ABSTRACT
First published in The Examiner, XII, 23 May 1819, pp. 321–2. Richard Carlile (see Biographical Directory) emerged as one of the most important radical journalists and publishers of the romantic era and consequently received extensive treatment in Hunt’s ongoing campaign to effect political reform through print culture’s profound impact on public opinion. By 1819 Carlile had acquired an impressive record on the radical side, having published numerous works of Enlightenment freethinking deemed threatening by the government, as well as hatching the brilliantly provoking scheme (in 1817) of printing 25,000 pirated copies of Southey’s revolutionary poem from his 1790’s Jacobin days, Wat Tyler. Carlile had already served prison terms for his publishing activities, and by May of 1819 the government had issued a variety of new prosecutions against him. He would not actually go to trial until the autumn, and he persisted in his subversive publishing work until then. After a protracted trial from 12 to 15 October in which he defended himself, Carlile was finally convicted on multiple counts of blasphemous and seditious libel. He would spend the next six years in prison, where he managed to continue publishing his periodical, the Republican. This article is the first in Hunt’s sustained series of 1819 Political Examiners on the government’s prosecution of Carlile and other radicals. For the positioning of Hunt’s defence of Carlile within the context of his overall views at this time of print culture’s formidable political power, see headnotes above, pp. 144–7, 173–5. For Hunt’s ongoing commentary on the prosecution of Carlile, see the 1819 Examiner articles for 30 May (pp. 337–8); 6 June (pp. 353–4); 27 June (pp. 401–3); 17 October (pp. 657–9); 24 October (pp. 673–7); 31 October (pp. 689–91).
