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GIFT OF IRVING LÉVÝ
SPEECH

OF

MRS. SUSANNA WRIGHT,

BEFORE THE

Court of King's Bench,

ON THE 14TH OF NOVEMBER, 1822;`

IN THE COURSE OF READING WHICH

SHE WAS CONTINUALLY INTERRUPTED

BY

THE COURT,

AND

BEFORE SHE HAD FINISHED IT,

Committed to Newgate

FOR PERSISTING TO READ,

TO BE

BROUGHT UP AGAIN FOR JUDGMENT,

ON THE

FOURTH DAY OF HILARY TERM, 1823.

London:

PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY R. CARLILE, 55, FLEET

STREET.

1

TO THE

WOMEN OF THE ISLAND OF GREAT BRITAIN.

Dorchester Gaol, Nov. 19, Year 1822, of the degrading Mythology of the Christians.

I DEDICATE to you the publication of the Speech of Mrs. Susanna Wright, in delivering which she was illegally stopped by the Judges of the Court of King's Bench. I ask your patronage to this Speech, with a confidence that there is nothing in it I may be ashamed to offer, or you to patronize; notwithstanding its expressions were grating to the corrupt ears of the very corrupt Judges of that Court. I publish it, because, I will, to the utmost of my power, resist that species of despotism, which forbids the speaking, writing, or printing of such unanswerable truths, and because I know, that the recognized laws of this country will not bear out the Judges in their conduct towards Mrs. Wright on the 14th instant.

She was committed for a contempt of Court, not for improper language to the Judges of that Court, but because she was bold enough to display a mind of her own, in the use of such matters as she considered essential to her interests, in so painful a situation. Trial is a mockery if the person accused be only allowed to use such words in defence as the prosecutors and their supporters, the Judges, think necessary or proper.

You will perceive that Mrs. Wright's Speech throughout is an argument upon law, if her indictment had any foundation in law. She no where moves out of the matter of her indictment: and her whole prepared discourse was strictly relevant, however disagreeable it may have been to those who wished to punish her for publishing the truth, and daring to defend it.

I recommend you to consider well this subject, and to consider whether Mrs. Wright be not a woman who deserves from you all the support you can give her in her present situation. She is rendering you a service, the importance of which time can only express. She suffers for you and your children, not for herself. She will do her duty, and I call upon you to support her.

R. CARLILE.

SPEECH,

&c. &c.

MRS. WRIGHT appeared in the Court of King's Bench, on the 14th November, 1822, to receive the judgment of the Court for having published two Twopenny Pamphlets, entitled The Addresses and Correspondences of Mr. Carlile," published in March and April, 1821, when after the usual nonsense had been gone through, she proceeded to address the Court as follows:

May it please your Lordships,

I AM brought here, at the instance of a Society that professes to associate for the purpose of suppressing vice, to receive the judgment of this Court, for having published some pamphlets, which are denominated blasphemous libels upon the Christian religion. In searching for records of similar cases, I find, that, the earliest is the case of Jesus himself, the very founder of that religion! The only difference in that case and mine is, that Jesus did not deign to make any defence against so false and infamous a charge, before the Judges who solicited him to answer to the charge against him; and were not desirous to condemn him unheard, as is too often the case in modern charges of this nature; whilst I, in spite of all interruption, have made such a defence as to me seemed proper, for the encouragement and good example of those who may follow in the same glorious path. Yes, we read in the books of the Holy Evangelists, Saint Matthew and Saint Mark, that the Jewish priests, who, doubtless, fancied themselves the Vice Suppressors of that day, and that country, persecuted Jesus through all kinds of indignities, by scourging his back and breaking the skin of his head with the ruthless thorn, and their still more ruthless hands, and whilst the blood still trickled from his wounds over his cheeks and his back, they led him to that most horrid of all public executions, the death of the cross, upon the mere charge of blaspheming their God and their religion; a charge exactly similar to that which the Vice Suppressors of this day have placed

upon record in this Court against me, and for which they now ask the judgment of your Lordships, as modern Herods, and Pilates, and High Priests. Similar as is my case to that of Jesus, so hereafter similar shall be my conduct; if I am to receive any further prosecution, any further punishment from your Lordships' hands, I shall suffer with equal fortitude, and say with Jesus, "Father, forgive my persecutors, and my judges, for they know not what they do!"

If it be said to me that Jesus was not tried by a jury of his countrymen, I can answer, that I might as well have been without mine, for one of them was so blindly bigoted against, and so evidently ignorant of the subject he had to try, as to insist, that an argument in defence was an attack upon Christianity, and he would scarcely have believed the contrary had he not been corrected by the Lord Chief Justice. My accusers had the means of packing a jury, and practised them, and had the judgment of twelve of the most furious and most bigoted of the Jews, who accused Jesus, been taken, he would have had as fair a trial as mine, and perhaps fairer, for his Judges solicited him earnestly to speak in defence of himself, and mine as earnestly sought to silence me by continual interruptions.

It is the common practice of persons in my situation to bring before your Lordships a file of affidavits about former good character, and so on; to practise upon the well-known merciful dispositions of those who are always selected to fill the important offices of Judges of this Court. Every species of feigned humility, and penitence, and oftentimes the most barefaced perjury, as to present health, late sufferings, and past conduct, is exhibited, for the purpose of moving your Lordships to a merciful mood, and a mitigation of that punishment which the law has awarded them. But this is not my case; I come before your Lordships not to plead for a mitigated sentence, or a lessening of any given punishment assigned by law, I know there is no such law; and I come to show strong reasons why I ought not to receive any kind of punishment, but rather approbation and reward for what I have done to bring me here. I come not with a plea of feigned humility and false penitence, but with a mind elated with pride, from the assurance that the cause which has brought me here has been a common good, and not an evil to the community, nor an offence against the known laws of the country. I come not with a bundle of false oaths as to health, or to sufferings, or to past conduct, to excite pity where it is not due, but I come with an endeavour to excite

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