Who cared about the thirteen colonies? Some evidence from philanthropy

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Who cared about thethirteen colonies? Someevidence from philanthropyP.J. Marshall aa Emeritus Rhodes Professor of ImperialHistory , King's College , LondonPublished online: 01 Jul 2008.

To cite this article: P.J. Marshall (1999) Who cared about the thirteen colonies?Some evidence from philanthropy, The Journal of Imperial and CommonwealthHistory, 27:2, 53-67, DOI: 10.1080/03086539908583056

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Who Cared about the Thirteen Colonies?Some Evidence from Philanthropy

P.J. MARSHALL

In a recent essay Jacob M. Price asked the question, who in eighteenth-century Britain 'cared about' the North American colonies? He describedhis essay as a search for 'evidence of the ability of the colonies to involvethe interests and command the attention and concern of people in Britain'.1

The importance of this line of inquiry needs no emphasis. Among otherissues, it raises as yet largely unanswered questions about the British side ofthe American Revolution. The twists and turns of British policy in the yearsup to the outbreak of war have been studied with great scholarly precision.Until 1775, however, when fighting had actually begun and loyal addressesin support of the war competed with petitions for peace and conciliation,evidence about the extent to which wider sections of the British populationwere aware of America and the nature of their awareness is very hard tocome by. This essay will try to assess the evidence provided by charitabledonations going from Britain to the American colonies.

Donations of private money made by individuals and institutionscrossed the Atlantic from Britain to America on a large scale. Philanthropicpurposes varied. The Georgia Trustees attracted private British donations ofsome £20,000 over three years from 1732 to 1735.2 By the middle of theeighteenth century, the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in ForeignParts regarded its major commitment as 'supporting the Faith and thePractice of the Gospel amongst our own people' in America.3 The Society'sannual expenditure from 1735 to 1745 was some £4,500 rising to over£5,000 from 1745 to 1755. This money came from donations, subscriptions,legacies and from periodic nation-wide collections, which raised over£15,000 in 1741 and nearly £20,000 in 1751.4 Some of the funds of the SPG,and those of the Dissenting New England Company and of the Church ofScotland's Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge went towards the

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54 THE STATECRAFT OF BRITISH IMPERIALISM

conversion of American Indians. The Indian minister, Samson Occom, wasthe star turn in raising £12,000 for the Indian school at Lebanon,Connecticut, by collections throughout England and Scotland in 1765-66.5

The evangelization of black people was the main aim of Dr Bray'sAssociates. Fourteen American colleges which sent fund-raising missions toBritain between 1749 and 1775 are thought to have collected some £24,000between them.6 Appeals were launched in Britain to meet colonialemergencies, such as for relief for those who had suffered from the frontierfighting in the Seven Years War or from the great fire of 1740 in Charleston,South Carolina. In 1763 William Robertson, the historian, noted that therehad been 'three public collections for America' in Scotland 'within thesefew years'.7

Americans visiting Britain on the eve of the Revolution were given towarning their friends at home about the ignorance and ill-informed hostilitytowards the colonies commonly shown by British people. Franklincomplained that 'A want of Attention to what passes in such remoteCountries as America; an Unwillingness even to read any thing about them'was 'a great Defect... in all sorts of People'.8 The huge volume of widelydiffused charitable giving, which seems to be on a scale comparable to whatwas being raised in mid-century for notable London charities, such as thehospitals, the Marine Society or the Magdalen Charity,9 is hard to reconcilewith such views. Even the most superficial glance at some of the printedlists of contributors, such as those issued by the Georgia Trustees or by theSociety for the Propagation of the Gospel, reveals that substantial sumsgiven by the affluent were matched by a wider spread of small donations. Agreat many people were evidently aware of the colonies and their concernextended to parting with money for them. What kind of concern for thecolonies might lie behind gifts is of course hard to determine. This essaywill try to find answers for two charitable campaigns for America that werelaunched at crucial phases of Anglo-American relations: the first in theyears leading up to the Seven Years War that was to focus so much Britishattention on America, and the second in the aftermath of victory in that war.

I

Between 1683 and the mid-eighteenth century some 100,000 Germansmoved to the British North American colonies, mostly settling in the firstinstance in Pennsylvania.10 An appeal for support for ministers and schoolsto meet the needs of the new German communities was relayed to Britain in1752. It elicited an immediate response from the Church of Scotland who

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WHO CARED ABOUT THE THIRTEEN COLONIES? 55

granted £1,200. In England a Society for the Propagation of ChristianKnowledge among the Germans in Pennsylvania was created, largely, itwould seem, at the initiative of Samuel Chandler, Presbyterian minister atthe Old Jewry and at that time 'the uncrowned patriarch of Dissent'." Hegathered a committee whose members included aristocrats, Aldermen of theCity of London and other City merchants, and Anglican, Dissenting andforeign Protestant clergy. George II subscribed £1,000.

