They’d erected a huge Liberty Pole, tall as a ship’s mast, on the Bowling Green, right in front of the fort. They were always having fights with the redcoats there. If the soldiers took the pole down, the Liberty Boys would raise another one, even bigger, a totem of triumph and defiance. And the Assembly men were now so frightened that they pandered to them. Some of the Liberty boys were even standing for election themselves. “If we’re not careful,” Master warned, “this city will be governed by the mob.”

On top of all this had come the trouble with the Dissenters.

Master didn’t mind Dissenters. There had always been plenty in New York: respectable Presbyterians, the Huguenot congregation of the French church, and the Dutch of course. Then there were Lutherans and Moravians, Methodists and Quakers. A fellow called Dodge had started a group of Baptists. Beyond even the Dissenters, for that matter, there had always been a community of New York Jews.

The trouble had started with a simple, legal issue. Trinity Church was a corporation. Corporate status brought legal and financial benefits. So then the Presbyterian churches had decided that they ought to be corporations too. The issue, however, was delicate. The king’s coronation oath, and much historic legislation, obliged the government to uphold the Church of England. To incorporate a Dissenting Church might be a legal and certainly a political problem. As soon as the Presbyterians raised the issue, however, all the other churches wanted to incorporate too. The government had not agreed. The Dissenters were disappointed.

But alas, he had to admit, it was his own Church which had thrown fuel onto the fire when a truculent Anglican bishop had publicly announced: “The American colonists are infidels and barbarians.”

After that, what could you expect? The outraged Dissenters were at daggers drawn with the whole British establishment. Respectable Presbyterian Assembly men found themselves in the same camp as Liberty Boys. Just when cool heads were needed, some of the best men in the city were making common cause with some of the worst.

As for today’s preaching, Master could understand why Mercy wanted to go. The great Whitefield himself had returned to the city. The word was that the preacher was unwell, but a huge crowd was gathering to hear him. It wasn’t that John objected to Whitefield himself, or his message. No doubt there’d be some members of the Anglican congregation in the crowd. People who, as Mercy would say, were coming to the light.

But it was still a mistake. These meetings only excited the passions. Good God, he thought, next we’ll have Charlie White burning down my house and saying he’s doing the work of the Lord.

These were the melancholy thoughts that occupied him after Mercy and Abigail had gone. He felt depressed, and lonely.