Bygones Worth Remembering, Vol. 2 (of 2)

CHAPTER XXVII. CHARACTERISTICS OF JOSEPH COWEN

I

Political readers will long remember the name of Joseph Cowen, who won in a single night the reputation of a national orator. All at once he achieved that distinction in an assembly where few attain it. After a time he retired to his tent and never more emerged from it. The occasion of his first speech in Parliament was the introduction of the Bill for converting the Queen into an Empress. Queen was a wholesome monarchical name, which implied in England supremacy under the law; while Empress, alien to the genius of the political constitution, is a military title of sinister reputation, and implies a rank outside and above the law. Like Imperialism, it connotes military government, which, in the opinion of the free and prudent, is the most odious, dangerous, and costly of all governments.

Mr. Cowen entertained a strong repugnance to the word "Empress," which might become a prelude to Imperialism—as it has done.

Mr. Cowen's father, who preceded him in the House of Commons, was scrupulous in apparel, never affecting fashion, but keeping within its pale. His son was not only careless of fashion—he despised it. He employed local tailors, from neighbourliness, and was quite content with their craftsmanship. He never wore what is called a "top" hat, but a felt one, a better shape than what is known now as a "clerical" hat It was thought he would abandon it when he entered Parliament, but he did not He commonly left it in the cloak-room. He had no wish to be singular. His attire was as natural to him as his skin is to an Ethiopian. His headgear imperilled his candidature, when that came about.

He had been two years in Parliament before he addressed it. When he rose many members were standing impatient for division and crying "Divide! Divide!!" Mr. Cowen, being a small man, was not at once perceived, but his melodious, honest, and eager voice arrested attention, though his Northumbrian accent was unfamiliar to the House. It was as difficult to see the new orator as to see Curran in an Irish Court, or Thiers in the French Chamber. Disraeli glanced at him through his eyeglass, as though Mr. Cowen was one of Dean Swift's Lilliputians, and of one near him he asked contemptuously, as a Northern burr broke upon his ear, "What language is the fellow talking?"

The speech had all the characteristics of an oration, historical, compact, and complete—though brief. In it he said three things never heard in Parliament before. One was that the "Divine right of kings perished on the scaffold with Charles I." Another was that "the superstition of royalty had never taken any deep hold of the English people." The third was to describe our august ally, the Emperor Napoleon III., as an "usurper." The impression the speech made upon the country was great. It so accorded with the popular sentiment that some persons paid for its appearance as an advertisement in the Daily News and other papers of the day, and the speaker acquired the reputation of an orator by a single speech. Mr. Disraeli's contemptuous reception of it did not prevent him, at a later date, from going up to Mr. Cowen, when he was standing alone by a fire, and paying him some compliment which made a lasting impression upon him. Mr. Disraeli had discernment to recognise genius when he saw it, and generosity enough to respect it when not directed against himself. If it were, he was implacable.

For years, as I well knew, Mr. Cowen spent more money for the advancement and vindication of Liberalism than any other English gentleman. He was the most generous friend of "forlorn hopes" England has known. How many combatants has he aided; how many has he succoured; how many has he saved! If the other world be human like this, what crowds of grateful spirits of divers climes must have rushed to the threshold of heaven to welcome him as he entered.

Penniless, and his crew foodless, Garibaldi steered his vessel up the Tyne. Mr. Cowen was the only man in England Garibaldi then sought or confided in. Before he left the Tyne, Mr. Cowen, on behalf of subscribers (of whom many were pitmen), presented Garibaldi with a sword which cost £146. Goldwin Smith says, in his picturesque way, Henry III. had a "waxen heart." Mr. Cowen had an iron heart, steeled by noble purpose. He knew no fear, physical or mental. Not like my friend, George Henry Lewes, whose sense of intellectual right was so strong that he never saw consequences. Cowen did see them, and disregarded them; he "nothing knew to fear, and nothing feared to know"—neither ideas nor persons. How many men, not afraid of ideas, are much afraid of knowing those who have them? Unyielding to the high, how tender he was to the low!

Riding home with him one night, after a stormy meeting in Newcastle, when we were near to Stella House (he had not gone to reside in the Hall then) the horse suddenly stopped. Mr. Cowen got out to see what the obstruction was, and he found it was one of his own workmen lying drunk across the road. His master roused him and said: "Tom, what a fool thou art! Had not the horse been the more sensible beast, thou hadst been killed." He would use these Scriptural pronouns in speaking to his men. The man could not stand, and Mr. Cowen and the coachman carried him to the door of another workman, called him up, and bade him let Tom lie in his house till morning. Then we drove on.

Another time a workman came to Mr. Cowen for an advance of thirty shillings. Being asked what he wanted the money for, the man answered: "To get drunk, sir; I have not been drunk for six weeks." "Thou knowest," said Mr. Cowen, "I never take any drink, because I think the example good for thee. Thou will go to Gateshead Fair, get locked up, and I shall have to bail thee out. There is the money; but take my advice, get drunk at home, and thy wife will take care of thee." How many employers possess workmen having that confidence in them to put such a question as this workman did, without fear of losing their situation? No workman lied, or had need to lie, to Mr. Cowen. He had the tolerance and tenderness of a god.

