Chief Justice Lewis Morris in a judicial opinion in 1701, speaks of him as "Colonel Fletcher (justly styled the great patron of the Church of England here)." ^ At his instance, pursuant to his Commission and Instructions, the Legislature, composed of the Governor, Council, and Assembly, answering to the present Governor, Senate and Assembly, passed on the 24th of March, 1693, seven months only after his arrival as Governor, "An Act for Settling a Ministry and Raising a Revenue for them in the City of New York, County of Richmond, Westchester and Queens Counties."* This act gave an impetus to the Church of England in New York, which it never afterwards lost. Under it and the effijrts and support of a few English Churchmen in the City of New York who had organized themselves into a body styled "The Manajiers '^f the Church of England in New York," at the head of which was Colonel Caleb Heathcote, that Church began a growth, which has continued to this day. Increasing ever after, sometimes faster, sometimes slower, that Church became during the Colonial era, as it has continued to be since the American Revolution, under its present title of the Protestant E]>iscopal Church in the United States, the leading church in intiueuce and standing, i but not in numbers, in the City, Province, and now State of New York.

Under, or rather by, this Act of 1693, the Parishes of Westchester County were constituted.

The reasons why this " Ministry Act," as it was commonly styled, was confined to the regions it names in establishing the Church of England have not been adverted to by any writer who has mentioned it. The Counties it designates were the only portions of the Province in which English-speaking people dwelt, with the single exception of the County of Suffolk, iu the eastern portion of Long Island.