Cylchgronau Cymru

DAVID WILLIAMS (1738-1816): MORE BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES TiE following bibliographical notes are an addition to the notes published in this journal (National Library of Wales Journal, xxiv (1985), 93-117). 1. Two letters addressed to the Author of The Political and Religious Conduct of the Dissenters Vindicated, by the Author of the Letter to the Whole Body of Dissenters, London Packet for Sept. 4-6 and Sept. 21-3, 1778. The author of the Letter to the Whole Body of Dissenters was David Williams, who, together with his pamphlet, was satirised by Benjamin Thomas in The Political and Religious Conduct of the Dissenters Vindicated. A few months earlier a series of articles had appeared in the same paper by a correspondent signing himself Loyalist who, concerned about the currency Williams' pamphlet enjoyed in opposition circles, attacks it for its seditious tendencies (London Packet for June 19-22, June 22-24, and June 24-6, 1778). Williams wrote his own letters when he belatedly stumbled on a copy of the review of Thomas' pamphlet in the Monthly Review in a coffee house. The first of the letters focuses on the review. The second, however, is of far greater interest since Williams gives an account of the literary intention behind his own work. His intent, he says, was to mark out a firm ground on which opposition to government could secure a real foothold. He remarks: 'A man of rank, fortune and character, who should at this time put the Dissenters in the way of getting rid of their bounty [the regium donum); revive their antient and legal presbyteries, and give them liberty, instead of faith, as their public object, would come into either house of parliament with an influence which would soon overturn any administration supported merely by venality'. Williams' charge was that opposition played the government's own game, while the Dissenters were in reality more concerned with power than their professed object, liberty. 2. Salutary Admonitions to the Dissenters in a Letter to Thomas Rogers, Esq., Chairman of the Committee for the Establishment of a New Academical Institution. (London: Bew, 1787). Copy: British Library Reviews: Monthly Review LXXVIII (1788), 168-9; Critical Review LXIV (1787), 399. This pamphlet which consists of a letter (to p. 34) and postscript (pp. 35-42) is known to be by David Williams from the notes accompanying the extracts printed in Analyse des Papiers Anglois, Vol. I, 481-4. The notes reveal that the author is Monsieur Williams, 'Auteur de differens ouvrages estimes en