USA > Rhode Island > Washington County > Narragansett > A history of the Episcopal church in Narragansett, Rhode Island, including a history of other Episcopal churches in the state > Part 40
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We have, also, a fine promising new settlement upon the Spanish main, mostly inhabited by the logwood cutters, and is called the Musquito Shore ; but, as the present Ferdinand of Spain has erect- ed a logwood company at St. Andero, consisting of many and rich merchants, the settlements stipulated and, consequent to that incor- poration will greatly distress, if not dis-setlet the English.
If this should turn out, as it is probable it will, to this purpose, that profitable branch of trade will be lost to the British subjects, and the European markets be supplied with that article from the Spaniards themselves. I need not observe to you how detrimental this would
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prove to nations that manufacture so much wool as Britain and Ire- land do.
As it is common for a peace, that puts a period to a long war, to produce robbers at sea and land-thus, upon the peace.of Utrecht, most of the pirates who infested the West Indian Seas, pitched upon a place they called New Providence, as a rendezvous whither to bring in their spoils.
These rude people, after living awhile under constitutions of their own making, took the benefit of an act of grace, and submitted themselves to the English Crown. They are not the only settle- ment that had such a base beginning ; for Cape Francois, or the French settlement on the Island of Hispaniola, owes itself to a like original. Capt. Woods Rogers, who had been mate of one of the two great Bristol privateers who went into the South Sea, took one of the great Manilla ships, (as Lord Anson has since taken another) and sailed round the world : I say, this Woods Rogers was appointed the first Governor over these piratical settlements, to whom succeed- en Governor Phinney, to him Colonel Fitzwilliams, and the pre- sent Governor is Mr. Tinker.
As far as I can find, the inhabitants of these Bahama Islands whereof New Providence is the chief, the place of the Governor's residence, of the courts of justice, and where the garrison is, are greatly polished, and as well civilized as some other West Indian plantations. Mahogany, brasiletto wood, and salt, made in ponds by the heat of the sun, are their chief commodities, together with small green turtle, delicious food, and forced down on these islands by the rapidity of the Gulf stream, or the passage between the very long island of Cuba and the main land of America, through which the waters, drove down by the trade-wind or current, into the large Bay of Mexico, return, and are disembogued into the Mare del Nort, or great Atlantic, at these Islands.
The Independent company have a chaplain allowed them at 6s. 8d. per diem ; but what by furloe from the Governor, and other arts, he makes it a sinecure. Formerly, upon my recommendation, one Mr. Smith, bred at the college of Dublin, and a Drogheda man, was ordained by the late Bishop of London, and was sent, by the society for the propagation of the gospel, as their missionary there. The present missionary, who is also school-master there, is one Mr. Car-
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ter, an Englishman ; for what religion they have is that of our church. I take this to be a very necessary settlement, as in time of war it may be a great curb to the Spaniards on the Island of Cuba, and to their main-land settlements on the Florida shore, whereof St. Augustine is the chief place, and a Bishop's see. But for further particulars, or even a correction of these, I must beg leave to refer you to Col. William Stewart, who was, and is, (if he has not parted with his commission) the chief military officer at New Providence.
I will now pass over to the main land, where the first English province that presents is Georgia. This colony has for its bounds, the Spanish settlements of St. Augustine on the south-west and west, South Carolina northerly and northeasterly, and the Atlantic Ocean in front, into which you sail from thence through the mouths of bar- red rivers.
It was begun in this reign, and put under the management of a body of gentlemen in England under the title of the trustees of Geor- gia, and has ever since advanced under the advantage of a national expence. Its first inhabitants were, too many of them, the sweep- ings of the streets of London, and other populous places ; and though, as yet, it can boast of no very profitable returns to the mother coun- try, it may, however, plume itself on this, that it eased England for that time of some useless hands, which doubtless are a dead weight upon every country.
