In the spring of 1695, the Assembly, in explanation of the act, declared that churches have power to call a dissenting Protestant minister, and that he be maintained as the act directs ; but the Governor rejected this interpolation of the Assembly, and decided that the act applied solely to the Episcopal ministry.^ Governor Fletcher was so occupied with schemes for money-making that he neglected the afiairs of the church, and in 1698 he was recalled to answer for his misconduct. Fletcher's successor was the kindlier Earl of Bellamont, an Irish i)eer, with a sound heart and honorable sympathies for popular freedom; his death, however, interrupted the short period of harmony in the colony.^

Bellamont was succeeded in 1702 by Lord Corn-

1 3 Bryant, 26.

2 " Doc. History of New York," vol. iii. page 24.5 ; Bolton's " Church History." xvi. ^Bolton's "Church History," xvii.

4 Bolton's " Church History," xvii. 5Bryant31.

bury, a disreputable cousin of Queen Anne, who only escaped jail by quitting the kingdom. Cornbury was as zealous in behalf of the church as he was destitute of any sense of public or private virtue. His zeal was not for religion, but for the established Church of England. To him a Dissenter was intolerable, unworthy of mercy or even of justice. The act of 1693 had not been oj^pressively enforced against the Rye people until after the arrival of Lord Cornbury ; but now, with a willing, nay even anxious, Governor, Colonel Heathcote could revenge himself upon this people for thwarting him in his attempt to include the White Plains within his patent.* He had been ten years in this country, and the dissenting clergy of Rye had not been interfered with ; it was not until after 1701 that he declares that " these people are heathenish Sabbath-breakers and without religion of any sort."