Wesley and Hopper embarked at Holyhead on the 29th of March, and found on board Mr. Griffith, of Carnarvonshire, “a clumsy, overgrown, hardfaced man, who poured out such a volley of ribaldry, obscenity, and blasphemy, every second or third word being an oath, as was scarce ever heard at Billingsgate.” Wesley says: “His countenance I could only compare to that which I saw in Drury Lane thirty years ago, of one of the ruffians in ‘Macbeth.’ Finding there was no room for me to speak, I retired into my cabin, and left him to Mr. Hopper.” Hopper adds: “God stopped his mouth, and he was confounded.”[94] Jonah was on board; and, after being tossed by a tremendous storm for two and twenty hours, the Methodist itinerants were thankful to get back to the bay that they had left. On landing, Wesley preached to “a room full of men, daubed with gold and silver,” some of whom “rose up and went away railing and blaspheming.” The next night, he was about to preach again, when Griffith, at the head of a drunken rabble, burst open both the outer and inner doors, struck Wesley’s host, kicked the poor man’s wife, and, with twenty full mouthed oaths and curses, demanded, “Where is the parson?” Wesley was locked in another room, the door of which Griffith broke. The man was far too big to be a climber; but, notwithstanding this, impelled by his bad passions, he mounted a chair to search for Wesley on the top of the bed tester; but the burly detective fell down backwards, and then with his troop departed. Wesley having descended to a lower room, and spent half an hour in prayer with a small company of poor people gathered for the purpose, Griffith and his gang again assembled. Griffith burst into the house; a young girl, standing in the passage with a pail of water, drenched him from head to foot, and made the bully cry “Murder! murder!” Another locked the door, when, finding himself a prisoner, the poor wretch had to beg most piteously to be released, and to give his word of honour, that he and his companions would quietly decamp. At length, after a detention which had severely taxed Wesley’s patience, he and Hopper again embarked, and on April 6 arrived safe at Dublin. To his great annoyance, he found that, during his absence, the Dublin society had been beguiled by a man of the name of Roger Ball, who had been employed to preach to the Dublin congregations, and had been domiciled as a member of Wesley’s family. The man was an antinomian of the worst description, a crafty debauchee, full of deceit, and holding the most abominable errors, by means of which he had done a large amount of mischief. Some were disposed to give up the sacrament; and all were inclined to drop the Tuesday and Thursday preaching, on the ground that “the dear Lamb is the only teacher.” For years, this infamous man hung upon the skirts of the Methodist societies.