To the first settlers, by after embarkations, have been added num. bers of Moravians, and other Germans ; but poor as it is, it appears not to be poor enough for a silken plantation; a manufacture im- practicable anywhere but in over-populous places, and where every other branch of business is overstocked with hands. It is true, that in Georgia, and every other place in the English America, the mul- berry tree, (whose leaves are the food of the silk worm,) will grow and thrive surprisingly ; but, as gathering the leaves, feeding and attending the worms while spinning their balls, and winding them off when spun, will not equal the incomes of other labor, 'tis not to be hoped that a manufacture of this kind can turn to account in any of the English settlements, where the necessaries of life are dear, and so great a paucity of people to clear and to till the ground.
The Moravians are industrious, and religious in their way ; in the former whereof, I hope, they will be imitated by their English neigh-
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bors, whose religion, after they have learned the others industry, may induce these strangers to list themselves under the banner of our church. There is, or lately was, a Bishop of the Moravian principles there, and preachers of their own in great plenty. To these the venerable society for the propagation of the gospel in for- eign parts, in London, have added two missionaries, who are settled at the towns of Savannah and Augusta, for the benefit of the English inhabitants of that province. To the civil and military government of this place, (ever since his Excellency General James Oglethorp went to England) I am too much a stranger to give your Honor any account. As it is a frontier, 'twill be always exposed to Spanish in- sults in time of war ; and to Indian incursions, whenever their Span- ish masters have a mind to incite them to annoy the English.
To this latter inconvenience they are exposed at this very time ; no good sign (whatever is outwardly pretended) that the court of Madrid is inwardly over-much devoted to that of London.
I am of opinion, that whenever the British Parliament shortens the supplies that support this colony, it will proceed and improve slowly ; but, should they be wholly withdrawn, it must be greatly distressed, especially on any rupture with Spain. I should think it therefore of great consequence, that a due attention were given to the defence of our American frontiers, as the more safe and central colonies would flourish the better within the well-maintained bar- riers.
Northerly of Georgia lies the flourishing province of South Car- olina, not the less prosperous by rice's being made an unenumerated commodity ; whereby they have leave to export it to other parts of Europe, without entering in the ports of Great Britain.
This province was begun, and first peopled, at the expense of En- glish patentees, in the reign of Charles the second, under the style and title of the Lords Proprietors of South Carolina ; but it advan- ced slowly, and was often interrupted by wars and incursions, made by the Indian nations bordering on its west limits, and under Spanish and French influence.
You may please to take notice, that as the Spaniards are our neigh- bors on the south, so, ever since the settling of Louisiana, the French have been extending themselves east from the Mississippi quite up to the Appalatian mountains, a middle land rising, or ridge of hills
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that run from south to north, on the back or west of the English pro- vinces. Those Lords Proprietors, finding themselves an unequal match for the Indians in the war, and that the expense of defending the province exceeded the present profits, or future expectations, did all (except your Lord Carteret, now Earl of Granvil,) surrender their powers and privileges to the Crown, in 1720.
I was then in London, and often saw the Provincial agents at the lodgings of my great friend and patron, General Francis Nicholson, who, in a little time after, went over in the quality of King's Gov- ernor. Ever since that time, this province has throve at a prodigious rate ; so that, besides their home consumption, it takes above two hundred sail of ships, and other top-sail vessels, to export their an- nual overplus. Their principal produce is rice ; beside which they export Indian corn (alias maize), pitch, tar, turpentine, beef and pork, barrelled, tanned leather, raw hides, and other articles. As the plant, from which it is extracted by fermentation, is plenty in the province, they have lately entered on the manufacture of Indigo ; but, whether their latitude (agreeable enough to oranges and limes, without adventitious or artificial heat) is warm enough, or they are defective in skill, they are unable yet to vie with the French of His- paniola in the goodness of that commodity. The Church of Eng- land is established there by provincial law ; as indeed it is, by the Union Act of Parliament, in all his Majesty's foreign dominions, as King of England. There are but a few dissenters, and those of the Independent and anti-pædobaptist persuasions, who are mostly seated in Charlestown, the metropolis.
The venerable society before mentioned used to send and assist in maintaining missionaries, with the allowance of fifty pounds sterling to each minister per annum ; but General Nicholson having obtained a law to secure a support to the clergy by a provincial tax, the socie- ty now give only thirty pounds to each missionary, and that rather as an inducement for gentlemen to go over to a confessedly sickly country, than out of any great need there is of that addition. Their parishes are of vast extent, resembling your northern baronies ; ten whereof are furnished with so many missionaries, besides Charles- ton, which maintains a rector and lecturer in St. Philip's Church, at its own expense.
