“Those Dominions of Violence”: The Rev. Jacob Bailey’s Experience of the American Revolution

I was recently examining the North American records of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel (SPG) – the missionary arm of the Church of England, established in the early eighteenth century. I had begun my reading of these reports to learn more about the history of SPG missionaries stationed in Nova Scotia in the 1760s when the society was trying hard to establish Anglicanism in the province’s largest settlements.[1] I was especially interested in the reports of the Revs. Thomas Wood and Jean-Baptiste Moreau who ministered to Anglican congregations in Annapolis Royal and Lunenburg, respectively. I became so captivated by these sources that my curiosity lured me to continue reading the reports into the 1770s and 80s – mostly to see what they conveyed about the American Revolution. As I suspected, I soon happened upon reports penned by the Rev. Jacob Bailey (1731–1808), a Loyalist clergyman from Massachusetts, later stationed in Maine, who fled to Nova Scotia during the upheavals of the Revolutionary War. For his outspoken loyalty to the British Crown, Bailey was subjected to a great amount of personal violence by the American Patriots.[2] In his study, Enthusiasms and Loyalties, historian Keith Shepherd Grant has devoted two chapters to Bailey’s trying experience of the Revolution.[3] Grant primarily treats Bailey’s life after his arrival in Nova Scotia and examines the ways in which the Revolution affected the clergyman emotionally. Much of Bailey's writing after 1780 dwelt on the social, political, and legal travails he underwent while in New England. The accounts I located in the SPG records were not referenced in Grant's book. Consisting of three letters composed at Halifax in 1779, Bailey sent a lengthy narrative of his time in revolutionary New England to the SPG headquarters in London where the letters were annotated for and read at a General Meeting of the society – a transcription of which I reproduce here.      

St. Paul's Anglican church, Halifax, 1759, by Richard Short.

While Bailey’s harrowing account reveals the ways royalist clergymen were pursued and maltreated by the Patriots, his words must also be taken critically, considering his intended audience. Bailey’s narrative stresses (sometimes repetitively to border on formulism) standard topoi of suffering and persecution typical of Christian hagiography (in this case, a kind of auto-hagiography). In composing these accounts, he was also reproducing rhetorical styles characteristic of much missionary literature. He was, after all, writing to his superiors across the Atlantic to demonstrate his commitment to the SPG. By the end of the narrative, Bailey’s purpose is clear: he wished to resume his ministry after his relocation to Nova Scotia. In other words, he was looking for work in his new home. With this cautionary note in mind, here follows Bailey’s account of the years 1776 to 1779:

“In the beginning of this most unnatural rebellion, he endeavoured, with steadyness and moderation to prevent its progress among his Neighbours; and his endeavours were attended with some success, which exposed him to the vengeance of the Rebel leaders in those Parts who had formerly distinguished themselves as implacable enemies to him and the Church.

            In May 1776 he was seized by the Committee, and after being treated with the most virulent abuse, was laid under heavy bonds, for neglecting to read a proclamation for a public fast, and for retaining an undue Attachment to British Tyranny. A few days after he was required to appear before the same Tribunal for refusing to publish the Declaration of Independence & continuing to pray for the King. At this meeting they declared him a most inveterate & dangerous enemy to his country, and ordered him to appear before the general court, at the distance of 180 Miles, amidst the rigours of Winter. On his Visiting a Settlement about fifty Miles from his own habitation, at the desire of the People, to preach among them and to baptize their children, he was assaulted by a violent Mob, armed with clubs, axes, and other weapons, who striped him naked in search of papers, pretending that he had formed a design of escaping to Quebec. Upon a trial of transportation, he was cleared by a large Majority, in a full town meeting, which movement in his favour so enraged the rebel Magistrates, that they issued a Warrant to apprehend him. This induced him to continue a close prisoner at his own House for several Weeks, till his health was much affected; when he was constrained to flee in the night, an armed force being ready to seize him; and he continued to wander about the provinces of Maine, [New] Hampshire, and Massachusetts Bay, till the Act expired, which was designed to terminate in the Year. They next attempted to enforce the oath of abjuration, and Asking the High Sheriff, took him as he was visiting a friend in distress; but finding a strong party formed in his favor, the Sheriff gave him leave to appear before the general Court at Boston, for permission to leave the Province, and at the same time, made application to the court, to prevent his success.

