Charles Bradlaugh: a Record of His Life and Work, Volume 1 (of 2). Bonner Hypatia Bradlaugh

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СКАЧАТЬ country to the other, joined in a chorus of condemnation of Orsini, I put down on paper some of the arguments and considerations which I thought told on Orsini's side. The essay thus produced was read at a meeting of one of our branches, the members attending which earnestly urged me to get the piece printed. It occurred to me also that the publication might be of service, if only to show that there were two sides to the question 'Tyrannicide.' So I went to Mr G. J. Holyoake, then carrying on business as a publisher of advanced literature in Fleet Street. Mr Holyoake not being on the premises, his brother Austin asked me to leave my manuscript and call again. When I called again Mr Holyoake returned me the paper, giving among other reasons for declining to publish it that he was already in negotiation with Mazzini for a pamphlet on the same subject. 'Very well,' said I, 'all I want is that something should be said on Orsini's side. If Mazzini does this, I shall be quite content to throw my production into the fire.' A few days later, not hearing anything of the Mazzini pamphlet, I left the manuscript with Mr Edward Truelove, with whom I have ever since maintained a close and unbroken friendship. Mr Truelove seemed pleased with the paper, offered to publish it, and proposed to get it printed. The essay, as I had written it, was entitled 'Tyrannicide, a Justification.' Mr Truelove, however, suggested that it should be called 'Tyrannicide: is it Justifiable?' Then there was no name to the production, which, I need not say, bore many marks of the immaturity of the author. Mr Truelove said it would be as well to adopt a nom de plume. But if any name was to appear to the pamphlet, I said I was disposed to think that it should be my own. And so it came to pass that the pamphlet appeared with the title – 'Tyrannicide: is it Justifiable? by W. E. Adams. Published by Edward Truelove, 240 Strand, London.' Two or three days after the announcement of the publication, when only a few hundred copies had been sold, Mr Truelove was arrested, brought before the Bow Street magistrate, and held to bail for publishing a seditious libel on Louis Napoleon. As a matter of course, nobody knew the author. It was suspected indeed that the name attached to the pamphlet was a fiction, and that the essay was the production of a French exile.

      "The arrest of Mr Truelove was regarded as an attack upon the liberty of the press – an attempt to restrict the right of public discussion. So regarding it, a number of gentlemen, prominently identified with advanced opinions, formed what was called a 'Truelove Defence Fund.' Mr Bradlaugh, who was among the first to volunteer assistance, was appointed secretary of the committee; the late James Watson accepted the office of treasurer; and contributions and other help were received from John Stuart Mill, W. Cunningham, M.P., Dr Epps, Arthur Trevelyan, Professor F. W. Newman, W. J. Fox, M.P., Jos. Cowen, junr., Abel Heywood, P. A. Taylor, Harriet Martineau, etc. Six months after Mr Truelove had been arrested, the whole affair came to a most 'lame and impotent' conclusion. It was at the instance of Sir Richard Bethel, Attorney-General under Lord Palmerston, and probably at the instigation of the Government of Louis Napoleon, whom the pamphlet was alleged to have libelled, that the prosecution was commenced. The case was withdrawn by Sir Fitzroy Kelly, Attorney-General under the Government of Lord Derby, on the understanding that Mr Truelove would sell no more of the pamphlets. Down to the evening preceding the day fixed for the trial, Mr Truelove, though he had doubts as to the result, fully expected that the matter would be fought out. On that evening, however, when it was too late to instruct other counsel, Mr Truelove was informed that the counsel already retained for the defence announced that the affair would have to be compromised. So it came to pass that Chief Justice Campbell, six months after the prosecution had been instituted, dismissed Mr Truelove with many words of caution. It need not be said that Mr Bradlaugh was as much disgusted with this termination of the case as Mr Truelove himself. The secret of the collapse, I think, was this: – Edwin James, who was retained for the defence, and who had political ambitions which were never fully realised on account of misdeeds which compelled him to retire from public life and from his own country, practically sold his client in order that the Government might be relieved from a distasteful and unpleasant position."

