[27] Mr. Burke having said in the House of Commons, that “I was made a citizen of France on account of my declared hostility to the constitution of this country,” I, in the public papers, denied the charge, and called upon him for the proofs of it. As he made no reply, I said, in the preface to my Fast Sermon of the last year, p. 9, that “it sufficiently appeared that he had neither ability to maintain his charge, nor virtue to retract it.” A year more of silence on his part having now elapsed, this is become more evident than before. By these and others means, the same party spirit which was the cause of the riots in Birmingham, has been increasing ever since, especially in that neighbourhood. A remarkable instance of this may be seen in a _Letter_ addressed, but not sent, to me from _Mr. Foley, rector of Stourbridge_, who acknowledges the satisfaction that he and his brethren have received from one of the grossest and coarsest pieces of abuse of me that has yet appeared, which, as a curious specimen of the kind, I inserted in the _Appendix of my Appeal_, and in which I am represented as no better than Guy Fawkes, or the devil himself. This very Christian divine recommends to the members of the established church to decline all commercial dealings with the Dissenters, as an effectual method of exterminating them. This method has been actually adopted in many parts of England. Also great numbers of the best farmers and artizans in England have been dismissed because they would not go to the established church. _Defoe’s Shortest Way with the Dissenters_[28] would have taught the friends of the church a more effectual method still. And yet this Mr. Foley, whom I never saw, and who could not have had any particular cause of enmity to me, had, like Mr. Madan of Birmingham, a character for liberality. What, then, have we to expect from others, when we find so much bigotry and rancour in such men as these? Many times, by the encouragement of persons from whom better things might have been expected, I have been burned in effigy along with Mr. Paine; and numberless insulting and threatening letters have been sent to me from all parts of the kingdom.[29] It is not possible for any man to have conducted himself more peaceably than I have done all the time that I have lived at Clapton, yet it has not exempted me not only from the worst suspicions, but very gross insults. A very friendly and innocent club, which I found in the place, has been considered as _Jacobin_ chiefly on my account; and at one time there was cause of apprehension that I should have been brought into danger for lending one of Mr. Paine’s books. But with some difficulty the neighbourhood was satisfied that I was innocent. [28] A tract written in a grave ironical stile, advising to hang them all. [29] In one of these I was threatened with being burned alive before a slow fire.