strongly and early impressed upon the soul. These are the only incentives that can prevail upon your Negro Slaves to submit to the restraint of having only one wife; and as this restraint is indispensably necessary to that increase of their numbers by birth which the cultivation of your plantations demands, it is most evidently your interest, as well as your duty, to render your Slaves not merely nominal but real Christians, in order to obtain a sufficient supply of labourers, and to prevent the total ruin of your plantations, or at least a great diminution of their produce. It is on this ground that you find so many of the most eminent West-India Planters, in their examination before the Privy Council abovementioned, recommending in the strongest terms the instruction of the Negroes in the rudiments of morality and religion; it is on this ground that it was so strongly enforced by his Majesty's Secretary of State, in his letter to the West-India Governors, in the year 1797; and it is on this ground, that the Planters in the Island of Antigua give such countenance and encouragement to the Moravian missionaries in that island, who have (as I have been informed) converted there at least 10,000 Slaves to the Christian religion. Taking it then for granted that you will be influenced by these considerations, to bestow the blessings blessings of Christianity on your Slaves, and the benefits of it (even in a temporal point of view) upon yourselves, I shall proceed to consider in what way and by what means this most desirable object may be most easily and most effectually accomplished. Hitherto, the only mode pursued for converting Pagan nations to the Christian faith, has been by sending missionaries among them, to shew them the falsehood and gross errors of their own religion, and to instruct them in the divine truths of the Gospel, and the duties which it requires of them. This mode has been more particularly adopted from very early times by the Church of Rome, which has a regular college instituted for that purpose, generally known by the name of the Propaganda Society, of which the Jesuits were for many years the chief directors and most active members, whose laborious missions to China, to India, to South America, and various other parts of the world, have long been in the hands of the public. They were attended for many years with considerable success; but since the extinction of that order, the zeal and ardour of the Propaganda Society has greatly abated, and we hear nothing now of their great success in converting Heathen nations to Christianity, though they are still, I fear, sufficiently active in proselyting individual protestants wherever they can. Among Among other religious communities, they who have most distinguished themselves in the business of conversion, are the Moravians, or, as they call themselves, the United Brethren. These indeed have shewn a degree of zeal, of vigour, of perseverance, of an unconquerable 'spirit, and firmness of mind, which no dangers, no difficulties could subdue (combined at the same time with the greatest gentleness, prudence, and moderation), and of which no example can be found since the first primitive ages of Christianity. They have penetrated into the remotest regions of the globe, have sown the seeds of Christianity among the most savage and barbarous nations, from Labradore, Lapland, and Greenland on the north, to the Cape of Good Hope on the south, and have been (as I have already observed) particularly successful in the conversion of the Negro Slaves in several of the West-India islands, more especially that of Antigua. But with the exception of these most meritorious labourers in the vineyard, not much has been done by the protestant churches of Europe, in the business of foreign missions. A few have been sent out by the Danes, Germans, and English, principally to the East Indies, where some converts were made, more particularly by the pious and truly apostolic SCHWARTZ, who executed his mission with such fidelity, earnestness, discretion, and indefatigable perseverance, perseverance, as gained him the entire confidence and affections of the natives, gave him an unbounded influence over them in their temporal as well as religious concerns, rendered his name for ever dear and sacred to their hearts, impressed them with the highest veneration for that divine religion which could produce such an exalted character, and shewed the world what might be done by an ardent and active zeal for the advancement of religion, united with mildness of disposition, with a natural úrbanity of manners, and with the most perfect simplicity, sincerity, and integrity of mind. If two or three hundred such missionaries could be found, and sent to the East and West Indies, I should not at all despair of an almost entire conversion of the Hindoos in the one, and the Negro Slaves in the other. But, alas, such characters as that of SCHWARTZ are too thinly scattered over the world, to flatter us with the hopes of such a number of them being ever collected together for such a purpose. Indeed it is now become (as I find by experience) so extremely difficult to find out clergymen of character disposed to undertake foreign missions, and properly qualified for the due discharge of them, that it is indispensably necessary to have recourse to other means of converting and instructing the Negro Slaves in our islands, than those which have hitherto hitherto been made use of. Now that which I have to propose to your consideration, is one which, though gradual in its operation, will, if carried effectually into execution, be infallible in its result. It is, THE ESTABLISHMENT OF PAROCHIAL SCHOOLS IN EVERY PARISH OF THE WESTINDIA ISLANDS, one or more in each parish, as the extent of the parish and the number of Negroes in it may require; these schools to be formed on the plan originally sketched out by DR. BELL, first established by him at Madras, and since transferred by him in an improved state to this country, where they are beginning to produce the most salutary effects. The peculiar nature, the supereminent advantages, and the extensive and beneficial effects which have been already produced by them, both in the East Indies and in this country, you will find fully explained in the appendix or postscript to this letter. After reading that, which I earnestly recommend to your most serious consideration, you will not, I trust, have any hesitation in applying it to the use of your own Negroes. And if, for the reasons above adduced, you should be of opinion (and I do not see how it is possible for you not to entertain that opinion) that the religious education and instruction of your young Negroes is essentially necessary to restrain them from the most fatal excesses in the indulgence of their sensual appetites; and that such € 2 |