ters is solely left. And there being no law
obliging them to any more than to procure a lay reader, (to be obtained
at a very moderate rate,) they either resolve to have none at all, or
reduce them to their own terms; that is, to use them how they please,
pay them what they list, and to discard them whensoever they have a mind
to it. And this is the recompense of their leaving their hopes in
England, (far more considerable to the meanest curate than what can
possibly be apprehended there,) together with the friends and relations
and their native soil, to venture their lives into those parts among
strangers and enemies to their profession, who look upon them as a
burden; as being with their families (where they have any) to be
supported out of their labor. So that I dare boldly aver that our
discouragements there are much greater than ever they were here in
England under the usurper." After citing various evidences in support of
these statements, among which he specifies the hiring of the clergy from
year to year, and compelling them to accept of parishes at under-rates,
Godwyn thus proceeds: "I would not be thought to reflect herein upon
your excellency, who have always professed great tenderness for
churchmen. For, alas! these things are kept from your ears; nor dare
they, had they opportunity, acquaint you with them, for fear of being
used worse. And there being no superior clergyman, neither in council
nor any place of authority, for them to address their complaints to, and
by his means have their grievances brought to your excellency's
knowledge, they are left without remedy. Again, two-thirds of the
preachers are made up of leaden lay priests of the vestry's ordination;
and are both the shame and grief of the rightly ordained clergy there.
Nothing of this ever reaches your excellency's ear; these hungry patrons
knowing better how to benefit by their vices than by the virtues of the
other." And here Godwyn cites an instance of a writing-master, who came
into Virginia, professing to be a doctor in divinity, showing feigned
letters of orders, and under different names continuing in various
places to carry on his work of fraud. He states also that owing to a law
of the colony, which enacted that four years' servitude should be the
penalty exacted of any one who permitted himself to be sent thither free
of charge, some of the clergy, through ignorance of the law, were left
thereby under the mastery of persons who had give