The year 1773 will always be memorable in English annals. It was now that the embryo rebellion in the American colonies broke out into overt acts. Insults were offered to the British flag; a British ship of war was boarded and burnt; and the cargoes of tea, which Lord North had allowed to be exported from England, duty free, were seized by rioters and sham Indians, and were discharged into the ocean with the utmost jubilation. Endless debates took place in the English parliament; and fearful fights were fought on the coasts, and in the wilds and prairies of America. George Washington was made commander in chief; and “The Congress of the Thirteen United Colonies” was organised. For long years, the one great absorbing care of the British parliament was the war in the western world.

Wesley’s health was still seriously affected; and, hence, he spent his leisure hours, in the beginning of 1773, in examining his letters and other manuscripts, so as to determine what he should leave behind him. He writes: “I made an end of revising my letters; and could not but make one remark,—that, for above these forty years, of all the friends who were once the most closely united, and afterwards separated from me, every one had separated himself! He left me, not I him. And from both mine and their own letters, the steps whereby they did this are clear and undeniable.”

We have already seen, that Wesley thought of making Fletcher of Madeley his literary executor; but he now did more than this. Hence the following letter, sent to Fletcher in January 1773, and written at Shoreham, doubtless at the venerable Perronet’s, with whom Wesley had gone to take counsel.

This was a momentous proposal. Why was it not made to Wesley’s brother? We cannot tell; but the following is Fletcher’s answer.

At the beginning of July, Wesley had an interview with Fletcher at Madeley, and, on reaching London, sent him the following hitherto unpublished letter.

So the matter ended, though Wesley was far from satisfied. He writes: “I can never believe it was the will of God, that such a burning and shining light should be hid under a bushel. No; instead of being confined to a country village, it ought to have shone in every corner of our land. He was full as much called to sound an alarm through all the nation as Mr. Whitefield himself; nay, abundantly more so; seeing he was far better qualified for that important work. He had a far more striking person; equal good breeding; an equally winning address; together with a richer flow of fancy; a stronger understanding; a far greater treasure of learning, both in languages, philosophy, philology, and divinity; and, above all, a more deep and constant communion with the Father, and with the Son Jesus Christ.”⁠[187]

No wonder that Wesley was anxious for a suitable successor to take his place. The work of which, in the hand of God, he was the principal supporter, had not only spread throughout the three kingdoms, but was rapidly extending beyond the Atlantic. Already he had four of his itinerants in America; and, aged and feeble in health though he was, he still entertained the thought of visiting that distant continent.⁠[188] Among others, the Rev. Mr. Jarratt wrote him, from Virginia, telling him that they had ninety-five parishes in the colony, all, excepting one, supplied with clergymen, but that ninety-three out of the ninety-four ministers appeared to be without “the power and spirit of vital religion.” He thanks him for sending his preachers to America, two of whom, Messrs. Pilmoor and Williams, were now labouring in Virginia; but asks, “What can two or three preachers do in such an extended country as this? Cannot you do something more for us? Cannot you send us a minister of the Church of England, to be stationed in the vacant parish? I wish you could see how matters are among us. This would serve instead of a thousand arguments, to induce you to exert yourself in this affair.”⁠[189]

Even this was not all. During the year, Francis Gilbert wrote to him from Antigua, telling him that “almost the whole island seemed to be stirred up to seek the Lord.” There were large congregations and constant preaching in his brother’s house; and they had, at St. John’s, a society of twenty whites and forty blacks. “Here,” says Mr. Gilbert, “is work enough for three preachers; as almost the entire island seems ripe for the gospel; yet, I cannot desire you to send them yet, seeing the people are not at present able to bear the expenses; for the fire, the hurricane, and the severe droughts have, I suppose, ruined two thirds of the inhabitants.”⁠[190]

Affairs in Scotland were scarcely to Wesley’s mind. Writing to John Bredin, at Aberdeen, he says:

