According to the letters sent to London, the missionary fulfilled his duties with great care and with self-proclaimed betterment of public morals.
Great numbers come to church constantly.
He also established a charity school in a building erected by the community, which in 1771 saw 70 pupils and was served by several schoolmasters during Coughlan's stay. Probably that same year he was also appointed one of two Justices of the Peace, following a practice among the Newfoundland clergy since the time of Henry Jones, missionary to Bonavista, in the 1720s. While the letters to the S.P.G., which listed a steady increase in Anglican communicants, left the impression of normalcy, trouble was brewing nevertheless in Harbour Grace. In July of 1770 Governor Byron, grandfather of the poet Lord Byron, ordered Coughlan's original subscribers to pay their minister the stipend they had promised but had neglected to pay. The dissatisfaction of these subscribers, the principal merchants and planters in Conception Bay, came into the open in a court case against Coughlan by the Roman Catholic merchant Hugh Roberts.