A colleague of Mansfield, who went to be ordained in England at about the same time as Mansfield, wrote of the problems a few days prior to the battle at Lexington and told the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, who sponsored the Episcopal missionaries in the colonies, of the difficulties of the time:
    "We view with the deepest anxiety, affliction and concern the great dangers we are in, by reason of our unhappy divisions, and the amazing height to which the unfortunate disputes between Great Britain and these remote provinces have arisen, and the baneful influence they have upon the interest of true religion, and the well being of our Church. Our duty as ministers of religion is now attended with peculiar difficulty: faithfully to discharge the duties of our office, and yet carefully to avoid taking any part in these political disputes; as I trust my brethren in this colony have done as much as possible, notwithstanding any representations to our prejudice to the contrary. We can only pray Almighty God, in compassion to our Church and nation, and the well-being of these provinces in particular, to avert these terrible calamities that are the natural result of such an unhappy contest with our parent State, to save us from the horrors of a civil war, and remove all groundless fears and jealousies, and whatsoever else may hinder us from Godly union and concord."
    Mansfield, at this time, saw it as his duty to teach the people peaceful submission to the King and the parent country. So successful was he that he reported that out of one hundred and thirty families in his churches at Derby and Oxford, there were one hundred and ten families firmly committed to the King and opposed to the Revolution. From this report, it becomes clear that the Rev. Mansfield had a large following and that his influence was felt throughout the community of the day.
    Beardsley writes, "Five or six persons, professors of the Church of England plunged themselves into it (the Revolution), guided, as he thought by the influence of  Captain John Holbrook, who 'for many years had entertained a disgust against him and his brethren of the Church, and seemed to have meditated revenge, merely because they did not gratify some private views he had about the place on which to build the Oxford Church"'.