numerous constituents, gives us a satisfaction we cannot describe, and affords a prospect which re-animates our spirits and revives our best hopes. Fully persuaded of the truth of our principles, of the justice of our cause, and conscious of none but benevolent views in our public efforts, we are determined to persevere in support of those great truths which have been too long concealed from the world.

The honourable mention you make of that noble individual who has done so much to enlighten the minds of his countrymen, as well as to extend science, was by no means the least pleasing part of your address. Nothing but the personal safety and happiness of him, at whose praise even the tongue of scandal is forced to be silent, could have in any degree reconciled us to his loss. We esteem him as the friend of the whole human race, and as an honour to his country; but the world knows not his value; his country is insensible of his worth. The full effect of his strenuous exertions in his pastoral duty alone cannot at present be computed. It will be more and more felt and acknowledged. In the space of eleven years, he has erected a monument more substantially founded than the pyramids of the East, and inscribed it with characters which shall survive the wreck of nature; we mean in the minds of youth, enlightened and improved by his instructions.

There is a time coming, and we trust it is at no great distance, when the foolish and ignorant persons who perpetrated those dismal acts which you lament, and which we cannot think upon without horror, will be sensible of their folly. Posterity will stamp an anathema on them. The broad blot of this infamy must also remain to tarnish the annals of our country. History must relate, that, at the close of the eighteenth century, the most virtuous and useful members of the community of Great Britain, were oppressed and persecuted without sympathy from the multitude, and that a most distinguished individual met with opprobrium and insolence from a country which he had endeavoured through life to serve in every way that benevolence, science, and uprightness could point out. To have our names transmitted to posterity with his, as those who have incurred reproach for their firm adherence to the principles of civil and religious liberty, is an honour which we did not anticipate, but of which we would not be deprived.

Be assured, Gentlemen, that we shall cheerfully concur with you in your endeavours to obtain the repeal of all penal statutes in matters of religion, hoping that unanimity in the grand principles of liberty and truth will unite the common body of Dissenters, and that they will persevere in their endeavours till those intolerant and unchristian statutes, which have so long been a disgrace to our code, shall be expunged from it.

We remain,

Gentlemen, &c.

Signed in the name, and with the unanimous concurrence of a general meeting of sufferers,

WILLIAM RUSSELL.

No. XVIII.

AN ACCOUNT OF THE CLERGY OF BIRMINGHAM REFUSING TO WALK IN FUNERAL PROCESSIONS WITH DISSENTING MINISTERS, SINCE THE RIOT.

(See supra, p. 439.)

In this present month of October 1792, the Rev. Mr. Scholefield was requested by the surviving relatives of one of his hearers (of the name of Thomson) to attend at the funeral, to which he readily assented, but inquired at which of the churches the corpse was to be interred, and whether the clergyman had been apprized of the intention of the family respecting the invitation given to himself. These questions were put to the daughter of the deceased, and before she had replied to them, the son came in, who had just then been to the Rev. Mr. Young, lecturer of St. Paul's Chapel, (where it was intended to inter the corpse,) and his report was, that when he gave Mr. Young an invitation to attend the funeral from the house of the deceased, he very readily assented; but, upon being told that Mr. Scholefield was expected there, and that it was hoped he would have no objection to going in the same coach with him, he said, at first, that he did not know, but after a very short pause, added, "The Clergy of the town had come in general to a resolution not to ride or walk with any Dissenting Minister at a funeral"

This declaration from Mr. Young is the more remarkable, as he has rode in the same coach with Mr. Scholefield upon a former similar occasion.

No. XIX.

A DESCRIPTION OF AN ALLEGORICAL MEDAL PUBLISHED AT BIRMINGHAM SINCE THE RIOT.

(See supra, p. 489.)

This Day is published,

DEDICATED TO ALL REVOLUTIONISTS IN THE BRITISH

DOMINIONS,

AN ALLEGORICAL MEDAL!

1791-2.

OBVERSE.

THE demon or evil genius of the 14th of July, is displaying her democratic standard; the flag contains a king's crown, surrounded with drops of blood, alluding to the regicides of the last century. On the top is a cap of liberty, the mistaken idea of which is the

source of all her enormities. The young fiends she cherishes proves her prolific wickedness, which illustrates this motto,

66 OUR FOOD IS SEDITION."

REVERSE.

A viper in the grass;—this character cannot be better illustrated than where history proves that his subtilty brought misery on all mankind. He here partakes of the blessings of heaven and earth; at the same time, in secret covert, is premeditating destruction against the very cause of his comfort. The motto,

66 NOURISHED TO TORMENT,"

shews the restless ingratitude of a corrupt and disloyal heart.

No. XX.

AN ACCOUNT OF THE HIGH-CHURCH SPIRIT WHICH HAS LONG PREVAILED AT STOURBRIDGE.

(See supra, p. 439.)

As the violent high-church spirit which produced the Riot at Birmingham has been generally ascribed to me, I have taken some pains to inquire into the state of some of the neighbouring places in that respect; and thinking that from Stourbridge (which it is something remarkable I never was at, except in once riding through it) to be as much to my purpose as any, I shall give it, as collected from different persons, whose accounts, I have no doubt, may be depended upon.