By the time the committee launched its appeal to the public in 1754,Anglican support had been greatly strengthened. Chandler sought to enlistThomas Herring, the archbishop of Canterbury. Chandler was an extremelypolitique Dissenter, enjoying close relations with ministers, especially withthe Duke of Newcastle. He assured Herring that he thought 'the EstablishedChurch of England the principal bulwark of the Protestant religion andLiberty' and esteemed 'her Episcopal Government as in the main to be themost ancient as well as the most suitable to a Monarchical Government'.Nobody on his committee, he promised the archbishop, 'hath any partyview'.12 Herring returned the compliment, telling Chandler that he regardedthe Toleration Act as 'part of our Establishment' and donating £20.13

Thomas Seeker, bishop of Oxford and soon himself to be archbishop, a mandeeply interested in the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel and in thestate of the Anglican church in America, also endorsed the project, but withreservations. He wished to please the Dissenters, 'so far as it can be safelydone', but warned that the SPG as an institution could only supportAnglican schoolmasters who used the church catechism.14

The terms of the public appeal were much influenced by the return toEngland from Pennsylvania of William Smith. Smith was a Scottishepiscopalian, who had graduated from Aberdeen. He was a man of drivingenergy and unbounded ambition, supported by a very ready pen.15 Smithidentified himself with those who opposed the dominant Quaker group inthe Pennsylvania assembly. His usefulness was recognized by other enemiesof the Quakers such as the English-based proprietors of the colony, Thomasand Richard Penn, and by Benjamin Franklin, later to be Smith's bitteropponent.

By the 1750s the allegiance of the Germans was becoming an importantissue in Pennsylvania politics. They were widely believed to be supportingthe Quakers and their pacifist policies towards the looming French threat onthe frontier. Smith also feared that the Germans might ally with what hecalled the 'new light' Presbyterians, warning that 'such a union woulddestroy the whole political balance of your provinces'.16 The Germans mustbe won over to better causes. The project for ministers and schools seemed

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to be a way of gaining influence over them.Smith proved to be a brilliant publicist. With the assistance of Thomas

Penn, he lobbied influential people. He developed a powerful rhetoric as towhy the project for the uplift of the Germans was worthy of nationalsupport. In his letter 'upon the distress'd State of the German Emigrants',Smith described 'an undertaking of far greater importance to the British -the Protestant Interest - than can be well imagined at this distance'.

Figure to yourselves upwards of 100,000 Strangers settled in ourterritory, chiefly by them selves and multiplying fast;- Strangersindeed to every thing of ours; strangers to our Laws and manners;strangers to the sacred sound of liberty in the land where they wereborn, and uninstructed in the right use and value of it in the countrywhere they now enjoy it.

What a patriot work it must then be, to contrive means for makingthem flourish long with ourselves in well ordered society; toincorporate and mingle them in equal privileges with the sons offreedom; to teach them to value and exult in the conscious enjoymentof these privileges, and make provision for improving their naturesand training them for eternal scenes! This is not the work of aparticular party. It is British work.17

As hostilities with the French intensified, Smith stressed even morevehemently the danger posed by a large unassimilated German populationwho might be seduced by popish emissaries to ally with the invaders.

Archbishop Herring's response to Smith's appeal was to describe 'TheDesign of helping the German Emigrants in his Majesty's Colonies' as 'asgreat and as necessary to be put into Execution as any that was ever laidbefore the British Nation'. He feared that the 'neglect of it may occasionsuch mischief to us as is inconceivable and may probably be Irreparable'. Itbecame us 'as Christians, as Men, as Britons'" to act on the Germans'behalf.18 The archbishop believed that the matter should be laid beforeParliament. This was not done and the results of the collections from thepublic appear to have been disappointing. The main resource of the charityseems in fact to have been annual payments from the king's personal funds.Chandler became discouraged when Newcastle resigned in 1762, but thenew minister, Lord Bute, showed an interest in the charity and there was talkof measures for 'preferring and propagating the English language andpreventing the Germans from becoming a separate body and using aseparate language, like the Welsh'.19 Nothing was in fact done and with theending of the royal grant, payments came to an end in 1763.

