It is strikingly remarkable, that near one-half of the people of the Dominion of Newhaven are episcopalians, though it was first settled by the most violent of puritans, who claimed so much liberty to themselves that they left none for others. The General Assembly computed that the Church of England professors amounted to one-third of the whole colony in 1770. Hence has arisen a question, how it came to pass that the Church of England increased rapidly in Connecticut, and but slowly in Massachusets-Bay and Rhode-Island? The reason appears obvious to me. It is easier to turn fanatical farmers from their bigotry than to convert fanatical merchants, smugglers, and fishermen. Pride and gain prevent the two first, and ignorance the last, from “worshipping the Lord in the beauty of holiness.” The General Assembly of Rhode-Island never supported any religion; nay, lest religion should chance to prevail, they made a law that every one might do what was right in his own eyes, with this proviso, that no one should be holden to pay a note, bond, or vote, made or given to support the Gospel. Thus barbarism, inhumanity, and infidelity, must have overrun the colony, had not its good situation for trade invited Europeans to settle therein. As to the people of Massachusets-Bay, they, indeed, had the highest pretensions to religion; but then it was so impregnated with chicane, mercantile policy, and insincerity, that infidelity got the better of fanaticism, and religion was secretly looked upon as a trick of State. Connecticut was settled by a people who preferred the arts and sciences to the amusements which rendered Europe polite; whence it has happened that their boys and girls are at once amused and improved in reading, writing, and cyphering, every winter’s night, whilst those in the neighbouring colonies polish themselves at cards, balls, and masquerades.