Charles Bradlaugh: a Record of His Life and Work, Volume 1 (of 2)
But unfortunately it was not only to Mr Bradlaugh himself that violence was used or threatened: those who attended his lectures or who were suspected of sympathising with his opinions sometimes ran considerable risk. For instance, he had been lecturing at Portsmouth on Monday, May 10th, on the Irish Church and the Land Question, and his lecture created considerable excitement in the town. Shortly afterwards a "converted clown" was holding forth on Portsea Common, and a man suspected to be in sympathy with Mr Bradlaugh stayed to listen. The converted one frequently addressed the new-comer as an "unhappy infidel animal," and so worked upon his pious listeners that in the end they turned upon the "infidel," who was "hissed, hooted, kicked, cuffed, and knocked about so unmercifully that he sought protection" in flight. The whole brutal mob pursued and overtook him, "his clothes were almost torn from him, and but for the assistance of several passers-by – some of whom also received rough treatment – he would probably have been killed."102
True, everywhere he went my father met with hate and scorn; yet everywhere he went he also met with a trust and love such as falls to the lot of few men to know. The hate and scorn passed over him, scarce leaving a trace, but the love and trust went deep into his heart, making up, as he said, for "many disappointments." At Keighley "two veterans, one eighty and one seventy-three, walked eleven miles to hear me lecture; and at Shipley another greeted me, seventy-six years old, asking for one more grip of the hand before he died."103 On Mr Bradlaugh's return journey from Yorkshire, at every station between Leeds and Keighley men and women came to bid him good-bye; from a dozen districts round they came, "old faces and young ones, men, women, and smiling girls," and he was moved to the utmost depths of his nature to see how their love for him grew with his every visit.
Summer or winter, fair weather or foul, people would come many and many a mile to hear him speak. At Over Darwen, where he had some fine meetings that October, he found that some of the poor folk had come in from a distance of "twenty-three miles; many had come ten to sixteen miles, some walking steadily over the 'tops' through the mist and rain, and having to leave home as early as six in the morning in order to get to us; one sturdy old man declaring that he never missed when I was within twenty-five miles of his home."104
I should like also to note here the open-mindedness shown about this time by a Catholic priest at Seghill. Mr Bradlaugh was to lecture in the colliery schoolroom on "The Land, the People, and the Coming Struggle," but almost at the last moment the authorities would have none of such a wicked man. Upon hearing this a Catholic priest named Father O'Dyer allowed the lecture to take place in his chapel at Annitsford, and he himself took the chair. Mr Bradlaugh, of course, greatly appreciated this unlooked-for kindness on the part of Father O'Dyer, though in his surprise at such unwonted conduct he might humorously comment "the age of miracles has recommenced."
In December Mr Bradlaugh was in Lancashire – one Saturday at Middleton, the next day at Bury, where considerable excitement had been created by the burning of the National Reformer in the Bury Reform Club by one of the members; on Monday at Accrington, where the lecture was followed by a three hours' drive in the night across country, over bad and slippery roads, to Preston to catch the London train. At Preston the station was locked up, but Mr Bradlaugh managed to get inside the porters' room, where there was happily a fire, by which he dozed until the train was due. Then six hours' rail in the frosty night, and back to city work for Tuesday morning. "Who will buy our bishopric?" he asked. But to this there was no reply.
