Wesley's Letters: 1721

To Ambrose Eyre, [Mr. A. H. Tod, one of the masters at Charterhouse, supplies the following facts from Alumni Carthusiani: 'June 23 1698 Ambrose Eyre, admitted pr Lord Chief Justice Holt in the place of Carlos Smith, age 14 years the 25th of July next. Exhibitioner 2 July 1703 (pre-elected); admitted to the Middle Temple 18 November 1702, as son and heir o! William Eyre, of Chelaea, Middlesex, esquire; admitted pensioner of Christ's, Cambridge, 6 April 1703; Receiver of Charterhouse, 20 February 1719-39; admitted a poor brother 1755; died 21 April, buried at Fulham, Middlesex, 28 April 1756. By his first wife, Sarah, he was the father of the Rev. Venn Eyre, admitted 30 June 1726; he married 2nd at Charterhouse, 21 March 1730, Elizabeth Holt.'] Treasurer of Charterhouse [1]

CHRIST CHURCH, November 3, 1721

SIR, --I am extremely sorry that an accident should which has given you reason to have an ill opinion of me, but am very much obliged to your civility for putting the most favorable construction on it. I hope this will satisfy you that it was by mistake and not my design that you have twice delivered the exhibition for the first Michaelmas quarter which indeed was through the mistake of my mercer, [The Bank of England had been incorporated in 1694, and for a short time carried on its business in Mercers' Chapel. The 'instant and regular remittance of money' was in its infancy in 1721.] who returns it, or rather through the negligence of his correspondent, who forgot to inform him of his having received the money. This made him suspect that it was detained, in which he was confirmed by receiving no answer from London; and at Lady Day, when I gave him my tutor's bill for that quarter, he told [me] he had not received the exhibition for the first, which he supposed was detained because I had been absent the whole eight weeks in one quarter, and which made him advise me to write a receipt for that and the other due at the end of the year.

These five pounds [The value of an exhibition the Restoration to 1772 was £20; it was raised to £40 on May 28, 1772 The studentship was additional See next letter.] if you please shall be deducted at Christmas, or if that does not suit with your conveniency shall be returned as soon as possible. --I am, sir,

Your obliged and humble servant,

[John Wesley Signature]

Editor's Introductory Notes

[1] The first of Wesley’s letters that have survived is fitly preserved in the Muniment Room at Charterhouse, where he was a gown-boy from 1714 to 1720. It was published in facsimile in Greyfriar, the School magazine, for April 1891; and was reproduced in Homes and Haunts of John Wesley, pp. 152-3, by permission of the Rev. Canon Elwyn, Master of Charterhouse 1885-97. The Head Master, the Rev. Frank Fletcher, writes in 1919: 'We count John Wesley as the greatest of many great Carthusians.' He is thus commemorated in the School Song:

Wesley, John Wesley, was one of our company,

Prophet untiring and fearless of tongue,

Down the long years he went

Spending yet never spent,

Serving his God with a heart ever young.

Wesley was eighteen when this letter was written. The letter has been torn, so that the date is imperfect; but the post-mark is November 8. Wesley had gone up to Christ Church in June 1720. His anxiety that the incident referred to should cast no slur on his good name is seen in the care he takes to describe how the mistake had arisen. That is characteristic of him to the end of his life.

Edited by Michael Mattei
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