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PAPERS RELATING TO THE SIX NATIONS.

who having consulted M r Honeyman of Rode Island, were told, ye Land was given for a residentMinister, (tho’ there’s no sucli word in y e Deed) & so have dropt this right, & y e Land is & has beenoccupied by one Coll Champlain, who has thrown down y e church & built a Tavern w th it. TheLand is worth about 20 Doll, p Ann. Now if y e Society wou’d authorize me, I wou’d serve him w than Ejectment, & if I lost y e suit, it shou’d be at my cost—if I recover’d it, they shou’d pay me &let me have y e Land for attending those poor Indians, who wou’d rejoice under my Ministry. Iwish you wou’d condescend to weigh this alfair. Wishing you all Happiness in Time & Eternity,I presume to subscribe myself,

Y r Honor’s most obedient, lium le Serv 1

Matt Graves 1

New London March 12 th 1773.

I wish y e Trustees in England had a faithful narrative of D r Wheeler’s &c.

COL BABCOCK TO REV. DR. COOPER,

ON THE SUBJECT OF ESTABLISHING AN ACADEMY IN THE INDIAN COUNTRY.

Stonington 11 th Aug 1 1773.

Rev d & Dear Sir I now set down to write to you, upon an affair that appears to me of the utmostConsequence.—must confess I am somewhat at a Loss, in what manner to address myself to You—but presuming upon our former Intimacy, and Acquaintance, and that Friendship which you havehonoured me with, shall without any farther Preface, beg leave to say, that I have long resolvedin my mind, a change of the manner of my Life, and have had serious tho’ts of Quitting Agricul-ture, tho a very pleasing and most agreeable kind of Life; and going Home to Great Britain inorder to take a Gound, with a view of founding a Seminary upon the Episcopal Plan, amongst theSix Nations of Indians, under the Patronage of Sir William Johnson —I communicated this affairto my Father some month ago, and had he approved of it, should have immediately set off forJohnson Hall to have laid the affair before that truly great man Sir William, who I cant helpthinking Providence permitted to settle in this Country with a Design of his Christianizing thosenumerous Nations of Savages, over which he has had, & stil has such a surprising Influence, andboth the last War, and the War before improved them in military Life; so much both for theInterests of the Crown of G Britain, and the particular advantage of the Colonies, witness theEngagement he had with Baron Dieskau on the 8 th Sept r 1775, (a Day I shall ever have greatReason to remember for I lost 19 men that morning out of CO that were under my Command) anaction so important in its Consequences as any that ever happened to this Country, from the firstSettlement of it to the present Day—had the Baron succeeded in his attempt against Sir W m this

1 Rev. Matthew Graves a native of England, took charge of the Episcopal church at New London, as Missionary fromthe Soc: for Prop-, the Gospel, in the year 1745. He continued to officiate in that parish until 1778, when he was requestedto forego the usual prayer for the King. This he refused to do, and in consequence he was driven from his church one Sundayafter reading this obnoxious part of the Liturgy . So suddenly was the attack, that he had not time to divest himself of hissurplice, in which he fled to the house of a parishioner, who though a warm Whig, protected him from violence. Notwith-standing public service was thus suspended, Mr. Graves remained in New London until the following years, subjected to manystraits, 11 during which for the support of his family, he has been obliged to sell almost all his property and to take up moneyon very disadvantageous terms.” He withdrew to New York in which city he died unmarried, in 1780. In person he wasungainly; of low stature, rather corpulent, with particularly short legs. His brother John, was minister of the Episcopalchurch at Providence R. I. where he died in Nov. 1785. Updike's Hist. Narragansett Ch.