"For many years he regularly preached at places eight, ten, and sixteen miles off, returning the same night, though he seldom got home before one or two in the morning. At a little Society which he had gathered about six miles from Madeley, he preached two or three times a week, beginning at five in the morning.... In some of his journeys he had not only difficulties, but dangers likewise, to encounter. One day, as he was riding over a wooden bridge, just as he got to the middle thereof, it broke in. The mare's forelegs sank into the river, but her breast and hinder parts were kept up by the bridge. In that position she lay as still as if she had been dead, till he got over her neck and took off his bags, in which were several MSS., the spoiling of which would have occasioned much trouble. He then endeavoured to raise her up, but she would not stir till he went over the other part of the bridge. But no sooner did he set his feet upon the ground than she began to plunge. Immediately the remaining part of the bridge broke down and sunk with her into the river. But presently she rose and swam to him." Other adventures befell Fletcher in his travels, some of them ending in the narrowest escapes from injury and death. In the early part of the year 1770 Fletcher visited Italy, France, and his native Switzerland, with his friend Mr. Ireland. Few details are preserved, but it seems to have been an uncommonly lively tour. Mr. Ireland tells of the Vicar's enthusiasm for unmasking various practices of the Italian priests, which placed them frequently in danger of their lives. During this trip they met with a classical scholar who said he had "travelled all over Europe, and had passed through all the societies in England to find a person whose life corresponded with the Gospels and with Paul's Epistles." Almost defiantly he demanded of Mr. Ireland if he knew a single clergyman or Dissenting minister in his native land possessed of £100 a year who would not desert his living for any other if offered double that amount. Mr. Ireland triumphantly pointed to his travelling companion, saying, "_That_ man would not!" The traveller turned to Mr. Fletcher and began a religious argument, which the two kept up at intervals for a whole week. The Vicar overcame his opponent again and again, and though the latter lost his temper continually over his repeated defeats, the calm, sweet reasonableness of Fletcher's spirit, as much as the overwhelming weight of his arguments for Jesus Christ, made a lasting impression upon his mind. Eight years later he showed his appreciation by becoming the Vicar's host in Provence, and treating him with the greatest reverence and attention.