“SIR,--I take the freedom to write you a few lines, by way of condolence, on account of the almost unparalleled outrages committed at your house last evening; and the great damage which I understand you have suffered thereby. God is my witness, that, from the bottom of my heart, I detest these proceedings; that I am most sincerely grieved at them, and have a deep sympathy with you and your distressed family on this occasion.” [Footnote: Mayhew to Hutchinson. _Life of Mayhew_, p. 420.] Nevertheless, the repeal of the Stamp Act, which pacified the laity, left the clergy as hot as ever; and so early as 1768, when no one outside of the inmost ecclesiastical circle yet dreamed of independence, but when the Rev. Andrew Eliot thought the erection of the bishopric was near, he frankly told Hollis he anticipated war. “You will see by this pamphlet, how we are cajoled. A colony bishop is to be a more innocent creature than ever a bishop was, since diocesan bishops were introduced to lord it over God’s heritage. ... Can the A-b-p, and his tools, think to impose on the colonists by these artful representations.... The people of New England are greatly alarmed; the arrival of a bishop would raise them as much as any one thing.... Our General Court is now sitting. I have hinted to some of the members, that it will be proper for them to express their fears of the setting up an hierarchy here. I am well assured a motion will be made to this purpose.... I may be mistaken, but I am persuaded the dispute between Great Britain and her colonies will never be _amicably_ settled.... I sent you a few hasty remarks on the A-b-p’s sermon. ... I am more and more convinced of the meanness, art--if he was not in so high a station, I should say, falsehood--of that Arch-Pr-l-te.” [Footnote: Thomas Seeker. Andrew Eliot to Thomas Hollis, Jan. 5, 1768. _Mass. Hist. Coll._ fourth series, iv. 422.] An established priesthood is naturally the firmest support of despotism; but the course of events made that of Massachusetts revolutionary. This was a social factor whose importance it is hard to overestimate; for though the influence of the elders had much declined during the eighteenth century, their political power was still immense; and it is impossible to measure the degree in which the drift of feeling toward independence would have been arrested had they been thoroughly loyal. At all events, the evidence tends to show that it is most improbable the first blood would have been shed in the streets of Boston had it been the policy of Great Britain to conciliate the Congregational Church; if, for example, the liberals had been forced to meet the issue of taxation upon a statute designed to raise a revenue for the maintenance of the evangelical clergy. How potent an ally King George lost by incurring their hatred may be judged by the devotion of the Episcopalian pastors, many of whom were of the same blood as their Calvinistic brethren, often, like Cutler and Johnson, converts.