JO WIND

VINNQUITVO

1. A NARRATIVE OF THE ORGANIZATION

AND OF THE

EARLY MEASURES

OF THE

PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH.

A NARRATIVE, &c.

UNIV. OF

ALTHOUGH it happened, as might be expected, that a proportion of the settlers of English America were of the profession established in England; yet the number was not so considerable, as might be supposed from the existing relation; owing probably to the circumstance, that several of the colonies arose in a great measure from dissatisfaction with the establishment at home, and partly to an influx of subsequent settlers; not only from other countries, subject to the same crown, but also from countries on the continent of Europe; principally some of the states of Germany. In the northern and eastern states, the comparatively small number of the church of England may be seen in the fact, that when the revolutionary war began, there were not more than about eighty parochial clergymen of that church, to the northward and to the eastward of Maryland; and that those clergymen derived the greater part of their subsistence from the society instituted in England, for the propagation of the gospel in foreign

parts; with the exception of those resident in the towns of Boston and Newport, and the cities of New York and Philadelphia: there being no episcopal congregations out of those towns and cities, held to be of ability to support clergymen of themselves.* In Maryland and in Virginia, the episcopal church was much more numerous, and had legal establishments for its support. It was especially numerous in those parts of the said provinces, which were settled when the establishments took place; for in the more recently settled counties, the mass of the people were, of other communions, scarcely known among them in the early period of their histories. In the more southern colonies, the episcopalians were fewer in proportion than in the two last mentioned; but more than in the northern.

may

It be supposed, that, however comparatively few the original emigrants of the church of England in the northern and the middle colonies; yet they must have derived aid from the executive of the parent state, through the medium of its representatives, the governors. This was, indeed, the case in a degree; but the aid was inconsiderable and, confined to two or three of the earliest seats of population. Besides, it may well be doubted, whether, under the continually existing jealousy in the colonies of the parent power, there did not result some dis

* The clergy in the province of Pennsylvania, exclusive of those in the city of Philadelphia, were never more than six in number; all of whom were missionaries, receiving salaries from England. The parochial clergy of the city were four.