the present, and the business of the war pressing constantly on the
legislature, this subject was not acted on finally until the year '78,
when I brought in a bill to prevent their further importation. This
passed without opposition, and stopped the increase of the evil by
importation, leaving to future efforts its final eradication.

The first settlers of this colony were Englishmen, loyal subjects to
their king and church; and the grant to Sir Walter Raleigh contained
an express proviso, that their laws should not be against the true
Christian faith, now professed in the church of England.' As soon as the
state of the colony admitted, it was divided into parishes, in each of
which was established a minister of the Anglican church, endowed with
a fixed salary, in tobacco, a glebe house and land, with the other
necessary appendages. To meet these expenses, all the inhabitants of
the parishes were assessed, whether they were or not members of the
established church. Towards Quakers, who came here, they were most
cruelly intolerant, driving them from the colony by the severest
penalties. In process of time, however, other sectarisms were
introduced, chiefly of the Presbyterian family; and the established
clergy, secure for life in their glebes and salaries, adding to these,
generally, the emoluments of a classical school, found employment enough
in their farms and school-rooms, for the rest of the week, and devoted
Sunday only to the edification of their flock, by service, and a sermon
at their parish church. Their other pastoral functions were little
attended to. Against this inactivity, the zeal and industry of sectarian
preachers had an open and undisputed field; and by the time of the
revolution, a majority of the inhabitants had become dissenters from
the established church, but were still obliged to pay contributions to
support the pastors of the minority. This unrighteous compulsion, to
maintain teachers of what they deemed religious errors, was grievously