No. 10. Vol. I.] LONDON, FRIDAY, OCT. 29, 1819. [PRICE. 2D. A LETTER TO SIR ROBERT GIFFORD, On the Mock Trial of the Editor in the Court of King's SIR, King's Bench Prison, October 27, 1819. IN addressing you in your official character as AttorneyGeneral of England, I shall be under the necessity in this letter of bringing forward many instances of private conduct and character, which under any other circumstances than those in which I stand related to you, might fairly be considered neither generous nor manly. But when a man who has been the avowed advocate of Deistical opinions, and the most extended Political liberty, even to Republicanism when such has been the open and determined avowal of such opinions, that others, meaning equally as well, and approaching near to those opinions, are compelled to shun him as violent in disposition, and in the necessary proposed measures to attain the object in view, I say when such a man as this can sacrifice his favourite, and sternly defended opinions to the shrine of Despotism and Corruption, for the paltry emolument of the moment, and acquiesce in all, and become the instrument in every act of oppres sion and persecution emanating from Despotism and Corruption, even to a profession of acting censcientiously in the discharge of what he calls a duty. I say, when we find such a man as this, we hesitate not to pronounce him an apostate to his faith, a Renegade to principle, a traitor to his former conviction of truth, a dissembler in practice, and a hypocrite in reality, "possessing only a base desire for filthy lucre." Such a man is Sir Robert Gifford, Knt. His Sacred Majesty's Attorney-General! The consequent to to this assertion should be a narrative of corroborating circumstances to this I shall now proceed. I ventured and repeated the assertion during my mock trial, that you, Sir Robert, bad openly avowed yourself a R. Carlile, Printer, 55, Fleet Street, London. Deist prior to your elevation as a Law-Officer of the Crown. I say a Deist, because the Unitarian, as opposed to the Trinitarian, is a Deist, believing in one God, in opposition to those who believe in three Gods or more, for it is vain for the Trinitarian to speak of his triune God, or, as Bishop Patrick attempted to convince his hearers of this doctrine, by exhibiting to their view a blade of three-leafed grass, when in the next breath they represent God the Son sitting at the right hand of God the Father, on a distinct throne, and God the Holy Ghost waiting to dispatch their orders and messages, or to fill with the Holy Spirit such of the human race as the whims and caprice of God the Father and God the Son might suggest. I am aware, Sir Robert, that these expressions will shock the minds of the unreflecting Trinitarians, and make them exclaim, "A horrid blasphemy!" but I, the writer, and you, the person addressed, being believers in one God only, can smile at such absurdities, however offensive they may be to the minds of others. I think, Sir Robert, it must be admitted, that a Unitarian is a Deist, in the same sense as the followers of Confucius are Deists; and taking this for grauted, and that you are a Deist, though now hypocritically disguised, which I think I can make plainly appear from the following circumstances: First, That during your residence in Exeter, you, with all your family, were regular attendants at the Unitarian Chapel, in Southgate Street, and that you supported it by your subscription. Secondly, That it was at the moment you were elevated to the Solicitor-Generalship, that you quitted the Unitarians in London and sent your family to the Established Church. Thirdly, That you actually continued your annual subscription to the Unitarian Charity School in Exeter, and that it was since your appointment to the Attorney-Generalship that you sent £20 to that institution, requesting the Secretary to erase your name as an annual subscriber. The last, And I expect to you the most impressive circumstance, is, that you paid your addresses to a young lady of fortune, and that the only objection to you on the part of the lady's friends was that you held deistical opinions or opinions in opposition to the doctrine of the Trinity. A gentleman from the West of England, offered to attest this fact as evidence in the Court, had my defence not been interrupted and suppressed by a coalition. A gentleman, that was and is quite a stranger to me, but who is willing to prove the assertion should it ever become necessary. It was from a knowledge of these circumstances that induced me to say, "that whatever might be the professions of the Attorney-General, I might give the hand of fellowship to Sir Robert Gifford." It was this expression that drew from you the affected assertion, "that you did not know whether the Defendant merited your contempt or your pity, but that you felt disposed to grant him your pity." That Defendant neither values your contempt, nor wishes for your pity; he is impressed with gratitude for the benefit he has received, and the importance you and your predecessor Sir Samuel Shepherd have elevated him to; an elevation from which he smiles at you, and dares your grasp to withdraw him. At present, Sir Robert, I feel myself beyond your reach, and I cannot better elucidate this proposition than by recording an anecdote which happened in the front of my shop in Fleet-street during the last week. A well-dressed man was mixed with the crowd before the window and gave vent to his feelings as follows. "Ah! Paine is now in hell, and Carlile will soon follow him." A shrewder man, but not so well dressed, immediately retorted, "not quite so soon, you will find Carlile like a cabbage, if you take off his head there will be a hundred sprouts from him." As I shall have the pleasure at least of another combat with you in Westminster Hall, I shall abstain from any further observations here, but hope whatever opinions the Attorney-General may find it necessary to assume, that Sir Robert Gifford will again leave that office a Deist, or if you please a Unitarian. Your's gratefully, RICHARD CARLILE. The MOCK TRIALS of Mr. CARLILE are now publishing in