Richard De Courcy 

Richard De Courcy (1743-1803), Vicar of St. Alkmonds, Shrewsbury, published A Letter to a Baptist Minister: Containing Some Strictures on his Late Conduct in the Baptization of Certain Adults at SY—; With a Particular Vindication of the Right of Infant Baptism (Shrewsbury, 1776). The following year Samuel Medley published a response to De Courcy, titled Intemperate Zeal Reproved, and Christian Baptism Defended, in a Letter to the Rev. Richard De Courcy. Jenkins would later publish A Calm Reply to the First Part of Mr. De Courcy’s Rejoinder:  As far as it Relates to the Scriptural Mode of Baptism:  in a Letter to a Friend (Wrexham, 1778). De Courcy had previously engaged in a brief pamphlet war with Thomas Phillips, deacon at the Baptist meeting at High Street, Shrewsbury (see letter 12). In 1776 Phillips published (with the assistance of John Sandys, his pastor) An Address to the Baptist-Church, Meeting in High-Street, Shrewsbury, which then occasioned two responses by De Courcy:  A Word to Parmenas: Occasioned by his “Address to the Baptist-Church, Meeting in High-Street, Shrewsbury” (dated 5 March 1776) and A Reply to Parmenas, a much longer response, dated 28 March 1776. Later, Benjamin Francis would engage in the pamphlet war with De Courcy with his anonymous The Salopian Zealot (1778), a satiric poem attacking the Shrewsbury vicar.