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riding out with him to pay a visit or take the air amongst variety of subjects they discoursed of Mr. Moore asked Colonel Ingoldsby if he had so much patience and christian temper as to take a Box on the ear without resentment or returning the injury to which he answered with some warmth that he neither would nor could take such an affront from any man without a due resentment whether this may be called a proper question or an ensnaring one considering the Lieut. Governors circumstances being a soldier and got his living by his sword I will leave your Lordship to judge * some short time after Mr. Moore had appointed a sacrament at Burlington church the Colonel and his Family resolved to be partakers and in order to it was constantly all the week before at the Morning and Evening prayers in the church. Mr. Moore very well knew that it was his design to be a communicant. The Sunday came Colonel Ingoldsby with his Lady and Daughter were at church; after the Sermon was ended and all things in a readiness for approaching to the Holy Ordinance Mr. Moore came to the Colonel's seat I think as he was going out of it and asked him if he was of the same opinion that he had formerly declared, the question surprised the Colonel who had forgot the discourse so that he told him that he did not know what he meant but Mr. Moore having put him in mind of the time place and circumstances the Lieutenant Governor told him he was of the same mind still when Mr. Moore forbid him to approach the Holy Table, for he would not give him the sacrament, to which the Lieutenant Governor very prudently told him that he would withdraw and give no disturbance to the congregation and accordingly he went out of the church his Lady and Daughter following him. I need not tell your Lordship that this usage was resented by the Colonel as an affront and injustice done him this action made a very great noise in the Country and most gave their opinion very freely both Clergy and Laity. The members of the church were divided some condemning Mr. Moore others excusing him but the generality of all sorts thought it a very rash and unadvised action of Mr. Moore and thought that he ought to have gone to the Lieut. Governors house and discoursed him and followed the primitive method

and discipline.

* I have reason to believe that Mr.

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Moore was prevailed with by some friends to endeavor a reconciliation and to make some steps towards it. * went immediately to Colonel Ingoldsby and said all that I could or was proper for me I found him very positive not to hearken to any accommodation unless Mr. Moore would own his own mistake before the whole congregation where he had affronted him. * * I told him I thought he carried his resentments too high and that in my opinion Mr. Moore ought not to do what he expected and gave him my reason and at parting I told his honor that I would advise Mr. Moore not to comply with what his honor expected from him thus matters * grew worse and worse every day till at last the Lieut. Governor resolved that my Lord should either remove Mr. Moore or him out of that government."

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"THE GREATEST OBSTACLE."

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Col. Morris to the Secretary. Extracts.

1703

"I believe you will be surprised when I mention my Lord Cornbury as the greatest obstacle that either has or is likely to prevent the growth of the Church in these parts, the pernicious effects of his Arbitrary conduct if not prevented by the Society will render it (humanly speaking) impossible to propagate the Church in this part if not in any part of America and make the best designs of the Society ineffectual.

"I cannot say I am very much surprised to find so large a character of him in the account of the proceedings of the Society because the best and greatest of men may be imposed upon by mercenary or mistaken pens; but I am sorry they have been so much abused by the accounts they have had of him; for he is a man certainly the reverse of all that's good and a great reproach to the Church. In the first place he is a notorious breaker of his word, he has subscribed to several churches but can't be prevailed upon to pay a farthing, says he did it to encourage others and who ever asks for it is sure to feel the effects of his displeasure.

2dly He is avowedly and openly unjust in everybody's debt that would trust him and in the little Town of New York he is said not to owe less than £8000 much of this to Shopkeepers Bakers Butchers &c who cannot get a farthing from him though under the greatest necessity for want of it and it's hardly credible what a damp to the Trade of that little Town the detention of that Sum is. The scandal of his life is such that were he in a civilized Heathen Country he would by the public Justice be made an example to deter others from his practices, he rarely fails of being drest in Womens Cloaths every day and almost half his time is spent that way and seldom misses it on a Sacrament day was in that Garb when his dead Lady was carried out of the fort and this not privately but in face of the Sun and in sight of the Town; But I'll not enter into his privacies, his public vices are scandalous enough; were there nothing in it but his ill example it must needs be a great hindrance to the growth of the church there being nothing more common in the mouths of the enemies of our religion than the instancing of my Lord Cornbury as a Churchman and an esteemed great patron of it, were there nothing else I say but his Scandalous life which makes our Holy profession be had in Contempt and evil spoken of it it were enough in so public a person as my Lord to put a great stop to the growth of it, but such is so far from being a patron of it that he has done more to ruin it than all its enemies put together.

