worst, what could the laws have done more for him? Nothing certainly can be a stronger proof of the independence of the courts of justice, and of the impartial execution of the laws of England, than the circumstances and result of this cause. A man who had for many years been the avowed and open enemy of the Government and constitution, had his property destroyed by a mob who declared themselves the friends of both, and who rose up against him because he was not. This mob were pursued by the Government, whose cause they thought they were defending; some of them suffered death, and the inhabitants of the place where they assembled were obliged to indemnify the man whose property they had destroyed. It would be curious to know what sort of protection this reverend Doctor, this “friend of humanity,” wanted. Would nothing satisfy him but the blood of the whole mob? Did he wish to see the town of Birmingham, like that of Lyons, razed, and all its industrious and loyal inhabitants butchered, because some of them had been carried to commit unlawful excesses, from their detestation of his wicked projects? Birmingham has combated against Priestley. Birmingham is no more. This, I suppose, would have satisfied the charitable modern philosopher, who pretended, and who the Democratic Society say, did “return to his enemies blessings for curses.” Woe to the wretch that is exposed to the benedictions of a modern philosopher! His “dextre vengresse” is ten thousand times more to be feared than the bloody poniard of the assassin: the latter is drawn on individuals only, the other is pointed at the human race. Happily for the people of Birmingham, these blessings had no effect; there was no National Convention, Revolutionary Tribunal, or guillotine, Ref 007 in England.
As I have already observed, if the Doctor had been the best and most peaceable subject in the kingdom, the Government and laws could not have yielded him more perfect protection; his complaint would, therefore, be groundless, if he had given no provocation to the people, if he had in no wise contributed to the riots. If, then, he has received ample justice, considered as an innocent man and a good subject, what shall we think of his complaint, when we find that he was himself the principal cause of these riots; and that the rioters did nothing that was not perfectly consonant to the principles he had for many years been labouring to infuse into their minds?
That he and his club were the cause of the riots will not be disputed; for, had they not given an insulting notice of their intention to celebrate the horrors of the 14th of July, accompanied with an inflammatory hand-bill, intended to excite an insurrection against the Government, Ref 008 no riot would ever have taken place, and consequently its disastrous effects would have been avoided. But it has been said, that there was nothing offensive in this inflammatory hand-bill; because, forsooth, “the matter of it (however indecent and untrue) was not more virulent than Paine’s Rights of Man, Mackintosh’s Answer to Burke, Remarks on the Constitution of England, &c. &c., which had been lately published without incurring the censure of Government.” So, an inflammatory performance, acknowledged to be indecent and untrue, is not offensive, because it is not more virulent than some other performances which have escaped the censure of Government! If this is not a new manner of arguing, it is at least an odd one. But this hand-bill had something more malicious in it, if not more virulent, than even the inflammatory works above mentioned. They were more difficult to come at; to have them, they must be bought. They contained something like reasoning, the fallacy of which the Government was very sure would be detected by the good sense of those who took the pains to read them. A hand-bill was a more commodious instrument of sedition: it was calculated to have immediate effect. Besides, if there had been nothing offensive in it, why did the club think proper to disown it in so ceremonious a manner? They disowned it with the most solemn asseverations, offered a reward for apprehending the author, and afterwards justified it as an inoffensive thing. Here is a palpable inconsistency. The fact is, they perceived that this precious morsel of eloquence, in place of raising a mob for them, was like to raise one against them: they saw the storm gathering, and, in the moment of fear, disowned the writing. After the danger was over, seeing they could not exculpate themselves from the charge of having published it, they defended it as an inoffensive performance.
The Doctor, in his justificatory letter to the people of Birmingham, says, that the company were assembled on this occasion “to celebrate the emancipation of a neighbouring nation from tyranny, without intimating a desire of any thing more than an improvement of their own constitution.” Excessive modesty! Nothing but an improvement! A la françoise, of course? However, with respect to the church, as it was a point of conscience, the club do not seem to have been altogether so moderate in their designs. “Believe me,” says the Doctor, in the same letter, “the Church of England, which you think you are supporting, has received a greater blow by this conduct of yours, than I and all my friends have ever aimed at it.” They had then, it seems, aimed a blow at the established church, and were forming a plan for improving the constitution; and yet the Doctor, in the same letter, twice expresses his astonishment at their being treated as the enemies of church and state. In a letter to the students of the College of Hackney, he says, “A hierarchy, equally the bane of Christianity and rational liberty, now confesses its weakness; and be assured, that you will see its complete reformation or its fall.” And yet he has the assurance to tell the people of Birmingham that their superiors have deceived them in representing him and his sect as the enemies of church and state.
But, say they, we certainly exercised the right of freemen in assembling together; and even if our meeting had been unlawful, cognizance should have been taken of it by the magistracy: there can be no liberty where a ferocious mob is suffered to supersede the law. Very true. This is what the Doctor has been told a thousand times, but he never would believe it. He still continued to bawl out, “The sunshine of reason will assuredly chase away and dissipate the mists of darkness and error; and when the majesty of the people is insulted, or they feel themselves oppressed by any set of men, they have the power to redress the grievance.” So the people of Birmingham, feeling their majesty insulted by a set of men (and a very impudent set of men too), who audaciously attempted to persuade them that they were “all slaves and idolaters,” and to seduce them from their duty to God and their country, rose “to redress the grievance.” And yet he complains? Ah! says he, but, my good townsmen,
“——— you mistake the matter:
For, in all scruples of this nature,
No man includes himself, nor turns
The point upon his own concerns.”
And therefore he says to the people of Birmingham, “You have been misled.” But had they suffered themselves to be misled by himself into an insurrection against the Government; had they burnt the churches, cut the throats of the clergy, and hung the magistrates, military officers, and nobility, to the lamp-posts, would he not have said that they exercised a sacred right? Nay, was not the very festival, which was the immediate cause of the riots, held expressly to celebrate scenes like these? to celebrate the inglorious triumphs of a mob? The 14th of July was a day marked with the blood of the innocent, and eventually the destruction of an empire. The events of that day must strike horror to every heart except that of a deistical philosopher, and would brand with eternal infamy any other nation but France: which, thanks to the benign influence of the Rights of Man, has made such a progress in ferociousness, murder, sacrilege, and every species of infamy, that the horrors of the 14th of July are already forgotten.
What we celebrate, we must approve; and does not the man who approved of the events of the 14th of July, blush to complain of the Birmingham riots? “Happily,” says he to the people of Birmingham, “happily the minds of Englishmen have a horror for murder, and therefore you did not, I hope, think of that; though, by your clamorous demanding me at the hotel, it is probable that, at that time, some of you intended me some personal injury.” Yes, sir, happily the minds of Englishmen have a horror for murder; but who will say that the minds of English men or English women either, would have a horror for murder, if you had succeeded in overturning their religion and constitution, and introducing your Frenchified system of liberty? The French were acknowledged to be the most polite and amiable people in all Europe: what are they now? Let La Fayette, Brissot, Anacharsis Cloots, or Thomas Payne himself, answer this question.
