
then we should care as little about discussing the possibi
lity of Deity’s existence as we should to debate whether or
not the moon is made of green cheese. But when thousands
are every day told that they have a heavenly Father, who
watches over them, and who will see justice done to them,
and when we know how heavily they are taxed and how much
�20
THE LOGIC AND PHILOSOPHY
they are compelled to pay for such a monstrous delusion,
we consider ourselves justified at any risk in exposing such
a disastrous imposition. Paley saw the inequalities of the
arrangements of society, and endeavoured to explain them
away. Speaking to the poor he says, « How much is acti
vity better than attendance ; beauty than dress; appetite,
digestion, and tranquil bowels, than all the studies of
cookery, or than the most costly compilation of forced, or
far-fetched dainties.” And in the same chapter he says,
“ It is a happy world after all. The air, the earth, the water,
teem with delighted existence. In a spring noon or summer
evening, on whichever side I turn my eyes, myriads of happy
beings crowd upon my view. ‘ The insect youth are on the
wing.’ Swarms of new-born flies are trying their pinions
in the air. Their sportive motions, their wanton mazes,
their gratuitous activity, their continual change of place,
without use or purpose, testify their joy and the exultation
which they feel in their lately discovered faculties. A bee
amongst the flowers in spring, is one of the most cheerful
objects that can be looked upon.” These extracts are in
tended by Paley to show the goodness of Deity, as well as
his personality. But is it not the veriest special pleading ?
Who doubts that many of the rich become deteriorated for
want of activity ? Who doubts that beauty is better than
dress ? Who doubts that a good appetite is better than
forced niceties ? But who does not also know that thou
sands die from overwork ? Who does not know that there
are thousands with neither beauty nor proper dress ? Who
doe8 not know that there are thousands who have good
appetites, but nothing to satisfy them ? And who will not
admit the immense difficulty of believing in the existence of
an all-powerful, all-good, and perfectly just Being while
such injustice is allowed to continue, and such misery
allowed to exist? Does not the human heart untainted
with superstition revolt against such misgovernment; and
would it not be better to adopt every possible means for its
removal, rather than deceive its victims with promises of an
upper and a better world ?
However impregnable the logical position of the Atheist
may be, there will always exist numbers of persons without
�OF ATHEISM.
21
the courage to look fearlessly at his principles, or to regard
him in any other than a prejudicial light. He will, by
many whose judgments have been warped by priestly teach
ings, be considered either deficient in intellect or depraved
in heart. It is a curious fact in connection with human
nature, that many men who have no regard for morality;
who care little for the welfare of those by whom they are
surrounded; whose duties as parents, neighbours, and
citizens are seldom if ever properly fulfilled—such men, we
say, are pretty firm believers in Deity, and will listen to no
argument from the Atheist, lest he should rob him of his
God. So terrible is the effect of superstitious teaching
when young, that many men remain children all their lives.
We never attempt to take God out of the world, for the
best of all reasons—we have never been able to find him in
the world. Could we be convinced that a God exists, who
may properly be considered the loving and wise parent of
the human family; a Being on whom we could all rely for
help in the time of need, for solace in the hour of sorrow,
and for assistance when in danger and distress, we should
gladly recognise such existence, and be thankful for such
a blessing. But all our knowledge seems to confirm our
belief that, however much we may lament it, the world has
no such superintending Being as the Deity believed in by
Christians^ Science proclaims, with imperial authority,
that we are under the dominion of general laws—laws of
nature. “ That whether there be a Deity independent of
Nature, or whether Nature be God, it is still the God of
the iron foot, that passes on without heeding, without feel
ing, and without resting; that Nature acts with a fearful
uniformity, stern as fate, absolute as tyranny, merciless as
death; too vast to praise, too inexplicable to worship, too
inexorable to propitiate; it has no ear for prayer, no heart
for sympathy, no arm to save. We reap from it neither
special help nor special knowledge ; it protects itself from
our curiosity by giving us only finite powers; its silence
is profound, and when we ask its secret, it points to death.
