WHATCOAT, Richard, M. E. bishop, born in the parish of Quinton, Gloucester County, England, 23 February, 1736; died in Dover, Delaware, 4 July, 1806. Ills parents were members of the Church of England, but when he was twenty-two years of age he accepted Methodist views. Until he was thirty-three years of age he continued in business, and was a useful member of the Wesleyan connection. In July, 1769, he became a minister, and was very successful, having great ability in composing difficulties, but in 1784 John Wesley sent him to the United States as a missionary with Thomas Coke. Coke and Wesley ordained him a presbyter, an act on Wesley's part that occasioned much discussion. When he came to this country he was forty-six years of age, and was a marvellous preacher, able to move an audience, according to the testimony of Adam Clark, "as the leaves of a forest are moved by a mighty wind." His contemporaries attributed his strength chiefly to his supreme devotion. In the year 1800 he was elected bishop. After several years of infirmity, he died at the house of ex-Governor Richard Bassett, of Delaware. Bishop Francis Asbury said of him: " A man so uniformly good I have not known in Europe or America."