Mr. Houston, who was thus officially reported as the only Bedford Tory, had occupied the town pulpit for over fifteen years, and was a man of scholarship and purity, but he had become a loyalist in sympathy at the outbreak of the Revolutionary troubles, and was as inflexible in conviction as his neighbors. Originally (in 1756) the town had voted that his salary should be at the rate of forty pounds sterling a year for such Sundays as they desired his services. When they felt unable to pay they voted him one or more Sundays for himself, and then deducted from his salary proportionately. In 1775, after prolonged controversy with him, his case was brought before town-meeting (on June 15th), and he was unanimously dismissed by the adoption of a vote setting off for his own use all the Sabbaths remaining in the calendar year. The town records contain this explanation of the action: _June 15, 1775._ _Voted_--Whereas, we find that the Rev'd Mr. John Houston, after a great deal of tenderness and pains taken with him, both in public and private, and toward him, relating to his speeches, frequently made both in public and private, against the rights and privileges of America, and his vindicating of King and Parliament in their present proceedings against the Americans; and having not been able hitherto to bring him to a sense of his error, and he has thereby rendered himself despised by people in general, and by us in particular, and that he has endeavored to intimidate us against maintaining the just rights of America: Therefore, we think it not our duty as men or Christians, to have him preach any longer with us as our minister. The resolute and uncompromising spirit, which thus sternly resented and punished unpatriotic sympathies in one whom the people had been accustomed to hold in reverence, was manifested on all occasions. This is a document of later date, signed by a Bedford committee, which seems not to have been suggested by any outside action, but to have resulted from the impulses of the citizens themselves: _Bedford, May 31, 1783._ To Lieut. John Orr, Representative at the General Court of the State of New Hampshire:-- Sir:--Although we have full confidence in your fidelity and public virtue, and conceive that you would at all times pursue such measures only as tend to the public good, yet upon the particular occasion of our instructing you, we conceive that it will be an advantage to have your sentiments fortified by those of your constituents. The occasion is this; the return of those persons to this country, who are known in Great Britain by the name of loyalist, but in America, by those of conspirators, absentees, and tories;