asylum by the Orthodox party, which had taken its affairs into their own management?

Answer. It was so understood.

Q. If any other names than those pointed out, had been inserted or omitted in the lists of members of Chesterfield Preparative Meeting, to the disadvantage of the Orthodox party, is it not likely that the ingenious counsel, and his intelligent assistants, Samuel Craft and David Clark, would also have noticed them?

A. I should have supposed that they would.

Q. May there not have been omissions to the disadvantage of Friends, which they have omitted to point out?

A. I think it might have been the case.

Q. Is there the possibility of doubt but that Friends are much the larger part of those who formerly constituted that Preparative Meeting? A. There is no shadow of doubt on my mind, but what they are considerably the largest part.

Q. You have been asked whether David Clark was under the censure of the meeting for any infraction of discipline, to furnish a reason for his releasement from the office of clerk of the Monthly Meeting: I would ask whether James Brown was ever under such care, that he should not act for the Chesterfield Preparative Meeting?

A. I never understood that he was.

Q. Had it ever been asserted that he had not served the meeting to its satisfaction, before the division?

A. I never heard any thing like it, neither before nor after.

Q. Did the Orthodox party appoint a new clerk before the year had expired for which he had been appointed?

A. What they done I know nothing about, as they done no business in Chesterfield Preparative Meeting.

Q. If they had any clerk at the meetings when they withdrew, must they not have appointed them before his time expired?

A. Yes.

Q. If he was not present to serve them as clerk, was it not because they voluntarily retired from the meeting while he was acting as clerk? A. That certainly was the reason.

Q. Did the Orthodox Friends who retired on that occasion, adhere to what would seem to be their principles from the course of your crossexamination, of considering the clerk as the final and infallible judge of what was the sense of the meeting?

A. I should say not.

Q. Did the clerk of the Preparative Meeting, in Twelfth-month, 1827, and First-month, 1828, when they went off, decide it to be the judg ment of the meeting, that the meeting should adjourn to Mathew Forsyth's, or that it should continue its business in the usual way, where it then was?

A. I should say that he decided that it should remain where it then was, by his continuing and acting for the meeting as clerk.

Q. Did he decide that those who retired were the weight of the meeting, and take their sense as the sense of the meeting?

A. I should think not.

Q. Though a clerk is usually appointed to serve the meeting for a year; if he were to die, remove away, resign, separate himself from the meeting, or refuse to serve the meeting that he was appointed to

serve, would it not be the right of the meeting to appoint another Friend in his stead?

A. I certainly do think that the meeting would have a right to do so. Q. Do not the minutes appointing clerks, usually express that they are appointed "to serve the meeting?"

A. According to my recollection, that is the usual expression in the minute of their appointment.

Q. Is that the language used in the minute of the meeting appointing David Clark to serve the Monthly Meeting in Fifth-month, 1827?

A. That is the language expressed in that minute, [referring himself to the minutes exhibited.]

Q. You were asked in your cross-examination if you ever before knew an instance of a meeting appointing a clerk in the presence of an acting clerk at the table, and thus supplanting him, without any previous care being extended to him; I would ask whether you ever knew, before the instance then referred to, of a clerk's refusing to act for the meeting in recording its prevailing sense?

A. I never did know an instance before.

Q. Did you ever before know of an instance in which a clerk undertook to adjourn the meeting while it was engaged in the discussion of a subject that was still undecided upon, and without any proposition for adjournment?

A. I never did; nor I never knew a clerk to make an essay of adjourn ing minute without being requested to do so before.

Q. Had not Friends, in the Monthly Meeting at least, as much right to remove David Clark from the clerkship, for refusing to take the sense of the meeting, as the Orthodox party in the Preparative Meeting, to appoint another person in the place of James Brown, because he did serve the meeting?

A. I think that it was sufficient reason to displace David Clark from his clerkship, after refusing to take the prevailing sense of the meeting. Q. Were there as many elderly and consistent members of Chesterfield Preparative Meeting, who continued in the house, and to support the meeting, as there were who went off to hold the meeting elsewhere? A. Yes, I should say at least one-third more between one quarter and one-third more.

