Finally, there was a certain amount of political and social ostracism directed against Churchmen. A notable attempt to defraud the Episcopalians of a due share of the school money, derived from the sale of public lands and from the emission of public bills, was defeated in 1738 by a spirited protest, setting forth the illegality of the proceeding, the probable indignation of the King at such treatment of his good subjects and brethren in the faith, and by pointing to the fact, as recently shown by a test case in Massachusetts, that the Connecticut Establishment itself could not exist without the special consent of the King. [86] The petition was signed by six hundred and thirty-six male inhabitants of the colony. They asserted in their protest that they had a share in equity derived from the charter; that they bore their share of the expenses of the government; and that the teaching of the Church of England made just as good citizens as did that of the Presbyterian Church. The public lands, from the sale of which the school money was derived, were those along the Housatonic river. The money was appropriated according to a law enacted in 1732 which distributed it among the older towns as a reward for good schools. But, in 1738, the legislature passed a bill by which a majority vote of the town or parish could divert the money to the support of "the gospel ministry as by law in the colony established." Naturally this new law operated against all dissenters, who, equally anxious with the Congregationalists to have good schools, were an ignored minority whenever the latter chose to vote the money to the support of their church. As a result of this spirited protest of the Episcopalians, the enactment of 1738 was repealed two years later "because of misunderstanding." Notwithstanding such hardships as the Episcopalians suffered in Connecticut, their own writers declare that, at this period of colonial history, the Churchmen in Connecticut had less to complain of than their co-religionists in New York and in the southern colonies. While the Episcopalians were agitating for a larger liberty than that granted by the Toleration Act, the other dissenters, Rogerines, Quakers, and Baptists, were not idle.