Joseph Benson had been urged to go to America; but Wesley deemed it desirable to send him across the Tweed to put things right in the northern part of the kingdom. “God,” says he, “has made practical divinity necessary, and the devil controversial. Sometimes we must write and preach controversially; but the less the better. I think we have few, if any, of our travelling preachers, that love controversy; but there will always be men whose mouth it is necessary to stop; antinomians and Calvinists in particular. By our long silence, we have done much hurt, both to them and the cause of God. The more you preach abroad, the better; keep to the plain, old Methodist doctrine, laid down in the minutes of the conference. At Trevecca, you were a little warped from this; but it was a right hand error. You will be buried in Scotland, if you sell your mare and sit still. Keep her, and ride continually. Sit not still, at the peril of your soul and body! Billy Thompson never satisfied me on this head, not in the least degree. I say still, we will have travelling preachers in Scotland, or none. Our preachers shall either travel there, as in England, or else stay in England.”⁠[192]

Such were some of the difficulties which this veteran evangelist had to meet. No wonder that he wished for help.

Chapel debts, also, still pressed heavily upon him. Hence the following to Mr. Hopper.

It is now time to trace Wesley’s wanderings in 1773.

On Sunday evening, March 7, he set out from London to Ireland, taking, for the first time, his carriage with him, which, however, he was deprived of the opportunity of using. He writes: “March 30—I was a little surprised to find the commissioners of the customs would not permit my chaise to be landed, because, they said, the captain of a packet boat had no right to bring over goods. Poor pretence! However, I was more obliged to them than I then knew; for had it come on shore, it would have been utterly spoiled.”

The result was, that Wesley had to hire a chaise instead of riding in his own; a vehicle which at Ballibac ferry went overboard, and, with difficulty, was recovered; and which, on another occasion, it took five hours to drag less than a dozen miles; which, in a third instance, was disabled by the breaking of the hinder axletree; and which, more than once, was in danger of being dashed to pieces by furious mobs.

Everywhere his congregations were large. In many instances, he had whole troops of soldiers to hear him; and nowhere did he meet with any serious disturbance, except at Waterford, where the papists created a riot, in which heavy blows were given; and at Enniskillen, where a mob again and again fell upon the unfortunate carriage, cut it with stones in several places, smashed its windows, and well-nigh covered it with sludge.

Three months were spent in itinerating the sister kingdom. Scores of towns and villages, between Dublin and Galway, Belfast and Cork, were favoured with his ministry; and diversified were the incidents with which he met. At Eyrecourt, the crowd gave him a loud huzza as he passed into the market place to preach. At Clare, for want of other accommodation, he was glad to accept a bed in the soldiers’ barracks. At Castlebar, on finding the “Charter school a picture of slothfulness, nastiness, and desolation; and all the children, not only dirty, but with their stockings hanging about their heels, and in a most disreputable plight, he reported the facts to the trustees at Dublin, with the hope of effecting a reformation.” At Limerick, William Myles, a youth in the seventeenth year of his age, was one of Wesley’s hearers, began to meet in class, and, five years afterwards, became an itinerant preacher.⁠[194] At Armagh, he wrote his invaluable sermon “On Predestination,” preached it at Londonderry, and, at the request of several of the clergy, published it.⁠[195] At Armagh, also, he heard what he had not heard for fifty years,—an anthem in a church. At Lisburn, all his spare time was taken up by poor patients, who came to him for physic. He writes: “What has fashion to do with physic? Why, in Ireland almost as much as with headdress. Blisters, for anything or nothing, were all the fashion when I was in Ireland last. Now the grand fashionable medicine, for twenty diseases, is mercury sublimate! Why is it not a halter, or a pistol? They would cure a little more speedily.”

On the 5th of July, Wesley started for England, having to hold his annual conference in London. He says: “About eleven we crossed Dublin bar, and were at Hoylake the next afternoon. This was the first night I ever lay awake in my life, though I was at ease in body and mind. I believe few can say this: in seventy years I never lost one night’s sleep.”

