“He was always ready to go fast enough out to dinner or supper, where he could get good eating and drinking; but poor people might send to him from their sick bed, times and times before he would come to them. Seeing so much of his inconsistencies and shocking filthiness in their rooms, (though they always paid the rent,) we were determined to give them warning to quit our house, and we do think that a worse man or woman ever came into any man’s house before; especially as Mr. Church pretended to preach the gospel; such hypocrites are much worse than others, and besides this, we never heard any man tell lies { 22} so fast in all our lives. It is a great grief to us, that ever we went to hear him preach, or suffered him to stop so long in our house.”
I now proceed to relate and comment upon some remarkable circumstances that have occurred since my last publication. During the greater part of Sunday, my office was beset by _gangs_ of fellows who came in successively and threatened prosecutions for what appeared in the paper about Church. In the morning a constable named _Holmes_ (hired no doubt for the purpose) was employed with a ladder, in tearing down the bills that had been posted up, announcing the publication of that morning respecting Mr. Church. About noon, a man of the name of _Shawe_, who, I understand is a sort of an attorney, residing in St. George’s fields, and who, it appears has also been employed by Church, was standing in the midst of some persons outside the door of the chapel, with the newspaper in his hand, and was commenting on the _infamous_ libels, as he called them, that were published against that _most virtuous character_, Mr. Church. He seemed as if he wanted to provoke somebody to speak: and he soon had his wish; for a Gentleman of the name of Webster, with whom I am well acquainted, and whom I know to be as peaceable and correct a young man as any in the world, came up, and feeling indignant at the recollection of _certain transactions_ which I shall state presently, declared that every thing stated in that paper (_The Weekly Dispatch_) was true. This was the _tremendous_ riot which this most _dangerous_ gentleman committed. The _peace-restoring_ Mr. Shawe went immediately for a _peace-officer_—the same fellow of the name of Holmes who for three hours before had mobs of people collected around him while he was tearing down my bills, gave charge of Mr. Webster as a breaker of the peace, had him dragged like a felon to the watch-house, and afterwards conveyed him to a filthy lock-up-house in the Borough, where he was kept in a state of imprisonment, from his comfortable house and family all that day and night, until 12 o’clock on Monday, when he was brought before the magistrates at Union Hall. Of the proceedings that then took place, the following account appeared in the Morning Chronicle of Tuesday:—