Such a college, provided with able, learned, and zealous teachers, would be a formidable rival to the old academical institutions, which exhibited but too many symptoms of the languor almost inseparable from opulence and security.
King James's College would soon be, by the confession even of Protestants, the first place of education in the island, as respected both science and moral discipline.

This would be the most effectual and the least invidious method by which the Church of England could be humbled and the Church of Rome exalted.

The Earl of Ailesbury, one of the most devoted servants of the royal family, declared that, though a Protestant, and by no means rich, he would himself contribute a thousand pounds towards this design, rather than that his master should violate the rights of property, and break faith with the Established Church.
[288] The scheme, however, found no favour in the sight of the King.

It was indeed ill suited in more ways than one, to his ungentle nature.

For to bend and break the spirits of men gave him pleasure; and to part with his money gave him pain.