Mr. Eaton.—Paine’s Age of Reason. [II]

—In my last, at page 753, I notified, that I would cause to be published, at my own expense, whatever might be written to me by my pastor, the Rector of Botley, in answer to Paine’s Third Part of the Age of Reason, provided that it did not exceed in bulk twice that of the work to be answered; and, in case that gentleman, / from indisposition or any other cause, should decline the invitation, I notified that I would do the same with regard to an answer by any other Clergyman of the Church of England. Now, I beg leave to amend this last part of my offer; and to confine it to BENEFICED Clergymen; because my notion is this; that we Churchmen have a RIGHT to call upon our Clergy for the answer in question; but that, as this right arises wholly out of the circumstance of our paying them such immense sums of money annually, we have no such right in the case of gentlemen who have taken Orders and have not obtained any benefice. This distinction appearing to me to be founded in justice, I have lost no time in making it.⁹⁶ I shall hereafter have to return to the subject; and will only add an expression of my hope to be soon favoured with the wished-for answer, as I am well informed, that, in spite of those “fences of the law’’ of which Lord Ellenborough is, in the report, stated to have spoken in his charge; in spite of all “those fences with which the law has surrounded our religion,” the book of Paine is making great progress. The price of it, which, before the trial, was 3s. is now 5s at which, it is said to be bought with great eagerness. Therefore, I trust, that our Clergy will come forth. They must now see, that the law has done its best; and, if they do not come forth, it will, I must confess, not be very easy to me to account for their conduct.—In my last, I said, that, while the Jury (the Special Jury, whose names I will publish another time) were consulting about their verdict, the Attorney General moved the Judge not to suffer Mr. Eaton to leave the court. This, I am assured, was a mistake of the reporter of the trial. A gentleman, who was present in court, has assured me, that this was not the nature of the motion of the Attorney General, who did not move for the preventing of Mr. Eaton from leaving the court; but for the preventing of some copies of Mr. Paine’s book from leaving the court. The fact appears to have been this: Mr. Eaton had brought into court 12 copies of the work, for having published which he was prosecuted, with a design to give one to each juror. When, therefore, the jurors were about to retire, he got up, and held the copies forward towards them; and, thereupon it was, I understand, that the Attorney General, or his aid, Mr. Garrow, moved the Judge to prevent those copies from being taken out of the court.— Thus, / every circumstance shows of what importance this work was thought by these great law characters; and, therefore, as the work is got abroad, and cannot now be stopped in its progress, or in the progress of its effect, and which effect, the Attorney General said, must be “DREADFUL IN THE EXTREME,” I do hope that the world will have a complete answer to it from a clergyman of the. Church of England. One feels a little for the honour of one’s Church upon an occasion like this. Some persons, indeed, may suppose, that she should have come forward and defeated this work without the assistance of the Law; but, at any rate, we may, I trust, rely upon her doing it now.