When I was ill in his house in Essex Street, Strand, he would come up at night and tell me of his affairs, as he did in his youth. He had for some time been giving his support to the Conservative side. I said to him, "Disraeli is dead. Do you not see that you may take his place if you will? It is open. His party has no successor among them. He had race, religion, and want of fortune against him. You have none of these disadvantages against you. You are rich, and you can speak as Disraeli never could. He had neither the tone nor the fire of conscience—you have both. You have the ear of the House, and the personal confidence of the country, as he never had. In his place you would fill the ear of the world." He thought for a time on what I said to him; then his answer was: "There is one difficulty—I am not a Tory."

I saw he was leaving the side of Liberalism and that he would inevitably do Conservative work, and I was wishful that he should have the credit of it. He was under a master passion which carried him he knew not whither.

It was my knowledge of Mr. Cowen, long before that night, that made me oft say that a Tyneside man had more humility and more pride than God had vouchsafed to any other people of the English race. Until middle life Mr. Cowen was as his father, immovable in principle; afterwards he was as his mother in implacableness. That is the explanation of his career.

The "passion" referred to—never avowed and never obtruded, but which "neither slumbered nor slept"—was ambition. It might be called Paramountcy—that dangerous war-engendering word of Imperialism—which only the arrogant pronounce, and only the subjugated submit to.

The Cowen family had no past but that of industry, and in Mr. Cowen's youth the "slings and arrows of outrageous" Toryism, shafts of arrogance, insolence, and contempt, flew about him. He inherited from his mother a proud and indomitable spirit, and resolved to create a Liberal force which should withstand all that—and he did. Then, when he came to be, as he thought, flouted by those whom he had served (the common experience of the noblest men), he at length resented and turned against himself. He had reached the heights where he had been awarded an imperishable place, and then descended in resentment to mingle and be lost in the ignominious faction whom he had defeated and despised. Those who had enraged him were not, as we shall see, worth his resentment

It was not for "a handful of silver" he left us—for he had plenty—nor for "a ribbon to stick in his coat," for he would not wear one if offered a basketful. It was just indignation, stronger than self-respect.

Not all at once did the desire of control assume this form. By his natural nobility of nature he inclined to the view that all the supremacy inherent in man is that of superior capacity, to which all men yield spontaneous allegiance.

Some time elapsed before the bent of his mind became apparent. Possibly it was not known to himself.

When a young man, he promoted and maintained two or three journals, in which he also wrote himself, without suggesting to others the passion for journalism by which he was possessed. Some years later, when proofs of one of his speeches which a reporter had taken down, and Mr. Cowen had himself corrected, passed through my hands, I was struck with the dexterity with which he put a word of fire into a tame sentence, infused colour into a pale-faced expression, and established a pulse in an anaemic one. It was clear that he had the genius of speech in him and was ambitious of distinction in it.

Mr. Cowen's father was a tall, handsome man of the Saxon type, which goes steadily forward and never turns back. He always described himself as a follower of Lord Durham, and was out on the Newcastle Town Moor in 1819, at great meetings in support of the Durham principles. His mother was quite different in person, both in stature and appearance; somewhat of the Spanish type—dark, and mentally capable of impassable resolution. Her son, Joseph, with whom we are here concerned, had dark, luminous eyes which were the admiration of London drawing-rooms—when he could be got to enter them. His eldest sister, Mrs. Mary Carr, was as tall as her father, with the complexion of her mother. I used to compare her to Judith, the splendid Jewess who slew Holofernes. She used to say her brother Joseph had her mother's spirit, and that a "Cowen never changed." Her brother never changed in his purpose of ascendency, but when inspired by resentment he could change his party to attain his end—as I have seen done in the House of Commons many times in my day. This is why I have said that in the early part of Mr. Cowen's life he was his father—-placid but purposeful. In the second half he was his mother—resentful and implacable when affronted by non-compliance where he expected and desired concurrence. But I have known many excellent men who did not take dissent from their opinions in good part.

How fearless Mr. Cowen was, was shown in his conduct when a dangerous outbreak of cholera occurred in Newcastle. People were dying in every street and lane, but he went out from Blaydon every morning at the usual time, and walked through the infected streets and passages into Newcastle, to his offices on the quay, being met on his way by persons in distress, from death in their houses, who knew they were sure of sympathy and assistance from him. The courage of his unfailing appearance in his ordinary way saved many from depression which might have proved fatal to them. When a wandering guest fell ill at his home, Stella House, Blaydon, he was sure of continued hospitality until his recovery. Mr. Cowen's voice of sympathy and condolence was the tenderest I ever heard from human lips.

