The Republican.

No. 4. Vol. VI.] LONDON, FRIDAY, June 21, 1822. [PRICE 6d.

TO THE REPUBLICANS OF THE ISLAND OF GREAT BRITAIN.

CITIZENS,

Dorchester Gaol, June 16, Year 3, of the Spanish Revolution. THE open manner in which we have lately asserted our principles has produced the happiest effects, and, as I have frequently told you would be the case, is beginning to draw towards us, every thing that is virtuous and honest in the country. Major Cartwright, a name which expresses every thing that is virtuous and honest. Major Cartwright, whom, with me, I know you will acknowledge to be a rare compound of virtue and integrity, has spoken out fully upon the necessity of the establishment of the principles we advocate, to give substantial freedom to a people; and, although the sentence stands as a jewel amidst a heap of rubbish, it is worth picking up and preserving, whilst the rubbish we will leave to be swept away by the first storm. In a letter to the Editor of the Black Dwarf, wherein the Major has been shaking an antiquarian lance with an antiquarian writer in that typographical quagmire the Edinburgh Review, that had first shaken his antiquarian lance against the Majors, and challenged him to dispute the point as to whether the legislators of our Anglo-Saxon ancestors were aristocratical or democratical; I find the following sentence: "To be in substance free, a people must be an armed nation: they must make their own laws; they must themselves administer those laws; and they must have an elective magistracy for looking to the execution of the laws." This, Republicans, is an exact delineation of the principles upon which we stand; and I sincerely hope the Major will no longer draw our attentions to what our Auglo-Saxon ancestors did, the history of which is very questionable, and their forms of government continually varying, but speak out at once, and say, that every people, of every country, have a natural

Printed and Published by R. CARLILE, 55, Fleet-street.

right to be free, upon the principles he has here laid down; and that they are not, nor ought not to be bound by the constitutions of their forefathers, further than good example may be worth imitation. If Major Cartwright can bring his mind, before he quits the stage of life, publicly to teach the simple principles he has here laid down, he will cap the climax of a useful public life, and he will then see that his noted Bill of Rights and Liberties will need some purgation, and a new and corrected edition. If the Major shinks from doing this, we must do it after him, or for him whilst living, as all talk about old or new constitutions, or about whether they were Saxon, Danish, or Norman, is a trifling with the grand question: WHETHER OR NOT, A PEOPLE HAVE NOT A

RIGHT TO BE FREE EVEN IF THERE BE NO PRECEDENT.

If precedents are to be kept up and observed there will never be an end to human slavery. If we are to have nothing but what our Anglo-Saxon ancestors possessed, we must, to be consistent, destroy our Printing Presses and all printed books; and it may be a question whether the precedent will not warrant our substituting Thor and Woden for Jehovah and Jesus: as to worship the Gods of the Jews under a Saxon constitution will be neither precedental, antiquarian, nor consistent. The Christian Religion was evidently an innovation upon the constitutions of our AngloSaxon ancestors: and we may feel surprised to see Major Cartwright such a stickler for both, or not for the pure Saxon constitution, devoid of the corruptions of the new idolatry or superstition that was mixed up with it by St. Austin and his monkish followers. He, even in the midst of an essay to defend the democratical character of the Anglo-Saxon Constitution, talks about a "Christian sense of the natural equality of man," which to my mind is arrant nonsense, as there is no connection between the word Christian and the word natural, but they rather form an antithesis. Christianity promises an equality in heaven, to those who can get there, which is all a delusion practised by Kings and Priests, in order, the better to keep up the unjust inequalities among its followers on earth; but the "Christian sense of the natural equality of man," is altogether a new doctrine? This word Christian appears to be applicable to every thing but to nature and truth, and I heartily wish the Major would shake it off.

Major Cartwright talks about the corruptions of the English Constitution in exact the same strain, as those Deists in disguise, calling themselves Unitarian and Free

thinking Christians, talk about the corruptions of Christianity. The Major says, what is now seen, is nothing more than the corruptions of the English Constitution; and these pretended Christians say, what is now practised is nothing more than the corruptions of Christianity. But this is not the fact. Christianity was never known in this or in any other country less immoral than it is at present; and never at any one period of English history did Englishmen enjoy more liberty than they do at this moment. This arises not from the abatement of a tyrannical or corrupt disposition on the part of our rulers or managers of Church and State, but from the growing intelligence of the age, and from a greater degree of knowledge having spread among the people than ever existed at any former time. As the above mentioned Deists wrap themselves in the cloak of Christianity, to evade the penal laws that would otherwise affect them, so the Major, from the same motive, throws the cloak of Monarchy over a real Republican heart.

