A printed letter to the editor of The Morning Chronicle for 28 July 1791 (excellent condition, beautifully printed), signed “A Dissenter”  [most likely this was written by William Wood].

This is immediately after the Priestley riots.  The writer notes that many are saying the Dissenters are in a state of despondency, but he disagrees.  The letter delves into the reasons behind the riots, and is highly critical of all who participated in it.  The Dissenters there were charged with being disaffected to the Constitution and the Church of England.  He says there was nothing “in the celebration of the anniversary of the taking of the Bastille, and of the origin of French Liberty, to furnish even a pretext for the outrages that have been committed.” He says, maybe the offence arose from certain writings by the Dissenters which seem to show disaffection, yet is this justification for such destructive and violent behaviour?  He says no civilized nation could ever countenance such behaviour.  Even good Churchmen believe that the constitution is in need of reform, even Pitt, and others now, such as George Savile, Fox, Major Cartwright, Wyvill, and others, all churchmen.  Concerning the French Revolution, not that many Dissenters wrote in its favour; he cites Priestley and Towers, Capel Lofft, Mr. Christie, the Country Attorney (William Nash of Cambridge), and the Country Justice of Peace.  The other responses came from churchmen!  Thus, he says, why “is the whole blame to be thrown upon one set of people, who, if they are in an error, share it in common with some of their most respectable neighbours?” So what if they disagree with the Church of  England--that is not a crime, he says.  If England does not want to tolerate the Dissenters, then laws should be passed outlawing them, but until then, they should be protected by the laws just as anyone else is.  He says the Established Church should be embarrassed by the actions of this mob, and not be praising their work.  He says the Dissenters would have reason to be despondent if they had done such similar actions against the Established church and its partisans.  In closing, he warns,

“Should any presume, that in consequence of what has happened, we shall be less open and spirited in the avowal of our religious and political principles than we have hitherto been they are most assuredly mistaken.  Rational sentiments in religion, and political doctrines founded on the rights of men, will prevail, whatever becomes of Dissenters.  Were the Dissenters all banished the kingdom, there is no doubt but that there would start up, out of the bosom of the Church of England, men in abundance to support those religious and political principles, the odium of which it seems to be now the policy to throw upon Dissenters.  Yet it will not be imagined that such ungenerous methods, as those are, which have been practised at Birmingham, will prove any permanent injury to the principles which Dissenters hold, or ever prevent Dissenters from asserting or defending them.  If the principles are well founded, a repetition of the fires of Smithfield will be insufficient to crush them; if they are false, the discussion which their advocates provoke will prove fatal to them.”

Text: Text Acts Papers, no. 118, Unitarian Collection, UCC 3/6/6, John Rylands University Library of Manchester.