Note 6 — General Introduction.

That is, the missionaries of the society in America.—The charter of the society declares the end of its incorporation to be “propagating the gospel in foreign parts, and making provision for the worship of God in those plantations which wanted the administration of God’s word and sacraments, and were abandoned to atheism and infidelity.” The chief business, on the contrary, of the society has been to provide for the support of episcopalianism in the northern colonies, and particularly New-England, where the sacraments are more regularly administered, and the people less abandoned to infidelity, than perhaps in any country under heaven. The missionaries employed and paid by the society for this purpose, have generally been clergymen of the highest principles in church and state. America, having been for some time very hostile to men of such principles, most of them have been obliged to take refuge in this country; and here they have, I am afraid, been too successful in propagating their own resentments, in misleading our rulers, and widening the breach which has produced the present war.