THE REASONER

No. 10.-NEW SERIES.] EDITED BY G. J. HOLYOAKE.

[PRICE 2d.

FUNERAL BLOGÉ ON THE CHARACTER OF HENRY

HERTHERINGTON:

Delivered at the Literary Institution, John Street, on Sunday evening, August 26th, 1849; by THOMAS COOPER, author of the Purgatory of Suicides.'

WHILE the instruments of royal and aristocratic tyranny have their pompous eulogies at the close of their evil career, it becomes the advocates of freedom to take care that the death of the humblest opposer of misrule should not go uncommemorated. The events of such a man's life may be counted obscure and uninteresting by those who fatten on the dregs of despotism and lordly pride; but the thinker, the patriot, and the philanthropist, will regard them as more deeply interesting and important than the chronicles of regal cumbergounds, or the annals of courtly corruption. Every step in the life of a struggler for human enfranchisement, if it could be beheld by the great Dead, must fix their attention as big with the fate of Progress. And, surely, the living would do well and wisely to bestow their anxieties in this humble direction, rather than on the gewgaws which attract the unthinking. One word of bold and firm defiance against legalised oppression-one act of self-sacrificing and manly resistance to privileged power-is of deeper import to the true welfare of mankind than all the victories of Marengo and Austerlitz, of Trafalgar and Waterloo. And the series of struggles and sufferings undertaken and undergone by a man of humble rank, with the persevering and unsubduable resolve to break the power of tyranny, becomes, in the minds of reflecting men, a chronicle more exalted than any story of triumphs recorded of kingly butchers for sport.

Of this character was the mature life of our departed friend. At a period when men professing liberalism had been borne into the seat of office and power, on the shoulders of the people, and on the faith of their liberal professions-the expectation of all real reformers naturally led them to look for an act of legislation, from such hands, that should abolish the hated Six Acts' of the hated Sidmouth and Castlereagh, and set free the Press to speak the opinions of the People without restriction. The boon was denied; and Henry Hetherington was one of the earliest to begin, and one of the most persevering to continue, the war of defiance against the treacherous Reform Ministry'-by issuing his penny unstamped paper, bearing the fearless head and title of 'The Poor Man's Guardian: a weekly newspaper for the People; published contrary to Law, to try the power of Might against Right.'

The intrepid spirit that could resolve on such a title to a periodical

[No. 171, Vol. VII.]

which he knew would bring down persecution on his own person-the resolute mind that could persevere with such an enterprise in spite of two imprisonments, in spite of pecuniary loss, and of difficulties unnumbered -should not be permitted to pass into forgetfulness.

But our departed friend's memory has other claims upon a John Street audience than those of a political reformer merely. He was a bold and determined freethinker in matters of religion; and while the world holds so many who have not the courage to avow their sceptical convictions, we cannot suffer the death of such a man to occur in silence. I care not whether all of us agree in every item of our deceased friend's convictions: I, for one, do not. But we are the foes of priestcraft and superstition, and therefore we make common cause in his opposition to those twin-plagues of the human race; and we honour his memory for the courage with which his free thought was proclaimed in life, and fortitude with which the confession of it was signed in death.

And yet, let it not be thought that the act of assembly by which we commemorate his courage and fortitude has anything about it like empty ostentation. Our departed friend's convictions on these important subjects were never delivered with the air of vain boasting, they were never obtruded upon others for the sake of annoyance; and I trust that all of us who are in the habit of assembling here have formed too dignified a conception of what becomes the character of Thinkers, to desire that others should suppose us capable of making a show. We are not here to boast that Henry Hetherington died in the sceptical profession in which he lived; but we are here to defend his right to think, and to protect his memory from the attacks of any who, in their religious zcal, might take upon them to assail it.

Happily the gloomy bigot can forge no tales of death-bed horrors in this instance: he can derive no lessons from it to frighten children. We say this with satisfaction-for although the mind of man may sometimes wander in his last hours, and the true philosopher will not resort to the account of them for the test of a man's opinions,-yet it is well for the sake of others that the death of a Freethinker can be shown by unquestionable testimony to be without the horrors in which the superstitious delight to clothe it. But the life of a man is the true test of his value, and I proceed to give you such a brief record of Henry Hetherington as I have been able to collect.

He was born fifty-seven years ago, in Compton Street, Soho-not very far from the spot on which we are now collected; and many remain, I am told, who remember the intelligence and kindly disposition of his boyhood. He was apprenticed by his father to the trade of a printer, and served his time with the father of the well-known Luke Hansard, now living. The printing business was either dull or overstocked with hands when his apprenticeship ceased, and he was eighteen months out of work. It was now that he went to Belgium, and worked there at his trade for a short period. He was in the habit of telling an anecdote, in his own felicitous way, of a conversation with a fellow-workman in a workshop at Ghent, that is worth recording-inasmuch as he was wont to date the commencement of free political inquiry in his own mind to

that conversation.

