TOM POOLEY, TRIUMPHANT.

 “Judge Coldridge And His Son with the Clergey magastrates And jurey men of Cornwall Have Learnt A Wise Lesson.  They know what they Houte to Have known Before they Had Eny Thing to Doe with T. Pooley. They know now that Thir is A one Allmighty Being that Brought All Things Into Being And judge Coldridge would Have Saved ‘is Chariter from Shame and Disgrace if He Had Sed:  ‘Pooley, Doe you Believe that thir is a one Allmighty Being that Brought All Things Into Being?’”     T. Pooley.

Tom was soon congratulating himself on his escape from the prison and the asylum. Once safe home in his house in Moon’s Court, he gloated like the Toad at Toad Hall.  “The battle is fought and the victory is won.  The Cornish Infidel is left go free from Christian traps and Christian snares.”   In his fevered imagination the Church in Cornwall was reeling from the blows that he had struck. “The Christian Clergy have had their misery!  They have caught a strange fish in Thomas Pooley!”  Had he not put his faith in the One Almighty Being that brought this Globe into being and had not events proved him right so to have done?  He had tested the competence of his own personal Deity: “for I’m certain the One and True Almighty has shown his power in this cause and Christian tyrants are beginning to tremble. And I’m the only man that was ever brought out of the dungeon when Christian blind tyrants had thrust him in.  I think that Christian tyrants are beginning to feel there is a wise and powerful Almighty and they will find the truth of this in their dying moments.”  He was even prepared to be generous in his triumph, “For I am not going to condemn the Christians as human beings, I only condemn their deeds of injustice, tyranny and oppression.” 

At the same time, he was telling himself that he was now befriended by George Holyoake and an army of Freethinkers, “the true friends of the One Almighty that would not suffer Christian tyrants to have their sway.”  He could not understand how there could be such creatures as Freethinkers: “but I was found by them that knew me not and delivered from the horrid snares by those that do not believe there is a God.  But I hope there is no such man or woman.”  He could believe in his One Almighty Being but he couldn’t really believe in atheists.  He was nonetheless grateful to them: “How to make amends for your kindness you have shown to my wife and children when I was cast into the Christian dungeon for bringing to light the true laws and works of a One Almighty Power?  There is no thanks that will meet the justness and kindness you have shown to me and my family with that humanity, you friends of the One and True and Wise Almighty.”  Anyone who was Tom’s friend must by definition be a friend of his One Almighty Being.  He even went so far as to ask Holyoake for a book on Freethinking and for copies of The Reasoner to be sent to him.  He had already read with delight the pamphlet on ‘The Case of the Cornish Well-Sinker.”     One can imagine how much Tom rejoiced at seeing his name in print and on being referred to as Mr Pooley.  He paid for his copies of The Reasoner with that new invention, the postage stamp.  More than once he wrote to ask that his own ‘Gospel’ should be published in The Reasoner’s pages,   He  felt sure that his chaotic writings with their bizarre orthography would be welcomed by that journal.  He believed, against all the evidence, that his own homespun theology and the views of Holyoake’s publications were altogether compatible:  “I should feel obliged if you would publish this to let the friends of truth know what is doing, so I am a martyr to the truth that the grave is a thinking and a living womb of life where there is no rest.”  Needless to say, The Reasoner did not publish these writings.  Tom’s faith, however, in himself, and the supposition that his own knowledge and wisdom were superior to all others, the same arrogance that Sir John Coleridge had noted and called “a matter of the greatest blindness” had not been dented.   No new light had dawned upon him and far from reproaching himself and repenting in bitterness of heart for the words he had uttered and written. his faith in his own scheme, which Sir John had hoped would be extinguished by his time in prison, was stronger than ever.

What’s more Tom had been vouchsafed a new revelation as to the reason why the One Almighty had permitted him to suffer in the gaol and the asylum.   It now became clear to him that there had been a divine purpose in his adventure.  And the one and true Almighty would not suffer his laws and works to be buried or to be keep dark in the Christian dungeon as I’m the only man that was ever brought out of the dungeon when Christian blind tyrants had thrust him in.” It was the One Almighty who had delivered him from prison although others might have been instrumental in the business:  “for I had no friend in man but the One Almighty”,  and his Almighty had delivered Tom because he wanted him  “to be a private spy to see what Bible Christians will do by human life.” It had been his manifest destiny to bear witness to the punishments meted out by Bible tyrants: “what horrors I have seen with Christians in this mad career!  I must thank the Christians for casting me into their trap or dungeon for to see their horrid brutality to their fellow Christians or those poor dupes that (are) its followers.   Tom had seized the moment: “It (is) time for me to let the lovers of truth know something about the Christian’s traps and snares”

There is still perhaps somewhere a photograph of Tom Pooley triumphant.  With what spirit he must have visited the photographer!  With what self-confidence he must have presented himself to be immortalised!  I must report, with a sense of failure, that although Tom went out of his way to be photographed holding a copy of Holyoake’s pamphlet, I have been unable to discover a copy of this photograph. It must have been an expensive  gesture.  How did he dress for the occasion? What pose did he strike?  Was there fire in his eye and contempt for Clergy Magistrates upon his lips?  Alas, it appears that you and I shall never see this portrait of the Cornish blasphemer.  All that I know is what was published in The Reasoner of 24th March 1858 under the heading: Present to the Portrait Gallery where is reported: “We have received an interesting photograph of Thos. Pooley from his daughter which we have added to the portraits of the Institute.  Pooley is holding a copy of the Secularist Report of his case in his hand, the celebrated Gate of the Rev. Paul Bush being prominently visible.”   We must conclude that, for a time, Tom Pooley’s portrait hung at 147 Fleet Street alongside portraits of the eminent secularists of the age. But where O where is it now?