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The work of the charity in Pennsylvania was carried on by local trustees,a distinguished body, including Franklin, Presbyterians and Anglicans, onwhich Quakers were not represented. A press was set up and a newspaperwas published.20 At the fullest extent of the charity's operations, elevenschools were instructing 700 pupils. The underlying principles followed inPennsylvania, with the full support of the British committee, were thateverything possible should be done to advance the use of the Englishlanguage, including the appointment of British in preference to Germanschool teachers, so long as they were able to teach in both languages, andthat there should be religious neutrality. Essential Christian truths should beimparted by using Lutheran or Calvinist catechisms or those of any otherProtestant denomination.

The charity for the distressed German immigrants never raised as muchmoney as it had hoped to do. Consequently its operations were on arestricted scale and its impact on the German population is not likely to havebeen very significant. Nevertheless, its history provides valuable insightsinto the workings of Anglo-American philanthropy. Groups on both sides ofthe Atlantic had their own partisan agendas, based on their owndenominational or political interests, which they did their best to advance,but they were able to agree on a common cause of trying to make theGermans British and Christian, without favouring any particulardenomination. From the point of view of its British supporters, theobjectives of the charity seem to have been similar to those which wereaimed at bringing within the British pale unassimilated groups in the BritishIsles, the Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge's schools inWales or those of the SPCK of the Church of Scotland in the Highlands.Such a programme appealed both to the humane benevolence of thephilanthropic and to a wider sense of British national interest. As a result,what was in origin a Dissenting initiative, won endorsement, if not largeamounts of money, from the court, from ministers personally, from thebishops and the Anglican clergy, from the Church of Scotland and from theCity of London and some of its richest merchants.

II

There are clear similarities between the campaign to raise funds for thecolleges of Philadelphia and New York, launched in 1763, and that ten yearsearlier for schools for the Pennsylvania Germans. George III was a generoussupporter as his grandfather had been. Ministers were personallysympathetic. William Smith was very much to the fore once again. Samuel

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Chandler, near the end of his life, was actively involved, but he was nolonger the moving spirit behind the campaigns. That role was taken byThomas Seeker, now the archbishop of Canterbury. This change indicatesan important difference: the 1753 campaign had been a Dissenting initiativeto which the church gave support; the 1763 campaign was a churchinitiative with Dissenting support.

There were other significant changes between 1753 and 1763. A longwar had ended in a great Anglo-American victory, but the colonialcontribution was deemed inadequate by some British people and this left alingering resentment that surfaced on occasions in responses to thecollection for the colleges. There are also indications that relations betweenchurch and Dissent had deteriorated somewhat on both sides of the Atlantic.

Seeker, who seems to have had a sharper sense than Herring of theDissenting threat to church interests and was certainly much more interestedin the colonies, complained that 'The Dissenters in America are so closelyconnected with those in England; and both with such as under the Colour ofbeing Friends to Liberty, are many of them Enemies to all EcclesiasticalEstablishments, more than a few to the Gospel Revelation.'21 But he stillurged caution and conciliation in dealings with them.

For their part, American Dissenters were suspicious of the church'sintentions, especially in the matter of the appointment of a colonial bishop.British Dissenters had been given clear assurances by ministers in 1749 and1750 that no attempt to appoint a bishop would be countenanced. With theending of the war, a new reign and what seemed to be a new politicalconfiguration in Britain, American Anglicans sensed that the moment hadarrived to press their claims again. Archbishop Seeker sympathized withthem but felt that a premature move would be disastrous. He was rightlysceptical of any government's willingness to commit itself and in any casedid not believe that the appointment could be forced through againstDissenting opposition. He managed to persuade Samuel Chandler that hisproposals were not objectionable.22 Yet for all Seeker's caution, Anglicanhopes for a bishopric were denounced throughout the northern colonies as adire threat to religious liberty and a rancorous warfare of pamphlets ensued.23

Even if the climate in Anglo-American affairs had in some senses gotcolder between 1753 and 1763, the appeal for the American colleges wasmuch more successful in financial terms than that for the Germans hadbeen. Party agendas were again very evident, but again diverse elementscould combine for a common purpose which appealed to philanthropy andto British national interest. The result was a considerable sum of money.

The colleges concerned, King's College, New York, and the Academy at

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Philadelphia, were similar enterprises. Anglicans were the driving forcebehind the founding of King's. A group in New York, of whom theReverend Samuel Johnson was the leader, worked to establish an Anglicaninstitution that would rival the Presbyterian dominated New Jersey College.They hoped for Anglican control while permitting freedom of worship toother Protestants. Their proposals were bitterly contested, especially by theNew York Presbyterians. The charter finally granted in 1754 was acompromise, establishing an inter-denominational governing body with anAnglican President. Johnson was the first President.24

