Samuel West (March 3, 1730-September 24, 1807) was a Chaplain in the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War. He was noted for greatly assisting General George Washington by deciphering a letter of treason from Dr. Benjamin Church intended for the British Admiral at Newport, Rhode Island.
A graduate of Harvard, 1754, Samuel West was a member of the committee to frame the Constitution of Massachusetts, and a member of the Massachusetts Convention to adopt the U.S. Constitution. In July of 1776, as Dartmouth's minister, Samuel West spoke in Boston concerning the War for Independence:
<Our cause is so just and good that nothing can prevent our success but only our sins. Could I see a spirit of repentance and reformation prevail throughout the land, I should not have the least apprehension or fear of being brought under the iron rod combined against us.
And though I confess that the irreligion and profaneness which are so common among us gives something of a damp to my spirits yet I cannot help hoping and even believing, that Providence has designed this continent for to be the asylum of liberty and true religion.> 1730SW001
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American Quotations by William J. Federer, 2024, All Rights Reserved, Permission granted to use with acknowledgement.
Endnotes:
1730SW001. William J. Federer, American Quotations (2014). Samuel West, 1776, speaking in Boston. John Wingate Thornton, The Pulpit of the American Revolution (Boston: D. Lothrop & Co., 1876), p. 311. Peter Marshall and David Manuel, The Light and the Glory (Old Tappan, NJ: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1977), pp. 296-297.