Background
Charles was born in Ireland, in 1734, youngest of the three sons of Rev. Archibald Inglis of Glen and Kilcar, Donegal.
Charles was born in Ireland, in 1734, youngest of the three sons of Rev. Archibald Inglis of Glen and Kilcar, Donegal.
Oxford recognized his merits with the degree of D. D. in 1778.
Inglis emigrated to America about 1755 and taught in the Free School at Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
Three years later, in London, he was ordained deacon and priest and assigned with a salary of £50 a year to the Anglican mission at Dover, Delaware, with jurisdiction over the whole county of Kent. After about six years (1759 - 65) of "unwearied diligence" in this field, he departed reluctantly to become assistant to Rev. Samuel Auchmuty, rector of Trinity Church in New York City. Then began his intimacy with Rev. Thomas Bradbury Chandler of Elizabethtown, New Jersey, and together they labored earnestly for the establishment of the Episcopate in America without much encouragement from the home authorities.
Inglis was also greatly interested in the conversion of the Indians. He visited the Mohawk Valley in 1770 and corresponded with Sir William Johnson, whose practical suggestions regarding the character and needs of the Indians he incorporated (1771) in a memorial to Lord Hillsborough and the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, sent to England by the hand of Myles Cooper, which stressed the political effect of establishing the Church of England in the wilderness.
When Paine published his Common Sense in 1776, Inglis replied with The True Interest of America Impartially Stated (1776), in which he declared that Common Sense was filled "with much uncommon phrenzy, " and was "an insidious attempt to poison their minds and seduce them (Americans) from their loyalty and truest interest. "
As soon as the British army began to force Washington northward, Inglis came back and was present to help personally in saving St. Paul's from the great fire (September 21, 1776) which destroyed the mother church. The next year Dr. Auchmuty died and Inglis was appointed to succeed him. During the rest of the war his pen from time to time vigorously deplored the attitude of many people in England "who feel great Sympathy and Tenderness for the Distresses of the Rebels, but are callous to the Sufferings and Miseries of the Loyalists". At other times, in open letters under the pen name of "Papinian", he tried to convince the patriots of the error of their ways.
Four years later, August 12, 1787, at Lambeth, he was consecrated as bishop of Nova Scotia, the first colonial bishop of the Anglican communion.
He died in Halifax.
The Anglican clergy were nurtured in an atmosphere of devotion to the king and Parliament and Inglis was a true disciple. Inglis once expressed dissatisfaction that the church pews should ever be "held in common, and where men, perhaps of the worst character, might come and sit themselves down by the side of the most religious and respectable characters in the parish". His prayers for the king were as fervent as ever when the storm of Revolution broke.
Quotations: Inglis said, "When I go from America, I do not leave behind me an individual, against whom I have the smallest degree of resentment or illwill".
Quotes from others about the person
According to Rayson, temperamentally Inglis was "a quiet student and scholar who loved to spend his scanty leisure in literary and intellectual pursuits".
Inglis was twice married: first at Dover, Delaware, in February 1764, to Mary Vining, who died a few months later; second, at New York, May 31, 1773, to Margaret Crooke, who died in 1783. Of this second marriage there were two daughters and two sons, one of whom, John, in 1825 became third bishop of Nova Scotia.