Exploring history of priests and judges
Coughlan, the so-called founder of Methodism in Conception Bay, was by no means a dull and dour clergyman or Wesleyan partisan. An Irish convert to Methodism, he had been a lay preacher under John Wesley in Ireland and England, but alienated the founder of Methodism through his questionable ordination by a Greek Orthodox bishop and by the company he kept among circles of Methodists who differed doctrinally and religiously from Wesley himself.
By the time Coughlan was approached by people who wanted a minister for Harbour Grace and Carbonear, he had separated from Wesley and was preaching as an independent “minister of God’s Word” in Bermondsey, Surrey. After subsequent ordinations, this time as valid deacon and priest in the Church of England, Coughlan became the parson of Harbour Grace and within a few years also a justice of the peace for the district.
His original backers among local merchants did not, however, appreciate Coughlan’s unorthodox evangelization and the ensuing revival with its highly emotional conversions.
They disliked even more the intimate religious cell groups that the minister formed in which women and people without substantial means and standing in the community held leadership roles, thus reversing religiously the social hierarchy that existed in 18th-century Newfoundland.
In fact, the changed behaviour of his parishioners, especially their turning away from alcohol and other vices, gave them greater independence in their personal and family life.
Coughlan wrote of his converts in “An Account of the Work of God in Newfoundland, North-America” (1776):
Before they received the Gospel, they spent much of their Time in Rioting and Drunkenness; but when the Word took place in their Hearts, many of them not only got out of Debt, but also had to spare. Here I would remark, how groundless is that Report, that those People who grow religious grow poor, or turn Beggers (sic).
Accused of withholding the sacraments from a merchant and attacking him publicly for his lack of morality, Coughlan had to defend himself before a naval surrogate judge whom Gov. John Byron — the grandfather of the celebrated British poet Lord Byron — had sent following a serious complaint against Coughlan.
He was accused of slander, irregularities in the performance of his ministry, and of taking a bribe when administering justice. In the end, Coughlan was not found guilty but he was, nevertheless, forced to resign his commission as a justice of the peace for “the quiet of the place.”
After additional conflict in the community, the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, his main financial supporter, withdrew its support and Coughlan was forced to leave Newfoundland.
After Coughlan’s departure, other Anglican clergymen continued to serve the island’s legal system. Lewis Amadeus Anspach, a Geneva-educated, literate Harbour Grace minister and magistrate, not only wrote an extensive History of Newfoundland, but also published in 1809 a legal treatise, “A summary of the laws of commerce and navigation, adapted to the present state, government, and trade of the island of Newfoundland.” The actions of another minister at Harbour Grace, Rev. John Leigh, the first Ecclesiastical Commissary on the island, became an object of considerable public disapproval when, together with his fellow judge in the surrogate court system, David Buchan, he condemned in 1820 two Newfoundland fishermen to a Draconian flogging for contempt of court and non-attendance.
Response to that case contributed toward abolishing such surrogate courts and subsequent legal reform.