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     On 31 May 1740 "
The Last Controversy: Fournier

The last personal controversy in which Hoadly was involved was the Fournier affair. Though blown out of all proportion, it attracted much public attention and absorbed a good deal of Hoadly's time.
Hoadly was introduced to Bernard Fournier on 31 May 1740 by Mr Laval, preacher at the French Chapel in Berwick Street. Fournier had been a Roman Catholic priest of the Order of Chalis, near Paris, and had escaped to Geneva in 1730, where he converted from Catholicism before travelling to Leyden. From Leyden he came to London with a recommendation from Dutch theologians. Later,
Fournier claimed to have obtained the Bishop of London's licence to preach, based on the testimonials from Leiden professors. The Bishop of London, persuaded by the Huguenot leader Abraham Le Moine, certainly seems to have permitted Fournier to minister to the French congregation in London and, for a brief time, Fournier held a living for a minor under a bond of resignation. Some time later he found a curacy in Jersey, where his limited English was less of a handicap. At their meeting in 1740, Fournier handed Hoadly an appeal against a sentence given by Francis Payne, the Dean of Jersey, in the Jersey Ecclesiastical Court, on the charge that Fournier had spoken inappropriately to one of his female parishioners. Fournier, as curate on Jersey, had the right of appeal against the Dean to Hoadly as Bishop of Winchester. Hoadly was clearly taken aback by Fournier and asked to see him two days later when he had time to look over the papers. When Laval and Fournier subsequently returned to Hoadly, the Bishop could give them little hope. Hoadly told them he felt that the Dean of Jersey was right and that a formal appeal to his Consistory Court would fail. Nevertheless Fournier entered the appeal in Hoadly consistory court.

A few days later Hoadly left London for his residence at Farnham, where he received further communications from Fournier. But in July 1740, having received evidence from Dean Payne, Hoadly
rejected Fournier's appeal. On 4 September 1740, when Hoadly had returned from his diocese to London, he was again approached by Fournier. This time, Hoadly gave Fournier a charitable gift of five guineas to pay for his return journey to Jersey. It was from the signature on this gift that Fournier forged the promissory note for E8,800 from the Bishop. In spite of the Bishop's gift, Fournier remained in London and lodged a case against the Dean of Jersey for payment of a debt of El,000 in the Court of Common Pleas. Fournier claimed that Payne had promised him a living on Jersey or failing that the sum of El,000 and the case was to collect the sum. When Payne's rejection of the claim was presented to the court in November 1740, Fournier's attorney was so convinced by it that he resigned the case and it collapsed.

From this point on, issues became more complicated. Fournier's wife appeared from Jersey in January 1741, and Hoadly received a letter from a gentleman, who held the Bishop in some regard,
claiming that he had heard of a plot to blacken Hoadly's character with, among other things, accusations that he was a drunkard. There were also rumours, propagated by Fournier, that Hoadly had made a gift to Fournier when he was drunk, and that he had sought to compensate Fournier for his defeat in the trial against Dean Payne. Then Hoadly heard rumours that Fournier had a note which he intended to use in the Bishop's old age, presumably anticipating Hoadly's senility. Hoadly arranged for Dr Le Moine to view the note with him, which Hoadly pronounced an obvious forgery, indeed it seems that the promise was written on a sheet of paper with Hoadly's signature pasted from another document onto the bottom of the page.

In June 1742 Fournier went to Suffolk where, under the name John Bequer, he taught French. In August 1742 Fournier continued to claim that he held a note from Hoadly promising to pay E8,800 and also accused Hoadly of conspiring with the Dean of Jersey to cheat him. At this point Hoadly appears to have ignored the matter as the ravings of a mad man. But in 1745 a Mr Rant of Ipswich wrote to warn Hoadly of Fournier's publicly repeated claims about the promissory note for E8,800. At about this time Hoadly wrote to Mr Clement Chevallier of Suffolk, who the Bishop feared had also been duped by Fournier. On a number of occasions Hoadly warned Chevallier against Fournier and finally concluded that Chevallier must know of Fournier's guilt over the note. From time to time,
between 1748 and 1751, Fournier accused Hoadly in various newspapers of having cheated him.227 Finally in 1752 Hoadly lost patience with Fournier and took a suit against him in the Chancery Court, claiming that he had forged the promissory note for E8,800. In court the note was produced. It read:

I promise to pay Mr Bernard Fournier, min., or his order, three months from the date hereof, the sum of eight thousand, eight hundred pounds for value received, as witness my hand this 4th day of September 1740,
B. Winchester

In court, Fournier's claim was that Hoadly had promised him preferment and had given him the note as a guarantee that he would be appointed to a place in his diocese within three months. Fournier clearly had no knowledge of Hoadlys often quoted unwillingness to make such promises. Hoadly's response was that Fournier had inveigled him to write to him from Farnham, and this was what Fournier has used to forge the note, this was easily proved since Fournier had even mistakenly included the word ' free' from the frank on Hoadly's reply. The case took two days and the court judged that the note was a fake. On 23 July 1752 the Master of the Rolls ruled that Fournier was a
'contriver of a gross fraud,' he awarded costs to Hoadly.

Fournier repaired to Ipswich, to Mr Chevallier's house, where he maintained publicly that the court had vindicated him because it had not proven how he had created the faked note. Hoadly, perhaps
unwisely, pursued Fournier for E157 in costs. When the Bishop, goaded beyond tolerance by Fournier's continued allegations against him in various newspapers, finally insisted on payment,
Fournier melodramatically proclaimed himself the Bishop's prisoner. He sent denials and his proclamation that he was Hoadly's prisoner to the Bishop of Ely, the Archbishop of Canterbury and even Hoadly’s own son. By this time printers refused to accept notices from Fournier, partly from fear that he would not pay, partly from fear of prosecution for libel. Eventually, Hoadly discovered more details about Fournier. It appeared that he had also forged four notes from the Dean of Jersey.
Fournier had also been denied a licence by the Bishop of London, had been rejected for a parish by Bishop Gooch of Norwich, and even the Archbishop of Canterbury had circulated a letter warning against Fournier. The whole business was, as Hoadly wrote, a 'roll of absurdities.²
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