To return to the subject of the episcopate, the Chandler controversy had been precipitated by Dr. Johnson of Connecticut, who, at the Elizabeth convention, urged that the opposition to the American bishops was largely caused by ignorance concerning their proposed powers and office, and that if some one would put the scheme more fully before the people, they might be won over. The task was assigned to Thomas Bradbury Chandler, who published his "An Appeal to the Public," 1767. Dr. Charles Chauncy of Boston replied to Chandler, giving the New England view of bishops in "The Appeal Answered." Chandler, as has been said, retorted with his "The Appeal Defended," and the newspapers took up the controversy. The discussion turned immediately and almost entirely from the ecclesiastical aspect, with its dangers to New England church-life, to the political and constitutional phases of this proposed extension of the Church of England. The New York and Philadelphia press agitated the subject in 1768-69, while all New England echoed Mayhew's earlier denunciations of the evils to be anticipated. In the pulpit, by the study fire, and at the tavern-bar, leaders, scholars, people discussed the possible loss of civil and personal liberty. Let the bishops once be seated; and would they not introduce ecclesiastical courts, demand uniformity, and impose a general tax for their church which might be perverted to any use that the whim of the King and of his subservient bishops might propose? There is no question that this subject of the episcopate, with its political and constitutional phases, and with the considerations of personal and civil liberty involved, did much to familiarize the people with those principles upon which they made their final break with England, and helped to prepare their minds for the separation from the mother country.