Shirley’s “Narrative” was published in September, in which he gives great prominence to one of Fletcher’s letters requesting his “Vindication” to be suppressed. He furnishes an extract from one addressed to Mr. Ireland, dated August 15, to the following effect: “I feel for poor dear Mr. Shirley, whom I have, (considering the present circumstances,) treated too severely in my vindication of the minutes. My dear sir, what must be done? I am ready to defray, by selling to my last shirt, the expense of the printing of my Vindication, and suppress it.” This was characteristic of Fletcher’s large heartedness; but the extract from his letter was a garbled one, and rendered it necessary that he should again enter the field of battle, and defend himself as well as others. This was done at once, and, before the year was ended, another production of his facile pen was published, namely, “A Second Check to Antinomianism: occasioned by a late narrative, in three letters, to the Hon. and Rev. Author. By the Vindicator of the Rev. Mr. Wesley’s Minutes.” 12mo, 109 pages. He tells Shirley, that, though it was perfectly true that he had written to Mr. Ireland, requesting his letters to be suppressed, he had also stated to the same gentleman, that “the minutes _must_ be vindicated,--that Mr. Wesley owed this to the Church, to the ‘real protestants,’ to all his societies, and to his own aspersed character.” He states: “I was going to preach when I had the news of your happy accommodation, and was no sooner out of church, than I wrote to beg my Vindication might not appear in the dress in which I had put it. I did not then, nor do I yet, repent having written upon the minutes; but, as matters are now, I am very sorry I did not write in a general manner, without taking notice of the circular letter, and mentioning your dear name.”[147] He adds, that when he gave the manuscript to Wesley, he begged him to correct it, and to expunge whatever might be “unkind or too sharp.” Wesley had assured him, that “he _had_ expunged every tart expression”; and, if so, (for Fletcher had not yet seen it in a printed form,) he was “_reconciled_ to its publication.” Fletcher further adds, that he had just received a letter (September 11, 1771) from Bristol, stating that when Thomas Olivers, who was now acting as Wesley’s editor, heard of Fletcher’s wish to suppress his “Vindication,” he had already announced to the Bristol congregation, that the work was in the press, and would soon be ready. “Besides,” continues Fletcher, in reference to Thomas Olivers being the only preacher who refused to sign the declaration at the conference,--“Besides, Mr. Olivers would have pleaded, with smartness, that he never approved of a patched up peace,--that he bore his testimony against it at the time it was made,--had a personal right to produce _my_ arguments, since both parties refused to hear _his_ at the conference.”