refted in the honour and reputation of it, and could not therefore be supposed to be defirous of bringing any of its members into difgrace, or fixing any ftigma or opprobrium on them, but what they should appear upon examination to deserve. To these the Vice-Chancellor thought fit to add the Prefident of Corpus Chrifti College, his fenior Pro-Vice-Chancellor, and Lady Margaret's Profeffor of Divinity, and one who had always lived in the greatest friendship and intimacy with Dr. Dixon. The President was fenfible this might be an invidious office, and would willingly have declined it: but being preffed by the Vice-Chancellor to give him his affiftance, he thought he could not with decency refuse it. He had no connections, nor acquaintance, with Mr. Higfon, but entered on this Office with strong inclinations to favour the Principal, as far as truth and juftice would permit. LET me add that, from fome circumstances which happened at a previous meeting in the Principal's lodgings, the Vice-Chancellor and his affeffors had conceived rather an unfavourable opinion of Mr. Higfon's caufe, which nothing but the force of evidence produced at the examination could have altered. I CANNOT difmifs this point without commending the candor of the Vice-Chancellor, who permitted the Principal himself to nominate two out of the three affeffors, who were at first appointed to' affift him; the fourth was, as I before obferved, added afterwards at the request of Mr. Higfon, who had ungenerously expreffed fome apprehenfions of partiality in the other affeffors to the cause of the Principal. You conclude this dedication with declaring that "you have been particularly careful not to affert any thing upon hear-fay evidence, but have taken much pains to trace up every circumstance and fact you have alleged to the fountain-head." The truth or falfhood of this declaration will beft appear from an examination of your "full and impartial account" &c. to which I now haften. You b OU preface this account with profeffions of the highest veneration for the doctrine and difcipline of the established Church, into whose communion you were in your infancy baptized, and whose cause, together with that of violated truth, trampled laws, and injured innocence, you now mean to defend." When you made these profeffions you would have done well to have confidered the nature and importance of them. Your veneration for the doctrine and discipline of the Church of England, had it been real, would not have permitted you to advance tenets fo contrary to the one, and fubverfive of the other, or to defend those who have been convicted of acting in contradiction to both You would not have violated that truth, for which you pretend to be an advocate; or have trampled on those laws, you are by the most folemn obligations bound to obferve. You would not have injured that innocence in others, which you falfely attribute to thofe, whofe guilt became notorious by their own confeffion and the cleareft evidence. "As to the fix members expelled from Edmund-Hall," you fay, "I had very little acquaintance with any of them, and fome of them were totally unknown to me till after the fentence was paffed, fo that I am in lefs danger of partiality on that account." I beg, Sir, that you would recollect whether fome of these young men had not attended the meetings of a person with whom you are intimately connected? were not his difciples? Whether they did not all of them af femble at his chambers foon after their expulfion?-which probably was the fountain-head from whence you derived your intelligence, and where the plan of your defence was concerted. Whether therefore from all these confiderations their cause may not in fome measure be deemed your own? and whether there was not confequently fome danger of partiality on that account? Not to mention the undue influence you lie under from a blind attachment to your fect, which discovers itself in every page of your book. a P. 2. You You next invoke the graces of “wisdom, truth, love, and candor", which you seem to introduce here only to take your leave of them; for scarce any footsteps of either of them are to be found in any subsequent part of your work. b WHAT paffed between Mr. Higfon and the Principal, before he had made his complaint to the Vice-Chancellor; what may be Mr. Higson's natural difpofition; what disorders of body or mind he may have laboured under; or what differences may have fubfifted between the Principal and him, are fecrets which I have no right to pry into, as they no way relate to the prefent queftion. And I think your representation of some of these particulars is equally impertinent and uncharitable. Are you acquainted with Mr. Higfon? do you know him to be of "a proud revengeful disposition"? or have you given this character of him upon hearfay evidence? The charge of infanity is still more cruel, and your feigned pity the greatest insult. NOR am I at all concerned to enquire whether Mr. Higfon acted of himself; or was made, what you term him, "d the tool or cat's-paw of others to perpetrate what, through shame or fear, they durft not undertake themselves"; tho' I am inclined from his own declaration upon oath to believe the former; and that he was induced to it d P. 4. a P. 2. b Ibid. c P. 3. from from a sense of the difgrace brought upon that fociety by the admiffion of persons totally unfit to become members of the University. THE affection of a Tutor for his pupils naturally prejudices him in their favour, and will prevail on him rather to conceal than expose their failings and imperfections, where he can do it confiftently with the principles of duty and confcience-While a regard to his own intereft, as well as theirs, will not easily fuffer him to facrifice both either to his own private refentment, or the malevolent fuggeftions of others; much lefs to become without the greatest neceffity their public accufer. But whatever were his motives, I am convinced that neither the Vice-Chancellor, nor his affeffors were in the leaft degree influenced by them, or by any other confideration than that of truth, and the honour and welfare of the University. They therefore heartily defpife the infinuation of their being a led and influenced by a mad-man to pass, what you call, the most cruel and ignominious fentence which can poffibly be inflicted by the Univerfity; into the merits of which we come now to enquire. But before you proceed to the particular charges, you loudly complain of the most unprecedented, illegal, and arbitrary proceedings viz. — “that all the witneffes against the parties accufed were a P. 4. b P. 68. c P. 5. |