JAMES B. BELL  is author of The Imperial Origins of the King's Church in Early America, 1607-1783. He earned his DPhil in Modern history at Balliol College, Oxford, UK, and is currently Visiting Research Fellow at the Rothermere American Institute, University of Oxford. He is the author of several books and many articles, and has taught at Princeton University, Barnard College, the College of Wooster, and the Ohio State University.

'...an original and interesting study...Anyone seeking to deepen their understanding of the complex history that lies beneath the usual platitudes about the founding of the United States and of the Anglican Communion would benefit from reading it.' - Canon Maltby, Church Times

• Preface Abbreviations Some Useful Dates Prologue PART I: A CENTURY OF CONTROVERSIES The Seeds of Discord: An English Church Established in Boston Discord Enlarged: The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel A Handmaiden for Episcopacy: John Checkley of Boston The Sixteenth-Century English Origins of an Eighteenth-Century Colonial American Controversy Noah Hobart Decries Anglican Expansion: Thomas Sherlock Proposes an American Bishop Jonathan Mayhew Fears a Bishop and Challenges the Purpose of the S.P.G. Pleas for an American Bishop in the 1760s: Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Secker and Thomas Bradbury Chandler A Radical Response to a Bishop: John Adams, Samuel Adams And John Wilkes The Controversy over a Bishop in the Colonies Outside New England PART II: A NEW CONTROVERSY: THE POLITICAL SENTIMENTS OF THE CLERGYMEN The Impact of the First Continental Congress and the Local Committees of Safety Critics of the Continental Congress and Common Sense: Jonathan Boucher and Charles Inglis A Challenge to Radical Politics: Samuel Seabury Jr. and Thomas Bradbury Chandler Quiet and Militant Patriots William Knox Seeks to Establish an Ecclesiastical Policy for the American Church The Status of the Clergy in 1775 and 1783 The English Church, A Cause of the American Revolution Appendix I:Political Sentiments of the Colonial Clergymen of the Church of England during the American Revolutionary War, 1775-1783 Appendix II: A Summary of the Birth Places, Birth Dates, and Colleges Attended by Colonial American Church of England Clergymen, 1775 Bibliography  Index