The inhabitants are gay and expensive in their furniture, cloath-
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ing, equipage, and way of living; an observation that will but too well apply to all the English colonies-the Irish, Dutch, Palatines, and other Germans, are as yet the only exception to this remark ; but I think one may foretel, without a spirit of prophecy, that, by the symptoms beginning to shoot out on the offspring of the wealthy and thriving among them, their posterity will fall into the like de- structive indulgencies.
More north and north-easterly, and on the Atlantic shore, lies North Carolina, granted also in 1663, by King Charles the Second, to a company of proprietors.
Their charter provides, that the Church of England shall be the only established religion, and entitled to the public encouragements.
This province does not contain more inhabitants than from fifteen to twenty thousand, who live in plantations scattered at great dis- tances. They have but few compact towns, besides the small ones of Edentown, the Metropolis, and Cape Fear; by which means re- - ligion has gained but little ground. Two clergymen, who are the society's itinerant missionaries here, are all the advantages they are yet under respecting religion ; and, though their travel and labors are excessive, it can't be supposed but the greater part of the peo- ple are necessarily rude and illiterate, irreligious and profane .- There are a very small number of Presbyterians, with some Quak- ers; and wherever these latter are, at least predominate, you shall never fail to find immoralities and disorders prevail. Believe me, Sir, wherever distinction of persons is decried, as among that peo- ple, confusions will follow ; for levelism is inconsistent with order, and a certain inlet to anarchy ; as, when there was no King in Israel, , every one did what was right in his own eyes. There are, however, sundry well-disposed gentlemen, who from time to time have made laudable efforts to promote true religion among their neighbors ; but what with their colony confusions, and an Indian war some years since, they have been able to make no great advances. The climate subjects the inhabitants, especially new comers, to vernal and au- tumnal agues and fevers of the mortal kind.
They export Indian corn, and pork, fatted in the woods, with what, by a general name is called mast : that is, acorns, walnuts, chesnuts, other nuts and wild fruits, which makes it oily and unpalatable.
But their greatest and most profitable produce is of the terebin- 56
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thinate kind, viz. pitch, tar, and turpentine, which they ship off in great quantities ; as also whalebone and oil, some seasons, from Cape Fear. Upon the whole, this province may still pass for a pretty wild and uncultivated country ; and except a few of the better sort, its white inhabitants have degenerated into a state of ignorance and barbarism, not much superior to the native Indians.
Along the same shore, and northeasterly, lies the old famous colo- ny of Virginia, so called from the Virgin-Queen Elizabeth, in whose reign it seems to be first settled. The first adventurers to those parts were mostly gentlemen of family and fortune, and firmly at- tached to the English Church : for it was not then so fashionable and meritorious (as fanciful men have since thought it) to form them- selves into religious factions ; nor could they, with impunity, sepa- rate from Catholic communion for trifles. This was the last of all the American English plantations that submitted to Oliver's yoke ; nor was it without a struggle and force, at last, that they put on that Usurper's chains.
This country is regularly divided into counties and parishes, where an Episcopal clergy (subject to the See of London, as all the American clergy are) are legally established and well provided for. There is a small college for the education of youth at a town called Williamsburgh ; and, excepting some single inconsiderable persons, the inhabitants are professed members of the Church of England.
The parishes are so large and extensive that, in many places, 'tis no unusual sight to see the gentry in their coaches, and lower people on horses, ride ten, twenty, thirty, and more miles, to church ; so that the Christians here may be, in more senses than one, called Cavaliers, it being impracticable for the lower infantry to foot it of- ten to their parish church.
To remedy this, as the whole province between the mountains (two hundred miles up) and the sea is all a champain, and without stones, they have plenty of a small sort of horses, the best in the world, like the little Scotch Galloways ; and 'tis no extraordinary journey to ' ride from sixty to seventy_miles, or more, in a day. I have often, but upon larger pacing horses, rode fifty, nay, sixty miles a day, even here in New England, where the roads are rough, stony, and un- even.
