A decided change took place in Connecticut's policy upon the death of Governor Saltonstall in 1724, and under his successor in office, former Lieutenant-Governor Joseph Talcott. The new governor was a Hartford man, more liberal in his ecclesiastical opinions and opposed to severe measures against dissenters. Hardly had Governor Talcott taken office when Edmund Gibson, Bishop of London, wrote him, urging in behalf of the Episcopalians a remittance of ecclesiastical taxes. "If I ask anything," wrote the Bishop, "inconsistent with the laws of the country, I beg pardon; but if not, I hope my request for favors for the Church of England will not appear unreasonable." The Bishop accompanied his letter with a paper, a copy of a circular letter to the different colonial governors, in which, among other matters relating to his clergy, he professed his readiness to discipline them if necessary "in order to contribute to the peace and honor of the government." This proposal was due, in part, to the scandalous reputation in New England which the southern settled clergy bore. Because of this reputation, the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel had from the first made a special point of the morals of their missionary priests. Indeed, these priests, themselves, had warned the Society that, if it expected any returns from its missions in New England, it would have to take great pains to send out a superior class of men. Governor Talcott replied to Bishop Gibson, under date of December 1, 1725,[c] "that there is but one Church of England minister in this colony, [d] and the church with him have the same protection as the rest of our Churches and are under no constraint to contribute to the support of any other minister." After reflecting upon the number and character of the few persons in another town or two "who claim exemption from rates," Governor Talcott quotes the colony law for the support of the ministry in every town, and adds that, upon the death of an incumbent, the townspeople "are quickly supplied by persons of our own communion, educated in our public schools of Learning; which through divine blessing afforded us, we have sufficiency of those who are both learned and exemplary in their lives." This was a polite way of informing the bishop that Connecticut preferred to do without his missionaries. It was one thing for the tolerant governor to grant exemption from Congregational taxes in the case of an influential church like that of Stratford, and quite another to extend the same toleration to every scattered handful of people who might claim to be members of the Church of England, and who might welcome the coming of her missionary priests.