“Since my last, our troubles have increased. A young man having put in force the Act, for suppressing swearing, against a parish officer, he stirred up all the other half gentlemen to remove him from the parish. Here I interposed, and, to do so with effect, I took the young man into my service. By God’s grace, I have been enabled to conduct myself, in this matter, so as to give them no handle against me; and, in spite of all their cabals, I have got the better of them. “What has greatly encouraged them is the behaviour of a magistrate, who was at the first inclined to favour me, but afterwards turned against me with peculiar malevolence, and proceeded so far as to threaten me and all my flock of the Rock Church with imprisonment. Hitherto, the Lord has stood by me, and my little difficulties are nothing to me; but I fear I support them rather like a philosopher than a Christian. We were to have been mobbed with a drum last Tuesday, at the Rock Church; but their captain, a papist, behaved himself so very ill, that they were ashamed of him, and are made peaceable for the present.”[83] Footnote 83: Letters, 1791, p. 114 Fletcher wrote to this persecuting papist the following letter, which is now for the first time published:— “SIR,—The indecent and profane manner in which you broke upon those of my parishioners who came to me for private exhortations at Mrs. Matthews’, lays me under an absolute obligation to present you at Ludlow Court as a person notoriously guilty—1, Of drunkenness; 2, of cursing; 3, of disturbing me in the discharge of the private labours of my ministry; 4, of profane disregard to the Liturgy of the Established Church; 5, of want of respect for the Royal Family, openly intimated in indecent interruption while I prayed for them, and obliging me to get up from my knees and make you go out of the room before I could conclude the collect in peace; and 6, of cursing, and making game of the Third Person of the Holy Trinity. “Though I told you upon the spot, that you should be informed of for your profane behaviour, I think it my duty to acquaint you of it more particularly, that you may prepare your answers to the above mentioned charges. “I assure you, Sir, that malice, or any private pique, is entirely out of the question. I heartily wish you well, and am ready to do you any service but that of sacrificing the interests of religion and virtue to open profaneness and immorality. “The following considerations weigh much with me to make me insist on the churchwardens putting you in their presentment; and they will, I hope, convince you that I act only according to the dictates of Christian prudence.