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NOT A LABOURER WANTED FOR JAMAICA 
 
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 TO WHICH IS ADDED, AN ACCOUNT OE THE 
 
 NEWLY ERECTED VILLAGES BY THE PEASANTRY THERE, 
 
 AND THEIR BENEFICIAL RESULTS ; 
 
 AND OF THE CONSEQUENCES OF 
 
 
 RE-OPENING A NEW SLAVE TRADE, AS IT RELATES TO AFRICA, 
 
 AND THE HONOUR OF THE RRITISH GOVERNMENT IN BREAKING HER TREATIES WITH 
 
 FOREIGN POWERS : 
 
 A LETTER ADDRESSED TO A MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT, 
 
 APPOINTED TO SIT ON THE WEST INDIA COMMITTEE, 
 
 By THOMAS CLARKSON. 
 
 
 
 
 
 X vx 
 
 LONDON: \ 
 
 k . . ;; t 
 
 o- — 
 
 THOMAS WARD & CO., 27, PATEIlkQSTER ROW ; 
 
 AND TO BE HAD AT 
 
 THE OFFICE OF THE BRITISH AND FOREIGN, ANTI-3LAVERV SOCIETY, 
 27, NEW BROAD STREBT.y^^V 
 
 1842 . 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2018 with funding from 
 Columbia University Libraries 
 
 https://archive.org/details/notlabourerwanteOOclar 
 
A LETTER, &c. 
 
 Play ford Hall, Jpsivich. June 9, 
 
 SIR, 
 
 I HAVE not the honour of knowing you personally, but only as an upright 
 member of parliament; and as such I take the liberty of addressing you, knowing 
 that you are now sitting as a member of a Parliamentary Committee for inquiring 
 into West India concerns, as they relate to difficulties or impediments which may 
 stand in the way of a fair remuneration to the Planters in the cultivation of their 
 estates. This question. Sir, upon which you are called to deliberate, is of immense 
 importance, and will require the strictest impartiality, both towards the interests of the 
 masters and of the servants, to develope it, so as to come to a satisfactory conclusion ; 
 for if you take the side of the servants unduly against their masters, you may become 
 the means of encouraging the former to make such exorbitant demands in the shape of 
 wages, as to make it impossible for the latter to cultivate their estates; and if, on the 
 other hand, you take the side of the planters unduly against their servants, so that 
 their wages will not enable them to live, the servants will refuse to work, and thus 
 the estates will go uncultivated ; and you cannot force these to labour by the whip, as 
 they are now free men. 
 
 Certain rumours have of late reached this country, originating, I believe, with the 
 West India Planters, which I am sorry to say have found credit with some members 
 of parliament without a fair inquiry into the circumstances of the case : viz. “ that the 
 planters are in the high road to ruin; that the peasantry are idle and will n,ot work; 
 that the present wages can no longer be paid, and that the cost of keeping up a 
 plantation, with the numerous demands against it, is so great, that no profit is left 
 to the owner,” &c. Such rumours. Sir, as these have given birth to the Committee 
 at which you now sit as a member. I shall only observe at present on one part of 
 these charges, that the negroes of the present day are not the sort of people here 
 described. Their behaviour ever since the day of their emancipation has been in 
 generaX most exemplary and laudable. They have been a sober, industrious, orderly, 
 well-disposed, and moral people. Crime has so diminished amongst them, that the 
 gaols are frequently quite empty. I could bring forward individual evidence in 
 abundance that this is their character ; but I shall satisfy myself by an appeal to the 
 speech of Lord Stanley in the House of Commons, on the 22nd of March in the pre¬ 
 sent year, which contains the reports of Sir Charles Metcalfe, the late Governor of 
 Jamaica, and of a stipendiary magistrate there (to which island I shall confine myself, 
 as it contains as large a population as all the other islands in the West Indies put 
 together.) “ Six years after the passing of the Emancipation Act, and after two of his 
 (Sir C. Metcalfe’s) government, he said that the present condition of the peasantry in 
 the island of Jamaica was very striking. He did not suppose that any peasantry had 
 
 A 2 
 
 .;3r- 
 
 
4 
 
 so many comforts, or so much independence. Their behaviour was peaceahk, and in 
 some respects cheerful. They were found to attend divine service in good clothes, 
 many of them riding on horses. They sent their children to school, and paid for their 
 schooling, and not only attended the churches of their different communities, but sub¬ 
 scribed for their respective churches. Their piety was remarkable-, and he was 
 happy to add, that in some respects they deserved what they had. They were generally 
 ^oell ordered and free from crime, had much improved in their habits, and were con¬ 
 stant in their attendance on divine worship themselves, and in the attendance of their 
 children, and were willing to pay the expenses. The last report of Sir C. Metcalfe 
 was on the 4th of November, 1841, and he (Lord Stanley) had received it with regret, 
 because it contained the resignation of his government, during which he had rendered 
 most valuable services to the colony. Sir C. Metcalfe said, that with respect to the 
 labouring population, formerly slaves, but now perfectly free, they were more indepen¬ 
 dent than in other free countries. lie ventured to say, that in no country in the 
 world could the labouring population be more provided with the comforts of life, 
 or more at ease, or more free from oppression than were the peasantry of the island 
 of Jamaica. The next statement he (Lord Stanley) would read to the House, was by 
 a Stipendiary Magistrate. He said it would appear wonderful how so much had been 
 accomplished in the island, in building, planting, and digging, and making fences, with¬ 
 out a cessation of labour on the part of the jwpulation. The reason was, that the 
 emancipation from bondage to new hopes, new desires, and new responsibilities, 
 strengthened the exertions of the negro, and enabled him to labour in his own planta¬ 
 tion, and to spare time to labour in the plantations of others. And to that statement 
 was attached a most singular document, which show’ed the number in one parish, not of 
 those who had landed possessions, but of those who had entered their names as being 
 the owners of j)i'operty liable to taxation, and who had stated their willingness as 
 free men to bear their p-'-oportion of the public imposts. In that parish, in 18.36, there 
 were 317 names; in 1840, 13'21 ; and in 1841, 1866: and the number of freeholders, 
 who had become freeholders by their accumulations and industry in the island of 
 .lamaica was in 1838, 2114 ; and in the space of two ye.ars, in 1840, their number had 
 jncreased to 7340.” 
 
 Now whose reports are we to believe—those of a few interested persons, never, never 
 satisfied, or those of Sir Charles Metcalfe, who had made repeated tours over the whole 
 island on purpose to ascertain with his own eyes the conduct of the labourers there ? 
 But if Sir Charles Metcalfe’s report be true, why do we saddle the ruinous state of the 
 colonies upon the poor negroes ? Is it not probable, that it may arise in some measure 
 from the fault of the planters themselves —from their wretched system of agriculture, 
 and from their slowness to follow the most improved patterns of husbandry ? But are 
 nil the plantations in the West Indies in this ruinous condition? No. Are there no 
 enlightened men in the West Indies, who know better how to manage their land? 
 Yes; and the plantations of these are thriving, but their example, whether from a toanl 
 of capital or a dislike to innovation, is not folloiced. 
 
 You are aware. Sir, that in the days of slavery nothing could exceed the vile man¬ 
 agement of a West Indian estate. Negroes were obliged to carry manure in baskets on 
 their heads to enrich the land previous to the coming crop ; would not such a practice 
 be laughed at in England as a great waste df time and labour ? As to the plough, such 
 
o 
 
 an instrument was unknown in this part of the world some years ago. Sir James 
 Johnstone at length introduced it into Barbadoes; and his calculation was, according 
 to my friend Dr. Dickson, who advised him to try it, that the plough with four and 
 sometimes two horses, and with two attendants, did per day the work of thirty-three 
 slaves. What a saving of labour was this, and yet the example was not followed,'for some 
 years, though it greatly increased the sugar crop. It is however to be observed here, that 
 all the land in the West Indies is not ploughable, on account of a rocky or stony soil, 
 and its situation on the steep sides of mountains, and from other causes. Yet many 
 thousands and tens of thousands of acres were to be found, which were ploughable, but 
 where that instrument had never been used. 
 
 But Sir James Johnstone’s calculations were below the truth, if others, who used the 
 plough in the West Indies, are to be believed. Mr. Ashley left Jamaica in 1785. 
 While he resided upon his own estate, he was determined upon the use of the plough, 
 and we may see the result in his own statement taken from the report of His Majesty’s 
 Privy Council (folio), dated March, 1789. “ Holing an acre of canes,” says Mr. Ashley, 
 “ employs forty negroes a day, on an average of soil, for which a jobber had £7 cur¬ 
 rency, or £5 sterling. He ploughed an acre a day with two sets of eight oxen each, 
 one for the morning and one for the evening, to one plough, and it took half a day 
 more to put it in the same order for planting as land dug by jobbers. But with two 
 spells of oxen he ploughed two acres a day, and it answered fully as well as land holed 
 by the negroes. Land holed by hand is never entirely broken uj^, there being an inter¬ 
 mediate space on which the earth is heaped up. IMr. Ashley experienced, that ploughed 
 land is more likely to yield good crops than that holed by the negroes, being more 
 completely shaken by the plough than by the hoe.” Thus it appears that the plough 
 in one day did the work of forty negroes. 
 
 I find an account so similar to that just mentioned, that though it be given by a 
 planter in the French colonies, I cannot refrain from inserting it. His book is entitled, 
 “ Des Colonies Modernes sous la Zone torride et particulierement de celle de St. 
 Dominguepar M. Barre St. Venant, Paris, 1802. Mr. Venant wrote his work for 
 the information of Bonaparte. “ Instead of scratching the land,” says he, “ with hoes, 
 it must be deeply ploughed. One man and three horses will plough an arpent (rather 
 more than an English acre) per day, which is more than forty ordinary negroes would 
 do.” But why shoidd I dwell more on this subject ? See “ Lang’s History of 
 Jamaica,” a most approved work ; see “ Bryan Edwards’s History of the West 
 Indies.”—Mr. Edwards was a very large’planter, and the most enlightetwd man in the 
 Assembly of Jamaica; see also, “Notices respecting Jamaica, by Gilbert Mathesom 
 Esq.;” and many other publications, which speak in similar language in favour of the 
 plough. 
 
 Having mentioned the plough, 1 will slate only another instance to show the wretched 
 husbandry of the planters during the days of slavery, for want of other proper imple¬ 
 ments. Will it be believed that there was not even a common muck-fork to be found in 
 all Barbadoes, which is found in every farmyard throughout England ? My friend. Dr. 
 Dickson before mentioned, one of the ablest and most intelligent writers on West 
 Indian concerns, says positively in his work entitled “Mitigation of Slavery,” tliat 
 when he was in Barbadoes, now about sixty years ago, the only instruments then used 
 upon the land were the basket and the hoc. Mr. Venant says the same thing of St. 
 
6 
 
 Domingo, and speaks of the impolicy of carrying muck on the heads of negro women 
 in baskets, and of not using the mmk-fork. “ Four negro men,” says he, “ with the 
 dexterous use of the spade and muck-fork, will load a cart with earth or dung in less 
 time than ten women can with baskets in the present way.” But to return to Dr. 
 Dickson. “ When a cart,” says he, “ happens to be used in conveying town or stable 
 dung to some distant plantation or field, the negroes first fill the baskets with their 
 hoes (who could think of such a scraping instrument for such a purpose), and then 
 empty them into the cart, there being 710 such thing as a muck-fork. Hardly a 
 plough, harrow, roller, or horse-hoe is used in all the West Indies.” But to complete 
 tiis bad husbandry of the planter, he goes on to say, “ Planted grass and green 
 Guinea corn are slowly and climsily cut with a common knife, instead of a scythe, 
 or sickle ; need we wonder then that the planters are poor and pinched.” This 
 latter fact is scarcely credible, but that Dr. Dickson, who was private secretary to 
 Governor Hay of Barbadoes, was a man of religious principle, and that he published 
 and advertised his book in London in 1814, when the West India interest was actively 
 employed in watching the comiiij, out of hostile publications, with a view of answering 
 them ; but an answer to Dr. Dickson’s book was never attempted. Now, Sir, this 
 wretched system of husbandry, with a number of other defects, was in use when 
 emancipation took place. When the planters and their overseers had to deal with a 
 new description of labourers, namely, the emancipated slaves, can it be supposed, then^ 
 that these have got far into a new and much better system of husbandry in so short 
 :i time as since emancipation, unless compelled by circumstances ? That they have 
 advanced some little since that epoch I believe. But do not these remarks show you 
 ti;at, though some little improvement may have taken place, the present ruinous state 
 of the planters may be owing partly to themselves, and that it ought not wholly to 
 be laid upon the present peasantry. 
 
 [ shall now. Sir, attempt to show you that the conduct of the planters, I mean of 
 so)ne of the planters (for I always mean that there are exceptions), has been not 
 only unjust, but highly impolitic, since emancipation, and that they have to thank 
 themselves only for the situation into which they are notv brought. If they complain 
 of a want of labour, or if they complain that the labour hitherto performed has not 
 been adequate to their wants, this charge will recoil upon themselves, and is owing, 
 among other things, to the bad management of their estates. Of the quantity of 
 labour done in a day they can have no reason to complain, for every peasant now does 
 twice the work which he did when a s/awe, when justly treated and fairly and punc- 
 tunliv paid. The holing of an acre of canes now costs them only £3 10s. Od.; 
 it used to cost them in the days of slavery £7. 
 
 And, first, as to a want of labourers. It was exceedingly difficult, where the 
 labourers, as in the days of slavery, had been paid nothing for their work, to estimate 
 what would be the fair and just wages now that they were to be paid something for 
 their labour. The emancipated slaves asked so much per day, at the rate at which 
 they had been valued by their masters themselves previous to the apprenticeship, with 
 a view of being re-imbursed for their value. They had no other standard by which to 
 judge. Their masters to get more money valued them in general at a higher rate 
 than they ought in justice to have done. The negroes charged accordingly for their 
 labour. The fault, then, of their asking too much was owing, at the outset, to the 
 
7 
 
 cupidity of some of the planters themselves. But the negroes were willing to take less 
 than they had asked, if it could be shown them that this was fair ; they wanted only 
 a fair remuneration for their labour. A number of proprietors, in consequence, made 
 them fair offers, and thousands went to work immediately with their old masters, at 
 least with such as had treated them well. The rest of the planters and overseers held 
 out. They would not pay them fair wages as the others had done. Thousands in 
 consequence were unemployed ; many months passed without any or comparatively but 
 little work being done upon their estates, and these estates suffered, as well they might, 
 most severely. Now, whose fault w'as it that for so many months these estates were 
 without their proper cultivators ? It was clearly the fault of those planters and over¬ 
 seers who would not pay them as others did. Is the negro to work for nothing.!' 
 
 I shall now show you, in another case, that some of the planters have no right 
 whatever to complain of a want of labour. It is the>r own fault, again, that they 
 have not had as much of it as they have had before. Irritated at what they called 
 the exorbitant wages which the labourers demanded, which a Jamaica newspaper tells 
 me was only Is. 6d. per day, and thinking that th»\ could trample upon them with 
 impunity, as they did when they were slaves, they determined upon a certain but a 
 most impolitic expedient, and this w'as to raise the rents of the huts or cottages in 
 which the labourers lived, to an amount which should reimburse them for the alleged 
 high price of their labour. That They had an undoubted right to do this every one 
 must allow; but, unhappily for themselves, they went too far in this matter, for they 
 charged rents in many instances which it was impossible for the labourers to pay, even 
 to the amount of nearly all their wages. They fixed a shilling a week per head on 
 each hut or cottage for every person, man, woman, and child, who occupied it; so 
 that if a man, with his wife, and a grandfather and grandmother, and children, were 
 to the number of ten or twelve to occupy it, the master of the family was charged with 
 ten or twelve shillings a week, and this for a hut or cottage made of the branches of 
 trees, with a small garden, and which cottage did not cost the owner £10 in raising it 
 from the ground; thus charging £25 a year for the outlay of only £10. What would 
 our cottagers say to this, who pay only from £3 to £5 a year for their premises ? 
 Incredible as this is, it is nevertheless true ; I assert it from their own papers. Now, 
 what was the consequence of this procedure ? The tenants became dissatisfied; 
 indeed, they could not maintain themselves and families with such prodigious rents to 
 pay, such drawbacks from their wages. What, then, were they to do ? Some of them 
 had saved a little money, and they determined to buy little freeholds for themselves* 
 Some of these, if they had more money than they wanted for this purpose, generously 
 lent it to others of their own class who were poor. They then procured the assist¬ 
 ance of some of the white inhabitants to purchase land for them in eligible situations, 
 and when this land was purchased, they left their masters and settled there. They 
 built houses, and fenced in their gardens. I do not know the number of labourers who 
 thus left their employers, but I believe many hundreds, for there are no less than ten 
 or mare large villages erected in different parts of Jamaica, which give an agreeable 
 appearance to the country; and new villages, of which I shall say something hereafter, 
 and new villages are yet rising up from the same cause, by the last accounts from that 
 island. And now, I would ask, if the planters complain of a want of labour, whose fault 
 was it in this instance, that many hundreds of labourers ceased to work for their masters ? 
 
8 
 
 Were not those planters to blame who resorted to the impolitic expedient before men¬ 
 tioned ? I am, however, happy to say that the labour in this instance has not been 
 wholly lost to the planters themselves, for many who live in these new villages work 
 for other masters in their neighbourhood. The negro peasant will work for any man 
 who will pay him and treat him properly. But not only were the negroes obliged to 
 leave their cottages on account of the heavy rents, but in one instance, at any rate, the 
 labourers of a whole estate were compelled to seek shelter elsewhere in consequence of 
 their cottages being wantonly destroyed by fire. A Jamaica paper now before me, of 
 March 30th of this year, gives the following account: “ These towns,” says the 
 editor, alluding to the new villages which I have just mentioned, “ owe their origin, 
 like most other noble and beneficial undertakings, to want and necessity. Shortly after 
 the abrogation of the apprehticeship system, the houses of the labourers on Hog 
 Hole estate were wantonly destroyed by fire. Destitute of a home, the people re" 
 sorted to Miss O’Meally, the former proprietor of the land which constitutes the town¬ 
 ships, and implored her to sell them a portion of her property. Though disinclined to 
 do so, her humane and Christian heart could not disregard the cries of suffering 
 humanity, and she formed the noble design of selling the greater part of her property in 
 small portions to the destitute labourers of Hog Hole estate.” I do not know the 
 cause of this ejectment by fire. Perhaps the labourers had received a legal ejectment, 
 and had not obeyed it, or perhaps had not paid their rents. But it is mentioned here 
 as a wanton act of violence. I shall only add, that to unroof the houses of the labourers 
 to force them to work (no house or no employment) was an expedient frequently 
 resorted to for this purpose. 
 
 There is another cause of the abandonment of the plantations by the peasantry 
 quite distinct from the former, which is, that on many estates they are not regularly- 
 paid, and sometimes not for weeks or months together. I was greatly surprised, on 
 reading one of the Jamaica newspapers of April last, to find the editor saying that he 
 could name estates where the negroes had to wait till even the crop time for their pay; 
 that is, till a certain quantity of the new sugar was shipped, and the bill of lading for 
 shipment duly signed. Now, Sir, what could be the cause of this new oppressive 
 procedure? It must have been, I fear, that the proprietors wanted capital; and I take 
 this to be the case, because the same editor, in another part of the paper, laments that 
 though twenty millions were paid to the planters for their slaves, this sum has been in¬ 
 vested elsewhere; none of it, to his knowledge, having been employed in improving the 
 wretched agriculture of the country. 
 