The Philadelphia Academy, opened in 1751, was under the aegis of thePennsylvania proprietors. Thomas Penn insisted that it must be inter-denominational, and its trustees were drawn from a wide spectrum, exceptfor the Quakers. The first Provost was the Anglican William Smith whotried to ensure that 'the Church by soft and easy Means, daily gains Groundin it'.25 By 1762 the great majority of the trustees and three-quarters of thestudents, heavily drawn from the West Indies and the southern colonies,were said to be Anglican.26

Towards the end of the Seven Years War both colleges were seeking toexpand but both were short of funds and believed that they had exhaustedthe beneficence of their local communities. King's College saw itself as'surrounded with Dissenters who look upon it with an evil eye'.27 Smith hadalready collected £10,000 in Pennsylvania and anticipated no further largedonations.28 Both colleges therefore turned at much the same time to thecharitable in Britain. In 1762 Johnson deputed James Jay, a New Yorkphysician, to represent the college in Britain. Smith felt that only its Provostcould adequately represent the Philadelphia Academy; so he set out onceagain for London, hoping, so Johnson sourly commented, eventually toreturn to America as the first colonial bishop.29

Seeker seems to have persuaded the two emissaries to pool their effortsand to have suggested the strategy of applying for a royal 'brief. Under anact of Queen Anne's reign, briefs were issued under the Great Seal,authorizing house-to-house collections throughout the kingdom. On receiptof a printed copy of the brief, the clergy of the established church were toexhort their congregations to contribute and church wardens were to carryout the collection.

Consent to apply for the brief had to be given by Lord Granville, theelderly Lord President of the Council. When Smith approached him hereadily gave his consent to the Philadelphia Academy but warned him that'my business he believed would suffer by being mixt with New York'.30 Hisanswer to Jay was much more robust, telling him that 'the people in New

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York were a set of traitors and deserved to be hang'd instead of beingassist'd'. What had aroused his ire were recent revelations that New Yorkmerchants had been trading with the French during the war. Jay found thatthese 'horrid Imputations of Treason and Disloyalty' were widely believedby 'numbers of every rank and condition'.31 The Lord President's objectionswere overcome and letters patent were issued on 19 August 1762.32 12,500copies of the brief were eventually distributed.

The petition shows unmistakable signs of Smith's draftsmanship. Hedescribed the colleges as performing the same functions that he hadintended for the German schools. They were to instil British values into thevery diverse colonial population. Pennsylvania and New York had received,in the words of the petition, repeated in the brief, 'a continual greataccession of People to them from different parts of the World'.'Inconveniences ... must necessarily arise among so mixt a multitude, if leftdestitute of the necessary means of Instruction, differing in Language andManners, unenlightened by Religion and uncemented by a commonEducation, Strangers to the humane Arts and to the just use of rationalLiberty.' Colleges were therefore needed 'to instil into the minds of Youthjust Principles of Religion, Loyalty and a Love of our ExcellentConstitution' and to 'instruct them in such Branches of Knowledge anduseful Arts as are necessary to Trade, Agriculture and a due Improvementof His Majestys valuable Colonies'.33

Smith and Johnson had ambitious designs for the education of thecolonial elites in their colleges, which certainly did not include agriculture.Both were intended to develop a taste for polite literature and Johnsonhoped to buy scientific apparatus. To gain admission to King's College,students had to be able to construe certain Latin authors. Jay proposed toopen the first colonial medical school at King's, believing that a similarscheme was being considered at Philadelphia. The petitions, however,deliberately played down the intellectual aspirations of the institutions. Jayreported 'frequent and great objections ....by no inconsiderable People, thatwe don't want Learning in America, that it will be injurious to that countryas also to Britain'.34 The petition stated that their objective was 'not so muchto aim at any high Improvements in Knowledge, as to guard against TotalIgnorance'.35 Two other highly emotive issues were added: religiousfreedom and the conversion of the Indians.

Whatever might be the promoters' ambitions for Anglican dominationof their colleges, undisguised in the case of Johnson but more ambiguous inthe case of Smith, the appeal was pitched in terms of Protestantecumenicism. The colleges were to train up 'a sufficient Supply of

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Protestant Ministers and Teachers', not only for the SPG but also for 'thevarious Denominations of other Protestants' in order to ensure 'the supportand Extension of the reformed Religion in these remote Countries'. Thepapist bogey was invoked to cement Protestant unity. 'Popish Emissaries'were setting up new establishments 'in all the Countrys of Americabelonging to them' .36

