Still, it must be admitted, that the high and holy vocation of Wesley and Fletcher was not to rebuke and correct political errors, but to revive, spread, and defend the great Gospel truths which had been so long neglected and forgotten.
No useful end would be answered by giving an outline of Fletcher’s arguments in his “Vindication of Wesley’s ‘Calm Address.’” Many of them may be more easily sneered at than answered. They show the versatility of Fletcher’s genius; and, remembering the fewness of the newspapers then published, they create surprise at the extent of Fletcher’s political information. He often uses strong language, but he is never ungentlemanly or abusive. He was loyal to the throne and government of England, but he was not a blind opponent of civil liberty, or that exemption from the arbitrary will of others which is secured by equitable and established laws. In concluding his first letter to Mr. Evans he wrote:—
“I declare that I am as much in love with liberty as with loyalty; and that I write a heartfelt truth when I subscribe myself, Rev. Sir, your affectionate fellow-labourer in the Gospel, a republican by birth and education, and a subject of Great Britain by love of liberty and free choice.”
As soon as Fletcher’s pamphlet appeared, Mr. Evans hastened to answer it, and employed Wesley’s old friend, William Pine, of Bristol, as his printer and publisher. The title of his new production was “A Reply to the Rev. Mr. Fletcher’s ‘Vindication’ of Mr. Wesley’s ‘Calm Address to our American Colonists.’ By Caleb Evans, M.A.” 12mo, 103 pp.
Mr. Evans’s reply was full of bad temper. The first twenty-three pages were devoted to abusive remarks on the change which had taken place in Wesley’s political opinions, and to a mistake which Wesley honestly confessed he had made in denying that he had seen a book on “the exclusive right of the Colonies to tax themselves.” He acknowledges that he had seen the book, but adds: “I had so entirely forgotten it, that even when I saw it again I recollected nothing of it till I had read several pages.” Mr. Evans, in an angry spirit, uses this lapse of memory to the utmost in an endeavour to brand Wesley as a liar, and concludes his first letter to Fletcher thus:—
“Having thus given you, Sir, a faithful narrative of the rise, progress, and conclusion of the dispute betwixt me and Mr. Wesley, you are welcome to re-enter on the vindication of your friend, as you style him, as soon as you please. And should you find yourself unequal to the Herculean task, you may call in the assistance of the amazing Mr. Thomas Olivers, that mirror of Christian meekness and modesty, and with his logic and your oratory, aided by scraps of mutilated letters, you will perform wonders.”
Mr. Evans begins his second letter by politely telling Fletcher that in reading his “Vindication of Wesley’s ‘Calm Address’” he had been greatly disappointed.
“For,” says he, “instead of argument, I met with nothing but declamation; instead of precision, artful colouring; instead of proof, presumption; instead of consistency, contradiction; instead of reasoning, a string of sophistries. Your letters abound, Sir, as every intelligent reader will easily discover, with the petitio principii, the fallacia accidentis, the non causa pro causa, and those many other pretty inventions by which, as the Schoolmen very well know, a question may be embarrassed when it cannot be answered.”
In succeeding pages, Mr. Evans charges Fletcher with using “loose, inconsistent, vague declamation;” and adds:—
“This may confound the ignorant and superficial; but you cannot yourself suppose it ever can convince the intelligent and impartial. Your chief aim seems to be spargere voces in vulgam ambiguas, and thereby artfully to persuade them that all those who are enemies to the measures of the ministry respecting America are Republicans, king-haters, Calvinists, Anabaptists, Antinomians, and everything that is bad.”