Yet if we are wise to learn from this great mystery before
which creeds are shattered and dogmas are cancelled, it is
a magnificent monitor. Men fable to us the future with
�22
THE LOGIC AND PHILOSOPHY
fearful presumption; they dazzle us with a world they have
never visited, amaze us with images they have never seen,
alarm us by the ideal and cheat us of the real ; and betray
us, by a false dependence, to our own destruction.” In the
logic and philosophy of Atheism there is no superstition,
no supernatural religion. With us the proper study of
mankind is man, and whatever tends to develop his mental
and moral nature, and increase his comfort and happiness,
comes within the scope of Atheistic philosophy. Every
day facts compel us to reject the Christian teaching con
cerning Deity. With such a faith we could not believe
that thousands would be allowed to awake every morning
not knowing where or how to obtain food during the day,
and when night approaches have to make the bare earth
their resting place, and the canopy their only covering. If
such a Being did exist, we should never witness, as we now
do, the daily agony of some fellow-creatures, shivering with
cold and faint with hunger, lying in some corner of a street
whose inhabitants are securely housed, with wealth at their
command, and ease and plenty for their daily attendants. If
such a Being did exist, that which man laments his inability
to remove, God would surely prevent occurring. We agree
with Bacon that “ it were better to have no opinion of God
at all, than such an opinion as is unworthy him.” And
surely we must form an unworthy opinion of him if we
suppose he allows so much misery to exist when he has the
power to prevent it. Every week our newspapers contain
accounts of starvation and of disease engendered by the
want of the necessaries of life. And the clergy—the special
servants of God—instead of demanding improved dwellings
and proper means of sustenance for those unfortunate vic
tims, solicit money to repair one church, and to build
another. The only consolation they offer to the starving
victims of Christian misrule, is the blood of the Lamb, when
a pound of meat would be far more acceptable. Man’s
“ future life ” is considered, or rather taught by priests to
be all-important, and churches and chapels are deemed
necessary to the realisation of heavenly bliss. Hence the
present misery, disease, and starvation are nothing com
pared with the calamities that would ensue if the spiritual
�OF ATHEISM.
23
wants of the poor were neglected. Theistic philosophy is
that we are simply in this life journeying to our everlast
ing home, and that, therefore, our first consideration should
be to make and to keep our peace with God, no matter
how miserable we are with man. Atheistic philosophy, on
the contrary, is, that our first concern should be to ascertain
what we are and what are our duties, the performance of
which would secure to all, or at least to the majority, health,
wealth, happiness, and peace.
One word as to the usual and oft-repeated statement that
the Atheist’s faith is a cold and barren one, and that the
Atheist cannot be a truly happy man. We reply that a
greater mistake could not be entertained. We are surely
as happy as any Christian can be. If we have not the
consolation spoken of by Christians, arising from the pros
pect or anticipation of heavenly bliss, neither have we the
misgivings, doubts, or fears as to the misery of hell. The
magnificence of the universe; the comparative regularity of
her operations; the grandeur of her seasons; the beauty
of her products, all afford equal joy to the Atheist as to the
Christian. To him—
“ Not the lightest leaf but trembling teems
With golden visions and romantic dreams.”
And as in life, so in death. The Atheist, though not
fearing death, certainly loves life.
He loves to see the
lives prolonged of his relatives and his friends. He laments
the loss—when it comes—of those who have shared his
happiness, and participated in his sorrows. He would
even be glad to see reasons to cherish a hope that they
would all meet again in another and a better world, where
they may enjoy an eternity of bliss denied them on this
earth. And when life’s duty is accomplished; when Nature
warns him of approaching decay; when friendship, love,
and life are about to forsake him, he can fearlessly look
back on a life the secrets of which he could never fathom,
but the recognised duties of which he had endeavoured to
fulfil.
And lastly, as the chilling messenger from the
tomb approaches, with Death’s imperial summons, he can
meet the inexorable envoy without fear, without sadness,
and without despair.
�BY THE SAME AUTHOR:
The Origin of Man, 2d. The Christian Theory of the En,d of the
World Refuted, 2d. The Christian Doctrine of Man’s Depravity
Refuted, 2d. The Devil: who he is, and where he came from, 2d.
Who were the Writers of the New Testament ? 2d. Was Christ the
Best of Men and the Wisest of Teachers ? 2d.
London : Austin & Co., 17, Johnson’s Court, Fleet Street.
WORKS BY ICONOCLAST.
A Plea for Atheism, price 3d., containing a reply to William Gillespie’s
argument for the Necessary Existence of Deity. Why do Men
Starve ? Id. The Atonement, Id.
Polemical Essays, price Is. This volume contains the following
essays:—The Real Representation of the People. Poverty: its Effect
on the Political Condition of the People. Prohibition of Free
Speech. Jesus, Shelley, and Malthus. Who was Jesus Christ?
What did Jesus Teach ? Is there a God ? A Few Words about the
Devil.
