“Upon this, as I am informed, the person who assaulted me, laid a wager of ten guineas that he would do my business for me. Some say, that they took his sword from him, which I suppose they did, for I only saw and felt the weight of his cane.
“The next morning, I was to expound at a private house, and then to set out for Bideford. Some urged me to stay and prosecute; but, being better employed, I went on my intended journey; was greatly blessed in preaching the everlasting gospel; and, upon my return, was well paid for what I had suffered; for curiosity led perhaps two thousand more than ordinary to see and hear a man who had like to have been murdered in his bed. Thus all things tend to the furtherance of the gospel.
“‘Thus Satan thwarts, and men object,
And yet the thing they thwart effect.’
“Leaving you to add a hallelujah, I subscribe myself,
“Ever, ever yours,
“George Whitefield.”
Whitefield seriously believed that this atrocious outrage was a deliberate attempt to murder him; the probability is, that it was a cruel freak, similar to many others for which naval stations have frequently been infamous.
Whitefield spent more than six weeks at Plymouth, and in the immediate neighbourhood. His detention, occasioned by waiting for the convoy, was not without good results. Hence the following extracts from letters written during this interval. To John Syms, Whitefield wrote as follows:—
“Plymouth, July 21, 1744.