Supplement Notes On The "Correspondence" And "Remonstrance."
THE detail of facts already given is the best answer to the " Remonstrance." I do not therefore go into it at large here. A very few remarks will be needed. The total absence of conscience is so marked in the following passage, that I note it as helping to judge the whole paper: "You consider his refusal to meet a request of yours a sin sufficient to warrant excommunication." Passion alone can be alleged as any answer to a charge of want of conscience in such a passage as this. They call the letter of the 10th of November " Your first letter of summons." They must be perfectly aware (for Mr. Newton had answered them both) that, besides Dr. C.'s correspondence, two letters had been addressed to Mr. Newton, asking him to meet the saints in Rawstorne Street before this. This, called the first, resulted from the interview at Dr. C.'s and was not from Rawstorne Street. What is called the second here was consequent upon their repeated refusals, a final act of the whole body.
A few words as to the general contents of these documents will enable the reader to form an estimate of their character. It purports to be a correspondence relating to a refusal to meet certain citations which are presented as summoning Mr. N. from Plymouth up to London, and a certain letter as the first of them. Now what are the facts? It is true to the letter that this is the correspondence relating to the refusal. And this was the first letter written to Plymouth. But was this the beginning of correspondence? What about the proposal refused? Mr. Newton had been in London, and offered to satisfy brethren. A long correspondence-nay two, with two different parties-had taken place in consequence. All this is entirely suppressed. The first letter here alludes to an interview indeed, and therefore seems very fair; but correspondences had taken place about the proposal refused, and about meeting to consider it. And how came this letter to be written to Plymouth which is produced now, as citing Mr. N. from thence to London? At his own suggestion on leaving London, that they at Plymouth might consider it; and hence the reference in Mr. D-n's letter, who thought it useless, but deferred to Messrs. H. and C., who judged that, not having the presence of mind to reject the proposal of Mr. N. at the time as they ought to have done, it might seem unfair not to act upon it afterward. And this letter, written at his suggestion after the conclusion of what passed in London, is treated as the first, and as a citation from Plymouth up to London. But further: another letter, making a different proposal from Mr. D-n's, was written by Dr. C. in consequence of the same suggestion. This also is suppressed, though the answer referred to the reply to Mr. D-n's.
Further, under color of its arriving only when they were finishing theirs, a letter of December 13* is placed in the correspondence after theirs of December 15, as if it closed the correspondence: it did not, however. There was an answer: this answer I shall here give.
" London, December 22, 1846.
" Dear Brethren,
" We write to acknowledge the receipt of your letter dated December 15; and we beg to say that many of its statements are so entirely untrue, and its perversions regarding the course of action in question so very sad, that, for ourselves, we do not think it would be the path of godly wisdom to read it to the saints at Rawstorne Street. We have also submitted it to the brethren here who are watching and caring for the saints, and they, for the same reasons we have assigned, have counseled us to decline reading it. In addition to your letter a communication has been received from Mr. T. by the same post, in which also we are jointly concerned, and, we may add, that our remarks above, relative to the document received from yourselves, apply in a much stronger degree to his communication. We feel persuaded that if he had been better informed on the facts about which he has written, such statements and allegations as his letter contains could never have been written.
" We remain, dear brethren,
" Yours in Christian regard,
" WILLIAM HENRY D-N.
" HENRY G-H.
" To Messrs. C-w, Newton, S., B., and D."
(* The date of this is omitted in the Table of Contents, where it would attract attention: it is the only one that is.)
It may be well to add that the printed correspondence did not arrive in town for a fortnight after the date of this letter, so that there was ample time for its insertion. The real truth was that the conduct of the five above named had produced entire distrust; and hence the briefness of the reply. But the " Correspondence " and " Remonstrance " were so very bad as to draw forth from Messrs. D-n and G-h a letter, which I have since seen, of a very different character; that is, couched in terms of severity quite unusual with either, and declining, from their estimate of the proceedings of these five, any further correspondence. This, from its date, could not have found a place in the Plymouth publication. The one just read belonged to it, and hence I have added it here.
There are two or three points in the " Reasons " it may be advisable not to leave unnoticed.
