USA > Pennsylvania > Chronicles of Pennsylvania from the English revolution to the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, 1688-1748, Vol. I > Part 26
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Captain Kidd is the English pirate whose name has survived as a household word. His bloodthirstiness has been exaggerated in popular song. The deliberate slaughter of prisoners was not so common with the English or French plunderers of ships. The murder of which Kidd was convicted was of one of his crew in an altercation, and may have been in fear of mutiny. William Kidd had distinguished himself as captain of a privateer against the French in the West Indies, be- fore he was placed in command of a galley fitted out by the Earl of Bellomont and others, to sail under two royal commissions, one being to take the enemy's ves- sels as prizes, and the other to arrest pirates, and bring them for trial, and seize the goods in their posses- sion. Those who fitted him out, were to share in the profits of the booty. One of these partners of Kidd was Somers, the Lord Keeper of the Great Seal of England, whose joining in such an agreement was the
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ground of one of the charges in the unsuccessful im- peachment of him. Kidd sailed from Plymouth, England, in May, 1696, and, coming to New York, and offering no pay but a share in profits, increased his crew, and thence, in September, went to attack pirates at Madagascar. Finding none there or off Malabar, he was pretty much necessitated to plunder, to provide for his men. So great were their depredations, real and reported, that in less than two years the English government issued, on Dec. 8, 1698, a proclamation offering pardon to all guilty of piracy in certain waters who should surrender themselves before April 30, 1699, except Kidd and Every.
Most of Kidd's men had retired from his service after his chief captures. A large number, bringing considerable possessions, took passage on a vessel under Captain Shelley, sent out by New York mer- chants to trade with Madagascar, in reality with the pirates there. On May 29, Shelley, with his well laden ship, arrived in Delaware Bay, and, having started a few of these passengers to go where they pleased in a sloop, carried to the western shore twenty others, and to Cape May fourteen or sixteen. Quary managed to have a number captured. Two, John Eldridge and Simon Arnold, were taken on the River with chests con- taining coral, amber, and manufactured Eastern goods, Arabian and Christian gold, and about 7800 Rix dol- lars. These men, Quary put into the jail at Burlington, New Jersey, as a more secure hold than that in Phila- delphia. The Pennsylvania Council deemed illegal and insulting his action in sending outside for confine- ment those whom he or his deputy Snead had arrested within Penn's jurisdiction. Upon Quary's discovering that Robert Bradinham (called Brandingham in the Minutes of Council), who had been Kidd's surgeon, and William Stanton, also of Kidd's company, were in Philadelphia, Markham gave Quary two constables,
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who arrested those two. Markham seized what could be found of their money and goods, rejecting Quary's claim to have the same taken into the Admiralty's custody. Markham refused to press a vessel into ser- vice, and to give Quary forty men to capture Shelley's ship, anchored near Cape Henlopen. Governor Basse of the Jerseys had a sloop manned, and with it secured in the lower part of the Bay four of those who had landed at Cape May. Three of the four surrendered themselves. The four confessed, but all their goods had been sent away. All of the six who thus came into West Jersey custody were speedily admitted to bail by Quaker Justices there. Arnold's name does not appear in subsequent papers examined.
Kidd sailed back to North America, secreting most of his treasure on its shores or on the way thither, hop- ing that some quibble or bribe or the friendship of Lord Bellomont would secure immunity from punishment. Making for New York or New England, Kidd in a sloop with about forty men and much booty, came within the Capes of Delaware Bay in June, 1699, close upon the heels of Shelley, the sloop being supposed to be one which Basse had descried. Kidd remained more than ten days. He sent his boats ashore every day, and was supplied with what he needed by the old pirates and other inhabitants at Whorekills, some going constantly aboard Kidd's sloop, and dealing with him, bringing ashore muslins and other East Indian goods. It is not likely that he trusted such people sufficiently to bury anything in the vicinity. Getting into communication with Lord Bellomont, Kidd received from the latter a promise of safety, if innocence should be shown, and was thus induced to land at Boston, where Bellomont was; but Bellomont, smarting under the imputation that he had expected Kidd to turn pirate, and failing to get information where the treasure had been left, and fearing that Kidd would slip away, put Kidd in
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jail, and then sent him with others accused of piracy to England.
