Accepting the office in 1785, Father Carroll began his visitation and made a call for more priests. At this time his salary, 210 pounds sterling, was paid by the Chapter, the organization formed in 1784, which was composed solely of ex-Jesuit Fathers. A few years only were necessary to show the propaganda as well as all others interested in the growth of the Catholic church in America, the necessity for the appointment of a bishop for the new country, one who would be endowed with full powers of consecration and authority. So a petition to that effect was again forwarded to Rome signed by Father Carroll and the Reverends Robert Molyneux and John Ashton. This petition was sent through the Spanish minister, with whom Father Carroll had talked in reference to the subject, during a visitation to New York. Through his energetic course and his knowledge of the needs and hardships of the American mission as shown in his “Address to the Roman Catholics of the United States,” published in 1784, in reply to a paper of the Rev. Charles H. Wharton and in his report to Cardinal Antonelli, prefect of the Propaganda, in 1785, Father Carroll had demonstrated the wisdom of his having been chosen prefect apostolic. Cardinal Antonelli replied to the petition on July 12, 1788, and communicated to the signers authority from the Pope to call a meeting of the American Clergy and nominate a candidate for bishop and select a See. Accordingly they called a synod or conference at Whitemarsh, Md., and by a vote of 24 to 2 selected Father Carroll as the candidate for bishop and Baltimore was unanimously selected as the place of the See. Father Carroll wrote in reply to a communication from his fellow clergymen, notifying him of what they had done, that “he was by that event deprived of all expectation of rest and pleasure henceforward” and filled “with terror with respect to eternity.” The nomination was approved on September 14, 1780, by the Cardinals of the Sacred Congregation and Pius VI. issued on November 6th following the bill erecting the See of Baltimore and appointing Rev. John Carroll bishop. Father Carroll accepted the appointment and sailed at once for England to be consecrated.