Religion was regarded as a valuable instrument to
keep the poor in order. It is notable that of the earlier rationalists
(apart from the case of Woolston) the only one who was punished was
Peter Annet, a schoolmaster, who tried to popularize freethought and was
sentenced for diffusing "diabolical" opinions to the pillory and hard
labour (1763). Paine held that the people at large had the right of
access to all new ideas, and he wrote so as to reach the people. Hence
his book must be suppressed.
[173] At the trial (1797) the judge placed every obstacle in the way of
the defence. The publisher was sentenced to a year's imprisonment.
This was not the end of Paine prosecutions. In 1811 a Third Part of the
Age of Reason appeared, and Eaton the publisher was condemned to
eighteen months' imprisonment and to stand in the pillory once a month.
The judge, Lord Ellenborough, said in his charge, that "to deny the
truths of the book which is the foundation of our faith has never been
permitted." The poet Shelley addressed to Lord Ellenborough a scathing
letter. "Do you think to convert Mr. Eaton to your religion by
embittering his existence? You might force him by torture to profess
your tenets, but he could not believe them except you should make them
credible, which perhaps exceeds your power. Do you think to please the
God you worship by this exhibition of your zeal? If so, the demon to
whom some nations offer human hecatombs is less barbarous than the deity
of civilized society!" In 1819 Richard Carlisle was prosecuted for
publishing the Age of Reason and sentenced to a large fine and three
years' imprisonment.
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