he asked
leave to join his mission again; but General Murray would not consent,
as there was no other person who could be depended on for intelligence
of the French movements. While M. Houdin was stationed at Quebec, an
attempt was made by the Vicar-General of all Canada to seduce him from
English allegiance, with an offer of great preferment in the Romish
Church. This pressing invitation found its way into the hands of
Generals Murray and Gage, when they sent a guard to arrest the
Vicar-General.

M. Houdin, returning to New York, in 1761, was appointed 'itinerant
missionary' to New Rochelle, by the 'Venerable Society' of England, 'he
being a Frenchman by birth, and capable of doing his duty to them, both
in the French and English languages.' During his incumbency, Trinity
church, New Rochelle, received its first charter from George III., which
the present corporation still enjoys with all its trusts and powers. It
is dated in 1762, and was exemplified by his Excellency George Clinton
in 1793. In 1763 he writes, complaining that the Calvinists used
unlawful methods to obtain possession of the church glebe. These were
the few old French Protestant families who had not conformed to the
Church of England; and Houdin says of them: 'Seeing the Calvinists will
not agree upon any terms of peace proposed to them by our church, * * *
we are in hopes the strong bleeding of their purse will bring them to an
agreement after New York court.'

The French Protestant preacher continued his pious labors at New
Rochelle until October, 1766, when he departed this life. He was a man
of considerable learning, irreproachable character, and esteemed a
worthy Christian missionary. His remains, which were the last of the
Huguenot pastors, were interred beneath the chancel of the old French
church at New Rochelle, and by the side of his predecessors, Boudet and
Stouppe. Since the removal of this sacred edifice, the ashes of these
earliest Protestant French missionaries to our land repose beneath the
public highway, and not a stone tells where they lie, or commemorates
their usefulness, excellences, or piety. Their silent graves ought not
thus to remain neglected and unhonored: some monumental record should
mark the spot where these early Huguenot preachers in America were
entombed.

Boudet, Stouppe, and Houdin were the last of the Huguenot preachers in
our land of whose histories we can find anything, and as they never can
be fully written,