CHAPTER XXV
IRELAND
I am now come to a point in my father's history at which I must confess my utter inability to give anything like a just account of his work. All I can do – in spite of great time and labour almost fruitlessly spent in following up the slenderest clues – is to relate a few facts which must not be taken as a complete story, but merely as indicating others of greater importance. The reason for my ignorance will be found in Mr Bradlaugh's own words written in 1873: —
"My sympathy with Ireland and open advocacy of justice for the Irish nearly brought me into serious trouble. Some who were afterwards indicted as the chiefs of the so-called Fenian movement came to me for advice. So much I see others have written, and the rest of this portion of my autobiography I may write some day. At present there are men not out of danger whom careless words might imperil, and as regards myself I shall not be guilty of the folly of printing language which a Government might use against me."105
That "some day" of which he wrote never came; and to-day we know little more of what help he gave to the chiefs of the "so-called Fenian movement" than we did in 1873. There is, however, one man still living – perhaps there are two, but of the second I am not quite sure – who could if he chose throw considerable light upon this period; but this person I have been unable to reach. From the time when, by sending the 7th Dragoon Guards to Ireland, the English Government was kind enough to afford the newly enlisted Private Bradlaugh an opportunity of studying that unfortunate country from within, and by sending him on duty at evictions to bring him face to face with the suffering her wretched peasantry had to endure – from that time (in the early fifties) until his death, English misgovernment of Ireland and the condition of the Irish people occupied a very prominent place in his thoughts. Between 1866 and 1868, while Ireland was in a state of agitation and insurrection, he frequently brought the subject of her grievances before his English audiences: articles on the Irish land question and the English in Ireland appeared in the National Reformer, and he himself took the Irish question as a frequent theme for his lectures. "Englishmen," he would say, "have long been eloquent on the wrongs of Poland and other downtrodden nations, insisting on their right to govern themselves; but they have been singularly unmindful of their Irish brethren. Advocacy of the claims of Poland showed a love of liberty and freedom. Advocacy for Ireland spelled treason. The three great curses of Ireland were her beggars, her bogs, and her barracks. The reclaiming of the millions of acres of bogland, now waste, with proper security for tenants, would diminish the beggars; and as bogs and beggars decreased, contentment would increase, and Government would be deprived of all excuse for the retention of an armed force." Talking in this strain, he would strive to win English sympathy for Ireland. At meeting after meeting he pointed out the evils of our Irish legislation, and won the thanks of Irishmen for his "outspoken language."
The Fenian Brotherhood, was, as we know, a secret association, founded and framed by James Stephens, for the establishment of an Irish Republic. That the association was a secret one was the fault of the English Government, since it forbade all open and orderly meetings; and the more open agitation was suppressed, the stronger grew the Fenian movement. Some of the Fenian leaders, amongst whom were Colonel Kelly and General Cluseret, came to Mr Bradlaugh for legal advice; and one of the results of the many consultations held at Sunderland Villa was the framing of the following proclamation, which was published in the Times for March 8th, 1867, at the end of two or three columns of excited accounts of the Fenian rising in Ireland: —
"I. R. – Proclamation! – The Irish People to the World"We have suffered centuries of outrage, enforced poverty, and bitter misery. Our rights and liberties have been trampled on by an alien aristocracy, who, treating us as foes, usurped our lands, and drew away from our unfortunate country all material riches. The real owners of the soil were removed to make room for cattle, and driven across the ocean to seek the means of living and the political rights denied to them at home; while our men of thought and action were condemned to loss of life and liberty. But we never lost the memory and hope of a national existence. We appealed in vain to the reason and sense of justice of the dominant powers. Our mildest remonstrances were met with sneers and contempt. Our appeals to arms were always unsuccessful. To-day, having no honourable alternative left, we again appeal to force as our last resource. We accept the conditions of appeal, manfully deeming it better to die in the struggle for freedom than to continue an existence of utter serfdom. All men are born with equal rights, and in associating together to protect one another and share public burdens, justice demands that such associations should rest upon a basis which maintains equality instead of destroying it. We therefore declare that, unable longer to endure the curse of monarchical government, we aim at founding a republic, based on universal suffrage, which shall secure to all the intrinsic value of their labour. The soil of Ireland, at present in the possession of an oligarchy, belongs to us, the Irish people, and to us it must be restored. We declare also in favour of absolute liberty of conscience, and the complete separation of Church and State. We appeal to the Highest Tribunal for evidence of the justice of our cause. History bears testimony to the intensity of our sufferings, and we declare, in the face of our brethren, that we intend no war against the people of England; our war is against the aristocratic locusts, whether English or Irish, who have eaten the verdure of our fields – against the aristocratic leeches who drain alike our blood and theirs. Republicans of the entire world, our cause is your cause. Our enemy is your enemy. Let your hearts be with us. As for you, workmen of England, it is not only your hearts we wish, but your arms. Remember the starvation and degradation brought to your firesides by the oppression of labour. Remember the past, look well to the future, and avenge yourselves by giving liberty to your children in the coming struggle for human freedom. Herewith we proclaim the Irish Republic."