 As it is my object to make my letter as short as possible, I shall here omit the 
 mention of many things which I might othenvise have stated. I have given you three 
 cases, where some of the planters (at least in two of them) must have suffered severely 
 for want of labourers; but this suffering originated vnth themselves. But may they 
 not have suffered besides from their own bad hnisbandry 1 If a plantation goes on so 
 as not to repay its owners from the bad management of the overseers, is the poor negro 
 to be blamed ? If heavy expenses are incurred where a more economical system 
 might have been pureued, what wonder if the owner of it should be embarrassed ? 
 
 I am entirely of opinion that a great change of husbandry is absolutely required in 
 the West Indies to remunerate the planter, and that if a wholesome change were 
 adopted, they might thrice as well as any other skilful farmer. The negroes have 
 
9 
 
 nothing to do with the success of the plantation in this respect, except that their wages 
 may be too high, and this would certainly be a great drawback from its profits. It 
 is the overseer who is the man to plan for the estate, and who has the most to do in 
 promoting its welfare. I will now say a few words on this part of the subject. 
 
 I may begin by observing that a new state of society now exists in the West Indies, 
 and it is folly to think of carrying on cultivation with free men, who are to be paid for 
 their labour, as with slaves. It is preposterous to think of managing an estate, with 
 advantage, by the old and expensive machinery of attorneys, overseers, and book¬ 
 keepers. Estates, in order to be cultivated to the most advantage, must be rented or 
 leased for a period of years. Many, both attorneys and overseers, would be glad to 
 take the land on fair terms, thus securing to the owners (absentees) something more 
 definite than they at present enjoy. Under the present system it is impossible to make 
 the most of a sugar estate. The attorney is cramped in his energies. He sees, per¬ 
 haps, that by the present outlay of a few hundred pounds, he could most materially 
 benefit the estate for years to come, but he dares not do this without the leave of the 
 proprietor, who is generally averse to parting with his money for this purpose, but he 
 coidd do it himself were he to farm or rent the estate. The overseer, again, is also 
 crippled in his plans for the good of the property, for the same reason ; but he could 
 gratify his own wishes, and improve the property, if it were let to him. Thus the 
 attorney and overseer, being both cramped, and holding their situations, perhaps, for 
 a short time only, at the will of their employers, cannot feel that interest in, or do 
 that justice to, the estate, which they otherwise might, if one or the other held it 
 for a term of years, and if their own profit depended on good returns from the estates. 
 Besides, the expense of paying these two officers is not a little drawback upon the 
 profits ; and if these agents should unfortunately be men of no principle, as Dr. 
 Dickson has hinted at, who knows what they may not take for themselves out of the 
 produce over which they have the sole control ? The expense of the freight of the 
 sugar to England would also be saved in part, as well as the island tax upon sugar. What 
 the amount of this tax is I do not know, but it must be considerable, and take from the 
 profits of agriculture, if the following extract from a Jamaica newspaper of May TJth 
 be correct:—“ We believe that we are correct in stating that the taxes levied directly 
 or indirectly on a hogshead of sugar in Jamaica, before it is put on board ship, are 
 nearly equal to the ichole cost of production of a like quantity of jyroduce in the 
 adjacent island of Cuba. It has often struck us with admiration, that the West India 
 proprietors in England should reiterate their complaints, ad nauseam, of the oppressive 
 rate of wages, they are compelled to pay,—one shilling to one and sixpence per day for 
 labourer less than when, by enforcing an economical reform in the local government, 
 their expenses might be diminished far more than by any reduction of wages that it 
 would be possible for them to effect. 
 
 As to the rotation of crops, which takes place with every good farmer in England, 
 such process is but little practised in Jamaica, though it is of the first consequence to 
 know it. No good farmer there ought to have his fallows; all his land ought to be in 
 constant bearing, with a regular succession of crojis. But let us look for a moment at 
 the cane lands in that island. They are thrown up as fallow for two, three, or more 
 years. Nothing is planted upon them during this interval, neither plantains, yams, 
 sweet I'otatoes, Victoria wheat, nor any vegetable, all of which would fetch money. 
 
10 
 
 and be useful, if carried to market. Artificial grasses ought also to be introduced, 
 which might be fed off in flying pens, in the same way as turnips and clovers are fed 
 in our English farms, by which the soil would be much improved for the next crop. 
 But where in Jamaica, except here and there, are these grasses to be found, as a 
 part of the system of rotation so indispensable in good farming ? With regard to 
 manures, the same old plan is in general pursued, whether the soil be heavy or light, 
 hilly or upon a level, dry or wet. 
 
 As to implements or machinery in husbandry, the plough has been more in use since 
 emancipation than it was before. Emancipation has driven the overseers into a more 
 improved system. I am truly glad to find that Agricultural Societies have risen up in 
 Jamaica, and that ploughing matches have been set on foot in different parishes there, 
 by which a skilful use of that implement will be obtained; but there is a great umcill- 
 ingness, or slowness at least, to adopt this or any other instrument which would save 
 or facilitate labour. Now is it not easy to see from the above account, if it be correct 
 (short as I have made it), that if the West India farmers fail to make profitable returns 
 from their estates, this failure may be owing to their own bad management ? There 
 are estates in the island, which under enlightened management are doing well. Why 
 should not others do the same ? The negroes have nothing to do with this part of the 
 subject. They are only labourers, and do what they are ordered to do. They do not 
 plan what crops the estates shall bear, nor what implements shall be used in producing 
 these. But certainly, as I said before, it is of serious moment to the interests of a 
 plantation, whether the wages to be paid are too heavy for it to bear; but no lowering 
 of wages to a reasonable amount will do, where such bad management prevails. It 
 would be unjust to lower them to such a degree that the labourers could not live by 
 their industry. This would only be to make the negroes pay for the faults of the 
 overseers. Let a fair inquiry be made into this part of the subject ; but let it not be 
 made by interested persons or by men who know nothing by experience of West Indian 
 concerns. An unjust decision may be attended by the most serious consequences; for 
 if the emancipated peasantry are coerced they will not tvork at all, and the estates 
 must go to ruin. And how will you force them to labour but by the whip 1 This 
 would be to restore slavery —this would be to undo what parliament has done after 
 “ fifty years’ deliberation and an expense of twenty millions of money.” But will the 
 parliament of England submit to this ? Will they allow the twenty millions paid to 
 the planters to be wholly lost, and no good result to come from it, when the conduct of 
 the labourers since their emancipation has been so laudable, and afforded so fine a pros¬ 
 pect of indemnification ? Will the people of England submit to it ? No; there will be, 
 
 I beheve, a sensation in every town in the kingdom, and petitions such as we have never 
 seen before. There is a class of men in the island of Jamaica, to whom the negroes 
 always resort for advice in difficult cases, and whose advice they follow. These are 
 their religious pastors. They know what a peasant can do and what he ought to earn. 
 They know pretty well the expenses of a plantation, and whether the rumours which 
 have called your Committee together are true. If the case were to be laid before these 
 pastors, and they could be induced to take it into their serious consideration, and to be 
 made to believe that the labourers exacted more than their labour was worth, they 
 would use their influence in bringing it down to its proper level. The emancipated 
 slaves are not an unreasonable body ; they have already lowered their wages to one 
 
1 ] 
 
 shilling and sixpence per day,—and though they are fond of money, they are tree to 
 part with it on all proper occasions. They are at a great expense in building their 
 own places of worship. They subscribe to missions in Africa, that their poor brethren 
 there may have the same advantages of the gospel as they themselves have had; they 
 subscribe to other institutions. What other peasantry on the face of the earth have 
 done the like things ? The Rev. William Knibb, one of their pastors, now in London, 
 is, I understand, to be examined by your Committee; he knows about rent and wages, 
 and all the concerns of the peasantry, and can give you the soundest advice. He has 
 been the means of settling disputes between the peasantry and the planters, and at 
 the planters’ request, whom he has never failed to assist when called upon. 
 
 I am now to say a few words respecting the new villages which have risen up in 
 Jamaica. Will these be a detriment to the planters? This will depend upon the cir¬ 
 cumstance, whether the labourers will remain in their cottages and continue to work 
 for the planters, or whether they will go elsewhere. To solve this question, I need only 
 ask another. What was the reason why they left their old cottages and raised up the 
 new ? The reason was that they were overwhelmed with rent, which they could not 
 pay. But if this were the real and only reason, is it likely they would quit cottages, 
 where they have no rent to pay, and where besides, they have a constant market for 
 their labour ? and besides, with a capital exhausted by their recent purchases, where are 
 they to go ? In my own opinion this cottage system will be the greatest blessi,ng that 
 could befall Jamaica ; for if they continue to work, then the planters would have con¬ 
 tinuous labour at their doors. If on the other hand they were to go into the back set¬ 
 tlements, then all the waste lands of Jamaica would in time be put into cultivation, 
 and the whole island would be made a paradise. But it is contrary to common sense 
 to suppose that they would take leave of all their present advantages for an uncer¬ 
 tainty. I find a paragraph in a Jamaica newspaper, of April 20, so much to the pur¬ 
 pose, that I shall copy it here. Remember that this paragraph comes from Jamaica 
 itself. 
 
 “ It must be peculiarly gratifying to the friends of freedom to see rising up in 
 all parts of this island clusters of neat and comfortable cottages, and the growing 
 determination there is among the labouring population to possess a house and land is 
 most certainly indicative of growing intelligence and industry. It clearly shows they 
 have begun to look beyond the present moment, that they have discovered the right 
 way of obtaining for themselves that degree of respect to which they are entitled by 
 character and station. Such a procedure is unquestionably the best way of terminating 
 those endless disputes which are constantly engendered by the subject of rent, which if 
 steadily pursued and well directed will speedily tell upon the proceedings of the vestries 
 and the legislature of our country. That certain persons do not approve of free 
 villages, we are not surprised, seeing that it gives the labourer an amount of influence 
 and independence which to them must be both galling and perplexing, but that it 
 would be a mark of wisdom for the proprietary body to encourage them is easily proved. 
 
 “ Any person at all acquainted with the feelings of the labouring population must 
 know, that the desire that they have for a free house will not be easily quenched. If 
 they cannot get land in one parish they will obtain it in another; if it is not to be 
 procured in one district they will seek that in which it is. The attachment to certain 
 properties and particular localities is fast dying away ; the people are becoming more 
 
12 
 
 and more alive to their own interests; the feelings engendered and kept alive by 
 slavery will soon be extinct, and their place will be taken by those that freedom calls 
 into exercise and will sustain. The signs of the times tell us plainly that estate 
 houses, mean and uncomfortable as they are, will not long be tenanted, nor will new 
 and better ones give satisfaction; houses without rent, houses they will not be obliged to 
 leave till they choose, are those that best suit the negro character, and soon it will be 
 seen that the prosperity of an estate will be closely identified ivith a free village. Let 
 any one who pleases to take the trouble, find out the estates that are having the present 
 crop taken off with the greatest ease, and the least expense, and they will find them to 
 consist of those who have in their neighbourhood a free village. At such places they 
 will find plenty, and what is more valuable, continuous labour. 
 
 “ We cannot help being struck with the shortsightedness of those who refuse to sell 
 even an acre of their unmanageable properties. Does it not stand to reason, if a 
 labouring man builds for himself a freehold, that he would desire to reside in it ? If so, 
 then he will of course find it to his interest to labour upon that property that is 
 nearest to his freehold. We would advise therefore, seeing there is a determination on 
 the part of the peasantry to obtain land somewhere, those who know the value of con¬ 
 tinuous labour to sell to the persons now located upon their projjerties those parts of 
 their estates they can never use, but which would be prized by free labourers, and which 
 will be the only way of keeping upon the spot a large body of labourers, who will find 
 it advantageous to themselves to take an interest in properties near to their own resi¬ 
 dence. On the other hand, if such land continues to be refused them, they tcill seek 
 it in the back settlements, and being far distant from any other place where their labour 
 will bring money, they will either become small settlers themselves, or else to learn to 
 eat and drink, and become quite indifferent whether sugar be cultivated or not.” 
 
 I shall now only say a few words on the question, “ Whether the quantity of labour 
 in the colonies is sufficient for the present demands of the planters, and if it is likely 
 to be sufficient in future for the same purpose ?” I believe it will be allowed that the 
 planters had sufficient hands for their work at the time of emancipation. I ask only' 
 that this should be granted me. Now, since that time there has been a great falling off 
 in the quantity of labour from the following circumstances. It was usual for the 
 women, and boys and girls of a certain age, to be employed in the fields. But now 
 the women spend the forenoon in washing, cooking, sewing, and taking care of their 
 families (their proper occupation), and the boys and girls go to school in the forenoon, 
 where they get the knowledge which fits them to become useful members of society. 
 Thus half a day's labour every day is lost to the plantations, or there is half a day’s 
 work less done there than before, as far as the women and children arc concerned. 
 But it is to be observed here, that the labour of these is not wholly lost to the estates 
 near which they reside, for both women and children (such of the latter as are able) 
 generally go into the field in the afternoon, and it is to be particularly observed, also, 
 that it is an undeniable fact, that where the negro works by the piece (and this is 
 now the general practice) he does twic€ more icork than he did when he was a slave. 
 It follows then from these premises, that double the icork is done by the men alone 
 in the day of that which teas done by them before emancipation. Now, if we aild this 
 double work on the part of the men to the work done by the women and children to¬ 
 gether in the afternoon, it will follow that there is now as great a quantity of work 
 
done, if not greater, than in the days of slavery. Where, then, is the want of labour 
 in our colonies ? Let me now state an advantage which will arise from the great 
 change which has taken place. Thousands of infants perished in the days of 
 slavery who are now saved ; all accounts agree in this, that much greater numbers 
 of children are reared than ever ; most of whom at a proper age will go into the 
 field ; and that the population of Jamaica (to which island I have hitherto 
 confined myself) is increasing almost beyond belief. The prospect now is, that the 
 island w'ould be overstocked in a few years, but for the prodigious quantity of waste 
 land which might be cleared and cultivated. And this reminds me to ask, for what 
 purpose, then, do the planters Avant labour? Not for their present estates. Is it, 
 then, for clearing new land on speculation ? We have no right to waste human life, as 
 it would proverljially be Avasted, in clearing new land on the base principle of specu¬ 
 lation. 
 
 The editor of a Jamaica paper, of the 18th May, gives the following answer and 
 challenge to a person Avho signed himself “ Montanus,” in the “ Morning Herald,” 
 and who had made a great hue and cry on the subject of a want of labourers. “ Were 
 Montanus,” says he, “ to throw aside his assumed name, and submit to be interrogated 
 as to where the scarcity of labour existed ; where any have refused to work for fair 
 wages regularly paid; where the many estates have been found Avhich have conse¬ 
 quently been thrown up, we fancy that, like ‘ echo,’ he would only answer ‘ Where ?’ 
 We have no hesitation in saying, that these assertions would be found destitute of 
 proof, and consequently worthless.” The same editor goes on to speak of the current 
 Avages as connected with labour. “ What Vindex,” says he, “ has asserted is correct, 
 and we defy any one to disprove it, that one and sixpence is the highest average of 
 daily wages for an able-bodied labourer ; and Ave knoAv too that even that sum is, on 
 many estates, withheld for five, six, seven, and eight weeks, and on some properties 
 even for three months together. It is no Avonder, then, that however honest over¬ 
 seers and other agents may be, that mistakes sometimes arise betAveen them and a 
 people who cannot keep accounts, and who have, moreover, been so often cheated 
 that they are ready to distrust every body.” I add to this extract, that though for 
 a common day’s labour Is. 6d. is paid, yet the labourer frequently earns half-a-crown. 
 This is Avhen he Avorks by the piece, or does double labour, which he cannot do without 
 uncommon exertion, so that the planter gets his pennyAvorth out of him. 
 
 The planters, therefore, are not in want of labourers if they would conduct them¬ 
 selves properly towards them. But a very important question arises here. Where 
 Avill they get these labourers ? Not from Europe. The burial grounds in Jamaica, 
 Avhere hundreds of the poor Irish men, and Avomen, and children are interred, and 
 which, for a long time, will serve as monuments of the deceit and false promises of 
 those who trepanned them from their country, have sickened even the Assembly of 
 Jamaica from encouraging similar immigrations. Where, then, will they get them ? 
 From Africa, every day robbed by some foreign miscreant of her children ? No. I tell 
 you. Sir, that this would only be to institute a new slave-trade; I tell you. Sir, (and 
 after a fifty-seven years’ attention to the subject I ought to know something about it) 
 that they can never get voluntary labourers there. Labourers can only be had there 
 from one source. The captains of the ships who go for them, must buy them of the 
 petty chiefs, to Avhose territory they go. These are the only traders. They can have 
 
14 
 
 no access to those natives intended to be the labourers, so as to treat with them per¬ 
 sonally ; and besides, they do not understand their language. And what will these 
 petty chiefs do, when the ships arrive upon their coast ? They will send out kid¬ 
 nappers through the country, or they will go in a body to burn villages in the night, 
 and seize the inhabitants, men, women, and children, as they are escaping from the 
 flames ; or they will sell their own slaves, such as they have on hand, and supply the 
 deficiency by the same cruel means. Nor can the British Parliament regulate the 
 trade, so that none but they who are willing should be received as labourers. The 
 African chief knows nothing of willing emigrants. All his emigrants go in chains to 
 the ships, and he knows nothing of our parliament. He wants our money only, and 
 we must take such labourers as he brings us. Thus, then, a slave-trade ^vill be opened 
 afresh with all its former, exactly the same horrors. I say, it must be otherwise; and 
 will not a slavery, too, such as that which it has cost the country so much money to 
 remove, follow ? What else but slavery do the planters mean, when they and their 
 agents say that they want continuous labour ? Is not continuous labour their cry, and 
 the cry also of their organs, the colonial newspapers ? And what does that awful word 
 “ continuous” mean ? Labour at all times, without the requisite rest, when the planters 
 think they wmnt it. Labour all the day in crop season, and alternately all the night 
 at the mills. What free man, or what free men, willingly will submit to this ? The 
 planters must have a different machinery for making sugar, as they must have a 
 different mode of husbandry for their fields; for almost all other countries, I am told, 
 make their sugar at a cheaper rate. And again, is not a wish for the revival of the 
 slave-trade and slavery meant by the intimation given us in a Jamaica newspaper, that 
 they, the people of Jamaica, will have immigration, though this immigration be a 
 slave-trade. The Jamaica Morning Journal tells us, “ The opinion prevails, and is 
 increasing, that the government ought to take the measure of African Immigration 
 into their own hands. A meagre permission to take such Africans only as would 
 be willing to come, is less than the colonists have a right to expect at the hands 
 of the government.” Now, men who hold the opinion (and this opinion is in¬ 
 creasing) that they should feel no remorse in being instrumental in tearing the 
 Africans from their own country against their will, would feel no remorse in being 
 instrumental in making them work against their will, if it were for their own advantage. 
 And now. Sir, I will close my letter with the following remarks. The question now 
 before us is, “ Will the I’arliament of England allow ships to go to Africa to fetch 
 labourers from thence for our colonies ?” This may be answered by asking for an 
 answer to another question, which question is—“ Can you get the Africans to go by 
 their own consentIn the first place, as I said before, you cannot even have access 
 to that class of natives, whom you intend to be your labourers, so as to treat with them 
 at all, for they live in villages up the country, many miles from the shore; and even 
 if you could get at them, you could not explain to them, knowing nothing of their 
 language, the nature of the services required of them, the sort of work they were to do, 
 the time and duration of their labour, the remuneration they were to have, &c. &c. ; 
 and without such an explanation, the contract would be unjust. You will then, after 
 all, be reduced to the necessity of employing a native agent to make a bargain for 
 you. But this native agent must of necessity be the slave-trader of the place. Now 
 this trader knows nothing of bargains with his countrymen for their services; he pro- 
 
15 
 
 cures them by fraud and violence. His only bargain is with the captains of the ships, 
 and he sells them to these as slaves. A new slave-trade, therefore, would be thus 
 opened in Africa, the same as the old, which we have thought it our duty to abolish. 
 But even suppose the natives had the means of understanding the contract, and they 
 would go willingly, it does not become us, of all the people in the world, to be seen in 
 such an undertaking. We hinder, and we have strained every nerve to make treaties 
 to hinder, all other nations from going to Africa for labourers, and we go there for 
 labourers ourselves. Will not Europe suspect our motives, and brand us with the name 
 of hypocrites ? I know that we now stand well on the continent of Europe as a glorious 
 nation, as the friends of justice and the enemies of oppression, from the simple circum¬ 
 stance of the abolition of the slave-trade. But shall we retain this character any longer ? 
 No ; even though our motives may be pure, and we go to Africa only for willing 
 labourers, we shall not be believed by any foreigner, if we say that we go there for free 
 labourers ; but we shall be called hypocrites. What shall we say in excuse for our 
 conduct to the four powers, whom we have brought to join us in the abolition of this 
 traffic ? What shall we say to Holland, with which country we have lately remon¬ 
 strated for going to Africa for labourers (soldiers) for Surinam What shall we 
 say again to France, witlr whom we have lately remonstrated also, for going to the 
 same continent for soldiers to recruit a regiment in Cayenne ? But here a most 
 gigantic evil may arise. There is no country that has such a hatred to England as 
 France ; and at no time has the French nation been so hostile to our own as at the 
 present moment. Will not the merchants of Bordeaux, Havre, and Nantes,* who 
 were made so reluctantly to give up the slave-trade, seeing us go to Af rica for labourers, 
 by which we break the treaty, petition Louis Philippe to revive it ? and will not that 
 king, unfavourably disposed to us as he now is, and unwilling as he appears to be to 
 abolish slavery in his own colonies, be glad of the opportunity, seeing that we have 
 broken the great treaty, of granting the petition ? What, then, will be the con¬ 
 sequence ? The example will be followed, and the blood-hounds of desolation will 
 be let loose again from all quarters upon poor hapless Africa, and the labours of half 
 a century in the cause of justice and humanity will be lost perhaps for ever. 
 