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"In New Jersey the inhabitants have reason to grieve that ever such a person as my Lord Cornbury was born† whose con

+ In a long remonstrance of the Assembly of New Jersey, in 1707, against Cornbury's tyranny, we find this paragraph:

Are not her Majesty's loyal subjects haul'd to goals, and there lie without being admitted to bail? and those that are the conditions of their recognizances are, that if your Excellency approves not of their being bailed, they -hall return to their prisons; several of her Majesty's good subjects forced to al-cond, and leave their habitations, being threatened with imprisonment, and no hopes of receiving the benefit of the law; when your Excellency's absolute will is the sole measure of it: One minister of the Church of England, dragg'd by a sheriff from Burlington to Amboy, and there kept in custody, without assigning any reason for it, and at last haul'd by force into a boat by your Excellency, and transported like a malefactor, into another government, and there kept in a garrison a prisoner; and no reason assigned for these violent procedures, but your Excellency's pleasure: Another minister of the Church of England, laid under a necessity of leaving the province, from the

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duct as it was imprudently violent to the Dissenters in his government of New York so on the contrary it was unaccountably severe to the Churchmen in New Jersey as if he had studied to take measures diametrically opposite to the true interest of the Church a great part of that people had their religion to choose and of those that had made a choice many of them were so indifferent that it was no very difficult matter to perswade them not to be over tenacious of their principles they had as it were by chance taken up. The Government being out of the hands of the Proprietors and the fame of a Society being erected for propagating the Gospel in Foreign Parts reaching here many of those who were indifferent and those who had their religion to choose were fond of being of the Church

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* when behold a sudden change blasted all our growing hopes and has at last entirely ruined the church in New Jersey and in my humble opinion except the Country engages very powerfully in an affair of this consequence the example of the proceedings in New Jersey will prove fatal to all the churches in English America. * To accuse so great a man as the Governor of a province may arraign me of want of that respect and due regard which is owing to my superiors and which in an especial manner ought to be paid but Sir I have a greater regard to God than man to truth and the trust the Society reposes in every Member of their Body than to my Lord Cornbury and tho' some men have been surprised into a good opinion of his Lordship I am well assured a longer acquaintance and better information will give them different sentiments."

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reasonable apprehensions of meeting with the same treatment; no orders of men either sacred or civil, secure in their lives, their liberties or estates; and where these procedures will end, God only knows." Smith's History, p. 333. "Her Majesty graciously listened to the cries of her injur'd subjects, and divested him of his power, declaring, that she would not countenance her nearest relations in oppressing her people.

"As soon as my Lord was superceded, his creditors threw him into the custody of the sheriff of New York; and he remained there till the death of his father, when succeeding to the earldom of Clarendon, he returned to England.

"We never had a governor so universally detested, nor any who so richly deserved the publick abhorrence." History of New York, p. 116.

NO NEWS FROM MESSRS. BROOKE AND MOORE.

Mr. Talbot to the Secretary.

"HONORABLE SIR:

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Philadelphia, 20th August, 1708.

"I have written several letters to you from Boston and New York by Brothers Brookes and Moore; but I am afraid they are all lost together; they have been nine months gone, and we saw them not since, nor any news of them. I met them at Boston and would persuade them to return, but all in vain; they had been so dragooned that they had rather be taken into France than into the Fort at New York. I have carried on t ever since at Burlington as well as I could, and I thank God with success wherever I am; but I cannot stay long at any place, because there are so many that want, certainly the present state of that province is worse than the first; we have lost our labour and the Society their cost, their being several Churches and no ministers in all East Jersey to supply them, so that they fall away apace to Heathenism, Quakerism and Atheism, purely for lack of looking after. Mr. Brooks and Mr. Moore are much lamented, being the most pious and industrious Missionaries that ever the Honorable Society sent over; let the adversaries say what they will they can prove no evil thing against these men. I have heard all sides and parties, what can be said pro or con. Mr. Honeyman is outed, Mr. Nicholls scouted into Maryland; he had come home had I not dissuaded him, and I could have hindered all the rest of these scandals and disorders but that we had no Bishop nor hopes of any; you would not hear of it, therefore I said you must hear worse and worse still, if aught can be worse than that the bodies and souls of men are ruined and undone, and the Bounty of the Society lost, for lack of an overseer of the poor Church in America; without which the Gospel cannot be planted, nor any good work propagated in the World. The Bible you sent to Hopewell I was willing to take to Burlington till more came over, because ours is worn out; they that come I hope will bring Books with them. I shall

+ This expression, with reference to officiating, was common for nearly a century. It has a very different meaning now!