During the latter part of his life Fletcher lived chiefly in England or abroad. Wodrow has preserved an account of some conversations which he had with him. On one occasion Fletcher told him that ‘he used to say to Sunderland, Wharton, and the leading Whigs in England, that they were the greatest fools imaginable in three things, and acted directly contrary to their interest: 1st, In the settling of the Succession upon Hanover, he remarked that the Lutherans, and still the nearer people goes to Popery, they are still the more for absolute government; and so much the more for a Tory. 2nd, In promoting and violently pushing the Union with Scotland, which now they are sensible is an addition to the power of the Court, and makes the Prince by far more absolute than before; and 3rd, In the affair of Sacheverell, when he (Fletcher) was in London, and conversed with them at that time, their pushing of his trial was the most unpopular thing they could do, and raised the cry of the “Danger of the Church,” and proposed nothing in the world to themselves by such a prosecution. Things were openly vented upon the behalf of absolute Government and non-resistance; and the event has sadly verified all his thoughts as to this.’[22] [22] This conversation was in 1712, when the Tory Government of Harley and St. John was in office. On another occasion Fletcher expounded his ideas on the subject of church patronage. He said a Presbytery was no judge of a young man’s fitness to be minister of a congregation, and he had a plan of his own ready. He would appoint six Professors of Divinity in each University, none of whom were to teach more than ten or twelve students; for they could not know more than that number intimately. These Professors were not only to lecture, but to watch the temper and character of each student, and license him when he was really capable of being a minister. Then, when a vacancy occurred, the Presbytery was to ask the Professor to send down a man whom they thought suited to the parish which was vacant. If the people did not like the man who was sent, another was to come; and so on until the congregation was satisfied. Wodrow asked Fletcher if he had not thought of writing a History of the Union; but he replied that he had kept no notes of the proceedings, and his memory was not to be relied on. He lamented his bad memory, and said he used to write out all his speeches, and repeat them, over and over again, to himself, like a schoolboy learning his lessons. He also said that he had so little readiness in debate, that if he did not know what subject was to be brought forward, he was obliged to prepare several speeches, which he laboriously learned by heart.