Letter 627

Your obedient servant.

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DCXXVII. — To Mr. Samuel Wells.

DEAR SAMMY, LONDON, January 28, 1779.

ACCORDING to the Act of Toleration,

1. You are required to certify to the Registrar of the Bishop’s Court, or the Justices, the place of your meeting for divine worship. This is all you have to do. You ask nothing at all of the Bishop or Justices.

2. The Registrar, or Clerk of the Court, is “required to register the same, and to give a certificate thereof to such persons as shall demand the same; for which there shall be no greater fee or reward taken than sixpence.” I advise you to go once more to the Sessions, and say, “Gentlemen, we have had advice from London: We desire nothing at all of you; but we demand of your Clerk to register this place, and to give us a certificate thereof; or to answer the refusal at his peril.”

Answer no questions to Justices or Lawyers, but with a bow, and with repeating the words, “Our business is only with your Clerk: We demand of him what the Act requires him to do.”

If you judge proper, you may show this to any of the Justices. What I have written, I am ready to defend.

P.S. You led the Justices into the mistake, by your manner of addressing them. Beware of this for the time to come: You have nothing to ask of them.