tribution of church revenues, with a view to equalising episcopal and improving parochial incomes. The scheme was printed (November 1782), and, against Shelburne's advice, published as ‘A Letter to Archbishop Cornwallis on the Church Revenues’ (1783, 4to). Except Beilby Porteus [q. v.], no bishop acknowledged its receipt. Richard Cumberland (1732–1811) [q. v.], who had written before against Watson, attacked the ‘Letter,’ as did others; William Cooke (1711–1797) [q. v.] was one of the few who approved the plan. Watson returned to the subject in a speech (30 May) in the House of Lords.
To promote biblical study, Watson edited ‘A Collection of Theological Tracts’ (Cambridge, 1785, 6 vols. 8vo; 2nd edit. 1791), with a dedication to the queen. Of the twenty-four works here reprinted, some of the most important are by dissenting divines, George Benson [q. v.], Samuel Chandler, Nathaniel Lardner [q. v.], and John Taylor (1694–1761) [q. v.] On the death of his friend Luther (11 Jan. 1786) he came in for an estate which realised 20,500l. After an illness and a visit to Bath, under medical advice he appointed (26 May 1787) Thomas Kipling [q. v.] as his deputy in the divinity chair, and took leave of the university.
In 1788 he joined his old schoolfellow William Preston (d. 1789), then bishop of Ferns and Leighlin, in restoring the Heversham schoolhouse, inscribing it to the memories of its founder and his father. Fixing his residence in Westmoreland, first at Dallam Tower, then at Calgarth Park, where he built a house (1789), he devoted himself to extensive plantations and improvement of waste lands. The Society of Arts awarded him a premium for his paper on waste lands (published in Hunter's Georgical Essays, 1805, vol. v.). Another paper (published in 1808) obtained the year before the gold medal of the board of agriculture. Wordsworth sneered at his ‘vegetable manufactory.’ He was often in London, and visited his diocese triennially, but frankly records his various efforts to obtain translation to a better. His ‘Considerations on the Expediency of Revising the Liturgy and Articles’ (1790, 8vo) was anonymous, but acknowledged in 1815.
By far the most popular of his writings was his ‘Apology for the Bible … Letters … to Thomas Paine’ (1796, 12mo). This is usually described as an answer to Paine's ‘Age of Reason’ (1794), which Watson had not seen. It is directed against Paine's ‘Second Part’ (1795), and especially against Paine's treatment of scripture, which Watson thought unworthy of his powers. The ‘Apology’ was eagerly read in America as well as in this country. In addition to very numerous reprints it has been abridged (1820, 8vo) by Francis Wrangham [q. v.], and translated into French (1829, 12mo) by Louis Theodore Ventouillac. Posthumous fragments of Paine's ‘Answer’ were published in New York (1810–24), and in part reprinted in London in 1837.
In his ‘Address to the People of Great Britain’ (1798, 8vo, 20 Jan.) Watson urged that the progress of events had rendered the vigorous prosecution of the war inevitable, and approved Pitt's imposition of the income-tax. The ‘Address’ went through fourteen editions, besides pirated reprints, and was widely distributed by the government. ‘A Reply’ (1798) by Gilbert Wakefield [q. v.] led to Wakefield's trial and imprisonment. Watson, who had exchanged courteous notes with Wakefield, affirms that he ‘took some pains to prevent this prosecution.’ He took no notice of the taunt that he had changed his principles, and followed up the topic of the ‘Address’ in a charge (June 1798) to his clergy. His speech in the lords (11 April 1799), advocating the union with Ireland, was attacked by Benjamin Flower [q. v.], who was fined and imprisoned for a breach of privilege. Watson had not seen the attack, and was on his way to Calgarth when the house took action.
While occupied in political and economic questions, Watson kept in view the interests of practical religion. To Wilberforce, whom he supported in his efforts against the slave trade, he communicated (1 April 1800) a scheme for twenty new churches in London with free sittings. When Freylinghausen's ‘Abstract … of the Christian Religion’ (1804, 8vo) was issued at the queen's order, with Bishop Porteus as editor, he wrote to Grafton (23 Oct.), ‘I have not my religion to learn from a Lutheran divine.’ He published in 1804 a tract in favour of Roman catholic emancipation, and wrote (27 March 1805) to remove the scruples of a lady about marrying into the Greek church. The defence of revealed religion was his frequent topic both in the pulpit and through the press.
In 1805 Sir Walter Scott was his guest at Calgarth. Rawnsley affirms that cockfighting was merrily pursued there by the bishop's sons. In October 1809 Watson had a slight paralytic attack, followed in April 1810 by another, which crippled his right hand. Despairing of completing a projected series of theological essays, in 1811 he ‘treated’ his ‘divinity as’ he ‘twenty-five years ago treated’ his ‘chemical papers.’ After October 1813 his health rapidly declined. He
