ABSTRACT
Born in Delaware of a Welsh family, Samuel Davies (1723-1761) began an influential career as a New Light (revivalist) Presbyterian minister in Virginia in 1747. Having settled in Hanover County, he was instrumental in spreading Presbyterian meeting houses into several neighbouring counties. This provoked hostility from the Anglican colonial élite in the 1750s and Davies became a proponent of the liberties of religious dissenters before closing his career as the fourth President of the College of New Jersey (Princeton). The letter printed below is of double significance. It reveals the value of a transatlantic evangelical network in the mid-eighteenth century in providing printed materials whose value was assessed in their contribution to the basic literacy which aided true religion in the colonies and sustenance for the spiritually anxious. The text also indicates Davies's impulse to reach out to even the most marginal—poor white and black slave elements in society.
