LETTER

TO SIR SAMUEL SHEPHERD, KNT. HIS MAJESTY'S ATTORNEY-GENERAL UPON THE SUBJECT OF HIS PROSECUTIONS OF RICHARD CARLILE, FOR PUBLISHING PAINE'S AGE OF REASON. LONDON. PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY R. CARLILE, 55, FLEET STREET.

CONTENTS

LETTER TO SIR SAMUEL SHEPHERD, KNT.

LETTER TO MR. CARLILE,

LETTER TO SIR SAMUEL SHEPHERD, KNT.

Sir,

As you have commenced the prosecution of Carlile, a printer, for publishing an edition of Paine's Age of Reason, in conjunction with the self-styled Society for the Suppression of Vice, I take the liberty to submit to your consideration a few remarks, upon the nature and tendency of this purposed suit. Since prosecutions of this kind are not novel, and as it may be fairly conjectured that you will follow the ordinary routine of men in your office in these causes, and moreover as the accused will be subjected to the usual disadvantage of meeting three pleadings to the one which will be allowed him, besides the probable interruptions from the Judge on the bench, I think it needful and reasonable to anticipate and meet beforehand those hacknied arguments, which it seems to me most probable that you will advance in the court on the days of trial.

That the accuser should be permitted to plead three times to the once with which the accused is but imperfectly indulged, though it may be law, is most flagrant injustice. But, perhaps, you may not be quite satisfied with my arithmetic, and may ask me, how I make out my three pleadings to one. It were much to the honour of this country, and its laws, if I should be mistaken in my calculation, but I fear to be put to the blush as an Englishman, (if you serjeants at law are not,) by my computation, being found to be but too true.

In the first place, you open the case. This you do not reckon pleading: but as you are allowed to say whatever you think proper, it becomes as truly a pleading in reality as your latter speech, which alone you call by that name. The second is what is styled so on both sides. And this would be injustice, if I stopped here; but having engaged to reckon up three pleadings, I fix upon the most unfit person that could be named; that is, my Lord Judge, to plead on the third occasion.

This speech of the Judge, you crown-lawyers term summing up the evidence; but I believe you can never adduce one solitary instance in a crown prosecution, in which the Judge has not acted completely the part of a retained counsel for the crown.

That my Lord Judge should be unable to divest himself of the habit of pleading as an advocate, since he has formerly followed that employment, though far from equitable or decorous, is still very natural, like as the mail-coach horse which has aforetime been a hunter,

pricks up his ears, and longs to join in the pursuit. But the Judge also discharges a still more exceptionable office, that of interrupter on the part of the crown.

He is apt to lug in his observation, that what the accused is saying in his own defence is irrelevant to the question; though a man's penetration must be astonishing who can determine beforehand that any particular sentence uttered shall not, by a concatenation of argument, be brought to bear forcibly upon the point in question.

If the accused adduces instances of opposite decisions in similar proceeding suits, with a view to point out an inconsistency, the Judge will exclaim, "That is not the cause before us;" though how in the world can inconsistency be shewn without bringing forward more than one particular?

These ill-timed interruptions, by breaking the thread of connection of the defence of the accused, must so maul it, and put it out of shape, that the jury become unable to make either head or tail of it, even though it should have been previously drawn up with good judgement, and contain the soundest reasonings.

In trials for alledged blasphemy, if the accused complains that a garbled extract made from his book does not convey its true sense, and wishes to read it at large, the court object, and cry out, that the book is too bad to be read in that place, and that it will poison the ears of the audience.

If the accused desires that the Bible may be referred to, in proof of its contradictions or blameable passages, the court bawls aloud that it is too good a book to be produced before the profane. If reference be thus objected to, by what means, then, shall the truth be brought to light?

And now, Mr. Attorney-General, let us proceed to your own probable allegations and arguments in court in this particular cause; and I will suppose you to say to the gentlemen of the jury, that you have been urged by the representations of a respectable body of men, the Society for the Suppression of Vice, to prosecute R. Carlile, whom you have discovered and proved before the court to have gone vi et armis, by violence and with weapons of war, and not having the fear of God before his eyes, to have published a blasphemous libel, the Age of Reason, by Thomas Paine, which libel had been previously condemned by a Jury, and burnt by the common hangman. That the wicked tendency of this libel was to induce a general disbelief of your and their most holy religion, that pure, pacific, and benevolent system, which, having emanated from the Deity, is, to its adherents, the basis of their comforts in this life, their solace in the hours of affliction, sickness, and death, their moral instruction in this world, and their providitor of everlasting happiness in a world to come; that libels of this impious description were with a malignant zeal thrown in the way of the young and inexperienced, too undiscerning to detect their sophistry, or suspect the poison contained in them, and too ignorant yet of the world to be on their guard against the practices of bad men: that irreligion and; immorality are necessarily connected; and that the propagators of infidelity are actuated by a malice too virulent to be attributed to mere human passion, and for which a motive and stimulus would be in vain sought for, unless it be assigned to the instigators of the great enemy of mankind, the Devil. The jury will be conjured, as they value the preservation of good morals, the peace and good order of society, both individual and public welfare, the happiness of their fellow-subjects both in this world and in a future life, to arrest the fatal poison in its progress, and give a verdict of conviction and condemnation against the accused.

But, Mr. Attorney General, you would not take shining pinchbeck counters instead of sovereigns for a fee, with as little close examination as you will wish the jury to admit the weight and validity of your arguments, and the accuracy of your assertions.

The imposing name assumed by the Society who are the ostensible movers of the prosecution, might, at the first glance, seem sufficient to carry all before it, and to dispatch the business at one blow. For what could such a Society direct their efforts, against but vice? However, men are not to be judged of by the titles they choose to give to themselves, without some scrutiny being made into their conduct. This self styled Society for the Suppression of Vice, exhibit themselves to us as the foes to free inquiry, and stifling the arguments on one side of a question. In vain will they excuse themselves as preventing the poisonous effects