“Loughrea, August 21, 1759.
“Reverend and dear Sir,—Your obliging and truly Christian letter was welcome to my soul, ten thousand, thousand times; and brought a satisfaction, which could only be exceeded by the pleasure of a personal conversation with you. I am not without hope, that, when you shall think fit to visit those blessed seminaries of vital religion in this kingdom, of your own planting, you will take an opportunity of honouring this place, and more particularly my house, with the presence of one, whose labours in the gospel of my dear Master are so eminent. I highly honour and love Mr. Berridge, and Mr. Grimshaw. May God bless them with increasing success! And may He endue me with the same noble courage! What will you say, dear sir? Will you not give up every favourable opinion of so unworthy a minister as I am, when I inform you, that, though there are many under my charge, who confess they have been awakened, yet I dare not boast of any confirmed converts, through my preaching and ministry. I am now about to leave them for two or three months; being in a very bad state of health, and advised to go to Bath. Let me entreat your earnest prayers.
“I am your affectionate brother,
“Walter Shirley.”[366]
We must now come back to Wesley. On his return to London from Norwich, on September 14, he gave orders for the immediate repairing of West Street chapel, the main timbers of which were actually rotten. He rode to Canterbury, where his congregation included “two hundred soldiers, and a whole row of officers.” At Dover, he found a new chapel just finished, and opened it.
Returning to London, he preached, on September 23, to a vast congregation in Moorfields, and wrote: “Who can say the time for field preaching is over, while—(1) greater numbers than ever attend; (2) the converting, as well as convincing, power of God is eminently present with them?”
He then set out for Bristol. At Basingstoke, he preached “to a people slow of heart and dull of understanding.” He opened a new chapel at Whitchurch; and pronounced another at Salisbury “the most complete in England.” Here large numbers of the Hampshire militia attended preaching; but, he says, “it was as music to a horse; such brutish behaviour have I seldom seen.” At Bristol, he employed his leisure time in finishing the fourth volume of his sermons, “probably,” says he, “the last which I shall publish.” He walked to Knowle, a mile from Bristol, to see the French prisoners, eleven hundred of whom were lying on beds of straw, covered with thin rags, and in danger of dying. He went back, and the same night preached on, “Thou shalt not oppress a stranger; for ye know the heart of a stranger, seeing ye were strangers in the land of Egypt”; he made a collection of £24; and, out of this, bought some dozens of stockings, shirts, waistcoats, and breeches for the poor captives. Wesley was not content with this; but wrote the following letter, which was published in Lloyd’s Evening Post, of October 26.
“Bristol, October 20, 1759.
“Sir,—Since I came to Bristol, I heard many terrible accounts concerning the French prisoners at Knowle: as, ‘That they were so wedged together, that they had no room to breathe; that the stench of the rooms where they lodged was intolerable; that their food was only fit for dogs; that their meat was carrion, their bread rotten and unwholesome; and that, in consequence of this inhuman treatment, they died in shoals.’
“Desiring to know the truth, I went to Knowle, and was showed all the apartments there. But how was I disappointed? 1. I found they had large and convenient space to walk in, if they chose it, all the day. 2.