his companions to form, if they could, the more serious parishioners into a little society, who should assemble once or twice a week for the purpose of improving, instructing, and exhorting each other: from these again a smaller number was to be selected for a more intimate intercommunion, which might be forwarded partly by the minister's conversing singly with each, and partly by inviting them altogether to the minister's house on Sunday afternoons. Mr. Oglethorpe so far accorded with his views of reformation, as to give orders that no person should profane the Sabbath by fishing or fowling upon that day; but the governor, who had cares enough to disquiet him, arising from the precarious state of the colony, was teazed and soured by the complaints which were now perpetually brought against the two brothers, and soon began to wish that he had brought out with him men of more practicable tempers.

The best people are not to be looked for in new colonies;-formed as such establishments hitherto have been in modern times, they usually consist of adventurers, who have either no fortune to lose, or no character, the most daring, or the most desperate members of society. Charles Wesley attempted the doubly difficult task of reforming some of the lady colonists, and reconciling their petty jealousies and hatreds of each other; in which he succeeded no further than just to make them cordially agree in hating him, and caballing to get rid of him in any way. He had not been six days at Frederica before he was involved in so many disputes and disagreeable circumstances, that he declared he would not spend six days more in the same manner for all Georgia, but it was neither in his power to change his situation so soon, nor to improve it. As he was at prayers in a myrtle grove, a gun was fired from the other side of the bushes, and the ball passed close by him: he believed it was aimed at him, yet if there had really been a design against his life, they who made the attempt would not so easily have given up their purpose. Oglethorpe was at this time gone

inland with the Indians, to see the limits which they claimed. During his absence the doctor chose to shoot during service-time on the Sunday, in the midst. of the sermon, and so near the church, that the constable thought it his duty to go out and deliver him to the commanding officer, who put him under arrest in the guard-room. This was of course imputed to the chaplain; the doctor's wife poured out a torrent of execrations against him in the street; and to heighten the indignation which was excited, the doctor himself refused to go out to any patient, though his services were wanted by a woman at the time. When Oglethorpe returned, he found Frederica in an uproar, and he was informed that a plan was concerted among the settlers for abandoning the colony, and that Charles Wesley was the prime mover of the mischief. The accusation came in too authentic a manner to be disregarded, for it was made by the spokesman of the discontented, who in their name demanded leave to depart. Oglethorpe accordingly sent for him, and charged him with mutiny and sedition, yet treated him with some remains of kindness, and said, that he should not scruple shooting half-a-dozen of those fellows at once, but that from regard to him he had spoken to him first. A cross-examination, skilfully managed, made the accuser himself admit that Charles Wesley had no otherwise excited the mutineers to this resolution than by forcing them to prayers. Still an uncomfortable feeling remained in Oglethorpe's breast, which no explanation could remove :-he had expected that men of such talents, such learning, such piety, and such zeal as the Wesleys, would have contributed essentially to the good order of the colony: and he complained that instead of love, meekness, and true religion among the people, there was nothing but mere formal prayers: but of the form, he was soon convinced, there was as little as of the reality, seldom more than half-a-dozen attending at the public service. Still he thought Charles had raised these disorders,-as in truth he had been the

occasion of them by his injudicious zeal: Charles asked whether it was his wish that he should altogether forbear from conversing with the parishioners. To this the governor would give no answer; but he spoke of the difficulties of his own situation; "Every thing was in confusion," he said: "it was much easier to govern a thousand persons than threescore; and he durst not leave them before they were settled."

