A Letter of WILLIAM SAVERY To His Wife, Respecting The Printing Of His Testimonies, Written about 6th month 13th, 1797
"William Savery's Letter to his Wife, Respecting the Printing of his Testimonies." The Friend, (Philadelphia) Vol. XXIV, No. 52 (Ninth month seventh, 1851,) page 415.
This is The Quaker Homiletic Online Anthology, Section 2: The 17th Century.
I must not omit to mention to thee one circumstance, that has given me more
exercise of mind, and caused me more loss of sleep than thee would imagine.
When I was first in London, a person took down several of my testimonies. After
my departure for the continent, he published, what he would make people
believe, were three of them; which have been industriously spread about;
perhaps some incautious young Friends not adverting to consequences, have
given too much encouragement to it. I had a hint of it soon after arriving in
London, but being almost constantly taken up during the Yearly Meeting, I did
not see them; since which, finding them on the counter of a printer's shop, I
examined what they were, and discovered in almost every page a crowd of
errors, both in diction and doctrine; making me say in one place say, concerning
the judgment of the council of elders at Jerusalem, that which never entered into
my heart to conceive; and in the next page bringing in the name of Paine, which
I did not then utter; and in divers places the matter expressed in a language
devoid of common sense, and sometimes without any meaning at all. To be sure
this was trying to bear. I took my friend Ady Bellamy along, and paid the scribe
a visit; found him to be a very poor cobbler who had acquired some knowledge
of short-hand writing; he seemed to be a religious man; said his principle
motives were the spreading of Truth, which he was convinced they contained,
though he did not profess with us. He was paid but little for his trouble; most of
the profits went to the printer. I assured him of my total disapprobation of the
business at large, even supposing he was capable of doing them correct; but we
brought him to confession that they contained divers errors. Respecting the first I
had mentioned about the decree of the Council of Elders, etc. he confessed he
had omitted the words "not that," in their proper place, which gave it a sense the
very reverse of what I intended; and as to Paine's name, that was put in by a man
who had a great abhorrence to his deistical writings. He was sorry errors had
crept into them; said it was not from design, but either through interruptions he
met with in those large crowded meetings, or inadvertence in transcribing them
into English; but from the sale they met with, a third edition had been printed
last week.
I desired him not to promote the vending of any more of them, as it would
greatly add to my affliction of mind. I did not charge the poor man with bad
motives, but perceived he was very weak in understanding, wrote very bad
English, and if he was capable of taking the substance of a testimony, he was not
able to put it into common sense in his own language. He said he had sometimes
taken down speeches in court, but then the speakers corrected his errors before
they went to press; for errors, he said, were unavoidable; and he understood
Friends were not free to correct them. As he had taken down several since I have
been now here, both in and out of London, he handed me one in manuscript; I
immediately showed him a number of errors, which Ady Bellamy well knew
were such, as he had been present at the meeting. I saw him twice since, once
with George Dillwyn, and once with Joseph Savory. In our conversation with
him he manifested much weakness, but not wickedness. Friends took up the
subject last Second-day morning meeting, and unanimously expressed their
disapprobation, which is to be mentioned in the Quarterly and Monthly Meetings
approaching, with desires that all Friends may discourage such a practice.
George Dillwyn, who is for extracting good out of evil, hopes it will prove of
service, by drawing forth something from concerned minds to spread the ground
of our uneasiness on the subject more fully than has hitherto been done, and if
possible, prove a preventative to the like abuse in the future.
There the matter rests; and I am in hopes the man will be prevailed on to publish
no more, though I was surprised to find that he was employed in taking down the
evening before last at Devonshire-House, after what was said to him. As I have
some reason to suppose some of then have found their way to America through
weakness of some Friends, I write this thus particular, and separated from my
letter, with a request that thee would be so good as to let James Pemberton,
David Bacon, Henry and John Drinker, and S. Smith see it, with such other of
my beloved Friends as thou may think necessary, that I may not be charged by
those I love, or by any, with being the publisher of false doctrine and nonsense,
which would indeed, wound me more sensibly than the loss of world riches. I
believe George Dillwyn also writes to John Cox on the subject.
The man has now by him a number of Thomas Scattergood's, David Sand's,
Deborah Darby's, George Dillwyn's, Margaret Dudley's and my own, which he
says he is strongly solicited to publish, but I believe will decline it. I am assured
that in different parts of the nation, Friends have not only had their sermons
taken down, but that their pictures also have been taken in the meeting. It is an
age of curious things, so that we have need to mind both how we look, and what
we say. If there are any in our country, I hope Friends out of kindness to me and
the cause, will burn them. Dear Mary Ridgway and Phoebe Speakmen, finding
some had got into Ireland, held up their testimony against their spreading, and
told Friends they were confident they were not my words nor doctrines. With
much desire I that I may be preserved upon a foundation which none of these
things can move,
I am, as usual, thine,
W.S