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The Catholic Democracy of America, 58
appointment as superior of the church in his native land was
the first of the series of marks of supreme confidence conferred
upon him by the Holy See.
The Prefect-Apostolic was not satisfied with his position of
dependence on the Propaganda. " We form," he writes, " not
a fluctuating body of laborers in Christ's vineyard, but a permanent
body of national clergy." He tells Cardinal Antonelli
that the American people will not endure the interference of
any foreign potentate, and that the Catholics must be permitted
to nominate their own superior, subject of course to the
pleasure of the Holy See. His " Relation on the State of
Religion in the United States," which he drew up for the
information of the Propaganda, is a most interesting document.
Maryland contained about 16,000 Catholics (of whom
3,000 were slaves, " of African origin, called negroes") j
Pennsylvania about 7,000 nearly all white. In Maryland,
the heads of Catholic families were for the most part planters;
in the neighboring State they were nearly all farmers except
the merchants and mechanics living in Philadelphia. In the
other English-speaking localities the Catholics were scattered
and destitute of all religious ministry, except in the State of
New York, where there were about 1,500 of them. The city
of New York was in reality then, what it now unduly
assumes to be, the capital of the United States. It was the
seat of Congress and the residence of the foreign envoys.
The first Catholic church in New York was built by the
instrumentality of the French Cónsul-General, De Crévecceur,
and the Spanish minister obtained leave to build a legation
chapel, the chaplain of which, Father O'Connell, from the
Dominican Hospital at Bilboa, was probably the first Irish
priest to settle in the United States.
We must pass over the incidents attending Dr. Carroll's,
first ministry at Baltimore, the jealousies of the old members
of the Jesuit order, the attempts to colonize the West, and the
effects of immigration after the peace, which brought in large
numbers of German Catholics. The letters of the Prefect-