George Berkeley in America

In 1728 George Berkeley, the Irish philosopher and Anglican priest, came to America in the hope of founding a university in Bermuda and converting the Indians. He never reached Bermuda, where within a few years no Indians were left. Instead he settled in Newport, Rhode Island, one of the few places in New England that was hospitable to Anglicans. There his lively mind and sympathetic spirit involved him in a great variety of interests, though he stayed only thirty-three months.
“Westward th...