That the appeal for the colleges might be pitched in purely Anglican termsseems never to have been contemplated. Dissenters were included among thetrustees of the charity. As far as the Philadelphia Academy was concerned,Thomas Penn, who played an active role in the appeal, insisted that 'You mustallow me to look on all Denominations of Christians in Pennsylvania to be onthe same footing.'37 Smith had already assured him that 'The Propagation oflearning in general, and of our common reformed religion ... is a matter muchnearer my heart than the propagation of any particular species or mode ofProtestantism.'38 Samuel Chandler was convinced that Archbishop Seeker,whom he called a 'Friend to Liberty', had no desire to see any particulardenomination prevail in the Philadelphia Academy.39

The commitment of at least some Anglicans to Protestant pluralism inAmerica was enunciated with great panache in St Paul's Cathedral in asermon 'On Religious Liberty' in support of the appeal by the ReverendJohn Brown, author of the much-admired Estimate of the Manners of theTimes. He argued that because 'the contending religious interests are nearlyequal', Americans must unite on 'principles of religious freedom'. Atinterdenominational colleges Protestants would learn that their differenceswere less than they supposed. 'Too great Eagerness and unchristianContention' among Protestants were sinful, especially in view of the threatfrom the papists.40

Brown also made much of the need to convert the Indians. The petitionshad felt it politic to promise that the colleges would train missionaries forthe Indians, 'to remove the Reproach of suffering the Emissaries of a falseReligion to be more zealous in propagating their Slavish and destructiveTenets in that part of the World than Britons and Protestants are inpromoting the pure Form of Godliness and the Glorious Plan of PublickLiberty and Happiness committed to them'.41 In the PennsylvaniaAcademy's address to the King, Smith described George III as 'a blessedinstrument in the Hands of Providence, of planting at once the Christian andthe British Banners, the Banners of Liberty and true Religion, in theremotest Corners of this Western World, among Nations, wandering beneaththe Night of Pagan Error, or deluded by false Principles into Popish Slaveryand Superstition'.42

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Training missionaries can have had little if any part in Smith's orJohnson's plans for their colleges, but it was a proposal likely to appeal toBritish readers. The North American Indians were an intense preoccupationwith the British public, fed on horror stories of Braddock's defeat and theensuing frontier fighting. These events were taken as divine punishment forBritish failures to evangelize the Indians in the past. God had, however,relented. The eventual victories of the Seven Years War were seen asprovidential. Britain was now under a divine obligation, as many sermonspointed out, to redeem the sins of the past. During the war 'The Lord'speople' in the North of England were said to rejoice in the victories of'Zion's king' over the French and to see America as 'the place where Godperformed wonders'. 'How much more important' would these successes be'if the light of the gospel should dawn among the benighted savages'?43 Inaddresses congratulating the king on the peace in 1763, religious bodiesthroughout England and Scotland, both church and Dissenting, expressedtheir heartfelt wishes for the speedy conversion of the Indians. The kingreplied to the Convocation of Canterbury that 'It will ever be my sincereEndeavour to extend Our most Holy Religion throughout the vastDominions, added to my Crown.'44

The trustees appointed for the fund were a much more prestigious bodythan the committee for managing the charity to the Germans. There was astring of bishops and major political figures, including Bute and LordHalifax. Other members included Chandler and the great merchant BarlowTrecothick.

I l l

Smith's activities can be traced through the survival of a considerable bodyof letters and of a book in which he entered some of what he received, whilesome of Jay's correspondence with King's College survives as evidencelater produced in a Chancery suit.45 Both decided that they would makeindividual appeals to the rich and distinguished, while touring the BritishIsles in support of the brief. Smith called on local Anglican clergy whereverhe went, preached in their churches and with caution placed articles in thepress, believing that 'the pulpit and not newspapers was our theatre ofaction'.46

Direct approaches to the great began with the king. He gave £400 to theNew York college and £200 to the Philadelphia Academy. Both the agentspresented him with addresses of congratulation on the Peace of Paris onbehalf of their colleges. Jay was knighted in return and Smith believed that

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a suitable Philadelphia graduate would also have been honoured. Smith'sbook shows that Oxford and Cambridge universities contributedapproximately £160 each. Political figures of all persuasions were inducedto give. Newcastle as Chancellor made a personal contribution of £31 to theCambridge donation, Lord Hardwicke gave ten guineas, Lord Shelburnetwenty guineas and Bute £20. Pitt gave £50, Smith reporting that he'expressed himself prodigiously pleased at the printed representation,declaring it the noblest scheme that could animate the breast of a Christianand that it is an indispensable duty for us to take care to promote ourreligion and useful arts as far as our conquests carry us; adding that if wecannot raise our sum, the Parliament should do the rest, and voluntarilysaying that it should not want his interest.'47 Smith, however, discountedsuch advice, believing that an application to Parliament would not besuccessful. On behalf of King's College, Jay petitioned the crown for a grantof land in New York, which the College was eventually awarded.48

