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it, presumably meant to include other than episcopally ordained clergymen.

The vestry's action, however, in the choice of Mr. Vesey, was directly in the face and teeth of the governor's intention. He consequently prorogued the Assembly, and the vestry's call fell through. By the next year the complexion of the city vestry was greatly changed, its membership having become much more favorable to the English Church; indeed, the two city wardens and seven of the ten vestrymen of the city vestry of 1694 afterward became part of the church vestry of the parish. They proceeded, November 6, 1696, to call Mr. Vesey for the second time to be "minister of the city of New York," but now on condition that he should procure episcopal ordination in England. The Dutch element, having been propitiated by a liberal charter granted by the governor to the Dutch church, acquiesced. Personally Mr. Vesey was "persona grata" to them, as they had previously called him. Ecclesiastically

he would now be acceptable to the " managers of the affairs of the Church of England" and to the governor. He was an estimable young man, a graduate of Harvard College of the class of 1693. He is reputed to have belonged to an old church family of Braintree, Mass.; but after leaving college he had officiated among the Independents at Hempstead, L. I., supported by the tax authorized by the act of 1693. He was a popular preacher in Queens County, and was well known in the city of New York. At the time of this second call the vestry had before them the certificate of Rev. Samuel Myles, rector of King's Chapel, Boston, and of the two churchwardens, testifying to the excellent religious character of Mr. Vesey, and to the fact of his often receiving the sacrament in that church. On these grounds he was called; and he, accepting the call, agreed to repair

to England for ordination, which he did the following spring, and was ordained by the Bishop of London, August 16, 1697.

On May 6, 1697, "the managers of the affairs of the Church of England in the city of New York" petitioned for a charter, praying to be incorporated with the powers and privileges usually appertaining to the churches of the Establishment. They cited the fact that, there being then no building for the public worship of God according to the Church of England, “they had built a church and covered the same," and they asked the application of the maintenance voted in the act of the Assembly of 1693 for the minister's support, and also for a grant of land near the church. The council granted the petition, and on the same day the governor issued a charter, in the name of the king, agreeable to the petition, and constituted the said church and cemetery to "be the sole and only parish church and churchyard of the said city of New York." The rector named in the charter was the Bishop of London, Dr. Henry Compton; and among the wardens and vestrymen occur the names, so familiar still in the history of the city, of Ludlow, Janeway, Read, Morris, Emott, Clarke, and others, led by that of Colonel Heathcote, so energetic in the spread of the church everywhere, especially in Connecticut, and an ancestor of the first Bishop of Western New York, William Heathcote De Lancey.

The appointment of the Bishop of London as rector was, of course, only provisional, to satisfy the conditions of the charter. Mr. William Vesey, whom he so soon afterward ordained, became resident rector in the same year. Steps were immediately taken, when once the charter and gifts conferred by it were granted, to complete the church edifice; and a sum sufficient for the purpose was ordered to be charged on all the inhabitants in the parish, payable

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in seven years. Subscriptions were also taken for the purpose; and it is amazing and amusing to note that in but one case did they amount to five pounds, and that they mostly consisted of one or two pounds. A special subscription for the building of the steeple amounted to a little over three hundred and twelve pounds, of which nearly six pounds was contributed by the Jews. It is interesting, in view of the subsequent wealth of the parish, to observe the various means used to collect funds for the church. Some money, amounting to about three hundred pounds, which had been collected for the redemption of Christian slaves taken by the "Sally" from Algeria (which still remained in the public coffers, as the slaves had died or escaped), was obtained from the council for finishing and furnishing the church. His Excellency also granted the wardens a commission for all "Weifts, Wrecks and Drift Whales," for the same purpose. Four hundred pounds

was also borrowed, and became a corporation debt. The great endowment of Trinity Church was made in 1705, in the reign of Queen Anne, by a deed patent, signed by Lord Cornbury, then governor, conveying to the corporation the Queen's Farm, a tract of land extending along the river from the present site of St. Paul's Chapel to Christopher Street. It was, of course, at that time wholly unproductive; but it has since been the source from which the Trinity corporation has chiefly derived the revenues for its own extensive and constantly extending parish activities, and for the munificent gifts to such corporations as Columbia (then King's) College, the Society for the Promotion of Religion and Learning, and Trinity School, and to such churches as St. Mark's, St. George's, and Grace in the city, and to many other parishes within and without the city which have been founded or generously fostered by the mother-church of the diocese.

Mr. Vesey was inducted into his position on Christmas day, 1697. Trinity Church being then unfinished, the ceremony of induction took place in the Dutch church in Garden Street. Governor Fletcher acted as inducting officer, for it was chiefly a civil ceremony, affirming the legal status of the incumbent. Two Dutch ministers, Dominie Selyns of New York and Dominie Nucella of Kingston, were among the subscribing witnesses. It is thought that the service was performed in Latin, a tongue which both Dutch and English could understand better than they could the language of each other.

The English church was not finished for three months, and during this period Dominie Selyns and Mr. Vesey officiated alternately in the Dutch church, in their respective languages. On March 13, 1678, Mr. Vesey opened Trinity Church, bringing his bride with him as one of the congregation. At this service the rector read the certificate of the Bishop of London, and promised conformity to the Book of Common Prayer.

The founding and establishment of Trinity Church in New York proved a notable event in the history of the church in America. The situation of the city was such that it could not fail to become the center of trade and commerce into which it has since expanded. The presence and patronage of the royal governor gave at the start prestige to the church of which he was a member. The emigration of the Dutch for the most part ceased when the English took possession, but the English came in increasing numbers. The Jesuits found here a refuge for a while; and Palatine settlers on the Hudson, with the Dutch decreasing and the English increasing, formed the bulk of the population.

The problem which the church here had to solve was wholly different from that of the church either in the

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Southern States or in New England. In the South it was more completely established; but it was there the church of a thoroughly agricultural community, widely scattered, containing a vast slave population, where the parishes were immense in territory, but whose inhabitants were separated by wretched roads and an absence of public conveyances. A landed aristocracy existed, the members of which were greatly isolated; and there were no great centers where they could come frequently together and form a communal life. There could be no concentration of church effort, and discipline was relaxed by distance and the quasi-independence of the rectors. In New England the church was not only in the minority, but was discredited and discountenanced. There it was in fact a dissenting body. It had to fight for existence. The institutions of learning were in the hands of its adversaries. The tone and temper of society were at variance with the doctrinal and ecclesiastical convictions of churchmen. It lived by sufferance, and was an object of suspicion and dread. In New York it stood at the head of a community not inimical beyond the limits of denominational rivalry, when not identified with it; a community where the amenities of social life flourished, and where it received the prestige of royal favor and princely munificence.

The Dutch church in Garden Street, and the Huguenot church in Pine Street, together with Trinity Church, furnished services in the three languages, English, French, and Dutch. There was a population of industrious and prosperous tradesmen of these various nationalities. There was also an aristocracy of vast landed proprietors, the patroons, whose immense estates lay in the neighborhood of the Hudson, but who built fine houses in the city, in which they lived in winter. Here they resided in princely fashion, with great retinues of servants, both white and