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Colonial and State Records of North Carolina
Letter from William Tryon to Daniel Burton
Tryon, William, 1729-1788
April 30, 1767
Volume 07, Pages 457-458

[From Tryon's Letter Book.]
Letter from Governor Tryon to the Revd Doctr Burton, Secretary to
the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel

Brunswick 30th April 1767.

I was extremely pleased to be informed by your letter of the first of January 1766 which I did not receive till the 1st of November following

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that the Society for the propagating the Gospel honored with their approbation the Bill passed in the first session of my administration for the better establishment of the clergy of the Church of England, as also the great attention and compliance the Society paid to the several requisitions contained in my letter of the 31st July 1765. Their desire not to prefer persons applying for presentations without a certificate or licence from the Bishop of London I shall observe. Mr Tomlinson entertains a grateful sense of the Society's generosity in granting him an additional salary: He now presides at the head of the only school established in this country by legislative authority, in virtue of an Act passed the last Session of Assembly held at Newbern. The quarto Bibles and Prayer Books directed to be sent to me and which are greatly wanted are not yet received. Fifteen or twenty of each would not be too many as you may observe by the inclosed state of the ministers in this Colony. The Revd Messrs Barnett, Cupples and Cosgreve are not yet presented, the former waiting till the church at Brunswick is finished, the other two gentlemen I have not heard from, since I sent them to different parishes to make experience how far their situation would be agreeable to them and themselves to their parishioners.

The Revd Mr Thomas Moir's death in February last defeated the Societys direction to have him fixed to some parish, I desire leave warmly to solicit the Society that Mr Moir's mission may be continued in the province, as I am very apprehensive from the real indigence of the inhabitants of some counties here, the stipend for the ministers tho' moderate, is more than some parishes can raise. If the Reverend Mr Agar a friend and an acquaintance of mine of long standing now in Virginia would settle in this province, I should wish he might have the vacant mission. I have the pleasure to inform the Society religion is making a very regular progress in this province, and that the advocates for the established Church of England have greatly the majority of all the sectaries united, many coming over to our persuasion. The strictest caution and care is absolutely necessary in the recommendations of gentlemen who come to settle as ministers in this province. The inhabitants are strict inquisitors and if the clergyman is not of a moral character, and his life regular and exemplary he will attract but little esteem to himself and less benefit to his parishioners for whom he must undergo patience and fatigue in the service of his calling.

I am &c.