Wesley’s first journey from London, in 1768, was on the 18th of February, to Chatham. Methodism of some sort had existed here for a considerable time. As early as 1751, the _Gentleman’s Magazine_ relates, that a man and his wife at Chatham, both of them being Methodists, had hanged themselves; and that, in order to prove the man a lunatic, his friends produced, to the coroner’s jury, the New Testament, on a roll of paper, which the man had written with his blood.[10] Wesley writes: “Thursday, February 18--Having been importunately pressed thereto, I rode through a keen east wind to Chatham. About six in the evening, I preached at the barracks, in what they call the church. It is a large room, in which the chaplain reads prayers, and preaches now and then. It was soon as hot as an oven, through the multitude of people; some hundreds of whom were soldiers; and they were ‘all ear,’ as Mr. Boston says, scarcely allowing themselves to breathe. Even between five and six the next morning, the room was warm enough. I suppose upwards of two hundred soldiers were a part of the audience. Many of these are already warring a good warfare.” This was Wesley’s first visit to Chatham; but not his last. From the beginning, he had loved soldiers, and, to the end, it was always a pleasure to preach to them. On March 6, he set out on his long northern journey, which occupied the next five months. A few jottings respecting it may be acceptable. At Gloucester, a “noisy and mischievous mob” had been “taken in hand and tamed by an honest magistrate.” Cheltenham was “a quiet, comfortable place,” despite the “rector and the anabaptist minister.” At Worcester, the difficulty was, where to preach, no room being large enough to contain the people, and it being too cold for them to stand in the open air. At length, a friend offered the use of his barn, which “was larger than many churches.” “Nothing,” says Wesley, “is wanting here but a commodious house.” Such a house was built four years afterwards,[11] and lasted till 1812, when good old James M‘Kee Byron and the Worcester Methodists were mad enough to build another costing upwards of £8000, the great bulk of which was left to be paid by their successors.[12] At Evesham, Wesley preached in the parish church; and was announced, by the vicar, to do the same at Pebworth; but “the squire of the parish” interposed an interdict, and therefore he preached in the open air. At Birmingham, the tumults, of so many years’ continuance, were “now wholly suppressed by a resolute magistrate.” Here Wesley met “with a venerable monument of antiquity, George Bridgins, in the one hundred and seventh year of his age, still able to walk to preaching, and retaining his senses and understanding tolerably well.”