To the Editor of the Morning Post
SIR,
I am one of the many who have been often edified by the graceful eloquence and truly Christian doctrine of the unfortunate Dr. Dodd.—As a Divine, he had, and still has, my love and reverence; his faults I regret; but, alas! I feel myself too guilty to cast a stone: justice has her claims;—but Mercy, the anchor of my hope, inclines me to wish he might meet with Royal clemency—his punishments have already been pretty severe!—the loss of Royal favor—the cowardly attacks of malicious buffoonry—and the over-strained zeal for rigid justice in the prosecution.—Oh! would to God the reverend bishops, clergy, &c. would join in petitioning the Throne for his life!—it would save the holy order from indignity, and even the land itself from the reproach of making too unequal distinctions in punishments. He might, by the rectitude of his future life, and due exertion of his matchless powers, be of infinite service—as chaplain to the poor convicts on the river, which would be a punishment, and, at the same time, serve for a proof or test of his contrition—and the sincerity of a zeal he has often manifested (in the pulpit) for the service of true Religion—and he may rise the higher by his late fall—and do more real service to the thoughtless and abandoned culprits, than a preacher, whose character might perhaps be deemed spotless. If this hint should stimulate a pen, or heart, like the good B——p of Chester’s, to exert itself in the behalf of a man who has formerly been alive to every act of heaven-born charity—the writer of this will have joy, even in his last moments, in the reflection that he paid a mite of the vast debt he owes Dr. Dodd as a preacher.
I—— S——.