I have not seen the original essay, in the Edinburgh Review that has been addressed to Major Cartwright; but from what I can gather from the extracts he has made in his answer; I think he has been well and properly handled; and his futile grounds of looking back a thousand years for pattern whereby to reform the present Government, fitly, and admirably, and sarcastically exposed. It is very probable the essay emanated from the sarcastic pen of Mr. Broughain; and if so, he has my thanks for it, as having done a very useful public act. The forty years of petitioning seems to have been suitably noticed, and the folly of a nation, panting after an extended liberty, proceeding to obtain it upon such grounds, very properly depicted. Major Cartwright does not appear to me to have read the essay in the spirit in which it has been put forth: he has met it in its literal sense, whilst the allegory has been overlooked. To me it appears, the essay has been put forth as a jeer upon Major Cartwright, for seeking, among the musty records of the antiquarian, the right, the ground, and the pattern, whereon to reform the present and to form the future government of this country, instead of appealing to the law of nature for the right; and to the good sense of the age, or the existing examples of Spain, Portugal, and America, for the pattern, and the plan of proceeding. We frequently find the Major, and in the letter under notice for once, complaining of the blindness of Thomas Paine and his disciples in not being able to see the beauties of the constitutions of

our ancestors, or what he calls the real constitution of England, and wonders how and why Mr. Paine could ever say, that, " England had no constitution at all." Mr. Paine was perfectly right, when he spoke in a comparative point of view with reference to the then existing constitutions of France and the United States of America; and I, as a disciple of Mr. Paine in politics, respectfully tell Major Cartwright that, the fairy constitution he has framed in his mind, as once having existed as a whole in England, is no where to be found in the records of English history. It is a phantom, like that upon which Christianity is founded; and the moment the people of this country can begin to legislate for themselves they will both be blown away by the spirit of free discussion. It will fall like the Gods and the Devils, the spirits and the witches of past ages, before the spread and the force of knowledge among the people. This trade of precedent and delusion must cease, and let me entreat Major Cartwright to give up the small portion that hangs about him, and declare that the natural rights of men is to be free; and that, TO BE IN SUBSTANCE FREE, A PEOPLE MUST BE AN ARMED NATION; THEY MUST MAKE THEIR OWN LAWS BY REPRESENTATIVES OF THEIR OWN CHOICE, AND EXECUTE THOSE LAWS THROUGH THE MEDIUM OF MAGIS

Here is

TRATES OF THEIR OWN CHOICE. Let the Major finish a well spent life by performing this one act, and by promulgating this one sentence of his mind, and he shall gather laurels on his monument and his tomb, which no Edinburgh Reviewer, nor no Antiquarian precedent shall sweep away. the true secret for preserving an ever-green memory; and happy shall I be, as a young man, and likely to outlive Major Cartwright, to have to sing his praises upon this ground, as I now sing the praises of Thomas Paine. To this ground all Reformers must advance, or fall back to a defence of Monarchy and Priestcraft. The time will soon

arrive when there will be no room for any intermediate principles to exhibit themselves, and in being exhibited at this moment they do nothing but neutralize the best. They are a species of go-between, not as peace-makers, but continually irritating and widening the breach between the two opposites, and lessening the power and force of better principles, in every attempt to bring the dispute to an issue.

Republicans, I am thrice happy in having witnessed this move on the part of Major Cartwright, for though, among the first and the unceasing advocates of Universal Suffrage, I am not aware that he ever before spoke out upon the sub

ject and the necessity of an elective magistracy. In the letter which I have noticed, the Major has scouted the idea of any portion of the legislature being hereditary; in fact, he has given countenance to every political principle laid down by Thomas Paine. And here alone can the Radical find a resting place when he flies from the incongruities of his former political tenets.

Republicans, whenever a change takes place in the government of this country the day will be ours. When opinion has to decide there will be none to oppose any principles to those we advocate. We shall as surely walk over the course without even a struggle, as my pen is now deliueating the pure sentiments of my mind. Be of courage then; be patient under present ills, and as far as possible improve your own minds and communicate what you know to others. This is the ground whereon to build Republicanism. As much as any thing, it was the gross ignorance of the industrious classes which led to the anarchy and excesses that were witnessed in France during its revolution. Such has been the progress of knowledge in that country that it would be impossible for the same scenes to occur there again, even if we had another Pitt who could again offer to pay for the instigation with the taxes raised upon British industry.

With an earnest hope that I may soon have to record the advance of some more of the political leaders, and that they may speak out in the same candid manner as Major Cartwright has done, I take my leave of you for a week. R. CARLILE.

TO MR. RICHARD CARLILE.

FELLOW CITIZEN,

Leeds, June 6, 1822.. We are happy in having it in our power to give you a fresh instance of our attachment to the great and glorious principles, for the propagation of which you are so inhumanly prosecuted, and to let the dispoilers of our industry see, that though they have curtailed and robbed us of its fruits; yet, out of the small pittance we yet command we can give our mites to those patriots who have the boldness and the honesty to oppose their injustice, and to show the people the frauds which are practised upon them. Though the sum we have to send youis trifling, yet a repetition of trifles multiplies to magnitude, and the source through which it flows is that of a willing contribution to the cause of justice and humanity, and not wrested from us by acts of