As you have commenced the prosecution of Carlile, a printer, for publishing an edition of Paine's Age of Reason, in conjunction with the self-styled Society for the Suppression of Vice, I take the liberty to submit to your consideration a few remarks, upon the nature and tendency of this purposed suit. Since prosecutions of this kind are not novel, and as it may be fairly conjectured that you will follow the ordinary routine of men in your office in these causes, and moreover as the accused will

Sir, You are about to be placed in a situation, and to perform a part, which will interweave your name in the page of history:—not, however, in that species of history which records the wars, bloodshed, or misery of nations, as opposed to one another; but in that which exhibits the cruelties of governments towards individuals among their own subjects, who seeing, or thinking they see, their fellow men suffering afflictions through the ignorance, prejudice, and misrule of their governments, endea