This province is well watered with many large, long rivers, nav-
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igable some, 100, others 150, and 200 miles up into the country, which facilitates their exportations. These rivers do not empty themselves immediately into the ocean, but into a large, capacious bason, of great breadth and extent, called Chesapeak Bay, into which you sail through a narrow channel, between Cape Henry and Cape Charles.
From this province and Maryland, its next neighbor, all Europe is supplied with tobacco ; except what is brought from the Brazils, be- longing to the king of Portugal, in South America.
Besides tobacco to Europe, they export to the Portuguese Islands in the Atlantic and on the African coast, and to the English Charib- bee Islands, and other places, wheat, Indian corn, and great quanti- ties of pork, fatted with the mast already mentioned. And as for beef, which is plenty enough in all the places to the southward of it, the climate is too hot to save it by salt ; so that they have little more than what is sufficient for their home consumption, and to victual their own trading ships ; but as for the tobacco ships, they come victu- aled from England and Scotland, where they chiefly belong.
There are many gentlemen of large demesnes and fortunes in Vir- ginia, and are as remarkable for their open and free hospitality, as for their great numbers of negro slaves ; several having hundreds, and some above a thousand of such servants, that I believe the blacks do in number equal, if not out-do, the whites.
As hanging seems to be the worst use men can be put to, it were to be wished, that a period were put even to the transportation of convicts from England and Ireland, to Virginia and Maryland ..
Though some of these felons do reform, yet they are so few, that their malversation has a bad effect upon the morals of the lower class of inhabitants ; great pity, therefore, it is, that some punishment worse than death or transportation could not be contrived for those vermin ; and sure, some hard drudgeries might be found out, which idleness, the inlet to their villanies, would dread more than hanging or transplantation.
The civil government of this province is vested immediately in the Crown, and, in consideration of the vast revenue arising at home from their tobacco, they are the only colony whose Governor is paid by the King.
The Governor of Virginia is commonly a nobleman. He has fif-
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teen hundred pounds sterling from the exchequer, and as much from him who has the favor to be fixed upon for the Lieutenant Governor, by which means it is a sinecure worth £3000 per annum. The late Duke of Hamilton's uncle, viz., the Earl of Orkney, was Governor of Virginia when I was in England last, in 1736, and, after the death of Col. Spotswood, Lieut. Governor Gooch was his deputy .- But he died while I was there, and who succeeded him I can't tell ; though the present Lieut. Governor is one Mr. Dinwooddy, my class- mate at the college of Glasgow.
There has lately been made, upon and behind the mountains of Virginia, a new Irish settlement, by a transmigration of sundry of those that, within these thirty years past, went from the north of Ireland to Pennsylvania. As the soil in that new Irish settlement is natural and friendly to grass, they will, for many years to come, raise great quantities of neat cattle, 'as the climate is benign, and their outlets or commonages large ; but they are too far from places fitted for water-carriage, to hurt other cattle-breeding places by their exportations abroad.
Along side of Virginia, and more northeasterly, lies Maryland, through which runs the great river Susquehannah, which empties itself, not into the ocean, but, as the Virginian rivers do, into the great bay of Chesapeak.
This tract or province, was granted to the great Calvert, Lord Baltimore, an Irish nobleman, by Queen Mary, wife of Philip of Spain, and in honor of her, called Maryland, as Georgia has since been named in honor of the present King.
As the late Lord Baltimore was the first protestant peer of the Calvert family, his predecessors (as it was natural they should) first peopled this province with a colony of Irish Catholics ..
These having the start, in point of time, of the after-settlers, are also to this day ahead of them in wealth and substance ; by which means, the first and best families are for the most part, still of the Roman communion. Though this province have a succession of secular clergy sent them, chiefly from Ireland, who subsist on the free-will offerings of those to whom they administer ; yet is the country cantoned into parishes and precincts, over which preside, by legal establishment, a competent number of clergymen of our church, handsomely provided for.
