Drawn into the long legal struggle between Richard Bentley and the fellowship of Trinity College, Cambridge, he became a chief opponent and spent a short time in prison for a tactless court appearance.
[1] On first taking orders he was appointed chaplain to the British factory at Lisbon, where he remained around seven years, and wrote, at the request of Gilbert Burnet, an Account of the State of Religion and Literature in Portugal for which he received promises of preferment from the bishop and from Queen Mary.
After the death of John Moore, bishop of Ely and Visitor, in 1714, he felt it impossible to remain neutral in the quarrel, and his refusal in that year of Bentley's offer of the vice-mastership of the college began his long contest with the master.
He took the lead of the fellows in the efforts made to cause William Fleetwood, Moore's successor, to move against Bentley, and in 1716 came to an open rupture with the master, because he refused to accede to his claim to the vice-mastership.
In 1722 he issued a tract entitled Jus Academicum, in which his irritation at the failure to bring Bentley to justice led him to use certain expressions questioning the authority of the court of king's bench over the university.
In 1729 Colbatch published, and in 1732 republished, a tract which finally was entitled A Defence of the Lord Bishop of Ely's Visitatorial Jurisdiction over Trinity College in general, and over the Master thereof in particular.