ber; was for many years clerk of that Quarterly Meeting; whether he continued as clerk at the time of his removal, or not, I cannot say; but I am well satisfied, from what information I have had from several members of that Quarter, that he did not make any thing like a request to be released from standing as their representative in the Meeting for Sufferings.

Q. That subject, however, was mentioned in connexion with the subject of his removal?

A. Yes; I have stated before, I believe, that it was so: that he had mentioned the circumstance of his removal; but that it did not follow of course that he could not continue to serve them in that capacity, or to that import: and I can further state as to my own knowledge, as to the former practice of that Quarter, being a member of it myself from the time of my birth until I was more than thirty years of age, that they had sometimes had a part of their representatives, I think, appointed in Philadelphia, which was no unusual thing in those Quarters remotely situated.

Q. What was the date of this releasement, as near as you can recollect?

A. Well, I cannot say as to the year. I should suppose it was somewhere between the year 1822 and '26: possibly, might have been previous to 1822, but I have no recollection of the year it was in.

Q. Before 1823, did you ever hear it contended, that Quarterly Meetings had the right to change their representatives in the Meeting for Sufferings at their pleasure, and without any alleged cause?

A. No; I don't recollect of any circumstance ever occurring that brought such a subject under discussion. Neither did I ever hear it previous to that period, or I think to 1826, contended that the Meeting for Sufferings was a permanent body.

Q. Since 1806, has the Yearly Meeting ever decided, that the Quarterly Meetings had a right to displace their representatives in the Meeting for Sufferings, at pleasure?

A. I never remember any subject of that kind coming before the Yearly Meeting; for, I suppose, it had never been thought of by any Quarterly Meeting, that they had not that privilege, if occasion required them, to change their representatives at their pleasure. I say, I suppose that such a thing had never been thought of until this new doctrine was held up in 1826, that they were a permanent body, which could not be changed by their constituents without their request, or, as in cases of delinquency, which is pointed out in the discipline.

Q. Is not the Yearly Meeting the only body competent to make or amend the discipline?

A. Yes, I think they are so. It is so.

Q. When you presented the minutes of the southern Quarter to the Meeting for Sufferings, appointing yourself and others, in place of Isaac Lloyd and Caleb Peirce, how many members of that meeting advocated those minutes being received?

A. I cannot say how many did. I remember there were several spoke. Q. Who were they?

A. Well, I don't know that I can remember many names; there were several country Friends that I did not know. I remember Joseph Basset, a Friend from Jersey, was one: it seems to me Isaac Parry was one:

and there were a number more I will not undertake to name, as I do not remember them.

Q. Name such as you do remember.

A. Isaac Jackson was there, in attendance at the same time with a minute from the Quarter of which I was a member; I think he spoke, either then, or on the second time that I attended. And I remember hearing from several Friends afterwards, who had known how things had been carried on in that meeting by a dominant party in it, that it was scarcely worth while for them to give a sentiment in opposition to that party; and indeed it appeared to me, from what little I discovered of their proceedings during the short time I was permitted to be in the house, that there were, comparatively speaking, but a few that did govern their proceedings, and those mostly and principally confined. to the city of Philadelphia, with but few exceptions, as far as I discovered.

Q. Have you mentioned the names of all those whom you recollect to have advocated the reception of those minutes?

A. Well, I have not a clear recollection about it; those who I have mentioned seem to be the clearest in my recollection. I cannot undertake to say who the others were.

Q. Were they (those who advocated the reception of the minutes) of the party that you call Friends?

A. There were many of the Meeting for Sufferings, strangers to me at that time, that I could not say then to what party they belonged. I think all those that I have named, were those that are with Friends. I now recollect a conversation with two of the members, I think, perhaps, but one of them a member, but the other a Friend, after the meeting that day when we first attended; and the one, that I am satisfied, was a member of the Meeting for Sufferings, and was then considered a pretty eminent minister in the society, gave it as his sentiment, that the Quarterly Meetings had the right to exercise that privilege: however he might have stood on neutral ground at that time, he has since come out pretty warmly on the side of the Orthodox, as I have understood. Q. Who was he?

