1822.] 
To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. 
SIR, 
ublic tergiversations of public men should 
e publicly reprehended.” 
GENTLEMAN of the name of 
Watson, in his “ Observations on 
Southey’s Life of Wesley,” sccond edi- 
tion, page 206, note, has made some 
remarks on a transaction in which a 
near relation ef mine, the late Rev. 
James Rouquet, of Bristol, was con- 
cerned ; and, as it does not appear that 
Mr. Watson has profited by what I 
said in your Magazine for February 
1821, I request your indulgence whilst 
i state the real facts relative to this 
curious controversy. 
In this note of Mr. Watson, after 
attempting to defend Dr. Samuel 
Johnson fer the publication of _his 
“Taxation no Tyranny,” he (Mr. 
Watson) says,— But Mr. Wesley, we 
are told, recommended a pamphlet 
written in favour of the Americans to 
Mr. Pine, of Bristol, that he might 
insert passages from it in his paper, 
and which he first denied when charged 
upon him, and afterwards acknow- 
ledged.” Dr. Evans is surprized that 
none of his biographers have noticed 
this, and thinks that it was ‘‘ wise” in 
them to pass it over. The reason, I 
believe, was either that they never 
heard of the fact, or thought it one of 
the misrepresentations or exaggera- 
tions of the not over-temperate con- 
troversialists of the day. That it was 
an exaggeration, there was no more 
doubt than that Mr. Wesley was inca- 
pable of a wilful falsehood. There 
were two ways of accounting for it: 
the first that a man of Mr. Wesley’s 
engagements might easily forget that 
he had read and spoken well of a. parti- 
cular pamphlet; the other that he 
denied the circumstances against his 
better knowledge, when in point of 
fact there was scarcely any end to be 
answered by his doing so. The heated 
opponents of Mr. Wesley in that day 
adopted the less candid conclusion, 
and Dr. Evans remains sufficiently 
heated to.retain it, and to tell the 
world that Mr. Wesley was capable of 
a wilful falsehood. Did he ask, “ How 
many besides myself will believe this?” 
Tn answer to this question, 1 beg leave 
to tell Mr. Watson, that my worthy 
relative, Mr. Rouquet, believed it; all 
his family then believed it; and those 
who still survive now believe it. But 
to the facts, 
Montuty Mac. No, 367. 
“The 
Mr, Jennings on the Prevarication of Mr. Wesley. 
297 
The following publications are now 
before me:—“A Letter to the Rev. 
John Wesley, occasioned by his Calm 
Address to the American Colonies; by 
Caleb Evans, M.A. London, printed by 
Dilly, 1775.” “A Reply to the Rev. 
Mr. Fleteher’s Vindication of Mr. 
Wesley’s Calm Address to the Ame- 
rican Colonies; by Caleb Evans, M.a. 
Bristol, priated by W. Pine, 1776.” 
From these I learn that the principal 
arguments of Mr. John Wesley, in his 
“Calm Address to the American Colo- 
nies,” were taken verbatim, without 
acknowledgment, from Dr. Johnson’s 
“Taxation no Tyranny;” and that, 
although Mr. Wesley, in his ‘ Free 
Thoughts on the present State of Pub- 
lic Affairs,” published in 1770, said,— 
“I am no politician; polities lie quite 
out of my province: 1 do not defend 
the measures which have been taken 
with regard to America; I doubt whe- 
ther any man can defend them, either 
on the foot of law, equity, or pru- 
dence ;” yet, in 1774, he recommended 
a book entitled, “An Argument in 
Defence of the Exclusive Right claim- 
ed by the Colonies to tax themselves ;” 
and in less than a twelvemonth after- 
wards was “of another mind.” This 
book was written, it is said, by a Mr. 
Parker, and was recommended by Mr. 
Wesley to some of. his friends in Bris- 
tol; but who, when charged with 
having so recommended it in the pre- 
face to a new edition of his “Calm 
Address,” said he never yet saw it with 
his eyes. This book was put into Dr. 
(then Mr. Caleb) Evans’s hands by a 
articular friend, as a book Mr. John 
esley had strongly recommended to 
Mr. Pine, one of Mr. W.’s own people. 
Mr. Pine, printer in Wine-street, 
Bristol, declared, and offered to make 
oath, if required, that Mr. Wesley 
with his own hands put the book into 
Mr. Pine’s hands in September 1774, 
accompanying it with the strongest 
recommendations, and requested him 
to publish extracts from it in his Ga- 
gette. Mr. Pine read the book, re- 
commended it, as from Mr. Wesley, 
to many of his friends, and published 
extracts from it, as desired by Mr. 
Wesley, in his several papers of Sept. 
22, 29, and Oct. 6, 1774; and the iden- 
tical book which Mr. Pine received 
from Mr. Wesley, Mr. P. had then 
(1775) in his possession. 
The Rev. James Rouquet declared, 
and offered to' make oath, if required, 
2P that 
