the greater is the temptation of soldiers to indulge uncharitable tempers, the more earnestly ought they to pray, that they may fight in the same spirit of love in which Christ was when he uttered his last woe against rebellious Jerusalem. He beheld the obstinate city, wept over it, and pronounced its awful doom: "Thine enemies shall lay thee even with the ground, and shall not leave in thee one stone upon another."

Nor should soldiers fast and pray alone. We ought to bear a part in the solemn duty; because our sins have helped to fill up the measure of the national guilt, which has provoked God to permit the colonists to rise against us. We owe much to the gentlemen of the fleet and army. Whilst they lift up the sword which lingering justice has reluctantly drawn; whilst they stand between us and the desperate men who break into our ships, set fire to their own houses, tar, feather, gouge,* and scalp their captives; whip, cut, and torture their slaves; and whilst they expose their lives, by sea and land, for our protection, or, which comes to the same thing, for the defence of the government that protects us; it is our bounden duty to feel for them, and to bear them on our hearts. Nay, we shall be guilty of inconsideration, uncharitableness, and base ingratitude, if we do not hold up their hands, by lifting up our own to the Lord of hosts in their behalf, and by asking, that neither profaneness, lewdness, intemperance, nor cruelty may stain their laurels; and that they may all be endued with every virtue which can draw the love of their enemies, and fit them to live or die as faithful soldiers of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Nor should we fast only with an eye to ourselves, and those who fight our battles. We ought also to do it out of regard to our American brethren. If they act at this time the part of enemies, does not our Lord say, "Love your enemies, and pray for them that despitefully use you?" Should we not remember, that British blood flows in their veins; that they are not all guilty; that many of them have been deceived by the plausible and lying speeches of

A kind of American torture, which consists in wrenching a man's eyes out of their sockets.

some of their leaders; that the epidemical fever of wild patriotism seized multitudes before they were aware of its dreadful consequences; and that numbers of them already repent of their rashness, earnestly wishing for an opportunity of returning with safety to their former allegiance?

If you consider these favourable circumstances, you will be glad to have an opportunity of solemnly approaching the throne of grace in behalf of your unhappy brethren; you will intercede for them with an heart full of forgiving love and Christian sympathy. You will ardently pray, that God would open the eyes and turn the hearts of the congress-men, and their military adherents; that he would fill the breast of the king, and of all who are in authority under him, with every virtue which can render his steady and mild government acceptable to the most discontented of his subjects; and that, on both sides of the Atlantic, all persons in power may cheerfully use all their influence to promote the speedy reconciliation and lasting union we wish for.

Should piety, loyalty, and charity thus animate your prayers, our day of fasting and humiliation will infallibly usher in a day of praise and general thanksgiving; and the eloquent senator who in the house of commons lately condemned the religious appointment which I vindicate, will himself partake of the universal joy, and be sorry to have declaimed against a royal proclamation which so justly deserves his assent, concurrence, and praises.

I am, my dear fellow-subjects,

Your obedient servant,

London, Dec. 6, 1776.

JOHN FLETCHER.

OR,

A NARRATIVE

OF TWO WOMEN, FEARING GOD,

WHO VISITED IN PRISON A HIGHWAYMAN, EXECUTED AT STAFFORD, APRIL 3, 1773.

WITH

A LETTER

ΤΟ

A CONDEMNED MALEFACTOR.

AND

A PENITENTIAL OFFICE,

FOR EITHER A TRUE CHURCHMAN, OR A DYING
CRIMINAL,

EXTRACTED FROM THE SCRIPTURES AND THE
ESTABLISHED LITURGY.

"THIS is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief. Howbeit for this cause I obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might show forth all long-suffering, for a pattern to them who should hereafter believe on him to life everlasting." 1 Tim. i. 15, 16.

THE

PENITENT THIEF.

Ir justice and truth are debts that we owe to all men, without excepting a dead malefactor; when we publish his crimes, it is certainly wrong to swell the black catalogue, by rashly charging him with the commission of the unpardonable sin. An honest man has no right to rob a penitent thief of the honour of dying better than he lived, which is the only alleviation of infamy that his deplorable case can possibly admit of.

A letter which I wrote to the unfortunate young man who is the subject of the following narrative, and which some hasty publishers of dying speeches have printed without my leave, having given a kind of sanction to a groundless report, that he died "quite unconcerned," as a stupid hardened reprobate, I think it my duty to clear him from the charge of final impenitency, a sin far more destructive than those crimes for which he justly suffered. Nor do I see why even a dead thief should be wronged, especially when doing him justice may profitably entertain, and savingly edify, the living.

John Wilkes was born at Darlaston, about three miles from Wolverhampton, in Staffordshire. His father dying when he was a child, his mother bound him apprentice to a collier, who unfortunately delighted in cock-fighting; a barbarous sport, at which wicked men too frequently train up idle boys in all manner of mischief; eagerly teaching them by their bad example the destructive art of betting, lying, cheating, squandering, cursing, swearing, cruelty,