20
uselessly occupied in referring it again to such a tribunal, and that the Secretary be therefore directed, with the consent of the President, to make a distinct proposition to the Lord Bishop of Rochester and his friends, that the inquiry be referred to a lawyer of eminence, and to submit the names of P. F. O'Malley, Esq., J. E. Pollock. Esq., Thomas C Chambers, Esq., with the view of one of these being agreed upon by both parties.
The Right Rev. the Lord Bishop of Rochester.
Those present at the meeting at the Bishop of Rochester's on the 12th July were loth to believe that the managers of a Religious Society would have ventured on so evident a departure from an arrangement which they themselves had proposed, and which we had accepted, and accordingly they passed the resolutions of the 12th, which the Bishop of Rochester fully approved of, and forwarded to the Jews' Society, instead of the following letter, which he had prepared in reply, and which was read to the meeting. Though not sent, it is now printed at the Bishop's special request, as conveying an accurate expression of the feelings produced, and of the impression made upon his mind by Mr. Goodhart's communications.
Reverend Sir,—Diocesan engagements in Herts, following my Ordination, prevented earlier attention to your letters of July 4th and 5th, though I read them, when received, with astonishment and deep regret.
The former was an answer to the application which I submitted to you on 20th June, asking for a copy of any Resolution passed by the Committee of the Jews' Society after the reading of Lord Shaftesbury's speech, directed against certain statements of Mr. M'Caul and myself, without waiting for the answer, which he had challenged us to produce and which we had prepared accordingly.
Your reply, July 4th, states that you “enclose the answers which I requested might be sent,” and that they are “in the form of an extract from the minutes.” The extract, however, (in contradiction of this assurance,) contains only an account of the reading of Lord Shaftesbury's speech without the information which I had applied for. Not a word is added as to the Resolution respecting it, which I had specifically asked for, which I know was discussed after the reading of the speech—and which, after some conversation, was generally assented to by the friends of Lord Shaftesbury then present, and was expressive of sympathy with his Lordship under the ex parte statement which he had placed before the Meeting. Such resolution, affecting my correspondence which his Lordship declared to contain reflections upon his character, ought, in common fairness and Christian principle, to have been shewn to me, even without the express demand which I made for it. I am amazed that you can assure me that you “have furnished what I asked for,” when you have kept back the very thing which I demanded to see, and which must have been in your possession, or within your knowledge.
Your letter of July 5th is conceived in a similar spirit, and is calculated to mislead, while it professes to state truth.
It tells me that your Committee had met to consider the proposition
