I intended to have acknowledged the receipt of your favor by Mr. Munro,1 while at Albany; but he did not return from Washington before I set out for home; I was obliged by your hint respecting the corn, and availed myself of the opportunity to procure a supply of seed against another year, should it come to hand, I shall have enough for myself and a friend.

I have read with pleasure your Excellency’s proclamation for a day of thanksgiving and prayer; the causes are well assigned, and the petitions well adapted.2 Every body will agree that we have received great and undeserved mercies, as a society, from our Creator, and that ^it^ is fit and proper we should, as a society, acknowledge, and implore the continuance of them. But by whose authority shall the times and seasons for the purposes, be pointed out?—

I wot3 that in good olden time it was the peculiar province of holy church, and so continued till Henry the 8th, of pious memory, made a kind of Hotch pot business of it, by uniting the ecclesiastical and civil power in his own hands; his example has been followed by his successors to the present day, they issue their proclamations appointing days for public fasting, humiliation and prayer, in times of public calamity, and for public thanksgiving and praises upon signal instances of public mercies. It may be said their proclamations are authoritative, ours only recommendatory— but I ask, if the recommendation does not partake of the nature of a conge d’elire?4 and who will be hardy enough to neglect an acknowledged duty when recommended from such high authority?— Am I mistaken—Or do my glasses magnify too much— when I fancy I see the cloven foot of monarchy in this business? Alass!— where are the direfull effects of this extraordinary envoyship to end? The benefits of our commerce transferred to Britain—The usurpations of its monarchy transferred to us— Nor is this all— The poor clergy are by the constitution confined to the care of souls: they may not intermeddle with the political concerns of the community: the door is forever barred against them; let who may be rulers; they must be subject. And shall the poor pittance of power, arising from the authority of calling their congregations together, to observe particular days for religious purposes, be thus wrested from them. It is in vain to say that no interference with their authority is intended; for whether intended or not, it may happen that our civil Governor may recommend a thanksgiving to be celebrated on the same day which our spiritual Governors had set apart for fasting— The case I observe has actually hapened in the present instance— And I applied yesterday to the casuistry of the parson of the parish to decide for me between them, and tell which ought to be obeyed, he, good man, entered an advisari, and may eventually take it ad referendum. It seems, this power ought to be exercised by the spiritual or the civil rulers solely. It is an hereditament of which they cannot be seized as tenants in common, unless there should be formed such an intimate alliance between church and state, as to prevent all possibility of interference.5

If Camillus can dispose of these objections to the proclamation, in as handsom a manner as he has those to the treaty;6 I shall tremble for the fate of my country, when you are sent on an extra mission to the court of Rome, lest the same spirit of immitation might produce a Bull constituting another Defender, Tho’ I trow not of the faith.7

But to be serious, once more, As the church in this town is unfit for the celebration of divine service, should the weather continue favorable, and business will admit of my absence from home, I propose to go to town to church on Thanksgiving day, when I shall have the pleasure of paying my respects in person to Mrs. Jay and the family— In the meantime please to present my respectfull compliments to them, and believe me Yours most sincerely

19th. I find since writing the above by the daily Advertiser, that the Proclamation no more than the Treaty, is to escape the shafts of envy and malevolence.8