"that he would be so good as to inform me what the sir charges were, which he had specified, against my narrative, at the late meeting of synod"; as also, respecting a few other matters; to him, perhaps, unimportant, but to me of some consequence. Having received no answer to this, on the 8th. instant, I presumed, on that day, to repeat my request, with some little additions; which request has not yet been complied with.

This still leaves me under the disability of making retractations, in any manner, satisfactory or unsatisfactory, to the synod. This disability I stated, repeatedly, to the rev. body, and called upon them, when talking, as men in their sleep, about retractation of libels, mistatesments, &c. unnumbered and undefined, to specify them in writing, and note the passages in the Narrative, where they respectively began and ended. This they declined. But so soon as this shall be done by them, by dr. Black's promised publication, or by his answer to my letters, every retractation, refutation &c. consistent with truth and honor, shall be exhibited to the public eye. How far they may be deemed satisfactory, by the synod, I do not presume to conjecture. That they will satisfy every other man, and body of men, possessed of common-sense, candor, and

honesty,

honesty, I humbly trust. But if these shall be withholden, even for a short time, I will publish a review of the preceding minute, in all its parts, and a faithful statement of what can be ascertained by or from it; as also, of the proceedings of synod connected with it. For the accomplishment of this promise, every thing is the nearly ready for press, except what may be supplied by, or become necessary from dr. Black's communications to the Public, or to me.

Here I feel myself induced to request, that, in the mean time, my readers may not be misled by attaching the common and approved meaning to two short words in the preceding minute, as they might thereby be tempted to charge me with meanness, or evasion. The former is (wish) in the first paragraph. Such wish, or, as the correspondent of the Belfast news-letter expresses it, " desire," I never expressed. The simple fact is the synod demanded from me, a retractation &c. &c. This I peremptorily refused, as it was impossible for me to know what I was to retract, and called upon them, as I had done before, to specify the alleged mistatements &c. in writing, with a form of retractation satisfactory to themselves; adding, that," when these were produced, I would tell them what I would do." Was this the expression of a wish? I think not. Yet,

b 2

Yet, I candidly own, I felt a wish htat they should do so, that I might have their object in a visible form, and a power of presenting it to the world, as deline ated by their own pen. The specification they declined, as formerly; but prepared a form of retractation, which will command the attention of all who shall read and understand it. This retractation, the correspondent says, "I declined" signing; and the clerk of the synod, in a more full, more sonorous, and better rounded phraseology, says, "I expressed my determination to decline giving it my signature."

Here I take the liberty of suggesting that neither the one, nor the other, of these expressions is free from misrepresentation. I neither declined nor expressed my determination to decline giving it my signature. To decline signifies "to step or turn aside from, to avoid, to shun." I neither shunned, evaded, nor meanly shrunk from, the demand of signature. I met it in the face, with mingled feelings of astonishment, sorrow, and contempt-I rejected it with disdain; and declared, that I would never sign that or any other paper, expressing, or implying that I had ever written or represented falsehood as truth, knowing, or believing, it to be such.-Nay, I could not suppress the exclamation: "what must be the astonishment of the world, on read

ing

ing this paper, to discover that, any body of men possessed of, or even pretending to, common-sense, decency, or discretion-and much more that a body of learned, grave, and richlygifted divines, could be seduced, or overawed, into the preparation of such a paper, or its presentation, for signature, to any rational being."

I hope, I shall be excused by my readers, for this petty criticism, as it must appear, where it stands, as puerile, pedantic, or peevish. But, when they attend to the synodical explanation of synodical language, in the first paragraph of the preceding minute, they will perceive, not only its propriety, but the necessity, of great caution, and uncommon critical abilities, to ascertain the meaning of the seemingly plain, and most common expressions of that rev. body, according to their present latitudinarian mode of exposition.

Without dilating farther on what shall soon be exhibited at large, permit me now to request that the public may suspend their final judgment of the vague, and indefinite charges, contained in the synod's minute-or, rather, the attempts therein, by bold resolutions, to repel, or invalidate, the charges which my narrative exhibits, against a dominant faction in that rev. body, until they shall be duly weighed and appreciated.

Whether

1

Whether the one, or the other, or either, shall be deemed of any weight or value, when exhibited face to face, and tried in the balance of impartial judgment, depends on the sense of the public. The public is the only disinterested and competent judge. To that public my first STATEMENT was addressed, in language plain, unstudied, and unadorned. Before it I shall expose my vindication, retractation, or refutation, as the case may require, and in its decisions I shall cheerfully acquiesce.

Keady, August 23d. 1812.

N. B. Every mean shall be used, and every exertion made, to render the circulation of my RETRACTATIONS &c. &c. as extensive as that of my narrative has been, or may be, that my thousands of subscribers, embracing numbers of the first rank, fortune, and character, in the kingdom, whose good opinion it shall be the pride of my life to preserve-and whose friendship I shall ever remember with gratitudemay be rescued from the dangerous and destructive errors, into which my " mistatements and misrepresentations," respecting the dominant faction, in the synod of Ulster, may have betrayed them; or convinced, that I am not yet, so destitute of principle, so notorious for misrepresentation,