Bradinham and Stanton were not admitted to bail, but remained in the custody of Sheriff Claypoole afore- said, who on hot days allowed them to walk in the streets with a keeper. This being criticized, the Sheriff, on August 8, was told to keep them close pris- oners. On December 22, Bradinham complained in a petition that he was confined in a low room without fire, and for want of money to support him, and asked for a warmer room and a little of his own money in the hands of Markham, who had just been superseded : Markham was thereupon ordered to allow 12s. a week for Bradinham's subsistence; but Bradinham, as will be seen, had money in concealment, in the hands of his friends. Stanton escaped, probably after Penn ar- rived. Outlawry was proclaimed, and probably it was for this escape that Penn turned the Sheriff out of office. Claussen disappears from notice, probably pro- ducing the all-important record of his acquittal.
The narration of the secular affairs of the Province and Territories will now be suspended, leaving the pirates in their fear of a certain kind of suspension; and the contemporary introduction or establishment of certain non-Quaker religious bodies and something of their subsequent history, will be set forth in a chap- ter bearing the name of the denomination long the most important.
CHAPTER XI.
THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND.
Clause in Penn's patent-The Non-Jurors-Bp. Compton-Starting of Christ Church, Philadel- phia-Union congregation of Baptists and others at "Barbados store"-Separation therefrom of the First Presbyterian Church of Philadelphia- Ministers at Christ Church-Services elsewhere -George Keith's career after taking orders Rev. John Talbot-Assistance from Swedish min- isters-Church edifices-Further history of Bap- tists-Further history of Presbyterians-Conse- cration of Welton and Talbot as bishops Their subsequent course-Powers conferred on Bp. Gib- son-Various country churches-Enlargement of Christ Church-Rev. George Whitefield-Naza- reth, Penna., and the Philadelphia building with free school project-History of Christ Church continued-Calvinistic Methodists in England and Wales organized-Whitefield's subsequent
visits to Pennsylvania.
Probably from the time that the English took pos- session of the town of New Castle, in October, 1664, stipulating that all the conquered should as formerly enjoy the liberty of their conscience in Church disci- pline, there was always some person on the western shore of Delaware River or Bay who acknowledged belonging to the Church of England; and probably there were very soon quite a number. Except when the con- trary is known, the officers appointed by the Crown may be assumed to have been Conformists at home, and even if not zealous, yet ready to enroll themselves
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at any mission which the English authorities would inaugurate. The possessions in America were sup- posed to be attached to the see of London, until the Attorney-General and Solicitor-General of England gave the opinion, in 1725 or 1726, that ecclesiastical jurisdiction over America did not belong to any bishop in England, but was solely in the Crown by virtue of the King's supreme headship. Rev. John Yeo appears to have been the first clergyman of the Church who as such officiated in Pennsylvania or Delaware, he coming from Maryland in December, 1677, with his letters of ordination and his license from the Bishop of London, and holding services for some months during the fol- lowing year. For about eighteen years after this, if there was, indeed, any Anglican presbyter in the re- gion,-Yeo was in Maryland about 1683,-there ap- pears to have been no public use of the Anglican liturgy in Pennsylvania or Delaware, except possibly an iso- lated ceremony. It is probable that such non-Quakers as were desirous of attending divine worship, or had occasion, for instance a wedding or a baptism, for a clergyman, accepted the ministrations of Swedes, in- stead of going or sending to another colony. The Charter to Penn contained a requirement, however, that any preacher or preachers approved of by the Bishop of London should be allowed to reside in the province whenever twenty inhabitants expressed a de- sire to the Bishop that such be sent. This clause was inserted at the request of Dr. Compton, Bishop of London at that time. After the adoption of the Charter, he was intrusted by his fellows of the Committee for Trade and Plantations with the preparation of a bill for establishing the Protestant Church in Pennsyl- vania. Penn was opposed to anything like an estab- lishment, and the measure came to naught. Penn says in a letter of 1700 (Penna. Archives, 1st Series, Vol. I, p. 141) : "The Bp. of London at the passing of my
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patt. did what he could to get savings for the church"- perhaps the probate of wills &ct., which was possessed by the bishops in England, and was at one time thought of as an endowment for a mission in America,-"but,"' he adds, "was opposed by the Earl of Radnor the Prest." As to the meaning of the clause in the Charter in regard to the selection of the minister, the learned canonist, Rt. Rev. Dr. Edmund Gibson, Bishop of Lon- don from 1723 to 1748, wrote in 1738, that he did not pretend to any more right than that of licensing the person who was to be minister, intimating that he was to be nominated by the inhabitants either as individ- uals, or representing as vestrymen the individuals; and we find in most cases when the Bishop of London picked out the person to be licensed, that he had been requested to do so, it being generally hard for the people to find a minister, and when Bp. Gibson in 1742, after failure to receive a unanimous recommendation from the vestry of Christ Church, Philadelphia, of anybody to be minister there, issued a license to Rev. Robert Jenney, both the latter and the Bishop explained that it was not an appointment but a recommendation or approbation conditional upon the vestry accepting him.
