Wesley was not the man to be silent in great emergencies. He writes: “Sunday, January 29--Finding many were dejected by the threatening posture of public affairs, I strongly enforced our Lord’s words, ‘Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith?’” Three weeks later, he preached at the Foundery, what the _Westminster Journal_ described as, “an awful sermon, on the horrid effects of a civil war”; observing “that, of all scourges from God, war was the most to be deprecated, because it often swept away all traces of religion, and even of humanity.” The text was Daniel iv. 27: “Let my counsel be acceptable to thee, and break off thy sins by righteousness, and thine iniquities by shewing mercy to the poor; if it may be a lengthening of thy tranquillity.” Both England and America were terribly excited; but space prevents our entering into details. Suffice it to say, that the alleged grievance of the American colonists was their being taxed, without their consent, by the English parliament. Dr. Johnson was known to be a great hater as well as a great genius. “Sir,” said he, concerning the miscellaneous and mongrel colonists across the Atlantic, “Sir, they are a race of convicts, and ought to be thankful for anything we allow them short of hanging.” No wonder that the English government, already at their wits’ end, applied to Johnson to assist them with his powerful pen. He did so, by the publication, in 1775, of his famous pamphlet, entitled, “Taxation no Tyranny; an Answer to the Resolutions and Address of the American Congress.”[221] No sooner was it issued, than, with or without leave, Wesley abridged it, and, without the least reference to its origin, published it as his own, in a quarto sheet of four pages, with the title, “A Calm Address to our American Colonies. By the Rev. Mr. John Wesley, M.A. Price one penny.”