inform me whether there do not remain
papers, &c. of or concerning Major Andre, which might without impropriety
be at this late day given to the world; and if so, by what means access
could be had thereto? Are there none such in the British Museum, or in the
State Paper Offices? My name and address are placed with the Editor of this
journal, at the service of any correspondent who may prefer to communicate
with me privately.
SERVIENS.
Major Andre occupied Dr. Franklin's house when the British army was in
Philadelphia in 1777 and 1778. When it evacuated the city, Andre carried
off with him a portrait of the Doctor, which has never been heard of since.
The British officers amused themselves with amateur theatricals at the
South Street Theatre in Southwark, then the only one in Philadelphia,
theatres being prohibited in the city. The tradition here is, that Andre
painted the scenes. They were {645} destroyed with the theatre by fire
about thirty-two years ago.
M. E.
Philadelphia.
* * * * *
PASSAGE IN WHISTON.
(Vol. viii., pp. 244. 397.)
The book for which J.T. inquires is:
"The Important Doctrines of Original Sin, Justification by Faith and
Regeneration, clearly stated from Scripture and Reason, and vindicated
from the Doctrines of the Methodists; with Remarks on Mr. Law's late
Tract on New Birth. By _Thomas_ Whiston, A.B. Printed for John Whiston,
at the Boyle's Head, Fleet Street. Pp. 70."
I do not know who the author was. Perhaps a son of the celebrated _William_
Whiston, six of whose works are advertised on the back of the title-page;
and whose _Memoirs_, Lond. 1749, are "sold by Mr. Whiston in Fleet Street."
If the passage cited by J. T. is all that Taylor says of Thomas Whiston, it
conveys an erroneous notion of his pamphlet, which from pp. 49. to 70. is
occupied by the question of regeneration. I think his doctrine may be
shortly stated thus: Regeneration accompanies the baptism of adults, and
follows that of infants. In the latter case, the time is uncertain; but the
fact is ascertainable by the recipients becoming spiritually minded.
Afterwards he says:
"I cannot dismiss this subject without observing _another sense of
regeneration_ in the Gospel. However, _this makes no alteration in the
doctrine I have before established_; because, with us, regeneration and
new birth are terms that bear the same exact meaning. What I b
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