“When they knew I was got home they sent the drum and mob, with guns, &c., as usual, to compliment me till after midnight. One of them passing by on Friday evening, and seeing my children in the yard, cried out, ‘O ye devils! we will come and turn ye all out of doors a begging shortly.’ God convert them and forgive them!
“All this, thank God, does not in the least sink my wife’s spirits. For my own, I feel them disturbed and disordered; but, for all that, I am going on with my reply to Palmer, which, whether I am in prison or out of it, I hope to get finished by the next session of parliament, for I have now no more regiments to lose.”
What had Wesley done to deserve outrages like these? He had withdrawn his promise to vote for Whichcott, the Dissenters’ candidate, because the Dissenters, for election purposes, began to abuse the Church, the clergy, and the memory of Charles I. And, secondly, he had “concerned himself in the election of the county, which he thought he had as much right to do as any other freeholder.”[[180]] For this claim of freedom to vote as he thought proper, the professed friends of freedom deemed it their duty to subject him and his family to all this insult and injury. Is it surprising that, after this, Samuel Wesley should look askance upon his old friends, the Dissenters; and that, to some extent, he should, as Wesleyan biographers have stated, ally himself to the opponents of Dissenters, the “High Flyers” of the Church of England?
In the last sentence of the foregoing letter, there is an expression which must be noticed. Wesley says, “I have no more regiments to lose.” An explanation will be found in the following narrative:—
For above thirty years, John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough, had pursued the military life with amazing ability and success. He had married Sarah Jennings, the companion of Princess Anne. On the accession of Anne, he was appointed captain-general of the forces at home and abroad, with an allowance of £10,000 a year. After a succession of marvellous victories, he fought and won the battle of Blenheim, in August 1704. In this battle, the French and Bavarians lost nearly forty thousand men, or about two-thirds of their entire army. Thirteen thousand were made prisoners, among whom were twelve hundred officers. Ten French battalions were wholly cut to pieces; and thirty squadrons of horse and dragoons were forced into the Danube, most of whom were drowned. Marlborough took above one hundred cannon, twenty-four mortars, one hundred and twenty-nine colours, one hundred and seventy-one standards, seventeen pair of kettle-drums, three thousand six-hundred tents, thirty-four coaches, three hundred laden mules, two bridges of boats, fourteen pontoons, and eight casks of silver. His loss in killed and wounded was twelve thousand. The hero received the thanks of both Houses of Parliament; the city entertained him with a splendid feast; the colours taken from the enemy were paraded from one extremity of London to the other; the Queen gave to him and to his heirs for ever the manor of Woodstock and the hundred of Wootton, and caused a palace, Blenheim House, to be built for him. His prime fault was his avarice. “The desire of accumulating money,” says John Wesley, “attended him in all his triumphs, and threw a stain upon his character. In the whole, he received above £523,000 of the public money, which he never accounted for, and probably received some millions by plunder and presents.”[[181]] He died in 1722.
Such was the man whose exploits Samuel Wesley celebrated in 1705. His poem is a folio pamphlet of twelve pages, and is “dedicated to the Right Honourable Master Godolphin.” With one or two exceptions, perhaps this is the most finished poem that Samuel Wesley ever wrote. It consists of five hundred and twenty-six lines, many of them containing beauties of the highest order.
In consequence of this poem, the Duke of Marlborough made him chaplain to Colonel Lepelle’s regiment, which was to stay in England for some time; and a nobleman sent for him to London, promising to procure him a prebend. All this, however, happened while he was in the midst of his controversy with Mr Palmer, and the result was, his old friends, the irritated Dissenters, who had powerful influence both in parliament and at court, succeeded in preventing him obtaining the cathedral appointment; and, also, soon worked him out of the military chaplainship, which was actually given him.[[182]]
It is to the last of these mean and revengeful actions he refers when, in the foregoing letter, he remarks “I have no more regiments to lose.”
Samuel Wesley’s dissenting controversy involved him and his family in terrible trials. Some have been related, others yet remain. The following letter to Archbishop Sharpe was written within a month after the general election:—
“Lincoln Castle, June 25, 1705.