“I am determined to stand or fall with the liberty of the College. As I entered it a free place, I must quit it the moment it is a harbour for party spirit.
“As I am resolved to clear up this matter or quit my province, I beg you will help me to as many facts and words, truly done, and really spoken, as you can; whereby I may show that false reports, groundless suspicions, party spirit against Mr. Wesley, arbitrary proceedings, and unscriptural impulses, hold the reins and manage affairs in the College; as also that the balance of opinions is not maintained, and Mr. Wesley’s opinions are dreaded, and struck at, more than deadness of heart, and a wrong conduct.
“So far as we can, let us keep this matter to ourselves. When you speak of it to others, rather endeavour to palliate than aggravate what has been wrong in your opposers. Remember that great lady has been an instrument of great good, and that there are great inconsistencies attending the greatest and best of men. Possess your soul in patience. See the salvation of God; and believe, though against hope, that light will spring out of darkness.
“I am, with concern for you and that poor College,
“Yours, in Jesus,
“J. Fletcher.”
On February 20, Fletcher set out for the College;[[219]] and, on his return to Madeley, he wrote to Wesley the following hitherto unpublished letter:—
“Madeley, March 18, 1771.
“Rev. and Dear Sir,—I was sorry not to have had it in my power to meet you in Shropshire,[[220]] and give you, by word of mouth, an account of what passed at Lady Huntingdon’s College respecting you, at my last visit there.
“The hasty admitting of subjects that did not appear to me proper; the sanguine hopes they would turn out against probability, the divisions at Brecknock and the Hay, and some things that I did not approve in Mr. Benson’s dismission, gave me a disgust to the College. Nevertheless, I went to try to make the best of the matter; but I found at my arrival that the students had been armed by Mr. Shirley against the point I had, with some success, maintained when I was there before, namely, internal conversion by the power of the Holy Ghost dwelling in the heart by faith. He called it perfection, and as such baited it out of the place.