That person was Robert Clavel, a respectable and extensive dealer in books, master of the Company of Stationers, and whom Dr Barlow, Bishop of Lincoln, used to call “the honest bookseller.” By some means, Clavel became possessed of Wesley’s letter. Wesley never intended it for the public eye. He declares that he wrote it as a “private letter to a particular friend, and had not the least thought of its being published.” Clavel kept the letter in his private possession for about a dozen years. The Dissenters were rapidly rising into power. The High Church party took alarm, and Queen Anne became a tool for the accomplishment of their purposes. Just at this juncture Clavel, without Wesley’s consent, and even without consulting him, took upon himself to print the letter which Wesley, at a single sitting, had written some twelve years before, and, to give it more importance, actually dedicated it to the House of Commons, at that time most hostile to the Dissenters, and eager to do something for their suppression.
What was the result? Wesley’s letter was published anonymously, but as it contained a biographical sketch of the early history of the writer, there was no difficulty in detecting the author. Accordingly there appeared, almost immediately, a small quarto pamphlet of twenty-four pages, with the following title:—“A Defence of the Dissenters’ Education in their Private Academies, in an answer to Mr W——y’s disingenuous and unskilful Reflections upon ’em; in a Letter to a Noble Lord.—London, 1703.” This was by Mr Palmer.
Mr Palmer’s defence is full of bitterness. He speaks of Wesley’s “impotent malice,” “trifling stories,” and “unchristian and ungentlemanly insinuations.” He says that Wesley’s accusation, that Mr Morton’s pupils vindicated the murder of Charles I., is “scandalous and false;” that “the Dissenters universally abhor the king-killing doctrines;” and that they “have not opposed any king, nor defended any tyrant.” He also denies that the Dissenters were “undutiful to the Church and injurious to the Universities;” for “Dr Owen himself required Wesley to go to the University.” He alleges that Wesley, in his letter, has “acted unbecoming a scholar, a gentleman, and a Christian;” that he “has betrayed the private conversations of his best friends, and insulted the works of great and excellent scholars,” and yet Palmer admits that Wesley’s “charges might be true, at least in part;” but thinks the things “were excusable, considering the provocations the Dissenters received at that period.” He says, Wesley “endeavoured, by artful and false insinuations, to expose Dissenters to contempt;” speaks of his letter as “perfidious;” and states that he had received “many favours from Dissenters even since he conformed to the Church of England, and that, till the appearance of his invidious letter, the whole Dissenting party expressed for him, on all occasions, universal esteem.” He says, Wesley’s works “are saved from contempt only by the adorable name of Jesus which they bear, and the lovely memory of that bright saint, the Queen; both of which names, the best poets think, are injured by his trifling management.” Much of this is not only abusive, but false.
Mr Palmer’s defence was written at the request of the nobleman to whom it is addressed; and, besides rude reproaches, contains an account of the academy in which he himself had been trained for the Christian ministry. Dr Kerr, his tutor, was “a great and polite scholar, a curious critic, a penetrating philosopher, a deep and rational divine, and an accurate historian.” He never “heard him make one unhandsome reflection on the Church of England; and he never offered to impose controverted points upon his pupils. No man living could perform academical readings better; and his pupils, in proportion to their number, were equal in learning and virtue to those of any University in Europe.”
The course adopted by Dr Kerr was for his students to begin with logic, then proceed to metaphysics, and then to natural philosophy. They disputed every other day, in Latin, upon the several philosophical controversies; and, “on Saturdays, all the superior classes declaimed by turns, four and four, on noble and useful subjects.” On Mondays and Fridays they read divinity; and every day, after dinner, they read Greek and Latin authors. They also went through the Greek Testament once a year. Dr Kerr began the scholastic exercises of every morning with public prayer, sometimes in English, and sometimes in Latin. At divinity lectures the eldest pupils prayed, and those of inferior genius were allowed forms of prayer, either of their own composing, or others, as they thought proper. Prayer in the family was most punctually observed, and nine o’clock at night was the latest hour for any pupil to be out of doors. Obscene or profane discourse, if known, would have been punished with expulsion; though Palmer admits that some of the students broke the rules, and gives an account of one or two who became rakes, had to leave, and entered the Established Church. He adds, that the rule among Dissenters was for every candidate for the ministry to have five years of preparatory training, and that, before they were recommended to a pastorship, they had to be examined as to learning, probity, and virtue, and to have certificates from their tutors. Such is the substance of Mr Palmer’s defence.
In 1704, Mr Wesley replied to this. His second pamphlet is entitled, “A Defence of a Letter concerning the Education of Dissenters in their Private Academies, with a more full and satisfactory account of the same, and of their morals and behaviour towards the Church of England; being an Answer to the Defence of the Dissenters’ Education. By Samuel Wesley: London, 1704;” with this remarkable motto—
“Noli irritare crabrones!
`The Kirk’s a vixen; don’t anger her.’”
The pamphlet consists of sixty-four pages, besides eight of title, preface, and contents.
In his preface, Mr Wesley gives an account of the writing and publication of his former letter, which he solemnly declares was printed without his consent or knowledge.