Jonathan Shipley (1714-December 6, 1788) was the bishop of St. Asaph Anglican Church in London, and a friend of Benjamin Franklin. In 1774, he appealed in the House of Lords:
<At present we force every North American to be our enemy....It is a strange idea we have taken up, to cure their resentments by increasing provocation....That just God, whom we have all so deeply offended, can hardly inflict a severer national punishment than by committing us to the natural consequences of our own conduct.> 1714JS001
<I look upon North America as the only great nursery of freeman left on the face of the earth.> 1714JS002
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American Quotations by William J. Federer, 2024, All Rights Reserved, Permission granted to use with acknowledgement.
Endnotes:
1714JS001. William J. Federer, American Quotations (2014). Jonathan Shipley. H. Niles, Principles and Acts of the Revolution in America (Baltimore: 1822), p. 164. Peter Marshall and David Manuel, The Glory of America (Bloomington, MN: Garborg's Heart'N Home, Inc., 1991), 1.28.
1714JS002. William J. Federer, American Quotations (2014). Jonathan Shipley. George Smith, founder, Sir Leslie Stephen, editor, The Dictionary of National Biography 22 vols. (London: Oxford University Press, 1882; 1917), Vol XVIII, p. 111.