Debate on the Existence of Deity with Thomas Cooper, with a Plea for
Atheism, Is. Debate with the Rev. Dr. Baylee, on God; Man, and
the Bible : the only debate on the Socratic method of reasoning ; 6d.
Christianity and Secularism Contrasted : two nights’ debate with W.
M. Hutchings, Esq., at Wigan; Is. New Testament Christianity:
three nights’ debate with the Rev. J. H. Rutherford; 6d. Two
nights’ discussion with Mr. Mackie (Editor of the Warrington
Guardian); revised by the Disputants; 8d. Prohibition of Free
Speech, a Letter to the Judges of the Court of Common Pleas; with
a report of the proceedings in Bradlaueh v. Edwards; 2d.
London : Austin & Co., 17, Johnson’s Court, Fleet Street.
Now complete, Cloth, 2s. 6d. (also to be had in Penny Numbers),
HALF-HOURS WITH FREETHINKERS.
Edited by J. Watts and Iconoclast.
Austin <S Co., 17, Johnson’s Court, Fleet Street, E.C.
Professor Pusey and his party are requested to reply to the arguments
advanced in
THE DOCTRINE OF ETERNAL TORMENT REFUTED.
By Melampus (Dr. Sexton).
This pamphlet, which exhausts the entire question, from a Biblical
point of view, may be had (price 3d.) of G. Abington, 107, Shoe Lane,
and of Austin & Co., 17, Johnson’s Court, Fleet Street. Austin & Co.
will send three copies post free on the receipt of nine stamps.
THE ANTIQUITY OF THE HUMAN RACE.
By George Sexton, M.A., M.D. Price 2d.
London : Austin & Co., 17, Johnson’s Court, Fleet Street.
TRACTS BY WILLIAM MACCALL.
Individuality of the Individual, 6d. Doctrine of Individuality, 6d.
Sacramental Services, 6d. Lessons of the Pestilence, 6d. Creed
of a Man, 4d. Commercial Restrictions, 3d.
Trubner & Co., Paternoster Row.
Outlines of Individualism. Price 6d.—Jenkins, 286, Strand.
Charles Napier, 2d. Song of Songs, 2d.—Truelove, 240, Strand.
�
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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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The logic and philosophy of atheism
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Watts, John [1834-1866]
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 23, [1] p. ; 20 cm.
Notes: Part of the NSS pamphlet collection. Publisher's advertisements on back cover.
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Austin & Co.
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1865
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N682
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Atheism
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<img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /><br /><span>This work (The logic and philosophy of atheism), identified by </span><span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk">Humanist Library and Archives</a></span><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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application/pdf
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Text
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English
Atheism
Logic
NSS
Philosophy
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Title
A name given to the resource
Victorian Blogging
Description
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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Debate on the Christian evidences : a verbatim report of the two nights' discussion between Mr Charles Watts & B.H. Cowper, Esq., held in the school-room of the Congregational Chapel, Stratford, on Thursdays, Feb. 16 & 23, 1871
Creator
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Watts, Charles [1836-1906]
Cowper, B.H.
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: vi, 58 p. ; 17 cm.
Notes: Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
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Austin & Co.
Date
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1871
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N664
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Christianity
Rationalism
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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 (Debate on the Christian evidences : a verbatim report of the two nights' discussion between Mr Charles Watts & B.H. Cowper, Esq., held in the school-room of the Congregational Chapel, Stratford, on Thursdays, Feb. 16 & 23, 1871), 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
Apologetics
Christian Evidence Society
Christianity
NSS
Rationalism
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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
�14
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
�16
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
�34
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
The House of Brunswick.
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
�40
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
�42
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
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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
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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-
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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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55
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
�The House of Brunswick.
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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59
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
�60
The House of Brunswick.
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
�The House of Brunswick.
61
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
�62
The House of Brunswick.
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
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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,
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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
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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,
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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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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
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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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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,
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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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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
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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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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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.
�
Dublin Core
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Title
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Victorian Blogging
Description
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>
Creator
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
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2018
Publisher
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
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Original Format
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Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
The impeachment of the House of Brunswick
Description
An account of the resource
Edition: 2nd. ed. rev. and largely re-written
Place of publication: London
Collation: iv, 102 p. ; 18 cm.
Creator
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Bradlaugh, Charles
Publisher
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Austin & Co.
Date
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1883
Identifier
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G4938
Subject
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Republicanism
Rights
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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 (The impeachment of the House of Brunswick), 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>
Format
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application/pdf
Type
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Text
Language
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English
House of Hanover
Monarchy
Republicanism