Wesley reached the metropolis on the 17th of July; and, on the 21st, made the following entry in his journal: “We had our quarterly meeting at London; at which I was surprised to find, that our income does not yet meet our expense. We were again near £200 bad. My private account I find still worse. I have laboured as much as many writers; and all my labour has gained me, in seventy years, a debt of five or six hundred pounds.”

There is some obscurity in this, as will appear from the following correspondence.

According to the above statement, Wesley was in debt to printers and binders to the amount of £500; but, at the same time, he was possessed of books whose gross value was nearly £11,000. How to reconcile the discrepancy we hardly know. The facts are furnished as we find them. One thing is certain, there was something wrong. Some have supposed that Wesley’s wife had, by means of false keys, obtained access to the book steward’s cash, and helped herself;⁠[198] but of that there is no conclusive proof; and it is certainly neither generous nor just to assert the thing without proving it. All that we know further is, that poor Samuel Franks, the book steward, a man of great uprightness and earnest piety,⁠[199] but naturally of a sensitive disposition, within a fortnight, fell into a fit of insanity, and hanged himself.⁠[200] Without mentioning this, Wesley writes: “October 6—The rest of the week I made what inquiry I could into the state of my accounts. Some confusion had arisen from the sudden death of my bookkeeper; but it was less than might have been expected.”

Here we must leave the matter. On the supposition that Wesley considered his stock of books not his own, but merely held in trust for the general good, it was quite correct, that, as the result of his literary labours, he was in debt to the amount, as he himself says, “of five or six hundred pounds.” In one respect, he was the possessor of a large amount of property; in another, he was actually in debt.

Wesley’s conference began in London on August 3. He writes: “August 3—Our conference began. I preached mornings as well as evenings; and it was all one. I found myself just as strong as if I had preached but once a day.” Good old simple hearted Samuel Bardsley, then an itinerant of five years’ standing, writes, in a manuscript letter now before us: “I never was at a more comfortable conference. We had a deal of love among us. Dear Mr. Wesley laboured hard. I had the pleasure of hearing him preach twelve times. He said, he had not preached so much at a conference these twenty years, and never was more assisted.”

It was now that Joseph Bradford was received on trial; and that Thomas Olivers was appointed to be Wesley’s travelling companion; honest Bradford taking the place of Olivers a year afterwards, and retaining it for the next eight years. Wesley’s effort to extinguish the chapel debts had resulted in a subscription amounting to £2237. Forty-seven preachers were present, and, “in order to lay a foundation for future union,” signed the following agreement.

Wesley had failed in obtaining the consent of Fletcher to be his successor; and, hence, the drawing up and signing of this conferential compact.

On the first Sunday night, after the conference concluded, Wesley set out, by coach, on his accustomed tour to Cornwall, which occupied the next three weeks.

In returning, he spent a month at Bristol, and among the societies round about. On October 6, he started in his chaise, at two o’clock in the morning, and, in the evening, arrived in London; thus, in one winter’s day, driving in his own conveyance a distance of one hundred and fourteen miles. The rest of October, except the Sundays, was spent in what he calls his “little tours,” through the five counties of Bedford, Northampton, Oxford, Buckingham, and Kent.

Ten days, in November, were spent in Norfolk; then he met the London classes; and afterwards went off to Sussex, and then to Kent. The last entry in his year’s itinerary is: “London: December 25, and on the following days, we had many happy opportunities of celebrating the solemn feast days, according to the design of their institution. We concluded the year with a fast day, closed with a solemn watchnight.” Thus, in observing feast and fast days, ended the year 1773. One of these, of course, was Christmas day, another St. Stephen’s, a third St. John’s, and a fourth the Innocents’ day. To some it may seem strange, that Wesley, the Methodist, should observe such festivals as these; but, in such matters, Wesley was still the Churchman. Besides, throughout life, it was one of his most sacred delights to think, not only of the living, but likewise of the dead. On the 12th of June, in this very year of 1773, he wrote a letter, an extract from which is worth preserving.

