and malicious indictment, but that you will not justify prosecutions for matters of conscience, nor deliver a fellow creature to bonds and imprisonment-for what? if it be an error at all, is an error in his reasoning faculties; the fault only of his judgment, not of his heart. By acquitting me, you will not, as you may be told, open the floodgates to licentiousness, nor give occasion to one pamphlet more that can possibly be written against Christianity, but you will take away one of the strongest objections that can be urged against it: you will wipe off from it the dishonour of seeming to need the support of statutes and penalties. You will shew that you dare trust it to stand alone; you will shew that you believe it yourselves, that you are sensible to the general voice of the whole British nation, and that you understand indeed what the nature of truth is.

In the legislative assembly of this kingdom, the conduct of the Recorder, on the occasion of the late trials, has been pronounced a disgrace to the Bench. And even the learned Bishop of Norwich, in the House of Lords, on the 17th of May, 1819, entered his protest, as a man and as a Christian against those very statutes which are attempted to be enforced against me. "Christianity," said he, "disclaims them. Reason is every day gaining ground, and its dictates should be obeyed. We ought, by a generous and wise policy, to abandon those persecuting statutes, fit only to bind demons."

Recorder-It is necessary to put you right, by informing you that there are no written statues on the offence which you are charged with committing, it is decided by common law which has been resorted to for many centuries.

Defendant: I am aware, my Lord, that there are no statutes ou the subject, but I am assuming the ground, that if such were the case, it then would be unjust to put them in force, and such was evidently the meaning of the Bishop of Norwich. "He, said my Lord Lyttleton (one of the ablest writers for the Christian evidence), who can be angry with another man for not being a Christian, is himself no Christian.", What would he have said of that anger, which not merely suffering the sun to go down upon it, can calmly deliver over a fellow creature to be shut up for many gloomy weeks in a damp, dark, miserable dungeon, merely for not yielding a consent, which it was not in his power to yield-for not suppressing a dissent, which could not be suppressed without a prostitution of all that is noble, great, and manly in the

mind? "Belief or unbelief," says Dr. Whitby, the ablest commentator on the volume you hold sacred, "can neither be a virtue nor a crime." Neither then, I infer, can the widest dissemination of that unbelief be criminal. For to cut off the communication between the heart and the tongue, and to make it politically expedient, that the man who thinks the established religion to be false, should act in every thing as if he thought it to be true-should utter no expression, and sell no book (not even to those who sought and wished to buy it) that tended to bring that religion into contempt, what is this but to consecrate-to authorise hypocrisy, and to make your religion itself the pander to dissimulation and insincerity? On one last argumnt to yourselves, Gentlemen, as men, as brethren, partners of the same nature as myself in every thing, and therefore liable to err, and be deceived as I am, I rest my last appeal. If it be right to allow me to be immured in a dungeon for having followed the sincere, though it may be erroneous, dictate of my conscience, and such treatment should not succeed (as in all probility it will not) in giving me more favourable sentiments of Christianity, my error continuing, I should, upon being released from prison, immediately repeat the conduct to which that state of mind cannot but lead me; it would be equally right again and again to prosecute me; and thus would you be led on, step by step, till you had destroyed me. Is this humanity? Is this to be done for the religion of Him who came into the world, not to destroy men's lives, but to save them? And if for the fault of unbelief-an unbelief which I cannot help-and which I profess myself ready to renounce as soon as I shall be better instructed, you will sufer me to be thus immured, thus persecuted, and thus at length destroyed, let him that is without fault among you throw the first stone at me. Let him pronounce me guilty who can lay his hand upon his heart, and say, no misgiving, no doubt, no shade of unbelief was ever there. And let him be sure that he can say this in the present recollection of the circumstantial all, and whole, and every whit of what is contained in that book, to which he ascribes the authority of the God of Truth; or, as a mere tacit or verbal consent to that which makes no impression at all upon the mind cannot be taken for belief, take any one of the main facts of Christianity-say the resurrection, or what is consequential to it, the visible and corporeal ascension of the body, flesh,

