But Fox's character was incompatible with ministerial service under King George III.
But a great alteration took place noiselessly in the manner of carrying out the laws and ministerial circulars.
After preaching four years in New York and New Hampshire, he became, in April 1773, pastor of the Second church at Franklin (until 1778 a part of Wrentham, Massachusetts), of which he remained in charge until May 1827, when failing health compelled his relinquishment of active ministerial cares.
The general strictness of the church in its requirements for ministerial education occasioned it great loss in this period when the territory beyond the Appalachians was being settled so largely by Scotch-Irish and Presbyterians.
Depretis, for his part, was compelled to declare impracticable the immediate abolition of the grist tax, and to frame a bill for the increase of revenue, acts which caused the secession of some sixty Radicals and Republicans from the ministerial majority, and gave the signal for an agitation against the premier similar to that which he himself had formerly undertaken against the Right.