About two years before I left Birmingham the question about the _test act_ was much agitated both in and out of parliament. This, however, was altogether without any concurrence of mine. I only delivered, and published, a sermon on the 5th of November 1789, recommending the most peaceable method of pursuing our object. Mr. Madan, however, the most respectable clergyman in the town, preaching and publishing a most inflammatory sermon on the subject, inveighing in the bitterest manner against the Dissenters in general, and myself in particular, I addressed a number of _familiar letters to the inhabitants of Birmingham_ in our defence. This produced a reply from him, and other letters from me. All mine were written in an ironical and rather a pleasant manner, and in some of the last of them I introduced a farther reply to Mr. Burn, another clergyman in Birmingham, who had addressed to me _letters on the infallibility of the testimony of the Apostles concerning the person of Christ_, after replying to his first set of Letters, in a separate publication. From these small pieces I was far from expecting any serious consequences. But the Dissenters in general being very obnoxious to the court, and it being imagined, though without any reason, that I had been the chief promoter of the measures which gave them offence, the clergy, not only in Birmingham, but through all England, seemed to make it their business, by writing in the public papers, by preaching, and other methods, to inflame the minds of the people against me. And on occasion of the celebration of the anniversary of the French revolution on July 14th, 1791, by several of my friends, but with which I had little to do, a mob encouraged by some persons in power, first burned the meeting house in which I preached, then another meeting house in the town, and then my dwelling house, demolishing my library, apparatus, and, as far as they could, every thing belonging to me. They also burned, or much damaged, the houses of many Dissenters, chiefly my friends; the particulars of which I need not recite, as they will be found in two _Appeals_ which I published on the subject written presently after the riots. Being in some personal danger on this occasion, I went to London; and so violent was the spirit of party which then prevailed, that I believe I could hardly have been safe in any other place. There, however, I was perfectly so, though I continued to be an object of troublesome attention until I left the country altogether. It shewed no small degree of courage and friendship in Mr. William Vaughan to receive me into his house, and also in Mr. Salte, with whom I spent a month at Tottenham. But it shewed more in Dr. Price’s congregation at Hackney, to invite me to succeed him, which they did, though not unanimously, some time after my arrival in London.