Being ordered again to the United States, he was stationed at first at Albany, New York, as barrack master, and there conducted religious services in his house.

When Barbara Heck established a society in New York City, he went thither, making his first appearance in the congregation about February 1767.

On being placed on the retired list, with the rank of captain, he thenceforth travelled much as a missionary, preaching in Trenton, Burlington, and other New Jersey towns, where he founded societies, and holding regular services in Jamaica, New York, which was his home.

He began to visit Philadelphia as early as 1767, and there founded the first Methodist society, to which he ministered until the arrival of Wesley's itinerants in 1769.

In 1772 he went to England, preached in Dublin, London, and other places, made appeals for missionaries and pecuniary aid at the conference in Leeds and elsewhere, and returned in the following year with two of the preachers that were sent in response to his solicitations.