"I know that the way of man is not in himself: It is not in man that walketh to direct his steps."
"Keep Thou my feet; I do not ask to see The distant scene; one step enough for me."
_SETTLES IN ENGLAND.--HIS CONNEXION WITH WESLEY AND THE METHODISTS._
Being now without occupation, or any definite prospect of it, Fletcher determined to visit England. It does not appear that he had any motive for doing so beyond a desire to travel and to acquire the English language. Accordingly, some time in 1749 or 1750--it is impossible to fix the date more precisely--he came to London, well supplied apparently with money, but with the slenderest stock of English. At the custom house he and his companions seem to have been somewhat roughly treated, and their letters of introduction were taken from them on the ground that all letters must be sent by the post. His first adventure in London bade fair to be of the sort that London has often provided for newly arrived and trustful youth. He handed over his purse, containing some £90, to a stranger, a Jew, who offered to get his money changed for him. To the honour of this unknown Jew, let it be recorded that Fletcher's simplicity was not abused. He returned in due time, and brought the full amount in English coin.
The first eighteen months of his residence in England Fletcher spent in the house of a Mr. Burchell, who kept a school near Hatfield. Here he acquired a good knowledge of English, beside continuing his general studies. On leaving Mr. Burchell, in the year 1752, he received the appointment of tutor to the two sons of Mr. Thomas Hill, of Tern Hall, in Shropshire. This position he retained for nearly seven years, dividing his time between Shropshire and London, according as Mr. Hill's family accompanied him to town for the sitting of Parliament, or remained in the country.
Through all this time there is no sign of any wish on Fletcher's part to return to Switzerland; and it is at first sight a little perplexing that his visit to England should have developed into something very like a permanent residence, when as yet he had no definite calling, and the powerful influences of a great spiritual change had not come into existence. But there is a reasonable explanation to be found in the state of things in his native country, where a gentleman's younger son, disinclined for the ministry and disappointed of a commission in the army, had no great choice of a career. On this matter we have the testimony of an exceptionally keen and competent observer. The early years of Fletcher's residence in England correspond very closely with those of Gibbon's first period of residence in Switzerland. From 1753 to 1758, years spent by Fletcher in the family of Mr. Hill, the youthful Gibbon was living under the roof of M. Pavilliard, a Calvinist minister at Lausanne. It was about the close of this period that he wrote, for the benefit of a Swiss friend, a short paper upon political and social life in Switzerland, an essay that is doubly worth reading, for its own sake, and as exhibiting the powers and the promise in early manhood of the future historian. An extract or two will show some aspects of the society that Fletcher had so lately left, and to which he never really returned, and will suggest the explanation of that readiness to "forget his own people and his father's house," which has perplexed some of his critics and biographers: