Next day I felt so weak that I could scarcely stand upright. About twelve o'clock Mr. Bransby Cooper and the Rev. Samuel Jones came round. When Mr. Cooper saw me, he said, 'Why, Holyoake, I did not know you yesterday.'
'Why, sir?'
'You did not seem to be the same person you were before.'
'In what respect was I different?'
'Before you were so gentle and submissive, but yesterday there was so much hauteur about you.'
I answered, 'Here I had to endure your authority; in court I had to defend my character and liberty. It was my turn yesterday, it is yours again to-day.'
About the middle of the first day's imprisonment I was startled by the sonorous voice of the street cryer, passing near the walls of the gaol, crying with a loud voice—'Howitt's correct list of all the cast, quit, and condemned;' and specifying, with marked emphasis, far above that bestowed on two cases of wilful murder, the case of George Jacob Holyoake, for uttering certain Blasphemous words against God, and of and concerning the Christian Religion.' The above words and specification are to be found in the said 'Correct List,' which a turnkey bought for me at my request, and which I still have. On the second morning after my sentence, I was sitting by the (very little) fire in the common room, contemplating, with very critical air, a can of somewhat indifferent gruel, which I had not the slightest disposition to eat, when the prayer bell rung, which did not at all improve my temper. Where the gaol was situated, I enjoyed such a propinquity to dock bells, basin bells, cathedral bells, and gaol bells, that had I been inclined to rebel, it would have chimed in with the others. Upon the aforesaid prayer bell ringing, all my fellow-prisoners made a rapid escape. I could not tell what had become of them. Over my head was a large grating, for the convenience of gaolers overlooking the room. Down this grating there came a tremendous voice, shouting 'Holyoake! Holyoake! Holyoake!' The voice belonged to Ogden, a man whom Carlyle would have delighted to honour. Nature made him for a gaoler. Looking up, I said 'What do you want?'
'Did you not hear that bell?'
'Yes,' I said; 'what of that?'
'All the other prisoners are gone to prayers.'
'Well, let the poor devils go, if they like it.'
'I can't be talked to in this way,' he roared out, in his surliest tones; 'you must go.'
'I am afraid that is a mistake of yours.'
'Don't you know where you are?'
'Yes; I'm in Gloucester Gaol, sitting over a can of very bad gruel.'
'Don't you know you are a prisoner?' 'Oh! yes; I am quite sensible of it.'
'Well, you must do as the others do, and you must go to prayers.'
'Then you must carry me.'
'I'll report you to the clergyman.'
'Give the clergyman my compliments, and say I'm not coming to prayers.'
He stalked away with the air of one whose dignity was greatly outraged. During the time of this colloquy prayers were suspended, and the clergyman was waiting my arrival in order to begin. As soon as prayers were well over, an order came for me—'The clergyman wanted me.'
'Well, Mr. Holyoake,' he said, when I met him, 'how is it you did not come to prayers?'
I answered, 'You cannot expect me to come to prayers; you imprison me here on the ground that I do not believe in a God, and then you would take me to chapel to pray to one. I cannot prevent your imprisoning me, but I can prevent your making me a hypocrite, and must.'
'But if you attended the ordinances of grace, it might lead you to believe in the Christian religion.'
'I should be very sorry for that.'
'Really me—how can you say so, sir?'
'Because I should be very sorry to treat those who differ from me as you treat me.'
'You do not understand us. It is not you we persecute—it is your opinions.'
'Then I wish you would imprison my opinions, and not me.' Here he turned to refresh himself by looking at the rules for the regulation of prisoners in Gloucester gaol. He resumed—'But you must attend prayers—it's the rule of the gaol.' 'I must do what I must do, I know; but, if I do that, I must be carried into chapel every morning, and that will not edify the remainder of your congregation. What can I do if I go? I could not say, "O Lord, I have erred and strayed like a lost sheep." You see yonder gratings? I'm not likely to err and stray, for the next six months, beyond those bars.' 'Ah! that is not what we mean.'
'Then what do you mean? Can I join with those men in saying, "O Lord, who hath given us grace with one accord to make our common supplications unto thee," when I shall make no supplications, unless I am forced to it? You know the prisoners only go because the turnkey is behind them?' Then I showed him the passage, 'We have done those things which we ought not to have done,' &c, and asked him what I had done, or had the chance of doing, wrong, since I came there? At this he was puzzled a little, and he at last answered—
'Ah! but we think there is a divine influence in prayer, which might operate upon you.'
'Not in this place,' I answered, 'where it is so much contradicted by your practice. I will agree to this, that when on Sundays you preach, and I may hear something new, I will come.'
He ended the colloquy after a very Christian manner, by saying, 'Well, if you don't come to prayers, you shall be locked up.'
I answered, 'Well, sir, give your orders.' I need scarcely say this was done, in one form or other, to the end of my imprisonment. Sometimes I was locked in my sleeping cell, but generally in the day room; but I found it more agreeable than the litany, and I never asked for any alteration. I went to chapel only on Sunday (the preaching day), but never to the week-day prayers.
Offensive regulations were often sought to be applied to me. One was an attempt to make me wear the prison dress. I said I preferred my own clothes. The answer was, the rules were imperative, and they must enforce them. I inquired whether they had any spare time on their hands, for it would be necessary to dress me every morning. My answer was reported to the magistrates, and I heard no more of the project.
Out of doors much is said against passive resistance, but in prison it is the only resistance possible, and is often very effective, If you speak or act, you are at the mercy of those in whose power you are. Take any aggressive step and your gaoler knocks you down, or locks you up in a moment. But if you simply will not do a thing, if without bluster or bravado you leave it to them to make you do it, or to do it themselves, they often find it of rather awkward accomplishment. To carry me to prayers or to dress me every morning was far more offensive and troublesome to them than breaking my head, so they left me alone.
Old Mr. Jones, the magistrate, paid me frequent visits. One day he took me to the door, and pointing upwards, asked, 'did I not see there proofs sufficient of the existence of a God?' I answered, that 'when the boundless expanse of the skies had been before me I had been unable to think so, and now the few square feet, which the high walls of the gaol permitted me to see, were still less likely to inspire me with that conviction.'
A little reflection ought to have shown these gentlemen, who made these appeals to me, that the time and place were both inauspicious in which to address to me such interrogatories. Indeed it was offensive, and on more than one occasion I told them, that having undertaken to compel my acquiescence with them by imprisonment, I could never divest myself of the conviction that it was superfluous to pretend to win me by argument.
The last visit Mr. Jones paid was to read me a psalm. As on my trial I had complained of the discourtesy of their calling me a fool, the old man was particularly anxious to justify himself. He found what seemed to him a favourable opportunity in the circumstance that a German scholar had at this time published a new translation of the Psalms of David. As I had spoken favourably of German theologians, he concluded that this one would have weight with me. He brought down the book, summoned the whole class of prisoners, and we stood twelve or eighteen in a row. Proclaiming attention, he said he wished to read to us, and particularly to me, the 14th Psalm. Reading aloud the first verse where David observes 'the fool hath said in his heart there is no God,' Mr. Jones said, 'Now, Holyoake, you complained that we called you a fool—you see David says you are a fool.' The old man looked round with an air of triumph, which was considerably moderated when I gently but distinctly observed that 'I no more liked rudeness in the mouth of David than in the mouth of a magistrate.' My fellow-prisoners glanced around in consternation at my audacity, and expected to hear me ordered into the dark cell, but old Mr. Jones turned round, shut up his book, and walked away without saying a word, and I never saw him afterwards.
The next day I wrote to the Board of Magistrates to say that 'if visiting magistrates continued to question me before other prisoners, where the discipline of the gaol forbade adequate reply, I should refuse to answer.' In future I was always called out by myself and spoken with alone.
Before my trial the same Mr. Jones told me that my friend, Mr. Richard Carlile, had died in London a very horrible death, recanting all his principles before he expired, and urged me to take warning by his example and do the same. Shortly after Mr. Jones was surprised to meet Mr. Carlile in the corridor of the gaol bringing me refreshments, which his experience assured him I needed. And it was not the least part of my pride on the day of my trial that he sat near me from morning till night, encouraging me by his presence, and assisting me by his wisdom. After my conviction he vindicated me assiduously through the press, addressed to me public letters, and wrote to Justice Erskine and Sir Robert Peel, threatening to renew his former war against the Church if my situation was not ameliorated—a very curious species of recantation it must be confessed, but a fair sample of the usual death-bed 'scenes' which the pulpits relate.
My company as a prisoner was not of a very agreeable kind, I had to listen to recitals of depravity such as I never heard before, and do not wish to hear again. But this was not all. Sometimes a companion was filthy as well as wicked. One man sent in among us had the itch, and before I found it out he had held me by the wrists in some accidental wrestle—which misfortune might have subjected me to a taste of prison discipline which few will be able to imagine.
When the surgeon finds that a prisoner has this disease he makes no remark, but shortly after, the man is called out by the turnkey, whom he has to follow through various corridors to remote cells at the top of the gaol, near the gallows. Upon entering one, he is told to take off his clothes. As soon as he is in a state of nudity, his clothes are taken away, and locked up. He is then shown a cask filled with brimstone, grease, and other mixture, of the consistence of pitch, and quite as offensive to the sight. With this he is made to smear his entire person over; when this is done, he is left locked up in the place. All he finds about him is a bed on which are two blankets, in which hundreds, smeared as he is, have lain before. When no longer able to endure the cold, he may lie in this place. Thick and chilly, these disgusting coverings adjust themselves to the body when softened by the warmth, where, without caution, the liquid will run into the eyes and the mouth. Here he remains some days and eats the uncut food which is brought to him as well as he can with his filthy fingers.