"The Provisional Government."This proclamation was printed by Colonel Kelly,106 who obtained possession of some printing works at Islington, and in one night set up this famous manifesto. Mr J. M. Davidson says that the document was drawn by Mr Bradlaugh's hand.107 Mr Adolphe S. Headingley108 says that "the informers Massey and Corydon in their evidence insist that Bradlaugh himself drew up the proclamation." In spite of a very considerable search I have not yet been able to find the words used by Massey or Corydon; but on this point, at least, I am able to quote the highest authority – my father himself. I was talking to him in his study one day, and in the course of our conversation he pulled down a thick green volume – an Irish history – and opening it, put his finger upon this proclamation. "They say I wrote that," he said with a smile. "And did you?" I asked. He then told me that the draft of the proclamation, as it left his study after being approved, was in his handwriting; but that when he saw it in print he found that it had been altered after leaving his hands. Unfortunately, I did not go over it with him to ask where it had been altered; but words written by him in January 1868 throw a little light on the matter. He then said:
"I am against the present establishment of a republic in Ireland, because, although I regard republicanism as the best form of government possible, I nevertheless think that the people of England and of Ireland are yet too much wanting in true dignity and independence, and too ignorant of their political rights and duties, to at present make good republicans. We are growing gradually towards the point of republican government; but it is not, I think, the question of to-day. A forcible separation of Ireland from England would not unnaturally be resisted by the latter to her last drop of blood and treasure; and I do not believe that the Irish party are either strong enough or sufficiently united to give even a colour of probability to the supposition of a successful revolution."[C]
Again, "I do not believe in an enduring revolution to be effected by revolvers;… I do not believe it a lasting republic to be formed by pike aid."109
Hence from Mr Bradlaugh's own words, written in January 1868, it will be seen that he could not possibly have joined in the proclamation of a force-established republic in March 1867.
Throughout the year (1867) the country was in a very disturbed state. The Fenians were numerous, but inefficiently organised; they made isolated attacks on police barracks in Ireland, and attempted to seize Chester Castle, which contained a considerable store of arms. In September Kelly and Deasy were arrested at Manchester, and on the 18th of that month they were rescued while being moved with a number of other prisoners in the police van from the police court to the city jail. This rescue was destined to cost a number of lives, commencing with that of poor Sergeant Brett, whose death was followed, on the 23rd of November, by the execution of the three patriots, Allen, Larkin, and O'Brien. For several months from the time of the Manchester rescue our house was watched, back and front, night and day, and two policemen in uniform were stationed at Park Railway Station to scrutinise all the passengers who alighted there. I hardly know in what light my father regarded this surveillance, but I do not think he can have taken it very much to heart; we children looked upon it sometimes as a great distinction and sometimes as a capital joke, and we must to some extent have reflected the mood of our elders – not that I mean that Mr Bradlaugh was silly enough to regard this unremitting attention on the part of the police as a "distinction," but that we could not so have felt it had he been even a little troubled by it.
