Jacob Duché (1737-1798) has a complex story. He was the grandson of Anthony Duché, a French Huguenot refugee who had fled the tyranny of France in 1682; one tradition says that he arrived in America on the same ship as William Penn.
Jacob attended the New London Academy founded by Donegal emigrant Rev Francis Alison, later the College of Philadelphia. Duché was a member of the Sons of Liberty, a brother-in-law to Francis Hopkinson, and was the first Chaplain to the Continental Congress from 6 July 1776. But later that year Duché's patriotic fervour began to waver.
At the height of his career, on 7 July 1775, he preached this sermon in Christ Church in Philadelphia, addressed to His Excellency George Washington Esquire, General and Commander in Chief of all the Forces of the United English Colonies in North America. It's on Google Books here.
Christ Church still exists today; its graveyard was the final resting place for five signers of the Declaration of Independence, and many other renowned historical figures, including John Dunlap the Strabane-born printer of the Declaration.
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