A. It was David Cope.

Q. Do I understand you to say, he expressed that sentiment in the Meeting for Sufferings?

A. No: it was in conversation afterwards; but, I think, on the same day.

Q. Who else was present besides yourself?

A. There was a relation of his, I think, if my recollection serves me, Benjamin Cope. [See correction, at the close.] I cannot be so certain about his expressing that sentiment in the Meeting for Sufferings, whether he did or not, but am rather under the impression that he did. The conversation, however, in which he expressed it, I well remember. My impression is, that Benjamin Cope was present, and another Friend also, who was a member of the Meeting for Sufferings; and who, either then, or subsequently, expressed to me his belief that the Quarters had that privilege; and I was well satisfied that he did not approve of the proceedings of the Meeting for Sufferings, in rejecting that appointment. He is also on the side of the Orthodox, and his name is Jeffery Smedley.

Q. Did the Meeting for Sufferings ever reject the nomination of the

southern Quarter, or was not the whole subject left open on its minutes, and brought before the Yearly Meeting for its decision?

A. We certainly considered, that it amounted to an objection, or rejection, when they objected to our remaining in the house. We were not so fond of an office as to remain, and to defend our rights, until we were taken out by physical force: and if they did not mean it as a rejection when that committee from the Meeting for Sufferings attended the southern Quarter, and found that that Quarter were determined to support their rights, they could then have easily informed the Quarter, that they would withdraw their rejection, and permit their representatives to have a seat in the Meeting for Sufferings, which they were justly entitled to, according to discipline and all former practice, when such newly appointed members attended and produced minutes of their regular appointment.

Q. Have you become acquainted with the substance of the minute made by the Meeting for Sufferings upon that occasion, and if so, did it amount to an adjudication, that the representatives appointed by the southern Quarter were not entitled to seats in that meeting, or did it merely refer the subject, as one of doubt and difficulty, to the Yearly Meeting for its decision?

Mr. Price. I hope you will let us have the minutes, as the best evidence.

Witness. Yes, I should like to have the minutes here. I have not any further acquaintance with the minute, than I stated in my testimony in chief; and hearing it but once read, I cannot undertake to state the particulars it contained. But I do not recollect that it stated any thing in regard to referring the subject to the Yearly Meeting-that was an act of the Quarter.

Q. You have spoken of a committee having been appointed by the Meeting for Sufferings upon that occasion; did not that committee propose to the southern Quarter, a joint reference of the whole case to the Yearly Meeting?

A. I do not recollect that they made any such proposition to the southern Quarter; unless it was after the Quarterly Meeting had determined on carrying the case forward to the Yearly Meeting. They might then have made some acquiescence, when they found they could do no better but, I think, the whole drift of their arguments was to induce that Quarter to go into a conference with them, perhaps by appointing a committee to have, as they said, the matter amicably settled. But the Quarter knew too well their rights and privileges, guaranteed by the discipline, to be drawn into any compromise of that kind; and therefore unanimously resisted it, so mnch so, that I told Samuel Bettle after the meeting broke up, "that it was a hard case indeed that he could not make one proselyte in all that Quarter."

Q. You state, that in the very nature and constitution of things, the body that has a right to choose, has also a right to remove at their pleasure; are not the judicial officers of our government, after being once appointed, subject to removal, only by death, or by conviction of being guilty of a misdemeanor, upon impeachment?

[NOON.]

A. I meant my former answer to apply to our society, and expected that it was so noted. I can further state now in reply to the question,

But

that there is no parallel between the civil officers of government, and the members of the Meeting for Sufferings. The officers of our government are, I suppose, generally salary officers, and by their commissions, some of them hold their offices during good behaviour, or so long as they act consistent with the views and interests of those who appoint them. members of the Meeting for Sufferings, I consider more in the nature of agents, being appointed for a particular purpose; and, therefore, subject to be withdrawn, or removed, at the pleasure of those who appoint them. Appointments of this sort in the society of Friends, are considered more in the light of service, for which they have no stipulated salaries, they not being supposed to be offices that are to be sought after by individuals; when they are released from such services, it is rather considered the burden is taken off them.

Q. You have stated that the extracts from the writings of ancient Friends, which were read in the Yearly Meeting of 1823, from the minutes of the Meeting for Sufferings, produced considerable excitement, from the design for which they were intended to be used; what was that design?