Just before the trial of the Manchester Martyrs, Mr Bradlaugh wrote a short but most eloquent plea for Ireland. He concluded it by urgently entreating:
"Before it be too late, before more blood shall stain the pages of our present history, before we exasperate and arouse bitter animosities, let us try and do justice to our sister land. Abolish once and for all the land laws, which in their iniquitous operation have ruined her peasantry. Sweep away the leech-like Church which has sucked her vitality, and has given her back no word even of comfort in her degradation. Turn her barracks into flax mills, encourage a spirit of independence in her citizens, restore to her people the protection of the law so that they may speak without fear of arrest, and beg them to plainly and boldly state their grievances. Let a Commission of the best and wisest amongst Irishmen, with some of our highest English judges added, sit solemnly to hear all complaints, and let us honestly legislate, not for the punishment of the discontented, but to remove the causes of the discontent. It is not the Fenians who have depopulated Ireland's strength and increased her misery. It is not the Fenians who have evicted tenants by the score. It is not the Fenians who have checked cultivation. Those who have caused the wrong at least should frame the remedy."110
Then came November and the sentence of death upon the four men who had taken part in the rescue of Deasy and Kelly at Manchester. Despite the bitter weather that followed, thousands of people assembled at Clerkenwell Green to memorialize the Government to pardon the condemned men. Mr Bradlaugh spoke at the meetings held there, and at Cambridge Hall, Newman Street. But such meetings were of no avail. Englishmen were panic-stricken, and sought to protect their own lives by taking other people's. Eloquence, justice, right are pointless weapons when used to combat blind fear.
Hard upon the "Manchester Sacrifice" – December 13th – followed the Clerkenwell explosion, by which four persons were killed and about forty men, women, and children were injured, in a mad attempt to blow up Clerkenwell Prison in order to rescue Burke and Casey, who were then on their trial.
This dastardly crime was a shock to all true friends of Ireland, just as the crime of the Phœnix Park murders was fourteen years later. Mr Bradlaugh wrote in the National Reformer a most earnest and pathetic denunciation of the outrage. He wrote it with the consciousness that he might lose many friends by the declaration that he had been "and even yet am favourable to the Irish Cause, which will be regarded by a large majority as most intimately connected with this fearfully mad crime." The Committee of the Irish Republican Brotherhood also, I believe, hastened to protest against and repudiate the outrage.
In the same issue of his paper, Mr Bradlaugh had an article on the Irish Crisis, in which he laid stress upon his opinion that "it is utterly impossible to hope for improvement in the general condition of Ireland until the relations of landlord and tenant in Ireland are completely altered." In January 1868 he published an essay on "the Irish Question," which he afterwards issued as a pamphlet.111 In this he dealt with four methods which had been put forward as giving a "fair prospect of solution for the Irish difficulty." These were (1) Separation of Ireland from England: the people deciding their own form of government by vote; (2) "Stamping out" the rebellious spirit by force; (3) A Commission of Inquiry into Irish grievances having extensive powers of amnesty, to act immediately, and to be followed by the redressal of all bona fide grievances; (4) Political enfranchisement of Ireland, or a separate legislature. The first two methods, which he discussed at some length, he rejected as "impracticable and objectionable"; the third course he favoured strongly; and the main difficulty to the fourth seems to have been the existing suffrage. A separate legislature, he observed, had been advocated by "some very thoughtful writers, some able politicians, and some men of extraordinary genius." He wound up his essay with an appeal – an appeal to the Government and an appeal to the Irish Republican party. To both he pleaded for "forbearance, for mercy, for humanity." The Irish Republican party he specially and in most eloquent language entreated to "repress all violence – to check all physical vengeance."
Ireland was now more than ever the subject of Mr Bradlaugh's advocacy, and in connection with it there occurred on the 17th of January (1868) a rather curious incident. A gentleman – perhaps I ought not to mention his name – who was a correspondent and friend of my father's, belonged to a Quaker family, and was at the period of which I write a member of the Society of Friends, although he subsequently resigned his membership. He belonged also to a discussion society connected with the Friends' Institute, Bishopsgate Street. A debate was arranged upon the Irish question, and Mr – , knowing how interested Mr Bradlaugh was in this subject, wrote inviting him to come to the meeting. This friend writing to me says: "He did come, and by a curious coincidence I was elected to the chair. Your father spoke, and quite delighted the Quakers with his earnestness and eloquence. They did not, however, know who the stranger was, but they pressed him to attend the adjourned meeting; he said he would, and come fortified with facts and statistics." My father was extremely gratified by the courtesy shown him, and the permission given him as a stranger to speak for double the usual time. At the same time he felt very awkward at receiving the cheers, congratulations, and special compliments, because he feared that they would hardly have been so freely accorded if his "real name and wicked character had been generally known there." His fears were fully justified, as Mr – 's letter to me shows. He goes on to say:
"After the meeting was over and your father had shaken hands with me and gone, the members crowded round me to inquire who the eloquent visitor was. When they found it was the, at that time, notorious Iconoclast, you may imagine their feelings were of a mixed sort. And I got into disgrace for introducing him. That I did not mind, and I secretly enjoyed their confusion. However, the result was that the Secretary of the Society was ordered to write to your father and tell him he was not required to attend again."
