CHAP, viii A CASE FOR ARBITRATION 75 



method of conferring degrees then usual did not always 

 demand evidence of full qualification. When Leeds further 

 obtained an important hospital appointment with responsible 

 duties, Fothergill's disapproval was emphatic, and he expressed 

 it in conversation at his own table to Dr. Dawson, a colleague 

 of Leeds at the hospital, who was breakfasting with him. 

 Take care, he said, of Dr. Leeds, that he do no harm to his 

 patients. 



It was not long before the governors of the hospital found 

 cause for uneasiness. Fothergill's words, which seem to have 

 been repeated, may have had influence. Complaints were 

 made of Leeds' incompetence, and some subscribers threatened 

 to withdraw their support. The governors of the hospital 

 in consequence passed a resolution, that no physician should 

 continue to hold office who had not obtained the Licence of 

 the College of Physicians. Leeds was therefore obliged to 

 present himself for examination, and having failed to satisfy 

 the college censors had to resign his post in June 1770. 

 Disappointed and discredited, he turned against Fothergill, 

 ascribing the loss of his position to the doctor's action. As 

 they were both Friends, he laid a complaint against Fothergill 

 before the church authority, the " Monthly Meeting " of 

 Westminster, in November 1770. That body, of which 

 Fothergill was a prominent member, was naturally averse to 

 taking up the matter ; a committee was however appointed, 

 but the issue dragged on from month to month, and in the 

 following April Leeds appealed to the superior body, London 

 " Quarterly Meeting." 



A weighty committee of fifteen Friends was set apart to 

 consider this appeal, but, shortly after, both parties agreed 

 to submit the difference between them to arbitration, according 

 to the rules of the society, under bond of 2000 to abide by 

 the result. Five Friends, Leonard Ellington, Daniel Mildred, 

 William Smith, Lewis Weston and John Sherwin, were chosen 

 as arbitrators, and Leeds and Fothergill were heard before 

 them. Leeds' charges against Fothergill were three : that 

 he had said that Leeds had obtained his diploma surrepti- 

 tiously ; that he had bidden Dr. Dawson take care that Leeds 

 did no harm to his patients ; and that he had told Lettsom 

 that Leeds and another had brought some disgrace on the 

 society, a statement repeated by Lettsom in a letter to a 

 friend in Edinburgh. Fothergill replied that he might have 

 said he had been informed that the degree had been obtained 

 surreptitiously, and he could quote his informants (he after- 

 wards obtained evidence of this on affidavit) ; that the advice 



