John Camm
John Camm was an Anglican minister and academic born around 1718 in Hornsea, Yorkshire, England. He attended Trinity College, Cambridge, before immigrating to Virginia, where he became a minister at Newport Parish by 1745 and later a professor at William and Mary College. Camm was a staunch Tory, advocating for the power of the Anglican Church and the authority of the British crown, and he actively opposed the growing sentiment for independence among his colonial peers. His notable resistance included advocating against the Two-Penny Acts of the mid-1750s, which aimed to reduce clerical salaries based on inflated tobacco prices. Camm's political engagement led him to write pamphlets that countered arguments for American independence, asserting that such views were treasonous and heretical. Over his career, he faced professional setbacks due to his beliefs but eventually regained his position and became president of William and Mary College. Camm’s writings, including satirical essays and personal letters, provide insight into the mindset of loyalists during the turbulent pre-Revolutionary period in America. Despite opposing the Revolutionary War, he maintained his academic and ecclesiastical roles until 1777.
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John Camm
Writer
- Born: c. 1718
- Birthplace: Hornsea, Yorkshire, England
- Died: 1779
- Place of death: Virginia
Biography
John Camm was born in Hornsea, Yorkshire, England around 1718. He entered Trinity College at Cambridge when he was twenty years old, and soon after receiving his degree he immigrated to the colony of Virginia in North America. By 1745, he had become a minister of Newport Parish; within a few years he had also become a professor at William and Mary College.
Camm would go on to distinguish himself not only as an academic and a minister but also as a spokesman. A fervent Tory who believed in the power of the Anglican church as well as the sovereignty of the British crown, Camm worked to resist the slow climb toward independence displayed among his colonial American neighbors. His resistance to Virginian claims of self-governance was first demonstrated after the Two-Penny Acts of 1755 and 1758. In colonial Virginia, Anglican clergy were paid their annual salaries in bulk tobacco which would be sold at market. Due to low yield in 1755 and 1758, tobacco prices were greatly inflated, and, consequently, so were the salaries of Anglican clergymen. The Virginia legislature decided to permanently fix the price of tobacco for clerical salaries to two cents per pound. Camm was elected to argue the case for the Virginia clergy to the Crown, where he won a favorable disposition against the colonial government’s law.
Soon after his return from England, he entered into a series of political pamphlet debates with members of the Virginia legislature. His first two pamphlets, A Single and Distinct View of the Act, Vulgarly Entitled the Two-Penny Act in 1763, and A Review of the Rector Detected in 1764, were refutations of pamphlets by London Carter and Richard Bland, each of whom argued in favor of Virginian (and American) independence. Camm argued that Carter and Bland were not only speaking the language of treason but also of heresy. Camm initially lost his position at William and Mary for his political views, but within a few years he was reinstated.
After gaining public notoriety again in 1771 for urging the creation of a bishop’s position in Virginia (thereby reducing the power of individual Virginian vestries), Camm was appointed president of William and Mary College. He was also appointed to the Governor’s Council and made rector of Bruton parish. He opposed the Revolutionary War, but was allowed to hold his position as college president until 1777. In addition to his satirical and biting political essays, Camm was known as a prolific and lively letter writer whose various epistles help describe the mind of the devout Tory in the years leading up to the Revolutionary War.