"The Dissenting" teachers "officiate without qualifying themselves according to the Act of Toleration, so that the people are supposed to do and say what they please about religion, under a notion, that the laws of England relating to religion don't extend to the Plantations." In 1 73 1 , he writes : -- " That the people of Bedford, who are most rigid and severe of all, came very generally to Church, when I was last among them, and many that never before were at Church." Again in 1744, he informs the Society : -- " That at Bedford and North Castle there were four hundred families belonging to the cure, &c." The same year the parishioners addressed the following letter to the Society : --

a No. 4 of Bedford Town Books, p. 495.

HISTORY OF THE COUNTY OF WESTCHESTER.

PARISH OF RYE-- TO THE SECRETARY. (extract. )

"Province of New York, Bedford, March Wi, 1744.

Rev. Sib,

The parish of Rye includes the large town of Rye, the town of Mamaroneck, the manor of Scarsdale, and a precinct called White Plains, besides Bedford and North Castle, in which two last places are near four hundred families, and no teacher of any sort in North Castle, but a silly Quaker-woman, and at Bedford one of the most enthusiastic Methodists. Mr. Wetmore comes amongst us but once in two months, and very few of us can go to the parish church at Rye, many living twenty miles distant, and most of us twelve or fourteen miles ; so that for the most part there is very little face of religion to be seen amongst us, and our children arc apt to fall in with the customs of those amongst us that have little or no religion, and spend the Lord's day in diversions and follies, which we cannot prevent tho' we much dislike.