A. I can only speak from my own observation at the time, and from some previous circumstances that had occurred; from some information, I think I had obtained, and the manner in which they were got up in the Meeting for Sufferings, which had by some means got out, and a good deal talked about, previous to the Yearly Meeting; it went to inculcate an idea that they were intended to be made use of in the nature of what is commonly called a creed. And, I think, if I have a right idea of the circumstance, that the dissatisfaction which they were likely to produce, or perhaps the apprehensions which Jonathan Evans, and probably some others, might have had of those who had been favourable to their publication, that it would not do to publish them without the sanction of the Yearly Meeting; which, I apprehend, was the original design, when they were first sanctioned by a part of the members of the Meeting for Sufferings; and I have been induced to believe from one circumstance, that it was not generally known to the members of the Meeting for Sufferings that they were recorded on the minutes of that meeting, until they heard them read in the Yearly Meeting. And the circumstance to which I have alluded is this, that in conversation with Samuel Bettle in the meeting house yard, after the rise of that sitting, I think he told me that he felt tried when he came to read them, that he did not know they were on the minutes. That induced me to believe, or at least to suspect, that it was a manœuvre of Jonathan Evans, who was clerk of the Meeting for Sufferings, to place them on the minutes, in hopes that they might pass, and apparently get the sanction of the Yearly Meeting, as those minutes had generally done, without many observations being made respecting them. But the reverse was the case, as already stated; they produced a great excitement; and, if I remember right, I think the first that spoke, was one who might be considered a pretty substantial and solid old Friend from the country, who cried out," who hath required this at your hand?”

Q. When the Meeting for Sufferings sanctions the publication of a work, as containing the doctrines of the Society of Friends, is it considered that such sanction and the subsequent publication of the work, constitute the contents of that work what is called a creed?

A. I don't recollect that I ever knew of a Meeting for Sufferings bring

ing forward any work exactly of the nature in which this appeared to be presented to the Yearly Meeting. It appeared to be made up of scraps, I may call it, taken out of perhaps various authors in the Society of Friends; and, I think, there was not reference made to the books and authors from whence it was taken, and therefore it was presented more in the form of a work that was got up by the Meeting for Sufferings, and in that point of view, it had more the appearance of a creed than any thing that I had previously known to come before the Yearly Meeting, as it related to matters of faith and doctrine. I think, if I remember right, Abraham Lower perhaps expressed some views in the Yearly Meeting, that there could not be so much objections to the sentiments it contained, as they stood in the authors from which they were said to be taken, and taken in connexion with their contexts, and other parts of their writings, as there was to the form in which they were then presented, or something near to that purpose. The Meeting for Sufferings, I think, had a right to reprint any books or works that had been sanctioned by the society, as they had originally stood, without consulting the Yearly Meeting on the subject. I cannot think that their republication of Barclay's Apology," for instance, William Penn's works, or George Fox's book of Doctrinals, and many other works of that nature, would be considered as imposing a creed on the society. They were works given by individuals for the general benefit of society.

Q. At the Yearly Meeting, were not the extracts opposed by some of those you call Friends, on the ground of the doctrines they contained? A. I do not recollect that there were any particular doctrines pointed out, there was a great deal said: I can't pretend to remember who spoke on the subject, or what was said particularly, except the few instances I have mentioned. I think I did not say any thing on the subject myself; if I did, it has entirely escaped my memory. But it certainly produced more excitement and unsettlement in the Yearly Meeting, than I had ever seen or known on any former occasion. I remember, what I should call a pretty stiff Orthodox minister, telling me soon afterwards, that he did expect to have heard the clerk stopped before he got half through with reading it.

Q. Did not an individual, since very active in your party, pronounce the extracts to be "contrary to reason, scripture and revelation?"

A. I do not recollect that I ever heard any individual make use of any such expressions as that respecting them. If you would give me the name, it might bring things to my recollection.

Q. Do you not recollect that a person in that meeting objected to the text, that there are three that bear record in heaven," as being spurious, and the doctrine inculcated in that text as being unsound and irrational?

A. I have no recollection of any such expressions. Yet there might have been.

Q. I understand, that all you have stated with regard to Jonathan. Evans's designs in relation to this matter, to be merely your own surmise; if there be other foundation for it, I wish you to state what it is? A. My own surmises on this subject have been corroborated by some sentiments that I have heard from others; and perhaps the strongest ground to produce a surmise of this kind was, that it was generally expected, from what had transpired after these extracts were got up in the Meeting for Sufferings, that they would be immediately published. I