No CrossRef data available.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 February 2009
The creation in North America of the first overseas diocese of the Church of England was undoubtedly one of the most remarkable and unlikely of the changes in British colonial policy which resulted from the American Revolution. Before the war, the Anglican campaign for the appointment of colonial bishops had been a major reason for the colonial fear of British tyranny; many Americans, particularly Nonconformists, vigorously protested against a scheme which they saw as a bid to recreate a Laudian ecclesiastical tyranny. But the post-war colonial policy envisaged the colonial bishop as a focus of political stability and loyalty. The new prestige and political responsibility accorded by the government to the Church was equally remarkable in view of the government's Erastian suppression of Convocation since 1715 and its politic responsiveness to Dissenting sensibilities. Despite occasional outbreaks of clerical frustration at the Church's inability to act independently, the Church of England had been unable to escape this political domination. This paper will attempt to explain why, given the government's prior hostility to the design, ministries in the 1780s should have decided to extend the church hierarchy to the colonies.
1 See Carl, Bridenbaugh, Mitre and Sceptre, New York 1962.Google Scholar
2 Judith, Fingard, The Anglican Design in Loyalist Nova Scotia, 1783–1816, London 1972.Google Scholar
3 Fingard, Anglican Design, 2.
4 Ibid. 2–3; V., Harlow, The Founding of the Second British Empire, London 1964, ii. 737–41.Google Scholar
5 R., Hurd (ed.), The Works of…William Warburton, London 1788, iv. 240.Google Scholar
6 General Theological Seminary (hereafter GTS), New York, Samuel Seabury Papers, Chandler to Seabury, 5 Mar. 1777.
7 See Colin, Bonwick, English Radicals and the American Revolution, Chapel Hill 1977, 84–5Google Scholar; James, Bradley, Popular Politics and the American Revolution in England, Macon 1986, ch. viiGoogle Scholar; Paul, Langford, ‘Old Whigs, old Tories, and the American Revolution’, The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History viii (1979), 124–5.Google Scholar
8 Public Record Office (hereinafter PRO) CO 5/318, fo. ia, Martin to Dartmouth, 4 Nov. 1774.
9 Staffordshire County Record Office (hereinafter SCRO), Dartmouth Papers, D(W)i778, II, 955, Serle to Dartmouth, 8 Nov. 1776.
10 Simmons, R. C. and Thomas, P. D. G., Proceedings and Debates of the British Parliament Respecting North America 1754–1783, London 1983, v. 607, 611, 22 Mar. 1775.Google Scholar
11 SPG Report 1777, pp. x-xi, xvi-xvii.
12 Parliamentary History xix, 327–8, 30 May 1777.
13 Myles, Cooper, National Humiliation and Repentence recommended…in a Sermon Preached before the University of Oxford, on…December 13, 1776, Oxford 1777.Google ScholarSee Gunn, J. A. W., Beyond Liberty and Property, Kingston and Montreal 1973, 174.Google Scholar
14 SCRO D(W)i778, II, 929–30, Dartmouth to Clergy of New York, 14 Jul. 1774.
15 Quoted in R., Isaac, The Transformation of Virginia 1740–1790, Chapel Hill 1982, 186.Google Scholar
16 Lambeth Palace Library (hereinafter LPL) MS 2576, fo. 31, and SPG MS, Rhodes House Library, Oxford, Journal xxi, 16 May 1777, 200–1.Google Scholar
17 See L., Bellot, William Knox: The Life & Thought of an Eighteenth-Century Imperialist, Austin 1977.Google Scholar
18 William L. Clements Library, University of Michigan at Ann Arbor (hereafter WLC), Germaine Papers 17:54.
19 WLC Germaine Papers 17:60.
20 WLC Germaine Papers 17:66.
21 WLC Germaine Papers 17:66.
22 WLC Knox Papers 4:20, North to Knox, 8 Aug. 1778.
23 WLC Shelburne Papers 66:513–28.
24 WLC Shelburne Papers 66:521–3.
25 WLC Shelburne Papers 66:525.
26 WLC Shelburne Papers 66:513.
27 PRO, CO 5/108, fos 406–8.
28 Dictionary of Canadian Biography, v. 148.
29 PRO, CO 5/108, fos 407–8.
30 PRO, CO 5/108, fo. 404, 26 Mar. 1783.
31 PRO, CO 5/108, fo. 402, Carleton to Thomas Townshend (no 65), 11 Apr. 1783.
32 PRO, CO 5/108, fo. 173, North to Carleton, 15 June 1783.
33 PRO, CO 5/110, fo. 257, Carleton to North (no. 102), 26 Aug. 1783.
34 PRO, CO 5/111, fos i7–22d, Carleton to North (no. 109), 5 Oct. 1783.
35 PRO, CO 5/111, fo. 90, North to Carleton, 4 Dec. 1783.
36 PRO, CO 217/56, fos 350–2: no signature but in Knox's hand [1783].
37 William, Knox, Extra Official State Papers, ii. appendix xiv, 49–50.Google Scholar
38 See Steiner, B. E., Samuel Seabury: a study in the High Church tradition, Athens, Ohio 1972.Google Scholar
39 GTS, Samuel Seabury Papers [1777].
40 [Chorley, E. Clowes, ed.], ‘The election and consecration-documents’, Historical Magazine of the Protestant Episcopal Church (hereafter HMPEC] iii (1934), 158–9, Seabury to clergy of Connecticut, 15 Jul. 1783.Google Scholar
41 Chorley, ‘Documents’, 159–60, Seabury to clergy of Connecticut, 10 Aug. 1783.
42 Chorley, ‘Documents’, 161–2, Seabury to Jeremiah Learning, 3 Sept. 1783.
43 PRO, CO 217/35, Seabury to Evan Nepean, 5 Dec. 1783.
44 (ITS Samuel Seabury Papers, Seabury to Markham, 14 Nov. 1783, 2–3.
