These were odd topics for Wesley to take up; but the war excitement was now at its highest point. Liverpool, Manchester, Glasgow, and Edinburgh raised regiments at their own expense. The Whig opposition considered this to be highly reprehensible, and accused Lord North and the other members of the government with employing soldiers without consent of parliament, and of entertaining designs dangerous to the liberties of the country. Fox moved, in the House of Commons, that no more troops should be sent out of the kingdom; alleging that a war with France and Spain was imminent; and that the navy was inefficient, and the militia contemptible. Burke, in a speech of three hours and a half duration,--said to be the greatest triumph of eloquence within the memory of man,--endeavoured to weaken the hands of government, by dwelling on the ferocities and horrors committed by their savage auxiliaries in America, the red Indians. Lord George Gordon, who was not yet quite so mad as he became a year or two later, expressed his earnest wish, that Lord North “would call off his butchers from America, retire with all the rest of his majesty’s evil advisers, and turn from his wickedness and live.” John Wilkes, the ex-lord mayor of London, who had not yet attained to the post of city chamberlain, but who was engaged in constant manœuvres to escape out of the purgatory of duns, or to draw more money from the purses of private friends, was as lavish with his sarcasms, ribaldry, and drollery as ever, and told the minister, that nothing but a cessation of hostilities would save General Howe from the fate of Burgoyne. France was exerting itself to the utmost, to induce, not only Spain, but also Austria, Prussia, Russia, and the other despotisms, to become the allies and protectors of the young and free republic. The king and his ministers were involved in the greatest difficulties; and John Wesley, like a loyal man, at the head of forty thousand Methodists, felt it to be a duty to assist them as he best could, not only in private and in the pulpit, but also with his pen.