that, in a word, this most public business has been managed just in the way in which any business belonging exclusively to the person in question in his private capacity would have been conducted: viz. at one or other of his own residences, or at the residence of such his secretary as it might happen: the principal person, incidentally and accidentally talking the matter over with this or that confidential person, who is in the secret; but nothing in any way material being ever done in any such regular form, as that in which by every body it would of course be supposed to have been done.

By a plan of this sort, supposing it conceived, and acted upon, a correspondent hue would necessarily be spread over the accounts given of the proceedings. In the few instances, and those insignificant, and purely formal, in which, what was done was actually the work of the sort of body to which it is ascribed,-viz. either of the abovementioned General Committee, or of any particular Committee, or of any person or persons regularly authorized by any such body,—the day and place of méeting, if it were a Committee, or the persons, if they were persons authorized by a Committeethe persons with the times of their respective acts— would be brought to view. On the other hand, in an instance in which what was done was not the. work of any such body, or of any person regularly authorized as above, but the private work of a manager behind the curtain,-in any such in

stance no token of authentication would naturally be, because without a positive and glaring falsehood it could not be, held up to view.

On this supposition, the several instruments, which came to be brought to view, as having received the sanction of the Society, would naturally present themselves under one or other of two appearances:-1. when, for any purpose, it was deemed necessary, that the circumstance of time should be brought to view,-in this case a time would indeed be mentioned: but in expressions still indeterminate, such as those designative of the year and month, without the day of the month. But, in this case, by the supposition, no such business having, on any day of the month in question, really been done, either by the Society itself, or by any person regularly and openly appointed for that purpose-no day could safely be mentioned as the day on which that same business was done: 2. where it was not deemed necessary that the circumstance of time should in any way be brought to view, in this case no expression designative of time, how loosely soever designative, would be hazarded.

Of these two courses, when on other accounts it seemed admissible, the latter was on one account manifestly the more commodious. On the subject of time suppose nothing said-nothing by which the attention would necessarily be drawn to the subject of time is uttered: whereas, in the only way in which on this supposition it is practi

cable, let the circumstance of time be mentioned, the danger is-that, by the singularity of the appearance exhibited,-which, on this supposition, consists of blanks, substituted in a case in which generally, not to say universally, figures are employed, the attention of this or that reader may be drawn to the subject, and suspicion raised :—suspicions such as in fact have been raised, and are hére, with the grounds of them, brought to view.

Of the transactions of this Society, at this time, viz. May, 1816, three Reports, and no more than three, have been published. Report I., date on the title-page, 1812: date of the earliest transactions recorded in it, 16th Oct. 1811; latest date discoverable in it, (p. 198) Aug. 5, 1812. Report II., date on the title-page, 1814. Report III., date on the title-page, 1815. From the matter of these three Reports, and from no other source, have been drawn the inferences of which the following terms contain the expression, and of the justness of which the sincere reader will have to judge.

1. By the person or persons acting in the name of The National Society, the establishment of the Exclusionary System, as above explained, has from the first been designed to be carried into effect, and been carried into effect accordingly. For the quotations and observations, from which this inference has been deduced, short title-Proofs of the System of Exclusion.

II. In the accounts all along published of their proceedings, a system of imposition has all along been carried on: of imposition, by which, when exposed, it will appear that, whereas, all that is material in the business has been carried on by a single person, with or without occasional concert, but, at any rate, without any regular and regu larly recorded co-operation with any other person or persons, with the assistance of a secretary acting under his orders, or in his stead, the representation, all along made, of the manner in which it has been carried on, has had for its object the inducing a general persuasion that, in every act that has been done, a number of persons, in the character of members of one or more bodies, more or less numerous, under the names of The General· Committee and its Sub-Committees, have participated. Short title-Proofs of the System of Imposition.

III. Proofs, shewing the actors—the principal actors in the system of imposition.

Of the proofs, brought to view under the above two heads, the effect will not, (it is believed) on an unprejudiced mind, be purely and simply the persuasion respectively expressed in the above terms. Indeed, had this been all, so much at least as concerns the exclusionary system would have been superfluous and useless a design to that effect being no more than what, on a variety of occasions, will be seen to have been not merely acknowledged,

but studiously proclaimed. An ulterior effect will be-a conception of the extraordinary ardency of that zeal, with which, by the immoral means spoken of, under the second of the above two heads, this design appears to have been pursued.

From the ardency of this zeal,--coupled with the extraordinary nature of those same means, and the notorious history of the whole business, in respect: of the long continued neglect, with which the new system of instruction and the inventor were viewed, until the time when, without being confined to Church-of-Englandism, it had been employed in other hands with success in the joint advancement of intellectual instruction and the religion of Jesus, from all these considerations put together have been deduced two other inferences, the truth and justice of which are here submitted to the sincere reader in the terms following.

1. Of the institution of this Society, the ultimate object has not been the advancement-either of intellectual instruction in general, or of the religion of Jesus.:

2. Of this same institution the sole ultimate object. has been—the preserving from reformation the abuses, with which the Church of England establishment is replete.

In relation to neither of these two inferences will any separate documents or observations be, in this part of this Introduction, brought to view in the character of proofs.