Such is the description of a process of cure (as I gathered from several whose experience I heard narrated), to which I might have been subjected, if, when I discovered pustules on my wrists similar to those on the infected man, I had not kept from the observation of the surgeon while they remained. My habit of daily ablution, and some medicine I procured, saved me from more than temporary discomfort. I need scarcely add, that had such a cure been attempted on me, I should have had to be carried to the place, and the application must have been effected by force.
After some weeks' imprisonment, and when I had had sufficient opportunity of noticing the disposition of the authorities, and estimating the treatment to which I was to be subjected, I addressed the following, slightly abridged—
Memorial of George Jacob Holyoake, prisoner for Blasphemy* In Gloucester
County Gaol, to Sir James Graham, her Majesty's Secretary of State.
Sir,—At the recent Gloucester Assizes your memorialist was sentenced by Mr. Justice Erskine to six months' imprisonment for the alleged offence of blasphemy.
Since that period he has been confined in the common gaol and fed on convict gruel, bread, rice, and potatoes. It is true your memorialist is allowed the privilege of purchasing, to some extent, better food, but his imprisonment renders this privilege valueless, without the assistance of friends, upon whom are the claims of his family left dependent by his incarceration.
Under these circumstances your memorialist applied to the surgeon of the gaol for other diet; by the surgeon he was referred to the governor; by the governor to the visiting magistrates, and by the visiting magistrates back to e surgeon, who subsequently has recommended, though not prescribed, better diet: but from the recommendation of it, your memorialist concludes that in that gentleman's opinion it is necessary. Two other surgeons whom your memorialist consulted on entering his prison warned him that a generous diet was absolutely requisite, and the decay of your memorialist's health is a testimony of its truth.
He prays for other regulations than those under which he sees visitors. They have always to stand, sometimes to talk through the bars of a gate, and are permitted to stay but a few minutes. As your memorialist is far from his friends, these rules continually prevent him seeing them, and receiving those attentions to his wants he otherwise would.
He wishes permission to remain up in an evening until the hour of the debtors' retiring (9 o'clock), or at least to be allowed the use of a light in his cell, in which he is confined from twelve to fourteen hours, and during the winter he will be so shut up sixteen hours and a half. Thus much time will be lost your memorialist could employ upon a little mathematical speculation.** which would afford him the gratification of contributing himself to the support of his family.
* I always said 'Prisoner for Blasphemy' in all my
communications, and directed my friends so to address me, to
which the magistrates objected. But if I was to be written
to at a gaol, I preferred to be known as a prisoner for
opinion rather than as a prisoner for crime.
** Mentioned to prevent the supposition on the part of Sir
James that the time would be employed in writing blasphemy,
which would be fatal to the application.
As every newspaper sent your memorialist is retained by the governor, your memorialist prays the liberty of reading them.
The visiting magistrates have said they should have no objection to grant what your memorialist asks, had they the power; and hence he prays the exercise of your authority on his behalf.
As custom attaches little weight to the opinion of a prisoner, it becomes not your memorialist to speak of his own case, but trusts he may with propriety refer to it as one in which he believes will be found little that is aggravated. Seduced in the warmth of debate to express his honest opinion on a religious question, young and inexperienced, he took not the hypocrite's crooned path, nor the dissembler's hidden way, but unwarily uttered language disingenuousness would have concealed or art have polished, and became in consequence the ready victim of Christianity. Criminal without intention, punishment brings with it no consciousness or guilt, and hence that which in other circumstances would be light, is, in his, a bitter infliction.
George Jacob Holyoake.
Sir James gave me permission to remain up till 9 o'clock after I had been three months in prison. But for the concession it required an effort to be grateful, for it was a permission to remain up without fire and without light. For unless I could pay for fire and light, I had to go without. Whether Sir James Graham intended this, I have no means of knowing; he probably expected that the magistrates would not interpret his order as a privilege to sit up in the cold and in the dark, which would be a greater punishment than going to bed. But they did put this construction upon it. As Sir James did not mention fire and light, they refused to supply them.
Mathematical studies were impossible, for the authorities also refused to allow me my instruments, lest I should commit suicide with them; but I had provided for that, as every man should who goes to gaol. There was just width enough in my cell to admit of the heavy iron bed-frame being raised on one end. By marking a circle round one of the legs, which I did with a fragment of stone, I determined the place on which the leg would fall when the frame was pulled down. My head once placed on that spot, the great weight of the frame would have sent the narrow leg through the brain, and death must have been instantaneous. I am no friend of suicide, and had a thousand reasons for living; but I had not been long in gaol before I saw many things to which none but the degraded or the weak would submit—and lest they should come to my turn, I provided against them.