To say that silence (p. 4) was the ordinary mode of acting in ordinary cases of unfounded accusation is surely monstrous: I mean, the pretense that they acted on this ground, when there had been repeated meetings of fifteen brethren about matters out of which this arose. Mr. H. had refused ministering; I had left communion; Messrs. H. and N-r had gone and told Mr. N. his account was untrue; ten brethren were there from a distance for investigation; some two hundred or so, though not having formally separated, had ceased going to the Lord's table; and these four (who, if you will believe them, ought to govern the consciences of the congregation without a debate) feel, after a public statement to three hundred impugning Mr. N.'s moral character, that they had nothing to do. The pretension indeed 'of these four to be in this position is quite sufficient to make any statement after it possible.
Next it is said Mr. Newton had in such things the confidence of the whole body. As to those without, I say nothing: people must ask those without. But this I affirm, he had not in such things the confidence of the whole body. The fact was this: very many took all he said in statement or doctrine; the majority exercised no conscience at all. But there were intelligent, godly, independent minds, who were long and thoroughly dissatisfied " in such things ": and this the signers of these " Reasons " know as well as I do.
(P. 7) " The fact that the great majority of those in communion were fully satisfied... is, it appears to us, a public and sufficient expression of the judgment of the church in this question."
" Remonstrance " (p. 5). " 4. It must be the universal act of the whole church, so that no question could arise in the conscience of any godly saint as to the propriety and necessity of the sentence."
" If valid at all, this act is the result of the Holy Spirit's presence in the body, preserving holiness in its midst. It is because God refuses to have a defiled temple-it is at His command-it is through His power that the evil person is put away. Where His Spirit acts, there must be unanimity." Is it not singular that a majority appears to them to be a public and sufficient expression of the judgment of the church in the " Reasons "? And that " where the Spirit acts there must be unanimity " in the " Remonstrance '? Or is there any real principle at all, when one principle is taken to clear themselves, and another to condemn Rawstorne Street? At Ebrington Street all who originally labored (and some two hundred more) have left; but there a majority suffices. Here, where there really was extraordinary unanimity, it must be absolute for the Spirit to have acted. Both their principles are wrong; but he who professes two for his convenience has none. But to do this in so solemn a matter as God's presence, is such trifling with the subject as, if not judged, will be judged of the Lord in those who do not.
(P. 12.) The impartiality of the tribunal at Ebrington Street I pass over. It was there the accused themselves.
(P. 18.) Mr. N. in the MS. letter referred to, after urging very strongly the ruinous character of certain teaching, and stating that if it was once admitted " the foundations of Christianity were gone," says, " that with respect to such passages we have a right to expect a clear unhesitating answer from all who teach in the church." He now declares, " I had no conception that it ever would or could be interpreted to mean that I wished none to be received as teachers who held the system of interpretation therein objected to." And what did he mean? Did he mean that he did wish that teaching which subverted the foundations of Christianity should continue, and that the teachers of the doctrine should be received? Were the saints to get a clear unhesitating answer that a person was teaching what subverted the foundations of Christianity, and, after having got it, to receive such as teachers? Is there any sense in that? It has been attempted to be said that these letters universally circulated in MS. were not so bad; that they merely stated that those doctrines led to these results when pushed to their legitimate consequences, etc. This is not the case. The statement is, " if it be once admitted [that is, the interpretation of Matt. 24 contrary to Mr. N.'s], the foundations of Christianity are gone." Why, in his account of severe expressions, has he omitted this from the same passage? Why another, that we deny all the gospels? " And thus this passage, and with it the whole gospel, and all the gospels, are swept away as not properly belonging to the church." That we denied the gospels was carefully instilled into the poor and persons of the Established Church. Tracts were sold at the tract shop, declaring it might be easily shown we subverted the first elements of Christianity.
But it was easy to settle things with most of the brethren who went down. I was not allowed to be present. Such an investigation as that, I do not doubt, will always be desired, let it have been decided by the church publicly, as alleged, twenty times. If someone, having the facts in his mind, be not there to check the statements, any may be made, denied, explained, and gone, before their character is sifted.
Lastly, it must not be supposed that this "Remonstrance" was really addressed to Rawstorne Street. A very few days after it arrived there, and before any answer was sent, it was on sale at the tract shop in London.
I would now add a few words as to a general principle, or point of practice, of some importance, in the actual path of the gathered saints.