            After three Months attendance in person, or by his friends, he obtained a passport for Halifax, his family included; but winter approaching with unusual Severity, he found it unsafe to remove (especially as his Wife had a Young Child) till a more favorable season. During this interval, the Sheriff allowed him no repose, but pursued him with increasing virulence and malice, declaring that he should either abjure the King, or be imprisoned: both of which thro’ his own constant vigilance, and the assistance of his friendly parishioners, he was able to avoid. But from Christmas to June, the time of his emigration from the land of treason, famine, and oppression, his situation was one continued scene of apprehension, perplexity, alarm, confusion, & distress. When at home he was in perpetual expectation of some malignant officer apprehending him; and when a rapping was heard at the door, he was obliged to conceal himself in some private apartment. He has often, when he imagined it more safe, had recourse to the adjacent thicket, and secured himself beneath the gloomy shades, or amidst the secret caverns of the rocks. When he ventured to visit any of his honest neighbours, it was either under the cover of darkness, or at a season when the howling tempest confines his persecutors at home. On such occasions, he was careful to pursue unfrequented paths; to wander among the woods, or to find a passage thro’ unbeaten tracts, where nature appears in her primitive wildness; sometimes he has been obliged to disguise his appearance; and at others, to conceal himself in the habitations of his friends. In a word he has during the present commotions been twice assaulted by a furious Mob, four times hauled before an unfeeling committee, sentenced to heavy bonds, and hurried from one tribunal to another; three times had he been driven from his Family and obliged to preserve a precarious freedom by roving about the country in distant parts: two attempts have been made to shoot him; once he has been constrained to appear before the tremendous authority at Boston, and his Servant, on whose assistance his family depended for support in his absence, was thrown into Prison, from which he was not released without paying a heavy fine; during three excursions his family has suffered beyond measure for the necessaries of life; sometimes they have remained twenty four hours without any kind of sustenance. He must acknowledge that his poor parishioners (who have been cruelly harassed, with the Loyalists in every part of the Country) were extremely kind and generous, as long as they had any thing to bestow, and they have often supplied him at the risque of their freedom and property; since it is accounted by the Authority in New England, highly criminal to prevent a friend of Great Britain from starving; and many have been proscribed for no other offence. But before their departure from those dominions of violence, they endured very painfull excesses of poverty and hunger; and he left his friends in almost a perishing condition, to the mercy of their merciless enemies. He had subsisted above three years upon precarious charity; having expended all his property, even the necessary furniture, and when they arrived at Halifax, not to mention the expences of the voyage, they had nothing remaining except two old feather beds, without any appendages. They were destitute of Money and had not cloathing sufficient to appear among the very lowest classes of mankind. But thro’ the humanity of private persons, the vote of £50 Currency from the assembly of the province, and the generous efforts of the worthy Dr. Breynton [Anglican clergyman at Halifax and rector of St. Paul’s] they are in some measure relieved from their distresses, and find their Spirits greatly revived.

            In the midst of all his distresses, he still had the satisfaction of seeing his people firmly attached to His Majesty’s Government, notwithstanding the endless persecutions to which their Loyalty exposed them. They have not only been taxed for the support of a dissenting teacher, but threatened, disarmed, imprisoned & and expelled. Sixteen or seventeen [SPG clergymen] are now in the King’s service, and the remainder, except one or two families, are distinguished for their Loyalty. He continued divine Service and prayed for the King, till he was apprehended and till the Sheriff Cushing, with his creatures appeared to drag him from the Pulpit, by violence, when he thought it prudent to restrain his people from making any resistance, lest there should have been Bloodshed. He has since continued to baptize their children, to visit the sick & bury the dead, till forcibly prosecuted by Cushing, the Sheriff. Nothing could be more tender and affectionate, than the behaviour of his people at parting. He left them in tears, praying for his safety and speedy return. During his frequent expulsions from home he travelled thro’ a multitude of places, where he preached in private Houses, and baptized a great number of children, especially at Georgetown, Falmouth, Wyndham, Portsmouth, &c.

            The dissenting Ministers who were so active in spiriting up the people into rebellion, are now reduced to Poverty, and the lowest degree of contempt, and their hearers, two thirds of whom wish for the return of the British Government, return to support them. Religion has almost vanished from New England, the most daring profaneness, the most shamefull debauchery, and the boldest defiance of every Moral Sanction universally prevail among the Rebels. Whilst the churchmen and Royalists who are under severe persecution, admit of some exception. He cannot recollect a Single friend of Government among the Independents, for the moment any person renounces his Rebellious principles, he commences either churchman or Quaker. In short was the present contest to terminate in favor of Britain. It is the opinion of all Judicious people that the Church of England would flourish abundantly in all the New England Colonies.

            It will always be his pleasure as it is his Duty, to assist in forwarding the worthy designs of the Society, and should any vacancies happen in the Mission of Nova Scotia, he intreats their remembrance of his nineteen years constant service amidst numberless difficulties and hardships, if a perpetual train of persecution and sufferings for principles of Loyalty, during the space of five years, if his success in preventing multitudes from running into Rebellion, if those distresses of poverty and hunger he has survived, while under the Dominion of the Rebels, or, lastly, if the being destitute of any means to support his family in any degree of decency in that country, where the necessaries of life are extravagantly dear, can be considered as a recommendation to the favourable notice of the Society, he must indulge the pleasing hope of obtaining some employment in Nova Scotia, while the present unhappy commotions continue in New England.”[4]

[1] The SPG records are available on microfilm at the Nova Scotia Archives (NSA). These are microfilms of transcripts held at Library and Archives Canada in Ottawa. The original SPG manuscripts are held at Lambeth Palace Library, London.

[2] Julie Ross and Thomas Vincent, “Bailey, Jacob,” Dictionary of Canadian Biography online, v. 5, https://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/bailey_jacob_5E.html. Also, Arthur Wentworth Eaton, The Church of England in Nova Scotia and the Tory Clergy of the Revolution (New York: Thomas Whitaker, 1891), 159–161.

[3] Keith Shepherd Grant, Enthusiasms and Loyalties: The Public History of Private Feelings in the Enlightenment Atlantic (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2022), 77–129. In her book Religion and the American Revolution: An Imperial History (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2021), Katherine Carté draws extensively from the SPG missionaries, but discusses Bailey in passing, on page 215.

[4] Jacob Bailey, 22 and 26 July, and 25 August, 1779, from Minutes of the General Meetings of the SPG, Nova Scotia Archives microfilm.