About this time an event occurred in my family which converted my imprisonment into an unexpected bitterness. Against that 'love abroad which means spite (or indifference) at home,' I early set my face. Between me and Eleanor, my wife, there always existed an understanding as to the risks I ran in my free speaking. Whatever consequences fell upon my own head alone, I had myself only to please in incurring: but those which affected others, I had no right to invoke, without their consent—and this consent I always sought from my wife, in any special case which arose. At our marriage, Eleanor very well understood that my life somewhat resembled a soldier's, and that it would often include duties and dangers not compatible with perennial fireside comfort Nor did she object to this, and I have had the sweet fortune always to be left to do whatever I should have done, had I been single and childless. On my saying, on the imprisonment of Mr. Southwell, first editor of the Oracle, that it was my duty to take his place, Eleanor replied—'Do what it seems your duty to do, and I and the children will take care of ourselves as well as we can. When they grow up, I trust they will contemplate with little satisfaction any advantage they might have enjoyed at the expense of their father's duty. We can leave them no riches, but we may at least leave them a good example, and an unsoiled name.'
It was therefore that when I came to leave home, to go to my trial, all was calm and cheerful as usual, though there was much around to suggest uneven thoughts. On that day no one came to accompany me or to spend an hour of solace with those from whom I parted. Had there been a single friend present to have made up the appearance of society after I was gone, the loneliness would have been less bitter. As I left the house I heard that cry break forth which had been suppressed that it might not sadden my departure. Before I had proceeded far up Windsor Street, Ashted, I was arrested by Madeline's silvery voice calling 'good bye, dada,' and turning round I saw her large bright, black eyes (which every body praised) peering like two stars round the lintel of the door. I am glad I did not then know that I should never hear that voice again, nor see those bright eyes any more. To turn the attention of mankind in an atheistical direction may do harm to some. The propagation of all new views does harm, more or less. As in commercial speculations much capital is sunk before any returns come in, so in the improvement of the people, you sacrifice some old feeling which is good, before the new opinion, which is better, can be created. But all the new opinions I have at any time imbibed have never produced so much harm in me as the prudential doctrines of Political Economy. The doctrine that it is disreputable in the poor to have children, is salutary, no doubt—but it requires to be enforced under limitation. To regard the existence of your little ones as an expense, and the gentle love of children as a luxury in which you cannot indulge without reproach, is to sour life, dry up affection, and blight those whose tender years should be passed in a perpetual smile of joy. To look into the face of your child and feel that the hand of death, which shall hush that gentle voice, pale those rosy cheeks, and quench those animated eyes—is a political blessing, is horrible. I look back with mute terror on the day when I was under the influence of those feelings. I cannot dwell upon it. I would burn all the books of Political Economy I ever read (and I think it the science of many blessings) if I could feel once more on my knee the gentle hand of my child from whom I parted that day, too stoical to shed a tear.
After a few weeks of my imprisonment had passed away, hint—words came of Madeline's failing health. Out of some money sent by my private friends, John Fowler and Paul Rodgers, of Shefield, to buy better food than the gaol afforded, I saved a guinea and sent it to Birmingham to purchase Madeline a winter cloak—it was spent in buying her a coffin. Though of perfect health and agility, she was one of those children who require entire preservation from exposure, want, or fatigue. On ten shillings per week, which was all that the Anti-Persecution union could provide, this could not be done, as Eveline, then in arms, left her mother no opportunity of increasing that small income. Cold succeeded cold, when want of more means caused them all to go to live in a house ill ventilated, and where several were ill of fever, which soon attacked Madeline.
Mr. Chilton sent me several intimations to prepare for the worst, should it happen. But I could not believe in the worst happening, and indeed I had yet to realise what the worst implied. At length one morning the heavy corridor door grated on its harsh hinges, and the morose turnkey—fit messenger of misery—put a letter into my hand. As it had been, as usual, broken open—for there is no feeling, not even that of affection and death, respected in a gaol—Ogden knew its contents, and in justice to him I must say he endeavoured, as well as one whose ability lay in his moroseness could, to speak a word of apology and sympathy. The strangeness and awkwardness of the attempt drew my attention to the fatal black border, which gave me sensations such as I never received before and never shall again, for the first death of one dear to you, like that of the first love, brings with it a feeling which is never repeated. I remember that some prisoner came and covered me with a coat, for I had walked into the yard without one. Captain Mason and two friends came round, but I could not speak to them. He addressed a few words to me, but I turned away.
Then Madeline had died the death of the poor; she had perished among the people who know neither hope nor comfort, a pledge that I shall never forsake those with whose sad destiny one so dear to me is linked. Though in the death of poverty there is nothing remarkable, though hundreds of children are daily killed off in the same way, yet parents unused to this form of calamity find in it, the first time, a bitterness which can never be told. The ten shillings per week income of the family was made up by small subscriptions by some who knew me, and by a few outside who happened to think useful the course I had taken. One or two friends whose professions had beforetime been profuse, Eleanor met. They were cold, or to her they seemed so. She thought they feared a continued acquaintance might lay them under some tax to contribute to her support. This she could never bear. Offering her hand to one who did not take it, she went home, and nothing induced her to subject herself to such suspicion any more. A quick and enduring sense of independence, which no privation could disturb, was an attribute in her character I had always admired, and this dreadful form of its operation I have never been able to censure. The Roman mother put on the armour of her son as he went out, and saw him brought home dead from the fight without weakness: but in that case, the strife of arms, the glory of victory, the sublimity of duty, and the applause of the senate, were so many supports to the mother's heroism; but harder far is it for a mother to bend over her child day by day and night after night, and see relentless death eat like a canker into the bud of the damask cheek of beauty, and be too poor to snatch it from the tomb—and this with no trumpet note, no clang of arms to drown the dying scream, no incense of glory to raise the sinking heart, no applause of a generous people to reward the sacrifice—without one soul near who could penetrate to the depth of that desolation, and utter those words of sympathy which is all which humanity can do to soothe in the face of death. There were indeed those near who might have done so, but some could not comprehend this grief, and others, for reasons of Political Economy, 'did not see the good of regret' at a child dying, and they will learn from these pages for the first time that these wounds existed which, after eight years, are still fresh.
