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great stain on the French Revolution, and tended more than any thing else to destroy the republic. A nation properly represented in parliament has nothing to fear from the intrigues of an individual; even if he was found carrying on any intrigue, it would be easy to banish him from the country whose government he attempted to disturb. Contempt is the greatest punishment you can bestow on such creatures, if they are disagreeable and troublesome: if you deprive them of life, you have immediately a host of weak minds treating them as martyrs, and cursing the power that destroyed them. Spain has set us a noble example on this head, and I hope that this country will be found equal to improving upon it.

Do not mistake me as advocating the continuance of monarchy, I say distinctly, I would have that species of government abolished: but I would have that abolition effected by the united voice of the nation in parliament assembled. Look to your present King: it is unquestionable, that all the persecution which the Queen has suffered, has been the effect of his disposition towards her. It is not like an ordinary case in politics and government, where his ministers become justly responsible for the result of their measures; but here it is evident, that they have seized this opportunity to pamper his vicious appetite, merely because it gives them an additional hold on place, and makes the danger of changing the administration as common to the King as themselves. The King and his ministers have staked their lives and fortunes together, and have resolved to stand or fall with each other. Theirs is become a joint interest, and you will never see it separated; it may be extinguished. You will bear in mind, that whilst the body of George the Third lay unburied, the present administration, with but one or two exceptions, tendered their resignation rather than impeach the Queen at once; and the present King went so far as to say, that he must have a new set for the purpose; and you may rely on it, that if he could have found a more unprincipled set than the present, he would have had them for the purpose; but on examination and reflection there were none such to be found; and the King by retracting a little, and the present ministers by conceding a little, were again united, with the understanding that her Majesty should not be crowned nor reside in this country. Every effort that could be devised was used to keep her out of the country: her Majesty might have brought the ministers to any terms on that score. They would have restored her name to the Liturgy; they would have acknowledged her full right and title at all foreign courts; in fact, they would have stuck at

nothing to have kept her on the Continent. Her return to England has baffled them, it has sealed their degradation and punishment; they are desperate but impotent. The voice of the nation is against them, and they will struggle like exhausted and ship-wrecked mariners against the fury of the wave, and finally sink to rise no more.

In closing my letter I shall confine myself to the object of the address, the massacre of St. Peter's-field. This circumstance has convinced us that those, who are resolutely bent on reforming the government, cannot obtain justice from the hands of those who administer the laws and the affairs of that government, whatever outrages they have to complain of, or whatever the extent of injury suffered. This has been fully verified in the levity, which our judges, magistrates, and coroners, have thrown on the ease of those who were murdered on the fatal 16th of last year, and those who were cut and maimed. They have treated the circumstance throughout as if the persons had fallen by a foreign enemy, or as if they themselves had been foreigners invading this country with arms and an hostile intention. A more scandalous affair has not been recorded in the annals of this country than the Oldham Inquest on the body of John Lees. It was a complete setting aside the law to screen a set of murderers, whose guilt was as apparent as the moon which I now behold in a brilliant view, or as the candle which burns before me. It would be desirable to ascertain how many had been buried without an inquest, and who were the jurymen, and what the name of the coroner who presided at those sham inquests which were held in Manchester. While Manchester exists as a town, and a member of its yeomanry cavalry corps is in being, we must not give. up the idea of bringing them and their abetters to condign punishment. To forgive would be to partake of their crimes. If law had been any thing more than a snare for the unwary in this country every one of those monsters would have forfeited his life e'er this..

I need not recite the tale of woe to rouse your feelings on this subject, you must be daily and hourly meeting with objects to bring them to your recollection: but be assured that the whole of that business is fresh in the mind of every honest man and woman in the country, and although the case of the Queen is become more particularly the subject of conversation, yet we shall no sooner see this business ended, than the Manchester murders will blazon from every tongue; particularly if the Queen defeats her enemies. The imprisonment of Mr. Hunt and your neighbours Johnson, Healy, and Bam

ford, is a dreadful aggravation of the circumstance, and is a proof, that Scroggs and Jefferies are exceeded in the present day. For my part I am not disappointed in the character of the judges, a similar conduct has been visible in all who have filled the bench for the last 25 years, they have been altogether mean, base, and servile men, which every state trial since that time has fully proved. They pant for the blood of the victims selected as much as the Attorney and Solicitor Generals, or the Treasury Solicitor, and their influence is far more dangerous than that of the last three persons together. Weak men are apt to listen to a judge with the same feeling as a Roman Catholic would to the Pope. Their hypocritical gravity is calculated to banish suspicion in all minds but those who are exposed to its direful effects. Whilst the monarch and his ministers are profligate we shall be sure to find every one whom they appoint to office to be the same, and the English government has long been a nursery for every thing that is vile and that disgraces human nature and reason. But to address you on this point is almost superfluous, I can do nothing more than repeat that which is deeply impressed in your bosoms; I do not expect to convey information to you. Be of good cheer, the day of triumph is not far distant, and you shall surely find all your exertions crowned with success, and enjoy the blessing of a representative system of government.