45 Ibid. 6.
46 Ibid. 6–9.
47 Ibid. 12–15.
48 David Holmes, ‘The Episcopal Church and the American Revolution’, HMPEC xlvii (1978), 261–92.
49 Chorley, ‘Documents’, 165–8, clergy of Connecticut to Seabury, 5 Feb. 1784.
50 Ibid. 169–70, Seabury to Jarvis, 24 May 1784.
51 Ibid. 171–2, Seabury to Jarvis, 24 May 1784.
52 White, W., Memoirs of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, New York 1836, appendix i, 275–6, Adams to president of Congress, 22 Apr. 1784.Google Scholar
53 J., Bigelow, (ed.), The Complete Works of Benjamin Franklin, New York 1888, ix. 8–10, Franklin to Weems ‘ Documents’, 175–6, Seabury to Jarvis, 7 Sept. 1784.Google Scholar
53 Chorley, ‘Documents’, 175–6, Seabury to Jarvis, 7 Sept. 178
55 Ibid. 178, Seabury to Jarvis, 7 Sept. 1784.
56 Upton, L. F. S., (ed.), The Diary and Selected Papers of Chief Justice William Smith, 1784–1793, Toronto 1963, i. 92–3, 24 June 1784.Google Scholar
57 Quoted in Steiner, , Samuel Seabury, 252, Jay to Adams, 1 Nov. 1785.Google Scholar
58 Wilberforce, S., A History of the Protestant Episcopal Church in America, London 1844, 209–10, footnote.Google Scholar
59 Chorley, ‘Documents’, 184–5, Seabury to Boucher, 3 Dec. 1784. See also Public Archives of Canada (hereafter PAC) Inglis Papers, MG27 C 6, ser. I, iv. 19, Diary, 10 Jan. 1786.
60 HMPEC iii, 62, ‘Minutes of conventions of the clergy of Connecticut’.
61 Brian, Cuthbertson, The First Bishop, Halifax 1987, 84.Google Scholar
62 Lascelles, E. C. P., Granville Sharp and the Freedom of Slaves in England, London 1928, 49.Google Scholar
63 See LPL SPG MS viii, 189–95.
64 PAC Inglis Papers, MG23 C 6, ser. I. iv. 19, Diary, 10 Jan. 1786, and White, , Memoirs appendix iii, 325–6.Google Scholar
65 White, , Memoirs, appendix iii, 331–2, Richard Peters to White, 4 Mar. 1786.Google Scholar
66 LPL Moore Papers I, 1, Royal Warrants for consecrations.
67 Knox, , Extra Official State Papers i, pt. 1, appendix iv, 8–12.Google Scholar
68 GTS Samuel Seabury Papers, Boucher to Seabury, 31 Mar. 1786.
69 Ibid. Boucher to Seabury, 12 June 1786.
70 PAC Inglis Papers, MG23 C 6, ser. 1, iv. 21–2.
71 SPG MS. B 2 (New York), no. 68, Inglis to SPG, 31 Oct. 1776.
72 Charles, Inglis, The True Interest of America, Impartially Stated…, Philadelphia 1776, 11.Google Scholar
73 Tatum, E. H. (ed.), The American Journal of Ambrose Serle, Secretary to Lord Howe 1776–1778, San Marino, CA 1940, 209–10, 10 Apr. 1777.Google Scholar
74 SCRO D(W)i778, II, 1785, Serle to Dartmouth, 10 Sept. 1777.
75 PAC Inglis Papers MG23 C 6, Ser. I. iv. 1. Bodleian copy of Mohawk Prayer Book presented by Inglis.
76 Copies in BL Add MS 38219, fos 59–65; LPL SPG Papers xi, fos 30–6, 3 Apr. 1786.
77 Harlow, , The Founding of the Second British Empire, ii. 738; Fingard, Anglican Design, 17–19.Google Scholar
78 Cuthbertson, The First Bishop, 237, 250.
79 LPL, SPG Papers xi, fo. 30.
80 LPL, SPG Papers xi, fos 30–1.
81 LPL, SPG Papers xi, fos 32–3.
82 LPL, SPG Papers xi, fos 34–5.
83 LPL, SPG Papers xi, fo. 36.
84 Quoted in Perry, , ‘First Bishop of Nova Scotia’, Church Review (1887), 347–8, Inglis to White, 10 12. 1787.Google Scholar
85 PRO, BT 6/59, no. 7, 26 May 1786, a repetition of the American petitions.
86 PRO, BT 5/3, fo. 454, meeting of 23 Aug. 1786.
87 PAC Inglis Papers, MG23 C 6, ser. I, iv. 21–2, 30 May 1786.
88 PRO, BT 5/4, fos 101–2, meeting of 5 Dec. 1786.
89 PRO, BT 5/4, fos 213–15, 256–7, 288–92.
90 LPL, Archbishop of Canterbury's Act Book xii. 54–8.
91 PRO, SP 44/159, fos 253–62.
92 LPL, SPG Papers viii, 196, Boucher to Moore, 9 Mar. 1787. Boucher admitted to being a ‘bad politician’.