“My friends have prevailed on me to publish ‘A Poem on the Praises of God,’ which I wrote many years ago. The revising it for the press is at once a business and a pleasure, which I go through on horseback. Help me, by your prayers, to ask a blessing on this little attempt.
“I wish I could procure you an estate in this fine country, as I hope to do Mr. Perronet, one of the physicians who showed me so much love when I lay sick at Newington. His grandfather was a Swiss, who was naturalized in the reign of Queen Anne. By calling upon some of his relations, I have found that he is entitled to an estate of some £1000, of which he is come to take possession. So Providence prepares for me a friend, a kind physician, and a fellow-traveller, to accompany me back to England; where one of my chief pleasures will be to embrace you, and to assure you, how much I am, my dear friend, your obliged servant,
“J. Fletcher.”[[467]]
Alas! little did Fletcher think that William Perronet would not return to England.
“Providence,” said Fletcher, in the letter just quoted, “raises me friends on all sides.” He soon had need of them. In the month of September, William Perronet wrote:—
“Mr. Fletcher has been wont to preach, now and then, in the church here (Nyon), at the request of one or other of the ministers; but, some time ago, he was summoned before the Seigneur Bailiff, who sharply reprehended him for preaching against Sabbath-breaking and stage plays. The former, he said, implied a censure on the magistrates in general, as if they neglected their duty. And the latter he considered as a personal reflection on himself, he having just then sent for a company of French Comedians to come to Nyon. Accordingly, he forbade Mr. Fletcher to exercise, any more, any of the functions of a minister in this country. However, one of the Ministers here has given him a room in his own house to preach in; and here Mr. Fletcher meets a few serious persons, particularly a number of children, two or three times a week. Hitherto, his lordship has not interfered with respect to this mode of exhortation; and both the number and the seriousness of the congregation increase daily.”[[468]]
Referring to the same incident, Fletcher wrote:—
“Our Lord Lieutenant, being stirred up by some of the clergy, and believing firmly that I am banished from England, took the alarm, and forbade the ministers to let me exhort in their houses; threatening them with the power of the Senate if they did. They all yielded, but are now ashamed of it. A young clergyman, a true Timothy, has opened me his house, where I exhort twice a week; and the other clergymen, encouraged by his boldness, come to our meetings.”
William Perronet completes this story by relating that the minister, who began this discreditable opposition, died suddenly, as he was dressing to go to church; and that his successor continued the same intolerant behaviour towards poor, well-meaning Fletcher. Mr. Perronet adds:—
“Mr. Fletcher now thinks himself obliged, before he leaves his native country, to bear a public testimony to the truth. When his writing will be finished, I cannot say, for it multiplies under his fertile pen; so that, I fear, we shall be obliged to spend another winter in this severe climate.”[[469]]