This, though insignificant at the time, was a matter of great importance; for, in this manner, nearly all the chapels, erected in the early part of his career, were vested in himself,—a thing involving serious responsibility, which, however, was honourably fulfilled; for trusts were afterwards created; and, by his “Deed of Declaration,” all his interests in his chapels were transferred to his Legal Conference. Thus we find Wesley, with no income whatever, except the small amount arising out of his Oxford fellowship, involved in what, to a poor man, were two serious undertakings. But even this was not all the burden that he took upon himself. He spent the beginning of November in London; and whilst there, two gentlemen, then unknown to him, came again and again, urging him to preach in a place called the Foundery, near Moorfields. With much reluctance he consented. He writes:—“Sunday, November 11, I preached at eight to five or six thousand, on the spirit of bondage and the spirit of adoption; and, at five in the evening, to seven or eight thousand, in the place which had been the king’s foundery for cannon.”[315] He was then pressed to take the place into his own hands. He did so. The purchase-money was £115; but the place being “a vast, uncouth heap of ruins,” a large sum additional to this had to be expended in needful repairs, in building two galleries for men and women hearers respectively, and in enlarging a room for the society to almost thrice its present size. To meet this large expenditure, Ball, Watkins, and other friends lent him the purchase-money; and offered to pay subscriptions, some four, some six, and some ten shillings a year towards the liquidation of the debt. In three years, these subscriptions amounted to about £480, leaving however a balance of nearly £300, for which Wesley was still responsible.[316] From this it would seem that the entire cost of the old Foundery was about £800. This was the first Methodist meeting-house of which the metropolis could boast, and a brief description of it may not be out of place.