There are homesteads that have witnessed deeds That battle fields, with all their bannered pomp, Have little to compare with. Life's great play May, so it have an actor great enough, Be well performed upon a humble stage.
'My dada's coming to see me,' Madeline exclaimed on the night of her death, with that full, pure, and thrilling tone which marked her when in health. 'I am sure he is coming to night, mama,' and then remembering that that could not be, she said 'write to him, mama, he will come to see me;' and these were the last words she uttered—and all that remains now is the memory of that cheerless, tireless room, and the midnight reverberation of that voice which I would give a new world to hear again.
For her father, he was debating in incoherence the vain proposition as to whether he could prevail on the Governor to let him go home for one night to smooth and watch over that dying pillow, and he would cheerfully and gratefully have expiated the privilege by six or twelve months' additional imprisonment.
O liberty! whom the nations welcome with triumphant shouts, Whom all to whom the world owes its progress have worshipped—over how many graves hast thou walked! Rising with the morning's dawn, making all people radiant with thy presence, the poet thrills as thy chariot is borne on the tarn's golden beams, and he hails thee as a goddess, and blesses thee as a bride, and sings of thy triumphs and benefactions! But those who serve thee—who make their lives a sad and desert waste that thy pathway through the world may be unobstructed—who kneel to thee in their dungeon-churches and pour out the incense of life's young warm blood at gibbet-altars: they know thee by thy gory garments dripping with the blood of the father and the tear of the orphan, and the desolation which precedes thy progress. The anthems of thy march are hollow voices from Siberia's mines, and Vinceanes' cells—the wail of women under the Russian knout, the groans of Konarski and the whistle of bullets which slay the Bandiera and Blum—thy trophies are the fresh graves of Hungary and Rome, thy throne is on a hecatomb of earth's noblest and bravest sons. Yet art thou still sacred in the eyes of man. Queen of Genius and Progress! emblem of that suffering through which Humanity is purified and developed! Thou hast trodden on the grave of my child, and I worship then still, although thou mayst yet tread on my own.
Yes, though I neither hope—for that would be presumptuous—nor expect it, seeing no foundation, I shall be pleased to find a life after this. Not a life where those are punished who were unable to believe without evidence, and unwilling to act in spite of reason—for the prospect of annihilation is pleasanter and more profitable to contemplate: not a life where an easy faith is regarded as 'easy virtue' is regarded among some men—but a life where those we have loved and lost here are restored to us again—for there, in that Hall where those may meet who have been sacrificed in the cause of duty—where no gross, or blind, or selfish, or cruel nature mingles, where none sit but those whom human service and endurance have purified and entitled to that high company, Madeline will be a Hebe. Yes, a future life, bringing with it the admission to such companionship, would be a noble joy to contemplate. But Christianity has no such dream as this.
On making arrangements for the burial, at the Birmingham Cemetery, the clerk asked whether they should provide a Minister, or whether the friends of the deceased would do so? The answer was—'A minister was not desired. 'Then I presume,' the clerk observed, 'you mean that you will provide one yourselves?' The answer again was, 'we do not require one at all. Please send the beadle merely.'
On the day of the interment the beadle attended as requested. He was instructed to conduct the burial party direct to the grave; and not into the chapel, which he did without remark: and when the coffin, plain but pretty, without tinsel or angels, was lowered, each threw a bouquet of flowers in, and when the grave was made up they returned home. Thus Madeline was buried, as became her innocence and her fate, without parade, without priest, or priestly ceremony. Had hesitation been displayed, or previous inquiries been made as to whether what was done could have been permitted, no question but that a priest would have been inflicted, as at the grave of Carlile and others—for Christianity, always officious and rude to the dissentient, is never more so than when opposition is paralysed by agony on the bed of death, or hushed in speechless sadness by the side of the grave.