Q. I think you were asked, on your cross-examination, whether one Quarterly or Monthly Meeting could review and affirm, or annul the proceedings of another, if the Monthly Meeting of Chesterfield had refused to grant the certificate requested to Green street Monthly Meeting, would not that have been to sanction and affirm the act of the Quarter undertaking to lay it down, without treating with it, or obtaining its own consent?

A. I should think it would.

Q. Though called here to prove a few local facts within your own knowledge, you have been cross-examined to numerous abstract points of discipline and usage: though you do not profess to be skilled in the discipline, I would address one question to your common sense:-If a small party in the society, with subservient clerks, were to assume to rule by an arbitrary power, in violation of the spirit and fundamental principles of the discipline, would the meetings or individuals of the great body of the society be bound to sanction such proceedings, and hold discipline, in its minor points, with such party?

A. If I understand the question, I should not suppose they would.

And being further cross-examined, on the part of Joseph Hendrickson, he saith:

Question by Mr. Sloan. Is there any thing in the discipline, prescribing how or when clerks of Preparative Meetings shall be appointed? A. Well, as to that I cannot say.

Q. As you have the discipline before you, will you refer to it and say, whether its provisions relative to the appointment of clerk, do not relate only to clerks of Monthly and Quarterly Meetings?

A. It does not appear that the discipline enjoins it upon the Preparative Meetings every year; but it is the practice, as far as I am acquainted with Preparative Meetings-they do generally appoint their clerks about once a year.

Q. Is there any thing said in it, as to how or when they shall be appointed?

A. I don't discover any thing.

Q. Had not James Brown, who had been clerk of that Preparative Meeting, (or some time before the separation,) withheld the answers to the queries in Eleventh-month, 1827?

A. If I remember right, the answers to the queries were delivered to the clerk of the Monthly Meeting of Chesterfield, in Eleventh-month. Q. To what clerk?

A. To the clerk of the Monthly Meeting; Jediah Middleton, I believe.

Q. Did he return any answers to the queries, to David Clark?
A. I don't expect he did.

Q. At the period spoken of by you, when a portion of the meeting withdrew, did he not decline or refuse to answer the Quarterly and Monthly Meeting's committees, when they asked him, whether he was acting as clerk of Chesterfield Preparative Meeting as subordinate to Burlington Quarter, a branch of the Yearly Meeting of Friends held in Arch street, Philadelphia, on the third Second-day of Fourth-month annually? A. I think he did not. If my memory serves me right, when the question was asked, but not exactly as the counsel has stated it, he replied that he considered himself acting for Chesterfield Preparative Meeting; and I think, mentioned about its being subordinate to Chesterfield Monthly Meeting; his exact words I don't recollect.

Q. Did he not decline answering what Yearly Meeting it was held subordinate to?

A. I cannot say, as I don't recollect; nor I don't know that I heard, distinctly, all that he said.

Q. Was not that assigned as the cause for the withdrawal of those who did withdraw, or did they not substantially declare that they could recognise no meeting, as Chesterfield Preparative Meeting, that was not in such subordination, or something to that effect; without splitting hairs between you and myself, as to whether I use the precise words of the persons then present or not?

A. If my memory serves me, all that was said after the question was asked by Samuel Craft, and answered by James Brown, was that they could not countenance such conduct, and withdrew: or it is all I can recollect.

Q. Had not James Brown taken an active part in the proceedings of Tenth-month, preceding?

A. No more than usual, that I recollect.

Q. As I don't know how active a part it was usual for James Brown to take, you will please to answer my question, whether he did or not take an active part?

A. I have no recollection of what he said, or done, in that Monthly Meeting.

Q. Was he not one of those who went as a messenger into the women's meeting, to request of them to appoint representatives to the Yearly Meeting of Tenth-month?

A. It might have been the case.

Q. If a clerk of a Preparative Meeting, who is appointed for no specific time, and for whose appointment no provision is made in the discipline, be guilty of infractions of the discipline, would not the Preparative Meeting be justified in removing him, and supplying his place by a more consistent Friend?