      CHAPTER IX

      EARLY LECTURES AND DEBATES

      I do not know at what date or at what place my father delivered his first provincial lectures, but the earliest of which I can find any record occurred in January 1858, when on the 10th of that month he delivered two lectures at Manchester, a town in which, as we shall see later on, he was not altogether unknown, although in a totally different capacity. In reading the little there is to read about these early lecturing days I have been impressed with the fact that while in London his lectures were favourably received, and he was evidently gaining goodwill as he went from one hall to another, in the country he seems to have touched the hearts and the feelings of his audiences for or against him wherever he went. At these first Manchester lectures the reporter writes: "His manly, earnest, and fearless style of advocacy were much admired, and evidently produced a deep impression. Everybody who heard him wished to hear him again." In the April following he lectured in Sheffield, and from that time forward his visits to the provinces were very frequent. Sheffield almost adopted him, and he went there again and again; in 1858 and 1859 he went also to Newcastle, Sunderland, Bradford, Northampton, Doncaster, Accrington, Blackburn, Halifax, Bolton, and other towns, leaving a trail of excitement in his wake wherever he went. The descriptions of his personal appearance and the comments on his lectures at this time are more or less amusing. The first I will note here shall be one from his own pen, written to Mr Alfred Jackson in 1858, on the occasion of his earliest visit to Sheffield. He says: "You ask me to tell you how you may know me. I am 6 ft. 1 in. in height, about twenty-five years of age, dress in dark clothing, am of fair complexion, with only the ghost of a prospective whisker."

      In a brief account of his Sheffield lectures that year my father says that when he reached the Temperance Hall a copy of the Sheffield Independent was put into his hands, in which the Rev. Brewin Grant announced his intention to take no notice of him. But Mr Grant proved to be of a rather fickle temper, for on the morning following this first lecture "a small bill was printed and industriously circulated, entitled 'Iconoclast clasted,' being a challenge to myself from this very Brewin Grant who had previously determined not to notice me." On the first night Mr Bradlaugh had "a perfect crowd of opponents;" on the second he found that fresh troops had been levied against him. These "were led to the fray by the Rev. Eustace Giles (a stout Dissenting minister with a huge black bag). After the lecture this gentleman rose to reply, and commenced by extracting from his bag three huge volumes of Van der Hooght's Hebrew Bible, which he declared was the original Word of God, and which he requested me to read aloud to the audience. I complied by reading and translating a verse, to each word of which Mr Giles and his coadjutors nodded approval."

      Going to Newcastle in September, my father found that the description of his personal appearance had so preceded him that the gentleman who met him, Mr Mills, came "straight to me on the platform as though we were old acquaintances instead of meeting for the first time." In Newcastle he lectured twice in the Nelson Street Lecture Hall (which has quite recently, I believe, been turned into a market), and was fairly, if briefly, reported by the Newcastle Daily Chronicle. While in the town he took the opportunity of listening to a lecture delivered by "J. Cowen, jun.," as Mr Joseph Cowen was then styled.

      From Newcastle he went to Sunderland, where a person who came from the Rev. Mr Rees, a clergyman of that place, brought him a parody of the Church service entitled "The Secularist's Catechism," which was intended as some far-reaching and scathing sarcasm on the Secularist's "creed," but which is really as pretty a piece of blasphemy as ever issued from the pen of a Christian minister. Mr Bradlaugh tells how the person who brought it "gave it to me in a fearful manner, keeping as far away from me as possible, and evidently regarding me as a dangerous animal; he backed towards the room door after putting the paper in my hand, and seemed relieved in mind that I had not in some manner personally assaulted him."

      On his next visit to Sheffield, where he was announced to deliver three lectures on three successive evenings, the walls were covered with bills advising the people to keep away, and the clergy in church and chapel publicly warned their congregations against attending the lectures. In spite of all these precautions (or was it because of them?) the lectures were a decided success, the audiences increasing with each evening, until on the last evening "the large Temperance Hall was full in every part, the applause was СКАЧАТЬ