The English and Dutch have always kept their colonies under a state of religious persecution, while the French and Spanish have acted with generosity in that respect towards theirs. The Dutch presbyterians in New-York were held in subordination to the Classis of Amsterdam, till, a few years since, they discovered that subjection to be anti-constitutional and oppressive; upon which a majority of the ministers in their cœtus erected a classis for the ordination of ministers and the government of their churches, in defiance of the ecclesiastical judicatory of Amsterdam. Mr. Smith, in his history of that province, p. 252, justifies the schism upon the following ground: “The expense,” says he, “attending the ordination of their candidates in Holland, and the reference of their disputes to the Classis of Amsterdam, is very considerable; and with what consequences the interruption of their correspondence with the European Dutch would be attended, in case of war, well deserves their consideration.” Nevertheless, Mr. Smith agrees with his protestant dissenting neighbours, that the American episcopalians suffered no hardship in being obliged to incur the same expense in crossing the Atlantic for ordination. If the Dutch are justifiable in their schism, I cannot perceive why the American episcopalians might not be justified in a like schism from the bishops of London. Had the episcopalians as little aversion to schism as the protestant dissenters, the clergy north of the Delaware would, in 1765, have got rid of their regard of an English, and accepted of a Greek bishop, whom they could have supported for half the expense their candidates were at in going to England for ordination. But they were said by some to be conscientious men, while others said they were Issachar’s sons couching down beneath their burthens. To proceed in my description of the country: