Notwithstanding the depreciatory opinions of Mr. Evans, Dr. Price, and the Monthly Reviewers, the government of King George III. desired to reward Fletcher for the service he had rendered them. His old friend, Mr. Vaughan, informed Wesley that he took one of Fletcher’s political pamphlets to the Earl of Dartmouth, at that time Secretary of State for the Colonies. Lord Dartmouth carried it to the Lord Chancellor, who handed it to King George. The result was an official was immediately commissioned to ask Fletcher whether any preferment in the Church would be acceptable to him? or whether the Lord Chancellor could do him any service? Fletcher replied, no doubt to the amazement of all concerned, “I want nothing, but more grace.”[[350]]
This was characteristic of the man. “The love of money, the root of all evil,” was a sin from which Fletcher was entirely exempt.
“On the 10th of May, 1774,” says Mr. Vaughan, “Mr. Fletcher wrote me thus: ‘My brother has sent me the rent of the little place I have abroad, £80, which I was to receive from Mr. Chauvet and Co., in London. But, instead of sending the draught for the money, I have sent it back to Switzerland, with orders to distribute it among the poor. As money is rather higher there than here, that mite will go farther abroad than it would in my parish.’”[[351]]
Mr. Vaughan continues:—
“In 1776, he deposited with me a bill of £105, being, as I understood, the yearly produce of his estate in Switzerland. This was his fund for charitable uses; but it lasted only a few months, when he drew upon me for the balance, which was £24, to complete the preaching-house in Madeley Wood.”[[352]]
Men, said Cicero, resemble the gods in nothing so much as in doing good to their fellow-creatures.
[331]. Toplady’s “Posthumous Works,” 1780, p. 234.
[332]. Toplady’s Translation was published at the end of the year 1769.
[333]. The well-known Rev. James Hervey.