and bones, of its divine founder through the clouds-and then let him, as in the presence of God, be sure that he never felt a doubt, never demurred, nor was perplexed in the full contemplation of that fact; that his tongue never outran his apprehension, and that his creed and his belief were always in unison. He only is himself innocent of unbelief: he only is the man who can justly give a verdict against me. I cannot fear, then, that the twelve of you will be unanimous in an act of persecution, who could by no means be found to be so on any facts or doctrine of the religion which I am accused of reviling, but which I never have reviled. Nor can you, Gentlemen, if you sincerely believe that religion to have "God for its author, and happiness for its end," have any apprehension that it can be hurt by any thing which I or any other man can do against it, or that it hath any need of dungeons and prisons to make it struth appear unto all men. If it be indeed true, they who, like me, have no faith in it, are the more to be pitied; they should be sought for as sheep wandering from the fold, not driven like wolves away from it. The spirit of truth (in the system which you profess to revere) is the same as the spirit of love. "And truth" says, Dr. Middleton," was never yet known to be on the persecuting side, nor ever were the angry passions of men engaged in her defence." Gentlemen, betray not again your adored redeemer: observe but the similarity of situation in which my mistaken prosecutors have placed me, and let him who you hope will be your advocate at a higher bar, be mine at this. Betray not your religion by supposing that it has need of management and caution. Act not towards the truth of God, as the Grecian poet did towards the deities of Pagan fable, who having described them as in their own nature perfectly invulnerable, yet thought it was necessary that they should wear helmets and breastplates. No, Gentlemen, the truth has not been hurt, has not been assailed by me, I have sought it more than my necessary food, and loved it with a perfect love. I hold it dearer than life itself. The pursuit and open professsion of it is the noblest end for which a man can live or die; and in its cause (if it must be so) I am ready to go to prison and to death. The spirit of truth is an amiable spirit. She has no verdict but such as I persuade myself you are now going to pronounce for one of her followers, how far soever he may seem to stray from her. "No tint of words can spot her snowy mantle, nor chymic power turn her sceptre into iron."

Her seat is the bosom of the Deity-her voice is the harmony of all rational minds; virtue can subsist only in the atmosphere of her influence, and eternal happiness leans on the pillars of her throne. Yield yourselves, Gentlemen at this moment, to her sweet, her most loving, her kind and gentle influence; away with all ill temper, wrath, and bitterness. Shew the world that you are not the maintainers of a religion that has any thing to fear, or that needs the abetting of any measures of unkindness and oppression. Be but, indeed, and in truth, what Christians profess to be,-do as you would be done unto,-judge as you would be judged,—and if it be only for the honour of Christianity itself, you will, you must acquit me.

The Recorder proceeded to sum up, during which time he took particular care to remark more than once, that though the defendant possessed considerable intellectual abilities they (the Jury) must take the law from him. His Lordship was an hour and a half in endeavouring to eradicate the impression which the defendant's speech was calculated to have upon the minds of intelligent men. When he had summed up the case, the Jury, after a few minutes consultation, returned a verdict of Guilty on all the counts.

The prisoner, when asked whether he had any thing to say why sentence should not passed upon him, enquired whether he had any appeal?

The Recorder said, that if the prisoner had any legal argument to urge in arrest of judgement, he had a right to urge it.

The prisoner said he was but little skilled in law, but in his opinion the verdict was not in accordance either with Christianity or justice.

The Recorder said that the prisoner's opinions had nothing to do with the question. If such opinions were to have weight, no prisoner could be sentenced at that Bar, as no prisoner would be likely to admit the justice of a verdict against him. His Lordship regretted that the prisoner had not profited by the time given him since last Session, to retract his error; instead of doing which, he had that day boasted of his conduct.

It was the more to be lamented as the prisoner posessed talents of a superior order, and consequently was capable of producing the greater mischief in society.

The sentence of the Court was, that that the Defendant should be imprisoned for three years in Newgate, and to

give his own security in £100. for his good behaviour for the rest of his life. His Lordship informed the prisoner that in the event of any future transgression, this sum would be considered a debt, which would be enforced upon him, and also that a repetition of his offence would subject him to banishment from this country.

TO NEWMAN KNOWLYS, RECORDER OF LONDON.

IMPARTIAL AND LEARNED SIR,

As you presided at my trial, I consider myself bound to let you know how thankful I am for your impartial conduct and friendly advice. You were pleased to reiterate the opinion of Judge Hale, (have you a fellow feeling with that lenient Witch-Burner?) which opinion you had previously, and in the same week, quoted five several times. Have you no other authorities? Is your law library so very circumscribed? If the latter be the case, could not Friend Butterworth, your brother bigot, lend you a volume or two? No, it is not from any of these causes, it is because rascals, as have been some Judges in all times-yet it was reserved for the present liberal and enlightened age, to drag men by dozens before a partial Judge merely for publishing works, "tending to bring into contempt the Christian religion as by law established." You told my sapient and attentive Jury, that Woolston, Peter Annet, and others had been sentenced to such and such imprisonment, and fined (in one of the cases) one thousand marks. But you forget when passing sentence on me to distinguish between justice and malignity. You could not fine me with any hope of getting it paid, so you ordered me to be imprisoned for three years!!! While others were sentenced to, from six to eighteen months-in one case for selling the same book, and in another for selling Paine's Age of Reason, The Republican, No. 17, and Palmer's Principles of Nature. Why was this? Simply because two persons entrusted their cases to a counsel, who defended them legally! But Campion, Clarke, and myself, defended ourselves, and we have received a sentence that would crush the spirit of such persons as yourself. Is this Christian conduct? nay, is it legal conduct? In the despotic Prussia, six months imprisonment is the extent of punishment awarded to libellers; but in England, the envy, and admiration of surrounding nations, three years may be the lot of one defendant, while another charged with the same. offence is sentenced to six months. The tongue of every one who reads this will be raised against you. But what care you, so that your