London was a special target for the collections, Smith trying to seepersonally all its Anglican clergy. A benefit oratorio was put on at DruryLane. Rich city men contributed substantially. Outside London, Smithbegan in the West Country, preaching at Stroud and in the cathedral atGloucester and personally approaching individuals at Bristol. He thentravelled north. At Birmingham 148 individuals subscribed £127 in personaldonations and at Halifax 70 people paid over £52. The largest number ofprovincial personal subscribers recorded by Smith, 168 contributing £213,was at Liverpool. Here he found opposition as well as support. The MP, SirWilliam Meredith, and 'some of the chief men' argued that:

Our scheme was the beginning of independency, the worst of policyfor the mother country; that we were able enough to build ourColleges ourselves; that we had got all the advantages of the war, hadborn little of the burden, and were impudent beggars that would donothing for ourselves. Some mercy the[y] had upon us inPhiladelphia, allowing that our situation among a mixt people, andmany of them averse to the establishment of Colleges &c, claimedsome regard; but that New York was absolutely inexcusable.

Smith believed that he had turned the tide by preaching three sermons andby paragraphs in the press. He also recognized that the response to hisappeal had to some extent been shaped by local politics. He had been takenup by the Mayor and Corporation, who were generally an Anglican body,opposed by Meredith with Dissenting support.49 Smith was well received inScotland. He was told that another public collection for America was not

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feasible but that a private collection would be supported in Glasgow and bythe Provost of Edinburgh.50 Smith and Jay went together to Ireland for anapparently unproductive visit.51

The appeal ended in 1764 and Smith returned to America in May. Therewas general euphoria about the result. The target figure of £6,000 for eachcollege was easily met. Seeker felt that the collections had succeeded 'muchbeyond my Expectation ... The Dissenters have contributed laudably', hewrote, 'but the Members of the Church of England, and particularly theClergy, have been proportionably more liberal.'52 For their part, Dissenters,such as the Baptist Dr Llewelin, seem to have shared his satisfaction.53

Smith saw the response to the appeal as evidence that 'the spirit of thenation is liberal'.54 That seems to have been a fair conclusion. The appealmay have been tendentiously misleading in playing down the academicambitions of the colleges and in emphasizing papist threats and theprospects for Indian conversion, but it had been skilfully drafted. The needto make the colonial population better Christians and better citizens of theBritish Empire, to sustain religious freedom among Protestants, to frustratepopish machinations and to propagate Christianity among the Indians werecauses calculated to appeal to a wide British public.

The apparently favourable response to such an appeal suggests thatcolonial Americans were still being included in a comprehensive definitionof Britishness, based on fear of popery, an interdenominationalProtestantism, and the celebration of political and religious freedom. Awide spectrum of opinion still seems to have subscribed to this view in1763. Archbishop Seeker may or may not have agreed with all that hisfellow Anglican John Brown had said about religious freedom in America,but he seems to have accepted that in practice colonial Anglicans were adenomination among others and could not aspire to a union of church andstate. There was as yet no obvious sign of the parting of the ways, as overthe next decade vocal Americans began to show that they believed that therulers of Britain stood neither for religious nor for political freedom andwere even to accuse them of colluding with popery,55 while many in Britainwere to see Americans as disrupters of the empire and subverters ofproperly constituted authority.

If the extent to which it had subscribed money suggested that Britishopinion was neither indifferent nor hostile to the colonies, Smith's and Jay'sletters still contained some disquieting indications of what might lie ahead.The kind of criticism that Smith had encountered in Liverpool recurredelsewhere. He noted 'the prejudices against America on account of thePeace, the fears of weak politicians as if we were affecting not only a

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rivalship in Arts, but even a state of independency'.56 He believed that anappeal to Parliament, which Pitt had suggested, was bound to fail because'a great majority of members think we do no[t] do enough for ourselves'.57

He was not prepared to risk a press campaign, presumably because hefeared that this might provoke adverse comment.