One would have thought that if a person were seriously and credibly charged with evil, and he refused, when called on, to satisfy the conscience of the church of God, it would have been sufficiently simple to the mind of every one that he could not come to the table till it was cleared up. Such a course was certainly plainly understood and acted upon, till prejudice as to persons interfered with moral understanding. The truth is, the person has himself practically refused to hear the church. Put the contrary case: a person is credibly charged with thieving, or with murder, or with drunkenness, and instances are alleged. The church take it up, feeling that it must be investigated. This is refused. It is alleged that the party's conscience is to be respected, and that it is against his conscience to be judged by the church. If every one could say this, it is very clear there is an end of all discipline. A person has only to plead conscience as to any mode of investigation, and every kind of sinner can maintain his place at the Lord's table in spite of the church of God. Such a principle is monstrous upon the face of it. There may be cases so clear as, for example, a person caught in the fact of sin-that no inquiry is called for, unless to discriminate as to the circumstances, how far they are to be dealt with in compassion, or with fear; or the church may be satisfied of the guilt of the party without his appearing, or in spite of his denial of it, and act on that guilt. But further, if the case be not so clear, or be denied, the church of God is entitled, nay bound, to use every means, not in themselves unrighteous, so that it may have a just and holy conscience in acting. No doubt it has to act in grace, and with consideration, in this; but it is bound to act for God in truth. It may be able to judge without parties and witnesses meeting: if not, it is bound to have them. The refusal of the party accused is really of no weight at all, save against himself. The offer of the party accused to give his own account of the matter, and the plea that this should satisfy the church of God, is too great an outrage on common decency of dealing between man and man (not to speak of the holier judgment of the church of God) to be listened to. But, further, it may become impossible to excommunicate such a person for his guilt. The church, by a just feeling, may refuse, in given circumstances, to conclude absolutely that he is guilty, without hearing him; but he refuses to come.
It cannot therefore receive him, till he either comes before them, or the matter is fully investigated, or cleared up. The act in such a case amounts to this: " You must come, if at all, through an investigation, to the table." Now this is what has been done. The church is bound to be satisfied where such charges lie. They have said, " Satisfy us." It is replied, " No." Now it is clear that if the party were proved innocent in any other way, to the satisfaction of the conscience of the body so acting, the barrier is gone. And this is what has been said: " they feel precluded meeting you at the table of the Lord, till the matters in question have been fairly and fully investigated." This, as has been shown, they never have been: the greatest part of them were in no way whatever inquired into.
Take, in the case before us, what is declared in the " Remonstrance " to be necessary for excommunication. " The sin must have been palpably and distinctly proved against the individual." A person, by refusing to appear, makes it not possible in many cases to do this in a satisfactory way. The church does not therefore excommunicate the party as proved to be guilty. But it maintains, as it is bound to do, in God's name, its title, its obligation, to judge sin and the sinner, when the case is brought before it (otherwise it is partaker in it) and declares he can come on no other terms than that which it is bound to, namely, the maintenance of the holiness of the Lord's table in the Lord's name.
This then is what has been done. There has not been an excommunication upon proved guilt, but there has been, when the occasion arose, the maintenance of that judgment of evil by the church, without which it ceases to exist as the church of God at all. And I now solemnly declare-though I never did while it might have looked like a threat, or like pressing the point, or using personal influence, which I should account a sin-that had Rawstorne Street not done so, I should have left Rawstorne Street as I left Ebrington Street. They acted-and I bless God for it-happily, freely, and under the Lord's guidance: but the question had come evidently to a solemn point, in which God would direct the state of things one way or another; and my mind was made up. Most thankful I am that the very opposite of such a step was called for. Poor and feeble as the brethren may have been, God was with them: and He whose strength is made perfect in weakness has vindicated His own ways.
In saying this, I have no wish to wrong Ebrington Street, where I know there are many dear saints, nor to flatter Rawstorne Street. Every individual there might have gone wrong as an individual had they had to act: I only speak of their public position. God has guided them as a body: for this they are debtors, not to be exalted in themselves.
