James Sterling

James Sterling (1701–1763) was an Irish cleric and poet.

Life The son of James Sterling, he entered Trinity College, Dublin as a scholar in 1718, graduating B.A. in 1720 and M.A. in 1733. In that year he went to London with his friend Matthew Concanen.

In November 1737 Sterling took a living in Anne Arundel County, Maryland. He was from 1739 the minister of the Episcopal St. Paul's Church near Chestertown. His ministry lasted to 1763, and saw the brick church doubled in size.

Sterling travelled to London in 1752. He had associated in a scheme, with Benjamin Franklin who brought in backers from Philadelphia, to develop the North-West Passage. Franklin had become a sponsor of Captain Charles Swaine, who eventually made a Labrador Sea expedition in the Argo, in 1753. Sterling, however, struck out on his own, with a group of London merchants, and went to the Board of Trade for them, seeking exclusive rights to trade on the Labrador coast. Plans came to nothing, when the Board favoured the Hudson's Bay Company instead.

Works Sterling published: Henry Giffard, manager of Goodman's Fields, was brother-in-law of Sterling's first wife. Zeal against the enemies of our country, sermon preached 13 December 1754, printed at the Annapolis press in 1755. It was preached at the request of Horatio Sharpe, Maryland's governor, after an outbreak of frontier fighting.