From the Revolution of 1688 down to the close of George I's reign, the embracing of opportunities for services by Anglican clergymen was interfered with by the peril of countenancing Non-Jurors, i.e. those who had refused to swear allegiance to the new sovereigns. Sancroft, Archbishop of Canterbury, and the other bishops deprived of their sees for such contumacy in William and Mary's time, had many followers in the large body of persons then having ecclesiastical dig- nity, benefice, or promotion, and, similarly, when oaths were required for further alienation of the Crown from James II's son, a number in a later generation of clergymen sacrificed their livings. Men required for such reasons to leave home were now and then the only
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Anglican priests ready for employment on the Dela- ware. The "Jacobites," as those were called who be- lieved James II or his son the lawful sovereign, omitted the Christian name of the King from the prayers: so did the whole Scottish Episcopal Church down to the time when Seabury was consecrated Bishop of Con- necticut; and, Seabury's consecrators having recom- mended such omission to him, the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America to-day, in pray- ing for the President of the United States, does not give his name.
No question, however, as to who was Bishop of Lon- don troubled the Anglican Churchmen in the reign of William or of Anne. The Rt. Rev. Dr. Henry Compton, perhaps best remembered as the builder of St. Paul's Cathedral, and perhaps of really great influence on the course of history through his instruction and religious guidance of the Princesses Mary and Anne, who both ascended the throne, had, in 1675, been translated from the see of Oxford to that of London, had been sus- pended and soon restored by James II, had taken an active part in the movement against James, even ap- pearing at the head of a troop of horse, when war was breaking out, and had crowned William and Mary in Westminster Abbey. He continued Bishop of London until his death in 1713. Although rather a military prelate, son of an earl who had fallen in battle for Charles I, and himself, in his youth, a pikeman to aid the cause of Charles II, and, before studying divinity, an ensign, he was devout, benevolent, and, except for his violent Protestantism and sincere Orthodoxy, tol- erant. He was faithful to his charge, whether over the colonies or in England, and he regretted that he was unable personally to visit America, and he favored the proposal that America have a bishop residing there. He was much interested in the Indians, endeavoring to further their conversion to Christianity, as well as
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being solicitous, as has been mentioned in the chapter on the Acquisition and Distribution of the Land, that the savage natives should receive payment for the soil of Pennsylvania. He secured from Charles II the grant of a present of £20 to each chaplain that was sent to America by the Bishop. James II's treasury paid to those going during his reign, and, after discontinuance of the practice in William and Mary's hard times, this Bishop brought about a revival of it. Compton, how- ever, was not desirous of the extension of his own Church through the weakening of other evangelical bodies holding the great principles of truth. He had a grand scheme for the union or intercommunion of the Protestants of Europe. He was particularly unlikely to encourage proselyting the Swedes.
Contemporaneously with the yearly efforts to estab- lish the Church of England in Maryland, Sir Thomas Lawrence, Bart., Secretary of that Province, and Francis Nicholson, its Governor, who arrived in August 1694, interested themselves in organizing the Church- men in Pennsylvania. The latter Churchmen may have sought the others' aid, or may have first been stirred by them, or one of the Maryland clergy may have broached the matter to those two officials and the Churchmen of Philadelphia. In a letter to the Com- mittee of the Privy Council for Trade dated Nov. 15, 1694, and another dated June 14, 1695, Nicholson asks them to hear Sir Thomas Lawrence on the subject. There is no doubt that between those dates, or, more likely, before the earlier one, the movement had started in Philadelphia to build Christ Church. Some slight progress had been made, before the rumor discussed in the Provincial Council of Pennsylvania on June 15, 1695, induced the Churchmen in the capital to sign a petition to the King to be allowed the free exercise of their religion and arms for defence. Robert Suder in a letter to Governor- -(Nicholson ?), dated Nov.