 I am. Sir, with every good wish to yourself. 
 
 Very sincerely and very respectfully, 
 THOMAS CLARKSON. 
 
 * Since writing the above, an English gentleman, who has resided several years in the vicinity 
 of Nantes, and who is personally acquainted with some of the principal inhabitants of that city, 
 paid me a visit a few days ago, and from him I collect, that there are old mercantile houses or 
 firms there, who have made their fortunes by the slave-trade, and to whom no news would be more 
 agreeable than to hear that an English ship had been seen going to Africa for labourers. They 
 would strain every nerve to do the same. Indeed, every nation after this would have an excuse for 
 breaking their treaty with us. 
 
 J. Haddon, Castle Street, Finsbury. 
 
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REMARKS 
 
 ON 
 
 “AN EXPOSITION OF THE SYSTEM PURSUED BY THE BAPTIST MISSIONARIES 
 IN JAMAICA ; BY MISSIONARIES AND CATECHISTS OF THE LONDON 
 MISSIONARY SOCIETY IN THAT ISLAND.” 
 
 BY THE COMMITTEE 
 
 OF THE 
 
 BAPTIST MISSIONAKY SOCIETY. 
 
 TO WHICH IS APPENDED, 
 
 THE VALEDICTORY LETTER 
 
 OF THE COMMITTEE TO THE CHURCHES LATELY IN CONNEXION WITH THE 
 
 SOCIETY IN JAMAICA. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 SOLD AT 
 
 THE SOCIETY’S HOUSE, 6, FEN COURT, FENCnURCII STREET; 
 
 AND BY 
 
 IIOULSTON AND STONEMAN, 65, PATERNOSTER ROW. 
 
 1843 , 
 
J. IIADDON, PRINTER, CASTLE-STREET, FINSBURY. 
 
REMARKS. 
 
 The Committee of the Baptist Missionary Society feel it their 
 duty to make a few remarks on a pamphlet just published, under 
 the title of A71 Exposition of the Sijstcm pursued hy the Baptist 
 Missionaries in Jamaica, hy Missionaries and Catechists of the 
 London Missionary Society in that island. The panaphlet is in 
 continuation of the attack which has been kept up by various 
 parties, through several—it might almost be said through many 
 years, upon the agents and operations of the Society in Jamaica; 
 and in this instance it assumes a form which, in the judgment of 
 the Committee, forbids them to be silent. 
 
 Before proceeding to remark on the matter immediately before 
 them, the Committee wish to observe generally, that, in relation to the 
 interest and welfare of the churches raised in Jamaica by the instru¬ 
 mentality of the Society, they have throughout regarded the hostility 
 directed against them, not only without fear, but with gratulation. 
 Through however painful a process, its tendency must have been 
 to do them good; not only by bringing to light cases requiring 
 discipline, which might otherwise have continued unknown to the 
 parties most deeply interested in knowing them, but also by 
 making both ministers and people feel under how watchful an eye, 
 not only in heaven but on earth, they are fulfilling their trust. 
 In this respect the Committee regard the protracted assault made 
 on their beloved brethren in Jamaica as among the gi’eatest benefits 
 which men, whether evil or good, could have conferred upon them ; 
 and, in looking upwards from men to Him whose ‘‘hand” they are, 
 they cherish gratitude for so signal a mercy, by which evils of a 
 grave and vital character—certainly possible, and perhaps incipi¬ 
 ent—may be either wholly prevented, or promptly remedied. 
 
 B 2 
 
4 
 
 With respect to the parties by whom the assault has been made, 
 the Committee recognize as fully and feel as deeply as they, the 
 necessity of genuine piety in the individual, and of faithful disci¬ 
 pline in the churches. Equal to their own—certainly much greater 
 than their own—would the anguish of the Committee be, if they 
 believed that the charges here preferred were well founded; and 
 at no efforts within the limits of possibility would they stop, in 
 order to arrest mischiefs of so fearful a magnitude. Through¬ 
 out this painful history, they have been eager for information, 
 and have been almost incessantly imploring it. They have 
 earnestly requested the production of this, which, having been 
 long hinted at, is only now vouchsafed ; and, rather than not 
 have it at all, they welcome it from the press. Nothing do they 
 wish to be concealed. It is concealment, indeed, and conceal¬ 
 ment alone, which has all along been their annoyance and their 
 difficulty. Frequently have they heard that something has been 
 Avritten to England derogatory to the character of the Society’s 
 missionaries in Jamaica, and they have immediately said, what is 
 it, where are the facts ? For the most part this question has been 
 as vain as though they had been seeking after one of nature’s pro- 
 foundest secrets ; and an extract of an injurious letter has often 
 necessitated a mode of inquiry as ingenious and persevering as if its 
 object had been the recovery of a stolen bank note. At other times, 
 parties have refused to tell the Committee what they loudly affirmed 
 they knew, and familiarly told to others. At length, however, here 
 are specific allegations ; and the Committee are glad of it. Now, 
 at all events, and so far, the missionaries and other brethren Avill 
 have an opportunity of knowing what they are charged with, and 
 of acting accordingly. For themselves, the Committee say frankly, 
 whatever portion of these evils have existed and are past remedy, 
 let the record of them stand as a warning for those who are to come. 
 Whatever portion of them exist now, let a remedy be applied to 
 them with Christian fidelity forthwith. And whatever portion of 
 them may be resolvable into misinformation or misconception, let 
 the IMissionaries and Catechists of the London Missionary Society 
 rejoice with the Committee in the result of so happy a process, 
 which, doubtless, it would delight them to see efifectually applied to 
 the Avhole. And again these reproving brethren are entreated to 
 conceal from the Committee nothing that they know. 
 
 Having thus expressed their feelings on the general subject, the 
 
5 
 
 Committee proceed to some remarks more specilically on tlie pam¬ 
 phlet before them. 
 
 1 . 
 
 Ill doing so, they feel themselves entitled to submit, in the first 
 instance, a class of observations tending to reduce somewhat— 
 perhaps materially—its apparent criminatory force. 
 
 It might be mentioned in the outset, that the pamphlet does not 
 correspond with its announcement. Having been uniformly adver¬ 
 tised as put forth “ by the Missionaries and Catechists of the 
 London Missionary Society in" Jamaica, the pregnant particle 
 “the” is omitted in the title page, and it turns out to be signed 
 by only thirteen persons, out of a body consisting (as nearly as 
 can be ascertained by the last report of the London Missionary 
 Society) of twenty-one. The Committee, however, will not dwell 
 upon this apparent effort to give the Exposition an unreal and 
 factitious importance. 
 
 The Committee go on to observe, in the first place, that some of 
 the topics introduced by the Expositors are without any justice 
 made matters of complaint. 
 
 For example, the first accusation is, that the missionaries com¬ 
 plained of have “ employed unscriptural means and unworthy 
 agents in order to gain and hold more adherents than they can 
 adequately teach or govern by proper church officers,” p. 7- Com¬ 
 bined with the imputation on the personal character of the leaders, 
 to which the Committee do not at present refer, here is neither 
 more nor less than an argument in church polity. Did it never 
 strike the thirteen Missionaries and Catechists of the London 
 hlissionary Society in Jamaica in how singular a position they 
 have thus placed them selves ! Doubtless—to say nothing of their 
 own brethren in British Guiana, by whom the leader and ticket 
 system itself is employed—they hold that Moravians, IMethodlsts, 
 Presbyterians, and Episcopalians, also adopt “ unscriptural ma¬ 
 chinery but their zeal for New Testament order never led them, 
 the Committee believe, to enter on such a discussion with any of 
 these bodies. Why, then, w’ith the Baptists ? 
 
 The accused missionaries, it seems, have employed leaders and 
 given tickets. This may be unscriptural, or it may not. The 
 Committee have not given, and are not going to give, any opinion 
 
6 
 
 upon this point. They have never taken it into consideration. 
 There is nothing, either in the constitution or usages of the Society, 
 or in the case itself, which requires that they should do so. They 
 have gone on the principle (publicly and properly laid down by the 
 London IMissionary Society) of not interfering with the internal 
 management of the churches. And there, they conceive, that this 
 matter satisfactorily rests. 
 
 The concluding topic of complaint belongs, in the judgment of 
 the Committee, to the same class. It is as follows :—“ The Baptist 
 missionaries have raised and expended large sums of money, with¬ 
 out making any public report of the same,” p. 13. The Expositors 
 are here probably misled by want of acquaintance with a difference 
 which exists between the methods of the London and the Baptist 
 IMissionary Societies. The former, it is understood, require that 
 every expense at a missionary station should be paid out of the 
 funds of the Society, and that all monies raised there should be 
 considered as a contribution to its income. Of course, under such 
 a system, it is proper that the receipt and expenditure of all sums 
 should be reported to the Society, and through them to the public. 
 The Baptist Missionary Society, however, have gone from the first 
 on a different principle. They have desired their brethren to en¬ 
 courage the friends at a missionary station to raise what they could 
 towards its expenses, with a view to relieve the Society at home, 
 and to support the cause entirely when they should be able. On this 
 plan, the Committee have always been informed how much was raised 
 by the churches, and how it was expended on their behalf, in order 
 to the regulation of their ow’ii grants ; the only use which it per¬ 
 tained to them to make of this information, inasmuch as the Com¬ 
 mittee had no control over the expenditure, and the British public 
 no claim to the accounts. No doubt, the missionaries were under 
 obligation to render an account of w hat they had raised in a manner 
 satisfactory to the donors, but nothing further can with any reason 
 be required. It has ahvays been satisfactory to the Committee to 
 know that a much larger work has been going on in Jamaica than 
 could possibly have been sustained by the money they w'ere able to 
 supply; and they never saw—nor can they now see—any unfaith¬ 
 fulness to their trust in sending a few' hundreds a year to aid a 
 church w'hich w'as raising several thousands, while they had reason 
 to believe that the operations carried on were so extensive as, after 
 every effort, to press heavily on their resources. Parsimony on the 
 
7 
 
 partof the Committee would have ill recompensed the noble generosity 
 of Jamaica. Whether the public announcement,of the large sums 
 annually raised in the West might, or might not, have diminished 
 the collections in England, cannot now be told; but there is no 
 doubt at all that a fear of this somewhat natural result, and not of 
 any outbreak of indignation as against a fraud, was the whole 
 amount of Mr. Dyer’s meaning in the phrase (if he ever used it) 
 which is quoted by the Expositors, and to which the Committee 
 will again advert, “ If we should publish this, it would ruin us.” 
 
 W ith respect to the “ style of profusion ” in which it is alleged 
 that the Baptist missionaries in Jamaica live, the Committee make 
 two observations. First, This charge is strangely brought against 
 the whole body of Missionaries, when in fact many of them are well 
 known to be enduring severe privations in the highest spirit of 
 Christian devotedness, and when the number to whom it has the 
 semblance of applicability is very small. Secondly, There is 
 full reason to be satisfied, that nothing of the sort complained of 
 (whether justly or unjustly) has been at the cost of the mission. 
 Some of the churches have for many years supported their own 
 pastors. If they have given them large salaries, neither the Com¬ 
 mittee nor any one else is entitled to complain of it. It is enough 
 to say, that those who have been supported by the Society have not 
 —and cannot have—lived deliciously, except on spiritual food. 
 
 Secondly, the Committee observe that some of the charges are 
 sustained by strangely inconclusive proofs. For example, the 
 second article of complaint relates to the “ frequent admissions of 
 large numbers to the ordinances and fellowship of the church, 
 without due care to ascertain the character of the persons so ad¬ 
 mitted,” p. II. Now, readily allowing that due care” is of the 
 first necessity, and assuming nothing concerning the practice of 
 their brethren, the Committee animadvert on the primary reason 
 from which the Expositors infer that such care has not been em¬ 
 ployed. Will it be believed that a criminal laxity in this respect 
 is directly concluded from the mere numbers baptized ? Yet, after 
 mentioning some cases of numerous baptisms, the Missionaries and 
 Catechists say —“ Before we assert what we know of these baptisms, 
 or adduce a fact in support of what we assert, we ask. Is there not 
 enough in the bare announcement of such baptisms to stagger the 
 faith of the friends of missions .J*” p. 11. And they go on gravely 
 to state, that, supposing it genuine, “ the work of the Baptist 
 
8 
 
 missionaries in Jamaica is seen to exceed by far the work of the 
 apostles on the day of Pentecost.” Yet on that occasion three 
 tliousand persons were added to the church in one and the same 
 day, at one and the same place. What would the Missionaries and 
 Catechists have said if this had happened “ at Brown’s Town, in 
 1840,” instead of the (to them) more perplexing fact that IMessrs. 
 Clark and Dutton “ immersed seven hundred and twenty-nine in 
 the course of the year?” But, if it w’ere so, what then? We 
 quote from these Missionaries and Catechists themselves the valuable 
 saying,—which is in truth a solvent for the whole mystery—that 
 “ nothing is too hard for the Lord.” Due care may or may not 
 have been taken ; but the argument from mere numbers is absolute 
 unbelief. 
 
 The Committee, in the third place, proceed to the’array of instances 
 by which the several heads of complaint are supported. These the 
 Expositors call “ factsthe Committee submit, however, that they 
 are not entitled to be considered as facts until they are proved. 
 They may be true, or they may not. Exaggeration, misconcep¬ 
 tion, mistake, imagination, prejudice, and even falsehood, may have 
 been at work upon them. At present, therefore, they are not facts, 
 but allegations ; plausible allegations, indeed, some of them—some 
 of them are utterly, and even ridiculously, incredible—but not 
 proved allegations, on which sentence can justly be pronounced. 
 The Committee are entitled to insist strongly on this distinction, 
 by virtue of their experience in this very case. In the instances in 
 which they have succeeded in obtaining specific charges, they have, 
 upon inquiry, frequently found them altogether or mainly erroneous; 
 so frequently, that they have increased materially in the courage 
 with wiiich they look such allegations in the face. If those now 
 adduced share any thing like the fate of their precursors, many of 
 them will altogether vanish, and the seeming gravity of the rest 
 be very materially reduced. 
 
 The Committee think, finally, that the process of generalization 
 adopted by the Expositors is not only precipitate, but unwarranted. 
 By virtue of the instances they adduce, they inculpate the whole 
 body of Baptist missionaries^ and churches in the island, excepting 
 only Messrs. Kingdon, Whitehorn, and Reid. Now the mission¬ 
 aries thus implicated are 28, and the churches as many, con¬ 
 taining 32,810 member.s, with 18,000 inquirers. They are dis¬ 
 persed through the island much more widely than (as yet) the sta- 
 
9 
 
 tions of the London Missionary Society and there are among 
 them many local and accidental diversities. The Committee can¬ 
 not help feeling that, even if the truth of all the allegations were 
 granted, conclusions so sweeping as those which are deduced from 
 them would not he justified. How much less when the real quan¬ 
 tity of pertinent truth in them shall be ascertained! Besides, it is 
 remarkable how often the name either of the same witness or of the 
 same culprit appears, even in these allegations. Thomas Burke is 
 cited over and over again; and the rev. II. C. Taylor, of Old 
 Harbour, is almost constantly under accusation. Now if it be 
 that the one of these parties has been very ignorant, and the other 
 very negligent, and that some besides have been liable to censure, 
 let the individuals bear the blame. Why is their misconduct 
 or folly, supposing it to be such as is represented, to be made a 
 gauge for taking the measure of other men? Would it not have 
 been just as fair to have selected a faithful missionary, a judicious 
 leader, and a few well-informed members, and then to have inferred 
 that the whole baptist body were of a similar character ? 
 
 The Missionaries and Catechists affirm that these single instances 
 are examples of classes, and that they might be multiplied “ to 
 almost any number.” On this the Committee observe, first, that 
 the expositors have obviously brought out the strength of their case; 
 and secondly, that no amount of allegation against certain indivi¬ 
 duals, or even of proved criminality in them, can warrant the con¬ 
 demnation of other persons. There is a radical fallacy in the very 
 nature of the argument. The negligence or precipitancy of one 
 missionary is no evidence at all that the same qualities exist in another. 
 For any thing which could be established by such a kind of proof, 
 he might be one of the most cautious and judicious of men ; and 
 he certainly would have good reason to complain of the injustice of 
 being condemned for the fault of another. The same remark may 
 be applied to both leaders and churches. 
 
 In the judgment of the Committee, the considerations now ad¬ 
 duced materially diminish the apparent criminatory force of the 
 pamphlet before them. With respect to the accusations to which 
 they have not adverted—those, namely, affecting the character of 
 the leaders, the admission to church-fellowship, and the exercise of 
 church-discipline—these, together with the examples detailed in 
 support of them, are as a whole matters of inquiry ; and, al- 
 
 B * 
 
10 
 
 though some of the charges might be disposed of on the instant,* 
 the Committee will not at present notice them further. They have 
 directed a copy of the pamphlet to be sent to every one of the 
 Baptist missionaries in Jamaica, and they cannot doubt that every clue 
 it affords will be pursued for searching and salutary investigation. 
 They would be very happy if the Expositors themselves woidd 
 
 * As a sample of this class, the Committee just mention the following:— 
 
 1. “ One of the rev. J. M. Philippe’s schoolmasters told Mr. George Strieker, 
 schoolmaster at Porus, that Mr. P. kept a written list of the questions which he 
 puts to the candidates for baptism, and that the leaders are all taught these ques¬ 
 tions,” Exposition, p. 20. To this Mr. Philippe replies ;—“ It is not true, nor has 
 it the shadow of truth.” 
 
 2. ” William Burke, of Cool Spring, who was one of the persons baptized by 
 Moses Hall, says, ‘ that all the persons in his class were required to pay three-pence 
 per week to the support of the class-house, and a shilling per month for the support 
 of Moses Hall,’ ” Exposition, p. 22/ The latter charge is positively denied by several 
 persons who have been members of tire class from its commencement. 
 
