Printed copy of a report from Jeffries in London to the various county committees, dated 26 July 1789, presenting the activities and resolutions of the “Second Report” of the London Committee which met on 18 June 1789. 

In his letter, which prefaces the report, Jeffries makes the point again that the opposition will be most easily “overcome by the Spirit and Unanimity with which we assert our Claims, by the repeated Display of the Facts and Arguments which prove that these Claims are not only equitable in themselves but injurious to none, and by the public Testimony in our Favour of various respectable political Persons and others.  If we remain silent and inactive, as of late Years, we may expect to continue neglected; if we urge our Claims only faintly and occasionally, we may encourage a persuasion that it is easy, from Time to Time, to find Expedients for amusing or defeating us: But, if we bring our Claims steadily and perseveringly to Issue, we are likely to have them fully discussed and understood, and, consequently, in the End acceded to; after the Example of the Claims of our Ministers, which were only for a Time resisted, and became at last unanimously established by Law as innocent and just.”

The Report finds the recent vote most encouraging, as the first in 1787 was 178-100, this one was 124-104, tellers included.  “The Difference in the Majority against us being thus only 20, instead of 78, a flattering Prospect of future success opens itself; and we are justified in concluding, that the Equity and good Policy of our Claims have increased the Number of our Friends and relaxed the Efforts of our Opponents.” They resolve that it is therefore the “Duty of the Protestant Dissenters to persevere in their just Claim to be restored to the rights of  Citizens.”   Accompanying this Report is a list of all the members who voted on 28 March 1787 for Beaufoy’s petition that a committee should consider repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts, followed by a list of those who voted for the same proposal on 8 May 1789.

Text: Test Acts Papers, no. 19, Unitarian Collection, UCC 3/6/6, John Rylands University Library of Manchester.