And Mr Bradlaugh actually did receive a letter officially inviting him not to attend their next meeting on the Irish question.
In February the formation of an "Ireland Society" was announced in the National Reformer. This was an effort to bring Englishmen together with the aim of forming "a sounder public opinion" on Irish matters, but I doubt whether it met with the success the idea deserved. It had specially for its objects (1) The abolition of the Irish State Church; (2) A harmonious settlement of the land question; (3) Education for the poor in Ireland; (4) Atonement for English oppression by encouraging Irish Industries. At Leeds, at Sheffield, at Newcastle, Mr Bradlaugh spoke to his audiences on the subject of Ireland until they were moved to tears by his pictures of the wretched condition of the unhappy Irish people. At Newcastle, a warm-hearted Irish Catholic stepped upon the platform and gave his earnest thanks "to the orator" for expressing the sentiments held by all true Irishmen,112 and the audience from end to end rose cheering and waving their hats. At Ashton-under-Lyne in April he spoke to an audience of 5000 persons, and reminded them that the Irish question might equally be called the English question, as it affected England as well as Ireland. Previous to this lecture there were rumours of violence, and threats "against life and limb," and the town was in a state of extreme excitement, a strong police force were mustered, and one magistrate attended the meeting with the Riot Act ready in his pocket! About a score or so of Orangemen managed to get into the hall and created considerable disorder at the outset, but they reckoned without chairman or speaker. The chairman, J. M. Balieff, Esq., J.P., despite the outcry raised against Mr Bradlaugh on account of his views on religion, had yet the moral courage to support him in his political opinions. The Orangemen opened up with a storm of hisses and groans, which was responded to by the friends of Ireland with excited cheering. This went on for some minutes, but was quickly quieted when the chairman resolutely stated that if it were necessary he should stay there all night, for he was quite determined that Mr Bradlaugh should state his views. At the conclusion of the lecture Mr Balieff publicly rebuked the bigotry which, unable to answer Mr Bradlaugh's political advocacy, assailed him for his speculative opinions. Amongst other places, my father went to Huddersfield to speak on the Irish question. My sister and I were in Huddersfield at the time staying with some friends, and we, of course went to the lecture, which was held in the theatre on Saturday, the 25th of April. This is the first lecture of my father's that I distinctly remember. I had been present at very many before, but of those I have only the vaguest recollections. The one at Huddersfield stands out as a complete picture in my memory. A stormy day, followed by a stormy night with strong wind and rain, had not prevented the earnest Yorkshire folks from coming to hear "the lad" (as they so often called him), and the theatre was full of eager, sympathetic faces when we went upon the platform. Mr Woodhead took the chair, and we, my sister and I, sat a little to the back of the stage, where I remember we were much troubled by the cold wind blowing round the "wings." So vivid is the memory that it seems almost as though I could recall the very words my father uttered, and the tones of his voice – now earnest, now impassioned, at one time severely rebuking, at another ardently pleading, or gravely narrating. Or there was some joke or amusing anecdote, and the audience – who a moment before had been brushing away their tears openly or surreptitiously, each according to his temperament – now with one consent burst into hearty laughter. There was one old man in the front row, who with ear-trumpet to ear remained eagerly bent forward throughout the whole lecture, so unwilling was he to lose a single word. I was just ten years old then, and it seemed a revelation to me; for the first time I felt and realised something of my father's power over men.
