CH.XXIV THE MEETING FOR SUFFERINGS 299 



came to be added of a wider scope. The meeting took 

 note of Bills brought before parliament which might 

 affect Friends, and of all books or pamphlets issued 

 against them or their principles. It directed the issuing 

 or endorsing of replies to such books, and the distribution 

 of standard Quaker literature to all parts. 1 A regular 

 correspondence was maintained by the meeting with 

 Friends in the colonies, islands and distant parts, and a 

 general care exercised over their interests an welfare. 



Fothergill early became a member of the Meeting for 

 Sufferings ; his name appears upon the minutes before 

 he was twenty-nine years of age as " correspondent " for 

 Barbadoes. He had ever a high estimate of this meeting 

 and a cordial regard for its members : they came together 

 in reverence and tenderness of spirit, and became in his 

 belief instruments in the hands of Providence for much 

 good. A committee was appointed by the meeting as 

 occasion required " on the affairs of Friends in Pennsyl- 

 vania," and was sometimes continued from week to week 

 over a course of several years ; Fothergill's name was 

 added to such a committee in 1741. He had a hereditary 

 interest in the province, his father having thrice visited 

 it ; and mutual friendships had been made when some 

 from that side had come to London. He had even thought 

 at one time of settling there himself. Later, his brother 

 Samuel's prolonged labours in America in 1754-1756 

 strengthened the ties which had been formed. Fother- 

 gill's medical practice brought him into frequent connec- 

 tion with the Colonials ; his intimate friendship with 

 Franklin and his botanical and other scientific pursuits 

 also kept him in close touch with their life and interests. 

 Thus it came to pass that he had a much fuller knowledge 

 than was common in those days of the American colonies, 

 of which indeed some public men in England were grossly 

 ignorant ; for it is on record that the dispatches of a 



1 Thus in 1741 Dr. Fothergill was appointed with others to consider of an 

 answer to a book in defence of the clergy of York. In the same year he was 

 to draw up a letter to prevent G. C., " who is rambling up and down the 

 country preaching," from imposing himself upon Friends. 



