Misc Writings and Speeches, vol 4 | Page 4

correctly given. The rest bear scarcely the faintest
resemblance to the speeches which I really made. The substance of
what I said is perpetually misrepresented. The connection of the
arguments is altogether lost. Extravagant blunders are put into my
mouth in almost every page. An editor who was not grossly ignorant
would have perceived that no person to whom the House of Commons
would listen could possibly have been guilty of such blunders. An
editor who had the smallest regard for truth, or for the fame of the
person whose speeches he had undertaken to publish, would have had
recourse to the various sources of information which were readily
accessible, and, by collating them, would have produced a book which
would at least have contained no absolute nonsense. But I have
unfortunately had an editor whose only object was to make a few
pounds, and who was willing to sacrifice to that object my reputation
and his own. He took the very worst report extant, compared it with no
other report, removed no blemish however obvious or however
ludicrous, gave to the world some hundreds of pages utterly
contemptible both in matter and manner, and prefixed my name to them.

The least that he should have done was to consult the files of The
Times newspaper. I have frequently done so, when I have noticed in his
book any passage more than ordinarily absurd; and I have almost
invariably found that in The Times newspaper, my meaning had been
correctly reported, though often in words different from those which I
had used.
I could fill a volume with instances of the injustice with which I have
been treated. But I will confine myself to a single speech, the speech on
the Dissenters' Chapels Bill. I have selected that speech, not because
Mr Vizetelly's version of that speech is worse than his versions of thirty
or forty other speeches, but because I have before me a report of that
speech which an honest and diligent editor would have thought it his
first duty to consult. The report of which I speak was published by the
Unitarian Dissenters, who were naturally desirous that there should be
an accurate record of what had passed in a debate deeply interesting to
them. It was not corrected by me: but it generally, though not uniformly,
exhibits with fidelity the substance of what I said.
Mr Vizetelly makes me say that the principle of our Statutes of
Limitation was to be found in the legislation of the Mexicans and
Peruvians. That is a matter about which, as I know nothing, I certainly
said nothing. Neither in The Times nor in the Unitarian report is there
anything about Mexico or Peru.
Mr Vizetelly next makes me say that the principle of limitation is found
"amongst the Pandects of the Benares." Did my editor believe that I
uttered these words, and that the House of Commons listened patiently
to them? If he did, what must be thought of his understanding? If he did
not, was it the part of an honest man to publish such gibberish as mine?
The most charitable supposition, which I therefore gladly adopt, is that
Mr Vizetelly saw nothing absurd in the expression which he has
attributed to me. The Benares he probably supposes to be some
Oriental nation. What he supposes their Pandects to be I shall not
presume to guess. If he had examined The Times, he would have found
no trace of the passage. The reporter, probably, did not catch what I
said, and, being more veracious than Mr Vizetelly, did not choose to
ascribe to me what I did not say. If Mr Vizetelly had consulted the
Unitarian report, he would have seen that I spoke of the Pundits of
Benares; and he might, without any very long or costly research, have

learned where Benares is, and what a Pundit is.
Mr Vizetelly then represents me as giving the House of Commons
some very extraordinary information about both the Calvinistic and the
Arminian Methodists. He makes me say that Whitfield held and taught
that the connection between Church and State was sinful. Whitfield
never held or taught any such thing; nor was I so grossly ignorant of the
life and character of that remarkable man as to impute to him a doctrine
which he would have abhorred. Here again, both in The Times and in
the Unitarian report, the substance of what I said is correctly given.
Mr Vizetelly proceeds to put into my mouth a curious account of the
polity of the Wesleyan Methodists. He makes me say that, after John
Wesley's death, "the feeling in favour of the lay administration of the
Sacrament became very strong and very general: a Conference was
applied for, was constituted, and, after some discussion,