Accordingly in 1696-7, a clause was inserted in the Act 'for the completing and adorning S. Paul's' 'to suspend a moiety of the Surveyor's salary until the said Church should be finished; thereby the better to encourage him to finish the same work with the utmost diligence and expedition.'[237] No doubt they considered that the Cathedral could be finished off regardless of details, and so left like the shell of an ordinary house to be adorned by any chance person; and to this end they offered their grim 'encouragement'! It was an insult to a man like Wren, who had again and again--as in the case of Greenwich--given his skill for nothing, and it was doubly unjust because, what delays there were, sprang from the conceit and ignorance of the S. Paul's Commission. Wren protested, but took no active step until he had seen the Dome of his beloved Cathedral completed. Then he sent in a petition to Queen Anne as follows:-- 'The most humble petition of Sir Christopher Wren 'Sheweth, 'That there being a Clause in an Act of Parliament which suspends a moiety of your Petitioner's salary at S. Paul's, till the building be finished, and being obstructed in his measures for completing the same, by the arbitrary proceedings of some of the Commissioners for that fabric,-- 'Your Petitioner most humbly beseeches your Majesty graciously to interpose your Royal Authority so as that he may be suffered to finish the said building in such manner and after such designs as shall be approved by your Majesty or such persons as your Majesty shall think fit to appoint for that purpose; and your Petitioner, etc., 'CHRISTOPHER WREN.' ['_FRAUDS AND ABUSES._'] This petition was sent to the Commissioners, whose reply was, that when Sir Christopher had acted without their approbation his performances had proved very faulty;(!) they then digressed into remarks on their own devotion to the Queen's service, and into a series of petty charges against some of the workmen employed in the Cathedral, especially the bell-founder, Richard Phelp, and Richard Jennings the master-carpenter, whom they charged with a variety of frauds and abuses, and begged should be at once dismissed; they also venture to assert that 'Sir Christopher, or some employed by him, may be supposed to have found their advantage in this delay.' There is little attempt at proof in this reply of the Commissioners, but much supposition and conjecture. A pamphlet, 'Frauds and Abuses at S. Paul's,' published anonymously at this time, sets out all their suspicions in detail. Sir Christopher replied in a pamphlet entitled 'An Answer to Frauds and Abuses in S. Paul's,' and laid a petition before the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of London, in which he sets out his grievances, how little power had been really given to him and how far he had 'been limited and restrained.'