Thomas Beddoes to the Printers of The Bristol Gazette and Public Advertiser and of Felix Farley’s Bristol Journal, 14 April 1803
TO THE PRINTER.
SIR,
I request you to insert the following note in your next paper. The inquiry proposed is the shortest mode I can devise of deciding on what grounds the offering a plan, for preventing the influenza from spreading from person to person, deserves to be considered as raising ‘a needless alarm.’
Your most obedient humble servant,
THOMAS BEDDOES.
[Copy of a Note.]
DR Beddoes presents his compliments to Dr Fox: he is aware that it may be of trivial consequences whether the individual F. or B. be right in this or that opinion. But it is far otherwise when the question comes to be – Whether mis-statements are to deter people from a trial (at least harmless) to avert the evils of an epidemic febrile disease?
Dr Beddoes presumes that no one, accustomed to accurate reasoning, would accept what has been advanced, concerning schools, as conclusive evidence on the subject of the influenza. He therefore left it to make way in the world as it could. Nor did he devote a single instant to the detection of the possible inaccuracies of the statement. Such information has, however, accidentally fallen in his way, as induces him to take the liberty of submitting the following proposal. – Let Dr Fox choose one person, Dr Beddoes will choose another; and he will then refer these umpires to testimony, tending to show that important particulars, sanctioned by Dr Fox's signature, are not only unauthorised, but directly contrary to what really happened. – Let the umpires make known the result of their scrutiny.
Dr Beddoes must, however, stipulate that the parties to be referred to shall not be named unless by their own express consent. The chance of being dragged before the public, may render them indisposed to answer queries, in which case the truth could not be ascertained.
Dr Beddoes further proposes to submit to the senses of these arbitrators, whether the fumigations he recommended are objectionable, as resembling burning brimstone, &c. He hopes that a proposal, for deciding matters of fact by reference, will be accepted as equitable.
Concealment would now be an useless delicacy with regard to the parties, and Dr Beddoes believes nothing so likely to prevent the public from resting in a wrong conclusion, as full disclosure. He therefore intends to send a copy of the present note to the newspapers, where Dr Fox may meet it with an answer, if he sees good. – 14th April, 1803.
P.S. In the second paper, having Dr Fox’s name affixed, it is said, ‘I had no wish to impugn particular opinions;’ and again, ‘I have no pretensions nor desire to become a controversialist, particularly on the present occasion.’ It would seem that there must be some mistake here. Doctor Fox had the most perfect right to act as he has done. But it appears extraordinary, that a man should begin a controversy, and that to ‘impugn particular opinions,’ without wish, pretensions, or desire to do either the one or the other.Published: 1. The Bristol Gazette and Public Advertiser, vol. 37, no. 1854, Thursday 21 April 1803, cf. another printed copy in the Richard Smith Papers, Biographical Memoirs, Volume 5, 1784-1789, Bristol Archives 35893/36/e_i, 449. 2. Felix Farley’s Bristol Journal, vol. 54, no. 2824, Saturday April 16 1803 (printed without the author’s composition date).