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1931.] James Sterling: Poet, Priest, and Prophet 25

JAMES STERLING: POET, PRIEST, ANDPROPHET OF EMPIRE

BY LAWRENCE C. WROTH*'During the preparation of this paper, I have received so much material from correspon-

dents in Maryland and elsewhere that at times I have felt myself to be little more than aninstrument appointed for its unification. I wish, therefore, to name as my associates inthis production Miss Florence J. Kennedy. Messrs, Percy G. Skirven, J. Hall Pleasants,Louis H, Dielman, and Charles Fickus, Baltimoreans learned in the history and antiquitiesof their state and unfailingly generous with their time and knowledge. To these must beadded the names of the Rev. Edgar L. Pennington, rector of Grace Church, Ocala,Florida, a scholar possessed of a systematic knowledge of the history of the Episcopalchurch in the colonies; Mr. V. Valta Parma, curator of the Rare Book Collection in theLibrary of Congress; and Miss Alice J. Mayes, whose thorough researches in my behalf inthe Public Record Office, London, have been of the greatest helpfulness.

I.

AFTER the return of the ships Dobbs and California• in October, 1747, the Hon. Arthur Dobbs, pro-

moter of their recent voyage, was reported as havingannounced that he would himself go forth anotheryear in that search for the Northwest Passage to whichfor a decade past he had been inciting his fellowcountrymen. This declaration stirred an Americanadmirer to a mighty labor of the pen. One who de-scribed himself upon his title-page simply as a "Clergy-man in America" straightway wrote An Epistle to theHon. Arthur Dobbs, Esq., a poem in three parts,comprising some sixteen hundred lines of high-flown,windy, and very patriotic verse in praise of the princesand potentates, the captains and knights in arms ofthe expanding British empire. It was four years later,in the early months of 1752, that the poem foundpublication in London in a handsome quarto.^ Toomuch concerned with the commonplace of politics and

>An Epistle to the Hon. Arthur Dobbs, Esq; In Eiirope. From a Clergyman in Amer-ica. Part I. India mittit opus; peregrà sua Thura Camœnœ [ornament). London:Printed for the Author, and Sold by R. Dodsley, in Pall-mall, and M. Cooper, in Pater-noster-row. 1752. 4 to. p. 100.

26 American Antiquarian Society [April,

trade to rank as literature, and too literary to satisfythe serious politicians and merchants, the poem fellneatly enough between the indifferent stools of art andcommerce. There, without serious loss to either, itseems to have remained until the recent purchase of oneof the few known copies by the John Carter BrownLibrary^ brought the valorous production to my atten-tion and set me about the task of identifying its author.

Politician, writer, and one-time royal governor ofNorth Carolina, Arthur Dobbs, the subject of theEpistle, is remembered chiefly for the zeal of hisefforts to bring about the discovery of the NorthwestPassage.^ He carried into middle age the passionateinterest of his youth in this standing challenge of theNorth to bold thought and endeavor, and somethingmore than a decade before we encounter him in thepages of our Epistle, his insistent urging oï the projecthad met its reward. In 1741 he had seen his dreamstransmuted into action when an official expeditionunder command of Captain Christopher Middletonset out from England to explore a Northwest Passageto Asia and to determine the availability of theHudson's Bay region for commerce and settlement.After the return in 1742 of the Discovery and theFurnace, the second a ship well named for Arcticexploration, Dobbs accused Middleton of havingreported unfavorably concerning his mission throughthe instigation of the Hudson's Bay Company. Twoyears later a second expedition, promoted by acompany of which Dobbs was one of the leaders, wentout in the ships Dobbs and California and returned witha similar though rather less discouraging report. It

'Charles F. Heartman, Catalogue, no. 225, Americana RarUsima, February 7, 1931,no. 63. Another copy is in the British Museum, entered in the British Museum Catalogueunder Dobbs, Arthur. Two others have been located in private hands.

The Dictionary of National Biography gives a full account of the life of Arthur Dobbs.The writer of that article seems to suggest that Dobbs was responsible for the introductionof printing into North Carolina, but James Davis began printing in Newbern in 1749, Byoyears before Dobbs came to the colony as governor. Dobbs's biographer may have mis-understood the conflict between the governor and the Assembly in 1764 over the appoint-ment of Andrew Steuart as the successor of Davis.

1931.] James Sterling: Poet, Prieät, and Prophet 27

was after the return of these vessels in October, 1747,that the zealous Dobbs seems to have made theannouncement of a third expedition upon which hewould sail in person, but his enthusiasm was deflectedfrom the adventure of actual exploration by theintensity of his dislike for the Hudson's Bay Company.Instead of battling the ice and currents of Hudson'sBay our fireside explorer remained in London andorganized a movement against the Company whichresulted in 1749 in a Parliamentary inquiry into thevalidity of its charter and the conduct of its business,the first of a series of attacks which that silent andpowerful monopoly was successful in withstanding foran ensuing period of one hundred and eighteen years. ̂

With the rights of the Dobbs-Middleton contro-versy,' the pamphlets of which form a rich addition tothe literature of the Northwest Passage, we havelittle to do in this narrative. It has become evident tous, as it seems to have been to many at the time, thatMiddleton suffered injustice from the accusation of thesincere but headstrong Dobbs, whose hatred of theHonourable Company had unquestionably dulled theedge of his judgment. Nor are we to consider herethe rights and wrongs of the fight against the greattrading concern beyond mentioning the chief chargesagainst it: that it discouraged exploration in its do-main, and that it assiduously maintained the unsuit-able character of that domain for settlement, or forany commerce except its own special trade in furs.Upon these points it was attacked by Dobbs and hisassociates bitterly and with a degree of foresight that,large and extravagant though it seemed to conservativecontemporaries, could hardly have included in its

lÂB account of this long-continued attack upon the Hudson's Bay Company is found inBeckles Willson, The Great Company, 1900.

'A contemporary attempt at an impartial statement of the Dobbs-Middleton Con-troversy is found in John Harris, Navigantium atgue Itinerantium Bibliotheca. Or, aComplete Collection of Voyages, II, 440-451. 2v. London, 1764. The argument by theeditor of this edition of Harris, John Campbell, strongly favors Dobbs, but in the oourseof it, the essentials of the controversy are given in moderately compressed form.

28 American Antiquarian Society, [April,

range the wheat fields of Manitoba and the mines ofBritish Columbia.

Our American clergyman was not among theconservatives in this matter of colonial expansion. Inrecognition of the "manifold merit" of Dobbs, headdressed his poem to that "benevolent" gentleman,making of his hero's zeal in the cause of exploration anexcuse for a wide-reaching essay on the expansion ofBritish commerce and the establishment of Britishcolonies on the continent of North America. In aquiet Maryland rectory in the early months of 1748 satone for long weeks drunk, or at least well warmed, withheady dreams of empire, exhorting his fellow country-men in easy, loud, and uninspired heroic couplets toconsider the wide world as their oyster and to proceedwithout more ado to shuck it. Though the poem mayseem to be concerned specifically with the question ofcolonies and commerce in the chartered domain of theHudson's Bay Company, it possesses a more universalquality of interest because of its association with thecolonial trade propaganda which came unceasinglyfrom the English presses throughout the eighteenth cen-tury. The unusual form in which it was cast demands,too, for the Epistle to Dobbs a degree of indulgencenot ordinarily granted to essays in the literature oftrade. These considerations, a strongly rooted interestin the colonial clergy of Maryland, and the satisfac-tion of properly cataloguing a piece of anonymouswriting set me about the task of determining theauthorship of the poem. As the investigation tookform I found myself deriving pleasure also from beingable to extend in detail one of those sketches in theDictionary of National Biography in which the Ameri-can career of an emigrant personage is treated witha degree of fullness inversely in proportion to thedistance between England and America.^

An Epistle to the Hon. Arthur Dobbs, Esq., gives asthe only indications of its author's identity, his calling

>The reference is to the sketch of James Sterling, M.A.


and his residence in Maryland upon Chester River,where, a footnote tells us, lay the writer's plantations.Examination of the lists of Maryland clergymen ofKent and Queen Anne's Counties,^ the counties con-tiguous to this stream, show only two clergymen ofliterary tendencies there resident in 1747; namely, theRev. Alexander Malcolm of Queen Anne's County andthe Rev. James Sterling, M.A., rector of St. Paul'sParish in Kent County, and possessor, at the time, ofplantations in that county called Rousbys Recovery,Huddles Right, and Rushmore. Mr. Malcolm's con-tribution to letters took the form of a Latin grammar^and of other works, not published I believe, which aresaid to have been in the realm of music and mathe-matics. Years earlier, in London and in Dublin, Mr.Sterling had acquired, through several publications,reputation of a sort as poet and man of letters. Anexamination of his only known Maryland publication,a sermon of the year 1754, gave evidence of his fervorin the cause of his country and its colonies. It becameobvious at this point that an investigation of the life ofMr. Sterling might be pertinent to the task in hand.

II

James Sterling was born in Ireland at Dowrass,King's County, in the year 1701, the son of JamesSterling, described in the register of Trinity College,Dublin, as "generosus" or gentleman.* In a letter ofhis later life, the younger Sterling referred to his fatheras one who had held a "Post of Dignity in the Army fornear fifty Years,"* and in the dedication of his firsttragedy. The Rival Generals, published in 1722, he

'The manuscript collections of the Rev. Ethan Allen, D.D. in the Maryland DiocesanLihrary, Baltimore, contain important biographical sketches of the colonial Marylandclergy. A photostat copy of Dr. Allen's "List of Parishes and Incumbents" is in theMaryland Historical Society.

'The Maryland Oazeite for June 9, 1757, announces that the first volume of his LatinGrammar is ready for the subscribers at Mr. Green's printing-office in Annapolis. Nocopy of the work is recorded.

>Burtchaell and Sadleir, Alumni DubUnmsa, page 780.«James Sterling to the Bishop of London, June 15, 1736, quoted in full, post.

30 American Antiquarian Society. [April,

expressed gratitude to the Right Honourable WilliamConolly^ because, among other pubUc and privateservices, he had "so generously contributed in the firstSession of this Parliament, to do my Father thatJustice in his Pretensions, which was deny'd him in alate Reign." A search which ended finally with thePapers of the Lords of the Treasury uncovered inci-dents in the life of a Captain James Sterling whichserved to identify him as the father referred to in thisdedication. In a memorial found among the TreasuryPapers, originally presented to the Irish House ofCommons in December, 1715, Captain James Sterlingset forth that when in Spain in 1702 as a captain in theEarl of Donegal's regiment of foot, then employedagainst Cadiz under command of James Butler, Dukeof Ormond, his health had been so injured by lying inflooded trenches as to make it impossible for him tofollow his regiment to the West Indies. In spite of therecommendation of the Earl of Donegal and the armyphysicians, the Duke had refused him sick leave andhad deprived him of his commission. In later yearsthe Duke had expressed regret for this action and,promising to procure him either a new commission or apension, had kept him in attendance at Dublin for twoyears, greatly to the injury of himself and his numer-ous family. Captain Sterling prayed, therefore, thathe be awarded half-pay for the years since his com-mission had been taken away, and that he be con-tinued on the halfpay establishment until somethingelse could be found for him. A committee of the House,of which William ConoUy was Speaker at this time,reported favorably upon Captain SterUng's memorialand requested the Lords Justices of Ireland to bring thecase to His Majesty's attention. On December 8,1715,the memorial was sent by the Justices to the Lordsof the Treasury, with the request that it be laid beforethe King accompanied by the favorable recommenda-

lWilliam Conolly was chosen speaker of the Irish House of Commons, November 12,1715. He served as one of the Lord Justices of Ireland, 1716-1729.


tions of themselves and the Irish House of Commons.^The case of Captain Sterling was promptly consideredand acted upon by the Treasury Board. On January18, 1715/16, according to the endorsement upon thememorial, their Lordships ordered a warrant to beprepared in his favor, and judging from the gratefultone of the younger Sterling's dedication to WilliamConoUy, the old soldier was afforded prompt and amplerelief from his unhappy situation.

It does not seem to be taking too much for grantedto assume that in the long-suffering author of thismemorial we recognize the father of the Rev. JamesSterling.'' Upon this assumption, we may conclude thatthe boyhood of Sterling was passed in a distressedhousehold, and that just as he was changing fromboyhood to youth his family entered upon a period ofgreater ease. It is known that this promising meniberof the Sterling family was sent to the school of Mr.Lloyd of Dublin, whence he entered Trinity College

'The papers relating to Captain Sterling's affair are found in the Public Becord Office,T. 1/193, Nos. S3, 53», 53'', 53". •

The identity of this unfortunate soldier with the father of the Rev. James Sterlingseems.sufficiently certain. The Trinity College register gives *'James" as the father'sChristian name; the son thanks William ConoUy in 1722 for helping hia father to obtainhis rights in "the first Session of this Parliament"; the Journals o/ the House of Commonsof the Kingdom of Ireland, 2d. edition, iv, 54, 58 and 59, and the Treasury Papers as citedabove give details of a petition for redress of wrongs by a Captain James Sterling inDecember, 1715, at which time was sitting the first session of a parliament, William

~ Conolly, Speaker, that was still in being in 1722, when Sterling wrote his dedication.(This Parliament expired with its fifth session in 1724.)

Sterling is remarkable for a high degree of filial devotion. In a letter accompanying apoem published in the American Magazine (Philadelphia) for September, 1758, entitled*'An Epitaph on the late Lord Howe," our poet writes to the proprietors of the magazinein the following terms:GENTLEMEN,

If you shou'd be of opinion that the following epitaph is not unworthy of the noblesubject, you wou'd oblige a correspondent by inserting it in one of your Magazines, as atribute of not only Public but Personal, gratitude, which ought not to be confined to abenefactor, but extended to his posterity; for, please to know, that the grandfather of thelate Lord Howe, when in a high employment in the reign of queen Anne, was a generouspatron to the father of the author of these lines, by presenting to her majesty a memorialof his long services iñ the wars of Ireland, Spain, and Flanders; and by farther promotinghis prétentions to an honourable post in the army, of which he wou'd have been otherwisedeprived by a court-interest in favour of a younger and \me3q)eriene'd officer.

Kent in Maryland, August 14th, 1758. .For a discussion of Sterling's contributions to the American Magazine, see the present

article, pages 56-65. ^


as pensioner on April 17, 1716, at the age of fifteenyears. He is described as scholar of that college in1718, and as having obtained his bachelor's degree inthe spring of 1720. In the common practice of thetime it was many years later, actually in 1733, thathe proceeded to the degree of Master of Arts.^ Thecollege pensioner of that period paid a fixed annualfee to the college, so that we can think of CaptainSterling's arrears of half pay as having come in thenick of time for application to a good purpose.

Sterling proved to be one of those precocious youthswho are at once the despair and the glory of literature.Between his eighteenth and twenty-first years hecomposed among other pieces a tragedy, entitled TheRival Generals, which was performed at the TheatreRoyal in Dublin and was there received, its authorassures us, with "uncommon applause." Genestdeclares, however, that the Rival Generals was "on thewhole a poor play," excusing its imperfections by acharitable reference to the youth of its author.'' The

'Burtchaell and Sadleir, Alumni Dublinenset, page 780, give these details as to Sterling'sbirthplace, age, school and college career.

%!enest. Some Account ofthe English Stage, X. 282. The preliminary matter of S<:erling'Bfirst tragedy makes it clear that the writing of this play was regarded by its author and hisfriends as an event of importance in the history of the Irish drama. In his dedication toWilliam Conolly, Sterling writes:

"I must here congratulate myself, that I have first awak'd the Irish Muse to Tragedy,and with some Vanity refiect, 1 have an Opportunity of presenting the first Tribute ofthis Nature to You, Sir, whose generous and national Temper naturally induces You totake into Your Protection the Product of Your Country, and to favour each laudableDesign that may advance its Reputation and Improvement: Nor can I omit this Oc-casion of testifying my Gratitude to Your Excellency, who so generously contributed inthe first Session of this Parliament, to do my Father that Justice in his Pretension», whichwas deny'd him in a late Reign."

In one of the two eulogistic poems in the volume Sterling's friend, Matthew Concannen,proclaims in these lines his achievement in the cause of nationalism in Irish writing:

" Long had our Stage on foreign Refuse fed.To a proud Mistress bow'd her servile Head;Her Leavings trasur'd up, and curs'd the LandWith broken Scraps of Wit at second Hand;While not one Muse arose in our Defence,Spoke our Resentment, or proclaim'd o<ir Sense;With scarce one native Note our Island rung.Her Bards untuneful, and her Harp unstrung:By you her home-born Rage she now displays,Inspir'd to merit indépendant Praise."

(.Footnote continued on next page)

193.1.] James Sterling: Poet;, Priest, and Prophet 33

play appeared in print in London in 1722, andsoon afterwards its author and his friend MatthewCbncannen went to London, carrying to that market,in the old tradition, their sheaves of unpublishedpoems, their courage, and their facility in letters. Itis told of these youthful Irish adventurers that, havingno fixed political principles, they began their Londoncareers by tossing a coin to determine their respectiveparty affiliations, and that as the result of this classicinvocation of Destiny, it fell to the lot of Sterlingto become a writer for the Opposition.^ He neverattained even the moderate success of his friend Con-cannen as a political writer, and it has been said of himthat as poet and dramatist he was so little conspicuousas to fail of inclusion in the Dwncíatí, though Concannenis preserved to memory by that distinction at least.One infers from the scanty memorials of him in thisperiod that like James Ralph, his American neighborin Grub Street, Sterling lived precariously as a politicalhack writer, spending his insufficiently employedenergies upon excursions into the field of polite letters.It is probable that his residence in London was as shortas his activities there were undistinguished, for the fewbiographical indications found in his own works seemto place him in Dublin for the greater part of thisperiod of his life. He may still have been in London,however, when his second work. The Loves of Hero andLeander, was published in that city in 1728.

The result of Sterling's poetical efforts in the sixteenyears following his graduation from Trinity College

Genest, work cited above, X. 283, questions Sterling's assertion that he had "firstawak'd the Irish Muse to Tragedy," mentioning the publication of Charles Shadwell'sRotherick O'Connor in 1720 as an earlier production, but suggesting that the Rival Omeralamay have been acted some years before its publication in 1722. The date of the firstperformance of Sterling's tragedy, however, does not appear.

•Baker, Bioaraphia Dramática, 1812,1. 687; iVoi« and Queries, 8th series, IX. pages 23,195, 237. The story of Sterling and Concannen tossing a coin to determine their respectivepolitical affiliations seems to go back to the sketch of Concannen in Theophilus Cibber'sLives ofthe Poets, V. 27-28, London, 1753, though in that relation of the anecdote. Sterlingis not mentioned by name. The incident is first associated with Sterling by name to myknowledge, in Baker's Biographia Dramática, edition of 1782. See citation in Note» andQueries, 8th series, IX, page 196, by W. A. Henderson.

34 American Antiquarian Society \ [April,I

in 1720, is found embodied in four hoóks^t-The RivalGenerals, London, 1722; The Loves of Hero and Leander.From the Greek of Musaeus, London and Dublin, 1728;The Poetical Works of the Rev. James Sterling, Dublin,1734; and r/ie Parricide, London, 1736. | The smallliterary value of the first of these may be regarded ascompensated for by its historic position in the develop-ment of the Irish drama. The Musaeus translation

'The following represent the whole of Sterling's published works as far as my knowledgeof them goes. In these entries I have made no attempt at bibliographical completeness.

The Rival Generals: A Tragedy. As it was Acted at the Theatre-Royal in Dublin, Byhis Majesty's Servants. By J. Sterling, A.B. LONDON: Printed for A. Bettesworth, atthe Red Lion in Pater-Noster-Row. 1722. Price 1 s. 6 d. 8 vo. , Copies in BritishMuseum, Harvard College Library, and Library of Congress. Daniel Hipwell, in Notesand Queries, 8th. S. IX, March 7, 1896, records editions in octavo and twelvemo printedin Dublin in this year, but I have not found copies of these Dublin editions. The ßtvaZQenerals was reprinted in Poetical Works, see below. |

The Loves of Hero and Leander from the Greek of Musaeua. By Mr. Sterling. Towhich are Added, some New 'Translations from various Greek Authors, viz. Aiiacreon,Sappho, Julian, Theocritus, Bion, Moschus, Homer. By ****** **** Esq; DUBLIN:Printed by Andrew Crooke, Printer to the King's most Excellent Majesty at tho King'sArms in Copper-Alley, 1728. 12 mo. Copy in the Harvard College Library. The BritishMuseum has a copy bearing a London imprint of the same year, i The Dictionary ofNational Biography says, under Ogle, George (1704-1746), that the,added translationswere by George Ogle, to whom the book is dedicated. The Loves of Hero and Leander wasreprinted in Poetical Works, see below. On page 67 of The Parricide, London, 1736, (seenext title) is the note: "Lately published. The Loves of Hero and Leander. F:rom theGreek of Musaeus. By Mr. Sterling. Musaeum ante omnes. Printed for J. Walthoe.Price one shilling. " This edition, presumably of London, 1736, has not been identified.

The Poetical Works of the Rev. James Sterling. DUBLIN: Printed by and for GeorgeFaulkner, in Essex-street, M, DCC, XXX, IV. 8 vo. Copy in the Library of St. Paul'sCathedral, London. ;

The Parricide. A Tragedy. As it is Acted at the Theatre in jGoodman'u-Fields.LONDON, 1736. 8 vo. Title from Notes and Queries, 8th S. IX. March 7, 18136, page196. Copy in the British Museum, and another in the Library of Congress lacking titleand all matter before the dedication. <

An Epistle to the Hon. Arthur Dobbs, Esq; Full title given in note No. 1, page 25.. Copies in British Museum, John Carter Brown Library, and in two 'private libraries.

A Sermon, preached before his Excellency the Govenor [sic] of Maryland, and bothHouses of Assembly, at Annapolis, December 13,1754. By James Sterling, A.M. Rectorof St. Paul's Parish, in Kent County. ANNAPOLIS: Printed by Jonas Green, Printerto the Province. MDCCLV. Sm 4to. Described in Wroth, History of Printing inColonial Maryland, Maryland Imprints, No. 186. Copies are found in the British Museumand the Library of Congress. For a London reprint of the same year, 'see next title.

Zeal against the Enemies of our Country pathetically recommended: ,In a RemarkableSermon, Preached before His Excellency the Governor of Maryland, and Both Housesof Assembly, at Annapolis. December 13, 1754. By James Sterling, A.M. Rectorof St. Paul's Parish, in Kent County. Published at the Request of the Lower House ofAssembly. Annapolis, Printed: LONDON reprinted, for J. Whiston and B. White, inFleet-street, MDCCLV. (Price Six-Pence) 8 vo. The London reprint of the titleentered above. Copies in the British Museum, Library of Congress, John Carter BrownLibrary, and in private hands. . i

American Magazine. Philadelphia 1757-1758. For poetical eontributions to thismagazine by Sterling, see section' V of the present article. '


and the Poetical Works are sincere creations, • notgreatly worse than the average verse of the eighteenthcentury. They have been the object of some exceed-ingly supercilious criticism by a modern writer, whoseterm "high-falutin," however, we are bound to acceptas descriptive of their style.^ Genest enters TheParricide under date of January 29, 1736, and remarksthat it was a poor tragedy, acted only five times atGoodman's Fields, adding, "the plot is improbable,and the language unnatural.'"' It seems necessary toadmit that one may not claim for Mr. Sterling's worksany great degree of literary merit, but it is an aridmind that does not recognize in them excellent materialfor the social and literary history of the period andplace in which they were written and presented to thepublic.

If one approach the Poetical Works of the Rev. JamesSterling^ in search of details bearing upon its author'slife, he will find a certain measure of reward for hispains. The volume is dedicated to Colonel CharlesLanoe and the officers of "His Majesty's own RoyalRegiment of Foot by their faithful servant and chap-lain, James Sterling." The author's style on thetitle-page and this designation of himself in 1734 as aregimental chaplain are the first indications of his newprofession that we encounter, and we may assumethat he had entered Holy Orders soon after he receivedhis Master's degree in 1733. -It is from this volume thatwe learn of the early age, between eighteen and twenty-one, at which The Rival Generals and many of thepoems were composed. Sterling tells us further, thathe had been at pains to give the names of those who

>W. Sparrow Simpson in Notes and Queriet, 8th series, IX. page 24.•Genest, Some Aeeount 0/ ÍA« English Stage, III. 482. W. A. Henderson in Notes and

Queries, 8th series, IX. page 196, allows only three performances to the Parricide, onJanuary 29 and 31 and February 2, 1736.

•The only copy of Sterling's Poetical Works, Dublin, 1734, that I have been able tolocate is that in the Library of St. Paul's Cathedral, described in the article cited in noteNo. 1, abo ve. Throtigh the kindness of one of the Cathedral vergers, I was enabled tovisit that lofty library beneath the dome in the summer of 1931, and permitted to examinethis rare volume.


wrote the complimentary verses addressed to him inthe book because it had been meanly insinuated thathe was himself their author. He asserts, too, that hispurpose in collecting and publishing his poems wasthat their lofty and serious cast might relieve him ofthe imputation of having written several scurriloussatires lately current in Dublin. We find in thevolume a "Funeral Poem on the Death of . . . .William Conolly, Esq." Evidently Sterling's admira-tion of the Irish statesman and his gratitude for theservice rendered his father endured beyond the life-time of this friend and family patron.

From many standpoints the most interesting poemsin the collection are those which have to do withSterling's wife, a successful and admired Dublinactress for whom it was his pleasure, it seems, to com-pose pieces to be spoken as prologues and epilogues.Among these were an epilogue to Richard the Third,in which Mrs. Sterling had taken the part of LadyAnne; an epilogue to the Tragedy of Lady Jane Grey,spoken by Mrs. Sterling, representing the ghost ofLady Jane; and "An Epilogue spoken by Mrs. Sterlingon her quitting the Stage. " In the last of these thepopular actress deplores the failing health which (;om-pels her to give up her profession, and in another placein the book we find a poem entitled, "Verses on theDeath of a beloved Wife. As written by her Hus-band. " This lament for departed grace and virtue isnot without genuine feeling, even though the "Emilia"whom the author mourns in sober verse was to havetwo successors in his affections within the next fifteenyears. This lady's performance in 1731 as Leiza inDarcy's Love and Ambition won for her warm praisefrom the author of the play. "Mrs. Sterling," hewrote in his preface, "in every one's opinion, as well asin mine, deserves all the encomiums we can bestow onher."^ It was probably soon after this performancethat Mrs. Sterling quit the stage.

•Genest, work cited, X-292.

1931,] James Sterling: Poet, Priest, and Prophet 37

III

We have come now to the dividing line in Sterling'scareer. A few months after the last performance ofThe Parricide, on February 2, 1736, we find him de-termined upon going as a missionary to America,having given over, one would say, the struggle forfame through the medium of poetry and the drama.Mr. Sterling's own words are our assurance that hismotive in going to the Plantations had its rise in aconviction that he could best perform his sacred func-tion in a missionary situation. The earliest record ofhis intention of emigrating is found in a letter, datedsimply June 15, in which he begs the Bishop of Londonfor appointment to the lectureship of King's Chapel,Boston, just then become vacant through the death of"Mr. Harwood." Knowledge of the fact that the Rev.Thomas Harward's death occurred in Boston on April15, 1736,' enables us to fix the date of Sterling's letterto the Bishop of London as June 15, 1736. The com-munication is given here iMY LORD

I had the Honour of waiting on You lately at Fulham withMK Hamilton, where I communicated to You my Design ofgoing to Boston in America to supply the new Church there;being invited over by the principal Inhabitants and in par-ticular by Mr Auchmuty, Judge of the Admiralty, my nearRelation.

I then inform'd your Lordship of what, I believe, no Bodycan doubt (who know my present Income, and what Prob-ability I have of being wel provided for in the Church) that mysole Motive of transplanting myself to that remote Part of theWorld is the Prospect of contributing more there to the Causeof Religion in my sacred Function, than the Corruption of theTimes wil allow in my own Country.

The indulgent Reception, I met with from You, encouragesme to make a second Application to You.

By a Ship, just arriv'd from New-England, I am assur'd thatMr H!arwood, Lecturer of the King's Chappel is lately dead; Itherefore humbly offer myseK to You, as a Candidate to fil that

^See F. W. P. Greenwood, History of King's Chapet, Boston, page 97.'Fulham Mss. Massachusetts, Box II. No. 209. Transcript in the Library of Congreas.


Vacancy; and hope, on a strict Inquiry into my Character, thatyour Interposition in my Favour wil dispose her Majesty topresent me to that smal, and uninvidious Preferment; to which,I beg Leave to say, my late Father's Services in a Post ofDignity in the army for near fifty Years give me some Pré-tentions.

I shal come recommended to You next Friday, not from aNumber of our Nobility, who are ready to use their goodOffices on this Occasion, but from some of the WorthiestClergymen in your own Diocese.

If by your Lordship's Means I shal happily succeed, Ipurpose, with God's Grace, to conduct myself not unworthy ofyour Patronage, and it shal be my only Ambition to emulate ina low Station that Zeal for the Good of Mankind, which Youhave so eminently exerted in a high one.

I am. My Lord, with all Deference, and Sincerity, Yourmost dutiful Servant

JA: STERLINGJune 15th i

Endorsed SterlingBoston K? Chapel.

It is evident from the content of this letter thatSterling's desire for missionary service had beenbrought to a head by the interposition in his affairs ofRobert Auchmuty, the elder, at this time and, foryears afterwards Judge of Admiralty in Boston.^ Atfirst invited to come as rector of the "new church;"that is. Trinity Church, he had determined, uponhearing the news of Mr. Harward's death to ask forappointment as lecturer, or assistant-minister, of themore important King's Chapel. But unfortunately forhis hopes, the Bishop determined to appoint as lec-turer of Éng 's Chapel a missionary already in servicein Massachusetts, and as an arrangement was madelocally for the conduct of Trinity, he was disappointedin that expectation too.^ One speculates but vainly in

II regret that I have not been able to determine the degree of relationship existing be-tween Judge Auchmuty and Sterling. For an account of the elder Auchmuty, see F. S.Drake, Toum of Roxbury. ,

^The Rev. Addington Davenport, missionary at Scituate, was appointed by theBishop of London to the lectureship of King's Chapel in January, 1737. Mr. Davenportand Mr. Price, rector of King's Chapel, conducted the services at Trinity until 1740, whenMr. Davenport became rector of that church. See work cited in note 1, page 3'', pages97-100.


suggesting that if Sterling, eloquent and othodox, hadserved his long years in America in King's Chapel,Boston, instead of in various Maryland parishes,Unitarianism in the United States would have arisenelsewhere than in the old center of Massachusettsepiscopacy.' Though Robert Auchmuty's interest in Sterling

seems to have been of little effect in this specific case,yet it may be that his invitation to the "new church"in Boston, "that remote Part of the World," definitelyfixed his kinsman's thoughts upon a life of missionaryservice in America. It may be, too, that his influenceupon the younger man was not confined to the plantingof this particular seed, for when we observe, a fewyears later, the quality and degree of Sterling'sinterest in colonial affairs, we are justified in askingwhether this strong emotion also had not been givenintensity by the example of his Boston relative. Oneof the outstanding American political tra,cts of theeighteenth century was Robert Auchmuty's TheImportance of Cape Breton to the British Nation,London, 1745. In this curt and vigorous essay, firstprinted in the Gentleman's Magazine for July, 1745,was set forth the plan of action that had already, amonth earlier, resulted in the capture of Louisburg.It is not certain that Auchmuty was the originalsponsor of the plan proposed in his belated publica-tion, so that the importance of his part in the takingof Cape Breton has been justly questioned. But dis-regarding this problem of wider interest, one finds iteasy to believe that the aggressiveness in the cause ofempire of his admired relative may well have givendirection to Sterling's imperialistic enthusiasm. Thefact that the crusty old Boston judge of admiralty wasreputed to be able to sit all night with his bottle and toargue clearly and effectively next morning would not,one fancies, have greatly prejudiced our cosmopolitanclergyman against his political ideas.

It was something more than a year after the failure


of Mr. Sterling's application for appointment to King'sChapel that on September 16, 1737, he took the royalbounty for passage to Maryland as a missionary ofthe Church of England.^ On November 16, 1737, hereceived from the governor of that province a letter ofinduction to the rectorship of All Hallows Parish inAnne Arundel County. He retained his incumbencyof All Hallows until July 18, 1739, when he wasinducted rector of the neighboring parish of St. Ann's,within the bounds of which lay Annapolis, the capitalcity of the Province. This rectorship, formally as-sumed on August 5, 173ft, hie resigned on August 26,1740, receiving the same day induction to St. Paul'sParish in Kent County on the Eastern Shore.* Onemay well inquire what lay behind Mr. Sterling'sresignation of the urban parish of St. Ann's, Annapolis,comprising within it the church of governor andAssembly, for the important but distinctly ruralparish of St. Paul's, Kent. I should like to thinkthat he had been drawn to the Eastern Shore bj-- thedesire for a rural retreat, that perhaps he had seenthe glorious oaks of St. Paul's Churchyard, venei-ableeven then, and mighty beyond belief in spread andgirth, and seeing them had said, "Here, anotherHerbert, in this new-world Bemerton will I walk andpray and meditate niy poems," but I have a fear thatsooner or later I shall be compelled to adopt theeconomic rather than the sentimental interpretation ofhistory to explain this townsman's removal from thepleasant bustle of Annapolis to the quiet of an EasternShore rectory.*

Settled in St. Paul's Parish, where he was to remain

iFothergill, L<at of Emigrant Ministers to America, page 57. Calendar ot TreasuryBooks and Papers, 1735-1738, page 433.

These inductions are recorded in Commission Book No. 82, manuscript state archivesof Maryland in the Maryland Historical Society, and with much other personal materialin the "Henry Fenwick Thompson Ms. Papers, Colonial Clergy" in the same institution.See also "Vestry Proceedings, St. Ann's Parish, Annapolis," in the Maryland HistoricalMagazine, VIII, 353.

»One gigantic oak in this famous grove measures 32 feet in circumference one foot aboveground. Its greatest spread of branches is 128 feet.


until his death twenty-three years later, Mr. Sterlingseems to have taken on easily enough the duties of acountry clergyman. He acquired land,^ married, wasbereaved and remarried, tended his cure of souls withdiligence, and engaged in the labors of literary andhomiletic composition. On September 19, 1743, hewas married to Rebecca Holt, widow of the Rev.Arthur Holt, late of St. Luke's Parish, Queen Anne'sCounty." A daughter Rebecca was born of thismarriage. Following the death of Rebecca (Holt)Sterling, his second wife, he was married September 7,1749,' to Mary Smith, granddaughter of James Smith,a landowner of Kent County.^ At this juncture of hislife, after twelve years in Maryland, he must havelooked with satisfaction upon his achievement in thenew country. Rector of one of the most importantparishes in the Province, twice married in that periodto women of position and property, a landowner in hisown right—he could refiect with comfort upon hisearlier life of small success. And the dream of greateraccomplishment in letters and in worldly advancementwas still with him.

'Sterling's plantation of Rousbys Recovery, a tract of 500 acres on Langford's Bay,Chester River, came into iiis possession by purchase, October 9, 1747, for the sum of 760pounds currency. The deed is recorded in Kent County Land Records, J. S. 26, folio 89.For the later history of this tract, see note 1, page 66. His smaller plantations of HuddlesRight and Rushmore must have come to him through his marriage to Rebecca Holt. Seeact of Assembly of May, 1760, archives of Maryland, XLVI, 487-489, by which he wasempowered to sell these tracts, giving bond to pay a certain part of the proceeds to hisdaughter by Rebecca (Holt) Sterling, at her marriage or majority, or in case of her deathto Arthur Holt, son of Rebecca (Holt) Sterling by her former husband. Sterling gavebond for this purpose in the form of a deed to Rousbys Recovery, dated October 4, 1760,and a year later on October 4 and 6, 1751, consummated the sale of Huddles Right andRushmore. (Kent County Land Records, J. S. 26, folio 376; J. S. 27, folio 41; J. S. 27,folio 43.)

'Records of St. Luke's Farish, Queen Anne's county, page 48, copy in Maryland His-torical Society. Mrs. Holt was the daughter of Colonel Nathaniel Hynson (d. 1721) ofKent County and his first wife, Hannah. See note 3, below. On August 27,1746, Jamesand Rebecca Sterling filed an administration account of the estate of Rebecca's formerhusband, the Rev. Arthur Holt, of which she was executrix. (Administration Accounts,No. 3 (1743-1754) folio 103, Kent County, Md.)

•Records of St. Luke's Parish, Queen Anne's County, page 56, copy in Maryland His-torical Society. Mary Smith was the granddaughter of James Smith, a large landholderof Kent County. (See Maryland Historical Magazine, XVIII, 189-192.) I am indebtedto Dr. J. Hall Pleasants of Baltimore for details concerning Rebecca Holt and MarySmith, the second and third wives of Mr. Sterling.


IVAbout two years after his marriage to Miss Smith in

September, 1749, Mr. Sterling returned to England ona visit of such importance in the present inquiry as tomake it necessary to fix its limitations as closely aspossible. It was certainly after October 5, 1751, whenhe signed a land indenture in Maryland,^ that he setout upon his journey. The time of his return is moreexactly known, for in the Maryland Gazette for August13, 1752, a notic^ informs us that six days earlier theRev. Mr. James Sterling "came Passenger" to Annap-.olis in the ship Nancy after a voyage of nine weeks.From consideration of these dates it appears that thetime of his visit to England lay roughly between theclosing months of 17j51 and the first of June, 1752. Theletter given below, addressed by him to the Bishop ofLondon during this visit, and dated simply April 20th,shows him once more a suppliant, but this time for acommon favor. His return to Maryland in August,1752, and his reference in the letter to a service there offifteen, or, strangely, "fiveteen,'" years, sets the date ofthe petition as April 20, 1752. From its endorsement,we learn that he was successful in his appeal for theroyal bounty, though a second payment of it to him isnot recorded in Fothergill's List of Emigrant Ministers.Sterling's appeal to the Bishop for this assistance isgiven below in full :̂

April 20thMY LOHD

As I resolve to reimbark, by the Beginning of next Week, forMaryland, and to continue there during the Residue of myDays in the faithfuU Discharge of my sacred. Function; myDuty obliges me now to wait on your Lordship, in Order toreceive such of your Commands, as You may judge Me quali-fy'd to execute in a remote Part of your Jurisdiction.

The Desire of availing my Country in its civil, as wellreligious, Interests, by my Travels, Discoveries, and Observa-tions; (in which I have not been disappointed; as tho Lords

»Kent County Records, J. S. 27, folio 43.»Fulham Ms3. box: "Letters of Orders 1748-1756." Transcript in tho Ubrary of

Congress.


Commissioners of Trade and Plantations will amply testify)And the Hopes of recovering my Health, much impair'd by theInclemency of various Climates, and some disastrous Accidentsamong Savage Nations, were the true Motives of my lateReturn to Europe, as indeed Those of my Going at First toAmerica were solely consciencious; of which. Sir GeorgeL3d;tleton and many other worthy Personages will assure You,I gave an incontestible and unprecedented Proof by resigning aPresentation to a Rectory of considerable Income, and theChaplainship of a Regiment, in Order to pass into a Part of hisMajesty's Dominions, where my Zeal induc'd me to believeI coud be more usefuU than at Home, and where the Effects ofmy Ministry might be extensive.

The Charges of my Passage, the Fees of Physicians, andother unavoidable Disbursements in this expensive Place,(to which my small Living is not adequate) have lay'd me undera most disagreeable Necessity of requesting from your Lord-ship's Benevolence What shame and the Fear of the leastImputation of Mercenariness have prevented Me from apply-ing for to the Generosity of other Great Men, whose Offers ofimmediate Preferment in England I have lately declin'd, asinconsistent with the scheme of Life I have purpos'd invari-ably to pursue. The Favor, I ask, (and really want, my Lord)is the Donation of the Royal Bounty, usually confer'd onMissionaries to enable them to undertake their Voyage; andtho' I plead my present Exigency rather than the past servicesof fiveteen Years; yet, I humbly hope. Those may intitle me tothe same Gratuity, which all Persons, sent to propagate theGospel in our Plantations, have receiv'd before any Trial atall of their Conduct or Abilities in such a Station.

I am, my Lord, (with my incessant Prayers for your own,and the Prosperity of the Church You preside in with so muchDignity) Your Lordships most DutifuU and Devoted servant

JAMES STERLINGEndorsed The Rev^ Mi James Sterling had my L^' Lre to theTreasury for 20'.'. Maryland

In this letter. Sterling does not seem to have thoughtit necessary to acquaint the Bishop with the secularbusiness in which he must just then have been engaged.One may not doubt that the prelate would have beeninterested, if not pleased, to learn that this applicantfor passage money to America, under the provisions ofthe King's Bounty, was at the moment seeking a civilappointment in Maryland whereof the salary and

44 American Antiquarian Society \ [April,

emoluments were considerable. It might have amusedhim, however, as it does us, to learn that Sterling hadhimself recommended the creation of the office towhich he was asking appointment. Nine days after thespiritual lord at Fulham had read and endorsed favor-ably the foregoing letter, the very temporal Lords of theTreasury at Whitehall were reading and approving "amemi of James Stirling re Appointment as CoU^ ofthe Customs in Maryland." On the next day, April 30,1752, their Lordships addressed the following com-munication to the Commissioners of the Customs :'

GENTBy Order of the Right Hon''!« the Lords Comm'? of his

Ma*.'ä Treasury I send you the inclosed Mem\ of Ja? Si erlingClerk, representing the Great necessity of appointing a (collec-tor in Maryland, for the District mentioned in the said Meni'.And it having been represented also, by Gentlemen of Dis-tinction (very well acquainted with those parts) that theappointing such an Officer would be of singular Utility to thePublick, and the s4 Mí Sterling being very strongly Recom-mended as a Person very fit for, & capable of doing verjr goodService in that Station; My Lords are pleased to direct Youto take this matter immediately into your Consideration, And,if you have no objection, to present M'. Sterling to th(im bytheir next Board, & propose a Salary to be placed for him onthe Establishment. I am &? 30'̂ April 1752 J. WEST

Apparently there was nothing for the recipients ofthis polite mandate to do except comply wit.h itsterms. Doubtless the Commissioners of the Customsrealized that a colonial clergyman, fifteen years out ofEngland, who was able to suggest the creation of anoffice with himself as its incumbent and to secure theapproval of the Lords of the Treasury to the suggestionhad behind him influence which might not be withstood.It is probable that they knew very well who was sup-porting the estimable Sterling and could have told ussurely what we are surmising in a later section of thisstudy; that is, that the ancient friendship of Sterlingwith Sir George Lyttelton, now one of the Loi-ds of

»Public Record Office, T. 11/24, page 154.


Treasury, was bearing fruit of a pleasant character forthe Maryland clergyman. And they may have pos-sessed as certain knowledge a piece of informationwhich then or later, came to Governor Sharpe ofMaryland as hearsay. In connection with this ap-pointment the Governor wrote years later, in 1760,that he understood the District of Chester had beencreated for Mr. Sterling "a few years before I leftEngland at the Instance of Mr. Nugent who havingpromised Mr. Sterling some Ecclesiastical Prefermentwhich he was afterwards unwilling or unable to bestowon him fell upon that method to get quit of him. "^As the event will show, the Governor was doing a bitof special pleading in ,this case, so, that the uncompli-mentary tone of his concluding words need not affectour judgment of the gentleman to whom they wereapplied. Just before the appointment to the collector-ship was made, Mr. Sterling had assured the Bishop ofLondon that he intended returning to Maryland forthe rest of his days, and further, that he had just de-clined "Offers of immediate Preferment in England"made him by certain "Great Men." There is noreason to doubt his truthfulness. He was probablynot anxious to secure an English living in view of hiscomfortable position as rector and landowner inMaryland. The creation of a civil office in that placein his behalf was doubtless his own choice—as itseems certainly to have been his own suggestion—rather than a device hit upon by Mr. Nugent to ridhimself of an importunate candidate for ecclesiasticalpreferment. In spite of its probable inaccuracy indetails, however, the Governor's gossip advancesimmensely our understanding of a situation otherwisedifficult of comprehension. The Mr. Nugent referredto by Governor Sharpe as Sterling's unwilling patroncould only have been Robert of that name, laterViscount Clare, and, finally, Earl Nugent. A man ofgreat wealth, acquired chiefly through fortunate

'Correspondence of Governor Sharpe, Archives of Maryland, IX, 437.

46 American Antiquarian Society ; [April,

marriages, member of Parliament, poet and patron ofmen of letters, this "jovial and voluptuous Irishman,"as a contemporary described him, was now welllaunched upon a distinguished, but not particularlynoble, political career. The nature of his earlierconnection with Sterling does not appear. He wasabout the same age as the Maryland clergyman; theywere schoolboys in Dublin at much the same time,though at different schools; they came to London inthe same decade, and attached themselves, it seems, tothe same political party. If Sharpe's gossip was basedupon fact, and Sterling had Robert Nugent as w(;ll asSir George Lyttelton among his supporters, one isbetter able to understand the attitude of the (;)om-missioners of Customs in acceding without ado, butwith an air of resignation, to the • recommendationsconcerning him made by the Lords of the Treasury.In their reply to the Treasury Board, the Commis-sioners recommend the appointment in terms thatseem quietly to disclaim responsibility for the action.^

MAY IT PLEASE YOUR LORDSHIPS.In obedience to your Lordps Commands signified to Us by

Mi West, in his Letter of the 30*̂ " ultimo, inclosing a Memorialof James Sterling representing the great necessity of appointinga CoUi in Maryland for the District mentioned in the saidMemorial, directing us to take this matter immediately into con-sideration, and if We have no objection to present M'. SterUngto your Lordp? and to propose a Salary to be placed for him onthe Establishm*.

We humbly report, that We have never had any apphcationto us, either by the Surveyor General, or the Merchants tradingto Maryland, relating to the appointment of a Collector at theplace proposed by Mi Sterling, but "as it hath been representedto your Lordps by Gent? of distinction, who are verjr wellacquainted with those parts, that the appointing of such anOfficer, will be of singular utility to the Publick, and that MíSterling is a person very fit for, and capable of doing very goodService in that Station." We have no objection to his beingplaced on the Establishment as Collector of Chester andPatapsco at the Salary of 80' per Ann, to keep a Boat, in the

•Public Record OfiSce, T. 11/24, pages 155-156.


same manner as the Collectors of North Potomack, andPocomak, in the Province of Maryland.

All which is humbly submittedCustom h? London W. L. R. C. W.G.W. E. Hooper.2 May 1752.

The final document in the case is this formal authori-zation of Mr. Sterling's appointment, addressed by theTreasury Board to the Commissioners of the Customis:^

After &c? Having considered your Report dated the 2?day of May 1752, which is hereunto annexed, on the Memorialof James Sterling, We think it will be of advantage to theRevenue that he should be appointed Collector of the Customsat Chester and Patapsco, in Maryland, at the Salary of 80'. perAnnum. These are therefore to authorize and require you toissue forth your Deputation to the said Jaxnes Sterling to beCollector there accordingly, at the said Salary of 80'. per Ann,and to keep a Boat, in the same manner as the Collectors ofNorth Potomack, and Pocomoke, in the Province of Marylanddo : And We do hereby authorize and require you to cause thesaid Salary of 80'. per Annum to be placed for the said JamesSterling on the Establishment, to commence from Lady day1752, and to be paid and payable to him in'like manner, asother the Salaries of the Officers on the said Establishment arepaid and payable : And for so doing this shall be your Warrant,Whitehall Treäry Chambers the 12*̂ " day of May 1752.

H.P. G.L. J.C.To Comm™ Customs.

This piece of business happily concluded, the newCollector of Chester sailed for Maryland about thefirst of June, 1752, for it was on August 7, as we haveseen, that he arrived in Annapolis after a voyage ofnine weeks. On the 27th of the same month, iiiiderdate of August 26, 1752, the following announcementappeared in the Maryland Gazette:

The Subscriber hereby gives public Notice to all Masters ofShips and other sea vessels, bound to the Northern Parts ofChesapeak Bay, and purposing to trade, or take in theirLadings, in any of the Ports or Rivers thereof, within thelimits assigned to his charge; that he is appointed by theHonourable the commissioners of the Customs in London,

iPublio Record Office, T. 11/24, page 155.


Collector of His Majesty's Duties in the following District; viz :From the River of Chester on the Eastern Shore, and round theHead of the said Bay to the River of Patapsco, inclusive on theWestern Shore; And he being duly qualified, according to Law,to execute his Office, requires all such Masters or Commanders,to make due Entry and Clearance of their respective Ships, orSea Vessels, and perform all other legal Requisites, at his officein New Town on Chester River; or with his Deputy, Mr.William Lux, at Patapsco; where constant and regular attend-ance shall be given.

JAMES STERLING.

There is hardly need for an elaborate defense ofSterling for allowing secular interests to divert himfrom the path of his sacred profession. It is clearenough that his evangelical ardor was not sufficientlygreat in intensity to fill his life, and it is a matter ofknowledge that there existed little scope in theEstablished Church of colonial Maryland for the playof ambition in his calling. The theoretical require-ments of his position as priest in that establishmentwere decent personal living and enough attention tohis pastoral duties to keep the machinery of his parishin operation. He seems to have given no scandal tohis community by neglect of either requisite and, theessentials of his position cared for, his alert mind andenergetic nature led him to look for advancement inanother quarter. The title of this account of him w ouldbe meaningless, furthermore, if I did not believe thatthe evangelical zeal which would have characterizedhis service in a more active missionary field found sub-limation under the existing circumstances in enthusi-asm for the political and commercial growth of hiscountry. He seems to have been genuinely religiousand genuinely patriotic, and it is not difficult to believethat in his mind the service of his country was onlyanother form of the service of God to which he wasvowed.

Whatever Sterling's motives may have been inseeking civil office, his success in obtaining it is to bedeplored, for his entry upon the larger stage of provin-


cial life worked harm to his reputation and to his ownpeace of mind. The announcement of his appoint-ment to the newly created revenue district must havecaused chagrin as well as surprise in Maryland, wherethe clergy had been expressly forbidden election tothe Assembly and, tacitly, appointment to civil office,since the conflict between the Proprietary and theJesuits in the very earliest days of the colony.^ Morespeciñc than this cause of dissatisfaction with theappointment was the fact that the coUectorship of thePort of Patuxent, in which lay Annapolis, the principalcity of the Province, was held by Benedict Calvert,natural son of Charles, 5th Lord Baltimore, and a manof property and local influence, who stood to losedirectly in fees and perquisites by this division of hisdistrict. Furthermore, the new district had no soonerbeen established than Governor Sharpe saw in it adesirable reward for the faithful services of his secre-tary, Mr. John Ridout. Add to these factors of opposi-tion the displeasure, pronaptly expressed, of the Lon-don merchants and mariners in the Maryland trade,and it becomes evident that Mr. Sterling's incumbencyof his office was not to be as pleasant as it had seemedto him in prospect.

The first evidence of an existing dissatisfaction withthe appointment appears in á letter of October 2, 1753,in which Governor Sharpe begged Mr. Cecilius Calvert,Lord Baltimore's secretary in London, to use hispersonal influence in favor of Mr. Ridout in case Mr.Sterling's commission should be withdrawn.^ It wassome months later that the affair became a matter ofofficial interest. On February 20, 1754, a petitionfrom the merchants and masters in the Marylandtrade was presented to the Lords of Treasury prayingthat Mr. Sterling's appointment be vacated. The

»The precedent established by Mr. Sterling's appointment to civil office was eited morethan once when the last Lord Baltimore was insisting upon the appointment of thenotorious clergyman, Bennet Allen, to a lucrative civil office in addition to the incumbencyof two parishes. (Se« Archives of Maryland, XIV, 432, 458.)

^Correspondence of Governor Sharpe, Archives of Maryland, VI. 8.


petition was referred to the Commissioners of Customsand to the Board of Trade. The matter appears againin the Board of Trade proceedings on March 12 andOctober 18,1754, in minutes which seem to indicate anunwillingness for action on the part of the Board untilthe Commissioners of Customs had reported on thepetition.^ But that the business continued to dragis evident. On May II, 1754, Cecilius Cal vert wroteto Governor Sharpe that "the affair of Mr Calveirt &Mr Sterling is not as yet determin'd here by the IiOrdsof Treasury 'tis Mr. Philpots fault who has neglectedit with the Commissioners of Customs your BrotherJohn promises me faithfully if opportunity serves todo Mr. Ridout Service therein."^

The following petition from the London merchantsto the Treasury is presented here in the form in \̂ fhichit was referred on February 27, 1754, to the Lords ofTrade.^ Its interest as a document of colonial com-merce is somewhat wider than its immediate applica-tion to the affairs of Mr. Sterling.

To THE RIGHT HONOURABLE THE LORDS COMMISS"».OF HIS MAJESTYS TREASURY.

MAY IT PLEASE YOUR LORDSHIPS,The Merchants Owners and Masters of Ships trading to

Maryland whose Names are hereunto subscribed on behalf ofthemselves and others concerned in that Trade, having fromtheir own Experience as also from such Information of othersas they can sufficiently depend on found great Charge andInconvenience arising from the late Creation of a New Officerof his Maty's Customs The Rev4 Mi James Stirling af3 Col-lector at Chester and Potapsco River in that Province Begleave to represent to your Lordships the Nature of such Chargeand Inconvenience that if it be your Lordships pleasure animmediate stop may be put to them.

Annapolis the Chief Town is scituated at the Mouth of theRiver Severn where is a most commodious Harbour very con-

•PubUo Record Office, T. 29/32, page 177; T. 11/24, page 354; C. O. 5/1273 (Proprie-ties); C. O. 391/61, pages 53, 233-234.

^Correspondence of Governor Sharpe, Archives of Maryland, VI. 67.sPublic Record Office, C. O. 5/1273.

193L] James Sterling: Poet, Priest, and Prophet 51

venient and safe for Ships to call and enter at, which are boundto the two great Rivers above mentioned, to wit, Potapsco onthe same side as Annapolis and Chester on that side opposite toit or there is good Anchoridge and safe riding in the Road beforethe Town, the great Bay of Cheasapeak being in this part of itno more than Seven Miles from Shore to Shore, at Annapolisresides M'. Tasker the Naval OflScer and Mí Calvert the pres-ent Collector there who had those two .Rivers within hisDistrict before the new Alteration.

This Situation of Annapolis is in the Heart of the wholeCountry and of convenient distance to every part of the Bayabove it. Here by himself and in other places by his DeputiesMi Calvert managed and executed his office with great Easeand Content to the Trade.

And We further beg leave to assure your Lordships thatwhatever may have been said of wanting a Collector at ChesterWe never heard the Surveyor General or any other Officer ofthe Customs thought it necessary if they had, a Deputy fromAnnapohs added there as was done at Patuxent, woud havebeen fully sufficient to answer all purposes and no new Chargeor Inconvenience would have attended it; Potapsco River(which is now made a part of Mí Sterlings District) lying onthe same side of the Bay with Annapolis Town and is but alittle distance from it, to what it is from Chester Town, as willvisibly appear to your Lordships upon having recourse to theMapp annexed [not in vol.] ; Before this new Appointment ofMr Sterhngs the Captains or Masters entering their Ships withany one Collector had free liberty to proceed to any part of theProvince after, without being obhged to make further Entry,And this is so Essential to the Ease and Convenience of theShipping, that we greatly wish (if it were your Lordshipspleasure) that it might be a standing Instruction from theCommissioners of His Majestys' Customs to every Collectorappointed in that Service to observe it. For now if a Ship is todeliver Goods at Annapohs it must enter there as usual, andafterwards as this New Officer insists must make a fresh Entryon passing into his District when it is likewise to dehver Goodsor Load either in Potapsco or Chester. This Second Entrycreates a Second Charge to the Shipping besides Attendanceand delay for this purpose and without the least Use or benefitto any one but the Officer as a Perquisite of his Office, This wemust beg leave to add is a new and severe Clog upon the Tradeand as an Additional Expence sensibly affects it, and in themost essential part of the Shipping, which is such a heavyand loseing Article already, that it will bear no more Burthenupon it.


We therefore beseech your Lordships from your laiownattention Care and Protection of the trading part of this Nationyou will extend your favours to this Province and be pleased toorder that the Deputation of Mi Sterling be withdrawn thatthis new office may be Vacated, or that the Shipping may berelieved and delivered from this New Charge and Incon-venience in such other manner as may be more agreeable toyour Lordships, And if your Lordships shall think proper withrespect to the preventing any illicit Trade between Maiylandand Pensilvania which we have heard Mt Sterling representedto your Lordships as a reason for creating this New Office inOrder to prevent it. We beg leave to say that we apprehend itwill not answer that End, although we do believe if yourLordships shoud think fit to order a Riding Surveyor to beappointed to the Head of Chester this illicit Trade might in agreat measure be put a stop to.

We now beg leave to repeat it with Our earnest Wishes andwith all imaginable defference to your Lordships Wisdom andJudgment that your Lordships will be pleased to restore theCourse of our SMpping business to its former easy regulation—that the Merchants, Owners, Captains and Masters may upontheir due Entry of their Ships at Annapolis or other Port inthis Province have free liberty to proceed afterwards to deliverand load at any other Port without being obliged to furtherEntry, Charge or Trouble on that Account And that this NewOffice may be vacated that the Trade may be carried on in thesame manner as it hath been for so many years past withoutComplaint or cause of Complaint from either Trade or Oificers.

All of which is humbly submitted to your Lordships.Patrick WhiteHenry CarrollWî" GracieIsaac BlackburnGeo: ColeDavid PollockJon" Sydenham

Sil. GroveMatthias GaleJn? StewartTorver&PhilpotW P PerkinsJohn PhilpotAntho : Bacon

[Endorsed]Reced Feb. 27Read March 12reced with Mî Hardinge's LreofFeby27.1754.

J. HanburyW? HuntJohn BuchananWilliam AndersonJames BuchananTho? FlowerdeiveWiUP BlackJames Kemp.

1754.

The Lords of the Treasury and the Lords of l^radeand Plantations seem to have been anxious to allow theCommissioners of Customs to take the responsibility


for a decision on this memorial. It is probable, how-ever, that the Customs, having made the Sterlingappointment under pressure from the Treasury in thefirst place, was not now in the mood to pull their lord-ships' chestnuts out of the fire. The records of all threeboards are silent as far as concerns the final dispositionof Mr. Sterling's case. There seems to have been acertain amount of working at cross purposes amongMr. Sterling's opponents. The appointment of Mr.Ridout, urged by Governor Sharpe, could hardly havebenefitted Mr. Calvert. This interested gentlemanmust have hoped for the discontinuance of the officealtogether, an expectation and desire in which, astheir memorial shows, he was joined by the Londonmerchants. And it may have been this very confusion,combined with the exertion of infiuence in support ofhim by Sterling's patrons, that prevented action uponthe petition of the London merchants.

It may indeed have been felt by the authorities thatthe institution of a new customs district on the EasternShore of Maryland was not, after all, so useless and sogenerally undesirable an action as the merchantsrepresented in their petition. The new district in-cluded the young town of Baltimore on the Patapsco,then beginning to acquire importance as an outlet forthe grain of northern and western Maryland, and ithad in its jurisdiction a number of rivers, which fiowedthrough lands soon to become more important agri-culturally than the southern Maryland tobacco coun-ties served by the District of Patuxent. But whetherit was extraordinary foresight or merely favoritism ofMr. Sterling that kept the home authorities from tak-ing action upon the merchants' memorial, the factremains that no further reference to that protest isfound in the papers of either of the three boards con-cerned. But hope was slow to die among those whowould have gained by its success. More than a yearafter its presentation to the Lords of the Treasury,Secretary Calvert, on May 20, 1755, wrote as follows

54 , American Antiquarian Society ; [April,

to Governor Sharpe: " I beg you will acquaint Mr.Calvert that Mr. Philpot has been with nie who saysthe Commissioners of the Customs will ; soon makereport of the Affair between him & Mr. Sterling to theLords of Trade & Plantation, the Effect of w*" heapprehends Certain will be Dismission of the Latterfrom his Employm* at Chester River, I think he de-serves it for chicanary. "1

One admits to a certain degree of satisfaction inlearning that Governor Sharpe and the crabbedSecretary Calvert were disappointed in their ex-pectation. In this instance, certainly, Mr. Sterlingwas one of Fortune's spoiled children. The mer-chants' petition to the Treasury, of February 27,1754, was received by a board of which his friend SirGeorge Lyttelton was still a member, and to which,as if for his special salvation, Robert Nugent, hisreputed patron, was appointed on April 6 of the sameyear.2 With these facts understood, one ceasfis towonder that the outspoken memorial of the merchantsand the devious workings of Sharpe and the Cal vertsagainst the Collector of Chester were met withevasions by the Lords of the Treasury, the Board ofTrade, and the Commissioners of the Customs. It is,indeed. Governor Sharpe's own pen that gives us finalassurance that Mr. Sterling remained long in office,protected by the walls of ancient friendship and partyservice. Still intent, as late as July 18, 1760, uponsecuring one of the Maryland coUectorships for hissecretary, John Ridout, Sharpe sent to his brotheir onthat day an account of the existing Maryland customsdistricts, concluding his iriformative summary withthe following remarks, one passage from' which hasalready been quotedr^ "The other which brings inlittle niore than the Sallary of £60 a year that isannexed to it & paid out of the Treasury is I think

'Correspondence of Governor Sharpe, Archives of Maryland, XXXI. 481.O a u d Nugent, Memoir of Robert, Earl Nugent, page 62.•Correspondence of Governor Sharpe, Archives of Maryland, IX, 437.


called the CoUectorship of Chester (for I perceive it isnot entered with the Rest in the present State of GreatBritain) & is enjoyed by the Rev^ Mr. lames Sterlingfor whom I understand it was created a few yearsbefore I left England at the Instance of Mr. Nugentwho having promised Mr. Sterling some Ecclesiasti-cal Preferment which he was afterwards unwilling orunable to bestow on him fell upon that method to getquit of him. As this Gentleman is now pretty faradvanced in Years & hath been lately much afflictedwith the Stone his Death may possibly make aVacancy within these few years, but perhaps as hisOffice was created purposely to serve him it might bethought fit to let it drop at his Decease. " One learnsfrom these sentences that in spite of the attacks madeupon his position by those who coveted it and by thosewho conceived its existence as a detriment to theirlegitimate interests, Mr. Sterling had been able to holdon to his offlce. It is probable that when his illnessovercame him in 1763, he was still acting as HisMajesty's collector at Chester, though no mention ofthis offlce is found in his obituary, in his will, or in theaccounts of his estate. In the inventory of his personaleffects, however, one finds an entry which fixes thevalue of ten shillings upon "the offlce Seal.''^ Onemay hope that he had continued the use of that instru-ment until the end.

After returning from his momentous visit to Londonin 1752, Mr. Sterling continued to figure prominentlyin the business of the Maryland church, even thoughhis interests were now divided. At the convention ofthe clergy held in Annapolis in 1753,̂ he was a leadingfigure. His associates on this occasion joined him withthe Rev. Thomas Bacon, scholar and gentleman,

^Inventories, Kent County, Maryland, No, 6, page 358.^Maryland Historical Magazine, III , 257 et seq.


remembered as compiler of the great collection ofMaryland laws of 1765, to prepare their address to theGovernor. He was chosen to preach the sermon atthe opening of a special Assembly convened onDecember 13, 1754, to vote men and supplies for theforthcoming campaign against the French. Publishedsoon afterwards by Jonas Green of Annapolis, thisSermon preached before his Excellency and both Housesof Assembly was the only piece from the pen of JamesSterling to issue from the Maryland press.^ It was athoughtful, virile exhortation, informed by learningand sound political sense, and expressed in forthrightlanguage. It was reprinted in London in the sameyear with the title, Zeal against the Enemies of ourCountry pathetically recommended. We shall returnlater to an examination of this address. Whatever Mr.Sterling's "chicanary" may have been in connectionwith his office of collector, it is clear that the Governordid not scruple to employ his golden tongue for theinciting of a stubborn Assembly to patriotic action.The reputation of this prominent Maryland clergymanseems to have spread to some extent beyond the bor-ders of his own province, for when the friends of Mr.Robert McKean of New Jersey were recommendinghim for Holy Orders, various persons in Pennsylvaniaand elsewhere solicited Mr. Sterling to write to theBishop of London in support of the candidate. Hisletter of November 1, 1756, bears cordial testimony toMr. McKean's learning and to his fitness for the holyoffice.''

It was not to be expected that so constant a votaryof the Poetic Muse as James Sterling had shown him-self to be in his early and middle years should beciomeindifferent to her as age came upon him and as ]3ros-perity and relative leisure entered his life. In October,1757, appeared in Philadelphia, published by William

•Wroth, History of Printing in Colonial Maryland, Maryland Imprints, no. 180.«Fulham Mas. box: "Letter of Orders, 1748-1756." Transcript in the Library of

Congress.


Bradford, edited by the Rev. William Smith, provostof the College of Philadelphia, the first number of apromising monthly periodical entitled the AmericanMagazine, or Monthly Chronicle for the British Colonies.Though this publication had a life of only thirteenmonths, it well deserved a longer existence. In hisHistory of American Magazines, 1741-1850, FrankLuther Mott writes that it "was bold and outspoken,and sincerely devoted to liberty and the orderlydevelopment of an American civilization." A note bythe editor in the American Magazine of May, 1758,informs the readers that the author of a poem in thatissue entitled "A Pastoral" had been "one of the first,encouragers of our magazine." From various indica-tions, one is able to say with some degree of certaintythat this contributor, further described as a "gentle-man of education and genius" was our Mr. JamesSterling. One need not be surprised, indeed, to findthis writer's ephemeral pieces in the pages of a maga-zine notable for grave patriotism and for the anti-French trend of its political policy.

In the Library of Congress copy of the AmericanMagazine, October, 1757-October, 1758, three poemshave opposite them pencilled notes attributing theirauthorship to James Sterling.^ One of these reads in

^My attention was directed to these contributions to the American Magazine by Mr. V.Valta Parma of the Library of Congress, who has given me very much appreciated aidthroughout the preparation of this study of James Sterling. I regret that this article wasalready in process of printing when the information was received, so that I was not ableto make a thorough investigation of the aspect of Sterling's work opened to view by thisdisoovery. In his History of American Magazines, page 81, Frank Luther Mott has namedJames Sterling as one of the contributors of verse to the American Magazine, but has madeno attempt to identify him. In Lyon N. Richardson's History of Early American Maga-zines, 174Î-Î789, (1931), a study directed exclusively to tho periodicals of the colonialperiod, appears on pages 119-121, a more elaborate examination of the attribution of thesepoems to James Sterling. Dr. Eichardson accepts as Sterling's the three poems so desig-nated in the Library of Congress copy of the American Magazine and adds three more onthe basis of his own excellent judgment. He refers to Albert H. Smyth, The Philadelphia 'Magazines and their Contributors, 1741-1860, (1892), in which, pages 35-41, that writercalls attention to his discovery of a British Museum copy of the American Magazinebearing a contemporary note atribuUng the poem "On the Invention of Letters" toSterling. Dr. Smyth discusses the responsibility of Sterling for other poems in thevolume and shows himself familiar with Sterling's authorship of The Rival GeneraU andThe Parricide.

58 American Antiquarian Society^ [April,

specific detail: "James Sterling, rector of St. Paul'sParish, Kent Co. Maryland, is the author of the poem."Two of the poems in question possess a common featurethat helps one accept the attribution of them toSterling, namely, the fact that each is dated from KentCounty in Maryland. With this practice of the anony-mous author as a guide, one looks through the volumefor other poems by the Kent County contributor, withthe result that one is able to suggest the followingpieces as the product of the same hand:

ISSUEMarch•1758

April1758

May1758

TITLEA Poem. On the Inventionof Letters and the Art ofPrinting. Addrest to Mr.Eichardson, the Authorand Printer of Sir CharlesGrandison, and otherworks, for the Promotionof Religion, Virtue andpolite Mamiers, in a cor-rupted age.(Attributed to JamesSterling in ms. note inLibrary of Congress copyof the American Magazine.)

The Patriot.(General resemblance instyle and in matter to thepoems attributed to Ster-ling in the Library ofCongress copy.)A piece of light verse, withLatin translation, ad-dressed to a young ladywho took shelter in thewriter's house during athunder storm.

A Pastoral. To his Excel-lency George Thomas,Esq., formerly Governorof Pennsylvania, and now

DATE LINEKent County,MarylandDeceniber 15, 1757

Kent in Maryland


General of the LeewardIslands.(Attributed to JamesSterling in Library of Con-gress copy of the AmericanMagazine.)

August The Royal Comet1758 (A poem in praise of the

Protestant Hero, the Kingof Prussia.)

September Elogium1758 (Latin poem praising King

George II, the King ofPrussia, Pitt, and others.)An Epitaph on the lateLord Howe(Attributed to JamesSterling in the Library ofCongress copy of theAmerican Magazine.)

October Ode in imitation of Horace1758 I. 22.

(In parallel columns withthe Horatian ode on theSabine wolf. The authorcelebrates his encounterwith a buffalo in the gar-den of the late GovernorOgle of Maryland. It isdedicated to Mrs. Ogle andis in reality a tribute to thelate governor.)

Other poems in the American Magazine might beattributed to this anonymous Maryland writer, butit is only in the case of the eight pieces specified thatthe indication is clear. Whatever variety the titles ofthese pieces may express, the themes are the same;"that is, religion, politics, patriotism, and praise of con-temporary political leaders. It is hardly a dis-tinguishing description of the work of an eighteenth

Kent in MarylandJuly 14th, 1758

E Comitatu Cantiin Mariae Provincia

Kent in MarylandAugust 14th, 1758

Kent in MarylandOctober 25th, 1758


century poet to say that its style is high flown, its formthe heroic couplet, and its allusions profuse andindicative of a classical training. These, however, arefeatures that impress themselves upon the reader ofthe present group of poems. It may be said, though,that in comparison with Sterling's earlier poems theinlagery of these seems better disciplined and thelanguage less resounding, a form of improyement thatmight be expected in the later work of a studiouswriter.

In the editorial introductions to this group of poems,and in the author's letters to the editor which some-times accompany them, are found biographical refer-ences that enable us to think with comfort of thiswriter of "Kent in Maryland" as our Mr. Sterling ofSt. Paul's Parish of that province and county. Thepencilled annotations in the Library of Congress copyof the American Magazine are of the greatest import-ance as evidence of this identity, but though in anearly hand, their writer and the exact period of theirinsertion are unknown, and consequently they maybe accepted only as factors in the whole sum of evi-dence. Their authority is strengthened by the cir-cumstance that in the British Museum copy of thesame periodical occurs an annotation, suggested ascontemporary by a careful student, ascribing toSterling one of the poems also attributed to him in thenotes written in the Library of Congress copy. Turn-ing now to the evidence of the poems themselves, andof the letters and editorial comment published withthem, additional basis is discovered for belief inSterling's authorship of these contributions from "aneighboring government." In note 2, page 31 of thismemoir is quoted in full a letter to the proprietors of theAmerican Magazine in which the writer from "Kent inMaryland" refers to his father as an army offlcer whohad seen service in the wars in Ireland, Flanders, andSpain. This reference seems to point clearly enough to


the identity of its writer with the Rev. James Sterlingof Rent County, Maryland, whose father. CaptainJames Sterling, is known to have served before Cadiz,and who as an officer in the Earl of Donegal's regimentdoubtless had seen active service in Ireland andFlanders. One finds, too, in the very phrasing andtone of the reference to Lord Howe's service to thefather a likeness to these features in the dedication toSterling's Rival Generals, in which the author thanksWilliam Conolly for his later and similar service to thatperennially unfortunate officer.

With the foregoing considerations in mind, the evi-dence now to be offered regarding the identity ofJames Sterling with the Kent County contributor tothe American Magazine will seem, I believe, virtuallyconclusive in character. Poems in celebration of theart of printing are rare in eighteenth-century writing,and when one learns that. such a poem is attrib-uted to Sterling in the Library of Congress andBritish Museum copies of the American Magazineand recalls that a poem on a similar theme was pub-lished under his name in Dublin years earlier, a com-parison of the two pieces seems to be demanded.The earlier poem, entitled, "A Poem on the Art ofPrinting," occupies, pages 118-121 of James Sterling'sPoetical Works, Dublin, 1734, the only recorded copyof which is in the Library of St. Paul's Cathedral.Comparison of these verses withi "A Poem on theInvention of Letters," pages 281-287 of the AmericanMagazine, Philadelphia, March, 1758, shows two piecesin the heroic couplet, alike in matter and identical intenor. The later and longer is more ambitious in his-torical and philosophical scope, but it includes, withthe artist's fine economy, practically the whole matterof the earlier. At times the ideas and language of theearlier poem have been allowed to stand withoutchange, and again the ideas remain unaltered, thoughemendations of greater or less importance have been

62 American Antiquarian Society • [April,

made in their expression. The fusion of the earlierpoem with the enlarged conception of later years hasbeen skillfully accomplished, and has resulted in anode of great dignity, einbellished by an unusual displayof learning and remarkable for its sensitiveness to thelarger aspects of literary culture. It is with satisfactionthat one accepts it as the work of James Sterling.

