Page:The Battle of the Press, as Told in the Story of the Life of Richard Carlile.djvu/15

Rh Chief amongst his publications were the fourteen volumes of the Republican, a weekly paper of thirty-two pages, ten or more volumes of which were edited in Dorchester Gaol. The very name of Republican in those days was a challenge to combat. This publication was the direct outcome of the Manchester massacre. The name had once before been adopted, but was withdrawn by Mr. Sherwin, the proprietor, as too dangerous.

After the rash and brutal conduct of the Government at Peter's Fields—or "Peterloo", as it came to be called—Carlile took up the paper, restored the name Republican, and, raising the war-cry of "a Free Press", kept it up through five of his six years of imprisonment in Dorchester Gaol and for one year after.

The horrors of the French Revolution, and the declaration of independence of the Colonial States of America, were yet too fresh in memory for the authorities of the time to see without alarm what seemed to be the flag of Republicanism flaunted in their very faces, and they sought to put it down at all hazards. The story of the battle between the authorities and Carlile will be found in the story of his life. It lasted for many years, but Carlile lived to come off a victor. The Government finally declared themselves defeated by him in his mode of moral warfare in the struggle for the freedom of the Press, pronouncing him invincible in the course he had taken.

It was said of the Republican that the only section of the British Press which could be said to be free at that time, was that which was issued from Dorchester Prison!

Before his six years of imprisonment had expired,