A. I think they would.

Q. What description of persons are to be appointed overseers under your discipline?

A. I don't recollect the words of the discipline. [The discipline, Exhibit 13, is handed the witness.]

Q. I would refer the witness then to his common sense to say, what kind of persons that would teach him should be overseers?

A. I think that they ought to be judicious Friends.

Q. How many overseers had that meeting at the time of the separation?

A. My recollection does not serve me to say how many they were. Q. Were not Joseph Hendrickson, Samuel Bunting, George Thorn, and Samuel Middleton, the overseers at that time?

A. I think its likely they were; appointed just before the separation. Q. How many of them are now among those whom you call Friends? A. There is but one.

Q. Are you satisfied, that either the ingenuity of counsel or the intelligence of his assistants has pointed out to you all the names of members of that meeting, which have been omitted on that list exhibited by you? A. As to what they have done, as I said before, I did suppose if there had been any other error, they would have spoken of it.

Q. Did you know one Phebe Williams?

A. No, I never was acquainted with her; I have seen her.

Q. Is she a member of that meeting?

A. That I can't say. She used to live in Burlington; and Trenton; if my memory serves me, from what I have understood.

Q. Did not she remove to Groveville, within two miles of the meeting house, and become a member of that meeting?

A. I never saw her then at Groveville. I cannot say that she did. Q. Have either Sarah Stillwell, Susan Rogers, or Thomason Howard attended your meeting as members, since the separation?

A. As to the two first I am not acquainted with; I don't know them. Thomason Howard and her family has attended.

Q. In making out that list, have not all who have not openly declared themselves to be of what you call the Orthodox party, been put down on your side of the question?

A. I do expect that all those that attended our meeting was put

on our side, or put down with Friends, and those that attended with the Orthodox, were put down as Orthodox.

Q. Have you none on that list but those who attended your meetings regularly, in the usual order of the society?

A. There is some that do not attend our meetings regular, I believe; but there is none down there that I am acquainted with, that I have noticed, but what have attended it, and do attend it, when they attend any.

Q. When was it that you understood that your party were rejected at the asylum, and deprived of their privileges-was it before or after your appointment?

A. If I am not mistaken, it was before.

Q. How came you to be appointed then?

A. It was the opinion of the Monthly Meeting that there should be one appointed, to have the charge when it was necessary.

Q. If it was necessary to make such appointment, and you were the representative of Chesterfield Monthly Meeting, was it not your duty to make an effort to perform the services required of you, in attending to the helpless being who was in the asylum, and dependant on that meeting for sustenance and protection?

A. As I stated once before, that I was not acquainted with the rules of that asylum, and if there had been any occasion, I might have been called upon-but what their rules are, I don't know.

Q. Was that practice generally adopted by your meeting towards others, which appears to have prevailed, in respect to yourself-the appointment of persons to fill responsible stations in the society, under the meeting, who had no knowledge, or a very imperfect one, as you have repeatedly declared in this examination, either of the discipline, or of the duties of the office to which you were appointed; and were left to the dictates of their own common sense, to point out to them what was right, and what was wrong in their proceedings?

A. As to this appointment, it was on a concern that I had never concerned myself about. As to the concerns of the society, in other respects, it is different.

Q. Before David Clark made the minute of adjournment in Ninthmonth, 1827, did not Samuel Craft propose an adjournment; and was it not united in by others in the meeting?

A. If Samuel Craft proposed an adjournment, I did not hear it-he sat very near David Clark; but as to its being united with by the meeting, I have no recollection of any thing of the kind.

The counsel rest the further cross-examination.

And the said Josiah Gaskill being again further examined in chief, saith:

Question by Mr. Price. You have stated, I think, that the clerk of a Preparative Meeting was usually appointed once a year, as well as clerks of Quarterly and Monthly Meetings; does the discipline in the following provision, to which you were referred by the opposite counsel, say how, or in any manner regulate the appointment of clerks of Monthly and Quarterly Meetings, any further than to recommend an annual change, that it may afford opportunity for their (the clerks) "being seasonably changed, and more of the qualified members exercised in those services." [Page 37 of the discipline.]

VOL. II.-40