“My Lord,—It is happy for me that your Grace has entertained no ill opinion of me, and will not alter what you have entertained without reason. But it is still happier that I serve a Master who cannot be deceived, and who, I am sure, will never forsake me. A jail is a paradise in comparison of the life I led before I came hither. No man has worked truer for bread than I have done, and few have lived harder, or their families either. I am grown weary of vindicating myself; not, I thank God, that my spirits sink, or that I have not right on my side, but because I have almost a whole world against me; and therefore shall, in the main, leave my cause to the righteous Judge.
“A few weeks ago, in the night, since I came hither, my enemies stabbed my cows, endeavouring thereby to starve my forlorn family in my absence; my cows being all dried by it, which was their chief subsistence; though I hope they had not the power to kill any of them outright.
“After it was done, to divert the cry of the world against them, they spread a report that my own brawn (boar) did this mischief; though at first they said my cows ran against a scythe and wounded themselves.
“As for the brawn, any impartial jury would bring him in not guilty, on hearing the evidence. There were three cows all wounded at the same time, one of them in three places; the biggest was a flesh wound, not slanting, but directly in towards the heart, which it only missed by glancing outward on the rib. It was nine inches deep; whereas the brawn’s tusks were hardly two inches long. All conclude that the work was done with a sword, by the breadth and shape of the orifice.
“The same night the iron latch of my door was twined off, and the wood hacked in order to shoot back the lock, which nobody will think was with an intention to rob my family. My house-dog, who made a huge noise within doors, was sufficiently punished for his want of politics and moderation; for, the next day but one, his leg was almost chopped off by an unknown hand.
“It is not every one that could bear these things: but, I bless God, my wife is less concerned with suffering them than I am in the writing, or than I believe your Grace will be in reading them. She is not what she is represented, any more than I am. I believe it was this foul beast of a worse-than-Erymanthean boar, already mentioned, who fired my flax by rubbing his tusks against the wall; but that was no great matter, since it is now reported I had but £5 loss.
“O my lord! I once more repeat it, that I shall sometime have a more equal Judge than any in this world.
“Most of my friends advise me to leave Epworth, if ever I should get from hence. I confess I am not of that mind, because I may yet do good there; and it is like a coward to desert my post because the enemy fire thick upon me. They have only wounded me yet, and, I believe, cannot kill me. I hope to be at home at Christmas. God help my poor family! For myself, I have but one life, but while that lasts, shall be your Grace’s ever obliged and most humble servant, S. Wesley.”
Such were the sufferings inflicted by unrelenting enemies upon a man with a sickly wife and eight young children. Such conduct was outrageous, and admits of no excuse. Five days after the above letter was sent off, the poor prisoner wrote another to the same excellent archbishop:—
“Lincoln Castle, Sept. 17, 1705.