Wesley the 'Distiller' and 'Traitor'

Wed 26 Aug 1741. I was informed of a remarkable conversation at which one of our sisters was present a day or two before; wherein a gentleman was assuring his friends that he himself was in Charles Square when a person told Mr. Wesley to his face that he (Mr. Wesley) had paid twenty pounds already, on being convicted for selling Geneva [a spirit distilled from grain and flavored with juniper berries] and that he now kept two popish priests in his house. This gave occasion to another to mention what he had himself heard at an eminent Dissenting teacher’s: That it was beyond dispute Mr. Wesley had large remittances from Spain in order to make a party among the poor, and that as soon as the Spaniards landed, he was to join them with twenty thousand men.