The foregoing bits of evidence provide more thanreasonable assurance that the author of the specifiedpoems in the American Magazine was the Rev. JamesSterling of Kent County, Maryland. Certainly theyare of such a character as to justify the assumptionof this identity for the purposes of the present study.Upon that assumption, it will be interesting to quoteseveral of the letters to the editor printed in conjunc-tion with them in the Philadelphia periodical. In theissue of February, 1758^ the editor had apologized tothe "ingenious author of the Poem on the Invention ofletters" for inserting "a collection of inferior produc-tions—in the room of his performance," and hadexplained that the poem was too long for the spacehitherto at his disposal. In the March number thepoem appeared with this introduction: "The author ofthe following poem is a gentleman of acknowledgedtaste and learning, in a neighboring government. Itwas transmitted to us with this modest apology, thathe would never have attempted to write on a subjectof so great dignity, if he could have seen any otherperson likely to undertake it. His intimacy with Mr.Pope, he says, obliged him to tell that great Poet,above twenty years ago, that it was peculiarly un-grateful in him, not to celebrate such a subject as theInvention of Letters, or to suffer it to be disgraced bya meaner hand.

"Mr. Pope, no doubt, saw that it was a very un-promising theme; and our ingenious author himselfseems conscious of this, when he complains of the'difficulty of keeping clear of vulgar thoughts, on such


an occasion, and of expressing in verse those that areabstruse, with perspicuity and precision.' We think,however, he has happily effected both, and has likewisegiven as much harmony to his periods, and spirit to hisexpression, as the measure of the piece would welladmit. There are, indeed, many beautiful passages init, equally worthy of the Poet and of the Philosopher."

Whether another reader find in the "Poem on theInvention of Letters" the "many beautiful passages"referred to by Dr. Smith is a matter of the currenttaste and judgment of his time. One interested in thehistory of printing, however, will have certain observa-tions to make upon the piece. The first of these is thatSterling proves himself to be a Costerian, supportingLaurens Coster as the inventor of the art of printingas opposed to Johann Fust. Gutenberg, who in ourday has taken the place of Fust in this ancient quarrelof priority, is mentioned only casually in a note.A more interesting remark to be made about the poemis that it seems to have been overlooked by historiansof the bibliography of printing in America. It maybe that in point of time this poem of 1758 follows nextafter John Markland's Typographia, Williamsburg,17Í30, as a contribution to the literature of printing inthe United States.

It is evident that the author of the "Pastoral" inthe issue of May, 1758, had become impatient for theappearance in print of his poem, for in introducing it,the editor of the American Magazine remarks upon thecriticism he had suffered because of the delay, andcounters most effectively that criticism by quotationof the following passages from the letter in which theauthor had submitted the poem for publication: "Asthis poetical Brat, " he wrote, "was conceived in NorthAmerica, you may, if you please suffer it to give itsfirst squeak in the world, thro' the channel of theAmerican Magazine. But if it should appear of amonstrous nature, stifie the wretch by all means in


the birth, and throw it into the river Delaware, fromwhence, you will observe, it originally sprung. Theparent, I can assure you, will shed no tears at thefuneral. If Saturn presided at its formation, instead ofApollo, it will want no Lead to make it sink, but fallquickly to the bottom, by its own natural Heaviness, asI doubt not many other modern productions, both inprose and yerse,

(sinking from thought to thought—a vast profound)

would have done, had they been put to the trial."One need not comment upon a certain quirk in the

mentality of the man of letters that makes itselfapparent in this incident—his gentle depreciation of hiswork in submitting it for publication and his fierceprotectiveness of the same work when he fears that hisinsincere estimate of it has been accepted i by anotherat its face value. The breed does not vary greatly intype through the centuries.

There is matter for amusement found in the letterwith which Mr. Sterling accompanied his poem inimitation of Horace's ode on the Sabine wolf. Onefeels, however, that he protests too much when heassures the world that he had not been at all frightenedby the encounter with a buffalo in a Maryland gardenwhich he celebrates in the poem. He had good cause foralarm, one would say, and his denial of experiencing itconvinces us no more than apparently it did GovernorOgle. "The incident, that gave rise to the followingtravesty," he writes, "was a real one. In a visit,several years ago, to the late governor of this province,at his country-seat, I was surprized, in the mannerbelow related, by a Buffalo he kept there; and happen-ing to find last week a letter of his among some otherpapers I had occasion to look into, where he humorouslyrallied me on my supposed fright, and made a com-parison between his American wild beast and Horace'swolf in the Sabine wood; it recalled the celebrated Ode


to my memory, which with pleasure I got by heart,when a boy; and I thence struck out the stanzas, I nowsend to you, in a presumption they wou'd prove someentertainment to those readers of your Magazine, whocan taste the original, and who wou'd not be displeasedto see an imitation of it with reference to our own timesand circumstances."

In reading the poems which are here assumed to havebeen contributed to the American Magazine by JamesSterling, I have found them in no degree inferior tothe bulk of American verse of the century in whichthey were written. They are characteristic of thatcentury in qualities which have already been men-tioned, and characteristic of their supposed author intheir learning, their knowledge of details of Britishpolitical life and history, their patriotism, and theirstrong belief in the American colonies. They areentirely without the condescension often displayed bythe transplanted Englishman. More than this theyare interesting for themselves. The letter publishedwith "The Royal Comet" informs us that the poemwas first composed hastily for the entertainment ofsome friends who were coming to the author's house todrink the health of the Protestant Hero, and in thesewords is found the excuse for all the modern investiga-tion of early poetry. Good, bad, or worse, one factoris present in all this verse: it was written for the en-tertainment of the educated men and women of theage. It interested them and gave them pleasure. Itmust inevitably, on that account, have importancefor us.

VI

Remaining incidents known to us in the life of Mr.Sterling are few and personal in character. We haveonly to record his death in Kent County on November


10, 1763,̂ and to quote somewhat fully from the longletter to the printer, enclosing an epitaph, whichappeared from one signing himself "Euphranor," inthe Maryland Gazette of November 17 of that year.The bereaved Euphranor began his communicationwith a series of reflections upon the folly of panegyric,hinted at qualities in the subject of his encomiumwhich had brought him criticism from low and shallowminds, and then proceeded to a more definite accountof the qualities and character of the deceased clergy-man. A sympathetic reading of this portion ofEuphranor's letter enables us to see Mr. Sterling as heappeared to his friendly contemporaries: "Agreeableto what has been premis'd, I am now to offer some-what briefly respecting the late Reverend Mr. Sterling.And First, I shall not hesitate one Moment in affirming,that by His Death the Province of Maryland has losta Great and Good Man, a most valuable Member ofSociety; and in spite of his Failings (for these no doubthe had) I am not afraid to add, that he was an Honourand Ornament to the sacred Cloth he wore, as well as

^His will was drawn October 31,1763. By its terms he left to his wife Mary a tract ofland on Chester River called "The Birthright," six hundred pounds currency, the negroes"Dick, Phill, Tom, Raine, Ham and Hamlett, Sarah her two children and Little Sam,"and one third of the residue of his personal estate. The widow, Mary Sterling, very soonmarried Benjamin Binney. To his daughter Rebecca, born November 22, 1744, by hiswife Rebecca (Hynson Holt) Sterling, he left his dwelling plantation Rousbys Recoveryand all other undesignated lands, all his sterling money, and all his negroes except thosedevised by name to his wife, and the residue of his personal estate. The will was witnessedby William Ringgold, Thomas Smyth, and John Scott, and it waa admitted to probate onNovember 21, 1763. (Kent County Wills, E. C. No. 4, foUo 169.) Rebecca Sterling,about 1764, became the wife of William Carmichael, of Maryland, who in 1780 went toSpain with the Jay commission and remained there until 1794, acting most of the time asU. S. Chargé d'Affaires. See the article under his name in the Dictionary of AmericanBiography, where reference is given to a work by Samuel G. Coe, The Mission of Wm.Carmichad to Spain (1928). Rousbys Recovery went to William Carmichael upon thedeath of Rebecca, and at his death in 1795, to his second wife, Antonia Reynon Car-michael. Their daughter Alphonsa Jane Antonia married James Blake. Together, in1809, James and Alphonsa Blake made over a part of Rousbys Recovery to Dominick T.Blake of New York. (Abstracts of Deeds in Land Commissioner's: Office, Annapolis,Maryland.) In addition to his lands. Sterling died possessed of a personal estate valuedat £2139 as shown by the final account submitted November 30, 1767, by Mary Sterling,his widow, and her husband, Benjamin Binney. (Administration Accounts, KentCounty, Maryland.)


to the Country he liv'd in ; for I will venture to assert,without fear of being contradicted by competentJudges, that his uncommon Abilities and extensiveLearning, particularly in all Branches of polite Liter-ature, stand unrival'd in this Part of the World, and Idoubt not but several of the elegant Performances hehas favour'd the Public with, will be accounted an in-contestable Proof of the Assertion. Then he wasmost certainly a Man of a warm, friendly, and feelingHeart, very easily melted down into Tenderness andCompassion for the Sufferings of his Fellow Creatures;and ready on all Occasions to relieve and assist them,as far as ever lay in his Power. It is impossible that aMan of such universal Benevolence shou'd not performall the domestic Duties of Husband, Parent, andMaster, with the utmost Care and Tenderness; andaccordingly it is well known he had a most amiableCharacter, in every one of these Particulars. He wasno Bigot in Religion, yet active and zealous in dis-charging the Duties of his Function; greatly admir'd asa noble, elegant and pathetic Preacher, by all who everhear'd him; and in particular much esteem'd by hisParishioners, which alone is no small Test of his Merit.The many joyous Hours spent in his Company (for hewas a most delightful Companion) together with a justSense of his Worth, have drawn these few hasty Linesfrom a Pen, not fond of appearing in Public on suchOccasions: And as he was himself a very considerablePoet, 'tis a Pity methinks he shou'd drop into theGrave, without some little Notice at least from theMuse.—"

It is partly by way of reflection upon the incon-sistency of man that I copy here the poetical "epitaph"which Euphranor wished to see engraved upon thetombstone of his lamented friend. Here, indeed, isthe very panegyric that its author had so sensiblydeprecated in his sober and well-modelled eighteenthcentury prose :


EPITAPH,ON THE LATE REV. ME. JAMES STERLING

Stranger, whoe'er thou art, one Moment stay.And take a useful Lesson in your Way.No Tomb superb, or speaking Marble Bust ^Here courts your Eye,—this covers nought but dust;And yet this Dust (now tremble human Pride,And lay your gaudy Trappings all aside)This humble Dust, by Worms possest, contains.All of Great Sterling that on Earth remains.All that remains of Talents so sublime.As ne'er before adorn'd this Western Clime. 'Buried in Silence lies that rapt'rous Tongue,On which admiring Crowds have often hung;To hear God's comforts to a World dismay'd, 'With all the Charms of Eloquence, display'd :Or when with sweetest Notes he tun'd his Lay, 1Enraptur'd Souls with Pleasure dy'd away: ' >But all the mortal Frame is now dissolv'd in Clay. jHis nobler Part has upwards wing'd it's flight,'To where congenial Spirits dwell in Light :And thence, with Pity views vain Man, who niust.With his whole Race, consume to Worms and Dust.

VII

The foregoing excursion into the life of an eighteenthcentury Maryland clergyman has seemed to carry usfar from An Epistle to the Hon. Arthur Dobbs, but inreality that poem has not been lost sight of in thecourse of our long digression.

