5. “An Extract of the Life of the late Rev. David Brainerd.” 12mo, 274 pages. Just at the time when Methodism was extending its mission to America and Newfoundland, Wesley issued his life of one of the most devoted missionaries that ever lived: a young man who died before he arrived at the age of thirty; but whose piety, for depth and fervour, has seldom been excelled; and whose four years’ mission among the Delaware and other Indians, from 1743 to 1747, would warm the heart and improve the character of all candidates for missionary work. Besides the above, another publication belongs to the year 1768,--“Free Thoughts on the Present State of Public Affairs,” 12mo, 47 pages. This, strictly speaking, was Wesley’s first political pamphlet. At the general election of 1768, John Wilkes, at the time an outlaw, was returned to parliament by the county of Middlesex; and, shortly after, was arrested and committed to the King’s Bench prison. For nearly a fortnight, crowds collected outside the prison walls, and soldiers were sent to protect the place. A riot followed; the soldiers fired; six of the rioters were killed, and fourteen badly wounded; and the exploit got the name of the “Massacre of St. George’s Fields.” For months, Wilkes’s business occupied the attention of court and cabinet; when the wretched demagogue was sentenced to pay a fine of £1000, to be imprisoned for two-and-twenty months, and afterwards to find security for good behaviour for seven years. While in prison, he was at the zenith of his fame; subscriptions were opened for the payment of his debts; and his likenesses were so multiplied, that portraits of him squinted from the signboards of half the public houses in the kingdom.