There is not a doubt, in the case before us, that a very large body had such convictions as to Mr. N. as would have precluded them from breaking bread with him on much fuller grounds than the one on which they acted as a body. The eyes of many were opened by what they had themselves witnessed in London: but they would not step beyond what they had (of God) before them as a body of saints; and it has, and will have, its weight. Already it has. For a length of time those at Plymouth could not be got to print anything, though they circulated it in private. They alleged this was grace. What has become of this grace? God is with the church, with His poor saints, when they act humbly and faithfully before Him. He has contrasted the path of Ebrington Street and that of Rawstorne Street. The latter has patiently, peacefully, cleared itself from partaking in evil. And what is the condition of Ebrington Street? It has for its exclusive guides five persons, whose communications have really lost them, at any rate for the moment, the moral respect of spiritual, informed, and unprejudiced brethren elsewhere, whatever affection or compassion they may feel for the individuals, or however they may think some of them to be merely misled and not misleading. And these five persons avowedly claim in print the right of judging every case that arises, without the saints (whatever they may think) being at liberty to debate the verdict which may have been announced to them. The applicability of that passage, " Ye suffer if a man beat you, if a man take of you, if a man bring you into bondage," has constantly struck me in this case.
I pressed this matter on their consciences as a body at Ebrington Street. No one stirred: it was treated as a dissenting movement on my part. The church consequently has now been openly declared not to be a judicial assembly, and the verdict passed by four persons-Messrs. C-w, S., B., and D.-concludes the whole assembly, without the possibility of calling it in question. This is now avowed by them. Whether the body at Ebrington Street acquiesce in it I know not. One thing is certain; if they leave it where it is, they are bound by this principle. It has been published plainly enough. Be their conscience ever so troubled, they are not capacitated of God to inquire more into the matter. Sorry I should be to have my conscience so bound by any men. Nor are those who assume such a place here such as would commend such a principle to me. The principles we have been discussing at the opening of these remarks apply directly to Mr. Newton's case. He was accused, to state it in few words, of clericalism, sectarianism, and untruth. Of the two first, and consequently of subverting the very principles on which brethren met, even some of his best friends declare he is guilty; of the latter, many godly persons also. He refuses to satisfy the saints. They are bound not to receive him till he clears it up. As to a poor saint no one would have hesitated an instant. Let it be said that he is an elder: more than two or three grave persons think that he is guilty. •
I do not think sectarianism the main point, though an important one: and by sectarianism is here meant having actually made a sect of Plymouth, that is, of Ebrington Street. Not to speak of deeper principles evidently involved, the broad fact that the claim is now openly put forth, that four persons who think proper to claim the ministry among themselves can form a judgment among themselves of every case, and can impose this on the church as binding and conclusive judgment, is of yet greater moral importance, and involves much deeper consequences. In letters not published, not to speak of well-known teachings, the same thing is fully claimed as to ministry, even for a single minister. I have seen one with a long and subtle preface, condemning all the early course at Plymouth, as if it were modest self-condemnation, and seeming to own the Holy Ghost in gift, but assuming the regulation into a single minister's hands, so that not a hymn should be given out, nor a chapter read, nor any one pray, till parties had the minister's allowance on his ascertaining their qualifications.
This then is the state of Ebrington Street. The two things which drove from the Establishment on one side and from Dissent on the other are unitedly established there: one of them avowedly, and the other recognized by every impartial mind. How brethren can expect a person of any principle to remain there is very strange. Why should they have left systems where a thousand ties kept them, because one of these principles was found, and remain where both are established in the face of clearer light-and this, where it has been done, not openly and honestly, but by means which would establish unity at the expense of straightforwardness, and make the establishment of authority sanction every evil, if it be a means to it? And such is the brief picture of genuine clericalism in every place. A man who keeps another's conscience by authority will soon be found to have very little of his own. We have all to watch against it. An attempt to establish it will never find me as an associate in the work.
And now, my brethren, one word more. The case, under God's wonderful hand, has been sufficiently brought forward to put it on the conscience of the brethren at large, through the quiet conduct, followed as a matter of duty, of some brethren in London. I have not acted myself in the matter, save as needed for my own conscience, in leaving, or as bound by circumstances. I have remained here in London, as subject to the brethren's judgment, when called upon to do so. I have acted as the servant of the brethren involved in quiet faithfulness in the case, so far as to make it plain as far as the published documents required it; I mean in this publication. I now retire again to take my own position in respect of it. There is, I judge, quite sufficient before brethren, to have their conscience clear as to the path they are to walk in. In respect to the matter itself my path would be a decided one; in my judgment of myself a humble one becomes me. Both lead me to the same way before the Lord. Brethren, I believe, have to get clear of a snare of Satan. I am not aware that I have any more service to perform in this respect which the Lord would have me to do. If there be, I should not, I trust, shrink from it. Had I been more spiritual and faithful, perhaps there might: actually I do not think there is. As regards my conscience I shall always treat it as a work of Satan: doubtless demanding patience as regards those unawares caught, but not allowing an instant's compromise with even the slightest acquiescence in it. I leave in the Lord's hands the path of the brethren concerning it, happy to walk with them where it is open to me to do so, and they allow me; the Spirit having its just power, and I holding fast the principles which I have avowed to them here.