A poor man, who lived a good deal upon the moors, was charged with shooting a doctor, and would have been hanged but for Mr. Cowen defending him by legal aid. He thought the police had apprehended him because he was the most likely, in their opinion, to be guilty. He was poor, friendless, and often houseless. The man did not seem quite right in his mind. After his acquittal, Mr. Cowen took him into his employ, and made him his gardener. The garden was remote and solitary. I often passed my mornings in it, not without some personal misgiving. Mr. Cowen eventually enabled the man to emigrate to America, where a little eccentricity of demeanour does not count.

In the political estrangements of Mr. Cowen, it must be owned he had provocations. A party of social propagandists came to Newcastle, whom he entertained, as they had never been entertained before, at a cost of hundreds of pounds, and was at great expense to give publicity to their objects. They left him to defray some bills they had the means of paying. Years later, when they came again into the district, he did no more for them in the former way. He had conceived a distrust of them. Another time he was asked by persons whom he was willing to aid, to buy some premises for them, as they would be prejudiced at the auction if they appeared in person. Mr. Cowen bought the property for £5,000. They changed their minds when it was bought, and left Mr. Cowen, who did not want it, with it upon his hands. He did not resent it, as he might have done, but it was an act of meanness which would have revolted the heart of an archangel of human susceptibility.

When the British Association first came to Newcastle, Mr. Cowen spent more than £500 in giving publicity to their proceedings. He brought a railway carriage full of writers and reporters from London, that the proceedings of every section should be made known to the public He had personal notices written of all the principal men of science who came there, and when he asked for admission of his reporters, he was charged £19 for their tickets. As I was one of those engaged in the arrangements, I shared his indignation at this scientific greed and ingratitude. In all the history of the British Association, before and since, it never met with the enthusiasm, the liberality and publicity the Newcastle Chronicle accorded it.

In the days of the great Italian struggle, little shoals of exiles found their way to England. Learning where the great friend of Garibaldi dwelt, they found their way to Newcastle, and many were directed there from different parts of England. Many times he was sent for to the railway station, where a number of destitute exiles had arrived. He relieved their immediate wants and had them provided for at various lodgings, until they were able to get some situation elsewhere. I think Mr. Cowen began to tire of this, as he thought exiles were sometimes sent to him by persons who ought to have taken part of the responsibility themselves, but who seemed to consider that his was the purse of the Continent.

Once when Mr. Cowen attended a political conference in Leeds, he received as he entered the room marked attention, as he was known to be the leader of the Liberal forces of Durham and Northumberland. But Mr. W. E. Forster, who was present, took no notice of him, though Mr. Cowen had rendered him great political service. When Mr. Bright saw Mr. Cowen he cordially greeted him. Immediately Mr. Forster, seeing this, stepped up also and offered him compliments, which Mr. Cowen received very coldly without returning them, and passed away to his seat. Mr. Cowen's impression was that as Mr. Forster had suffered him to pass by without recognition, he did not want to know him before that assembly; but when Mr. Forster saw Mr. Bright's welcome of his friend, he was willing to know him. Mr. Forster, as I had reason to know afterwards, was capable of such an action, where recognition stood in the way of his interests,* but it was not so on this occasion. Mr. Forster was short-sighted, and simply did not see Mr. Cowen when he first passed him. But it happened that he did see him when Mr. Bright stepped forward to speak to him, and there was no slight of Mr. Cowen intended. Yet from that hour Mr. Cowen entertained a contempt for Mr. Forster, and would neither meet him nor speak to him. One day Mr. Cowen and I were at a railway station, where Mr. Forster appeared in his volunteer uniform. We had to wait some time for the train. Mr. Cowen asked me to walk with him as far as we could from where Mr. Forster stood, that we should not pass near him. Some years later, at the House of Commons, Mr. Forster asked Mr. Cowen to walk with him in the Green Park, as he wished to speak with him. After two hours Mr. Cowen returned reconciled. He never told me the cause of it, which he should have done, as I had taken his part in the long years of resentment I relate the incident as showing how personal misconception produces political estrangement in persons and parties alike.

CHAPTER XXVIII. CHARACTERISTICS OF JOSEPH COWEN

II

But the act which most wounded him occurred at the Elswick works of Lord Armstrong. Mr. Cowen was returning one day in his carriage at a time of political excitement. Some of the crowd threw mud upon his coach, and, if I remember rightly, broke the windows. Just before, when the workmen were on strike, they went to Mr. Cowen—as all workmen in difficulties did. He found they did not know their own case, nor how to put it He employed legal aid to look into the whole matter and make a statement of it. Mr. Cowen became their negotiator, and obtained a decision in their favour. The whole expense he incurred on their behalf was £150. Services of this kind, which had been oft rendered, should have saved him from public contumely at their hands.

At that time Mr. Cowen was giving the support of his paper against Liberalism, which he had so long defended and commended, which was an incentive to the outrage. Still, the sense of gratitude for the known services rendered to workers, which he continued irrespective of his change of opinion, should have saved him from all personal disrespect.

The subjection of the Liberals in Newcastle in the days of his early career, and the arrogant defamation with which it was assailed, were what determined him to create a defiant power in its self-defence.

