“Give my pastoral love to all my flock. May all see, and see more abundantly, the salvation of God! May national distress be sanctified unto them; and may they all be loyal subjects of the King of kings, and of His Anointed, our King! May the approaching new year be to them a year of peace and Gospel grace! I hope Molly takes good care of you. God bless her!”[[471]]
Fletcher refers to the “national distress.” This was great. Parliament was excited. Ireland was in a state of veiled rebellion. England rang with reports of threatened invasion. The war with the American colonists had already added sixty-three millions to the national debt. Trade was paralysed, and taxes were intolerable. Popery had been established in Canada, and had received encouragement in England. The Protestant Association had sprung into existence, and the Gordon riots were at hand. In the midst of this state of things, Fletcher wrote to a nobleman, whose name is not given, but who, probably, was Lord North, as follows:—
“Nyon, December 15, 1779.
“My Lord,—If the American Colonies and the West India Islands are rent from the Crown, there will not grow one ear of corn the less in Great Britain. We shall still have the necessaries of life, and, what is more, the Gospel, and liberty to hear it. If the great springs of trade and wealth are cut off, good men will bear that loss without much sorrow; for springs of wealth are always springs of luxury, which, sooner or later, destroy the empires corrupted by wealth. Moral good may come out of our losses. I wish you may see it in England. People on the Continent imagine they see it already in the English on their travels, who are said to behave with more wisdom and less haughtiness than they used to do.”[[472]]
Lord North, King George the Third’s Prime Minister, was, at this time, harassed by the American rebellion, incessantly assailed by the Opposition, and frequently threatened with impeachment. Probably, Fletcher’s letter, of which the above is only a part, was intended to help him in his troubles. Though a foreigner by birth, John de la Flechere was a most loyal and devoted subject of King George. Hence, also, the following, taken from a letter to his curate, Mr. Greaves:—
“March 7, 1780. I long to hear from you. I hope you are well, and grow in the love of Christ, and of the souls bought with His blood, and committed to your care. I recommend to you the most helpless of the flock,—I mean the children and the sick. They most want your help, and they are the most likely to benefit by it; for affliction softens the heart, and children are not yet quite hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.
“I beg you will not fail, when you have opportunity, to recommend to our flock, to honour the King, to study to be quiet, and to hold up the hands of the Government by which we are protected.”[[473]]
On the same day, Fletcher wrote to his friend and helper, Mr. William Wase, on another matter which was causing him considerable anxiety. His Methodist meeting-house in Madeley Wood had cost much more than he expected. The letter to Mr. Wase needs no further explanation, except that the work, ready to be printed, was, probably, his poem, in French, entitled, “La Louange.”
“Nyon, March 7, 1780.
“My Dear Brother,—I am sorry the building has cost so much more than I intended; but, as the mischief is done, it is a matter to exercise patience, resignation, and self-denial; and it will be a caution in the future. I am going to sell part of my little estate here to discharge the debt. I had laid by £50, to print a small work, which I wanted to distribute here; but, as I must be just, before I presume to offer that mite to the God of truth, I abandon the design, and send that sum to Mr. York.