James Graham, who had the drawing of all their bills, so managed the title and induction of this one, that, although it did not do very well for the Dissenters, yet it did not appear to make any concessions to the Church, and the honest, simple-minded Dissenters, not suspecting the fraud and trickery of the Governor, passed the bill as above entitled. As Colonel Lewis Morris wrote, in a letter to the Propagation Society, " It was the most that could be got at the time, for had more been attempted, the Assembly had seen through the artifice, and all had been lost."

The bill having become a law, the Governor insisted that there was no ministry but of the Church of England, and declared that under this act, all lands in towns, that had been set aside for ministers' parsonages or for meeting-houses, became vested in the English ministry.'

Colonel Morris relates a conversation which he heard between the Governor and a dissenting minister at the time this act of the Assembly was talked of. The minister said " that the intention of the Legislature was to raise a maintenance for a dissenting minister, all the Assembly but one being Dissenters, and knowing nothing of the church, and that being the intention of the law-makers, was the meaning of the law, and he hoped the Dissenters might enjoy what was so justly their due, or at least not be deprived of it without due course of law." I told him the Legislature did not consist of the Assembly only, but of the Governor and Council joined with them ; and I believed it was most certain the Governor never intended to settle a dissenting clergy.^