Wesley Corpus

You cannot be too diligent in restoring the bands. No Society will continue lively without them. But they will again fly in pieces if you do not attend to them continually. [See letter of Oct. 24, 1788.] I go to Ireland in spring. I shall not . . . otherwise I shall. Your friend and brother. To Edwal. Jackson, In Barnard Castle, County Durham. To a Friend CITY ROAD, January 25, 1781. DEAR SIR, -- Yesterday, looking over the Monthly Review for last October, at page 307, I read the following words: Sir William's vindication [Lieut-General Sir William Howe had criticized Galloway’s Letters to a Nobleman, and cast serious reflections upon him. See Green’s Bibliography, No. 352; and letters of June 8, 1780, and Aug. 18, 1790.] (of his own conduct) is not a feeble attempt to rescue his reputation from the obloquy thrown upon it. Mr. Galloway’s book is here answered paragraph by paragraph, and several misrepresentations of important facts and circumstances proved. I cannot quite agree with this. I think (1) no unjust obloquy has been thrown upon it; (2) that his vindication is a very feeble attempt to justify his conduct; (3) that he has not answered in a satisfactory manner any one paragraph of Mr. Galloway’s book; and (4) that he has not proved any misrepresentation of any one important fact or circumstance. I think also that the account he gives of Mr. Galloway is a very feeble attempt to blacken his character; for a full confutation whereof I refer the candid reader to his own answer. As to the scurrility Sir William speaks of, I see not the least trace of it in anything Mr. G. has published. He is above it. He is no ‘venal instrument of calumny’; he abhors calumny as he does rebellion. But let him answer for himself; read only the tracts here referred to, and then condemn him if you can. -- I am, dear sir, Yours, &c. PS. -- I have been frequently attacked by the Monthly Reviewers, but did not answer because we were not on even ground; but that difficulty is now over: whatever they object in their Monthly Review I can answer in my monthly Magazine; and I shall think it my duty so to do when the objection is of any importance. To Samuel Bardsley NEAR LONDON, February 10, 1781.