John Rippon, Southwark, to John Sutcliff, Olney, 20 July 1791.                    

Southwark. July 20. 91.

My dear Bro.r

  I heartily thank you for ye line last night containg corrections—the womans name is Richard. I can’t answer your question, abt Market St Herts.  Elden in Norfolk, I suppose, is an abridgement of Great Ellingham.

  I intend to have what I am sure will be absolutely necessary; as we have so much to do with names & dates, 3 or 4 pages, in ye manner of ye Gents Magazine, of Addenda & Corrigenda, to be placed at the end of ye volumes—these will have ye appearance of notes —to be placed before ye Index which must be unavoidably in Vol. 1st very large because of ye names of persons & places. As you have begun I request you to continue your communications. I shall advertise on ye blue cover for annual accounts of all the ordinations in ye denominations—ye time of them, circumstances, persons engaged, just their texts &c &c this universally regarded, would of itself, be an inconsiderable step towards a future history of the English Baptists when we are dead & gone. Give me an acct of all you can for 1789 & 90.

  The 2d part of ye Register I hope will be out in abt a fortnight.

          My particular reason for writg now is that you may directly send me the whole acct, dates &c &c wc you have recd from Mr Botsford. Do let me have it, by Sat. sennight, don’t abridge it.

  I have Lelands Chronicle 8 pages 1789 & 45 pages 1790 with the address of ye Committee in Augt 89 to Presidt Washington & his answer. I am much pleased with it. Two or three words excepted, I think it is a good composition—and as it shows ye state of civil & religs liberty among them, I had thought of introducing it into ye 2d part of the Register. As I suppose you have it I request you to look at it again, and say whether you think it wd be improper to give it to the public with us. I shall give ye 33 lines of Leland, leavg out ye jumping part, and yeenthusiasm.

  Have you Georgia Association Letters of 1789 or 1790, or the “United Baptist Association” (formerly called the Kentuky [sic] Association) of 1790. I have the Danbury of 90 & the Charleston of 90—some considerable packets shd have arrived this spring from America wc I have not recd—perhaps they will come just as my register is out—too late.  Have you seen Revd Jed. Morses American Geog:y+ you will have an intellectual feast in it. He preaches close to Boston, is named in the Register for 81. I have written to him to send some over, as I have applied & can get none in England, tho’ I have seen it.

  I wish soon to have in ye Register an acct of ye monthly meeting for prayer, to which your piece refers—what shd I add to your preface—or would two or three pages newly drawn up by you, be better. On ye ground of Your piece I have opened a meeting somewhat like it quarterly. We have had but one, consisting of abt 300 people—& in a word, I believe we have not had a better meeting since I have been pastor—it will be forever remembered by our people.

  Do excuse this scrawl—we are printing 5000 Selecs 4th ed: and a new Selection of Tunes will be given to ye engraver in a few days & out we suppose in little more than 2 months.

                                                      Ever affecy Yrs

                                                                        J. Rippon.

  It is feared in Town that ye High Church employed the mob at Birmingham. Don’t government prefer papists to the dissenters?

  What books & pamphlets of the denominations (not Baptists) do you wish me to mention in ye Register?  in this 2d part—if you name any give me the full title.

  I have not yet recd any full acct of ye Commencement at Rhode Island in 1790.

+It includes an acct of all ye denominations in all ye States, at least ye 13 States. 

Text: Timothy Whelan, Baptist Autographs in the John Rylands University Library of Manchester, 1741-1845 (Macon: Mercer University Press, 2009), pp. 54-56 (annotated version); also Eng. MS. 371, fol. 101, John Rylands University Library of Manchester. On the back page is written in Sutcliff’s hand, “Rec.d July 22. Ans.d D.o 24. 1791.” Others mentioned above include Edmund Botsford (1745-1819), Baptist minister in Georgia and South Carolina; John Leland (1754-1821), American Baptist evangelist and writer; and Jedidiah Morse (1761-1826), minister of the Congregational Church in Charlestown, Massachusetts. Minutes of Association meetings, letters from pastors, and circular letters from American Baptist associations were regularly printed in the issues of the Baptist Annual Register, including the ones from 1790 mentioned above, representing Georgia, Kentucky, Connecticut, and South Carolina (see Baptist Annual Register, 1: 98-117). The account of the 1790 Commencement at the Baptist College, Providence, Rhode Island (now Brown University), appeared in the Baptist Annual Register, 1: 177-79.