“You have no doubt seen an account, in the public prints, of the riot we had in this county. It took place at Dewsbury, where Mr. Ingham has propagated Methodism. Some will have him to be the author of this insurrection, by preaching up, as he certainly did, a _community of goods_, as was practised by the _Primitive Christians_. How much he may have contributed towards raising the mob, I will not pretend to say; but what I am going to tell you of this clergyman, is matter of fact. I can prove it, and you may make what use of it you think proper. A gentleman of Leeds, who was one of Mr. Ingham’s followers, asked him what difference there was between the Church of England and his way of worship? To which Mr. Ingham replied, ‘The Church of England is the scarlet whore, prophesied of in the Revelation; and there will be no true Christianity as long as that Church subsists.’ “Your humble Servant.”[97] In the then excited state of the country, and especially of Yorkshire, it would have been unwise for Ingham to have allowed such a publication to pass in silence. Hence, he waited upon Hooker, the editor of the _Weekly Miscellany_, who, says he, “received me in a genteel manner, and gave me proof that the letter of June 8th was from Yorkshire.” This is something to Mr. Hooker’s credit, especially when it is borne in mind that, at that period, he was one of Methodism’s bitterest opponents. The result of the interview was, Ingham wrote, and Hooker published the following lengthy letter:— “LONDON, _June 14, 1740_. “MR. HOOKER,—In your paper of June 8, you inserted a letter from Yorkshire concerning me. Had I followed my own inclination, I should have taken no more notice of this than of another falsity that was printed some time ago in the _News_, that the woollen manufacture in Yorkshire was likely to be ruined, implying, by me; and of many more, spread up and down, by common report, which often contradict one another. But the advice of friends has prevailed with me to write this, in answer to what the author of that letter charges me with. “The author of the letter charges me with two things: directly and indirectly:—