For my own part, while conscious in this affair of no fault nor want of charity (I do not say no want of power), I have ever found that dealing with the sin of others awakens my conscience to all my own before God; and while, through mercy, enjoying that mercy unclouded, the very thought of want of power itself, and the whole course of the matter, has served most healthfully to sift my own soul, and to cause it to repass before God all that may have contributed to it, and discover to me all my own failures. Here I have found abundant cause for humiliation, though yet more for admiring and owning and adoring the faithfulness and grace of God. As between me and the brethren who judge my path in this particular matter, I can appeal, without a shade of distrust in my heart, to the judgment of One above us both; I shall not accuse them in it; I await the grace and work of God.
The sifting we have all received will, if we are spared, bring us together again in spiritual energy and power, according as we bow to it and let it have its perfect work in ourselves. If we balance the unjustifiable charge of others with what God has given us, we shall soon find our own repose in peace as to anything which may be even unjustly charged upon us.
As completing this account, I add, at the desire of the
brethren, the final answer to the last communication from
Plymouth:-
" London, January 4th, 1847.
" Dear Brethren,
" It is only right and courteous to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of December to the saints at Rawstorne Street, though brethren laboring there have decided not to read it publicly, on the ground (amongst other reasons) of its not being a truthful statement of the matters on which it treats, and which are now before the saints.
" We can assure you it is a very painful and humbling thing to be constrained to communicate such an expression of the minds of brethren in the Lord, and much more so, to be obliged to express our own conviction that this last letter (to say nothing of former ones that had passed through our hands) has not been written in good faith, much less in Christian simplicity.
" In the first place, you know that Mr. Newton has not been excommunicated by the brethren in Rawstorne Street; and therefore what you have said professedly in so solemn a manner about excommunication could not have had weight with your own minds any more than with ours.
" But, if Mr. N. was serious in what he wrote, he was excommunicated as long since as March loth, 1846, before anything was thought of at Rawstorne Street; for he thus wrote: ' We have been excommunicated by certain brethren '; and consequently all the effects of excommunication on which you dilate so largely were in action then without any reference whatever to what has since transpired.
" But, beside this, it is well known to you that Mr. Newton gave, as a reason for declining to meet Mr. Darby after he had retired from Ebrington Street, that he was an excommunicated person; and therefore all his relations to him as a Christian brother had ceased. Now you will pardon us, dear brethren, if, in the face of these things, we express our belief that Mr. Newton did not think that he and others with him were excommunicated as long back as the 20th of March, although he said so; and that he did not think at an earlier period Mr. Darby was excommunicated, though he said so; and that you do not think that Mr. Newton has been excommunicated by the saints at Rawstorne Street, though you have said so. Under such an impression, you will not wonder at our saying we do not desire a continuance of the present correspondence. It is too painful a thing to continue it in its present form. It is on the ground above stated that we have forborne to touch on other things which called for remark in your letter. If we have unduly identified you with Mr. Newton, it is because you have made us feel that what he thinks you think, and so of his acts. With unfeigned sorrow of heart, we remain,
" Yours in Christian regard,
(Signed) " W. H. D-N.
" HENRY G-H.
" To Messrs. S., B., D., and C-w.
" P.S. This letter has been delayed a day or two accidentally since it was written."
A letter, consequent on this, has been written by a considerable number of brethren, including those to whom letters recommending persons as in communion are habitually communicated, declining any longer receiving such letters from Messrs. C-w, S., B., and D.; but expressing at the same time their anxious desire that it should be understood that it would be their joy to receive, in any way, any Christian known as such from thence as from elsewhere. I have not been able to get an exact copy of the letter; and hence I merely give its substance.
