It was this state of public morality which induced the Wesleys to begin their effort at a revival of religion, and to establish and organize the great body of Wesleyan Methodists. They began their career at Oxford, where they collected a small band of followers, deeply impressed with the necessity of heartfelt religion. The most prominent among them was Whitfield, who, after a youth passed in the humble avocations of a waiter in the "Bell Inn" at Gloucester, was now struggling to educate himself for the Church as a servitor at Pembroke College. In his zeal for religion, Wesley went as a missionary to Georgia. He met with no great success there; but on his return, in 1738, he found that his society had grown, and had reached even London. Whitfield had been ordained, and had become renowned for his eloquence. He it was who, while working at first among the colliers at Kingswood near Bristol, introduced that field preaching which became the main instrument in the spread of Methodism. It was some time before Wesley could bring himself to adopt this custom; but it afterwards became his constant practice. A separation soon occurred between Whitfield, who was extreme in his views, and Wesley, who had separated himself from the Moravians, with whom he had at first worked, but who in England at least were guilty of many extravagances. The withdrawal of Whitfield made Wesley undisputed chief of the new sect, and to him was left its organization. His agents were for the most part energetic, half-educated laymen, who all looked to Wesley as their absolute chief. His object was not to separate from the Church, he himself said, "Our service is not such as supersedes the Church service: we never designed it should;" and only a very little while before his death, he said, "I declare once more that I live and die a member of the Church of England, and that none who regard my judgment or advice will ever separate from it." What he tried to do was to bring religion within the reach of those who, either by character or by the line of life they pursued, were unlikely to be reached by the ordinary apparatus of the Church, and to excite among his hearers a more true and enthusiastic religion than the formalism at that time prevalent. His society was to be not the enemy, but the handmaid of the Church. Its organization was strict and admirable. The preachers moved on in constant succession from district to district, so that neither preacher nor hearer should grow weary of monotonous work. A conference, consisting of preachers whom he selected, was held every year. The Methodists were divided into classes, with a leader to each class, and a weekly class-meeting was held. Love-feasts were also established, and any grave sin was visited by exclusion from the society. The effect of this earnest and well-arranged effort at reform was very great; not only on the Methodists themselves, who were principally among the poorer classes, especially miners and people out of reach of ordinary Church influences, and who at his death in England and America numbered nearly 110,000, but also on the Church, by exciting that warmth and emulation which we have seen was at the time so much wanted. Although its influence was thus great and excellent, it must not be concealed that, as was natural, enthusiasm produced some eccentricities which will explain a good deal of the opposition which Wesley undoubtedly met with among the higher classes and among careless Churchmen.
The nation asserts its opinion in opposition to Parliament.
As in wealth and religion, so in its political tendencies, this period was one of growth and of preparation for the more important half century which was to follow. In that period was to begin the second phase of the political change introduced at the Revolution:—the gradual assertion by the nation of their right to proper representation in Parliament. There were signs that the people at large were already growing weary of the influence of a few great nobles, of the squabbles of aristocratic parties for their own personal aggrandizement, and of the secresy in which the conduct of their nominal representatives was veiled. It is thus that the Opposition could generally rouse an almost irresistible expression of feeling by appealing from the overwhelming majority of Parliament to the passions of the nation. It was thus that Pitt, regarded as a disinterested and patriotic man, without any of the usual sources of influence, became the most popular and powerful statesman in the country; and thus when, in 1752, Mr. Murray charged with interrupting the high bailiff at a Westminster election, refused to kneel to the House, and was consequently imprisoned during the session, he was led in triumphal procession by the sheriffs of London and Middlesex. Indeed, the privileges claimed for the members of the House might alone have sufficed to excite opposition. We hear that the very rabbits, fish, and footmen of the members were taken under the august protection of the House.