This interview left neither party in an enviable state of mind. Charles wrote to his brother, the letter was intercepted, and the scoundrel who opened it proclaimed its contents: instead of writing again, he resolved to send Ingham to him. There was one person of better character among these profligate settlers, who burst into tears when he took leave of Ingham, and said, "One good man is leaving us already; I foresee nothing but desolation. Must my poor children be brought up like these savages?" And Charles himself, feeling the utter loneliness in which he was left, though but by a temporary separation, exclaims in his journal, "O happy, happy friend! abiit, erupit, evasit; but wo is me that I am still constrained to dwell in Meshech! I languished," he says, "to bear him company, followed him with my eye till out of sight, and then sunk into deeper dejection of spirit than I had known before." Mr. Oglethorpe now began to manifest his displeasure in a manner not more distressing to its object than dishonourable to himself. Charles Wesley, expecting to live with him as his secretary, had taken out with him from England no furniture of any kind: he was now informed that Mr. Oglethorpe had given orders that no one should use his things; and upon observing that he supposed the order did not extend to him, was told by the servant that he was particularly included by name. "Thanks be to God," said he, "it is not yet made capital to give me a morsel of bread. I begin now," he says in his journal, "to be abused and slighted into an opinion of my own considerableness. I could not be more trampled upon were I

a fallen minister of state. The people have found out that I am in disgrace; my few well-wishers are afraid to speak to me: some have turned out of the way to avoid me; others have desired that I would not take it ill if they seemed not to know me when we should meet. The servant that used to wash my linen sent it back unwashed. It was great cause of triumph that I was forbidden the use of Mr. Oglethorpe's things, which in effect debarred me of most of the conveniences, if not the necessaries of life. I sometimes pitied them, and sometimes diverted myself with the odd expressions of their contempt; but I found the benefit of having undergone a much lower degree of obloquy at Oxford."

Hitherto he had lain on the ground in the corner of a hut some boards were now to be distributed from the public stores, and he applied for some to use as a bedstead, but they were given to every person except himself. Outward hardships and inward conflicts, above all, the bitterness of reproach from Mr. Oglethorpe, who was the only man he wished to please, wore him out at last, and he was forced to lie down by what he called a friendly fever. "My sickness," he says, "I knew could not be of long continuance, as I was in want of every help and convenience it must either soon leave' me, or release me from further sufferings." Some charitable persons brought him gruel, which produced a salutary perspiration, and being a little relieved, the next day he was able to bury a poor man, who had been killed by the bursting of a cannon, but in a state of such weakness, that he was led out to perform the funeral service, and envied the man his quiet grave. On the first day of his illness he got the old bedstead to ́lie upon, on which the wounded man had expired; he possessed it only one night; Oglethorpe was brutal enough to give it away from under him, and refused to spare one of the carpenters to mend him up another.

John, meantime, being relieved by Ingham, at Savannah, embarked in a sort of flat-bottomed barge

called a pettiagaw, for Frederica. At night he wrapt himself from head to foot in a large cloak to keep off the sand flies (for they were anchored near an island), and lay down on the quarter-deck. About midnight he was greatly astonished by finding himself under water, he had rolled overboard, and in so sound a sleep that he did not wake while falling; his presence of mind which never forsook him, served him here in good stead, and swimming round to the other side of the vessel where there was a boat tied, he climbed up by the rope. Contrary winds delayed him six days on the passage. Charles began to recover from the moment of his brother's arrival. In his natural indignation at the treatment which he received, he had resolved rather to perish for want of necessaries, than submit to ask for them; by John's advice, however, he departed from this resolution, and the way to reconciliation was thus opened.Wesley remained about a week at Frederica. A few days after his departure, Mr. Oglethorpe sent for Charles, and a remarkable scene ensued. The governor began by saying he had taken some pains to satisfy his brother, but in vain. "It matters not,' said he. "I am now going to death: you will see me no more. Take this ring, and carry it to Mr. V.: if there be a friend to be depended on, he is one.His interest is next to Sir Robert's: whatever you ask within his power, he will do for you, your brother and family. I have expected death for some days. These letters show that the Spaniards have long been seducing our allies, and intend to cut us off at a blow. I fall by my friends on whom I depended to send their promised succours. But death is nothing to me: he will pursue all my designs, and to him I recommend them and you." He then gave him a diamond ring. Charles Wesley, who had little expected such an address, took it, and replied, "If I am speaking to you for the last time, hear what you will quickly know to be a truth, as soon as you are entered on a separate state. This ring I shall never make use of for myself. I have no worldly hopes: I

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