In a speech in the Westminster election of 1818, the radical John Gale Jones recalled that a number of years earlier an institution had been founded under the auspices of several pious bishops, inclined to evangelical views, to distribute Bibles and spread religious education amongst the poor. Some of the aristocracy, especially Windham, ‘“foresaw the dangerous consequences, and anticipated, from the general dissemination of knowledge among the people, destruction to the church and state.” (Laughter and Applause).’ Windham, he noted, was taken little notice of, but now the establishment saw their error. ‘“We find that from reading religious books, the People begin to have a taste for politics and that when the Police officers have ransacked their habitations, instead of Bibles and Prayer Books, they have found under their pillow the heretical and detestable Works of Thomas Paine.” (Laughter and Applause).’

The laughter and applause which Gale Jones's irony evoked and which Richard Carlile reported in his publication of the speech, heralded a period when political radicalism and atheism stood together in the open. From 1819 to around 1822–3, the coalescence of infidelity and revolution, of blasphemy and sedition appeared to be established. A number of leading radicals not only openly confessed their irreligion, but argued that religious restraints must be thrown aside so that the people could enjoy political and individual liberty.