232 LIFE AXD CORRESPOXDEXCE OF THE [1785 



Though the labor of preparing and drafting the Ecclesiastical 

 Constitution did not fall largely upon Dr. Smith, he was bound, 

 of course, as chairman of his committee, to give to it his intelli- 

 gent thought and care; and though, in the other committee, a 

 large, perhaps the larger, share of labor was borne by others, we 

 have, in petitions drafted by his own pen, the record of his work. 

 The first address to the English Bishops was drawn by Dr. White. 

 Its date is October 5th, 1785. The Proposed Book had not yet 

 been seen by the English Bishops, and reports had got abroad 

 exaggerating the alterations that had been made and misstating 

 some matters of importance. The English Bishops, in a commu- 

 nication to the clerical and lay members, dated London, February 

 24th, 1786, and filled with expressions of kindness, stated that, while 

 they were disposed to make every allowance for the difficulties 

 which embarrassed the Convention of 1785, they could not help 

 being afraid that in the proceedings of that convention some altera- 

 tions in the Liturgy had been adopted or intended which those 

 difficulties did not seem to justify. They proceed : 



Those alterations are not mentioned in your address ; and as our 

 knowledge of them is no more than what has reached us through private 

 and less certain channels, we hope you will think it just both to you 

 and to ourselves if we wait for an explanation. For while we are 

 anxious to give every proof not only of our brotherly affection, but of 

 our facility in forwarding your wishes, we cannot but be extremely 

 cautious least we should be the instruments of establishing an ecclesias- 

 tical system which wnll be called a branch of the Church of England, 

 but afterwards may possibly appear to have departed from it essentially 

 either in doctrine or in discipline. 



Dr. Smith drafted a reply, although before being sent it was 

 considerably modified by Mr. Jay, one of the convention, never 

 much of a churchman, we may add, and of a disposition possibly 

 somewhat jealous,* who thought its terms rather obsequious. 



* See Mr. Jay's Remarks on " Induction "' — " Life of John J.iy," vol. I., pp. 434- 

 442; and his correspondence with Judge Peters on the subject of Hamilton's relations 

 to the formation of Washington's Farewell Address. Nothing, I think, but some 

 latent jealousy of the gre.it first Secretary of the Treasury could have induced so un- 

 fortunate an argument as that contained in Mr. Jay's leUer to Judge Peters of March 

 29th, 181 1 — an argument completely demolished by the great pinper of Horace Binney 

 on the formation of the Farewell Address. See " Memoirs of the Historical Society 

 of Pennsylvania," vol.!., page 249, and Mr. Pinney's Essay. 



