From 16 Golden Place at Kennington in Surrey. Yesterday he received Fletcher’s very kind letter with the one pound bank note for which they are very grateful.
Horsman first saw Fletcher at Clifton where he attended ‘yr morning prayers and afterwards heard you read the third chapter of St John’s Gospel at Mr [John] Westley’s instes[insistence?] which you also inlarged upon, by which it please God to convince me of my lost estate and of the necessity of being born again by faith in our Lord Jesus Christ…I felt the burden of sin and an earnest desire to be delivered , this brought me to London . When I waited upon you at Laytonstone to beg the favour of you to recommend me to some pious family to board. You gave me a letter to George Clark , whose friendship continued till death. He recommended me to Br [Brother] Evans, a [class] leader and a pious family, while there I found grace’. Poor health forced him to leave London to live in South Wales where he met a pious Methodist woman and about a year later they moved to Bristol ‘for the benefit of the means of grace where we lived for three years, and where my wife and I had the pleasure of seeing you at Miss [Elizabeth?] Johnson’s ’. Again poor health forced them to return to Wales where they lived until six years ago when they moved to London to see their children settled in occupations. However, their income was destoyed with the death of a gentleman who had moved to France. He died nearly four years ago and they h ave been living on a pittance ever since, which remnant of their property is now gone. All their children are now off their hands except one who is an apprentice. Their second son did live with them which helped a little.
He thinks that he has told her that he expects to receive an annuity of about £15 from a charity lately founded to relieve distressed people of respectability. This should commence in March.
His wife joins in sending love.
Notes
- George Clark (1711-97) was converted at the age of thirty-five after hearing John Wesley preach at the Foundry. He was appointed a class leader with such success that he had to form two additional classes. Clark was a close friend and correspondent of John Wesley and freqently provided hospitality for visiting preachers. When City Road Chapel was erected, Clark took a plot of adjacent land and built a house, which after his death was lived in by one of the City Road ministers. Clark and his wife are interred near the east wall of City Road Chapel close to the altar. His wife Adylena (1727-1807) was a great favourite of John Wesley and enjoyed a considerable reputation for piety. Source: George John Stevenson, City Road Chapel, London, and its Associations, Historical, Biographical, and Memorial (1872), pp. 506-507
- Elizabeth Johnson (1720-98) was the daughter of a West India Merchant resident in Bristol. Disinherited by her father when she joined the Methodists, she lived on an annuity bequeathed to her by her uncle. Johnson was referred to by the Wesleyan minister John Valton as one of the three most pious women in Methodism. Her home in Hilgrove Street was a centre of the movement in the city of Bristol and she was described by John Wesley as ‘deep in grace, and lives like an angel here below’. Johnson was a member of the conservative wing of Methodism opposed to separation from the Church of England. Her memoir was published in 1799 as An Account of Mrs Elizabeth Johnson. Source: A Biographical Dictionary of 18th century Methodism by Samuel Rogal (Edwin Mellen Press 1997)