“All this, thank God, does not in the least sink my wife’s spirits. For my own, I feel them disturbed and disordered; but, for all that, I am going on with my reply to Palmer, which, whether I am in prison or out of it, I hope to get finished by the next session of parliament, for I have now no more regiments to lose.” What had Wesley done to deserve outrages like these? He had withdrawn his promise to vote for Whichcott, the Dissenters’ candidate, because the Dissenters, for election purposes, began to abuse the Church, the clergy, and the memory of Charles I. And, secondly, he had “concerned himself in the election of the county, which he thought he had as much right to do as any other freeholder.”[180] For this claim of freedom to vote as he thought proper, the professed friends of freedom deemed it their duty to subject him and his family to all this insult and injury. Is it surprising that, after this, Samuel Wesley should look askance upon his old friends, the Dissenters; and that, to some extent, he should, as _Wesleyan_ biographers have stated, ally himself to the opponents of Dissenters, the “High Flyers” of the Church of England? ----- Footnote 180: Kirk’s _Mother of the Wesleys_, p. 89, 90. ----- In the last sentence of the foregoing letter, there is an expression which must be noticed. Wesley says, “I have no more regiments to lose.” An explanation will be found in the following narrative:— For above thirty years, John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough, had pursued the military life with amazing ability and success. He had married Sarah Jennings, the companion of Princess Anne. On the accession of Anne, he was appointed captain-general of the forces at home and abroad, with an allowance of £10,000 a year. After a succession of marvellous victories, he fought and won the battle of Blenheim, in August 1704. In this battle, the French and Bavarians lost nearly forty thousand men, or about two-thirds of their entire army. Thirteen thousand were made prisoners, among whom were twelve hundred officers. Ten French battalions were wholly cut to pieces; and thirty squadrons of horse and dragoons were forced into the Danube, most of whom were drowned. Marlborough took above one hundred cannon, twenty-four mortars, one hundred and twenty-nine colours, one hundred and seventy-one standards, seventeen pair of kettle-drums, three thousand six-hundred tents, thirty-four coaches, three hundred laden mules, two bridges of boats, fourteen pontoons, and eight casks of silver. His loss in killed and wounded was twelve thousand. The hero received the thanks of both Houses of Parliament; the city entertained him with a splendid feast; the colours taken from the enemy were paraded from one extremity of London to the other; the Queen gave to him and to his heirs for ever the manor of Woodstock and the hundred of Wootton, and caused a palace, Blenheim House, to be built for him. His prime fault was his avarice. “The desire