He bought the Newcastle Chronicle, an old Whig paper. He published it in Grey Street, afterwards in St. Nicholas' Buildings, and then in Stephenson Place, on premises now known as the Chronicle Buildings. The printing machines at first cost £250 each, then £450. The Chronicle Buildings were purchased for £6,000, and a similar sum was expended in adapting them for their new purposes. The site is the finest in Newcastle. The printing machines now cost £6,000 to £7,000. Each machine is provided in duplicate, so that if one side of the press-room broke down, the other side could be instantly set in motion. Once I made a short speech in the town, which was reported, set up, cast, and an edition of the paper containing the speech was on sale within little more than twenty minutes. The office above the great press-room, in which the public transact business with the paper, is the costliest, handsomest, Grecian interior I know of connected with any newspaper buildings. What perseverance and confidence must have animated Mr. Cowen in the enterprise, is shown in the fact that he had sunk £40,000 in it before it began to pay.* He made the Chronicle, as he intended to make it, the leading political power in Durham and Northumberland. The leaders he wrote in its columns after he left Parliament were unequalled in all the press of England for vividness, eloquence, and variety of thought. There could be no greater proof of the dominancy of Mr. Cowen's mind, than his establishment and devotion to the Chronicle.

I had been a party several years to negotiating with candidates to stand for Newcastle, whose public expenses Mr. Cowen paid. I obtained the consent of the Liberals of York, that Mr. Layard, whom they considered pledged to them, should become a candidate at Newcastle. "Why should you?" I said one day to Mr. Cowen, "incur these repeated costs for the candidature of others, when you can command a seat in your own family for three generations. If you will not be a candidate, why should not your father?" The conversation ended by his agreeing that I might persuade his father to go to Parliament if I could.

It was in vain that I assured him that the seat was open to him, but he did not believe, nor wish to believe it. I several times saw his father at Stella Hall. He thought himself too old. I told him there were fifty gentlemen in the House of Commons, willing to become Prime Minister, and some of them waiting for the appointment, who were fifteen years older than he, and would be disappointed did not the chance come to them. He found this true when he at length entered the House. His objection was that he could not ask his neighbours, among whom he had lived all his days, to elect him. "Suppose they signed an undertaking to vote for you in case you came forward?" That he consented to consider. A requisition signed by 2,178 electors was sent to him. Then another difficulty arose. His son said: "I cannot support my father in the Chronicle."* Then I said, "Let me edit it during the election, and no line shall appear commending your father to the electors. But whatever pretensions his adversaries put forth, we will examine." My proposal was agreed to. It was alleged by the rival candidate, that the requisition was signed out of courtesy to a popular townsman, and did not mean that those who signed it had pledged their votes. To this I answered that when Chambers appeared on the Thames, bookmakers said, "Chambers is a Newcastle man, who never sells the honour of his town, but will win if he can." Is it to be true that a Newcastle elector would not only give his promise, but write it, without intending to keep it? Will he be true on the Thames and false on the Tyne? All the requisitionists save a few, whom sickness or misadventure kept from the poll, voted for Joseph Cowen, senior, who was elected by a large majority.

The great services to the town of the new member by his arduous chairmanship of the Tyne Commission, would have insured his election, but his majority was no doubt increased by the popularity of his son. This did not escape the comment of local politicians, and Mr. Lowthian Bell said, "How is it, Mr. Cowen, that everybody votes for your father for your sake?" "I suppose it is," was the answer, "that while you have been sitting on winter nights with your feet on the rug by the fireside, I have been addressing pitmen's meetings in colliery villages, and finding my way home late at night in rain and blast; and it happens that they are grateful for it." This was the only time I knew Mr. Cowen to make a self-assertive reply.

When Mr. Cowen's father was in the field, and Mr. Beaumont began his canvass, in one street he met with forty-nine refusals to vote for him. "Why will you not vote for me?" he asked. "We are going to vote for Mr. Coon, now," as his name was pronounced at the Tyneside. "But you have two votes," Mr. Beaumont said; "you can give me one." "No! if we had twenty votes we should give them all to Mr. Coon. When Chambers and Clasper make a £100 match for the honour of the Tyne, and we cannot make up the money, Mr. Coon always makes it up for us, and when we win and go to repay him, he gives it to us." This was not a patriotic reason to give for voting for "Mr. Coon," but it showed gratitude, as well as Mr. Cowen's influence, and what a hold his kindness to the people had given him upon their affection. Thus they voted for the father from regard for the son. For in those days the son had no idea of Parliament himself, and votes were not in his thoughts.

Nothing could be more open or gentlemanly than Mr. Cowen in the contests to which he was a party. Mr. Somerset Beaumont was member for Newcastle, and he impressed Mr. Gladstone with a high sense of his capacity in Parliament. One morning, as Mr. Beaumont and Mr. Cowen came into Newcastle in the same train, Mr. Cowen said to him, "You know, Mr. Beaumont, we all like you personally, but you do not go far enough for us. We want a more Radical representative for Newcastle. We shall prevent your election next time if we can, but only if we have a more advanced candidate. Otherwise we will countenance no opposition to you."