As it would only be painful to Mrs. Holyoake, I never wished her to visit me; but after the death of Madeline she desired it, and she brought little 'Eveline' (a name given to her in lieu of her own because of its similarity to Madeline.) On this occasion Mr. Bransby Cooper sent to say that the magistrates' Committee-room, an elegant and cheerful apartment, should be at my service, at Mrs. Holyoake's visit. Mr. Cooper was the first of the magistrates to send a message of condolence on the death of Madeline, and in this instance his kindness was delicate and generous. As on the day Mrs. Holyoake came the magistrates happened to hold a meeting in it, an apology was sent me, and the Lodge placed at my service. No turnkey was sent in, and I was permitted to see my friends with an air of perfect freedom. My sister Caroline, who was one of the party, brought me a present of wine and cigars. As both were forbidden by the rules of the gaol, I declined to touch them. As I was trusted without restraint, I was doubly anxious to respect a liberty so generously conceded. Had they set a watch over me, I should have had less scruple, and perhaps have thought it a merit to defeat their suspicions.
Captain Mason, the governor, was a study—a type of the gentleman, official, and conventional, whose qualities were instructive. Bland, imperturbable, civil, and firm, he was never weak and never rude. Among the uneducated, all decisive action is announced in commotion or bluster. The gentleman is never in a hurry, never in a contention. If you annoy him, are rude to him, impose upon him, or menace him, perhaps he quietly indicates his opinion of the impropriety, perhaps his resolution is taken without. He avoids you. His defence is prevention. Renewal of offence, renewal of intercourse, chance of altercation or repetition, is simply impossible. Such was Captain Mason. I watched his manners with pleasure—he governed the gaol like a drawing room, excepting that the desserts were not quite the same. I saw rude men baffled, they could not make out how. Possibly he had nerves and sensibility, but these articles were not in common use. They were kept under lock and key, and never brought out in the routine of official duties. As blandly and courteously as he wished me good morning, he would have conducted me to the gallows, had instruction to that effect reached him. He would have apologised for the inconvenience, but he would have hung me while I was saying 'pray don't mention it.'
Excepting in one transaction our intercourse was unruffled. When I had left the gaol, a prisoner (the Master of a Post Office) the only gentleman on my side of the prison, addressed to me a letter of accusation against the governor—an act which made me a participator in his sentiments. As it passed through the governor's hands, he wrote under the name the crime and sentence of the writer—a brief and bitter retort. I reenclosed the letter to the writer with a note to Captain Mason, observing that on leaving the gaol I had expressed to him the only opinion I entertained of him, and I should regard it as unmanly to be a party to reproaches which I did not see reason to address to him in person. He wrote me back, with a soldier's honourable frankness, that 'I had always behaved honourably in my intercourse with him, and he did not believe I would do an unmanly thing.'
The exceptional transaction with the Captain referred to was this. One of my fellow-prisoners was an epileptic man, whose ignorance and irritability, more than any crime, had led to his imprisonment. As I kept a sort of school in our common room, and taught a few things to those about me who were disposed to learn, I had become interested in Upton, a humble and unhappy man, who learned at grammar anxiously. Some nights he would fall out of bed in an epileptic fit, and lie groaning on the stone floor for an hour or more together. It was in vain that we shouted to the turnkeys. They who can hear a man think of escaping, cannot hear when he breaks his neck. Upton representing that a little tobacco, to which he had been accustomed, would save him from the frequency of these fits, I procured him some. Smoking it one day in a corner, in a paper pipe made for the purpose out of one of my letters, the governor came upon him through a side door. Upon being asked how he procured it, he answered, 'From a man who had just come in from the Sessions.' This the governor did not believe. At night Ogden made an immense speech at me, in which that luminous functionary inserted several elephantine hints, to the effect that he knew the source whence the aforesaid tobacco came. It was a treat to hear Ogden hint; it was like a hippopotamus putting his paw out, or kicking a man down stairs. As soon as I could get to speak to Upton, I prevailed upon him to allow me to write to the governor, tell him the truth, and take the blame upon myself, reminding Upton that a good man might be surprised into a lie, but only a bad man would persist in one. The retaliation of the governor was refined and vindictive. Instead of ordering me into a dark cell on bread and water for two or three days, which was the authorised punishment, he ordered two gates to be locked between me and my visitors, so that those who spoke were obliged to shout to me. This he continued, with slight variation, to the end of my imprisonment. This deprived me of the pleasure of seeing ladies who called, as I would never consent to see them under circumstances of so much humiliation.
Captain Mason had had previous proof that my professions might be trusted. When first imprisoned, the reader perhaps remembers I was kept (though on my way home after a journey) a fortnight while the magistrates played at bail. When at length they signified their intention of accepting it, Captain Mason took me, through the city, to Bransby Cooper's house, where the bail-deed was to be completed. On our way I asked him if it would be necessary for me to take an oath, before my own bond could be accepted, as I should object to take an oath? He turned round and replied—'Why, Holyoake, as you don't believe in any of the Gods, you could have no objection to swear by them all.' I explained to him that if the Magistrate would regard my oath as a mere ceremony, by which I rendered myself liable to penalties in case of violated truth or failure in my bond, I would take the oath readily, if all the Gods of the Pantheon were in it: but if it were regarded as a profession of my religious faith, I would not take it. It was better that I should go back to gaol, than to make a profession of belief which would mislead others. I told Mr. Cooper the same when we reached his house. He, however, said my signature would do.