The report had just reached the Netherlands, of the superb munificence with which England had rewarded her iron duke,' the conqueror at Waterloo. Our friend, full of attachment to his native country, immediately exclaimed, with the exaggerated emotion of youth, Ay, see there! Look what a fine country ours is! You see how we reward our soldiers for fighting for us! You would not hear of any other country giving money and estates to their public servants like our country!' The Belgian workman was older than our friend: he darted an expressive look at him, and then replied, in broken English, Ay, ay, it is a tam fine country, and a tam fine ting for de Duke; but it is a tam bad country, and a tam bad ting for de Peuple!' The repartee dwelt in his mind, and led to his ultimate Radicalism. Our friend's marriage occurred shortly before this visit to Belgium, or shortly after. At any rate, it occurred early; and the fruit of it were nine children, ouly one of whom -his son, Mr. David Hetherington-is now living. Among his earliest connections was that with the 'Freethinking Christians'-a body of religionists at one time much talked of in London, and numbering among its professors several names of considerable talent. Eventually, Henry Hetherington became one of a conscientious party who steadily refused to countenance what they considered to be illiberal conduct in the elders of the church, towards a Jew who was refused admission as a member. The schism in the church of the Freethinking Christians' at length reached such a crisis, that our deceased friend and several others were ejected. It was on this occasion that our friend produced the pamphlet, a copy of which I hold in my hand; and which, so far as I know, was his first essay in print. Its date is 1828: just twenty-one years ago; and it is entitledPrinciples and Practice contrasted; or a Peep into "the only true church of God upon earth," commonly called Freethinking Christians.'

I shall not weary you with any of the discussions in this brochure. In fact, our friend lived to entertain a high opinion of several with whom he had thus differed; and if he were present to-night, he would not wish anything like the harsh remembrance of a quarrel to be revived. The preface to the pamphlet is the only part of it I cannot pass by, because it contains a proof that his wit and caustic humour were developed in the very outset of his authorship. In this preface he ironically insinuates that he may be 'ground to powder' by the immense influence of the religious body who have cast him out; and as a proof to the reader of the likelihood of such a fearful occurrence, entreats him to consider what the weight of his opponents must be, by reviewing the following Analysis of the only true church of God upon earth"-nine tailors, five shocmakers, four dealers in spirituous liquors, three haberdashers, two curriers, two cork cutters, one half-pay officer, one tallow chandler, one attorney, one printer, one tobacconist, one sincere brass finisher, and thirty nondescripts.' Such is the earliest printed specimen I have been able, at this sudden summons, to collect of our friend's characteristic humour.

We next behold him as one of the earliest and most energetic of working men engaged in the foundation of the Mechanics' Institute. His intelligence and zeal procured him the warm friendship of the excellent

Birkbeck, the founder of the Parent Institute; and the feeling was reciprocated. It is true that our friend saw just cause to make a stand, very speedily, against a movement for curtailing the control of the mechanics over the institution which bore their name and became, in process of time, estranged from it. But his attachment to the founder remained unshaken the doctor frequently called upon Henry Hetherington at his shop in the Strand, even in his sorest times of persecution; and our friend paid the last tribute to the good doctor's memory, by following his remains to Kensal Green Cemetery-whither the breathless frame of our friend himself has also been borne to-day.

The pamphlet which I have mentioned as published in 1828, was issued from his shop at 13, Kingsgate Street, Holborn. Here, also, he commenced his warfare against the false Whigs, by issuing the first number of the Poor Man's Guardian. This was in 1831. He had already become a strong thinker on politics; for, at the close of the preceding year, he had been appointed by the radical working men of London, to draw up a circular for the formation of Trades' Unions. That document was sanctioned by a meeting of delegates, and formed the basis of the 'National Union of the Working Classes'-which eventually led to Chartism.

William Carpenter, another distinguished name in the history of workingmen's politics, had issued his Political Letter' in 1830, and been prosecuted for it; and now government pounced upon Henry Hetherington. Three convictions were obtained against him for publishing the Poor Man's Guardian. He was ordered to be taken into custody, but the Bow Street magistrates could not enforce their order for some time. Henry Hetherington, with all that deliciously provoking coolness for which he was characterised, actually sent a note to the magistrates to tell them that he was going out of town!' Then, he printed the note in his Guardian, and commenced a tour through the country. [The speaker here read from the first volume of the Poor Man's Guardian several of Hetherington's notes of his tour.]

At Manchester, he narrowly escaped being taken by Stevens, the Bow Street runner;' but he might have continued at large for some time longer, had he not resolved to hasten up to London, in order to have a last look at his dying mother. He reached the door of his house, on a night in September-knocked hard, but was not answered-the Bow Street spies came upon him before his second knock had been heardand although he clung to the knocker, with the hope to remain long enough only to tell his wife that he was going to prison-he was dragged away; and none of his family knew till he was lodged in Clerkenwell gaol. Here he remained six months. The Guardian, however, was still carried on-the highly intellectual, and highly educated, as well as wealthy, Julian Hibbert, taking care to uphold the impressive character of the publication, by his powerful writing.

At the end of 1832, when he had not been many months at liberty, he was again convicted, and again imprisoned for six months in the same gaol; and now it was that his friend Watson became his fellow-prisoner

also for the same high crime and misdemeanour' of selling, in 'Free' England, a penny paper without a taxed stamp! Their treatment during