Up to the present, nothing has been said concerning the progress, in 1773, of the Calvinian controversy. Fletcher’s pen was not idle, but the only works he published were: first, “An Appeal to Matter of Fact and Common Sense; or, a Rational Demonstration of Man’s Corrupt and Lost Estate,” 12mo, 296 pages; and, secondly, “A Dreadful Phenomenon Described and Improved, being a Particular Account of the Earthquake at Madeley, on May 27, 1773:” 12mo, 104 pages. Neither of these, however, had any immediate bearing on the matters in dispute.

On the other side, good old Berridge, of Everton, brought out his “Christian World Unmasked”; which, if full of faults, is, at all events, free from dulness; a book, like its author, often odd, sometimes coarse, but always pious; full of genius, and full of goodness; seasoned with Calvinism’s highest flavour, but entirely free from the personal scurrility so characteristic of others.

Toplady sent nothing to the press; but his private letters were as full of bitterness as ever. “I am told,” he writes, “that Mr. Fletcher has it in contemplation to make an attack on me. He is welcome. I am ready for him. Tenderness has no effect on Mr. Wesley and his pretended family of love. For my own part, I shall never attempt to hew such millstones with a feather. They must be served as nettles; press them close, and they cannot sting. Cobbler Tom laments publicly, from his preaching tub (misnamed a pulpit), that such an antinomian as myself should have such crowded auditories, while the preachers of the pure gospel (by which he means free will, merit, and perfection) are so thinly attended. The envy, malice, and fury of Wesley’s party are inconceivable. But, as violently as they hate me, I dare not, I cannot hate them in return. I have not so learned Christ. Your idea of Mr. John Wesley and his associates exactly tallies with mine. Abstracted from all warmth, and from all prejudice, I believe him to be the most rancorous hater of the gospel system that ever appeared in England. I except not Pelagius himself. The latter had some remains of modesty, and preserved some appearances of decency; but the former has outlived all pretentions to both.”⁠[202]

Could this impulsive reviler be actually sincere, when he said he durst not, and could not, hate Wesley and his party?

Toplady, so far as printing was concerned, was silent; but Richard Hill begun the year as vigorously as ever, by publishing his “Finishing Stroke; containing some Strictures on the Rev. Mr. Fletcher’s pamphlet, entitled, ‘Logica Genevensis, or a Fourth Check to Antinomianism:’” 8vo, 57 pages. This characteristic piece is dated January 2, 1773. The author confesses, that he had formed a resolution to be silent; but “Logica Genevensis” was too provoking to be passed in silence. This, however, was to be the real “finishing stroke.” Sir Richard writes: “the unfair quotations you have made, and the shocking misrepresentations and calumnies you have been guilty of, will, for the future, prevent me from looking into any of your books, if you should write a thousand volumes. So here the controversy must end; at least, it shall end for me.”

Poor Sir Richard! Such was his resolve; and yet, almost before the printer’s ink was dry, his godly impetuosity sent forth another octavo pamphlet, of the same size as the former one, entitled “Logica Wesleiensis; or the Farrago Double Distilled. With an heroic Poem in Praise of Mr. John Wesley:” 63 pages. Hill, as usual, is angry and vindictive. He tells his readers, that he had never seen Wesley “above four or five times in his life; once in the pulpit at West Street chapel; once at a friend’s house; and once or twice at his own lodgings in Vine Street.” He writes: “I find it just as easy to catch an eel by the tail, as to lay hold of Mr. Wesley for one single moment. Oh, what quirks, quibbles, and evasions does this gentleman descend to, in order to shift off his own inconsistencies!” As a specimen of the writer’s “heroic poem,” we give the following.

