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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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to wait the result of the Commissioners ' proceedings , rather than attempt any separate measure on the subject . With respect to the marriage law , so far as it affects Protestant Dissenters , your Committee have invited the
assistance and co-operation of the Committee of the Protestant Society , in order to devise the most expedient measures to be adopted . That society has appointed a deputation to meet a deputation from your Committee , and a meeting is intended to take place forthwith .
In May List , the attention of your Committee was called to a hill then pending in Parliament , for regulating the free grammar school at Birmingham . A clause had been introduced into that bill , tending to exclude Dissenters from auy share in the coutroul or management of the school , or its funds ; a circumstance which could not fail to excite the
attention of the Dissenters of Birmingham , who are a very numerous and influential body in that town . They accordingly , without delay , appointed a committee to oppose the objectionable clause , considering , no doubt , as well as your Committee , the attempt as a fresh exhibition of the same spirit of bigotry which had
occasioned , for so long a period , the continuance of the Corporation and Test Acts upon our statute book . Your Committee , therefore , communicated with the Birmingham Committee on the subject , and shortly afterwards the bill dropped , on the third reading in the House of Lords , where it originated .
Your Committee have still to lament the little effect produced hy their address , forwarded near two years a ^ o to Dissenting congregations throughout the : kingdom , on the subject of the funds of the deputation . They had flattered themselves that the statements contained in
that address , and the appeal therein made to the justice and liberality of Dissenters at large , would have had the desired effect , of not only replenishing the finances of the deputation , after the heavy reduction they had experienced by the expense * of obtaining the repeal of the Sacramental Test , but also of
establishing a further permanent fund , from which a sufficient income might be derived for the ordinary purposes of the deputation , and to the principal of which resort might be had in case of any other great and unforeseen emergency . Your Committee , however , so far from having their expectations realized , have had the mortification to find that the amount of subscriptions , collected in consequence of the address , is very little more than
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sufficient to defray the actual expenses of it $ circulation . To what cause this extraordinary indifference is to be attributed , your Committee are at a loss to conceive ; but they are willine ; to put the most favourable construction they can upon the conduct of the Dissenters , by supposing that they consider a large fund unnecessary , now that the repeal of the Sacramental Test has been effected .
Your Committee the more deeply lament the unfavourable issue of their exertions , as that which yet remains to be done for the cause of civil and religious liberty may give rise to considerable expense , whilst the want of available funds to defray it may occasion great difficulty , delav , and embarrassment .
As to the ordinary business of the past year , your Committee have the pleasure to state , that but few instances have occurred requiriug their interference . The following is a brief statement of the ca ^ cs brought before them : — 1 . A poor minister in Wales was deprived of an endowment , consisting of the rents of several houses , which had been
bequeathed by a will made in the year 1735 , for the benefit of the minister , for the time being , of a particular congregation . The endowment was regularly accounted for , and paid to the ministers , in succession , for a great number of years ; but at length the trustees withheld payment from the present minister , alleging that they had a discretionary
power to appropriate the endowment to some other minister in the neighbourhood . The opinion of counsel was taken , and being in favour of the claimant , every means was used to induce the trustees to comply with the donor's intention , but without effect . A petition
to the Lord Chaucellor was , therefore , presented , which for some time was obstinately resisted by the trustees ; but at length they yielded to the justice of the case , delivered possession to the minister , accounted for the rents they had received , and executed a conveyance of the estate to new trustees for the benefit of
the cluiinaut and his successors , so as to preclude the possibility of any doubt or dispute on the subject hereafter . 2 . Another minister in Wales was ejected from his meeting-house and dwelling house , by an action at the suit of
the heir-at-law of the surviving trustee . The case was not brought before your Committee till within a few days of the trial ; when , seeing it was one of great hardship , and strongly recommended to the attention of your Committee by many respectable ministers in Wales , they rc-
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210 Intettigence . —Report of Dissenting Deputies
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), March 2, 1831, page 210, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2595/page/66/
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