cusers? It was subsequent to this that Mr. Bere thought so well of my principles, as to importune me, even with tears, to establish a school in his parish, lamenting its extreme profligacy and his own inability to do any good to the rising generation. There was company present when he repeatedly made these applications, which I refused, pleading want of health, time, and money. I also declared my unwillingness to undertake it, unless it was the wish of the parish. He then sent his churchwardens as a deputation from the parish; I yielded at last, on hearing that a woman, one of his parishioners, was under sentence of death. I only name this to acquit myself of the charge of intrusion.

"As to connexion with conventicles of any kind, I never had any. Had I been irregular, should I not have gone sometimes, since my winter residence at Bath, to Lady Huntingdon's chapel, a place of great occasional resort? Should I not have gone to some of Whitfield's or Wesley's Tabernacles in London, where I have spent a long spring for near thirty years? Should I not have strayed now and then into some Methodist meeting in the country? Yet not one of these things have I ever done.

"For an answer to the charge of my having ever made any application to get Mr. Bere removed from his curacy, I refer your lordship to Dr. Moss and Dr. Crossman, in case you are not satisfied with the declaration of both in Dr. Crossman's printed letter to Sir A. Elton.

"Mrs. Bere's letter to me, dated January 4th, 1799, complaining of Young's Monday meeting, which I was prevented answering by a long illness, was, in fact, virtually answered immediately, by my sister's writing to Young to put a stop directly to the irregularities complained of; which was done. A proof that this ground of complaint had ceased to exist when Mr. Bere made his first attack on me in the beginning of April, 1800, appears by a very friendly letter which I have by me from Mr. Bere, dated March 8th, 1800, only about three weeks before Mr. Bere's open attack, and nearly a year and a quarter after the complaint had been made and redressed. Mr. Bere's affidavits, taken by himself, in his own cause, which were flatly contradicted by counter evidence, and which, having no dates to the facts which they attest, could never have been admitted in a court of justice, have all a retrospective reference of one, two, four, and even six years back. Another proof that there was no longer any ground of complaint existing is, that, when Mr. and Mrs. Descury, a respectable family, came to live at Blagdon, near a year after, they were introduced by Mrs. Bere to the school in presence of my sister with the highest encomiums; their attachment to the school originated from those warm praises, and was afterwards confirmed by their own frequent attendance. I should add, that, having heard in the preceding summer that Mr. Bere had thrown out from the pulpit some insinuations against the school, I went to him with

the greatest civility, and assured him that, as I was shocked at the thought of carrying on an opposition scheme, I was ready to withdraw the school, if it had not his entire approbation. Again he shed tears at the bare idea, and implored me not to deprive the parish of such a benefit.

"When Mr. Bere sent me his hostile letter, menacing the schoolmaster, (April, 1800,) I was in London; and, being unable, at that distance, to inquire fairly into the complaint, I wrote twice to Mr. Bere, earnestly requesting to refer the whole to Sir A. Elton, as a respectable and judicious magistrate in the neighbourhood; and begged they might investigate the business together. This Mr. Bere twice positively refused. I could have no partial motive in the reference, for I knew so little of Sir A. Elton, that he had never been in my house; whereas he had been long known to Mr. Bere, and I could not have suggested a more fair and peaceable mode of setting all to rights.

“The ground on which human prudence, especially judging after the event, may most reasonably condemn me, is, that I did not instantly dismiss Young. I grant that it would have saved me infinite distress. But I not only thought myself bound to protect an innocent man, whom I still conceive to have been falsely accused,' but I was also convinced that, as the event has proved the object in view was not merely to ruin him, but to

Mrs. More does not allude to the charge of irregularity, which was admitted; but to that of having traduced Mr. Bere,

strike at the principle of all my schools, and to stigmatize them as seminaries of fanaticism, vice, and sedition. I was highly displeased with Young when I found that he had allowed two or three of these silly people to attempt extempore prayer. It was from half a dozen to twelve or thirteen poor neighbours, who, it seems, met for one hour in a week for religious conversation. That vulgar people will be vulgar in their religion, and that illiterate people will talk ignorantly, who will deny? But this had nothing to do with my very large Sunday school, where I never heard that any impropriety was complained of. No such complaint had ever reached me from any of my other schools. Young profited so well by my reprimand for this injudicious measure, that his conduct was ever after perfectly correct. Nor should I have overlooked this fault, had not his morals and industry been exemplary, and had I ever, in the course of ten years, found him at all fanatical. Allow me to add that he now gives the highest satisfaction to the opulent and highly respectable family of the Latouches, near Dublin, who received him to superintend their large charitable institution, after having read all the charges against him, and whose attestation to his good conduct, together with that of Lady Harriet Daly and Baron Daly, I shall trouble your Lordship to peruse. To remove prejudices, however, I resolved to place him elsewhere, had I continued the Blagdon School, which, together with its master, had been restored (after I had dissolved it) at the

earnest request of Dr. Crossman, and with the consent of Dr. Moss. But after Mr. Bere's restoration to the curacy, no entreaties of Dr. Crossman could induce me to continue it. I took a journey to Dr. C's. house in the West on purpose to assure him that I did not withdraw my school from resentment, but that I should consider the continuance of it as an act of opposition to Mr. Bere; whereas, by putting an end to the school, I thought I should disarm him of every plea for farther hostility. This sacrifice for the sake of peace proved ineffectual. I abolished my school with regret (full and flourishing as it was) for the second time on a Sunday in September, 1801, and on the Wednesday following the most hostile of all his pamphlets against me was advertised. May I be permitted to add, that Dr. Maclaine, who spent great part of the last two summers at Blagdon, knew much of the school and its master. Permit me to refer your lordship to him. In the learned and venerable translator of Mosheim, you will not expect to find an-advocate for fanaticism. It has been repeatedly said that, being a Calvinist myself, I always employed Calvinistic teachers. I never knowingly employed one. As to Calvinism or Arminianism, I should be very sorry if such terms were known in my schools, it never having been my object to teach dogmas and opinions, but to train up good members of society, and plain practical Christians. I have discharged two teachers for discovering a tendency to enthusiasm, and one for being accused of it, without discovering such