Upon Father Harley's death on December 8, 1846, however, Hughes summoned Bayley to replace him as his private secretary. Shortly after Bayley assumed his duties as episcopal secretary, he was charged with an added responsibility, that of being "a sort of overseeing editor of the "Freeman's Journal"," which Bishop Hughes had taken over in 1842. In 1846, Hughes took over the direct management—appointing Bayley to take charge of it—in order to establish it on a solid financial basis. Bayley did some little writing and attended to the business affairs of the paper, but the main work was done by James McMaster, who made an excellent editor. The bishop's object having been accomplished through Bayley's efforts in 1848, he cast about for a responsible person who might purchase the paper and relieve the diocese of the responsibility. On March 27, 1848, Bayley wrote for him to Orestes Brownson asking whether he would be willing to take the weekly "out and out," promising it would afford him "at present a clear income of 12 or 15 hundred Dollars," but Brownson declined in a reply of April 3, in which he went into considerable detail, adducing various reasons why he should not accept, the chief one being that he dared not trust himself away from the direction of the Bishop of Boston. The paper was ultimately sold to McMaster, whose sole editorship was announced in the issue of July 1, 1848.