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20, 1698, printed in Bp. Perry's Historical Collections relating to the American Colonial Church, Vol. II- Pennsylvania, says that, as soon as the Quaker magis- trates heard of the petition, they sent a constable after Suder, and, on his appearing before them, questioned him. When he stated what the petition was for, Shippen, who was one of the Judges, said to the others : "Now they have discovered themselves. They are bringing the priest and the sword amongst us, but God forbid: we will prevent them;" and he directed the Attorney to read the law making it an offence to speak or write against the government. Suder said that he hoped they would not hinder the right of petition. They arrested attorney Griffith Jones, on suspicion of having written the paper, and bound him over from session to session. A part of the unoccupied lot of Quaker-or, rather, Keithian-Griffith Jones, the mer- chant, was chosen as a site for a house of worship; and Joshua Carpenter, brother of Samuel Carpenter, as trustee to take title. This Griffith Jones, by deed of Nov. 15, 1695, conveyed the site-nearly all of the pres- ent church edifice stands on it-to Carpenter on a ground rent of 10l. silver money of the Province, re- deemable within 15 years for 150l. Meanwhile, on October 30, Sir Thomas Lawrence appeared before the Lords of the Committee for Trade, and consideration was given to his memorial, which asked that 1d. per l. on side trade of tobacco in Penn's dominion be granted with the arrears for maintaining two Protestant (mean- ing Church of England) divines to be sent thither. The matter being referred to the Commissioners of the Treasury, they thought that the better method would be to grant a salary out of the revenue, and this the Lords of the Committee for Trade, on Nov. 25, agreed to report to the King, but it was several years before a stipend was allowed, and this was for one minister only. Meanwhile and afterwards, through this reign
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and Anne's, the revived present of £20 to each minister sent to the colonies was given.
The "Case of the Keithian Meeting House," pre- pared in 1730 (Penna. Archives, 1st Series, Vol. I, p. 285), says that the congregation of Christ Church had the use of said meeting-house, and the sacraments were administered therein according to the Established Church "for some years"-which is an exaggeration, unless Christ Church edifice was started before the lot was bought, for the Case adds "until the church (before begun) was finished." With the help of money con- tributed by Governor Nicholson, as is acknowledged in a letter to him of Jany. 18, 1696-7, Christ Church was finished by that date. The signers of the letter prob- ably included all the Churchmen of the City except Markham. They were, as printed in Perry's Collec- tions: (Yeates and Grant heading 2d and 3d columns)
Francis Jones
Robt. Quary
Saml. Peres
Sam. Holt
Darby Greene
Edw. Bury
Enoch Hubord
Thos. Stapleford.
Thos. Walter
John White
Thos. Curtis
John Gibbs
Edwd. Smout
Willm. Grant
Joshua Carpenter
Thos. Briscoll
Wm. Dyre
John Herris
Addam Birch
John Harrison
John Sibley
Thomas Craven
Jasper Yeates
Charles Sober
Thomas Harris
Jeremiah Price
George Fisher
Jeremiah Hunt
Fardinando Dowarthy
John Willson
Geo. Thompson John Moore.
Very few of these-perhaps only Yeates-had ever been Quakers. Dyre was the grandson of the Quaker
Robert Gilham
Anth'y Blany
Jarvis Bywater
Robt. Snead
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martyr Mary Dyer, or Dyre, whose husband and chil- dren appear not to have adopted her religion. Com- parison of the list with certain lists of sympathizers with Keith in the chapter on Religious Dissension, shows how distinct from them were these original Churchmen of Philadelphia, and that the accession of Keithians to the congregation must have been later. Apparently while the Keithian meeting-house was used, a clergyman was secured, pending the licensing of one by the Bishop of London. The name of this clergyman is not known. The congregation soon dismissed him. From him, Markham, who wrote in his favor to the Bishop, learned that there were several persons in the town in a cabal against Markham, because of his coun- tenancing Quakers so much. This is mentioned by Markham in a letter to Penn of March 1, 1696-7.
