Printed sheet about the Manchester meeting, entitled “A Dialogue between A respectable Farmer, not versed in the Merits of the Hotel Contention, and a Town’s Gentleman of minuter Information,” dated 6 February 1790, from Manchester.  

This piece is a satiric jab at the way the Dissenter’s were locked out of that meeting and then labeled as rabble rousers.   A key passage provides the real story behind the Hotel fiasco.  The meeting was called clearly as a partial meeting of the Established clergy to denounce the dissenters, etc., and apparently the “plot” was to bring in people still in the establishment, apparently, but favourable to repeal, to speak on behalf of the Dissenters, but the President of the committee calling the meeting heard of this plot and hence decided there would be no discussion, only an immediate approval of resolutions already prepared. 

Also included here is an anonymous response most likely to that same notice, written from a Dissenter’s perspective entitled “Innovation,” dated 13 February 1790, in which he argues that the term is being misused against the current Dissenters.  He argues that the first establishment of the Christian religion was “one of the greatest possible Innovations,” as was the Reformation.  The “destruction of the Feudal System” was an innovation, as was the Magna Charta and Trial by Jury, Habeas Corpus, Liberty of the Press, and the Glorious Revolution.  Even the invention of the Fly Shuttle, the Spinning Jenny, even Turnpikes!  He concludes, “May it not then with the strictest regard to truth be asserted, that almost every blessing which we at this moment enjoy, has sprung from innovation, and that every blessing which is withheld from us, is owing to the want of innovation; should it be objected, that some of the blessings here enumerated, were not obtained without violence, and even bloodshed, let it, however, be remembered, that that violence did not originate from the good being sought for, but from the opposition which was made to it, by the selfish, the ignorant, and the unprincipled.  Will any man have the presumption to say, that we have not many prejudices to shake off, and much charity to learn, with respect to religion, as taught by the Gospel?  or that we are not yet in our infancy with respect to civil government, to science, to arts, commerce, manufactures, and agriculture?  – what therefore must the situation of this country soon be were innovation to be stopped? – what must that man be, who even wishes to put a stop to it?  – will not every real friend to his country, and to the general happiness of mankind, anxiously desire, that we may gradually go on innovating, till the whole human species are in full and complete possession of every blessing, which, in this world, it is possible for them to enjoy.”

Text: Test Acts Papers, no. 75, Unitarian Collection, UCC 3/6/6, John Rylands University Library of Manchester.