 3. “ J. Daughtrey, esq., the government Inspector-general of prisons, has given 
 his important testimony on this point as follows :—‘ I once had the credulity to 
 believe there was in the churches of Jamaica as great a proportion of Christians as in 
 those of Great Britain. But I now see my great mistake. Of the prisoners in the dis¬ 
 trict prison at Kingston, three-fourths have been connected with religious societies,’” 
 Exposition, p. 23. This “ important testimony,” it will be observed, is absolutely 
 general, and affects all religious communities alike. The point remains. “ Dis¬ 
 tinguishing them, he adds :—‘ There are very few from the Moravians ; not one 
 from the Congregationalists ; more from the Wesleyans ; but the great majority are 
 Baptists,’ ” ibid. The answer to this is, that, within the district of Kingston, the 
 Baptists are by far the largest body of religious professors ; and that, for any thing 
 which appears to the contrary, there may be fewer per cent, of that body in 
 Kingston district prison than of any other. 
 
 4. The following is from Thomas Burke:—“ William Hall, from hlarshall’s Pen, 
 first tell us to pray. He put our knee on the ground, then take our hand, and 
 raise us before the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. This is the way he 
 set us off.” The following sample is given of “ the hymns and prayers which Hall 
 taught them to use — 
 
 “ John a Baptize,—Do my Lord. 
 
 Me pray for my sin.—Do my Lord, 
 hie pray for my soul.—Do my Lord. 
 
 Remember your duty.—Do my Lord, 
 
 Sinner dead he must.—Do my Lord. 
 
 hie pray for keep me out of de fire.—Do my Lord.”— Exposition, p. 15. 
 
 The Committee must here call specifically for dates. They are assured that these 
 proceedings of William Hall took place more than twenty years ago, when there were 
 but two or three Baptist missionaries on the island, the nearest of these being sixty 
 miles distant from him, and all of them, of course, utterly unconnected with him. 
 
11 
 
 kindly place a copy of it in the hands of every member of the 
 churches who can read it, for the promotion of a similar purpose. 
 They need scarcely express their confidence, that, if any of the 
 parties implicated should apply for further facilities of inquiry, the 
 thirteen Missionaries and Catechists of the London Missionary 
 Society will not follow the example of an accuser of a different 
 denomination (the rev. Geo, Blyth) in refusing to afford them. 
 
 II. 
 
 From matters affecting the Baptist missionaries and churches in 
 Jamaica, the Committee will now turn to those which directly im¬ 
 plicate themselves. 
 
 The Missionaries and Catechists aver that the publication of this 
 pamphlet “^Mias been forced upon” them. By what means ? By 
 an indisposition to listen to complaints, they reply, partly among 
 the missionaries themselves, and partly among “their friends in 
 England”—meaning (it appears) the Committee. Leaving the 
 missionaries to speak on their own behalf, if they think it necessary, 
 the Committee answer distinctly for themselves, that the charge is 
 utterly without foundation, and that they are sure no proofs of it 
 can be adduced. That they have been unwilling to have the cha¬ 
 racter of their brethren whispered away in private coteries, or 
 destroyed by letters clandestinely circulated ; that they have refused 
 to abandon their confidence in their missionaries merely on the pro¬ 
 nunciation of sweeping censures, and unsubstantiated imputations ; 
 and that they have challenged names, places, and dates, for every 
 accusation, and traced many of them to the confusion of their 
 originators—all this is true: and who are the parties that will 
 blame them for it ? But that they have on any occasion displayed 
 an indisposition to listen to complaints is an utter misrepresentation. 
 They have, perhaps, been much nearer to an error on the other side. 
 But, were it otherwise, what cause have the writers of this pam¬ 
 phlet to complain ? When did the Committee hear from them ? 
 Neither from the thirteen Missionaries and Catechists in a body, nor 
 from any one of them as an individual, has a letter on this subject, 
 ever reached their table. They have heard, indeed, of injurious 
 letters industriously but secretly circulated, the writers of which 
 they could not ascertain, and copies or extracts of which they could 
 not procure ; but these, of course, were not the complaints to ^vhich 
 
12 
 
 the Committee were unwilling to listen. Were any of these Mis¬ 
 sionaries and Catechists the writers of those letters ? 
 
 The Expositors state, however, that, as to the courtesy of private 
 communication with the Committee, what was not done by them¬ 
 selves had been done by others. The Committee distinctly deny 
 this assertion. Three of their own agents, indeed, IMessrs. King- 
 don, Whitehorn, and Reid, have thought proper to discontinue the use 
 both of leaders and of tickets, and, in doing so, have communicated 
 their reasons for the change ; but the Committee have never re¬ 
 ceived, even from them, any such statements as Avere adapted to 
 bring the condition of the churches at large under their conside¬ 
 ration, until those letters in the Jamaica neAvspapers which con¬ 
 stitute a very recent part of the controversy. With this exception, 
 not a single person of any denomination has ever spontaneously 
 presented a complaint to them, either Avith or Avithout evidence to 
 support it. That such complaints have been brought before them 
 is true; but in all cases the Committee had previously heard of 
 their utterance in other circles, and had solicited—in some cases 
 they Avere obliged to importune—the complainants to communicate 
 Avith them. 
 
 The Committee, hoAvever, it is alleged, have done Avrong in 
 not “promoting the formation of a court of inquiry” for inves¬ 
 tigating these complaints. On this someAvhat singular charge 
 the Committee have to say, that the formation of such a court has 
 never been proposed to them from any quarter. All that they have 
 heard or seen on this subject has consisted in occasional brief and 
 discourteous, and sometimes taunting, references in the course of 
 correspondence, to a court Avhich Avould speedily be constituted 
 AA'ithout their consent, and before Avhich they and their missionaries 
 AA^ere, Avith equally little ceremony, to be dragged. Hoav the said 
 court AA^as to be constituted, or by Avhat poAver its proceedings Avere 
 to be enforced, they never heard. That the Committee have not 
 promoted the formation of any such court of inquiry is certainly 
 true. They have conceived that they Avere themselves, and after 
 themselves their constituents, the proper court (if the expression 
 must be used) before Avhich their missionaries should be tried. Is 
 there any missionary society in existence Avhich Avould have “pro¬ 
 moted the formation ” of any other ? Or is there any body of 
 missionaries and catechists, except these thirteen, Avho Avould 
 have gravely proposed it ? 
 
13 
 
 III. 
 
 Having thus spoken of themselves, the Committee feel it their 
 duty to say a few words in conclusion concerning the parties whose 
 names are affixed to this pamphlet. 
 
 The Expositors are naturally desirous to receive credit for good 
 motives, and they declare themselves to have been actuated by a 
 pure concern for the interests of righteousness and the character 
 of Christian missions.” The Committee make no pretensions to 
 judge them in this respect. It is, at the same time, a consideration 
 not altogether without weight, that the main stress and eagerness of 
 this controversy has lain with some of the agents of a Missionary 
 Society, which has been brought into more extensive contact than 
 any other with the Baptist IMissionary operations. That the feel¬ 
 ings in such a state of things too natural, even to the best of men, 
 have to some extent operated in this case, appears on the face of the 
 Exposition itself. The very first sentence of it says, “seriotis differ¬ 
 ences have arisen between us and the great majority of Baptist mis¬ 
 sionaries.” In the next page it is expressly stated that the public con¬ 
 troversy in Jainaica both originated in denominational resentment, and 
 was perpetuated by it. The words are:—The publication by the 
 Baptist missionaries of gross misrepresentations* affecting us and 
 our stations, in their own newspaper (the Baptist Herald), first in¬ 
 duced us to use a similar publication. * * * The treatment 
 
 which our remonstrance met with drew us on to make the general 
 
 o 
 
 charges through the same medium. « * * But for the course 
 
 which the Baptist missionaries took with our first letter, * » * 
 
 it is probable the controversy would not have been proceeded with 
 
 * The document here referred to consisted in a tabular statement of the number 
 of missionaries and members in Jamaica connected with the several missionary 
 societies, together with the amount expended by each, in the following form :— 
 
 
 Missionaries. 
 
 Members. 
 
 Inquirers.* 
 
 Received from 
 this country. 
 
 Wesleyan Missionary Society 
 
 30 
 
 2-2,884 
 
 4,303 
 
 £8,986 
 
 London Missionary Society 
 
 11 
 
 172 
 
 
 6,476 
 
 Church Missionary Society 
 
 7 
 
 271 
 
 4,954 
 
 6,938 
 
 Baptist Missionary Society 
 
 19 
 
 24,777 
 
 15,007 
 
 6,870 
 
 This table was drawn up in England (without any view, however, to publica¬ 
 tion) from tlie latest reports of the several societies, and has been found, by subse- 
 
14 
 
 here, and would have been but little heard of beyond the limits of 
 Jamaica,” p. 6. Without turning aside to vindicate their brethren 
 in this point, the Committee observe here, that, on their own 
 showing, the Missionaries and Catechists of the London Missionary 
 Society have been moved by an impulse not absolutely identical 
 with “ a concern for the interests of righteousness.” 
 
 Passing over other indications which they might notice of a 
 similar kind, the Committee cannot but place upon record a declar¬ 
 ation made by the rev. W. G. Barrett, on behalf of himself and his 
 brethren, in his Reply to their circular of January last. It is as 
 follows :—“ Had we been allowed to do good as we had opportunity, 
 and not been impeded by the proselyting labours and plans of your 
 agents, and permitted to retain undisturbed possession of such 
 spheres of labour as were opened for us by a favouring providence, 
 this exposure would have been prevented.”— Barrett's Reply, p. 8. 
 Habemus reum conjitentem. 
 
 The Committee have made this remark, not with any view to 
 censure the missionaries and catechists, whose infirmity herein is 
 far too natural and too common not to be easily venial ; but simply 
 because it facilitates a correct estimate of the evils alleged, to know 
 that, but for the occasion created by such collateral pressure, even 
 men so jealous for the interests of righteousness as these, would 
 not have deemed it their duty to disclose them. 
 
 The Committee next animadvert on what they are constrained 
 to regard as a want of candour and fairness on the jrart of the 
 Expositors. They will illustrate their meaning by an example. It 
 is certainly reasonable in a controversy of this sort, that, a charge 
 having been made and an explanation given, the charge should not 
 be reiterated without some notice of the explanation. Now, before 
 the preparation of the circular issued by the Committee in January 
 last, Mr. Williams had been complained of for having baptized 
 126 persons before he had been six weeks in Jamaica; and in 
 that circular (to which the Exposition is professedly a reply) 
 explanation is given that these parties ‘‘ had been for years* 
 
 quent examination, to represent with perfect accuracy the accounts contained in 
 them. The only pretext which the agents of the London Missionary Society in 
 Jamaica had for calling it a “ misrepresentation ” was, that it neither recorded their 
 actual (unreported) numbers in that island, nor intimated what portion of the sum 
 expended had been raised among themselves. For neither of these defects, how¬ 
 ever, were the missionaries responsible. 
 
 * Nearly three years. 
 
15 
 
 in communication with Mr. Philippo, and were only awaiting the 
 arrival of a Baptist missionary to be formed into a church/’-— 
 Circular, p. 7* Notwithstanding this explanation, and without 
 taliing the least notice of it, the Expositors repeat the charge, thus: 
 —The rev. Mr. Williams, before he had been on the island six 
 7veelcs, and in a neighbourhood where no Baptist missionary had 
 preceded him, immersed 126 persons,” p. 11. Things of this sort 
 tend to class the thirteen Missionaries and Catechists of the London 
 Missionary Society in Jamaica among adversaries, rather than reprov¬ 
 ers, of their brethren, and among adversaries who are determined 
 that, whether there be mistake or not, there shall be no correction. 
 The Committee know it is a maxim of polemical warfare, that 
 iteration may effect the same end as proof; but they could not 
 have expected to find this weapon in professedly friendly hands. 
 
 The Committee remark finally, on the use made by the Exposi¬ 
 tors of the language cited by them from an alleged letter of the 
 late Secretary to the Society, the rev. John Dyer, in relation to the 
 monies raised in Jamaica :—“ If we should publish this, it would 
 ruin us.” This extract, it is strange to say, is adduced by the 
 Missionaries and Catechists as a proof that Mr. Dyer knew the 
 Jamaica brethren had acted fraudulently in pecuniary affairs, and 
 that the Christian public would be filled with “ resentment, if the 
 whole truth were declared to them,” p. 14. The Committee will 
 not dishonour the memory of their beloved and revered coadjutor 
 and friend, by saying a single word in the supererogatory work of his 
 vindication; they ask only what must be the temper, or where can be 
 the understandings, of men who can use an argument, the whole force 
 of which lies in the gratuitous assumption that a Christian professor 
 and a Christian mitiister, a man whose character for integrity was to 
 the last as unblemished as the driven snow, and who was, for up¬ 
 wards of twenty years, a most honoured secretary of one of the most 
 honoured societies of the age—that such a man was secretly pursuing 
 a course of conscious knavery, the disclosure of which would inflame 
 with resentment the whole Christian world ? 
 
 In having thus spoken, the Committee trust they have neither 
 exceeded nor fallen short of their duty. They have only to add 
 that the churches raised by the instrumentality of the Baptist 
 Missionary Society in Jamaica are no longer in organic union with 
 it. With an admirable zeal and generosity, they have thrown 
 
16 
 
 themselves on their own resources. In relation to all their affairs, 
 they are now as independent as any churches in this or any other 
 country. To themselves must any further observations be addres¬ 
 sed which their fellow Christians of any denomination may desire 
 to submit to their notice. The Committee have taken leave of 
 them in a letter of solemn and affectionate counsel which is before 
 the world, and to their own Master they stand or fall. 
 
 In closing their present observations, the Committee commend 
 alike all churches and all missionary societies, and all missionaries 
 and catechists to the kindness of that merciful God of whose for¬ 
 giveness, as well as blessing, all his servants stand so continually in 
 need. 
 
LETTER, 
 
 &C- &C. 
 
 THE COMMITTEE OP THE BAPTIST MISSIONARY SOCIETY TO THE CHURCHES 
 
 OP CHRIST IN JAMAICA, RAISED BY THE LABOURS OF THAT SOCIETY. 
 
 Dearly beloved Brethren,— 
 
 Often as you have engaged our affectionate and anxious thoughts, 
 we know not that we have ever felt concerning you, either more 
 ardent gratitude or more deep solicitude, than at the present mo¬ 
 ment. Through the goodness of God, and his copious blessing on 
 the labours of thirty years, you have been conducted through mani¬ 
 fold afflictions, to a state of prosperity and peace which cannot be 
 view’ed without grateful admiration of divine mercy; and at length 
 you have made known to us your resolution to sustain, without 
 further aid from us, the entire expenses of the work of God 
 amongst and around you. 
 
 We rejoice in the step yon have thus taken. We are happy 
 that, in point of resources, you are able to undertake so serious a 
 responsibility: and we are still more happy that God has given you 
 the fidelity and zeal to assume it. We are not altogether unac¬ 
 quainted with the difHculties amidst which you stand, and we highly 
 esteem the devotedness to the cause of God wliich you have herein 
 manifested. May God accept your consecration, and smile upon 
 your toils ! 
 
 Do not imagine for a moment, beloved brethren, that your sepa¬ 
 ration from us as a society, will be accompanied by any alienation 
 of our hearts from you. You are still as dear to us as ever, as 
 
18 
 
 joint partakers with us of the grace of God; and, while we arc 
 expending on regions yet destitute of the gospel (and partly on 
 your father land) the resources which your zeal has set at liberty, 
 we shall most unfeignedly rejoice in at once beholding your pros¬ 
 perity, and receiving your co-operation. It is, in truth, as an 
 expression of our sincere and ardent love to you, that we present to 
 you this parting address; and we are sure that you Avill receive 
 kindly the Avords of serious and affectionate counsel Avhich it will 
 contain. 
 
 You are quite aAvare that representations have been made, both 
 to the Avorld at large through the press, and to us in a direct man¬ 
 ner, unfavourable to your Christian character, both as individuals 
 and as churches. We have been told that cases of gross supersti¬ 
 tion abound among you—that you consider yourselves as purchasing 
 your inquirers’ or members’ tickets—that you carry them about AAdth 
 you Avith a superstitious reverence, and mean to have them buried 
 Avith you, as a passport to heaven—that you rest in church-member¬ 
 ship, and in the forms of religion, Avithout having any experimental 
 knoAvledge of Jesus—that, under the cloak of religious profession, 
 you indulge unbridled tempers, and alloAv yourselves in vicious 
 practices—and that you glory only in being baptists, Avithout caring 
 to be Christians. So far have these representations been carried by 
 some parties, that it has been said nine out of ten among you have 
 no real religion. Accusations have been specifically directed against 
 the deacons and leaders in the churches ; and of these officers it has 
 been publicly asserted, that the great majority are ungodly men, 
 and that they commonly employ the influence of their office at once 
 to indulge and to screen their vices. 
 
 KnoAving the pious and devoted character of the brethren Avhom 
 Ave had sent to labour among you—'^men Avho had hazarded their 
 lives” for the diffusion of the gospel in Jamaica—Ave never be¬ 
 lieved—Ave could not believe—these accusations. Promptly and 
 earnestly, indeed, did Ave feel ourselves bound to make inquiry 
 into them, and Ave have been rejoiced on all occasions to find that 
 they cannot be substantiated. The unsolicited testimony of men 
 of unimpeachable judgment and impartiality—Ave refer to the 
 published AAwks of iMessrs. Gurney, Sturge, and Candler; the 
 Avell-attested results of your oavii cliurch discipline, as apparent in 
 the annual returns of the Association; and the maxim of divine 
 authority, that a tree is to be knoAvn by its fruits, have concurred 
 
19 
 
 \vith our specific inquiries to satisfy us of the general falsehood of 
 the charges which have been brought against you. But you must 
 permit us to say, that we should have been overwhelmed with affiic- 
 iion if they had been true. We, in common v/ith yourselves, are 
 baptists; but we know that, in Christ Jesus, nothing availeth but 
 a new creature, and faith which worketh by love. We attach value 
 to nothing short of an experimental knowledge of our sin and ruin, 
 and a sincere reception of Christ Jesus the Lord, leading to a holy 
 walk and conversation. And if it had been so that your seeming 
 religion consisted of superstitious notions, and comported with 
 unholy practices, our very hearts would have been broken. Such 
 religion would have yielded neither benefit to you, nor reward to 
 us ; and we could not have held up our heads before either God or 
 man. We confess and declare before you, that we attach quite as 
 much importance to the genuineness of individual piety, and to the 
 purity of church discipline, as any of those who have brought 
 accusations against you; and our only consolation under these ac¬ 
 cusations is that they are not true. In this consolatory belief we 
 most earnestly hope your future course rvill sustain us. Let the 
 intensity with which the notice of the Christian world has been 
 called to this subject convince you of the extreme importance at¬ 
 tached to it by all who fear the Lord; and lead you to examine, 
 each for himself, whether, in his particular case, there may or may 
 not be some foundation for blame. In this way you may turn even 
 unfounded reproaches to profit, and derive important advantages 
 from those who may not have spoken in love. 
 
 No considerate person will expect to find the churches of Christ 
 altogether free from imperfections and inconsistency; and we have 
 not been concerned to maintain any such position in reference to 
 you. It is not so with the churches in this country, nor was it so 
 with those of the apostolic age. All that can be required is, on 
 the one hand, as careful a discrimination as Christian wisdom can 
 make among those who seek admission to the church; and, on the 
 other, a faithful use of scriptural discipline in cases of delinquency. 
 These things we hope and believe have been appreciated and prac¬ 
 tised among you. It is of unspeakable importance that they should 
 continue to be so. 
 
 Among the allegations made to your disadvantage, one has been, 
 that the system pursued in some of the churches (known as the 
 leader and ticket system) directly, and even necessarily, tends to 
 
20 
 
 make the churches superstitious and corrupt. We have never in¬ 
 terfered with the internal arrangements of any church connected 
 with the Society; it has been our rule not to do so^ and we are not 
 now about to depart from the rule. Nevertheless, we commend 
 this charge to your serious consideration. When a practice does 
 not rest upon direct scriptural command, it is always to be carefully 
 ivatched, lest, however well intended or really useful, it may pro¬ 
 duce, although not necessary, yet accidental evil. In this respect, 
 dear brethren, we entreat you to have an open and discerning eye. 
 If either inquirers’ or members’ tickets beget superstition or false 
 confidence, even though the instances be few, consider whether 
 some way may not be found of securing the good without the evil. 
 Or if the habit of paying subscriptions when tickets are given, be 
 liable to abuse, so that either the party receiving a ticket may 
 think he is buying it, or the party giving a ticket may use it to 
 enforce subscription, try and think of some better mode. We do 
 not for a moment believe that you wish to foster these or any other 
 evils, and we are willing to make great alloAvance for the unspeak¬ 
 able difficulties amidst which your modes of action have grown up ; 
 but as no human expedient is of perfect wisdom, so it is proper for 
 us always to be on our guard against mischief, and ready to supply 
 a remedy. Tenacity of current usages is not at all to be com¬ 
 mended in such matters. 
 
 From these remarks, which have reference to the churches sepa¬ 
 rately, we now pass on to some which bear on them in their relation 
 one to another. While remaining in connexion with the Society, 
 each church was in a measure insulated from its companions, work¬ 
 ing in its own sphere, and looking for help towards England. One 
 of the principal difficulties in the way of assuming your independ¬ 
 ence has doubtless been the feeble condition of some of your num¬ 
 ber. You have, of course, found it necessary in this respect to 
 adopt a new system, and to commence a plan by which the stronger 
 churches shall help the weak. Some of you have, for a considerable 
 period, not only met all your own expenses, but contributed largely 
 to Christian and benevolent objects beyond the limits of the island. 
 It will now be highly important for such churches to make their 
 resources available for the assistance of their sister churches, and to 
 direct their liberality towards strengthening those whose early efforts 
 much exceed the contributions they can raise. We trust that the 
 union of the churches in association may be conducive to this end. 
 
21 
 
 and that a spirit of wide and universal co-operation will greatly 
 facilitate the progress of the gospel over the entire surface of the 
 island, the evangelization of which may be considered as in so great 
 a degree confided to your care. 
 
 We remind you further of the peculiar and most interesting posi¬ 
 tion in which divine providence has placed you in relation to your 
 kindred and your parent land. Not reluctantly or faintly have we 
 responded to the call which issued from the midst of you immediately 
 on the attainment of your freedom, that efforts should be made by 
 the Society for Africa ; and we know that some parts of the West 
 Indies demand help scarcely less urgently. Has not God, by his 
 eminent mercy towards you, been preparing you to bless your coun¬ 
 try and your kindred ? And not by your contributions alone. 
 You possess especial personal adaptation for the preaching of the 
 gospel, not only in Africa itself, but to persons every where of Afri¬ 
 can descent. But you have yet much to learn before you can be 
 fully qualified to teach. With hoAV much industry should you be 
 acquiring knowledge, and especially an ample knowledge of that 
 holy book which makes us wise to salvation ! Above all should 
 those dear brethren who may be selected to enjoy the advantages 
 of the Theological Institution, now happily founded at Rio Bueno, 
 cherish large desires after improvement. We trust that they will 
 do so; and that they will be content with nothing less than be¬ 
 coming, as men of God, perfect, thoroughly furnished to every good 
 word and work. 
 
 We cannot close this epistle without expressing our affection in 
 a direct manner towards our beloved brethren, the pastors, who 
 have taken the oversight of you in the Lord. We give thanks to 
 God that he has enabled them to sustain so well, some of them in a 
 great fight of afflictions, the responsibility they assumed. Well 
 have they justified our confidence, and deserved your love; nor will 
 you, we are persuaded, fail of esteeming them very highly in love 
 for their work’s sake. They, at the same time, will seriously bear 
 in mind, that mainly (under God) upon them will depend the future 
 prosperity and increase of the churches; and they will allow us to 
 express our earnest hope that, in the room of a common relation to 
 the Society, which has hitherto cemented them, they will become 
 eminent for that unity of spirit with each other, which is a more 
 perfect, and now more necessary bond. Our mouth as well as our 
 heart is open to them; and we say to them, with affectionate solem- 
 
22 
 
 nity, with a slight modification of the words of the apostle,—“ If 
 there be, therefore, any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, 
 if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any bowels and mercies, fulfil ye 
 our joy, that ye be like-minded, having the same love, being of one 
 accord, of one mind. Let nothing be done through strife or vain 
 glory, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than 
 themselves. Look not every man on his own things, but every 
 man also on the things of others.’' 
 
 What shall we say more ? Brethren, our hearts’ desire and 
 prayer to God for you is, that you may be saved. May he gra¬ 
 ciously count you worthy of this calling, and fufil in you all the 
 good pleasure of his goodness, even the work of faith with power ! 
 Wherefore, dearly beloved and longed for, our joy and crown, so 
 stand fast in the Lord, dearly beloved. And, with those who are 
 coming from the east and the west, from the north and the south, 
 to sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of 
 God, may it be our happiness to meet you, in the presence of Him 
 who hath loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood ! 
 Amen, and Amen. 
 
 Signed on behalf of the Committee, 
 
 London, November ‘■Uh, 1842. 
 
 JOSEPH ANGUS, 
 
 Secrelary. 
 
 .1. HuJilon, l‘iinter, Castle Street, Finsbur\'. 
 
BAPTIST MISSION IN JAMAICA 
 
 A REPLY 
 
 TO THE 
 
 CIRCULAR OF THE COMMITTEE 
 
 or THE 
 
 BAPTIST. MISSIONARY SOCIETY. 
 
 WILLIAM GARLAND BARRETT, 
 
 Missionary from Jamaica, in connection with the 
 
 LONDON MISSIONARY SOCIETY. 
 
 " I speak as to wise men: judge ye wliat I say.” 
 
 Uoitliott: 
 
 PUBLISHED FOR THE AUTHOR. 
 
 SOLD BY JOHN SNOW, 35. PATERNOSTER ROW; 
 RELFE AND FLETCHER, 17, CORNHILL; 
 
 AND 
 
 FLETCHER, FORBES. AND FLETCHER, SOUTHAMPTON. 
 
 Price Sixpence. 
 
LONDON: 
 
 rniNTFD BY J. UNWIN, 31, BUCKI.T-nSBUUY. 
 
REPLY. 
 
 To the Camberwell, April, 1842. 
 
 Rev. Joseph Angus, 
 
 Secretary to the Baptist Missionary Society, 
 
 Dear Sir, 
 
 It is with no ordinary regret that I enter upon the present duty. 
 Your circular, however, relative to the discipline and purity of the Baptist 
 churches in Jamaica, demands an immediate reply. Its statements, un¬ 
 answered, cannot fail to injure the characters of many missionaries; and 
 the Christian public, now interested in the question, require that the system 
 complained of be thoroughly examined. On these grounds I am compelled 
 to publish the following reply; and although, by assuming that I “know 
 nothing of the Baptists," you have attempted to damage my character as a 
 witness, I am content that those who read these statements should judge 
 between us on this point. 
 
 Your circular shall be the model of mine; so that a few preliminary 
 remarks, and then the charges, seriatim, will comprise all that I intend 
 saying. Allow me previously to state explicitly that the Society to which 
 I have the honour to belong is in no way answerable for this letter: I alone 
 am responsible for it; neither must it be considered as the joint testimony 
 of my brethren in Jamaica, who may possibly adopt another line of conduct. 
 
 And I would farther premise that my remarks bear principally upon the 
 state of your mission on the south side of the island ; other brethren declare 
 that the state of the churches on the north side of Jamaica is precisely 
 similar; and certainly if these things be affirmed by so many witnesses, a 
 timely investigation and cure of these abuses is imperatively needed. 
 
 You “exceedingly regret that those who have made these charges have 
 invariably declined to meet the Baptist Committee Avhen requested to do 
 so ;" I did so, because, in your officially published document, you had pro¬ 
 nounced me incompetent, through ignorance, to hold any opinion on the 
 subject, and, in my letter to the Committee, declining its invitation, I stated 
 this as the reason. Had you not condemned me without a hearing, it would 
 have been my duty to have considered the propriety of acceding to your 
 wishes. 
 
 Your missionary, Mr. Tinson, coupling me with Mr. Blyth, the Presby¬ 
 terian missionary, unites with you in holding us both up as unequal to the 
 crisis we have provoked by our reiterated accusations of the Baptist churches 
 in Jamaica. I have just received a letter from my esteemed friend Mr. 
 Blyth, a missionary of many years standing, in which he assigns the most 
 satisfactory reasons for declining to meet your Committee. Fully do I 
 agree with him that “ Jamaica, and not London, is the only place where 
 a proper investigation into the conduct of the Baptist missionaries can be 
 made, as it is there only that witnesses conversant with facts can be ob¬ 
 tained." I hope, therefore, that you and your agents will cease to insinuate 
 that we shrink from this controversy ;—that we lament it is true, b\it neces¬ 
 sity is laid on us, and we cannot forbear. 
 
 At the commencement of your circular you say, “ It has been matter of 
 much regret that the statements referred to have so seldom come before the 
 Committee, either in a direct or specific form. They have come principally 
 through the intervention of third parties, and have been most of them so 
 general as to be incapable of investigation or reply.” 
 
 Here we are unhappily at issue ; and I must be permitted to state that 
 these charges have very frequently come before the Committee in a most 
 direct and specific form. And that in the first place they were made not 
 through “ the intervention of third parties,” but by your own accredited 
 agents in Jamaica! 
 
 I refer especially to numerous letters which that honored missionary of 
 yours, the late Mr. Coultart wrote to your Committee on this subject, in 
 
4 
 
 which he fully unfolded his sentiments on the large number of baptisms, 
 and indiscriminate admission to church fellowship, as practised by his 
 brethren. I know also that nearly the last thing he did before his death, 
 was to repeat his written testimony on this subject, which letter is about to 
 be published in Jamaica. 
 
 Again, let me remind you of a letter addressed to you last year, by one 
 of your missionaries, the Rev. James Reid, still resident in Jamaica. 
 
 I have a copy of the whole. The following is an extract—have more 
 solemn charges ever been laid to the door of Puseyism or Popery ? 
 
 “ I must publicly avow my belief,” writes Mr. R. “ that the leader and 
 ticket system is not more unscriptural in its character, than demoralizing and 
 soul-destroying in its operation !! 
 
 “ I 200 . prepared with evidence to prove, —evidence arising from facts which 
 have arisen within the reach of my own observation, the following points 
 in this system: 
 
 I. “ That the leaders generally have not only been destitute of the know¬ 
 ledge of salvation, but that they have been grossly superstitious. 
 
 II. “ That the services performed by the leaders in their classes were 
 such as to render it impossible for those connected with the classes to 
 become acquainted with the Gospel. 
 
 III. “ That the greater number trusted for salvation to the superstitious 
 observances of the class-room, to the possession of a ticket, and to admis¬ 
 sion into the church. 
 
 IV. “ That in consequence of these things the majority of those who 
 have been baptized were, at the time, strangers to a change of heart, and many 
 of them neither knew who Jesus Christ is, nor what he has done.” 
 
 These charges are not only very grave, but most specific,” and were 
 " made in a direct form,” and the witness says he “ has evidence to prove 
 them.” They must have been, therefore, “ capable of investigation,” but 
 you refuse to hear him, and then invalidate what he may have to say, by 
 asserting that “ Mr. Reid knows nothing of the system of which he com¬ 
 plains.” Doth our law Judge any man before it hear him, and know what 
 he doeth. 
 
 I proceed to what you term “ the second causes of the success which has 
 attended your mission in Jamaica.” These are two in your opinion, “ the 
 active part which your brethren have taken in the cause of emancipation,” 
 and, “the strong prepossession in the minds of the negroes in favour of 
 believers’ baptism ! ” 
 
 I have scarce any inclination to remark on the former of these two causes. 
 The whole paragraph is in character with the rest of your circular—full of 
 self-gratulation and bare assertions. You mean to imply that other mis¬ 
 sionaries have done less to secure the rights of the negro population than 
 yours, and therefore they are not confided in equally with yours. Let it 
 remain so in your archives. I will not spoil you of the pleasing belief. 
 Jamaica can tell another tale. An appeal to the past might teach you 
 that Baptists and Abolitionists were not synonymous terms. 
 
 But now to the other cause, ‘ of considerable weight’ in your circular, 
 viz. the attachment of the negroes to baptism by immersion. 
 
 You are not perhaps fully aware, that however strong the prepossession— 
 however superstitious the bigotry, I would rather say, in favour of your 
 denominational peculiarity, there is also a prejudice, so universal and strong 
 in favour of Paedo-baptism, likewise, that multitudes of your deacons and 
 leaders in Jamaica carry their children to the Church of England to be 
 ' christened ’ as you term it. 
 
 I have myself had repeated applications from members of Mr. Taylor’s 
 church to baptise their children : in two cases, knowing the parents to be 
 pious people, I dared not ‘ forbid water ’ to their ‘ household,’ and in many 
 cases I have refused infant baptism to the children of Baptist parents, on 
 
5 
 
 the ground of my dissatisfaction with their conduct. One of Mr. Taylor’s 
 leader’s became godfather, and his wife godmother to several children in 
 my neighbourhood. I have had, and probably have now, at least half a 
 dozen children in my school at Four Paths, of as many parents, for whom 
 this intelligent Baptist deacon promised and vowed the three things required 
 in the baptismal service of the Church of England! 
 
 But you will say this is a solitary case, confined to your district. Let 
 the public judge. 
 
 The following is part of a letter written to me by a pious clergyman of 
 long residence in Jamaica : his remarks apply to the north side. 
 
 He Avrites thus ;—“ Never surely was the pretended believers’ baptism 
 so degraded as it has been ; for what is the fact in regard to the sentiments 
 of the very persons who lay so much stress upon adult immersion ? Why I 
 doubt if there is one parent in a hundred who does not holdFcedo-baptism too! I do 
 believe that if I were to give out that I would baptize all the infants of the 
 Baptists in my neighbourhood, that my church would instantly be crowded.” 
 
 The following is an extract of a similar character from another letter in 
 my possession. On behalf of the writer I must be allowed to say, that 
 although not a missionary, but superintendent of Normal and other schools 
 for several years in Jamaica, so great was the esteem in which he was justly 
 held, that on his departure from the island, he received a valedictory address, 
 signed by several clergymen and ministers of all denominations, including 
 a large number of your own agents. The following is his testimony. 
 
 “ I see no reason to conclude that the large and rapid increase in the 
 Baptist churches in Jamaica, unparalleled in the history of Protestant 
 churches in any other part of the world, has arisen from an extraordinary 
 outpouring of the influences of the Holy Spirit, but rather from admission 
 to the church being made too easy and indiscriminate. Too much regard 
 is paid by the negroes, naturally a superstitious race, to the mere eating of 
 bread at the sacramental table, and to the act of immersion. To a super¬ 
 stitious veneration for the latter, inculcated at first by the black Baptists 
 from America, and fostered by the leaders under the European missionaries, 
 may be attributed the decided preference of thousands to attend the ministry 
 of the most ignorant and unfit Baptist leader, or to sit at home sabbath after 
 sabbath, rather than to avail themselves of the instructions of a Paedo- 
 baptist minister. That it arises from this cause rather than from an intelli¬ 
 gent appreciation of the grounds of difference between Paedo-baptists and 
 Anti-paedobaptists, is evident from the fact that numbers of Baptist members 
 and enquirers have had their infant children baptized at the Established Church 
 whilst others have acted as sponsors at the same ceremony /” 
 
 To meet this “strong preposession” in favour of double baptism your 
 missionaries have invented various schemes of “ blessing children,” and 
 “registering children,” as religious ordinances. 
 
 The fact is this—that some of your missionaries are in the habit of 
 receiving children in their arms, and after a service of some kind, {regarded 
 by the people as equivalent to infant baptism,) registering their names, which 
 is technically termed “blessing their children.” 
 
 I was told the following a day or two previous to my quitting the island, 
 by a man who had been a member of one of your churches for many years. 
 “ Before free time, all the Baptist Society have their children christened at 
 the church of England; but since free time, our own minister bless the 
 children instead: all the picaninny now we carry to our minister, and he 
 take them in his arms, and bless them.” In answer to the question whether 
 the schoolmaster could not do this, he exclaimed with surprise, Hi no how 
 schoolmassa can do this—minister only able to bless we children.” 
 
 My esteemed brother-in-law, Mr. Reid, mentioned to me the following 
 circumstance. “ I was supplying on one occasion for Mr. Oughton, of 
 Kingston ; during the day a woman came to me asking me to bless her 
 
G 
 
 children ; at rirst I appeared not to apprehend her meaning, and referred 
 her to the teacher, saying, that as he had the books, if she wished her child 
 registered, he would do it for her. She went away disappointed, but pre¬ 
 sently returned, saying, ' schoolmaster could not do what she wanted; Mmister 
 must do it: she wanted him to bless her child the same as her own minister 
 do.’ I then told her what I thought of the practice of blessing children, 
 and afterwards mentioned the circumstance to Mr. Oughton himself.” 
 
 Leaving these statements to your calm deliberation, I now come to 
 another remarkable paragraph in your letter. “ Such,” you say, “ is the 
 effect of these causes,” (viz.: the devotedness of your missionaries to the 
 cause of emancipation, and the desire of the negroes for believers’ baptism,) 
 “ that in many districts the people would rather hold services of their own, 
 than attend on the ministry of Pado-baptist brethren.” 
 
 A writer in the Evangelical Magazine for March, who has evidently 
 acquainted himself with this subject, justly remarks that if this be the case, 
 “ it is time for the Independent and other churches in this country, to 
 enquire how far it is their duty to support missions conducted upon such 
 narrow and sectarian principles.” But what would this writer have said— 
 what will others think, when I assure them that the refusal of the “negroes 
 in many districts” to attend our ministry has resulted, not only, nor mainly, 
 from these causes, but from the opposition of Baptist missionaries and their 
 leaders to our mission in Jamaica. 
 
 That jealous denominational feeling which was displayed at home when 
 the London Missionary Society commenced its mission in that island, was 
 extended to your missionaries abroad, I had not been two months in the 
 island, before I was assured by one of them, still living, that our society 
 “ had no right to send their missionaries to Jamaica, because Jamaica belonged 
 to the Baptists.” 
 
 Let it be remembered that there were at this time, and had been for 
 many years, large and flourishing missions there of Moravians—Methodists— 
 Presbyterians—and Episcopalians, all holding Paedo-baptism in common 
 with ourselves, and then how ridiculous will appear the exclusive claim of 
 our Anti-Psedo-baptist brethren to that island ! 
 
 This same brother who conceived we had no right in the island, told me 
 more than once, that “ although he should not openly oppose us, he could not 
 wish us God speed.” What a triumph of generous benevolence was this ! He 
 dared not bid us God speed ; but still he would forbear openly opposing us! 
 
 Another of your missionaries, Mr. Philippo, assured me, that the im¬ 
 pression on the minds of his people was this—that we were only “ half 
 Christians;” indeed, “that one of the most intelligent” of his people had 
 said, “ He could not tell what to make of the missionaries of the London 
 Society, except that they were only half believers !” For that impression 
 your missionary was responsible. The second sabbath I was in Jamaica, 
 1 preached for him in the morning, examined and addressed the sabbath 
 school in the afternoon, and my brother, Mr. Slatyer, preached in the 
 evening. That day was the communion sabbath, and we were deeply 
 anxious after our voyage and its necessary separation from religious ordi¬ 
 nances, to unite with the friends of Jesus in celebrating his dying love. 
 Judge then of our surprise, when we found the table of the Lord fenced 
 against us, and we ourselves shut out with unbelievers and infidels because 
 we had not been baptized by immersion. 
 
 If the missionary had been of strict communion principles there might 
 have been some apology for this : but as he was not I am inclined to think his 
 object was to represent us as “ half believers.” For when we expressed 
 our astonishment at his conduct, he offered to give us the Lord's supper 
 privately, and said he had no objection to bring us the elements into his 
 own dwelling house that we might there commune with each other. Such 
 an extraordinary method of “ showing forth the Lord’s death” we declined. 
 
7 
 
 On a subsequent occasion we were worshipping in Mr. Taylor’s chapel, 
 at Old Harbour. I had preached the sermon preparatory to the Lord’s 
 supper for your missionary, and as he had once been a Paedo-baptist, I 
 anticipated no difficulty here in our admittance to fellowship. Previous to 
 the administration of the elements, this brother, after a suitable preface, 
 spoke thus, in the excess of his expansive charity. “I always think a 
 great deal of that passage, the stranger which is within thy gates.’ ” I was 
 surprised. ” What strangers” thought I, “ are within these gates ?” My 
 suspense was however soon terminated :—“ For,” continued he, ‘'we have 
 some strangers here,” (pointing to myself and Mrs. B.) “and under their 
 peculiar circumstances, having no church of their own denomination with 
 whom they can commune, I think we shall not do wrong if we allow them to sit 
 down with us ! Whereon the “ gates” were thrown open to the “ strangers.” 
 What, think you, would be the natural effect of this on the minds of a 
 partially enlightened people, but to make them think, that we were indeed 
 and in truth “aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from 
 the covenants of promise.” 
 
 Nor was this all;—when I removed to Clarendon, the people in that 
 district were directed by the same missionary to “hold services of their 
 own,” and to keep “ themselves to themselves until they had a minister of 
 their own.” Yes, although their scanty pittance was one sermon a month 
 only, and although the vast majority of them were ignorant of the way of 
 salvation, yet it was better for them to be without the provisions of the 
 gospel, than to receive them from the hands of a Psedo-baptist brother! 
 
 To exemplify this hostility against us a little further, allow me to mention 
 the following case, that occurred in 1835, at Brixton Hill, an out-station 
 of mine in the Mocha Mountains, Clarendon. At this place I was offered 
 an acre of land for the purposes of the society, but on my going up to 
 take possession of it, the person who offered it, now a deacon of my church, 
 said, “ Minister, I dare not give you the land, the Baytist leaders have been 
 here, telling me that the Independents are come to take the bread out of their 
 mouths, and have told me so many different things, that I must draw back from 
 my promise.” I will just add, that subsequently he gave me the land, on 
 which there is now a chapel, crowded every sabbath, a church of twenty- 
 two members, and a daily school of seventy, conducted by a coloured young 
 man. But suppose we had failed there, and our “prospects had been dis¬ 
 appointed,” would it have been the result of the two causes already named, 
 the “ zeal of your missionaries in the cause of emancipation, and the 
 prepossession of the negroes for believers’ baptism ?” 
 
 All this has before been stated. Mr. Vine, in one of his letters last 
 year, wrote thus—and the statement was never contradicted—“ So far as 
 relates to the districts we occupy in Clarendon and Manchester, there was 
 a conspiracy among your agents, to prevent our gaining any footing there, 
 or to crush the stations when formed. It will no doubt greatly surprise 
 you, when I tell you, that by chance, (‘such chances providence obey,’) 
 documentary evidence of the hostile project, a plan of the operations, and 
 the names of the parties who were to act in it, fell into the hands of our 
 deceased brother Wooldridge.” 
 
 I have now lying before me a copy of the correspondence between the Rev. 
 Mr. Alloway, and one of your missionaries, which will show that in another 
 part of the island, where a congregation had been gathered by us, it was 
 divided, and partly broken up, by the wanton aggression of one of your 
 agents, as if drawing the people from one denomination to the other was 
 the object for which the hard-earned contributions of British churches were 
 raised. * 
 
 Before I proceed, I must correct your mistake relative to the results of our 
 mission. We are not disappointed in our prospects. Our mission 
 
 *' See Appendix. 
 
8 
 
 in Jamaica was commenced only seven years ago, and we have now, through 
 the divine blessing on our labours, about 6000 persons attendant on our 
 ministry, nearly 500 persons in full communion, upwards of 1500 can¬ 
 didates for church fellowship, and 1600 children in daily attendance upon 
 our schools; in addition to which, there are six out of our eleven principal 
 stations, which raise annually more than the amount of the missionary’s 
 salary. Surely this is any thing but failure ! 
 
 But from these insinuations about the failure of our mission, I turn to 
 that part of your circular which professes to be a reply to the “statements 
 calculated to make an unfavourable impression of the purity and discipline of 
 your churches in Jamaica.” At the close of your circular you pronounce 
 these statements to be “ misrepresentations; ” but to me the method in 
 which you have arrived at this conclusion is most unsatisfactory. We, and 
 others, advance certain charges against your missionaries, whereon they are 
 called into court, permitted first to give testimony, and then to acquit them¬ 
 selves ; the parties accused made both witnesses and jury, and this is pro¬ 
 nounced a most conclusive verdict —“ quite decisive on the questions in 
 dispute.” I really know not how you can honestly assure the public that 
 you have impartially examined all the evidence that might have been 
 adduced on this painful subject. To elicit the truth you should, as Mr. 
 Vine stated, have instituted such an enquiry into the facts of the case as 
 “ might have resulted in the correction of the mistaken informant, or of 
 the abuses which he had pointed out.” Instead of this, the late secretary 
 wrote to the missionaries in Jamaica, and requested from them “ a state¬ 
 ment that might be published to counteract the effect of these representations.” 
 
 I must here be allowed to say, that we do not consider ourselves con¬ 
 servators of the discipline and purity of your churches in Jamaica; had we 
 been allowed to do good as we had opportunity, and not been impeded by 
 the proselyting labours and plans of your agents, and permitted to retain 
 undisturbed possession of such spheres of labour, as were opened for us by 
 a favouring providence, this exposure would have been prevented. 
 
 You have prudently slurred over the native Baptists of Jamaica, assuring 
 us that you have “ no connection with them.”—and that although their 
 churches are defiled with “impurity and superstition,” your Committee is 
 not “ responsible ” for their condition, because they originated with 
 “ American teachers.” 
 
 In the Christian Examiner, I have given at length the history, character, 
 and progress of the native Baptists, nevertheless, I must again advert to 
 them for your information. 
 
 The native Baptists number 25 preachers, and 13,687 “ members in 
 society ; ” but so far from these preachers having come from America, there 
 is not more than one an American. All the others are the offspring of the 
 churches planted by your missionaries; they were the leaders or members 
 at different stations of yours in the island, who quarreled with their minis¬ 
 ter—were expelled for sin or else withdrew, always taking with them a 
 number of people, who became the nucleus of their present churches and 
 congregations. 
 
 The published report of the native Baptist Society, gives an account of 
 the various stations with which its preachers were formerly connected : the 
 time when, and the reasons why, they seceded from what they term their 
 ‘European brethren.’ Of the 13,687 members, I suppose at least half of 
 them were originally in connection with your churches, as baptized, or 
 candidates, but who retired with the leader, their attachment being stronger 
 to him than to the missionary. In Kingston, two of the chapels which the 
 native Baptists occupy, are I understand the actual property of your 
 Society, for whom your missionaries are unable to obtain possession. 
 Whatever ‘ impurity and superstition ’ is found in their churches, and 
 there is an awful amount of both, it must not be attributed to American 
 
9 
 
 teachers solely; it must be borne in mind, that these people were,a little 
 time since part and parcel of the members that swell the annual tabular 
 view, published by your agents; that the majority of them were not expelled 
 by your missionaries, but simply retired, leaving your churches minus 
 their members and money, and thus forming separate and independent 
 interests, have become what is called the Native Baptists. 
 
 This opinion is confirmed by an extract from a statement made by the 
 Rev. C. S. Renshaw, a congregational minister from America, labouring in 
 Jamaica. 
 
 He says, “ Let the leadership remain, and as fast as one collision follows 
 another between the leaders and their ministers, so fast congregation after 
 congregation, will they desert their minister, and taking their people with 
 them, set up for themselves, and carry out the leadership in its worst forms. 
 It is in this way that most of the present 25 native preachers have sprung up. 
 Let the present system go on and very soon the island will be overrun with 
 them, as the religious teachers of the people.” 
 
 The practice of the native Baptists runs exactly parallel with that of your 
 missionaries, in all things they act after the pattern shewed them by their 
 ‘ European brethren.’ Their tickets, of which I have several, their mode 
 of levying contributions, their baptisms and admissions to fellowship, are a 
 faithful counterpart of the services they performed when in the employment 
 of your agents. 
 
 These remarks naturally conduct me to the following paragraph in your 
 circular, being the first of the charges you propose to refute. 
 
 I.— is said, that the leaders are generally had men—that their office 
 is useless and even mischievous—that they have unlimited authority—that 
 they conceal the sins of the members from the pastor—that the church seldom 
 dares to exercise discipline towards them, and the pastoral office is in fact in 
 their hands.’ ” 
 
 These are substantially the opinions of a large body of ministers in 
 Jamaica. All the ministers of the London Missionary Society: all the 
 Presbyterian missionaries: several clergymen of the church of England: 
 a number of pious laymen: and last, but not least, three of your own 
 ACCREDITED AGENTS, agree in pronouncing this verdict on the Baptist 
 leaders. Surely the character, reputation, intelligence, and piety of so 
 many witnesses, who can have no common object in saying the same thing 
 and between whom there can be no collision, entitles their opinion to more 
 than the summary dismissal you give them all, assuring the world they are 
 ignorant, “disappointed” men, all whose statements are “misrepresen¬ 
 tations.” 
 
 I beg your attention to the following extracts:— 
 
 “ The leader is the religious chief of his section of the class that reside 
 on the estate with him. He is the old driver of the gang metamorphosed. 
 His power is great, and the submission of the people to him slavish. They 
 do and suffer his bidding promptly; they take his interpretations of what 
 the ‘ buckra ’ minister delivers to them, and yield what he demands of their 
 money ; and if he quarrels with the missionary and leaves him, they leave 
 with him. He is the medium of nearly all the intercourse between the 
 minister and the people, and all that is properly the pastor’s work is committed 
 to him. Much gain is connected with their office, frequent disclosures of 
 grossly wicked conduct on their parts are made, and one or two ministers 
 of the denomination that use them, have abolished their office ; but the 
 effect on the numerical strength of their stations was like Samson’s losing 
 his hair. The most of those committed to the system, unwilling to risk 
 such a reverse, continue it; but while it is a machinery of great power to 
 them, it is also a system that enslaves them.” 
 
 Rev. John Vine, Trelawney, 
 
 London Missionary Society. 
 
10 
 
 One of your own agents, the Rev. James Reid, states in the letter already 
 quoted, that ‘'he has evidence to prove,” that “ the leaders generally are 
 destitute of the knowledge of the way of salvation, and have been grossly 
 superstitious ; and that their services were such as to render it impossible for 
 those connected with their classes to become acquainted with the gospel ; ” 
 and in a letter to me he adds : “ The system pursued by the Baptist mis¬ 
 sionaries should be fully developed with note and comment, in order to show 
 that the purity of churches under the system is an impossibility. I ardently 
 desire to see the whole matter thoroughly and scripturally discussed. I 
 regard the discussion as sacred as preaching the Gospel, nay, it is preaching 
 the truth! ” 
 
 In a letter to the Rev. Samuel Green, Baptist minister at Walworth, 
 Mr Reid writes thus;— 
 
 “Previous to my making any change* in the state of things that preceded 
 me, or publicly expressing its necessity, I communicated fully with Mr. 
 Dyer, the late Secretary, but instead of my difficulties being met, I was 
 charged with imprudence and indiscretion. 
 
 “Allow me to say that I am not the only missionary that holds or expresses 
 these opinions. The late esteemed missionary Mr. Coultart, has publicly 
 stated much worse things respecting the state of Jamaica Baptist churches 
 than I have ever uttered. 
 
 “Two of the present missionaries, Messrs. W. Whitehorne, and Kingdon, 
 entertain the same opinion, and have acted upon it by distroying the leader 
 and ticket system, which form a mighty source of the evils complained of.” 
 
 In your circular you have stated that Mr. Reid “ knows little of the 
 state of the churches.” Surely you forgot that he was sent to Jamaica to 
 take the pastoral charge of two churches containing upwards of 800 
 members!! 
 
 The following is the written testimony of another of your missionaries, 
 “formerly a lawyer in the island of extensive practice, and one of the most 
 conscientious and devoted missionaries.” 
 
 “ The following is the result of my experience at the stations in Trelawney 
 and St. Andrews, of tvhich I have been in charge-, the former about nine 
 months in 1831, and the latter for about 8^ years; and of extefisive and 
 intimate acquaintance and intercourse with other churches and missionaries 
 during these periods.\ 
 
 “ The minister looks to the leader to watch over and give an account of 
 the flock under his charge—to convey his commands to them, and to see 
 that they duly attend to them—and that they make the regular contribu¬ 
 tions ; while he, the leader, is pledged to the flock to get them baptized 
 and received into church-fellowship as soon as he can. The minister can 
 know nothing of the people beyond what the leader thinks fit; nor can he 
 discover from the people any thing of the leader’s character. When, 
 however, a quarrel takes place in one of these classes, most horrible dis¬ 
 coveries are frequently made. For the most part the leaders are proud, 
 overbearing, lascivious, and avaricious: the flock have to pander to their 
 views, and they have a galling yoke to bear. My firm conviction is that 
 THE LEADERS, AS A CLASS, ARE AMONGST THE WORST PEOPLE IN THE 
 ISLAND ! What, then, is the religion which they retail to the people! and 
 what the churches which they are principally instrumental in constructing! ” 
 
 Rev. Wm. Whitehorne, 
 
 Baptist Missionary, Jamaica. 
 
 • The change alluded to, is the abolition of the leader and ticket system, which Mr. 
 Reid effected, after full conviction that it was “evil, and only evil, and that continually.” 
 
 f In the teeth of this you assert, p. 11 of your Circular—“ Messrs. Whitehorne, King¬ 
 dom, and Reid, liave very seldom visited their brethren, and know very little of the state 
 of the churches. Mr. Whitehorne has not visited any of the principal of them for several 
 years. He knows little, unless it may be of the native Baptists who abound in his 
 vicinity! ” How are these statements to be reconciled? Who is correct, and who in error? 
 
11 
 
 With one more extract I shall have nearly concluded this part of my 
 reply. The writer is a most excellent and truly evangelical clergyman of 
 the church of England. I have reasons, satisfactory to myself, for with¬ 
 holding his name. The letter was written to me in November last. 
 
 “ I am quite certain that a most wicked domination, and one subversive 
 of all true liberty, has often been carried on by the leaders. It may be 
 ascribed to my Episcopalianism perhaps if I say that I would never give 
 any person such authority as the Baptist leaders possess. The leadership 
 system, as exhibited by the larger Baptist churches, is essentially Episcopal, 
 strongly tinctured with the domination of Rome ; sic volo, sicjubeo.” 
 
 I will just add, in conclusion, that it has always appeared to me most 
 extraordinary that leaders should be employed by your missionaries. 
 When I consider your professed adherence to positive institutes and 
 express commands, and how little you allow for legitimate inference on 
 other subjects, can I fail to be astonished that you countenance a class of 
 officers in the Christian church, concerning whom nothing is said in the 
 statute Book of our King ! 
 
 Why employ them ? Is it to advance the kingdom of Christ, or to 
 increase the dominion of a sect ? Why create a system altogether anoma¬ 
 lous and unscriptural ? We have never employed leaders, nevertheless 
 we have succeeded in gathering around us a goodly fellowship of intelligent 
 and devoted Christians. Your own missionary, Mr. Reid, has had, since 
 the destruction of this evil system, a larger congregation and more regular 
 attendance than when this Anti-New-Testament agency was in full operation. 
 
 Carefully and candidly and thoroughly examine the claims of the Baptist 
 leaders, to be men of renown in the midst of your congregations, and, with 
 myself, you will be landed in a conclusion the very opposite of your present 
 one —"that they are pious and useful men, whose labors are of the greatest 
 service to the cause of Christ.” 
 
 .Your circular thus continues. II.— It is said that tickets, which are 
 given to members and inquirers, are regarded with superstitious reverence, 
 as charms or passports, and are earnestly sought for under this notion—that 
 the people think they are purchased, and that thus they are a means of 
 extortion.” 
 
 This I believe to be generally the case: I have met with frequent 
 instances of ‘superstitious reverence’ for the tickets amongst your members 
 and enquirers. I have heard the people speak of their being ‘ quite weak' 
 —of their having ‘ no comfort ’—of their ‘having nothing to show their 
 religion,’ and like phrases, when they have lost their ticket, or had it taken 
 from them. Some of the native Baptist preachers, for whom the system 
 pursued by your missionaries is solely responsible, tell their people that the 
 ticket is to ‘ clear the way to the judgment seat,’ and similar awful absur¬ 
 dities, which would be truly ludicrous but for the soul-destroying errors 
 connected therewith. 
 
 With regard to selling tickets, which you say has not been done, let me 
 call your attention to the following facts. The first rests upon Mr. Slatyer’s, 
 the second on my, responsibility. 
 
 ‘‘ I have,” says Mr. S. ‘‘ tickets now in my possession sold by Mr. 
 Taylor * to persons of my congregation, identifying them as enquirers with 
 him, though he had never seen them ; they had no intention of leaving me, 
 did not fetch the tickets themselves, but sent to buy them by the leader. 
 By this practice of selling tickets, and working upon the ignorance and 
 superstition of the people, vast multitudes were identified with the Baptist 
 denomination in this parish.” 
 
 * In your Circular Mr. Taylor says—“ If I thought the tickets were an evil, I would 
 break up my church sooner than give one.” The fact is that Mr. Taylor’s leaders, with 
 their classes, have lately left him and set up for themselves at Old Harbour, forming more 
 ‘ native Baptist churches,' but not coming from America; so that Mr. Taylor has literally 
 no church to break up, the leaders having broken it up already. 
 
12 
 
 One who was formerly an influential leader thus informs me—“ Mr. 
 Taylor used to give me a bundle of tickets, marked enquirers, to sell in the 
 mountains for 6d. each. I sold many, some dozens, to people who never 
 saw the missionary : once a month I used to go down to the station, twenty 
 miles distant, with a bag of money, which was counted out to see if it 
 corresponded with the number of tickets sold.” 
 
 Your own missionary, Mr. Reid, says he is “prepared with evidence to 
 prove” that of the 800 church members committed to his care “ the 
 GREATER NUMBER ” trusted for salvation to the possession of a ticket, the 
 superstitious observances of the class room, and to admission into the 
 church.” 
 
 In your circular you say—"Mr. Blyth affirms that tickets are sold to any 
 one that will buy them, and that they may be had even for horses and 
 dogs; and in proof, brings forward a circumstance that occurred some 
 twelve years ago, of an individual pretending to have been sent for the 
 usual tickets by some inquirers who were not able to attend.” 
 
 This is certainly a mistatement; whether wilful or otherwise I decide 
 not. In a letter recently addressed by the Rev. Mr. Blyth to your com¬ 
 mittee, of which I have a copy, he writes thus—" I never made any such 
 general assertion. I said that tickets could easily be procured, and without 
 much enquiry being made about the character of the applicants. In proof of 
 this I adduced a fact which occurred at Port Maria. A merchant, Mr. Rae, 
 being informed that his servant was going for a Baptist ticket, told her to 
 bring one for him too, and gave her a sixpence to pay for it; and his clerk 
 being present did the same. The servant having asked what name they 
 wished to be written on their tickets, the one gave the name of the watch 
 dog, and the other the name of his pony. The girl acted according to her 
 instructions and brought back the tickets, which are probably in their 
 possession still; if not, in one of the printing offices, where at one time it 
 was advertised they might be seen by any one who doubted their 
 existence.” 
 
