"Having been charged by you with unsoundness of principle and doctrine, founded on reports spread among the people in an unfriendly manner, and contrary to the order of our Discipline, by Joseph Whitall, as charged in the letter from you dated the 19th instant, and as these charges are not literally true, being founded on his own forced and improper construction of my words, I deny them, and I do not consider myself amenable to him, nor to any other, for crimes laid to my charge as being committed in the course of the sittings of our last Yearly Meeting, as not any of my fellow-members of that meeting discovered or noticed any such thing--which I presume to be the case, as not an individual has mentioned any such things to me, but contrary thereto. Many of our most valued Friends (who had heard some of those foul reports first promulgated by a citizen of our city) acknowledged the great satisfaction they had with my services and exercise in the course of that meeting, and were fully convinced that all those reports were false; and this view is fully confirmed by a certificate granted me by the Monthly and Quarterly Meetings of which I am a member, in which they expressed their full unity with me--and which meetings were held a considerable time after our Yearly Meeting, in the course of which Joseph Whitall has presumed to charge me with unsoundness of doctrine, contrary to the sense of the Monthly, Quarterly and Yearly Meetings of which I am a member, and to whom only do I hold myself amenable for all conduct transacted within their limits. The other charges made against me by Ezra Comfort, as expressed in your letter, are in general incorrect, as is proved by the annexed certificate; and, moreover, as Ezra Comfort has departed from gospel order in not mentioning his uneasiness to me when present with me, and when I could have appealed to Friends of that meeting to justify me; therefore, I consider Ezra Comfort to have acted disorderly and contrary to the discipline, and these are the reasons which induce me to refuse a compliance with your requisitions--considering them arbitrary and contrary to the established order of our Society. "ELIAS HICKS. "PHILADELPHIA, Twelfth month 21, 1822." As already noted the charges in the letter of the ten elders were based on statements made by Joseph Whitall, supplemented by allegations by Ezra Comfort, as to what Elias had said in two sermons, neither of which was delivered within the bounds of Philadelphia Quarterly Meeting. The matters complained of are mostly subject to variable interpretation, and scarcely afford a basis for a religious quarrel, especially considering that the alleged statements were at the best garbled from quite lengthy discourses.