*

The Presbyterian church at Stourbridge was founded by Mr. Foley, an ancestor of the present Lord Foley, the members of which church first assembled in his house for public worship. This house has since been converted into an inn, and the room now called the Old Assembly-Room was the room used for that purpose. Mr. Foley's domestic chaplain (a Mr. Flower) was their pastor for many years. About this time, the said Mr. Foley erected a large building for the reception of sixty poor boys, whom he directed should be clothed in a blue uniform, lodged and boarded in the house, and taught reading, writing, and merchants' accounts; and that afterwards they should be placed out with a small premium to such trades, and to such masters, as the boys and their parents should approve of. This good man lived to see his benevolent design carried into execution; and, having amply endowed the charity with considerable estates, it has continued to this day to

* Probably Thomas Foley, M. P. for Bewdley, in 1660, and for the county of Worcester from 1681 to 1698, whose descendant was created Baron Foley of Kidderminster in 1711. His second son Paul, M. P. for Hereford, was Speaker of the House of Commons in 1695. See Parliamentary Register, 1741, pp. 23, 112, 265; and the Peerages.

answer the ends for which it was intended, as many opulent tradesmen now living, who were educated there, can with gratitude testify. For several years last past the feoffees of this institution have not permitted any Dissenter to take a boy from the school, as an apprentice.

A Dissenting tradesman now living, who had an apprentice from thence about thirty years since, applied for one some years afterwards, and was told by the feoffees, that his request could not be complied with, as it was their determination that no Dissenter should have a boy from that school.

A gentleman of Bewdley, now living, applied about ten years since for an apprentice: the first question the feoffees asked him was, whether he was a Dissenter, and, upon replying in the affirmative, he received the same answer. * Knowing that the founder of the institution was a Dissenter, one would have thought that the principles of common integrity would have prevented them from such a shameful perversion of the intention of the donor: but, where bigotry supplies the place of charity and candour, shame is generally discarded, and every profession of virtue is little more than a tinkling cymbal.

Owing to the mismanagement of a former steward, the feoffees were some years back much involved in debt, and were obliged to take long credit with goods bought for the use of the house, so that nothing induced many tradesmen to continue to supply them but the expectation of their being better customers in future, which the stewards always assured them would be the case in a few years. A Dissenting tradesman of Stourbridge, who had supplied them for many years, and with whom they usually took a credit of two or three years, was informed about eight or ten years since by the then steward, who called to discharge the account with the said tradesman, that he had orders from the feoffees to go elsewhere for the goods in future. The tradesman being naturally desirous of knowing the reason of their leaving him, after having done business with him for so many years, was importunate with the steward to be satisfied on that head, to which (after much hesitation) he replied, that they did not wish to do business with Dissenters. Upon this, the tradesman desired to know how this objection never occurred to them before, which was fully explained by the steward, who said, that formerly they were obliged to get goods where they could, but that now, as several leases of estates had dropped, their finances were in such a state that the feoffees were enabled to pay ready money for all the goods they bought, and, therefore, were determined now to buy of no Dissenter!

It is worthy of remark, that one of the present feoffees has, or formerly had, in his possession a bust of the late Pretender; and that his father was one of a party, whose usual practice it was at their convivial meetings to fall upon their knees before the said bust, and drink each of them their first glass to the restoration of

* I have frequently heard that the feoffees are equally careful in preventing the children of poor Dissenters from gaining an admittance into the said school. (P.)

the Stuart family to the throne of these kingdoms. These are the men who, with matchless effrontery, would now persuade the nation that they are the only true friends of the constitution.*

After the death of Mr. Foley, the congregation of Dissenters met for public worship in a meeting-house in the Coventry Street; and about the year t, the high-church party assembled, and by violence tore up the pews and pulpit, which they burnt with the minister's Bible, in the midst of the market. This atrocity the court very properly noticed, brought the perpetrators thereof to punishment, and ordered the place to be new pewed, the expense of which was paid out of the treasury. I have heard of no absolute violence exercised against the Dissenters of that town since that period; but, until the present rector of the parish, of which Stourbridge is a part, came to reside there, a stiffness and unkindness on the part of the Episcopalians was observable towards them. Two circumstances which happened in one family will tend to satisfy any person of the truth of this remark.

A clergyman of the parish having been invited to the funeral of a Dissenter, and observing, upon his being introduced into the room where the bearers were assembled, that Mr. Edge, the Dissenting Minister, was one of the party, left the house in anger, and sent his clerk to apologize for his conduct, by saying that," as he could not ride with Mr. Edge, if they would send his hatband and scarf, he would meet the corpse at the church." The hatband and scarf were very properly refused, and he was obliged to bury the corpse without them.

Another clergyman of the parish being invited to a funeral in the same family, and having an equal dislike to ride with the Dissenting Minister, had the art to disguise that dislike until he had procured his hatband and scarf, and till the procession was ready to move, when he galloped through the town before the hearse to the astonishment of the spectators. The names of these clergymen were Brown and Male, and the facts are perfectly in the remembrance of many persons now living: but it is justice due to Mr. Male to say, that he lived to see the folly of his conduct, and afterwards became a very liberal man.

As was hinted before, the intercourse between the people of the Establishment and the Dissenters of Stourbridge was much increased by the present rector settling among them. Soon after he

The enmity of this gentleman to the Dissenters may in some measure be accounted for. An ancestor of his having by will left a large sum of money to the father of the said gentleman, IN TRUST, to be divided among the indigent Dissenting Ministers of the midland counties; and he having thought fit to apply the same to his own use, the Associated Body of Ministers in London undertook the cause, which was at length brought before the Lord Chancellor King, who awarded the money to be applied as the testator directed, and the whole of the costs (which were considerable) to be paid by the trustee. (P.) Lord King was Chancellor from 1725 to 1733.

+ Probably 1710, the era of Sacheverell.

+ Thus in London, March 1, 1710, "The mob that attended Dr. Sacheverell to his trial, attacked Mr. Burgess's meeting-house, [Carey Street,] and having pulled down the pulpit, pews, &c., made a bonfire of them in Lincoln's-Inn Fields." Salmon's Chron. Hist. 1741, I. p. 366. See Prot. Diss. Mag. VI. p. 389.