 " The circular would make it appear that the circumstance alluded to 
 occurred twelve years before I mentioned it. Whereas I adduced it eleven 
 years ago when it was a recent fact.” 
 
 The clergyman to whom I have previously alluded writes thus—" The 
 danger of the tickets is that by poor ignorant people they are looked on as a kind 
 of passport to heaven.” 
 
 But I proceed to notice the last part of your circular—it is as follows :— 
 
 III.— “It is said that baptisms are hasty and indiscriminate, and that the 
 discipline of the churches is exceedingly low.” 
 
 This would, I think, be the natural conclusion of any one who should 
 examine the tabular view, published by your Jamaica missionaries, from 
 which it appears that in 1840, in that island alone, 500 were excommunicated 
 from the fellowship of your churches. Is there any other part of the great 
 mission field in which the knife of excision is applied on so magnificent a 
 scale ? 
 
 " Hasty and indiscriminate baptisms” you are persuaded your mission¬ 
 aries do not practice. Will you then consider the following, the truth of 
 which I am happy to say is at last acknowledged by Mr. Tinson, in his 
 reply to Vindex, in the Evangelical Magazine for April.* 
 
 As an instance, Mr. Slatyer stated in a letter to which his name was 
 affixed, the following case of indiscriminate baptism and admission to the 
 church.—"Eighty-seven persons were baptized by a Baptist missionary, of 
 whom there were twenty more than he was aware of—about thirty-seven 
 not spoken to by him until he said to them in the water, " I baptize thee, 
 &c.” being examined by leaders who could not read; of the remainder, 
 
 • Mr. Tinson’s words in i et'ercnco to this rase arc—“ I do not justify such conduct, 
 for I think it wrong." 
 
13 
 
 who were examined by the missionary himself in a space of time not 
 averaging more than seven minutes to each, several could not tell who 
 Jesus Christ was.” 
 
 My much esteemed and lamented brother the late Rev. John Wooldridge, 
 wrote thus in his journal, February, 1835, when we had not been two 
 months in Jamaica, and I am sure you will agree with the writer in the 
 Evangelical Magazine, that the following extract is “ conceived and 
 expressed in the deep tone of Christian affection ; ”— 
 
 “ I preached yesterday,” writes Mr. W. “ at Port Royal, preparatory to 
 the administration of the Lord’s supper. That seems to be an awfully 
 wicked place. The Baptist church there is in connection with dear brother 
 Gardner’s in Kingston. How evidently wrong ! The labours of this dear 
 minister fall, of necessity, very far short of what is requisite for the 
 numerous charge which here and for miles round look to him. No pastor 
 in England, nor perhaps in the world, has so many souls under his charge, 
 and assuredly no one can have a class of people more needing close atten¬ 
 tion. How then is he to take the oversight of the Port Royal congregation 
 too, distant seven miles by water! Hence the church has no order, no dis¬ 
 cipline, and of 200 members, not 100 were at the table ! I greatly fear that 
 the system the missionaries have pursued, the best perhaps they could pursue 
 under the circumstances in which they have been placed, has been very 
 injurious and fallacious ! There is no pastoral work done. The people are 
 unknown to the missionaries themselves, and are often baptized, or ‘ taken 
 into society ’ without any religion or knowledge. Not five in a hundred even 
 of the members of the churches can read, and very few of them indeed can give 
 any reason of the hope that is in them. Is it any wonder that cases so fre¬ 
 quently occur calling for the knife of excision ? Is it wonderful that the 
 enemies of God have so often blasphemed, and that infidels have hardened 
 one another in their sins through the inconsistency of professors.” 
 
 The following is another extract from the communication of the Rev. 
 George Blyth, of the Scottish Missionary Society, to your Committee, 
 dated Edinburgh, 14th February, 1842 :— 
 
 “ In the paragraphs of the circular, which refer to myself, there are the 
 following gross mistakes, if not wilful perversions of truth. You say— 
 ‘ the statements of our brethren are attempted to be set aside by the opinion 
 of two or three of the Scottish missionaries, &c.’ But these are not the 
 only agents of the Scottish mission who are opposed to the proceedings of 
 the Baptist missionaries. The whole Presbytery are unanimous on 
 THE SUBJECT, AND SENT A FAITHFUL REMONSTRANCE TO THE BaPTIST 
 MISSIONARIES at their Meeting, in last July. Again you say—‘ Mr. Blyth, 
 who brought forward grave charges against churches near him, refused to 
 give the particulars to their pastors, to whom a copy of his letter had been 
 forwarded for the purpose of enquiry.* ‘ These remarks,’ add Mr. B., 
 
 ‘ would lead to the conclusion that I had simply refused to give particulars 
 when called on to do so. Whereas I declined on the following grounds— 
 That there was such a general dissatisfaction among all evangelical ministers 
 on the island with the conduct of the Baptist missionaries, that a few explana¬ 
 tions of one minister to another would not materially affect the question.” 
 
 Let me call your attention to the following, communicated in a letter 
 from one of our catechists. “ Two weeks ago, at our regular church meet¬ 
 ing, one of our members mentioned having seen the leader on Brampton 
 estate so drunk that he could scarcely see his way. The next day Mr. 
 Vine and myself went to the estate to preach; whilst sitting in a negro 
 house we saw a man walk by quite tipsy. Mr. V. invited him into the 
 house, and as he was coming in said to me, ‘ I believe this is the leader.’ 
 And so it was, so drunk that he could scarcely speak. He is not only 
 leader, but head deacon of Mr. Cornford’s church. I wrote presently to 
 
 Vide Circular, page 11. 
 
14 
 
 Mr, C., the Baptist missionary, accusing the leader of habitual drunkenness, 
 and also expressed my opinion of the people in his class. In reply, he said, 
 “(and you will observe that this is not the language of either Messrs. 
 Whit ehorne,King don, or Reid,') that he had reason to believe that my estimate 
 of the people was too correct; that he had resolved to expel the leader and 
 some of his class, and to suspend the rest until he had reason to believe they 
 were converted characters He added that his labours did not seem to be 
 attended with that success which he could wish, and he was beginning to 
 fear that the Divine blessing was withheld on account of the impurity of the 
 church, and urging me by every consideration to help him in purifying it. 
 I again wrote and told him that if I were to lay the whole truth before him, 
 I feared he could not receive it; that gross immoralities, although frequent, 
 were not what we so much complained of, as the prevailing deficiency of 
 personal practical piety in their churches, and that this arose from the un¬ 
 faithfulness of the leaders and members, and the laxness of their church 
 discipline. All this I illustrated from several persons whom I knew as 
 habitual drunkards in his church.” 
 
 The following is an extract from a communication of the valued friend 
 quoted in page 5. He is not one of those “ who have been disappointed 
 in their prospects,” inasmuch as during the whole of his residence in 
 Jamaica, he was officially unconnected with either party in this controversy. 
 “It is my deliberate conviction that the facts and statements put forth by 
 the brethren of the London Missionary Society, and which are corroborated 
 by similar statements made by missionaries of other denominations relative 
 to the unsatisfactory state of the unprecedently large Baptist churches in 
 Jamaica ; to the character of the leaders ; the general working of the leader 
 system; and the abuses connected with the issue of tickets — are substan¬ 
 tially TRUE ! A number of facts of the same kind, and upon which the 
 opinion above stated is founded, have from time to time come to my knowledge, 
 though the matter not being exactly within the range of the special business 
 to which I was then devoted, and not anticipating any occasion to use 
 them, I did not preserve a record of them.” 
 
 Your circular says, “ Mr. Barrett knows little of the Baptists, and has 
 taken his views principally from his neighbour, Mr. Reid.” 
 
 In answer to this I need only state that Mr. Reid did not receive his 
 appointment to Jamaica till the end of the year 1836! Almost two years 
 before I knew there was such a person as Mr. Reid in existence, I wrote 
 (under date June, 1835! ) to the London Missionary Society, a full expo¬ 
 sition of my sentiments on all the foregoing subjects, which communication 
 is still among the official documents of our Society ! 
 
 Again, you say, “ Mr. Barrett alleges, that the Baptists are shamefully 
 hasty in admitting members, and in proof states that Mr. Williams baptized 
 126 persons before he had been six weeks in the island. These, it turns out, 
 had been for years in communication with Mr. Philippo, and were only 
 waiting the arrival of a Baptist missionary to be formed into a church.” 
 
 The people referred to lived at Porus, surnamed by your missionary 
 Lionel-vale, after we had named it much more appropriately, Whitefield. 
 They were nearly forty miles from Mr. Phillippo : were visited only twice by 
 Mr. P. previous to the arrival of Mr Williams (instead of having “been 
 for years in communication with Mr. P.”) and then, six weeks after Mr.W.’s 
 arrival, were baptized, before he could possibly have had time to become 
 acquainted with their characters, especially when you bear in mind that 
 out of the six weeks, three were spent by Mr. Williams at another station. 
 
 Ere I draw this reply to a close, suffer a few words on behalf of Messrs. 
 Whitehorne, Kingdon, and Reid. Although they can, and doubtless will, 
 speak for themselves, I should deem myself culpably deficient in upright¬ 
 ness, if, as a missionary of another denomination, I did not endeavour to 
 rectify the position in which your circular places them before the Christian 
 public. 
 
15 
 
 I count, it a distinguished privilege that I know these brethren intimately, 
 and have had many opportunities of learning their trials, difficulties, and 
 labours ; and my honest conviction is that Jamaica does not contain more 
 devoted or more laborious missionaries. You measure their success by 
 the numbers baptized and admitted to church fellowship, but, from my in¬ 
 most heart, do I believe that, in the day when “ every man’s work shall be 
 tried with fire of what sort it is,” they and their people will be owned, 
 accepted, and glorified together. Bearing in mind the principles by which 
 in that day the amount of real success will be determined, I cannot hesitate 
 to express my firm conviction, that theirs will appear far greater than the 
 success of those whose churches number their hundreds and thousands. 
 
 Permit me to enquire what possible interest could these men have had in 
 destroying the leader and ticket system, and dissolving the churches at 
 their respective stations ? They knew full well that it would to a great 
 extent cut them off from the sympathy and approbation of the parent 
 society—that to a still greater extent it would diminish those pecuniary 
 resources by which they with their brethren might have lived in splendour— 
 and that thus to unchristianize their churches would array their dismem¬ 
 bered parts in bitter hostility against them—all this they knew—they had 
 counted the cost—and weighed the consequences, but with the “answer of 
 a good conscience towards God,” they dared not act otherwise. 
 
 And have they not ever been zealous and faithful missionaries ? Is there 
 one at home, or in Jamaica, that can point to a stain in their integrity, their 
 reputation, their devotedness, or their piety ? I trow not. Such then 
 being the case, I marvel greatly that you should have descended to make 
 such unworthy allusions to them as your circular contains. 
 
 With regard to Mr. Reid in particular, I must trespass on your patience 
 a little further. You parade him before the public as one “more intimate 
 with Psedo-baptists than with Baptists.” What then 1 Is this “ an iniquity 
 to be punished by the judges 1 ” 
 
 But, Sir, why has he been “more intimate with missionaries of other 
 societies than with his own brethren 1 ” Simply because those brethren, 
 without enquiring whether he had done good or evil in the dissolution of 
 his church, cut him off from their fraternal regard. He was sixteen miles 
 from the nearest brother of his own denomination, and when he went to 
 see that brother, the door was shut in his face. A station was then formed 
 in opposition to Mr. Reid, and in his immediate neighbourhood, and the 
 very individuals he had been compelled to excommunicate, wereimmediately received 
 into fellowship : so that the funds of the Baptist Missionary Society were 
 actually employed, to my certain knowledge, by Mr. Taylor, one of your 
 missionaries, in labouring to undo the work of another of your missionaries. 
 
 Since Mr. Reid has taken these steps, I know too well the history of a 
 long course of pecuniary privations to which he has been subjected, when 
 but for the help of “ brethren of other denominations,” he would not have had 
 wherewith to eat, or to be clothed; during which time also, he was subjected 
 to bitter reflections from his official correspondents, “ expressive of the 
 regret and disappointment of the Committee in his conduct” 
 
 Much and conscientiously as I differ with Mr. Reid on the question of 
 baptism, and no one can be a more strenuous advocate for “ believers’ 
 baptism” than he, I must be allowed to protest against the unfair and 
 unmanly treatment to which he has been subjected, simply for acting upon 
 what appeared to him scriptural principles. 
 
 He is my relative, is now, and has been for months, in deep distress 
 through domestic affliction and other causes, and I have yet to learn that 
 the churches of England wish their messengers to consider themselves cut 
 off from their affectionate sympathy and seasonable relief. 
 
 I regret the length to which my reply has grown ; but much more do I 
 lament the necessity imposed upon me, to give the foregoing statements 
 publicity. 
 
16 
 
 Convinced that the glory and power of Christ’s kingdom is its heavenly 
 purity, and that of all the obstacles to its advancement, none are so formi¬ 
 dable as those created by the inconsistencies of its professed adherents, 
 
 I remain. Reverend and dear Sir, faithfully yours, 
 
 WILLIAM GARLAND BARRETT. 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 The following is a copy of the correspondence alluded to on page 7 of this reply. It 
 was contained in a letter from one of our missionaries, the Rev. William Alloway, 
 adressed to me. 
 
 “ Soon after Mr. Cornford’s settlement at Rio Bueno, I heard that he was coming to 
 preach at Dry Harbour.* Brother Vine and myself therefore called upon him, thinking 
 that as he was a stranger, and not aware of all the circumstances, he might yet alter his 
 plans. During the conversation both Mr. Vine and myself spoke of the leadership system, 
 and of the general state of things. A few days afterwards I received the following note 
 from him.” 
 
 To Rev. W. Alloway. March, 1841. 
 
 My dear Brother,—Having promised to let you know my intentions respecting 
 Dry Harbour, permit me to state that after anxious delibei'ation and prayer, I really 
 cannot see any other way of fulfilling my duty than that at first proposed. If I could 
 avoid giving offence :—if I could satisfy my conscience without doing what you say w’ill 
 draw away your people, believe me I would do it But as I cannot, I do not fear the 
 consequences. Say what you will I shall ever regard you as a brother in Christ, and 
 though for what I have now to do, you may possibly revile me as unsparingly as you do 
 my people, and feel as bitterly towards me as ever you may have felt towards any, I will 
 endeavour to bear it in silence, and unwaveringly follow the path of duty. From the 
 misconceptions which you assert prevail on the subject of baptism you will allow that it 
 is my duty to preach much on the subject. I dare not let men ruin their souls by building 
 on a false foundation. As my services will not be required elsewhere yon will not be 
 surprised at my visiting Dry Harbour on the sabbath as early as possible. Wishing you 
 still the possesssion of grace, mercy, and peace. I remain, your’s truly, 
 
 P. H. COaNFORD. . 
 
 Reply. March, 1841. 
 
 Dear Sir,— Deeply as I regret the course you feel it your duty to adopt in refer¬ 
 ence to Dry Harbour, 1 still more deeply regret that you could not intimate this to me 
 without anticipating that I should “ revile you,” &c. In reply, I have only to state that 
 I have never reviled your people, nor felt bitterly towards them, but have, on the contrary, 
 as far as I have been allowed, laboured to promote their best interests. The most awful 
 of the facts told you the other day, rest on the testimony of Baptist missionaries, and those 
 that rest on mine shall be fully proved whenever a suitable opportunity offers. I might 
 with far more propriety charge you with reviling the Primitive churches, when you said 
 that the Baptist churches of Jamaica were as pure as they, but perhaps you had not then 
 seen your owm “ Tabular View,” which shew's with such discipline as yours, more than 500 
 excommunications took place in a single year—(1840.) 
 
 Since, after all that has been told you respecting Dry Harbour, and its vicinity—^that 
 there is not population enough for two places of worship—that the individual at present 
 occupying the station, entered on it at the suggestion of a Baptist missionary (the Rev. 
 William Knibb)—that a chapel and school-room liave already been built at a considerable 
 expen.se by another Society— that you might meet your people in that chapel —that one of 
 your own brethren, who best knows the locality (Rev. J. Clark), had expressed regret at 
 the steps you had already taken towards coming to Dry Harbour—and that, having made 
 all these considerations the subject of ‘ anxious deliberation and prayer,' you still feel it 
 your duty to enter upon ‘another man’s line of things,’—I shall not be at all surprised at 
 your ‘ coming to Dry Harbour on the Sabbath as often as possible. ’ 
 
 As it regards the subject—baptism, on which you.say you intend preaching so much, I 
 only wish that in this, and in every other part of your work, you may manifest much of 
 the spirit of Him, who baptized the household of Stephanas; and that, like Him, I may 
 always rejoice that Christ is preached, even when his being preached originates in no 
 higher motives than those of “envy and strife.” I remain, yours’ truly, 
 
 William Alloway. 
 
 Mr. Alloway adds—“Mr. Cornford has kept his promise; his movement has drawn 
 away many w'ho were regular attendants with us, and a few of the candidates who have 
 been long seeking admission into the church : whatever injury Mr. C. may inflict on this 
 station, it is a satisfaction to know that I have done nothing to provoke it.” 
 
 This is another of the proofs that if the ‘ negroes in many districts refused to attend 
 our ministry,’ and, as a consequence, ‘ disappointed our prospects,’ the Baptist brethren, 
 supported so generously by Psedo-baptist funds, would have been answerable for our failure! 
 
 * Mr. Allowajr'i ttalion. 
 
BAPTIST MISSION IN JAMAICA. 
 
 A REVIEW 
 
 OF THE 
 
 REV. W. G. BARRETT’S PAMPHLET, 
 
 UNTITLED 
 
 A REPLY TO THE CIRCULAR OF THE BAPTIST 
 MISSIONARY COMMITTEE. 
 
 BY SAMUEL GREEN, 
 
 WAI.WOaTll. 
 
 LONDON; 
 
 PUBLISHED BY HOULSTON AND STONEMAN, 05, AND 
 G. AND J. DYER, 24, PATERNOSTER ROW. 
 
 J. ROBERTSON, GLASGOW; R. OGLE, EDINBURGH; AND D. MARFLES, LIVERROOL. 
 
 1842. 
 
 Price Sixpence. 
 
ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 The Baptist Missionary Committee is in no way responsible for 
 any thing the following pages contain. They iconld have appeared 
 sooner but for reasons tch ich need not he explained, except that 1 had 
 to wait Mr. Phillippds retui'n to this coxmtry, and his being in 
 a state of health to furnish the facts which had to be presented. 
 These facts are authenticcded by Mr. P., and the missionary brethren 
 Merrick and Tinson. 
 
 S. G. 
 
 Walworth, October 1, 1842. 
 