Who could foresee the day would come when—save Mr. Cowen—the noblest candidate Newcastle ever had (Mr. John Morley) would be opposed by Mr. Cowen in the interests of Toryism? Or that, after withstanding at the hustings when he became a candidate, and defeating furious collusions between Tories, Conservatives, Moderates, publicans, and all who had vicious interests to serve or spite to gratify, Mr. Cowen himself would one day be found aiding or abetting the same parties by taking their side against Liberalism.

When in Parliament, his father had misgivings touching Mr. Gladstone, who, he thought, passed him at times without recognition. He had conducted Mr. Gladstone down the Tyne in triumph, and his son had assembled 200,000 persons on the Moor, who were addressed from twenty platforms in support of Mr. Gladstone, and provided reporters and published all the speeches. The cost of this was one of a hundred contributions he made in the interest of Liberalism. I used to explain that Mr. Gladstone, intent upon great questions (he was always intent upon something) he had to explain to the House—he, self-absorbed, would pass by his friends without seeing them, expecting, as he had a right to expect, that devotion to the great trust of the State would be taken to palliate his seeming inattention to friends.

But Mr. Gladstone was not unmindful of the service rendered to him at Newcastle, and when, some time later—no one else thinking of it—I made representations, through Mr. (afterwards Sir) James Stansfeld—without knowledge of Mr. Cowen or his son—I was instructed to inform Mr. Cowen, sen., that a baronetcy would be placed at his acceptance. Mr. Cowen, jun., objected entirely on his own part. His father therefore only accepted a knighthood, which Her Majesty, from consideration of his years, kindly ordered to be gazetted, obviating his attendance at Court. All the same, it was Mr. Gladstone's intention to recognise the services of the son as well as the father.

Honours were not much accessible in those days, especially in uncourtly quarters. My representation, in suggesting what I did, was, that as personal distinction was conferred upon persons who had made £100,000, something was due to one who may be said to have given that sum to the public.* His chairmanship of the Tyne Commission extended over a period of twenty-four years, during which the Tyne was converted from a creek into a navigable river.

The time and assiduity thus devoted to the service of navigation and trade would have added £100,000 to his fortune. That his knighthood might be justified in the eyes of his neighbours and his own, I supplied the facts which authorised it to Mr. Walker, who was then editor of the Daily News, and which appeared in his leader columns. My reason for taking the step I did was a sense of duty to the public, who should see as far as possible that those who rendered service should find acknowledgment of it I was of Coleridge's opinion:—

On the death of the father, his son, Mr. Joseph Cowen, was elected in his place, as a member for Newcastle; and Parliament being dissolved shortly after, he was again elected by a triumphant majority.

Mr. Cowen had made more speeches at the Tyneside than any other resident ever did. But the town was unconscious of their merit. They were addressed mostly to working men, and to persons whom it was not thought necessary to report or take into account the speaker. When he became a candidate all classes of persons were among the auditors. The town was astonished at the relevance and fire of his orations. I mention this circumstance to show how a man can be famous in one half of the town and not known in the other.

After his retirement from Parliament and platform he occasionally delivered orations on persons, at inaugurations, which surpassed all I have ever read of the kind, for aptness of phrase, variety of thought and vivid portraiture, which ought to be added to the record of English oratory.

It was not reasonable in him, after the change in his political views, to expect that his townsmen should adopt the new opinions he had begun to countenance, and which he had himself taught them to distrust. But this is what strong leaders do who suffer the pride of power to become imperious. A just ambition, which is patient, and will work for results, can as a rule succeed. It is ambition which is impetuous, and will not wait longer, which lapses into reaction from disappointment. With all his virtues, Mr. Cowen was impetuous. To desert a party because of the folly or excesses of portions of its members, would oblige a man to change his profession in politics and his creed in religion every twelve months.

In his earlier career it may be imagined that Mr. Cowen derived his principles from generous prejudices, in later days from indignant impulses.

Many persons hold by inheritance right principles into whose foundation they have never inquired. Investigation, if they entered upon it, would confirm their convictions, but not resting on examination, their nobler prepossessions may be displaced by passion. We all know in religion how vehemently adherents will vindicate questions of which they know only one side, and hold it to be sinful to inquire into the other. Such persons, when right, are unstable and liable to variableness under the glamour of unknown ideas. Mr. Cowen was well informed on Liberal principles and never took to Conservative views, and, save in antagonism, did not assist them.

The bent of his mind to paramountcy in ideas was shown in the extraordinary requirements he made, that Mr. Morley should disown the political friends who had invited him to Newcastle, and become the candidate of the Chronicle. Mr. Morley answered, "I will not do it, and that is flat" Then Mr. Cowen resolved that this refusal should cost him his seat, and ultimately he effected it, not from Conservative resentment, but from pride. Had Mr. Morley consented to this condition he would have remained member for Newcastle, supported with all the force of Mr. Cowen's splendid advocacy. Mr. Cowen always remained true to Home Rule for Ireland. But, as we have seen done in the case of others in Parliament, he assailed every one who held it not under his inspiration.

