An Address to the Rev. Dr. Alison - 8
IN the next Sentence you tell us, that you "put £. 500, into the Hands of the Governor, who entrusted it to the Provincial Commissioners, to redeem our Captives so shamefully deserted." I am obliged to you, Gentlemen, for this Discovery. It seems then that the Authors of so many bold Untruths and uncharitable Censures, as are contained in the Letter before me, are the same Persons who gave into the Governor's Hands £. 500, for the Redemption of Captives.—And when I have Recourse to the Receipt signed by the Governor for that Money, I find it was paid by the Corporation for the Relief of Presbyterian Ministers, their Widows and Children,—not out of your private Purses, or from any Contributions of your Society in this Province, as you have left the World to conclude; but from the charitable Donations of the good People of England, Scotland and Ireland, for this very Purpose, and not for the Purpose to which you have applied the Bulk of those Donations. Wherein then does your Charity consist? Is it in abusing your Neighbours, and assuming the Charity of others to yourselves? But are you not yet ashamed to keep the Amount of this Donation a Secret from the World—and not give an Account thereof either to the Contributors in Europe, or to the People of this Province? The first have a Right to expect it, because the Money was theirs, and it was given by them on this express Condition; and the latter, because it was given to relieve them from an Expence which otherwise they must have necessarily provided for.
And are you not also ashamed to say, that the Governor entrusted the Money to the Provincial Commissioners; when you know in your own Consciences, that they never received a single Farthing, or had the least Direction in the Disposal of it; but that it was entrusted by Governor Hamilton, to two Gentlemen of your own Religion,