I remain your's, in civic affection,

R. CARLILE.

CONTINUATION OF REPLY TO THE REV. THOMAS HARTWELL HORNE'S PAMPHLET, ENTITLED "DEISM REFUTED."-From p. 612.

I proceed with the book of Joshua.

The word in Hebrew, which is translated Joshua, is the same from whence the word Jesus is derived, and signifies Saviour. Josephus calls the person Jesus whom we call Joshua. It is this that makes me think, that it is a fictious name, although, after the Jewish books were established and known, it became a very common name among the Jews, still all who bore the name are displayed as famous for something or other, and therefore more probable to be a surname. Almost all distinguished leaders in Asia, have acquired the appellation of Saviour or Liberator, and it is from this that I infer the Christian Religion had its origin; at a time when the Jews by

their seditions had brought down the vengeance of the Romans upon them, some of them in the agony of their distress vamped up the story of Jesus, and held out his second coming as about to take place, to form for them a Messiah, a Saviour, one who should liberate them from the hands of the Romans. Fraud increased upon fraud, and mystery upon mystery, and almost every passage in their scriptures was in some measure made to apply to this period; and thus the imposition went on, until it reached that astonishing heighth, which Asia and Europe have witnessed to their sorrow and misery. The Jews never troubled themselves about a Jesus or Saviour, when they were in prosperity, but in their adversity they have always consoled themselves with this notion: but when the great body of them saw that the person worshipped and prayed for as Jesus Christ, was embraced by the Gentiles, or what they called the heathen, they rejected him with contempt, and continue to do so to this day; still they retain a hope of a Jesus, a Saviour, or Messiah!

The first thing worthy of notice in the Book of Joshua is the passage over the Jordan. I have spoken already of the Jordan as a puddling brook, which might be passed dry shod, by the help of a few stones to step on, as is common in passing across most brooks and streams of water, in country places, in this country: but here, in the book of Joshua, it is said to overflow its banks in harvest time. Rather a strange time this for such a purpose! By looking into our commentators, I find they make out the tale by saying, that Mount Libanus, being covered with snow all the winter, does not derive sufficient heat to dissolve it until the approach of harvest. This may be the case, but I doubt whether the snow would dissolve so suddenly and rapidly from one mount, as to cause a brook or river to overflow its banks and to become impassable at a considerable distance from it, and even if so, it could not last above a day or two at the farthest.

The tale is introduced into the Book of Joshua as the first miracle performed by Joshua, but it unfortunately happened for its veracity, that, before this general and supposed miraculous passage of all the Israelites, Joshua sent over two spies to examine the strength of the city of Jericho, these spies. must have passed and repassed the Jordan, which was by no means difficult, and with them very properly there is no fuss made about it. When Joshua and the rest of the Israelites have to pass, the tale is made into a miracle, as great as the passing of the Red Sea, and no doubt had its origin in the Vol. II. No. 18.

same brain, or that of some copyist from it. Another gross contradiction happeus on the same subject: when they had all passed over, Joshua bids twelve men take out twelve stones from the bed of the Jordan, that he might set them up in the form of a pillar, as a memorial of this miraculous passage. The stones are taken up accordingly, and if we admit them to weigh 2 cwt. each, which is the outside of what twelve strong men could carry, they would form but a poor pillar for appearance. In the first place we are told that Joshua set up the twelve stones in the midst of the Jordan, to mark the spot where they had passed, and in the second, we are told that he set them up in Gilgal on the border of Jericho as a memento of the passage, and because Jehovah dried up Jordan for them to pass over as he had before dried up the Red Sea.

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The next curious circumstance that we meet with, is in the fifth chapter, respecting the general circumcision. The second verse is as follows:- At that time the Lord said unto . Joshua, Make thee sharp knives, and circumcise again the 'children of Israel the second time.' I don't know whether or not the children of Israel were fond of this operation, but I should think even the first time was rather too much of a good thing, much more the second. The next verse goes on to say: And Joshua made him sharp knives, and circumcised 'the children of Israel at the hill of the Foreskins.' The hill of the Foreskins! Again the next verse says: And this is the cause why Joshua did circumcise: All the people that came out of Egypt, that were males, even all the men of C war, died in the wilderness by the way, after they came ( out of Egypt. Now all the people that came out were cir'cumcised: but all the people that were born in the wilderness by the way as they came forth out of Egypt, them they 'had not circumcised.' This is a direct contradiction to the second verse, for there we are distinctly and repeatedly told, that this was to be a second circumcision. Besides, is it probable, from the character given to Moses, that he would have neglected this rite, even when he was in daily conference with Jehovah. Again, they must have been in a state of idleness in the wilderness, and could have nothing to do to excuse them from it, whereas, here, where Joshua is said to make this havoc among the foreskins, they were in the face of an enemy, and the consequence of such an act might have been fatal to the whole body. We have read what the sons of Jacob did to the Shechemites in this state, and is it not probable

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