Mr. Cowen was naturally noble, and resentment never made him mean, but like any one to whom compliance with his essential convictions is a necessity of his mind, he was apt to regard non-concurring persons as better out of the way. He would not destroy them, but they were no longer objects of his solicitude.

Everybody who did not take this into account failed to understand Mr. Cowen's career. He sought nothing for himself—he refused everything offered to him, office included, and accepted no overture made to him. Whatever opinion he held, to whatever party he allied himself, he might, if he wished, have remained member for Newcastle all his life. He wanted no place in Parliament; all he wanted was his own way—compliance with his own opinions. He had no ambition in the ordinary sense—he had no sinister end to serve, and it was always his preference to promote liberty and progress, generosity and good faith in public affairs.

Conforming to no conventionality, never entering society, nor accepting any invitation to do it, in his attention to his collieries, his ships, his firebrick works, manufactory, newspaper and public meetings, he was occupied from early morning until late at night, without rest and without hurry. He was never exhausted and was never still. One evening he lay down on his sofa, fell asleep, and none around him knew that he was dead.

It would astonish the reader—were they all narrated—the considerable undertakings which he conducted and carried through at the same time. He was a great man of business, and had the management of heaven been consigned to him as a pleasure resort, he would have made it pay eventually. He was an apostle, not an apostate, but his apostleship was of his own ideas. He was no apostate of his party. Had he been in the celestial world when Lucifer revolted, Mr. Cowen might have aided Satan, from motives of resentment at being denied, by certain dissentient cherubim, ascendency himself. But he would never have joined the fallen angels, nor, as we have seen other politicians do, officially engage in their work, or identify himself with them.

CHAPTER XXIX. THE PERIL OF SCRUPLES

An outlaw is seldom considered a pleasant person, and naturally occupies a dubious place in public estimation. His position is worse than that of an exile, who, if once allowed to return, is reinstated in society, but the outlaw of opinion is never pardoned. Where justice turns upon the hinge of the oath, there is no redress for him who has scruples as to taking it. He who has scruples exposes himself to unpleasant comments. He is counted a sort of fastidious crank. All the while it is known that a man without scruples is a knave, who respects nothing save his own interests, and will do anything likely to promote them—even to the commission of robbery or murder—as police-courts disclose. To be scrupulous is to be solicitous as to the rightfulness of a thing proposed to be done. It is plainly the interest of society to encourage those who act upon honest scruples. Scruples may be trivial or unfounded—they may be open to objection on that account. Nevertheless, the habit of being scrupulous is to be tolerated as conducive to integrity, without which society would be insufferable. It is therefore not desirable that perils should accompany scrupulousness, as I have often seen them do.

The obligatory oath has always been detrimental to public morality. When one oath was imposed on all persons, it was repugnant to their individual sense of truth in many cases, and men, to protect their interests, began to tamper with veracity, and invent new meanings of the terms of the oath. Thus the fortunate fastidiousness of truth is broken down.

The Christian oath is an ecclesiastical device, framed in the interest of the Church, to enforce, under penalty, the recognition and perpetuation of its tenets. He who takes the oath professes to believe that if he breaks it "God will blast his soul in hell for ever." This is the old brutal, terrifying form in which the consequence was expressed. It is softened now, to suit the secular humanity of the age, to a statement that God will hold the oath-taker responsible for its fulfilment. But God's method of holding any one responsible, is by sentencing him to "outer darkness," where there will be "wailing and gnashing of teeth." A very unpleasant region to dwell in. There is no good ground to suppose that such a sentence for such an offence would be passed, but the intimidation is retained. Mr. Cluer, a London magistrate, said lately that "if the fate of Ananias befel all who swore falsely in his court, the floor would be strewn with dead bodies." But the courts fall back upon the pristine meaning of the oath. The magistrate asks a little child, tendered as a witness, "whether she knows, if she does not tell the truth, where she will go to?" and whether she "has never heard of a place called hell or of its keeper, the devil?" If not, he publicly deplores the neglect of the child's education, and declares her to be incapable of telling the truth. Every one who took the oath, whether rich or poor, a philosopher or a fool, each professed to believe that the Great God of all the worlds, notwithstanding the infinite business He has on hand, was personally present in any dingy court when the oath-taker calls upon Him "to witness" that he speaks the truth, and if not, God, who never forgets, burdens His celestial memory with that fact, with a view to eternal retaliation, in case the oath is false. He who takes the oath and does not believe this, lies to begin with, whatever may be the character of his testimony.

To take the oath in any other sense than that in which it is administered to you, is to deceive the court.

