Wesley Corpus

A Compassionate Address to the Inhabitants of Ireland Source: The Works of John Wesley, Volume 11 (Zondervan) Author: John Wesley --- 1. BEFoRE I left London (two or three months ago) a general panic prevailed there. Some vehemently affirmed, and others potently believed, that the nation was in a most desperate state; that it was upon the very brink of ruin, past all hopes of recovery. Soon after, I found that the same panic had spread throughout the city of Bristol. I traced it likewise wherever I went, in Gloucestershire, Worcestershire, Staffordshire, Cheshire, and Lancashire. When I crossed the Channel, I was surprised to find it had got before me to Ireland; and that it was not only spread through Dublin first, and thence to every part of Leinster, but had found its way into Munster too, into Cork, Bandon, and Limerick: In all which places people were terrifying themselves and their neighbours, just as they did in London. 2. “How is it possible,” say they, “that we should contend with so many enemies together? If General Washington has (as Mr. Franklin of Limerick computes) sixty-five thousand men; if the powerful fleet and numerous armies of France are added to these; if Spain, in consequence of the family compact, declares war at the same time; and if Portugal join in confederacy with them, what will become of us? Add to these the enemies of our own household, ready to start up on every side; and when France invades us from without, and these from within, what can follow but ruin and destruction ?” 3. I would fain speak a word of comfort to my poor neigh bours, that they may not be frightened to death. Perhaps, my friends, things are not in altogether so desperate a situa tion as you imagine. When I was at Cork last week, I con versed largely with some persons who were just landed from Philadelphia. I could thoroughly depend upon the account they gave, as they had had full means of information, and. had no possible interest to serve by misrepresenting anything. The substance of their account was this: “In December, General Washington had seventeen or eighteen thousand men in his army. From that time thirty, forty, sometimes fifty of them died in a day by a pestilential fever; and in two months’ time, upwards of fifteen hundred deserted to General Howe.