The moral condition of Penn's dual colony at this period, as shown in the last chapter, called for a mis- sionary; and the only religion presented to the English- speaking people of it was what most Christians looked upon as queer, the largest religious denomination hav- ing no ceremonies at all and a certain self-sufficiency, rejecting doctrines, another denomination insisting upon immersion, and refusing to baptize infants, and some religionists keeping Saturday instead of Sunday, and some practising feet-washing. Perry, in the afore- said Collections, prints a letter sent about 1698 to Markham, not from "Gov.," as Perry describes it, but from "Rev." John Danforth, who was Congregational- ist Pastor at Dorchester, Massachusetts, asking that "beloved brother" Mr. Benjamin Woodbridge be re- ceived on a religious mission, "not to handle such points as are matters of controversies among Protestants." The religion of New England outside of Rhode Island was Calvinistic, and, in the sense that elder was the high- est rank in the ministry, Presbyterian, but in the con- gregational basis of Church polity, was very different
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from Scotch Presbyterianism. We are apt to be misled by the loose application of the name "Presbyterian" to all non-prelatists except Baptists and Quakers. The few regular-as distinguished from Keithian-Baptists in Philadelphia, with one or two others aloof from the Church of England, had gathered at the Barbados store at Second and Chestnut, where, from about April, 1695, the Baptist minister from Pennypack, Rev. John Watts, is said to have preached every other Sunday, but pre- ceding him, or sometimes in his place, was probably the head of the Baptists at Cohansey, New Jersey, Rev. Thomas Killingworth, spoken of in the chapter on Re- ligious Dissension. On the alternate Sundays, as the Baptists soon afterwards stated, any "Presbyterian minister" who happened to come, was allowed to preach in the room at the Barbados store. We do not know whether Woodbridge did so. He may have brought Rev. Jedidiah Andrews to Philadelphia. In the Spring or Summer of 1698, Andrews, who had been licensed to preach by some authority in Massachusetts, came to minister to those described as Presbyterians. Their claim to that name has been well disputed by Irving Spence in his Letters on the Early History of the Presbyterian Churches on the Peninsula, addressed to Rev. Robert M. Laird, printed in 1838, Spence de- fining a Presbyterian as one who believed in the theory of Church government adopted by the General As- sembly of the Scottish Kirk on February 10, 1645. The union congregation at the Barbados store became divided, one part hearing its minister in the morning, and the other hearing opposite views in the afternoon. Thus was started what has received the name of the First Presbyterian Church of Philadelphia. The letter of the Baptists, dated 8, 30, 1698, after the others had expressed themselves unwilling to join in worship with them, is addressed to Mr. Jedidiah Andrews, John Green, Joshua Story, Samuel Richards, "and the rest
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of those of Presbyterian judgment belonging to the meeting in Philadelphia." The answer, dated Nov. 3, asking a conference, was signed by Andrews, Green, and Richards, and also by David Giffing, Herbert Corry, John Van Lear, and Daniel Green. We have thus prob- ably the names of nearly all the male adults who pro- nounced for that side. Van Lear was doubtless a Cal- vinistic Dutchman. In due time, the Budd family be- came Presbyterians, the chief representatives among them of the Keithian seceders from the Society of Friends. John Budd became an elder.
It would seem that the Anglican clergy of Maryland, although they did not pay, nevertheless sent as mis- sionaries, and superintended, the two or more clergy- men who had charge of Christ Church before Portlock, if, indeed, the one who first had charge was not a mere wanderer or visitor, asked to officiate. Perhaps the licenses to these men were for doing work as the Mary- land clergy should arrange: it was before the arrival of a Commissary for Maryland. Rev. John Arrow- smith, who, as schoolmaster and chaplain on the way to that province, had an order for the King's allowance on Jany. 18, 1695-6, was in charge of Christ Church, Phil- adelphia, and its school at the beginning of 1698, but was only a deacon, writing to Governor Nicholson that some of the congregation were desirous of receiving the sacrament, if it could be administered at Easter, and that Mr. Sewell (evidently Rev. Richard Sewell of Maryland) had promised to come for that purpose.
It is supposed that Rev. Thomas Clayton was the first minister appointed for Philadelphia by the Bishop of London. Webster's History of the Presbyterian Church in America is wrong in saying that Clayton had been rector of Crofton, Yorkshire, confusing him possibly with the Rev. John Clayton, Rector there from 1687 to 1697, who may have been a relative, and may have employed Thomas Clayton as curate. Two
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