Benevolent concern was perhaps ultimately to be more dangerous toAnglo-American relations than indifference might have been. British peoplewere conscious of having done much for the colonies in the war andexpected much in return. Those who contributed to the numerous charitableappeals no doubt believed that they had added to the sense of obligation thatAmericans ought to feel towards Britain. The relation of supplicant to donorassumes inferiority on the one side and superiority on the other. In return forbenevolence, some British people evidently believed that Americans shouldknow their place. Polite learning or study of the natural sciences were notfor them. They should not aspire to constitutional, economic or evenintellectual self-sufficiency. At least they should be grateful for benefitsreceived. Sir James Jay was later to complain that King's College had not'shown the least sense of the obligations the seminary owed to thiskingdom; nor had a single pupil been taught to celebrate the benevolence ofthis country'.58

Expectations of gratitude were hardly fulfilled by colonial resistance tothe Stamp Act two years later. The suspicions expressed to Smith about thecolonies in 1763 seemed to have been vindicated. Yet by a considerablemargin, British opinion, as expressed in petitions for the repeal of the Actand in celebrations in London when repeal was passed, seems to have givenAmerica the benefit of the doubt. In the face of continuing recalcitrance, itwould not do so for much longer. There are strong indications of a decisiveturn of opinion by 1767. Then Johnson's son, William Samuel, was typicalof many when he lamented that 'America has few friends' and that it wasnow 'unpopular to appear as an advocate for the colonies'.59

That unpopularity seems to have reflected the disillusionment ofconsiderable sections of the British population who had cared for thecolonies in the past but now felt that they had been betrayed. A sense ofspurned benevolence did not of course turn minds to war against thecolonies, an inconceivable prospect in 1767 and for many more years. Butit may help to account for the lack of public pressure for conciliation oragainst the increasingly unyielding policies that ministries were to adopt inthe years ahead. In failing to oppose the government, a wider British publicwas not necessarily showing itself apathetic or indifferent about thecolonies; it may have cared not too little but too much.

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NOTES

This essay has benefited greatly from suggestions and comments by the members of the ImperialHistory seminar at the Institute of Historical Research of London University.

1. Jacob M. Price, 'Who Cared about the Colonies: The Impact of the Thirteen Colonies onBritish Society and Politics, circa 1714-1775', in Bernard Bailyn and Philip D. Morgan(eds.), Strangers Within the Realm: Cultural Margins of the First British Empire (ChapelHill, 1991), 395436.

2. Allen D. Candler (ed.), The Colonial Records of the State of Georgia, III, Contributions andNames of Contributors (Atlanta, 1905).

3. T. Secker to T. Herring, 22 Jan. 1752, Lambeth Palace Library (LPL), MS 1123, no. 53.4. C. F. Pascoe, Two Hundred Years of the S. P. G. An Historical Account of the Society for the

Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, 1701-1900, 2 vols. (London, 1901), 822-30.5. Beverly McAnear, 'The Raising of Funds by Colonial Colleges', Mississippi Valley

Historical Review, XXXVIII (1952), 606n.6. McAnear, 'The Raising of Funds', 606.7. W. Smith to R. Peters, Pennsylvania Historical Society (PHS), Smith MSS, reel XR 439.1.8. Cited in Jack P. Greene, 'Pride, Prejudice and Jealousy: Benjamin Franklin's Explanation for

the American Revolution', Understanding the American Revolution: Issues and Actors(Charlottesville, 1995), 31.

9. See figures cited in David Owen, English Philanthropy 1660-1960 (London, 1965) andDonna T. Andrew, Philanthropy and Police: London Charity in the Eighteenth Century(Princeton, 1989).

10. A. G. Roeber, '"The Origins of Whatever is not English among us": The Dutch-speaking andGerman-speaking Peoples of Colonial British America', in Bailyn and Morgan (eds.).Strangers within the Realm, 243.

11. Paul Langford, A Polite and Commercial People: England 1727-1783 (Oxford, 1989), 85.12. Letters of 5, 26 Feb, 17 March 1754, LPL MS 1123, nos. 73, 75, 76.13. Letter of 7 Feb. 1754, ibid., no. 74.14. Letter to Herring, 1 March 1755, ibid., no. 95.15. Albert F. Gegenheimer, William Smith, Educator and Churchman 1727-1803 (Philadelphia,

1943).16. Letter to R. Peters and B. Franklin [Feb. 1754], L. W. Labaree et al. (eds.), The Papers of

Benjamin Franklin (New Haven, 1959-), V, 210.17. William Stevens Perry (ed.), Historical Collections Relating to the American Colonial

Church, 5 vols. (Hartford, 1870-78), II, 545-417.18. Ibid., II. 547-8.19. Smith to R. Peters, 28 Feb., 14 Aug. 1762, PHS, Smith MSS, reel XR 439.1.20. Minutes of Trustees, PHS, Smith MSS, reel XR 439.2.21. Letter to S. Johnson, 27 Sept. 1758, LPL MS 1123, no. 121.22. Thomas Bradbury Chandler, The Life of Samueljohnson D. D. (New York, 1805), 196.23. Carl Bridenbaugh, Mitre and Sceptre: Transatlantic Faiths, Ideas, Personalities and Politics

1689-1775 (New York, 1962); J. C. D. Clark, The Language of Liberty 1660-1832: PoliticalDiscourse and Social Dynamics in the Anglo-American World (Cambridge, 1994); P.M. Doll,'Imperial Anglicanism in North America, 1744-95', Oxford D.Phil, thesis, 1989, ch. 5.