The term of the existing Parliament was just over, and it seemed as if the same quiet course would be pursued in the following one, when all such ideas were overthrown by the unexpected death of Henry Pelham. His death broke the tie which connected so many Pelham's death gives the Government to Newcastle. 1754. able men of varying opinions, and it became evident that parliamentary and party struggles would again occur. The King is said to have exclaimed, "Now I shall have no more peace." Upon the Duke of Newcastle fell the task of attempting to continue the existing Government. He himself took his brother's place at the head of the Treasury; he appointed Henry Legge as his Chancellor of the Exchequer. But it was not easy to supply Pelham's place as leader of the House of Commons. The choice seemed to lie between Henry Fox, who was Secretary at War, a friend and protégé of the Duke of Cumberland, Pitt, who was Paymaster, and Murray, who was Attorney-General. Pitt, personally disagreeable to the King, and moreover at this time in ill health, was not to be thought of; Murray's ambition was confined to the law; the Duke therefore applied to Fox. But they quarrelled about the arrangement of patronage, of which Newcastle was very jealous; and ultimately Sir Thomas Robinson, a man of no mark, was made Secretary, and given the management of the House. Pitt and Fox combined to render his position ridiculous and miserable. "The Duke might as well send his jackboot to lead us," said Pitt to Fox. Before the new Parliament had been assembled a month it was found necessary to make terms with Fox, who was given a seat in the Cabinet, although remaining in his subordinate place. This caused a permanent estrangement between the two statesmen. With Fox's assistance Newcastle got through the year.
Approaching danger from India
But Newcastle was not the man to uphold a ministry during a time of such difficulty as was evidently approaching. Everything pointed to a speedy renewal of war. At the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle the limits of our American colonies had been left undefined; while in India, where Dupleix and Labourdonnais had inflicted heavy blows on the English during the war, although the nations were at peace, the French and English contrived to continue their rivalry by allying themselves with native princes, and Clive had already rendered his name famous by the defence of Arcot and the restoration of English power in the and America. Carnatic.[7] Thus there were dangers both in the East and in the West. In America the main object of the French was to secure the valley of the Mississippi, to connect by this channel their Canadian colonies with those upon the Gulf of Mexico, and thus to confine the English to the strip of country between the Alleghany mountains and the sea. The English would thus be constantly threatened on all sides, cut off from direct intercourse with the Indians, and from all hope of any extension of their settlements towards the west. The French began their encroachments by erecting forts on the Ohio river, which were to secure the connection between the Mississippi valley and Canada. A colonial war, in which the name of Washington first becomes prominent, arose from these encroachments. And this local warfare continued, till it became necessary for the Government to take the matter up. A force under General Braddock was therefore despatched against Fort Duquesne on the Ohio; but his careless stupidity led him into an ambush, where he himself and a great number of his troops were killed.
Newcastle tries to confine the war to the colonies.
In spite of these hostilities, and although the existence of unsettled questions had caused a very uneasy feeling between them, France and England were as yet nominally at peace. And Newcastle, wholly unfit to conduct a great war, and eager to temporize as long as possible, seems to have tried to confine the war to matters affecting the prosperity of the American colonies. Thus Admiral Boscawen was sent out with orders to watch the French fleet, and attack it if it appeared bound for the Gulf of St. Lawrence. The consequence was an engagement, in which the French lost two ships. The rest of the fleet, to the disappointment of the English people, reached its destination. So again, Hawke's fleet in the Channel received strange and contradictory orders. One party in the Council wished to act openly and declare war. Newcastle suggested that no orders should be given to Hawke, but that he should be sent out to cruise, and that he should be ordered not to attack the French fleet unless he thought it worth while. Finally, instructions were given him to attack line of battle ships, but nothing smaller, and to spare trading vessels. He had not been gone a week when orders reached him to destroy everything large and small between Cape Ortegal and Cape Clear. The consequence was a large capture of prizes, and a not unfair outcry from France and the rest of Europe against the strange conduct of the English in seizing vessels without a declaration of war.
George's anxiety for Hanover.