Some of the foremost preachers had gone back to England, unable to carry on their work without being compelled to compromise their royalist principles.

The preachers reporting were 19.
Of the membership nearly 2500 were south of Philadelphia--about eighty per cent.
At the fourth annual conference, at Baltimore, in 1776, were reported 4921 members and 24 preachers.
At the fifth annual conference, in Harford County, Maryland, were reported 6968 members and 36 preachers.

This was in the thick of the war.

More of the leading preachers, sympathizing with the royal cause, were going home to England.

The Methodists as a body were subject to not unreasonable suspicion of being disaffected to the cause of independence.