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CHAPTER V. THE QUARREL WITH GREAT BRITAIN. WE have seen in an earlier chapter how much there was to keep alive a vague spirit of discontent in the colonies towards the mother- country. The war in Canada had done nothing to allay that feeling. The military co-operation between Great Britain and the colonies had been incomplete and unsatisfactory. Each had seen the worst side of the other. The colonists had seen the dulness and rigidity of British soldiership, the arrogant contempt of British officers for mere provincials. Moreover English politicians had debated whether to retain Canada or to abandon it and accept Guadaloupe. This was held by the colonists, not altogether unfairly, to show indifference to their safety and well- being. On the other hand British officials had been justly exasperated by the sordid illiberality and lack of public spirit shown by too many of the colonial assemblies. There were other causes tending to accentuate ill-feeling. The Episcopalians of New England and their friends in the mother-country had never made any secret of their wish to place the Anglican Churches of the colonies under a bishop. In 1763 John Miller, a leading Episco- palian clergyman in Massachusetts, who represented the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, died. In a newspaper article published upon his death, he and his work were disparaged. Thereupon a bitter controversy arose ; the protagonist on the Independ- ent side was Dr Mayhew, a Boston minister of robust mind and contro- versial temper, well endowed with powers of rhetoric and sarcasm. He contended that the Society had gone beyond its legitimate sphere, when, instead of confining itself to missionary work among the Indians, it sought to promote Episcopalianism among the settlers. All experience shows how hard it is to refute such charges, and how difficult it is for an earnest clergy to escape the reproach of proselytising. The question, with which side the victory logically rested, is of minor importance. The main point was that the colonists were taught to believe that those in power sought to establish not only Episcopacy but those incidents of civil government and that spirit of administration which were specially identified with Episcopacy.