The reliance on the part of those who impose the oath, is that he who takes it believes the terms of it. If the taker takes it in a private sense of his own, the virtue has gone out of the oath, and the court is deceived. If the Unitarian takes the oath, not believing in an avenging God, he creates a new oath for himself, in which the compelling power of an eternal terror is absent. He, therefore, does not take the oath of the court, but another of his own invention; and if he made known to the court what he was doing, the court would not receive his testimony. Philosophers, who have less belief than Unitarians, take the oath. But in the eye of morality it is not less discreditable—perhaps more so, for the philosopher stands for absolute truth, while the Unitarian stands only for theological truth.

The trouble was that he who refuses to take the oath of the court, in the sense of the court, became an outlaw, and that was a serious thing. I was myself an outlaw, until I was fifty-two years of age, without the power of obtaining redress where I was wronged, or of punishing fraud or theft from which I suffered, or of protecting the life and property of others, where my evidence was required. My ambition was to be a barrister, but legal friends assured me that the law turned upon the hinge of oath-taking, and that the path of the Bar would to me be a path of lying. It happens that I have never taken an oath. When I found that my belief did not coincide with that implied by the oath, I felt precluded from taking it.

This reluctance brought me peril. When the question of a Parliamentary oath in Lord Randolph Churchill's days raged, a new doctrine was set up among some partisans of Freethought—that an Atheist might take the oath. That meant there was no longer any distinction in terms, or any meaning in principle. If an Atheist may, for the sake of some advantage before him, make a Christian profession, there is no reason why a Christian should not make an Atheistical profession if it answered his purpose. The apostles made quite a mistake by incurring martyrdom for conscience sake. Bruno, Servitus, and Tyndale need not have gone to the stake, had they only understood that the way to advance the truth was to abandon it, instead of standing to it. If a man is not to stand by the truth when the consequences are against him, there is an end of truth as a principle. It is no longer a duty to suffer for it and maintain it.

It seemed to me that the friends of reason, who rejected theological tenets, should be as scrupulous as to the truth as partisans of superstition have often proved themselves to be, and that the Atheist should have as clear a sense of intellectual honour as the Quaker, the Catholic, or the Jew, who all suffered rather than take an oath contrary to their sense of truth. This was regarded as a reflection upon some excellent colleagues of mine, who thought it fatuity to allow an oath to stand in their way, and frustrate their career.

It was brought against me that there were circumstances under which I should be as little scrupulous as other people. Major Bell, who had incurred great peril in India for the sake of honour, put a question to me in the Daily News purporting that, "Had I married before 1837 I should not have hesitated at twice invoking the Trinity as the Church service required? And if I had done so, should I not have perpetrated a piece of hypocrisy?" There is an immoral maxim that "All things are fair in love and war," and it is probable that I should not have hesitated to perpetrate that "piece of hypocrisy," as it would have been the lesser of two evils, but it would not, therefore, cease to be an evil. If under any compulsion of love or war I was induced to perpetrate "apiece of hypocrisy," it would never occur to me to go about saying it was not hypocrisy. I dislike law, custom, or persons who force me to do what I know to be wrong, but no person could do his worst against me, until he prevailed upon me to go about saying it was right.

Dr. Moncure Conway asked whether, if his life was in danger in China, and I could save it by the Chinese oath of breaking a saucer, I would not do it? Certainly I would, to save Dr. Conway, if the Confucians would permit me, but I should not the less deceive them by pretending to have sworn before them in the Chinese sense. But I should regret the necessity, since in no country would I willingly treat truth as a superstition. By taking the "saucer" oath, I should obtain in Chinese eyes a validity for my word not really belonging to it. However I might excuse the act, it would still be deceit, nor ought it to be called by any other name. There is no virtuous vagueness in unveracity, and he who in peril uses it would not be justified in carrying it into common life, where Lord Bacon has warned us, "Truth is so useful, that we should make public note of any departure from that excellent habit." Major Evans Bell further argued that because the Prince of Wales may sign himself my "obedient, humble servant," while not feeling himself bound to act so, the terms of the oath may be likewise regarded as a form of words merely. Yet all "forms" which are unreal are unwise and hurtful. But the superscription of the Prince is known to be but a false form, and accepted as such, while the oath is a profession of faith. If the Prince went into a public court and swore in the name of God that he really was my "obedient, humble servant," I should think him a very shabby Prince if the solemnity went for nothing. As I have known Major Bell expose himself to what his friends believed to be fatal peril, from a noble sense of self-imposed duty, to which neither oath, nor contract, nor any conventional superscription called him, I no more imagine him than I did Dr. Conway, to really mean what their arguments seemed to imply.

Some are for the spirit more than the form. I was for both, and I regard all legislation as immoral which divorces them. Referring to these letters, the Daily News (December 23, 1881) regarded them as "marked by rectitude of moral judgment, which is recognised by those who most deplore what they think is theological aberration. Some such testimony as he gives was almost needed to efface the impression which recent events in and out of the House of Commons have made, that moral indifferentism is of necessity associated with religious negation." I was glad of those words at a time when I was fiercely assailed for saying what I did, in the midst of the Parliamentary contest which then occupied the attention of the country. My object was to assist the right in the contest, and to defend the Free Thought cause. Had I not spoken then, it would have been in vain to speak afterward. To be silent about principle in the hour of its application would have been fatal to its influence and repute, so far as it might be represented by me.

