A letter to the author of the pamphlet called An answer [sic] to the…A letter to the author of the pamphlet called An answeer [sic] to the…

In Page 1 and 2, where you distinguish those who disapproved of Mr. Breck's Settlement at Springfield, and sent their Protest against it, from those that were called to judge in the Affair, speaking of the Letter, you say, of which Number were the eldest Ministers in their own County, whereby 'tis insinuated, that the eldest Ministers in the County acted, when you know that the true State of the Case was thus, That the eldest Minister of all in the County, and the eldest in the Province but one, was one that disapproved and protested; the two next acted: the four next disapproved; and the next acted: Which three were all in the County that acted. Now, Sir, the Case being thus, was not this that you gave an unfair Representation: We appeal to all your Readers that had their Information only from your Book, whether they han't been led by it, to apprehend the Case quite different from what we have now represented. In the same Place you blame us that we did not leave those eldest Ministers that acted with others, to act according to their own Light. And why, Reverend Sir, could not you, the Ministers that come from Boston, leave them to act according to their own Light, without taking such abundant Pains in urging them to act against what they of themselves were inclined to, as you know you did the Reverend Mr. Chauncey, the eldest that acted, who has often declared, in the hearing of some of us, that had he not been exceedingly importuned, he would not have acted, ⟨p. 3⟩and that he long resisted and opposed, but that you overcame him, at both times of the Council's meeting. And the Reverend Mr. Devotion, before the Council came up, did sufficiently declare in our hearing, his Disinclination to act in the Case: And there are many other concurring Evidences, that he would not have acted had not you sent to him, urging him to it.

In Page 2, you boldly charge us with running this Controversy into the public Prints. Certainly you ought not thus to have declared this to the World before you knew it; and yet afterwards, before you get to the Bottom of the Page, you implicitly confess, that you don't know it; for you speak of the two Letters in the Boston Journal, as published by us, or somebody that undertook our Vindication: If it was only somebody that undertook our Vindication, how does it thence follow, as you say, that we not being content that the Matter should remain the Subject of Conversation only, run it into the public Prints: And yet afterwards again, in the Margin, you charge the publishing these Letters at such a Time, on us, as an Instance of our unfair Way of managing. Indeed, we none of us had any hand in publishing either of those Letters, and knew not that any such Letters were published, or like to be published, or were in Being, 'till we saw them in the public Prints: And if they had been published by us, it would have been very injuriously said, that it was before any thing was published on the other side: Whereas you very well know, the Complaint of Springfield Church to the General Assembly, was published in the Boston Gazette, and the Letters referred to in your Answer, we suppose, were occasioned by that Publication, and a stolen Letter that was written on this Affair, was before this exposed in the public Prints, with ludicrous Reflections, to render the Author, and the Cause he appeared in, ridiculous in the Eyes of the World.