3S0 HISTORY OF THE COUNTY OF WESTCHESTER. 



MR. SEABURY TO THE SECRETARY. 

 [Extract.] 



Westchester, Mat 30th, 1775. 

 Rev. Sir : — ; ' We are here in a very alarming situation. Dr. Cooper and Dr. 

 Chandler have hecn obliged to quit this community and sailed for England last 

 week. I have been obliged to retire a few days from the threatened vengeance 

 of the New England people who lately broke into this Province. But I hope I 

 shall be able to keep my station. The charge against the clergy here is a very 

 extraordinary one — that they have, in conjunction with the Society and the 

 British Ministry, laid a plan for enslaving America. I do not think that those 

 people who raised this calumny, believe one syllable of it ; but they intend it as 

 an engine to turn the popular fury upon the Church, which, should the violent 

 schemes of some of our Eastern neighbours succeed, will probably fall a sacrifice 

 to the persecuting spirit of Independency. I am, &c, 



SAMUEL SEABURY."& 



The calumny against the clergy, resembles the false charge brought 

 against the Episcopacy itself at this period, viz., that it was "one of 

 those causes which, as much as anything else, conduced to the horrors of 

 the Revolution." It is almost needless to say that both were unfounded. 

 The real cause of the American Revolution was, whether the Parliament 

 of Great Britain had any power or authority to tax Americans without 

 their consent. This was the foundation of the whole dispute. But surely 

 the New England people had no right to complain, much less invade a 

 neighbouring province by force, when they practiced upon all other de- 

 nominations this taxation without representation. 



The following letter from Mr. Seabury to his friend Isaac Wilkins, 

 Esq., (afterward rector of this parish,) dated May 30th, 1775, is preserved 

 among the papers of the Wilkins family : — 



My ever Dear Wilkins : — "I hope you are safe in London; may every 

 blessing attend you. Mrs. Wilkins was well last evening. Isabella has had a 

 rash, but is better. Everything here quiet. Reported that two thousand men 

 are ready in Connecticut for any operation for which they may be wanted in this 

 province. The Asia is arrived — reported that she has demanded a supply of 

 provisions for Boston, and that it is agreed that they shall he furnished. The 

 association went on very heavily at W. C, very few signed. The Provincial 



a iu the old Wilkins mansion on Castle Hill Neck, Westchester, la still .shown the place 

 1 loctors Cooper, < Man die'- and seabury managed! to Becrete themselves for some time, 

 notwithstanding the most minute and presevering search was made for them ; so Ingeniously 

 contrived was trie place of their concealment in and about the old-fashioned chimney. Food 

 was conveyed to them through a trap-door In the floor. 

 b New York MSB., from archives at Fulham, vol. ii, p. 571.— (Hawks.) 

 c This was precisely what the I'uritans objected to in the English Parliament, at the very 

 moment th'-y were doing it themselves, and for which iiiey revolted, ts.-e Chapin's Puri- 

 tanism, p. 188.) The Society's Abstracts, for 177."), say :—" .Mr. Seabury, lias been Obliged to 

 retire from ins mission at Westchester, bnt has not been able 10 secure himself from the ill 

 ons. Mr. Gott, the schoolmaster, a very attentive man In his 

 otllce, has been obliged to <mit th ■ Bchool on account of ill health.'' 