As far as in my power lay, I left no uncertainty in the mind of Parliament as to what was wanted, in lieu of the oath. It was simply a "promise of honour," to declare the truth in matters of testimony, and observe good faith in contracts. One of my petitions to the House of Commons ran thus:—

"Your petitioner is a person who never took an oath, as it implied theological convictions he did not hold. He, however, has seen persons of far greater knowledge than he possesses, of high social position and authority, and whose example men look up to, take the oath, though it was known to all that they held no belief corresponding thereunto—the opprobrium and outlawry attending the refusal of the oath being more than they would incur. This has led to a practice of public prevarication, that of persons saying a thing and not meaning it, or meaning something else. Nowhere is this example more disastrous than in your High Assembly, where anything said is conspicuous and its example influential on the conduct of others."

Another petition so interested Professor J. E. Thorold Rogers, M.P. (who had held holy orders), that he had copies made of it, and sent one with a letter to each morning paper, saying he regarded it as expressing the "quintessence of political morality." The petition set forth:—

"That it is at all times important that public declarations should be so expressed that any one making them shall be able to say what he means, and mean what he says. In these days, when popular instruction is being advanced by national schools, it is yet more desirable that no public declaration should be exacted, the terms of which are unmeaning or untrue to those who make it, inasmuch as such declaration deteriorates the wholesome habit of national veracity, and is of the nature of a fraud upon the public understanding, which becomes more repugnant as general intelligence increases.

"Your petitioner respectfully submits that the present Parliamentary oath is open to these objections so long as it is obligatory upon all members, irrespective of whatever personal and private beliefs they may hold.

"Your petitioner, therefore, prays, in the interests of public good faith, that a form of affirmation may be adopted, optional to all members of Parliament, instead of the present ecclesiastical oath."

Francis Place once explained to me that in the Benthamite view, it was not warrantable to incur martyrdom unless it was clear that the public would be gainers by the martyr's loss. In a letter, Mr. J. S. Mill, in answer to questions I put to him with regard to taking an oath, wrote:—

"I conceive that when a bad law has made the oath a condition to the performance of a public duty, it may be taken without dishonesty by a person who acknowledges no binding force in the religious part of the formality. Unless (as in your own case) he has made it the special and particular work of his life to testify against such formalities, and against the belief with which they are connected."

I could not concur with this view. Personal candour is far-reaching in its effects, and should be cherished where we can, and as far as we can. Truth is to the life of the mind what air is to the life of the body. When the mind ceases to breathe truth, the mind is impaired or dies.

It is necessary to add the grounds which actuated me in endeavours to put an end to the outlawry of opinion. Many beside myself helped to obtain a law of affirmation, but I was the only person among them all who had never taken an oath. Sir George Cornewall Lewis demanded in Parliament how the oath could be a vital grievance to Atheists, whose throats were furrowed with swallowing it. When summoned on the grand jury at Clerkenwell I refused to take the oath in the sense the court attached to it, and I was fined twelve guineas for not taking it. I drew up a paper showing the privileges given by the law to those who were honestly unable to swear. They were exempted from the militia, from the duty of acting as special constable, they could procure the acquittal of any thief, fraudulent person, or murderer, where their evidence was necessary to conviction. In some cases the thief has escaped, and the person robbed has been imprisoned instead, for his contumacy in not lying. It became known among thieves that where they could find out a witness against them, who disbelieved in an avenging God, the counsel defending the thief had only to call the attention of the court to the fact for the witness to be ordered "to stand down," and the thief would "leave the court without a stain on his character." Mr. Francis, in his "History of the Bank of England," relates how Turner, whose fraud amounted to £10,000, escaped, because the only witness who could swear decidedly to his handwriting, was a disbeliever in the New Testament. The jury returned a verdict of "Not guilty."

Sir John Trelawny told me that the fly-leaves I published on the "Privileges of Sceptics and the Immunity of Thieves" made more impression upon members of Parliament than any petition sent to the House. These and similar services, with my lifelong refusal to take the oath, caused John Stuart Mill to write to me, saying: "It is a great triumph of freedom of opinion that the Evidence Bill should have passed both Houses without being seriously impaired. You may justly take to yourself a good share of the credit of having brought things up to that pass."*

These instances will no doubt satisfy the reader as to the peril of entertaining scruples in the face of power. The earliest instance which concerned me was a case in Birmingham in which several thousand pounds were left for the establishment of a secular school which I was to conduct. Not being willing to take the oath, I could not prosecute my claim. When a son of mine was killed by the recklessness of a driver, I could not give evidence on the inquest because I could not be sworn. My private house was thrice robbed by servants who became aware of my inability to prosecute. When in business in Fleet Street, my property could be carted away, for which I had no remedy save lying in wait and knocking down the depredators, which would at the Mansion House have led to a public scandal and injured the business. Money was left to me which I could not claim, being an outlaw.