24. David C. Humphry, From King's College to Columbia (New York, 1976).25. Smith to Bearcroft, 1 Nov. 1756, Perry, Collections, II, 563.26. 'State of the Church in Philadelphia', ibid., II, 571.27. S. Auchmuty to J. Waring, 18 May 1762, John C. Van Horne (ed.), Religious Philanthropy

and Colonial Slavery. The American Correspondence of the Associates of Dr. Bray 1717-77(Urbana, 1985), 172-73.

28. Letter to Secker, 29 March 1762, LPL MS 1123, no. 257.29. Letter to Seeker, 10 April 1762, ibid., no. 259.

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WHO CARED ABOUT THE THIRTEEN COLONIES? 6 7

30. Undated letter to T. Penn, PHS, Smith MSS, reel XR 439.1.31. Jay to Trustees, 9, 10 Aug. 1762, Public Record Office (PRO), C 12/1322/36.32. For the petition, see W. L. Grant and J. Munro (eds.), Acts of the Privy Council of England:

Colonial Series, 6 vols. (London, 1908-12), IV, 545-48, and for the letters patent, Herbertand Carol Schneider (eds.), Samuel Johnson, President of King's College, His Career andWritings, 4 vols. (New York, 1929), IV, 231-36.

33. Acts of the Privy Council, IV. 545-46.34. Jay to Trustees, 11 Aug. 1762, PRO, C 12/1322/36.35. Acts of the Privy Council, IV, 546.36. Ibid., IV, 545-16.37. Letter to R. Peters, 17 Feb. 1764, PHS, Thomas Penn Letter Books, VIII, reel XR 169.38. Letter to T. Penn, 27 Aug. 1763, PHS, Smith MSS, reel XR 439.1.39. Letter to R. Peters, [April 1764], Perry, Historical Collections, II, 578.40. On Religious Liberty: A Sermon Preached at St Paul's Cathedral, on Sunday, March 6, 1763.

On Occasion of the Briefs for the Colleges of Philadelphia and New York (London, 1763).41. Acts of the Privy Council, IV, 546.42. London Gazette, 2-6 Aug. 1763.43. D. De Berdt to E. Wheelocke, 24 March 1759, 29 Aug. 1760, Publications of the Colonial

Society of Massachusetts, XIII (1910-11), 414, 419.44. For support for missions, see addresses of Convocation of Canterbury and Church of

Scotland (London Gazette, 12-16 April and 24-28 May 1763) and from London andWestminster Dissenting Ministers (The Annual Register for the Year 1763, 204). For theking's reply, see London Gazette, 12-16 April 1763.

45. MS in the University of Pennsylvania Library, edited by Jasper Yeates Brinton and Neda M.Westlake as The Collection Books of Provost Smith (Philadelphia, 1964). For Jay's letters,see PRO, C 12/1322/36.

46. Letter to T. Penn, 27 Aug. 1763, PHS, Smith MSS, reel XR 439.1.47. Letter to R. Peters, 11 March 1763, ibid.48. E. B. O'Callaghan (ed.), Documents Relative to the Colonial History of the State of New

York, VII (Albany, 1856), 643-16.49. Letters to T. Penn, 23 July, to R. Peters, 11, 25 Aug. 1763, PHS, Smith MSS, reel XR. 439.1.

For conditions in Liverpool, see James E. Bradley, Religion, Revolution and EnglishRadicalism: Non-conformity in Eighteenth-Century Politics and Society (Cambridge, 1990),274-79.

50. Smith to R. Peters, 8 Jan. 1763, PHS, Smith MSS, reel XR 439.1.51. Secker to Primate of Ireland, 26 June 1763, LPL MS 1123, no. 313.52. Secker to R. Peters, 13 April 1764, Perry, Historical Collections, II, 575.53. Letter to Dr Edwards, 12 April 1764, ibid., II, 579.54. Letter to T. Penn, 27 Aug. 1763, PHS, Smith MSS, reel XR 439.1.55. Clark, Language of Liberty, 213-11.56. Letter to R. Peters, 4 June 1763, PHS, Smith MSS, reel XR 439.1.57. Letter to Peters, 11 March 1763, ibid.58. A Letter to the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, &c. In respect of the Collection that

was made for the Colleges of New York and Philadelphia (London, 1774), 18-19.59. Letter to W. Pitkin, 9 June 1767, Massachusetts Historical Society Collections, Series 5, IX

(1885), 238.

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