impious tenets, or to erect an arbitrary form of government in any quarter of the globe." "By another act the dominion of Canada is to be so extended, modelled and governed, as that by being disunited from us, detached from our interests by civil as well as religious prejudices, that by their numbers daily swelling with Catholic emigrants from Europe, and by their devotion to administration so friendly to their religion, they might become formidable to us, and on occasion be fit instruments in the hands of power to reduce the ancient free Protestant colonies to the same state of slavery with themselves." Other passages, too, pictured the Roman Catholics as helping England to enslave America.

This address was from the pen of John Jay, in whose colony of New York a flag was run up with the legend, "No Popery." The "Address to the Inhabitants of the Colonies," more moderate in tone, condemned the Quebec Act for extending the limits of that province to the northern and western boundaries of the old colonies, and establishing the Roman Catholic religion, instead of merely tolerating it, as stipulated by the treaty of peace.1

1 "Extracts from the Votes and Proceedings of the American Continental Congress, held at Philadelphia, 5th September, 1774," etc., New York, 1774, pp. 4, 9, 10, 17, 25-7. "An Englishman's Answer to the Address from the Delegates to the People of Great Britain," New York, 1775, says, p. 22: "I am still more astonished at what you tell us of the fruits of their religion.”—“ But if the actions of the different sects in religion are enquired into, we shall find, by turning over the sad historic page, that it was the sect (I forget what they call them, I mean the sect which is still most numerous in New England, and not the sect which they so much despise) that in the last century deluged our island in blood! that even shed the blood of the sovereign, and dispersed impiety, bigotry, superstition, hypocrisy, persecution, murder and rebellion through every part of the empire." See "The Quebec Act and the Church in Canada," American Catholic Quarterly," 1885, p. 601. To make the act more odious in the old colonies, it was reported that the

But the people at large were not deluded by politicians and zealots who sought to trade on their religious prejudices. There is no trace of any hostility shown during this excitement to the Catholic settlers in Maryland or Pennsylvania. Events were marching rapidly, and the pretended fears of political leaders deceived few.

Catholics everywhere were in full sympathy with the patriotic movement. A Protestant minister might, like the Rev. Samuel Peters in Connecticut, draw down on himself the vengeance of impetuous whigs, but no one raised a doubt as to the fidelity of the priests in Maryland and Pennsylvania to the cause of America. As the struggle became imminent, priests like the Rev. John Carroll, who had been employed in Europe, hastened back to share their country's fortunes; and in the event, as we shall see, the French-speaking Catholics and their priest at the West secured that territory to the republic.

The growth of a better feeling toward Catholics after the close of the wars with France and Spain, is seen in the fact that Catholic books were for the first time printed, not anonymously as in England, but openly. Apparently the first book thus issued was a prayer-book, entitled "A Manual of Catholic Prayers. In the multitude of thy mercy, I will come into thy House; I will worship towards thy holy Temple in thy Fear.' Psalm v. 8. Philadelphia: Printed for the Subscribers, by Robert Bell, Bookseller, in Third Street, MDCCLXXIV."

At the same time Bell issued proposals for printing by subscription Bishop Challoner's "Catholic Christian Instructed." Subscriptions were received "by Robert Bell and also by

king was about to raise an army of 30,000 Canadian Catholics, in order to crush them. "New York Journal," November 3, 1774.

Arthur John O'Neill, Fourth Street; Patrick Hogan, Tallow Chandler and Soap Boiler, Pear Street; James Gallagher, Storekeeper, Front Street, Philadelphia; William Cullen, Storekeeper, Pottsgrove; Mark Wilcox, Paper Maker, Concord, Chester County; Welsh, Storekeeper in Baltimore-town, Maryland."

....

An advertisement in the "Annapolis Gazette," May 29, 1777, and "Pennsylvania Evening Post," December 28, 1778, also notices a prayer-book: "New Publications to be sold at Mr. William Gordon's in Cornhill St., Annapolis, . . . . 'A Manual of (Roman) Catholic Prayers, for the use of those (Roman Catholics) who ardently aspire after devotion (salvation),” etc. The work referred to is probably not Bell's book, but "The Garden of the Soul; or, a Manual of Spiritual Exercises and Instructions for Christians who living in the world, aspire to Devotion. The Seventh Edition corrected. London printed. Philadelphia: Reprinted by Joseph Crukshank, in Market Street, between Second and Third Streets."

CHAPTER IV.

THE CHURCH AND CATHOLICS DURING THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR.

THE Condition of the Church in the country east of the Mississippi in 1774 has been portrayed. The Catholic bodies were widely separated; in those of French and Spanish origin the royal aid was withdrawn, and the people were discouraged. The suppression of the Society of Jesus cut off all hope of further missionary supply from that order, and the prospect for the future was bleak enough, as no provision for the maintenance of a clergy and divine worship was

made.

The Jesuits in Maryland and Pennsylvania formally accepted the Brief and became secular priests. The property of the order in Illinois, like that in Canada, was taken by the English government, which to this day holds the latter as a trust.' In Maryland the title to the property had not been held by the Jesuits as a body corporate, but by individual members, all British subjects, and had been transmitted from one to another by will or deed ever since the settlement of the country. On the suppression, Bishop Challoner sent the Brief to Maryland for the adhesion of the members in that and the adjoining province, but neither he nor the Sovereign Pontiff took any steps in regard to the property.

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'The Illinois and other lands must have passed to the United States by the treaty of 1783 under the same trust, to apply them to the purposes for which they were given. Memoire sur les Biens des Jésuites en Canada," Montreal, 1874, p. 96. If government sold the land, the proceeds belong to the Catholic Church, or justice is a mockery.

The outburst of bigotry in New York, excited by the Quebec Act and stimulated by narrow-minded fanatics like John Jay, caused the only serious trouble experienced by Catholics during this period. A number of Scotch Highlanders, chiefly Catholics from Glengarry, had, as already stated, settled near Johnson Hall, in the Mohawk Valley, to which they had been invited by Sir William Johnson. They were attended by the Rev. John McKenna, an Irish priest, educated at Louvain. Comparatively strangers in the country, many speaking English imperfectly, the immigrants knew little of the points on which the colonists based their complaints against the English government. They soon found themselves denounced as tories, papists, and friends of British tyranny by the fanatics near them. They were disarmed by General Schuyler, and before the spring of 1776 began to withdraw to Canada, by way of Oswegatchie, abandoning the homes they had created in the wilderness. Their sufferings were great, one party subsisting for ten days on their dogs and herbs they gathered as they went. Their priest, more obnoxious than his flock, withdrew with a company of 300, and took up his abode with the Jesuit Fathers at Montreal.

Thus did anti-Catholic bigotry deprive New York of industrious and thrifty settlers, and send to swell the ranks of the British army, men who longed to avenge the defeat at Culloden, men eager to draw their claymores against England.

One of these parties of Catholics, flying from persecution, was attacked by Indians from St. Regis, and several were killed.'

1 Allan McDonald to Congress, March 25, 1776, complaining of arrest near Johnstown, American Archives," v., p. 415. Thomas Gummersall, "New York Colonial Documents," viii., p. 683; Ferland, "Vie de Mgr. Plessis," p. 50; English edition, p. 32. Rev. Mr. McKenna, when