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Forty pounds of good inspected tobacco is due to the incumbent for every poll in the parish, young and old, white and black ; and is col- lected for his use, and is paid into him, by the sheriff of the county or district where he officiates. This is called the forty-pound_poll. tax, equal to five shillings sterling per head ; and as no parish is un- der £150 per annum, so a great many far exceed £300-a compe- tent provision in a cheap country, were not physic dearer than food, and the demands for it (especially about the vernal and autumnal equinoxes) more frequent than the eatables.
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There are some Quakers here, in consequence of its bordering on "" Pennsylvania ; and some Irish Presbyterians, owing to the swarms that, for many years past, have winged their way westward out of the Hibernian hive. One Mr. Hugh Conn, of Macgilligan, my se- nior, but former acquaintance, when I was a school-boy at Foghan- veil, and minister to a Presbyterian congregation in Maryland ; as he was preaching, a few months ago, upon the subject of a sudden death, he dropped down dead in his pulpit,-a melancholy, and, in- deed, remarkable verification of the truth he was inculcating on his audience. He has relations in the place of his nativity ; and this, perhaps, may be the only intimation they may have of his demise.
The Lord Proprietor has the privilege of presenting a Governor to hi; Majesty, and nominating the Council; and, upon the King's approving the presentation and choice, their respective commissions are made out, and the Governor's salary is settled by the Assembly of the province, and paid by a tax.
As to the produce, exportations, and commerce of this colony, they are so much the same with Virginia, that they need no repetition.
The inhabitants are all tenants to Lord Baltimore, upon a small . quit-rent ; and yet so prodigiously have the planters extended them- selves, that his Lordship's quit-rents are computed at £8000 sterling per annum ; and if the Irish go on, but a few years more, to people the upper and inland parts of the province, as they have begun, it will soon raise his rents to double that sum.
Next to Maryland, and northeasterly of it, lies Pennsylvania, so called from the famous William Penn, a noted Quaker, of a family of that name in Ireland. This province, including the three lower counties, extends, in length, near 300 miles, and in breadth above 200; and is watered by the great river Delaware, navigable 150
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miles up from the sea, in great vessels, to the city of Philadelphia, and as many more miles, in small vessels, above that city.
The three lower counties of Newcastle, Kent, and Sussex, lying between Philadelphia and the mouth of the Delaware, at Cape Hen- lopen, on the west side of that river, were first settled by Swedes and Dutch, though the whole province, at this day, are a mixture of several European nations, such as French, English, Irish, Moravi- ans, Palatines, and other Germans. William Penn, in consideration of some supposed merit, or intimacy with his Royal Highness, Duke of York and Albany, (afterwards the unfortunate King James the Second) obtained a proprietary patent of this province ; and its quit- rents (by the late numerous Irish and German settlers) arise to a - greater estate than Lord Baltimore's, but is divided among three of said Penn's posterity.
The first English settlers here were Quakers ; for above two thousand of these people went out of England at one embarkation, with William Penn, and began the city of Philadelphia, and the plan- tations contiguous to it. Since that time, great numbers, of other nations, and of different notions of religion, have chose this province for their habitation ; not to avoid any violence to their persons or principles, (as is more commonly, than truly, alledged, in New En- gland especially) but to improve their fortunes in those parts. Soon after this colony had a little increased, as an English civil govern- ment became necessary, and as it could not be safely trusted in, nor its powers agreeably executed by any but English hands, they were reduced to a sad dilemma. A statute of William and Mary, in con- formity to their own avowed tenets, had disqualified Quakers from the exercise of any civil authority ; and, as there were few fit among them for offices but persons of that persuasion, they petition- ed the Crown for a dispensation of the statute-and their prayer was heard.
Thus let into the administration, they soon showed, that nature is too powerful for principle ; and, though they declaim against domin- ion, yet, when they are once entrusted with power, they won't easily let go their hold.
Thus have we seen the out-cry, raised against the doctrine of the dispensing power of the Crown, in the reign of the unfortunate fa- ther, sunk into silence ; and the successors exercising, with impuni-
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ty, what only an attempt upon ruined the predecessor ; so true is it, that it is sometimes safer for one man to steal the horse, than for ano- ther to look at him through or over the hedge !
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