That there was no bishop in America was not due to our clergy or
people here. [Footnote: Possibly Virginia and Maryland are to be
excepted.] The reason must be sought elsewhere. In the second year
of its existence, the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel
had entertained the idea of sending a Suffragan to America; and,
even then, the bishops of Scotland "were regarded as the channel
through which that assistance could most readily be obtained."
[Footnote: Anderson, iii. 36.] The project came to no result. If
there is any truth in the tradition that, had it been carried out,
Dean Swift would have been sent as Bishop of Virginia, we may be
thankful that it failed.

It was renewed from time to time, from the reign of Queen Anne to
that of George III., but always without result. Petition after
petition, appeal after appeal was sent from America; the
Episcopate of England was implored to secure the appointment of
"one or more resident bishops in the colonies, for the exercise of
offices purely episcopal--offices to which the members of the
Church of England have an undoubted claim, and from which they
cannot be precluded without manifest injustice and oppression."
[Footnote: Bishop Lowth, _Sermon before the Venerable Society_.]
The colonial churchmen found, indeed, some zealous friends
in the English Episcopate; and one's heart warms as one reads
the names of Sharpe and Berkeley and Butler, of Gibson and
Sherlock and Seeker. But I fear it might be truly said of the
majority of the bishops of England in those days, "that they
thought more of the Acts of Parliament than they did of the Acts
of the Apostles."