This brings us to the period which witnessed a great mental change in Carlile. The poverty and misery which became so prevalent among the masses in 1816 caused him to question his mother's faith, and to display an enthusiasm in the direction of Republicanism. Theologically, he inclined towards Atheism. But he did not definitely embrace it until a much later date.

All these factors, operating together, led to Carlile reading advanced Whig papers like Leigh Hunt's Examiner, The News, Cobbett’s Twopenny Sheets, and Hone’s Register—all of which he came to regard as being too watery. His companions in the workshop were always talking and dreaming of revolution. He was dissatisfied with the tone of the papers he read. He craved for some means whereby he could get into the van of the fight. and he discovered his opportunity in the Government's inauguration of a new reign of terror. The incidents of 1793 seemed likely to be repeated. The mendacious persecution of that year threatened to be renewed with greater violence.

By the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act in 1817, political writers were placed in an extremely difficult position; and political tract-sellers led to shrink from the sale of Hone’s and Cobbett’s compromising publications. In the face of this despotic fearfulness, Carlile publicly sold Hone’s “Parodies of the Book of Common Prayer.” He knew the consequences would be imprisonment, but he did not shrink from braving those consequences. Rather, he believed the cause of freedom warranted him in courting incarceration. The time had come for defiance—cool, calculated daring. Carlile felt this. He acted accordingly.

The result was as he anticipated. He was arrested and imprisoned for blasphemy, being incarcerated for eighteen weeks. This was from August 15th to December 20th, 1817, when he was released owing to Hone’s three acquittals. He amused himself during this period by producing a parody of the Anglican Communion Service, which he published immediately on his release. The title page of this pamphlet—the text of which we have reproduced elsewhere—read as follows :—

“The Order for the Administration of the Loaves and Fishes; or, The Communion of Corruption’s Host.--Translated from an Original Greek Manuscript, lately discovered in the Neighborhood of a certain Den of Thieves, in Westminister.—-London: Printed and Published by R. Carlile, late of Law's Hold, in the County of Surrey, but now of 183, Fleet Street; and sold by those who are not afraid of incurring the displeasure of his Majesty's Ministers, their Spies or Informers. or public plunderers of any denomination.--1817.”

Carlile now carried round Sherwin’s Register, a publication commenced by William Sherwin, a youth of eighteen, to combat the official Terrorism. Sherwin had come under the influence of Paine's writings, and accordingly made his paper more extreme in tone than Cobbett’s. He emphasized Paine’s dictum that men must not petition for rights, but take them. His paper sounded the tocsin of revolt.

But Sherwin did not escape the terror that was the order of the day, the fear that was a portion of the atmosphere. No advanced bookseller or publisher escaped it. Hone and Cobbett were foremost in spreading it abroad. The former, after having been thrice acquitted, began to waver. Cobbett,-who had suffered two years’ imprisonment for condemning flogging in the Navy, fled to America. Sherwin caught “the dread of the consequences” disease. He decided to get married and settle down to family life. He preferred this to public service and certain imprisonment. He only consented, therefore, to continue his Register on condition that Carlile became publisher and editor, and took full responsibility for authorship.

Carlile jumped at this opportunity. He now stood forth, the one bold spirit of his time, surrounded by weaklings, and opposed to cowardly despots. The mantle of liberty had fallen on his shoulders. He had become its prophet. The honor of vindicating the freedom of the Press and of publication--of routing the forces of tyranny and property-—-was henceforth to be his. An incarnation of the Genius of Anarchy, the Spirit of Future Freedom, he was to assist most ably in the emancipation of mankind... from the evils of authority and property.