From the "Advertisement" of the poem, we learnthat it had been "written in Maryland, before anAccount arriv'd there that the late Treaty of Peacewas sign'd; and hence some warm and vindictiveSentiments in the Cause of Liberty, and against theEnemies of Great Britain, were, not unseasonably,intérspers'd." In the same place the writer tells usthat "It owes its Rise to an Information the Authorreceiv'd, after the Return of the Dobbs and Californiafrom their Expedition to explore the North-West


Passage, that the generous Reviver of that nobleDesign had determined to prosecute the Discovery theYear following in his own Person." These statementsfix Maryland as the place of the poem's origin and thetime of its composition in the period between thereturn of the Northwest Passage expedition in October,1747, and the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle in October,1748, or, more exactly, between December, 1747, and

^December, 1748, because news of the events in ques-tion could hardly have reached Maryland much undersix weeks after their occurrence. The author explainsthe late appearance in print of his work, 1752, byremarking upon the death of an "ingenious Gentle-man" who more than two years earlier had carried themanuscript to England with intention of publication."This Disappointment," he proceeds "has laid himunder a Necessity, since his late Return from America,of making a few Alterations in it," and in his con-cluding sentence, he assures his readers that during hisabsence from England, he has employed himself " indevising and executing, to the best of his Abilities,the Means of Advancing its Religious and CivilInterests." We learn from the poem itself that itsauthor lived on his own plantations on the ChesterRiver in Maryland, and from another passage in the"Advertisement" that the partiality of his friendsallowed him certain talents in poetry. The poemmakes evident its author's patriotism and his interestin the colonial expansion and the commerce of hiscountry.

Brought together, these scattered personal refer-ences in the Epistle seem to construct a figure notunlike that of the Rev. Mr. James Sterling, incumbentof St. Paul's Parish, Kent County, Maryland, ownerof plantations on Chester River, a recognized poet withat least four London and Dublin publications to hiscredit and, finally, an aspirant for office in the customsservice of his country. There is no confiict in dates torender untenable the supposition that Sterling was the

70 American Antiquarian Society • [April,

anonymous author of the Epistle. The poem wascomposed in Maryland between December, 1747, andDecember, 1748, and about two years before thewriting of its Advertisement in 1752, it was sentthence to London, by the hand of an "ingeniousGentleman," for publication. Sterling is known tohave been in Maryland in October, 1747, for on theninth of that month, he purchased Rousbys Recovery,his plantation on Chester River. Other documentsshow him there in September, 1749, when he marriedMary Smith of Kent County, and in June of the year1750, and again in 1751 as late as the fifth of October.^We have no record of his movements between thisdate and April 20, 1752, when we come upon him inEngland asking the Bishop of London for passagemoney to Maryland in terms that indicate the ap-proaching end of a visit. While in England he hadbeen consulting physicians and conducting the nego-tiations which led to his appointment as collector ofcustoms. It will be allowed, I think, that he may wellhave been in England in January or February, 1752,when a Maryland Clergyman, then visting London,published the Epistle to Dobbs.^ Consideration ofthese dates leads one to conclude with reasonableassurance that at the time of the composition of thepoem and of its first transmission to England, Mr.Sterling was living on the Chester River in Maryland,where the anonymous author of An Epistle to Dobbsrepresented himself in the poem as then in residence,and further that at the time of the poem's publicationin London, Mr. Sterling was in all probability in

^sterling's purchase of Rousbys Recovery, a tract with five hundred acres of land andbuildings, is recorded in the Kent County Land Records, J. S. 26, folio 89. His marriageto Mary Smith occurred on September 7, 1749. See note 3, page 41. His presence inMaryland in June, 1750, is vouched for by a private act of assembly enabling him toconvey certain lands. See Archives of Maryland, vol. 46, index. On October 5, 1751, hesigned an indenture in conveyance of one of these tracts. See Kent County Land Reoords,J. S. 27, folio 43.

The publication of the Epistte to Dobbs occurred some time in 1752 between Januaryand March. In March, 1752, the poem was reviewed in the Monthly Bevieu), and must, ofcourse, have been issued some weeks earlier.


England, where the same anonymous author in hisAdvertisement declares himself then to be. Theparallel here shown to exist between the movementsof Mr. Sterling and those of the anonymous author ofAn Epistle to Dobbs seemed to me sufficiently arrestingto justify a further search for evidence to prove themone and the same person. The results of that searchappear in the following sections, designated, for con-venience, (a) and (b) :

(a) Reading the Epistle to Dobbs, we find the follow-ing lines claiming Sir George Lyttelton as the specialpatron of the anonymous author:

Nor yet, good Sir, thy gen'rous Talk be done!Sidney display, reviv'd in Lyttleton!Heir of his Candor, Eloquence, and Bays :

* * *Nor, 0! what Gratitude injoins, forget!

In public Tribute pay my private Debt :To Pollio pay; and with the Muse combineTo tell Society its Friend is mine :Whose Praise impow'r'd my lisping Tongue to sing.Whose Favors Flush'd Ambition's Infant-Wing:Who nor to Others, nor Himself, a Slave;By Judgment right, by Principle was brave.In whom I mark'd the dawning Rays of Truth;And Hail'd the Patriot bright'ning in the Youth ;'Till the self-kindled Fire, that scorn'd Controul,In bursting Flame illumin'd all his Soul ;Diffusive shed an Effluence unconfin'd.And shone to warm his Country, and Mankind!

In a letter of April 20, 1752,̂ Sterling wrote the Bishopof London that Sir George Lyttelton, among othersnot specified, could assure his Lordship of the con-scientious nature of the motives which had led himfirst to go to America. And we know that Sterling'sprobably unnecessary appointment as collector hadbeen rather forced upon the Customs by a TreasuryBoard of which Lyttelton was one of the members.

(b) I am aware of the danger of proclaiming identityof authorship on the basis of similarity in phrase and


idea. For all the pitfalls of that method, however, itmay be employed acceptably to add to evidence al-ready in hand, provided always that the investigatordoes not claim too much from the presence of real orseeming similarities in the pieces examined. In anycase such an exercise is a fascinating employment, andI will forego further apology and set forth the resultsof an afternoon of pleasant fluttering of leaves of theMaryland clergyman's Epistle of 1752 and the Rev.James Sterling's Zeal against the Enemies of ourCountry, the sermon preached before the Assembly onDecember 13,1754.

POEMExpressed belief in the

Northwest Passage.

page 47:"Groan We beneath

Eighty Million Loadan

page 11:"Louisiana's high Pretensions

fail.And boastful Maps at once

contract their Scale!

footnote:"[Louisiana] So the French

pompously name their new-arrogated Empire, whichcomprehends the most desira-ble Latitudes; and which theyextend in their Maps to theSouth-Sea, excluding us fromour prior Claim, and usurping

SERMONpage 23:

"to fix garrisons on all thenavigable straits . . . On-tario, Erie, Huron, Illinois,and the supérieur lake; behindwhich there are others, thatprobably communicate bothwith Hudson's bay and thePacific ocean; as these doiwith one another."

page 20:"especially as she is loaded

with an eighty milliondebt . . ."

page 22:"that while tbey are ever

and anon edging on us fromthe west, and striving to con-fine us to a comparitivelynarrow slip of land by hem-ming us in between theApalachean hills and theocean; that while they arelaying the foundations of amonarchy, greater than thefour ancient ones together,and extend their enormousLouisiana in their impudent


in their public Declarations a maps and hot imagination toRight to confine us [to] a nar- the very south-seas, and per-row Slip on the Sea-Coast." haps to Japan . . ."

page 12, footnote: page 26:[Pepperel] Well known, "Remember the brave

and renowned for reducing atchievements of your breth-with his Countrymen of New- ren of New England in theEngland . . . the strong and late war; think, how an hand-important Town of Cape- ful of undisciplined farmers,Breton." fresh from the plow, took the

bull by the horns, possess'dthemselves of their impreg-nable Cape-Breton, and in itsrendition as an equivalent forall Flanders, purchased apeace for Europe."

These parallels of phrase and idea might well haveoccurred in two compositions of different authorshipif the writer of the later had kept before him, whilecomposing, the text of the earlier. It is clear that Mr.Sterling in preparing this sermon had consultedan Epistle addressed some years earlier to ArthurDobbs by an anonymous Maryland clergyman, butconsidered in the light of the evidence previously setforth in this place, these strong similarities between hissermon and the Epistle to Dobbs seem to support thehypothesis that the Epistle too was of Sterling'scomposition. Here the case in his behalf must rest.

If one may assume for a moment that the Rev.James Sterling was, in fact, responsible for a poem inwhich the author professed his "Intent . . . . to dooccasional Justice by an honorary Notice to thoseother great examples of true Patriotism, who havecontributed to raise our Naval Glory, to establishflourishing Colonies, and . . . . to extend our holyFaith," one is justified in asking whether in its publica-tion in January or February of 1752, Mr. Sterling wasto some extent seeking patronage in the business ofpersonal preferment he had in hand at this time. Weknow that it had been written years earlier in a burst

74 American Antiquarian Society^ [April,i

of genuine patriotic fervor, and no one who reads it canquestion the emotion of patriotism as its fundamentalreason for being. We know also that its author hadmade alterations in it since that time, and it could nothave been harmful to the cause of a suppliant foroffice that a poem published by him should containeulogies of Halifax, whom he describes aSi"Brittania'sgreater Colbert"; of Lyttelton, whom he hails andpraises as his personal patron and the father of hisMuse; of Chesterfield; and of the brilliant Gran ville.AU of these political leaders had been members of theOpposition when, twenty years earlier. Sterling hadserved as one of its lesser political hacks,; and now in1752, Halifax was president of the Board of Trade;Lyttelton, his earlier patron, was one of the Lords ofthe Treasury; Chesterfield, though just then withoutoffice was still an infiuentiai personage; and Gran villewas lord president of the Council. An aspirant for aplace in the Customs could hardly hav|e aimed hisdelicate arrows at a group more likely to be of benefitto his purpose, and if the reader will turn back to thatinterchange of correspondence between the Treasuryand the Customs in regard to Mr. Sterling's appoint-ment he will feel, in rereading it, that the Commis-sioners of Customs were perfectly aware that theLords of the Treasury were supporting a favorite, andthat they were gravely and politely sarcastic as aconsequence of their knowledge. It is not by wayof criticism that I suggest this secondary motivein the publication of Mr. Sterling's poem. Our agehas subtler methods of gaining appointment thanthe frank appeal to patronage of the eighteenth cen-tury, but one may doubt if there has occurred genuineincrease in the dignity of the procedure, or if the servicegiven in office is notably of a higher order.! Before andsince men have been appointed to the Customs for lessworthy activity than the writing of a | chauvinisticpoem, and one may hope that the Epistle to Dobbsserved its author in this matter of personal aggrandize-


ment as well as the cause of his country in the rivalryof the nations. That the patriotic purpose of theEpistle gained the indulgence of his contemporaries forits artistic imperfections is apparent from the tone ofthe notice that found place in the Monthly Review forMarch, 1752. After a page of description the reviewerproceeds to the following comment :

"This epistle may not improperly be termed aPoem, tho' it cannot be ranged under any known class.It consists of a mixture of the heroic, the philosophical,the descriptive, and the ethic. The subject-matter ofit is not more various than it is new and interesting, toan enterprizing, mercantile and free nation. Theauthor's main design is to show, 'how, by cultivatingand improving, in its various climates, our large andfertile empire on the continent, and by introducingnew and valuable staples of trade, the maternal king-dom would be greatly strengthened and enriched, thedependancy of our colonies better secured, and theambitious schemes of France to rival us in trade, andmaritime power, rendered abortive.' —With respectto his poetry, it is manly, spirited, warm, and orna-mented with a variety of invention; but incorrect, andhis numbers are sometimes inharmoniously turned.However, upon the whole, the performance will notfail to entertain a candid reader, as it chiefiy breathesthe language of the heart, and abounds with goodmoral sentiments, and striking descriptions of manyaweful appearances in nature, peculiar to the northernregions; all tending to prove with Pope,

That storms and earthquakes break not heav'ns design."

In concluding this sketch of James Sterling and itsattempted identification of him as the author of AnEpistle to the Hon. Arthur Dobbs, Esq., I am fain toexpress regret that the poem about which I have madeso much ado is not a better poem, but I am consoledby the thought that much may be forgiven a poet whofears not to court the Muse, crying aloud the curt,


sibilant, and inflexible name of Dobbs, a name thatmay be rhymed only with sounds of humorous con-notation, and that must in its nature play havoc withall known metrical schemes. But it is courage, afterall, that matters, and the Epistle to Dobbs represents avaliant flinging to the breeze of the banner of Empire.It has its peculiar place in an important but singularlydull group of writings. It is better than most of thatgroup because it is different in form and nobler inexpression, and because beneath it lay a motive thatonly the cynical will question and only the loftiest ofpolitical moralists will condemn.

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