While these pages were in my possession for correcting the press, the letter of Mr. T. was put into my hands in print. I do not think it necessary to answer so violent an attack on the whole body of the saints at Rawstorne Street. The letter itself will be its best answer to every well-judging mind. I have only to remind the reader that it is to this document that the letter of Messrs. D-n and G—h (suppressed in the Plymouth correspondence, but given above) refers, where it says, that the declaration of being " in many of its statements entirely untrue, and its perversions as to the course of action very sad," applies to Mr. T.'s letter more strongly than to the answer of the four which it accompanied. This statement of Messrs. D-n and G-h has been fully adopted by a considerable number of brethren present, in the letter declining to receive testimonials from Messrs. C-w, S., B., and D.: and to this, of whatever weight it may be, I beg to add my most unequivocal testimony.
There is a renewed attempt to get rid of the "Narrative of Facts" as in question at Rawstorne Street, where every one knows it was what occupied the saints. But this, though having the advantage of preceding documents, 'is doubly lame, from being so late in the business; because, in the " Reasons " published by the Plymouth leaders themselves, the charges in the " Narrative of Facts " are stated in the first page to be the subject in question. The statement of Appendix A will, I suppose, be answered by Mr. H-d and Dr. C., as that which they know to be wholly untrue.
I have only here to add, on Mr. G-h's part, that the statement that " the former of these meetings originated in a request, on Mr. G-h's part, that Mr. Newton would meet Dr. C.", is entirely false.
As to Appendix B, the charges were not mentioned, because the brethren acted on Mr. Newton's refusal to go into them. They did not go into the charges against Mr. Newton, nor did they hear reasons for refusing to answer them; but the "Narrative" was repeatedly referred to as the subject in question. The fact is, it had been pressed some time before on the conscience of the whole body, to the regret of many, by a brother one Sunday morning after worship was over, when neither Mr. W. nor myself was there, and done without communication with any, that no appearance of influence might exist. I have already answered the attempt renewed here to mislead as to the charges. The "Reasons" themselves refer to the charges in the "Narrative."
As to Appendix C, Mr. T. has undertaken to give a minute account of what passed at meetings at which he was not present. That account, I affirm, in most respects, to be totally false; for instance, Sir A.C.'s suppressed letter was neither offered nor refused. This I state, not only on my own authority, but I am confirmed by every person present at the meeting whom I have met; unless indeed it were included under the general expression of " Papers proving Mr. N.'s innocence," offered by Mr. W-n, as already stated in the published account of what passed. But that is a separate item in Mr. T.'s account.
On recurring to Appendix C, I perceive that one would be led to suppose that Mr. T. meant that his brother-in-law (Mr. F.P-x) offered it. Mr. P-x asked me, had I not agreed to submit to the judgment of the ten who went down; which I positively denied. But he most certainly proffered no paper nor any letter from Mr. Newton. Whether he had directions from Plymouth to do so, which he thought it no use to follow when I denied an agreement to submit, I cannot tell. I do not think he will accuse me of any want of courtesy in my reply to him, for I had no notion but that he was acting with kindly feeling, very natural towards a friend and relative; and I so expressed myself. Nor will I suppose that he has made this statement to Mr. T. If he has done either, I am sorry for him. As far as I was concerned, his conduct at the meeting (though painful as to position for so young a man) only made me feel for him.
All the three who have been led to put themselves forward here will find their names fully given in the authentic account as objecting to what took place. Mr. B-e was away from London at the final meeting. It is a happy feeling when attacks on statements in a painful matter corroborate and confirm them all. It may be well to notice one other circumstance on the part of the brethren at Rawstorne Street. They were fully informed of the refusal, as stated in their letter, of Mr. Newton to meet them, to satisfy their consciences. They do not speak of being fully informed of the reasons for refusing. But, further, the brethren were most fully informed of the existence of the " Reasons," which was communicated to the brethren, and the propriety of reading them considered. But they declined doing so. One ground is evident: the going into the whole matter at Plymouth in the absence of Mr. Newton and the witnesses of the facts. Moreover I hold very plainly that, if a thing was wrong to be done, no reasons ought to be listened to for doing it.
It will be observed that the three who sign the preface to Mr. T.'s letter do not, in the smallest degree, verify the truth of the statements contained in it. I have the best possible reason for saying this.
The reader may remark that the acquittal insisted on in London is now " a defective paper, which could not be called a formal verdict... it was so inaccurately worded! "
Finally, the body of Mr. T.'s statements are so very bad, that I can only hope that they are the result of the blinding of passion, and not want of principle. I decline therefore entering into further detail.