One day I concluded a dialogue with my chaplain upon the principle of reciprocation, i. e. of retorting his language upon himself, and, I think, not without utility, for he never afterwards fell into that insensible arrogance of speech so common among pastors. On the occasion referred to, he began—'Are you really an atheist, Mr. Holyoake?' 'Really I am.'
'You deny that there is a God?'
'No; I deny that there is sufficient reason to believe that there is one.'
'I am very glad to find that you have not the temerity to say that there is no God.'
'And I am very sorry to find that you have the temerity to say there is one. If it be absurd in me to deny what I cannot demonstrate, is it not improper for you to avert so dogmatically what you cannot prove?'
'Then where would you leave the question of atheism?'
'Just where it leaves us both. 'It is a question of probability.' 'Ah! the probabilities in favour of atheism are very few.'
'How know you that? Did you ever examine the question without prejudice, or read that written in its favour without fear? Those who dare not look at all never see far.'
'But if the atheist has so much on his side, why does he not make it known? We do not keep back our evidences.'
'Has the atheist an equal opportunity with you? Is it generous in you to taunt him with lack of evidence, when you are prepared to punish its production?'
'The reason is that your principles are so horrible; as Robert Hall has said, 'Atheism is a bloody and ferocious system.'
'Permit me, sir, to return that gentle speech—to tell you that your principles are horrible, and that Christianity is a bloody and ferocious system.'
'Really I am shocked to hear you speak so dreadfully of Christianity.'
'Why should you be shocked to hear what you are not shocked to say?'
'But atheism is so revolting.' 'But Christianity is so revolting.'
'How dangerous is it for atheism to corrupt the minds of children.' 'How pernicious is it for Christian doctrines to corrupt the thoughts of infancy.'
'But you are only asserting.'
'Are you doing otherwise? I sometimes think that Christians would be more respectful in their speech if the same language could be applied to them with impunity which they apply to others.'
'But, my dear sir, the language of the atheist is so shocking to Christian feeling.'
'And, my dear sir, has it never occurred to you that the language of the Christian is shocking to atheistical feeling?'
'Atheists have a right to their opinions, I allow, but not to publish them.'
'I shall think you speak reasonably when you permit the same rule to be applied to the Christian.'
'But you really cannot be an atheist?'
'And you say this who have been a party to imprisoning me here for being one! If you believe yourself, go and demand my liberation.'
'Ah! when you come to die you will wish that you were a Christian.'
'Can it be that I shall wish to hold a creed that I distrust—one that leads me to deny another the liberty I claim for myself? If to be capable of looking back with satisfaction on conduct like this is to be a Christian, may I never die the death of the righteous, and may my last end never be like his.'
As the general treatment pursued towards me did not work an satisfactory conversion, some attempts were made by gentler means. Taken one day into a sleeping cell for privacy, one who had the power to fulfil his promises passed in review the casualties of a life like mine, and asked whether I had not better change it. Thinking I was seduced by some attraction which belonged to my position, he suggested how fickle a thing was popularity, and how soon the applause of friends might die away, or change with the growth or refinement of my conviction, into suspicion or even hate. Had I not better accept the editorship of a paper, where I should not be required to contradict, but merely to avoid advocating my views? Had I not better accept a school in a retired part of the country—-a girls' school also might be given to Mrs. Holyoake, and our joint incomes would ensure competence, respectability, and usefulness? I answered, 'I think you have mistaken me. The opinions I defended are also my convictions; and thinking them useful, it seems my duty to propagate them, and the discharge of this duty is more serious in my eyes than you suppose; nor do the inducements you picture exist. Do you not see that I am nearly friendless? I am without even the attentions of those from whom I have some right to expect it. Except Mr. Farn, Mr. Watts, and Mr. Campbell, none of my colleagues among the Social Missionaries have written me a friendly word. The editor of the New Moral World, upon whose protection I have some claim, has written no word in my favour. The only public defence for which I am indebted has come from strange papers, and unknown men. Even Mr. Owen, the advocacy of whose opinions involved me in this prosecution, he who occupied the largest share of my veneration, has not even recognised my existence by a single line. This affair may have made some noise, but I am not so young as to mistake noise for popularity, nor so weak as to think popularity the one thing needful. Popularity, is to be won by those who can flatter the public, but that estimation which is alone worth having is only to be won by the service of the people, and that is not the work of youth but of life. That which you call my cause is yet in an infantine state. It has no attractions but the rude ones of daring and truth. It requires to be divested of antagonism, and developed in its relations to political and social interests and personal character. This must be the work of time, and judging from the present, it will be a work of difficult and precarious effort. At present we number no public friends of wealth or influence. We have every thing to gain—yet the comparative affluence you offer would be a canker to my peace, while it was the price of duty evaded. My self-chosen faith, presumptuous and thorny, will be sweeter to walk. It is enough that you see I am not misled by its attractions. Now I tread these floors with a proud step, and meet your eye with unblenched brow, because it is necessary to show you that in defence of my opinions I feel neither fear nor guilt—but when I walk from this place into the wilderness of the world, my steps will falter and my face will pale, because my path will lie over the grave of my child.'
