LIII, Which is the best government? is a question which is eternally agitated. If this question were put to a min ister, or his deputy, they would undoubtedly reply in favour of absolute power; if to a baron, he would prefer that in which barons partake the legislative power. The bishop would say as much: the citizen would wish, and with reason, that his will should be consulted, and the agriculturist would not be forgotten. The best government seems to be, that in which every condition is equally protected by the laws. LIV. A republican is always more attached to his country than the subject of a monarch to his; for this plain reason, a man always loves his own interest better than the interest of his master. LV. What is the love of one's country? A compound of preju dices and self love, which public interest has made the greatest of all possible virtues.. In a republic, the words public good make a profound impression on the heart. LVI. When the haughty lord of some superb castle, or the rich and powerful citizen, complains of the woes which absolute power inflicts on the humble peasant, do not believe them sincere. People never sincerely complain of evils which they they do not feel. The rich citizens, and titled gentlemen, rarely hate the person of the sovereign, unless in the convulsions of civil war. 'Tis absolute power in the fourth or fifth hand that they hate; 'tis the antichamber of a commissioner, or a secretary, which causes murmurs; it is because the ambitious man has received a rebuff from an insolent yalet in the palace, that he sighs over his desolated country. N. B. This applies to a grumbling aristocracy. (To be continued.) REASONS OF A DEIST, Why no Punishment should be Inflicted: (Continued from page 272.) 10. Because, in the absence of all positive law, and even of any reference to any law in the information, I could not conceive when I caused the Age of Reason to be reprinted, that I violated any law; and I therefore consider, that I have been tried as upon an ex post facto law, made for the occasion; and for the purpose of gratifying a vindictive and immoral spirited persecution. 11. Because, the very assumption of a pretended common law, on which these proceedings have been founded; is no other, than the law of prejudice, malice, and persecution, inherent in the minds of wicked and unjust men in all ages, and it is the very same law, and has the same sources as the pretended law, under which Socrates was poisoned, and Jesus crucified. 12. Because, the unshackled right of free discussion, and of publishing truth on all subjects useful and interesting to Society, is the great bulwark of civil and religious liberty; and is a fundamental right, and undoubted part of the common laws of Englishmen ; which, without limitation or condition, ought to be maintained and -asserted by every English tribunal, which feels and duly respects the value of truth and liberty. 13. Because, if this right were subject to auy restriction or limitation, as far as regards subjects and questions of general interest; it would be altogether useless; for 'the publication of error often leads to the detection of truth, and error is always harmless; because, whilst free enquiry and discussion are allowed, it can easily be refuted. 14. Because, if the opinions of persons in authority were admitted as standards of truth, just as the opinions of the prosecutors, the Attorney General, and the Court, are on this occasion assured as standards of truth, we might at this day, by parity of reasoning, have been still involved in the darkness of pagan worship of Druidical Rites, of Roman Mythology, and of Popish Superstition; all of which, have successively been standards of truth among the very same authorities in former ages, but were destroyed by the very persons who have conferred power on this court, which is bound therefore not to countenance any further persecution, for mere opinion. 15. Because, in every Christian country in Europe, the utmost latitude of free opinion has been practised with impunity; particularly in France, Holland, Switzerland, and Prussia; even under the despotic sway of the Bourbons, the writiugs of Voltaire, Diderot, d'Alembert, Rousseau, Volney, and others, were freely published, and obtained for their authors, honours and renown, and for their publishers, extensive patronage and immense fortunes; and it would be an inexplicable parodox, if in the face of such examples, the free press of England were visited with pains and penalties, and those who exercise it, outraged by cruel persecutions and vindictive punishments. 16. Because, the issue of these proceedings does not involve a mere decision in regard to truth or falsehood, or a mere affirmation, whether the re-publication of Mr. Paine's Age of Reason was, or was not, according to law, but its issue superadds to the decission, a vindictive and perhaps a cruel punishment, for an act, in which I verily believe I was rendering service to truth and morals, against which I discovered no prohibition in the written laws of England, and in which I was sanctioned by the professions of Christianity, and by the jurisprudence of other Christians nations. For these and many other reasons, which I forbear to adduce, I conceive I have not rendered myself obnoxious to any punishment of this Court. I therefore call on this Court, that its sense justice will induce it to order my immediate liberation from the confinement, in which, by its authority, I have been, for one month, unjustly detained. CORRESPONDENT. In answer to the letter of " A Freeethinker," I have to inform him, that No. 15, of the DEIST will be published on Saturday next, and that the Republican will continue to be published, though on a larger size. 1 THE EDITOR. Printed and Published by T. Davison, 10, Duke street, Smithfield. No 19, Vol. I.] LONDON, FRIDAY, DEC 31, 1819 [Poice, 20. AN APPEAL TO THE FRIENDS OF FREEDOM. Thy shrine in some religious wood, Collins's Ode to Liberty. FELLOW CITIZENS! 1 You are thrown upon the theatre of the world in an era, Wo hen the principles of public liberty are better understood than they have been at any former period: when the very peasant, whose toils and whose miseries are incessant, can think and reason as well, perhaps, as his proud masters; when the dark and petrifying clouds of superstition, which have long clouded the mental horizon, are beginning to disperse; and when philosophy, that has for ages been confined to the closets of the learned, has found its way among the people. But what will all this mental illumination avail, if the man who thinks and acts with the dignity which superior knowledge inspires, is to be at the disposal of a silly foxhunter, who, born to an estate of ten thousand a year, has been thought a proper person to represent a part of the English nation in parliament? Why is a giddy boy, whose head perhaps nature never meant to be the recep taele of one steady thought, placed over the heads of millions of thinking men, who could persuade him, were they so inclined, that the House of Commons was an Printed and Published by T. Davison, 10, Duke-skeet, Smithfield. assembly of sage senators, and honest lawgivers, for any thing he could say to the contrary? Why are debauched princes, and unprincipled ministers, permitted to squander the treasures of nations in the most detestable debauchery, reclining on costly couches in more costly pavilions, while the honest obscure citizen is pining away an unhappy life in want and solitude? Why are the people despised, and their wants and miseries disregarded? Will their petitions never be attended to, till those terrible passions, which now slumber, are awakened, whose irresistible fury will bear every thing before it like a torrent? Must they be for ever irritated, injured, oppressed? Must they be for ever treated with disdain, till they are roused to vengeance; when every thing must bow, or be annihilated before them? It wants no extraordinary sagacity to reply to these questions. In every country the first dawnings of a revolution. ́are concealed by thick clouds; and the more obscure the atmosphere at first appears, the brighter will be the day that is to succeed it. Every effort will undoubtedly 'be used by the friends of arbitrary power, to impede the progress of knowledge; they will endeavour, by in, creasing its price, to put it out of the reach of the poor, But it is now too late: the poor Republican, who has but one shilling in the world, will cheerfully part with half of it, to be possessed of the only book whose principles are congenial to his mind; and when he is seated by his fire-side, will think himself still happy that he has been taught to lay out his money in the acquisition of knowledge, rather than in purchasing those vile liquors which he had, perhaps, been accustomed to drink, which would ruin his understanding, destroy his domestic peace, and increase the revenue of that system he wishes to see destroyed. Thus the ministry will perceive their mest violent and unconstitutional attempts to arrest science in its career, prove abortive; and they will be |