1741/2 – sometime in the 1780s), although not well-connected with colonial patriots in British North America, had an enormous impact on re-igniting the tensions within the Empire in 1772 when he mentioned the Gaspée Affair and the Royal Commission of Inquiry seven times[1] in his Thanksgiving Day sermon at Second Baptist Church in Boston.
This sermon, An Oration, Upon the Beauties of Liberty, Or the Essential Rights of the Americans, was reprinted seven times in four different cities, making it the sixth most-popular pre-independence pamphlet in British America.
[7] Already showing his radical political views and his sympathies for the developing American cause, this pamphlet argued for the return of John Wilkes to Parliament and defended the rights of the individual.
At that time John Davis, the pastor of the Second Baptist Church in Boston had left his post due to failing health, so the congregation was searching for a new teaching elder.
[12] Elder Allen remained as a "visiting pastor" for just nine months, November 1772 until July 1773,[13] Second Baptist never extended a permanent call to him.