All I remember farther is that my tempter made a few not unfeeling remarks, and led me back in silence to my usual cell.
The final efforts for my conversion were on this wise. The Rev. Mr. Cooper sent for me, a few days before my liberation, and asked me to follow him to the chapel. Arrived there, he ascended the pulpit, motioning me to a prisoner's pew without even asking me to be seated. My neck was stiff with a severe cold, and I was as ill able as ill disposed to be catechised. I stood leaning on the spikes—not inapt emblems of such Christian love as I had there been made acquainted with. The good Chaplain prayed—I did not move. He looked at me to catch my eye—I kept mine fixed on the spikes. He addressed me—I made no sign. He spoke some minutes—still I remained motionless. He paused and asked what I thought of his representations—I answered no word. He seemed to think he was making a favourable impression. He resumed, and came to another peroration, and again besought me to answer—still no motion, no word from me. He began a third time, and touched all serious topics which he could command, and came again to an elaborate peroration on deathbeds; and as I remained still silent and immovable, he said, somewhat perplexed this time, 'Holyoake, won't you speak?' I then answered 'Not while we occupy these places. Do you not preach to me and place me here where prisoners stand? I take this to be a ceremony, and not a conversation.' He walked down from his pulpit and asked me to accompany him, when he took me into several cells till he found one warmed with hot air, and asked would I speak with him there on friendly terms? I answered, 'with pleasure;' and there we conversed for the last time. I troubled him to repeat his arguments, as I would not admit that I had attended to a word. When he had done, I briefly assured him that my experience there had not created in me any desire to be a Christian: he had brought before me no new evidences, and as it had been found necessary to enforce those I knew before by penal reasons, the operation had rather diminished their weight in my estimation.
He professed himself anxious to 'present me with a Bible'—a fact which I knew was destined to make a figure in the next Gaol Report to the County Magistrates; I therefore resolved to have one worth acceptance, or not one at all. When he brought to me the usual prison copy, I respectfully declined it, I said, a thin copy bound in calf, in pearl type, with marginal references, would be interesting to me, but the dumpling-shaped book he offered, I could never endure in my library. He deliberated—the trade price of the Bible he offered me was about tenpence, that I desiderated would cost him half a guinea. The reflection was fatal. The Bible never came, and the evangelical fact that 'The prisoner George Jacob Holyoake was presented with a copy of the Holy Scriptures before leaving the gaol, which it is hoped, under the Divine blessing, will be the means of bringing him to the knowledge of the truth'—was never recorded.
About this period I saw the magistrates for the last time. There seemed to be a full Board of them, and Mr. Bransby Cooper was in the chair. Before withdrawing I addressed Mr. Cooper, and said—'As in a short time I shall leave this place, I wish, before doing so, to express to you my sense of the kindness and consideration shown me by you when Mrs. Holyoake visited me here. It is one of the few things I shall remember with pleasure when again at liberty. You will not, I fear, believe in the possibility of one of my opinions feeling gratitude, but I will at least assure you of it.' The answer he made was a compensation for much that I had experienced. In that loud voice in which he usually spoke, he exclaimed—'Yes, I will say this, that I believe you, Holyoake. I don't believe that you could be a hypocrite.'
One day a magistrate, described to me as the Hon. and Rev, Andrew Sayer, sent me a copy of Paley's works, requesting my particular attention to his Natural Theology. 'Did I put into your hands,' I said, addressing that gentleman, 'an atheistic work, you would tell me of the contamination you dread; and may I not plead the same risk in perusing your theistical book? But, as all in the search after truth must venture through phases of error, I shall not hesitate to comply with your request; and that you may be certain that I do so, you may, when I have ended, put to me any question upon the contents you please.' It happened that my examination resulted in my writing 'Paley Refuted in his Own Words.' When Mr. Sayer came to ask me what conclusions I had come to on the books he had lent me, I made this answer to him—* Sir, I am surprised at your asking me this question. Does it become you, a clergyman and a magistrate, to ask me to commit crime?'
'What do you mean?' he inquired.
'I mean this,' I replied, 'that in having punished my last expression of opinion as a crime, by bringing me here, it does not become you to put religious inquiries to me again.' He seemed confounded; and on this occasion I showed him, that while Christianity punished as crime the expression of dissentient opinions, Christians were disqualified from seeking the state of any man's thoughts with respect to religion. Unless one volunteers explanations, Christians have plainly no right to demand them. They put themselves out of the pale of ordinary privilege.
Writing 'Paley Refuted' and the 'Short and Easy Method with the Saints'—a title suggested by 'Leslie's Short and Easy Method with the Deist,' another book put into my hands by the authorities—occupied me till the end of my imprisonment. On the 15th of February, 1843, I was liberated; and three days after (having paid visits of acknowledgment to my friends in Gloucester, Cheltenham, and Worcester) I rejoined (what I might then term the remains of) my family in Birmingham.