Introduction. xix

There was a general feeling that the clergy were not so much men of God as
men of this world and of a not too good a corner of it, and the feeling had a
good deal to go on. In 1766, for instance, the Coventry Parish vestry, on the
death of a notoriously bad rector, Nathaniel Whitaker, invited Dr. Thomas
Chandler to come there and preach to them, and everyone liked him and tried
to get him a permanent induction (Archives, XIV, 349, 363-369). But Gov-
ernor Sharpe, whatever his inclinations were, was bound by the instructions
of the Proprietary, and accordingly he inducted the Rev. John Rosse of the
neighboring Worcester Parish (Archives, XIV, 365-366). When the vigorous
protest of the Coventry vestry made the Rev. Mr. Rosse decide to stay where
he was, the next choice of the Proprietary was the worldly fighting parson, the
Rev. Philip Hughes also of Worcester. Hughes was no better than Whitaker
and Rosse, but he had more fighting spirit. He went into Coventry Parish
with the legal opinion of the great Daniel Dulany the Younger that he was
the only lawful rector. The vestry and the parishioners cared not a whit for
the law; they voted not to accept Hughes, and reinforced their feeling with
bolts and nails to close the church door against him. But Hughes got in, and
was able to make his induction binding in law. Then he persuaded the attorney-
general to take the vestry into court as disturbers of the peace (Archives,
XXXII, 231; XIV, 562-563). Although the'unrest died down and Hughes
remained, the popular conviction against the Proprietary's clergymen increased,
and it was strengthened by the even more unsavory case of the not very
Reverend Bennet Alien which occupied so much space in the Maryland Gazette
during 1768. When the congregation of All Saints at Frederick tried to
remove Alien bodily from the pulpit, he held a pistol to the head of the nearest
remonstrant, and was thus able to retreat in safety if not in dignity.

The resentment against the poll tax was strengthened by the legal opinions
of men like Samuel Chase and William Paca, both of them members of the
Lower House of Assembly, that there was no validity to the Act of Establish-
ment of 1705", even tVirmgri it Viarl ripen enfnrcpcl for seventy ypar<; Stimulated

by Paca and Chase men began to refuse to pay their poll tax, and clergy in-
comes dropped. The Lower House resolved, June 19, 1773, that the Act of
1702 had not been legally and constitutionally adopted and was therefore void
(Archives, LXIII, 347, 370). With more moderation than usual, the Upper
House, though repelling the Lower House position, invited a discussion on
the subject, and did not shut the door on a moderate bill to cut clergy incomes.
With the Act for regulating the staple of tobacco passed and thus for the
present removed from controversy, the Assembly gave its attention to the
passing of an act for the support of the clergy. Governor Eden, on December
8, 1773, laid before the Lower House an address, presented to him by a group
of clergymen, making several proposals for the settlement of the problem.
The signers admitted that sometimes clergy incomes were too large, and sug-
gested several plans to lessen the burden on the taxables (pp. 118-120). The
delegates, having thought the matter over for several days, on December 14
rejected all the proposals and re-affirmed their opinion that the Act of 1702 was
not constitutionally enacted and was therefore void. But they went on to make