“Epworth, May 2, 1734.
“My Lord,—I thank God I got well home, and found all well here. My son-in-law, Mr Whitelamb, is gone with his wife to reside at Wroot, and takes true pains among the people. He designs to be inducted immediately after visitation.
“At my return to Epworth, looking a little among my people, I found there were two strangers come hither, both of which I have discovered to be Papists, though they come to church, and I have hopes of making one or both of them good members of the Church of England.”[[311]]
Mr Wesley was always brimful of benevolence, and, as soon as he was at home again, he showed it. Hence the following characteristic letter:—
“Epworth, May 14, 1734.
“Mr Stephenson,—As soon as I heard from John Brown that your kinswoman Stephenson had writ to you for her son Timothy, and that you had desired her to send for him up, I spoke to several of my best parishioners, Mr John Maw, Mr Barnard, and others, that we might be as kind to him as we have been to others, who have been put apprentices at the public charge, which could be done but meanly at £5, though his mother should be able to provide a few shoes and stockings besides for him. I went twice, on your account and his, to a public meeting at the church, before I had seen the mother or the boy, but the highest sum we could bring our people to, in order to make a man of him, was no more than £3, which I knew was far short of the requisite amount. On Sunday last I went and talked to Mr John Maw and Mr Barnard, and we resolved to make up the rest by a private contribution among ourselves. The next day, I sent for the lad and his mother to my house, and accordingly they came. I found he was a lad of spirit, and that he would please you. I encouraged them both, and told his mother that she might depend on £5, besides what she herself could do to set him out. This was all that I could do for him, and if herein I have been over-officious I hope you will, at least, excuse it from your obliged friend, Samuel Wesley.”[[312]]
At this period, General Oglethorpe had become a man of mark in England. After finishing his education at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, he was appointed secretary and aide-de-camp to Prince Eugene, under whom he acted at the famous siege of Belgrade. While on the Continent, a prince of Wirtemberg, with whom he was at table, took up a glass of wine, and threw a portion of its contents into his face. “That’s a good joke, my prince,” said young Oglethorpe, smiling, “but we do it much better in England;” and so saying he dashed a glass full of wine at his Serene Highness in return. Returning to England about 1722, Oglethorpe became member of the House of Commons for Haslemere, which he represented in five successive parliaments, from 1722 to 1754. In 1729, having found a friend suffering most barbarous treatment in the Fleet Prison, and taking the precedence of John Howard, he called the attention of the House of Commons to the fact, and was appointed chairman of a committee to examine into the state of prisons, where cruelties of the most revolting description had long been practised. About the same period, some charitable person bequeathed to Oglethorpe and others a large some of money in trust, to procure the discharge of poor debtors; and Oglethorpe, soon afterwards, obtained a grant of £10,000 from government, and also a very liberal public subscription, to enable the liberated insolvents to emigrate to Georgia. He proceeded to that country at the head of such a body of settlers about the year 1733, and returned to England in 1734, bringing with him some Indian chiefs, who were presented to the king.
Immediately after his arrival,[[313]] Mr Wesley addressed to him the following letter respecting his “Dissertations on the Book of Job;” and it is possible that this letter was the first of a series of causes, which, in 1735, led John and Charles Wesley to accompany the general to his newly-formed colony:—
“Epworth, July 6, 1734.
“Honoured Sir,—May I be admitted, while such crowds of our nobility and gentry are pouring in their congratulations, to press, with my poor mite of thanks, into the presence of one who so well deserves the title of Universal Benefactor to mankind. It is not only your valuable favours on many occasions to my son, late of Westminster, and to myself, when I was not a little pressed in the world, nor your more extensive and generous charity to the poor prisoners; it is not only this that so much demands my warmest acknowledgments, as your disinterested and immovable attachment to your country, and your raising a new country, or rather a little world of your own, in the midst of almost wild woods and uncultivated deserts, where men may live free and happy, if they are not hindered by their own stupidity and folly, in spite of the unkindness of their brother mortals.