The British Press; or, Morning Literary Advertiser.
London, England, 1819-10-13 00:00:00

done, aid to examine it in all its bearings, dr
1 think it a question of the first magnitude. lit
doing this, I shall endeavour to convince.iyotf,
Gentlemen, not alone of what were my nativite'fsar
publishing Paine's Age of Reason, but what we
the motives of Paine himself, in the original put,.
Ination. I will chew you also, lam sure, that it ks
not that blasphemous work it is described to be;
nor Sal 1 that impious and wicked individual de.
scribed in the Attorney-General's information.
That Learned Gentleman has said, that the eyee
of the country, and of Europe, are upon you Oaks
/tar. I say so too, for I have had communication
from all qoarters, expressing the deepest anxiety
upon the subject, and even letters of condolence
that I should thus be persecuted, and of a sym-
pathy which is, I believe, is acceedince with the
public feeling, under the influence of which
:nave no doubt that you will this day pronounce
me—Not Guilty. For. who are those gentlemen
who seek a verdict against me on the filament
occasion Are they not those who, as in times
of old, lit up fires in Smithfield, and sanctioned
hie massacres, and murders, and tortures of
their fellow-creatures? It is not upon such a
principle, surely, that the Attorney-General
would this day defend the Christian religion."—
The speech of the Attorney-General, lie continued,
was a repetition of cant sod common-place espies-
tons, front one eud to the other it was but a pa.
rode upon the speeches of all the Attorney-Gene.
gala ho had gone before him. He had talked as
they (ha of the liberty of the press, and as they
would have done, charged him with licentiousness,
but lie denied it. The Attorney-General said, that
the present prosecution as founded on the law of
the land,was
but he had n shown it, nor could lie
prove it. The thiamine articles of the Christian
religious it was true, contained the doctrine of the
Trinity, the very first article in particular. It was
well known, however, that io order to relieve indi-
viduals from persecution, who did not believe in
the Trinity, there was a Toleration Act—the Act
of the 55th of the King, which repealed the statute
of the 9th and 10th William and Mary. which was
alone applicable to his case. This was as just as it
was rational, for the article mentioned was altoge-
ther irreconcilable; one part describing the Deity
as • Being without substance or matter, and the
other 'hewing that there was an unity of three per-
sons, with substance and matter. The Act of Tole-
ration, he contended, went to the repeal of this very
article, because men were allowed, by law, to wor-
ship God, without being called upon to believe in
the Trinity. The Attorney-General, therefore, in
saying that the Christian religion was the law of
the land, might have added that Deism was also the
law of the land, for the Act protected those who did
not believe the Christian doctrines. There was no
law he knew of, which defined or took cognizance
of blasphemy ; and it was therefore he felt himself
justified in publishing Pain's Age of Reason. It
was, he said, difficult to define what was infant by
the word blasphemy—and he reminded the Jury
that the Jews considered the Christian religion
a cheat ; the Christians thought the same of the
Jews; both thought alike of the Wisdom ; and all
thought the religion of the Mahonsetane a cheat.
The only pert of the Act of William and Mary,
which remained unrepnled, was that which ren-
dered any person who denied the divine origin of
the Old and New Testament, incapable of bidding
any employment, ecclesiastieal. civil, or military.
The reason, he presumed, why. the Attorney-Ge-
neral did not frame his information on that moil.
non, was. because, in case of conviction the p *sh.
meat would not be what his disposition rimed at.
Ile therefore grounded his information on what
he called the common law. What that common
law was, he did nut know. It restel, it appeared
by his statement, in the breast of the Judge. The
decision of former Judges constituted the common
law of the land. He was Dot, however, satisfied
that it should rest on the dictum of the Judge. It
was right that all law should be understood. That
it should be reduced ton written code, in order that
the people should know what they had to expect.—
This was not the case here. There was, in fact, no
certain law by which he could be brought into
Court on this information. He defied the Attor-
ney-General to controvert what he now stated. The
Learned Gentleman relied on the authority of the
Court to mark out the law. He expected the Chief
Justice to make out that case, which he was himself
incapable of doing. Hs had made the usual ob-
servation which was regularly introduced by every
Attorney-General. when he brought a charge of
is blasphemous nature against any individual—
namely, that the Jury were bound by their
oaths to return a verdict of guilty. The Jury
were, he said, under the sanction of their holy reti-
Kiwi. having pledged themselves by their oaths ins-
iteratively called on to find the Defendant guilty.
Ile denied this. They were merely bound to try
the question at issue between him and the Attorney-
General. They were to consider whether he pub-
lished this book with any malicious intention—aud
if they thought he harboured um such intelatiou,
they must acquit him. He could not answer for
the tendency of any publication. He published
under an impression that the work would be bene-
ficial, and he would prove that there was nothing
immoral in it. He hoped he had satisfied the Jury
that there was no law applicable to the offence with
which he was charged. Prior to the Act of 1819,
there was a statute in existence, but it had been
repealed, which was of itself an admission that the
former law was unjust. Blasphemy could iwt be
defined—end what one man might consider bias-
vliemy, another might look upon an a contrary light.
Thti tirat case cited by the Attorney-General wan
that of Taylors who, he said, used blasphemous
expreasions of so horrid a nature that be could not
read them to the Joy. They were sot worse,
however. be observed. than those contained in Th;
Ago of Reason. But, notwitbetanding this state.
ment, tee read copious cations from the work.—
What the 'sprains. were be meld not tell—hut
it appeared that Sir Mathew Hale would sot
let the man justify them Now, it was worthy of
observation, that Sir Matthew Elate sat ou the
Bench. and condemned two taxmento be burned
at the stake for witchcraft. If he bad miffs ao ova.
ration with respect to witch's' s*. Us be
fallible on the subject of btoephoutp.- Atte&
ney•Caeueral nest quoted the ease of Mistimes&
At.thE tiMe of pis these thee' woo wry
preislent strain', tonere free-thiabing. Wait.
lista,. when apprehended for publishing his book,