Sheets, at 2d. each, Three Sheets are ready for delivery, the Whole will make about Forty Sheets, and the Publication will proceed as rapidly as possible. Just published, A faithful Representation of the Attack of the MANCHESTER CAVALRY, on the Inhabitants of that Town and its Vicinity. This Print is on a large Royal Sheet, executed under the direction of Mr. CARLILE, who was present on the Hustings, and represents the most forcible Part of the MASSACRE, when the Cavalry had nearly approached the Hustings. Price plain, 6s. Coloured 10s. 6d. 1 CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN DR. RUDGE AND MR. CARLILE, On the Subject of his MOCK TRIALS and the HOLY SCRIPTURES. DR. RUDGE TO MR. CARLILE. Dr. RUDGE trusts that Mr. Carlile will disapprove neither of the motives by which the present letter has been dictated, nor of the temper in which it has been written. From the account of the late trial for the re-publication of the "Age of Reason," Mr. Carlile is reported to have said, in the course of his defence, that to the views and sentiments, promulgated in that work, he fully subscribed. Reinote from the mind of Dr. Rudge is the intention of offering the slightest personal offence to any man and he, therefore, siucerely hopes he shall not be thought to mean any thing disrespectful to Mr. Carlile, if he ventures to ask, whether this is the deliberate conviction of his mind, to which he has been brought by a calm and patient, a deep, and conscientious study of the Holy Scriptures, whether he has collated with care, and compared with judgment the different parts and passages of the sacred volume, and whether, in this investigation, which has had truth for its only object, he has at all times consulted the best authorities, and has availed himself of the labours and views which the most enlightened and least prejudiced of the children of men have taken of such subjects, and exercised in such pursuits What, for instance, has been the result of the cool and dispassionate enquiries of such men as Sir Isaac Newton, Mr. Locke, Sir William Jones, and others of the same order of intellect, of the same mental calibre, and of the same profound and cautious habits of inquiry and reflection? Of these masters in Israel, it is surely no reproach to any man to acknowledge that he was once the scholar-it is putting no restraint upon the natural liberty and free agency of any man to say-" Well: it has been by such men, that I have been taught how to employ my reason, and exercise my judgment-how to reason aright of this, and how to judge well of that subject-how to distinguish right from wrong, and how to separate from truth the dross of falsehood and error." : Before any deliberate opinion be formed and expressed of the Holy Scriptures, the above course should be adopted and unless it has been observed, in an amiable temper of mind, and with a disposition only to investigate and attain the truth, as it is in God, and in the revelation of his word, the competency of any man to be a judge of such matters, may fairly and honestly be questioned. Dr. Rudge hopes, therefore, that he may, without offence, submit these suggestions to Mr. Carlile's calm and private consideration, and offer this advice, that with the temper and disposition to which Dr. Rudge has above alluded, he would sit down and read Dr. Lardner's great work, "the Credibility of the Gospel History," and also Dr. Paley's Evidences of Christianity," works, which Dr. Rudge more particularly recommends as having more perhaps than other theological publications he has read in the course of his studies, produced conviction in his mind, and faith" in the truth as it is in Jesus " Limehouse, Oct. 18, 1819. R. CARLILE TO DR. RUDGE. R. CARLILE begs to assure Dr. Rudge that he approves both of the motive and the temper of his letter as far as its internal evidence speaks. Agreeable to the report of his interrupted defence, he hesitates not to say that he fully subscribes to the views and sentiments promulgated in the Theological Works of Mr. Paine, with the exception he made in the course of his mock_trial, namely, 'his dissent from "Paine's Private Thoughts on a Future State." In answer to the inquiry of Dr. Rudge whether this is the deliberate conviction of his mind after a calm and patient, a deep and conscientious study of the Holy Scriptures, after a careful and judicious comparison of different parts and passages of the sacred volume, and after consulting the best authorities such as Sir Isaac Newton, Locke, and Sir William Jones, he begs to assure Dr. Rudge with all the sincerity with which man cau commune with his fellow, that his conviction is the result-first, of a calm and conscientious examination of the book alluded to, with a comparison of all its supposed bearings and connections; and secondly, of a consultation of all those authorities which Dr. Rudge alleges to be as many proofs of the contrary. When he enquires after the writings of Sir Isaac Newton, and finds that those which were the productions of the most vigorous part of his life were purely deistical, and actually kept from the public view at the Earl of Portsmouth's house, and are not to be seen without the consent of the Bishop of London, a guardian to the Earl in consequence of his imbecility, he cannot be content to take as the real sentiments of Sir Isaac Newton, the few observations and essays he made to explain that which is called prophecy and revelation in the book called the Bible, at a time when his faculties might fairly be presumed to have been impaired. Again, when he finds that Locke was ac tually expelled from the University of Oxford for his AntiChristian principles and tenets, he cannot consent to consider Locke as a genuine authority in defence of Christianity, merely because in a few instances he spoke favourably of its moral effect and influence on mankind, perhaps to conciliate some friend, and to lessen the calumny and prejudice which we know to have existed against bim, equal even to that that has been attempted to be raised against R. Carlile himself. R. C. has been informed that the statute the 9th and 10th of Wil |