Sir Richard was not content with this. During the year, he published another octavo pamphlet, of 30 pages, with the wordy title, “Three Letters written by Richard Hill, Esq., to the Rev. J. Fletcher, vicar of Madeley, setting forth Mr. Hill’s Reasons for declining any further Controversy relative to Mr. Wesley’s Principles.”

He states, that he has heard that Fletcher “wishes to have done with controversy;” and upon the strength of this, he has written to his London bookseller to stop the sale of his own publications. He begs pardon for “whatever may have savoured too much of his own spirit”; and says, restraint should be put upon several of Wesley’s preachers, “particularly upon one Perronet, of whose superlatively abusive and insolent little piece Charles Wesley had testified his abhorrence from the pulpit.” He wishes Wesley to be made acquainted with the action he has taken, and says: “If I stop the sale of my books, I hope that of the Four Checks will be stopped also.” He adds, that his mother’s death had recently taken place; and then, at the end of his pamphlet, gives “a proposed title” to Fletcher’s works, and also “A Creed for Arminians and Perfectionists”; the latter signed by “J. F., J. W., and W. S.”

Such is the substance of the three letters, which, in the first instance, were sent to Fletcher privately, and were not intended for publication. By some means, however, the fact of the letters having been written became bruited abroad, and certain hasty logicians deduced the unauthorised inference, that Sir Richard had recanted his Calvinian doctrines. This was too bitter a pill to be swallowed; and, hence, the writer, who was weary of the war, gave his private letters to the public, and attached to them a preface which had better not been penned.

For instance, he speaks of Thomas Olivers as “a journeyman cordwainer, who had written a pamphlet against him, which, though in itself black of the grain, was afterwards lacquered up, new soled, and heel tapped by his master, before it was exposed to sale.” He adds: “I shall not take the least notice of him, or read a line of his composition, any more than, if I was travelling, I would stop to lash, or even order my footman to lash, every impertinent little quadruped in a village, that should come out and bark at me; but would willingly let the contemptible animal have the satisfaction of thinking he had driven me out of sight.”

He then proceeds to accuse Fletcher of “misrepresenting facts,” and of using “artifices, false glosses, pious frauds, declamation, chicanery, and evasion, to throw dust into the eyes of his readers;” and concludes, by saying, that though he cannot read any more of the productions of Fletcher’s pen, and, therefore, cannot write replies to them, yet, notwithstanding all in his letters to the contrary, he shall still keep on sale his “Paris Conversation”; his “Five Letters”; his “Review of Wesley’s Doctrines”; his “Logica Wesleiensis”; and his “Finishing Stroke.”

Such was the position of Sir Richard Hill in 1773. He wished for peace. Why? Because he was vanquished.

What action did Wesley take? On the 1st of April was published, “Some Remarks on Mr. Hill’s Farrago Double Distilled. By John Wesley.”⁠[203] 12mo, 44 pages.

Wesley’s “Remarks” are characterised by his wonted keenness, courtesy, wit, and brevity. In conclusion, he writes:

Wesley’s other publications, in 1773, were nine 12mo volumes of his collected works, making together 3439 pages. In these were included five small works, now first published: namely,—1. “An Extract of Two Discourses on the Conflagration and Renovation of the World: written by James Knight, D.D., late Vicar of St. Sepulchre, London;” in which, by the way, a theory is propounded antagonistic to the millenarian theory, which Wesley countenanced some years before. 2. “An Extract from a Treatise concerning Religious Affections: by the late Rev. Jonathan Edwards.” 3. “A Short Account of John Dillon.” 4. “Instructions for Members of Religious Societies.” 5. “Christian Reflections. Translated from the French.” These “Reflections” are three hundred and thirty-six in number. We give one as a specimen of the rest. “The three greatest punishments which God can inflict on sinners, in this world, are: 1. To let loose their own desires upon them. 2. To let them succeed in all they wish for. And, 3. To suffer them to continue many years in the quiet enjoyment thereof.”

Besides the above, Wesley also published “A Short Roman History.” 12mo, 155 pages.