Mr Wesley’s letter gave the Dissenters great offence, but the reader must not forget the circumstances under which it was written, and the dishonourable way in which it was afterwards published. About the year 1690, Wesley was introduced to the meeting of the Calves-head Club already mentioned. Rightly or wrongly, Wesley regarded Charles I. as a “royal martyr,” for thus he emphatically speaks of him in the dedication he prefixed to his “History of the Old and New Testaments in Verse;” but, at the meeting at which he was now present, the name and memory of Charles were treated with even profane derision and contempt. Is it surprising that this spirited young man should leave the place with a feeling of disgust, and that, in the heat of the moment, he should sit down to write what he had often been solicited to write, an account of the “Education of the Dissenters in their private academies”? He tells us that he began to write his letter as soon as he left the club, and that he finished it before five o’clock next morning. He then went to bed, placing his manuscript beneath his pillow. While he slept, a Dissenting friend, who had seen him thoughtful, came and stealthily took the manuscript away and read it. Such behaviour was highly dishonourable, and can be excused only on the ground of supposing that Wesley and this Dissenter were intimate and confidential friends. Be that as it may, when Wesley awoke and missed his letter, he charged the Dissenter with having it. The purloiner produced the missing manuscript, said he had read it, and that there was nothing in it but what was true. Still he was doubtful respecting the expediency of divulging such revelations, and persuaded Wesley not to send the letter to the person for whom it was intended. That person was Robert Clavel, a respectable and extensive dealer in books, master of the Company of Stationers, and whom Dr Barlow, Bishop of Lincoln, used to call “the honest bookseller.” By some means, Clavel became possessed of Wesley’s letter. Wesley never intended it for the public eye. He declares that he wrote it as a “_private_ letter to a particular friend, and had not the least thought of its being published.” Clavel kept the letter in his private possession for about a dozen years. The Dissenters were rapidly rising into power. The High Church party took alarm, and Queen Anne became a tool for the accomplishment of their purposes. Just at this juncture Clavel, without Wesley’s consent, and even without consulting him, took upon himself to print the letter which Wesley, at a single sitting, had written some twelve years before, and, to give it more importance, actually dedicated it to the House of Commons, at that time most hostile to the Dissenters, and eager to do something for their suppression.