In another letter to the same gentleman, condoling with him on the loss of a very bright and intellectual son, he writes:
"Be assured of my sympathy and condolence, for indeed 'I mourn with you'. Neither of my own boys promising to be anything, I had pictured yours as being one of my future aids. I had formed high hopes of him, he was one of the brightest youths I had ever met. I had often wished that my boys were like him."
At another date, after some more unpleasant experiences with his own boys, he writes again to Mr.
Turton, who for more than twenty years was his bosom friend and shared all his secrets, if he had any. "The only idea that my boys entertain of a father is that he is a person to be fleeced. They sell my goods and make no return of the money." And then in a burst of feeling he concludes: "Such a family as I have neither God nor devil could manage." But enough of these unpleasant matters, which would not be given but that it is necessary to do so to serve their purpose in the cause of truth. Carlile's patience and forbearance with the unfortunate peculiarities of this wife earned for him the sobriquet of a noted sage. The Rev. Robert Taylor complimented him many a time and oft, and said, "that it was a Xantippe alone who could have made him into such a perfect resemblance in manner and character to Socrates".
Richard, the eldest son, emigrated to America soon after his father's death, and settled in Wisconsin, near Milwaukee; and was elected to the House of Assembly from that State. He died of ship fever on his return to America after paying a visit to London in 1855.
The following account of the memorable and terrible Manchester massacre is given by Carlile himself. It was his escape from this, and his subsequent publishing of the particulars concerning it, that drew down upon him the vengeful malice of the then Prime Minister, Lord Castlereagh, who was thereafter bent on Carlile's undoing.