Essex, in which he took very high ground. The Rev. Hugh
Jones subsequently, while on a visit in England, reported to the Bishop
of London some things against the rubrical exactness of Commissary
Blair. Evil reports had also reached the mother country as to the moral
character of some of the clergy. A convention of the Virginia clergy
was, therefore, held in compliance with the direction of the Bishop of
London, at the College of William and Mary, in April, 1719. The
governor, in a letter addressed to this body, assails the commissary as
denying "that the king's government has the right to collate ministers
to ecclesiastical benefices within this colony," "deserting the cause of
the church," and countenancing disorders in divine worship "destructive
to the establishment of the church." To all this, Commissary Blair made
a reply, vindicating himself triumphantly.[400:A] He appears to have
sympathized on these matters with the vestries and the people. Governor
Spotswood, on the contrary, was an extreme high churchman and supporter
of royal prerogative, as might have been expected from the descendant of
a long line of ancestors always found arrayed on the side of the crown,
and the church as established, and never with the people. The journal of
this convocation throws much light on the condition of the church and
the clergy of Virginia at that time. The powers exercised by the
vestries, indeed, often made the position of the clergy precarious; but
it would, perhaps, have engendered far greater evils if the governor
had been allowed to be the patron of all the livings. Governor
Spotswood's letter to the vestry of St. Anne's presents an elaborate
argument against the right of the vestry to appoint or remove the
minister; but, notwithstanding the opposition of the governor, bishop,
clergy, and crown, the vestries and the people still steadfastly
maintained this right. This question was the embryo of the revolution;
political freedom is the offspring of religious freedom; it takes its
rise in the church.

In answer to an inquiry made by the Bishop of London, the convention
voted "that no member had any personal knowledge of the irregularity of
any clergyman's life in this colony," a manifest equivocation.[401:A] In
their address to the Bishop of London, the convention state that all the
ministers in Virginia are episcopally ordained, except Mr. Commissary,
of whose ordination a major part doubt;[401:B] that the circumstances of