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Essays and addresses" John Carroll was a kinsman of Charles Carroll, a Jesuit priest of great learning, courteous and con- ciliatory, gentle in his bearing and thoughtful of others, heretics or otherwise ; he afterwards became the first Archbishop of Baltimore. Both the Carrolls were fluent French scholars, having been educated at the Jesuit College at St Omer. The Commissioners, accompanied by Father Carroll and a French printer, Mesplet, arrived at Montreal. The priest served one Mass and endeavoured to convince the French clergy of the importance to them of joining the American cause: Franklin and his colleagues made the same attempt with the laity; Mesplet printed two papers and stopped, as not one in five hundred of the populace could read. The whole mission was a dismal failure. prev next |