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Notes 165
After studying law for five years at the Inner Temple, much against his
will, he was ordained a deacon in 1730 and priest the following year.
When his second marriage to a Miss Stanley proved to be bigamous, he
emigrated about 1735 to Philadelphia and became the assistant at Christ
Church. A High Churchman, he quarreled with the rector and was
accused by some of the congregation of being a papist. From 1737 to
1762 he was in secular employment, acquiring a comfortable fortune in
the American Indian trade. In 1762 he returned to the ministry,
becoming rector of Christ Church and St. Peter's, Philadelphia in which
position he became, despite his strong Anglican views, increasingly
tolerant. Peters was an "erudite scholar" and William Smith's staunch
ally in the development of the academy and college of Philadelphia
(D.A.B.). He was created D.D. by diploma at Oxford in 1770 through
the recommendation of the archbishop of Canterbury and several other
bishops: "the conferring this Honour . . . will be of service to the
Church of England in America" (Oxford Univ. Archives, Acts of
Convocation, BH 35, p. 138).
Mr Price: Joseph Price (d. 1807) who was entered at Peterhouse,
Cambridge, as a "ten year man" c. 1765, matriculated in 1775 and was
granted his B.D. the same year. Seeker presented him to the vicarage of
Brabourne in 1767 which he held to 1786; he was later rector of Monk's
Horton (1776-86) and vicar of Herne (1786-94) [Venn, Alumni Cantab.].
Dr Lind: Charles Lind (d. 1771), who had been Seeker's curate at St.
James's, Westminster. He held various livings in Essex: West Mersea
(1738-48), Wivenhow (1750-70) and Paglesham (1752-71). The direction
of his financial affairs which had become badly muddled had been
taken over by Jeremy Bentham, a friend of his son, John Lind
(1731-81). See the D.N.B, article under "John Lind."
Mrs Duplan: the widow of Benjamin Duplan. Duplan wrote to Seeker
from time to time about distresses of French Protestants (L.P.L. MS
1122/1, fols. 37 & 38). In 1725 he had been appointed by the Synod of
Bas-Languedoc their Depute aupres des Puissances Protestantes.
Mr Lye: Edward Lye (1697-1767), the rector of Yardley Hastings,
Northamptonshire, who had already published in 1750 the Gothic
version of the gospels to which was prefixed a grammar. Having worked
on the Anglo-Saxon and Gothic dictionary for almost twenty years, he
despaired of publishing it until encouraged by Seeker's offer of support
(Nichols, Literary Anecdotes, IX, pp. 752-53). His Dictionarium Saxonico et
Gothico-Latinum, an outstanding scholarly work in two volumes, appeared
posthumously in 1772.