December 1737

DECEMBER  1737

December 1737 

Wesley's Warming Journey

By Brenda Rees © All Rights Reserved

December 1737    John Wesley was often his best when he followed his heart and broke the rules.   Whether it was talking with his proper lady friends from the best society in England or ordaining Bishops for America, Wesley could shine with an open heart. Wesley had faced diverse, multicultural peoples and preached to English, German, French, Spanish and Italians in their own languages.   The world was Wesley’s parish in the new world.   Wesley had consulted with his friends and agreed that the time they had looked for had come for him to leave the developing Colony of Georgia and area he knew had Spanish influence and nominal English jurisdiction. He would escape home to England and admit his heart had been warmed. There has never been a lack of scandalous characters that besmirch or spread scurrilous attacks against those who are truly looking out for the good of the common man.  They are often not exposed until after the fact and time for real justice has passed.  Such was the case for Wesley who did his best against great odds and personal attacks from those such as Miss Sophy’s uncle, Thomas Causton.

If you are new to this blog, consider starting with the Introduction of Wesley’s Warming Journey Blog and then each month from February 1736.  Earliest months were grouped together, but Blog is now by month.  This blog carries you from Wesley’s landing at Tybee Island in 1736 eventually through his warming at Aldersgate back in London in 1738.  You might see signs that Wesley’s warming began in America, the Colony of Georgia and Spanish Florida.

SIXTH SAVANNAH JOURNAL cont.

Picture of a thicket near Savannah, Georgia.  Wesley and his small group endured walking through such a thicket as he escaped Georgia on his return to England.  Photograph by Brenda Rees ©

Friday, December 2, 1737 –  The first two paragraphs in Wesley’s Journal for this day reveal how he escaped from Georgia.  Wesley wrote, “I proposed to set out for Port Royal, Carolina, about noon, the tide then serving.  But about ten the magistrates sent for me, and told me I must not go out of the province ….”  Wesley continued to write that he was asked to produce a bond.  He added, “In the afternoon, the magistrates published an order, requiring all the officers and sentinels to prevent my going out of the province, and forbidding any person to assist me so to do.  Being now only a prisoner at large, in a place where I knew by experience every day would give fresh opportunity to procure evidence of words I never said, and actions I never did, I saw clearly the hour was come for {me to fly for my life,} leaving this place; and as soon as evening prayers were over, about eight o’clock, the tide then serving, I shook off the dust of my feet, and left Georgia, after having preached the gospel there {with much weakness indeed and many infirmities,” not as I ought, but as I was able, one year and nearly nine months.”

Wesley then added in his Journal a number of observations about “the real state of this province” including this about the Uchee Indians and Spanish.

Wesley wrote, “11.  About twenty miles north-west from St. Simon’s is Darien, the settlement of the Scotch Highlanders, a mile from Fort King George, which was built about seventeen and abandoned about eleven years since.  The town lies on the mainland, close to a branch of the Alatamahaw, on a bluff about thirty feet above the river, having woods on all sides.  The soil is a blackish sand.  They built at first many scattered huts; but last spring (1736), expecting the Spaniards, they built themselves a large fort, and retired within the walls of it.”

Wesley wrote a rather harsh review of the Uchee Indians with, “27.  The Uchees have only one small town left (near two hundred miles from Savannah) and about forty fighting men.  The Creeks have been many times on the point of cutting them off.  They are indeed hated by most, and despised by all the other nations, as well for their cowardice, as their superlative diligence in thieving, and for out-lying all the Indians upon the continent.”

Saturday, December 3, 1737 – Wesley’s entourage of four got to Purrysburg but was unable to get a guide.  His torturous tale of their journey through the thickets of Georgia included “It now grew towards sunset; so we sat us down on the ground, faint and weary enough.  Indeed, had the day continued we could not have gone much farther, having had no sustenance since five in the morning, except {about a quarter of a pint of rum and” a cake of gingerbread {which Mrs. Burnside had persuaded me to take with me}….”  Wesley found water for them by thrusting his cane into the ground.  They had no fire.  Wesley wrote he slept until morning.

Sunday, December 4, 1737 – Wesley’s group set forth for Port Royal.  He wrote, “At twelve we ate the remainder of our cake, and, meeting some moist ground, dug as before and found water.”  He added, “Between one and two God brought us safe to Benjamin Arieu’s house, the old man whom we had left the day before.”

Wesley read French prayers to a family in the evening.  One agreed to guide them to Port Royal about forty or fifty miles away.  They took a loaf of bread with them.  At sunset they asked the guide if he knew where he was and he said no.  By seven, they came to a plantation and were able to get a meal of potatoes and lodging.  By the next evening, Wesley’s small group had made it to Port Royal Island.

Wednesday, December 7, 1737 –  Wesley arrived in Beaufort and is comforted by old neighbors from Savannah.  Mr. Jones, the minister of Beaufort, was a good host.

Thursday, December 8, 1737 – Wesley was joined by Mr. Delamotte and they “set out for Charlestown by water.”  Bad weather kept them at a Mr. Cockram’s plantation where Wesley wrote, “we were hospitably entertained.”  But, the next day Wesley said, “the poor folk at whose plantation we landed the next day; who, however, at last gave us a few bad potatoes, of which they plainly told us we robbed the swine.”  On the 12^th they got some potatoes and were at “liberty to roast them in a fire which his negroes had made a distance from the house.”

Tuesday, December 13, 1737 – Wesley arrives in “Charlestown.”

Wednesday, December 14, 1737 – Wesley wrote, “Being desired {by Mr. Garden’s assistant} to read prayers, I was much refreshed by those glorious {prophecies and} promises which were exhibited to us both in the seventy-second Psalm and in the First Lesson, the fortieth chapter of Isaiah.”  Then, Wesley added, “In the afternoon, visiting a poor man who in all probability had not many days to live, we found him full of the freshest advices, domestic and foreign, and busy in settling the affairs {of Muscovy and Persia,” of the Czarina, Prince Thamas, and the Ottoman Porte. … For if a soul quivering on the verge of life has still leisure to amuse itself with battles and sieges, why may not the same dreams continue, even in the sleep of death?”

Friday, December 16, 1737 – “I parted from the last of those friends who came with me into America, Mr. Charles Delamotte, from whom I had been but a few days separate since October 14, 1735,” Wesley wrote.

Sunday, December 18, 1737 – Wesley was seized with “a violent flux” but still preached “once more to this careless people; ….”

Thursday, December 22, 1737 – Wesley wrote, “I took my leave of America, though, if it please God, not for ever, going on board the Samuel, Captain Percy, with a young gentleman who had been a few months in Carolina, one of my parishioners of Savannah, and a Frenchman, late of Purrysburg, who was escaped thence with the skin of his teeth.”

Curnoch added in his footnotes that Eleanor Hayes also returned per Tyerman, vol. i. p. 165 and that she became one of the first London Methodists.

Saturday, December 24, 1737 – At noon, Wesley wrote he lost sight of land as they sailed over the Charlestown bar.  He was once again very seasick.  On December 25^th he wrote nothing about Christmas or any celebration.  He said, “The wind was fair, but high, as it was on Sunday the 25^th, when the sea affected me more than it had done in the sixteen weeks of our passage to America.”

Monday, December 26, 1737 – Wesley added on this day, “I began instructing a negro lad in the principles of Christianity.”  He also vowed to return to his simple diet which helped him with the motion of the ship.

Wednesday, December 28, 1737 – Wesley admitted he had been uneasy for several days, but “it pleased God, as in a moment, to restore peace to my soul.”

So ends Wesley’s Journal notes for 1737.