R E V I E W, 
 
 ETC- 
 
 At the commencement of the present year, the Baptist Mis¬ 
 sionary Committee deemed that the oft-repeated charges against 
 the purity of the churches pertaining to the mission in Jamaica 
 called for some defence. A circular was therefore issued, bearing 
 the name of the secretary, and composed chiefly of statements 
 from missionary brethren on the several points of accusation. 
 These statements are deemed by many perfectly satisfactory ; not 
 by all—and especially not by the Rev. William Garland Barrett, a 
 missionary of the London Society, stationed in Jamaica. lie and 
 some of his brethren had given currency to the charges to which 
 the Circular replied. He deeply regrets, he says, that he is com¬ 
 pelled to publish a “ Reply;” but he informs his readers that “the 
 charges seriatim will comprise all that he intends saying,” p. 3. 
 One might have supposed that Mr. Barrett would think himself 
 called upon to give evidence, rather than merely repeat accusations. 
 The course he takes lays him open to the suspicion of attempting 
 little more than by frequent repetition to make some impression 
 on the public mind, and avail himself of the opportunity of re¬ 
 iterating in this country what could have but little effect while 
 published chiefly through the medium of the island newspapers. 
 
 lie wishes to vindicate himself from the attempt to damage his 
 character as a witness. In what way, however, was this damage 
 attempted ? Not hy impugning his motives; not by counter¬ 
 charges ; not by alleging intentional misrepresentations; nor by 
 any other means adapted to produce impressions unfavourable to 
 his Christian or ministerial character. His testimony as a witness 
 was questioned. The circular is purely defensive. The knowledge 
 
 A 2 
 
4 
 
 which Mr. Barrett had the nreans of obtaining of the baptist 
 churches was indeed called in question. Reasons were given for the 
 success of the Baptist Mission which he thinks invalid, and which, 
 he supposes mean, that other missionaries have done less to secure 
 the rights of the negro population than baptists, thus casting cen¬ 
 sure by implication. If Mr. Barrett resents this, I am sorry, but 
 I fancy the fact is even as it was stated. He is doubtless equally 
 attached to freedom and even-handed justice; but certainly, in 
 Jamaica, this attachment had not been expressed till the great 
 cause of emancipation had become somewhat popular. lie was 
 not there. The statements adduced against our chmrches were 
 disproved by the evidence contained in the Circular; but to this, 
 in all such matters, witnesses are inevitably liable : it ought to 
 give Mr. Barrett no just cause of resentment. He should re¬ 
 joice, considering the nature of the accusations alleged, and the 
 parties against Avhom they were aimed. To make out that a large 
 portion of the church of Christ is deeply, almost irrecoverably 
 corrupt, can be no cause of gratulation. 
 
 It were natural, perhaps, that I should avow the intense 
 anxiety and pain with which I address myself to the examination 
 of Mr. Barrett’s I'eply. I feel it; but it were of little moment to 
 exhibit my personal impressions. Had Mr. Barrett given evidence 
 of the charges circulated, hovrever painful, it might have done 
 good. The course he has pursued must do harm. The Society 
 may not suffer; the churches impugned will come scatheless from 
 the ordeal: but I would submit, with all respect, to Mr. Barrett, 
 whether himself and his friends can hope to be uninjured; and 
 must not the great cause of missions be dishonoured in the esti¬ 
 mate of the men who look on and say. Aha! Aha ! so would 
 we have it ? Do not let it be supposed that by this remark I 
 deprecate discussion : nothing like it. I deprecate discussion 
 carried on in improper places, and in any spirit but that of the 
 meekness and love which befits the disciples of him who neither 
 strove, nor cried, nor caused his voice to he heard in the streets. 
 Who would discuss domestic misunderstandings and family faults 
 before the world ? 
 
 I have been anxious to give Mr. Barrett credit for an inter¬ 
 mingling of good and benevolent desires with his wish to set 
 
himself right against the “ damage of character” of which he com¬ 
 plains. It is an unthankful business to point out and rebuke the 
 faults of brethien. IMr. Barrett surely intends by discharging this 
 duty to render these faulty brethren important service. He weeps 
 over and wishes to counteract the evils he complains of. Such 
 would have been my impression, but that Mr. Barrett himself de¬ 
 prives me of even the small gratitication this impression would 
 atford. His exposures, to take his own account of them, are purely 
 retaliatory. lie speaks in the name of his brethren, as well as in 
 his own name; but at present I cannot believe that they will accept 
 his account of the views and feelings which actuate them. “ I 
 must here,” he says, “ be allowed to say, that we do not consider 
 ourselves conservators of the discipline and purity of your churches 
 in Jamaica. Had we been allowed to do good as Ave had oppor¬ 
 tunity, and not been impeded by the proselyting labours and plans 
 of your agents, and permitted to retain undisturbed possession of 
 such spheres of labour as were opened for us by a favouring pro¬ 
 vidence, this exposure would have been prevented” p. 8. Verllv, this 
 is unveiling a feature of missionary character of which no idea 
 could have been previously entertained. I had always tliougbt 
 that evils are to be denounced, the more seriously in proportion as 
 they borroAv the mask and appearance of good; that this was a 
 direct and most important branch of a genuine missionary’s Avork : 
 but, no. Let us alone, and Ave care not how “ demoralizing and 
 soul-destroying” your plans are, nor hoAv many thousands of the 
 people they delude and ruin. We, Mr. Barrett in effect says, 
 are not the men to denounce your crime nor unveil your hypo¬ 
 crisy. If this remarkable sentence in Mr. Barrett’s pamphlet 
 mean any thing, it means thus much—“ Let us alone, and disho¬ 
 nour God and injure his cause as you like, Ave Avill not rebuke 
 you. Permit us to take unmolested our OAAm course, doing good 
 as Ave have opportunity, and you may mislead your thousands, may 
 deceive the Christian public of both hemispheres by accounts of 
 great success; in one Avord, you may employ the most balloAved 
 and dear of all religious truths only to inflict the deeper and Avider 
 mischief. You shall be perfectly secure, and the public, so far as 
 Ave are concerned, shall not be undeceived.” After such a confes¬ 
 sion of motive Avhat regard can be due to Mr. Barrett’s testimony ? 
 
6 
 
 But he complains of being impeded and interrupted in the 
 spheres of labour that were opened for them by a favouring provi¬ 
 dence. IIow stands the fact ? The London Missionary Society, 
 having been repeatedly urged thereto, chiefly by an influential 
 director connected with Jamaica, resolve, in 1834, to send mis¬ 
 sionaries to that island. This was while the effects of the violence 
 of the Colonial Church LTnion were yet visible in the ruins of 
 baptist chapels and the scattering of baptist congregations. In 
 determining where such missionaries should labour, the wishes of 
 this director had of course to be consulted. The property in which 
 he Avas interested lay in the midst of some of the stations already 
 occupied by baptist missionaries, and he had given to the Society 
 for some years £50 per annum in compensation for the labours 
 they conducted for the benefit of his negroes. It was, perhaps, 
 natural that he should Avish to locate the new missionaries among 
 these negroes. Objection AA’as felt to this, especially as there Avere 
 many destitute parts of the island Avhere, Avithout the probability 
 of collision, ample opportunities of doing good might be found. 
 The attention of officers of the London Society Avas called to this 
 fact, and valued baptist missionaries from Jamaica being then in 
 this country, a meeting betAveen them and the esteemed Secretary 
 of the London Mission Avas requested, and held at Fen Court. In 
 this meeting the map of the island Avas spread on the table, the 
 proposed locality of the neAv mission, and its connexion Avith bap¬ 
 tist stations, Avas pointed out, as Avere also the more destitute 
 districts. Nevertheless the location Avas retained. I may, hoAv- 
 ever, fearlessly appeal to Mr. Ellis, as to AA'hether there Avere any 
 indications of impeiliment to be throAvn in the AAay of brethren 
 about to go. They Avent. Hoav Avere they received ? The first 
 Avho j)rocecded to the north side of the island, to occupy ground, 
 be it remembered, in the very midst of baptist stations, Avas cor¬ 
 dially Avelcomed by Mr. Knibb ; to Avhom he Avas indebted for a 
 home for three months or thereabouts, Avhile yet he Avas a stranger 
 in a strange land. Mr. Knibb’s pulpit Avas readily opened to him. 
 lie communed Avith i\Ir. Knibb’s church ; and, Avhen he Avas jire- 
 j)ared to go into a residence of his OAvn, Mr. Knihb’s congregation 
 liberally contributed to assist in the erection of the place in aa Inch 
 he should preach. Nay, Mr. Knibh’s premises Avere devoted to 
 
7 
 
 tlie framing, under his own superintendence, of the chapel in 
 which the new missionary was to commence his labours. So 
 much for the jealous denominational feeling of w'hich Mr. Barrett 
 accuses the baptists. As to the south side of the island, concern¬ 
 ing which chiefly Mr. Barrett writes, one of the missionaries shall 
 give his own account of their reception by baptist brethren. Mr. 
 AVoolridge, under date of January 2nd, 1835, says in a letter 
 to the foreign secretary of the London Mission, “The Rev. J. 
 Tinson very kindly came to the hotel and invited us all to 
 tea at his house, where also we met Mr. and Mrs. Gardner, 
 and spent a most delightful evening; indeed, we cannot speak 
 too highly of the cordial and Christian reception we have had 
 
 from our baptist brethren.-On the Monday following, Mr. 
 
 Woolridge and Mr. Slatyer went as a deputation to Spanish 
 Town, to consult Messrs. Thompson and Phillippo, and to wait on 
 the governor. Mr. Phillippo and Mr. Thompson evinced the most 
 affectionate concern to furnish us information, and provided every 
 accommodation for us. Through them Messrs. Woolridge and 
 Slatyer were introduced to a medical gentleman, who having 
 estates in Clarendon, offered a house at Branston Hill for the 
 accommodation of a missionary, pointing out a district around it 
 which, for population and destitution of the means of grace, 
 seemed to deserve our immediate attention. We have accordingly 
 arranged for Messrs. Slatyer and Barrett to make a visit of in¬ 
 spection thither next week, and we hope Mr. Thompson Avill ac¬ 
 company them.-In the mean time, another suggestion has Iteen 
 
 urged upon us, first by IMessrs. Tinson and Gardner, and since by 
 JRessrs. Thomj)son and Phillippo, viz., to have one of our stations 
 at Kingston. They say that there is great need of another chapel 
 and more help here—that it would be almost necessary to our 
 other stations; that there is good prospect of success, &c.”— Evan. 
 Mag. 18.35, 127. The letter contains much more testimony of 
 
 a similar kind. Mr. Bamtt was received with entire cordialit}'. 
 From Mr. Taylor, at Old Harbour, Mr. Gardner, and Mr. Phil¬ 
 lippo, not to mention others, he received every act of kindness 
 and hospitality, with every expression of good will to the mission 
 in uhich he was engaged, that brotherly sympathy could suggest. 
 One is at a loss for language giving an adt^uate idea of the sur- 
 
8 
 
 prise awakened by the statement that “the jealous denominational 
 feeling which was displayed at home when the London Missionary 
 Society commenced its mission in Jamaica, was extended to 
 [^baptist] missionaries abroad,” p. 6. That any one of them ever 
 said that the London “ Society had no right to send missionaries 
 to Jamaica, because Jamaica belongs to the baptists,” is in my 
 view utterly incredible. 
 
 Iji harmony with this reception was all the subsequent conduct 
 of baptist missionaries towards their brethren of the London 
 Society. They bade them God speed in the name of the Lord ; 
 they showed them every possible act of kindness, till the evidence 
 was too strong to be resisted, that all this time they were en¬ 
 deavouring by letters home within a few months of their arrival 
 in Jamaica, to Injure the reputation of the men whose sympathy, 
 counsel, and kindness they confessedly enjoyed. So early had this 
 commenced, and so bitterly was it earned on, as to excite the 
 rebuke of the Directors of the London Mission in 1835 or 1836. 
 In April, 1837, tliey formally required, through their foreign 
 secretary, that their missionaries should communicate their coiu- 
 [•laints to the society concerned, and not to the public. In 1840, 
 or 41, a similar requirement was repeated when the Baptist Mis¬ 
 sionary Committee, by a deputation to the Directors, complained 
 of the disgraceful letters then so frequently appearing in the 
 Jamaica newspapers. Still no charge, or evidence, has ever been 
 submitted by brethren of the London Society to the Baptist Com¬ 
 mittee. They have been invited to communicate facts, if they 
 have them, and evidence, but they have not complied. Mr. Pan¬ 
 ton, a clergyman, did some three years since, yield to a similar 
 invitation, after it had been repeatedly urged, in consequence of the 
 public statements he had made. Ilis evidence was taken down 
 as it fell from his lips. Loose, impotent, and destitute of fact as 
 it was, when he saw the MS., previously to its being sent out to 
 Jamaica to be investigated, he chose to deny the accuracy of the 
 entire document. Are these the men, and these the proceedings, 
 that can be allowed to impugn the purity of churches of long 
 standing, and the fidelity of missionaries whom it were almost 
 presumption in me to commend ? 
 
 But the negroes, in their simplicity, thought the London mis- 
 
9 
 
 sionaries only half heliecers^ and hesitated therefore to hear them, 
 mid Mr. Barrett is “inclined to think” one of our missionaries did 
 sometliing purposely to foster this en-oneous impression, p. (). 
 Did he confess this inclination without the burning blush of 
 shame ? The missionary to whom he refers was at that moment 
 treating him and his friends with great hospitality. All his con¬ 
 duct Avas the very reverse of so ungenerous a suspicion. Besides, 
 Avho gave Mr. Barrett the power of judging of another’s motives 
 and intentions ? He was inclined to think thus of a Christian 
 brother ! Certainly he was ; his pages contain evidence enough 
 of a want of charity quite as great as that which he thus unwit¬ 
 tingly acknowledges ; but ivas he not aware that he ivas flagrantly 
 violating the Saviour’s command. Judge not, that ye he not judged; 
 for with ^chat judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged, and icith what 
 measure ye mete it shall he measured to you again. 
 
 Happily Mr. Barrett exhibits ivhat he says exemplifies the 
 hostility of which he complains. When he “removed to Claren¬ 
 don the people in that district were directed by Mr. Taylor to hold 
 services of their own, and ‘ to keep themselves to themselves ’ 
 until they had a minister of their oivn.” Mr. Taylor is too far 
 distant to be consulted. I regard this statement as highly 
 exaggerated; but if not, what is the evil after all, that lies at 
 Mr. Taylor’s door ? A people whom he had gathered, who were 
 in connexion with his church upwards of tiventy miles distant, 
 and for whom he had reason to believe a minister ivas being sent 
 out, consult him in an emergency ; he advises them to ivait till 
 they have a minister whom he knows they will more readily 
 hear, and who—IMr. Barrett will tell me I am a bigoted baptist— 
 will teach them the way of God more perfectly. I do not pro¬ 
 nounce an approval of the counsel given; I do not censure it; 
 enough that it does not sustain Mr. Barrett’s allegation. 
 
 Tiie second case, p. 7, that of the land offered, then withheld 
 on account of the threats of baptist leaders, but at last given, is 
 too feeble to deserve a Avord of remark. If it be as Mr. Barrett 
 represents, the leaders Avere Avrong in Avorking on the man’s fears; 
 but does he hope that Ave shall go Avith him in the only rule he 
 seems to understand and act upon, Ex u'no discc omnes ? He may 
 find this rule inconveniently applied. There is not a baptist mis- 
 
10 
 
 sionary in Jamaica who would not rejoice that the man at last 
 overcame his fears, and that now Mr. Barrett has a chapel there 
 “crowded every Sabbath.” By what proeess does he mix up 
 baptist missionaries and their denominational prejudice with this 
 matter ? 
 
 Two other cases are given. Mr. Vine affirms, “ and the state¬ 
 ment was never contradicted,” that there was a conspiracy among 
 our agents to prevent their mission gaining a footing in Clarendon 
 and Manchester. I shall not contradict the statement: it is not worth 
 while. I may be content to remind IVIr. Barrett, however, that even 
 Mr. Vine’s affirmation is not proof. Will he favour us with evi¬ 
 dence of the hostile project, the plan of operation, and the names 
 of the parties who were to act in it, which Mr. Vine says provi¬ 
 dentially fell into ]\[r. Woolridge’s hands. Strange, if this evi¬ 
 dence Avere so palpable, that Mr. AVoolridge should haA^e testified 
 his good Avill and esteem for those Avho Avere thus prejudiced and 
 hostile, by leaving £200 as a legacy to the Society to aid in carry¬ 
 ing on its Avork. 
 
 Mr. Barrett’s appendix gives another case. A considerable 
 number of individuals belonging to a baptist church at Rio 
 Bueno, reside at Dry Harbour, a settlement about seven miles 
 distant. They had often expressed their earnest Avish to have 
 a baptist missionary among them, and had received a promise 
 that this request should be gratified. In the mean time 
 ]\Ir. Knlbb directs the attention of one of the London mis¬ 
 sionaries to the spot in its destitution, and the more readily, for 
 that there Avas but little prospect of obtaining the requisite in¬ 
 crease of baptist missionaries. The request of the people aaus still 
 urged. They Avanted a minister “ of their oaa'ii,” if Mr. Barrett 
 Avill have it so, and at length Mr. Cornford having been sent to 
 the vlcinit}', he deemed it his duty to visit the people, and preach 
 to them. Mr. AlloAvay loudly complains; he insists upon the 
 vast impurity of the baptist churches, Avith Avhat relevancy it may 
 be difficult to perceive; yet, for aught I can see, the proof has still 
 to be supplied, that party and denominational zeal alone provoked 
 this aggression. By the Avay, I am irresistibly impelled to ask on 
 Avhat gi'ound Mr. Alloway rests his claim to exclusively supply 
 Dry Harbour with religious instruction i Mr. Cornford had up- 
 
11 
 
 AViirds of J50 of tlie members of the church over which he pre¬ 
 sided living there, Mr. Alloway had not one fourth of that 
 number. 
 
 In Mr. BaiTett’s eagerness to convict baptist missionaries of 
 denominational prejudice, he makes a statement, one of the few 
 facts, so called, contained in his pages, which I am anxious to 
 examine, in order to test his accuracy as a witness. It is to the 
 following effect: Messrs. Barrett and Slatyer with their Avives, 
 were on a visit to Spanish ToAvn, on the communion Lord’s-day. 
 “ Judge of our surprise,” says Mr. Barrett, “ Avhen avc found the 
 table of the Lord fenced against us, and that Ave Avere shut out 
 Avith unbelievers and infidels because we had not been baptized by 
 immersion” p. 6. There was, hoAvever, nothing in this to surprise 
 them. One Avould suppose they might have learned from their 
 previous residence in this country, that by far the greater number 
 of baptist churches at home Avould have placed them in the same 
 predicament. Will the reader mark the reason Mr. Barrett alleges, 
 “ because we had not been baptized by immersion!’ Is this caiidid? 
 Messrs. Barrett and Slatyer could not be ignorant, that according 
 to the vieAvs of the parties complained of, they and their friends 
 had not been baptized at all I Avill venture to say, that tlie 
 reason Avas not given in the terms Mr. Barrett professes to quote, 
 but in terms of altogether a different meaning. Nine-tenths of the 
 Christian church entirely accord in the sentiment of the Spanish 
 Town baptists, that persons uubaptized are inadmissible to the 
 Ijord’s table, and is it to be supposed that this aaus not Avell 
 knoAvn to Mr. B. anti his friends ? Mr. Barrett, hoAvever, could 
 not be “ surprised.” lie had left Kingston but a fcAv days pre¬ 
 viously, and Mr. Gardner had told him and his companions, that 
 if they Avished to partake of the Lord’s supper, they had better 
 remain in Kingston till after the Lord’s-day, as at Sj)anish To ami 
 they Avould not be able to enjoy that ordinance, the church being 
 of strict communion principles. This, however, is not the 
 Avorst of the statement. Mr. B. goes on to say, “ When Ave 
 expressed our astonishment at his [^Mr. P.’s ] conduct, he offered, to 
 yioe us the Lord’s sujper privately., and said he had no objection 
 to bring us the elements into his OAvn dwelling-house, that we 
 n)ight (here commune Avith each other,” p. (h The first and las( parts 
 
12 
 
 of this sentence are not in harmony. To offer to “ give the Lord’s 
 snpper privately,” and to “ bring the elements into his own dwell¬ 
 ing-house, that they might commune together,” are not the same 
 thing. They are two things perfectly distinct. If Mr. Barrett 
 intended the latter, where is the evidence of Mr. Phillippo’s deno¬ 
 minational prejudice. He offers no obstacle to their communing 
 together, hut facilitates it. If he intended the former, his state¬ 
 ment must be met with a direct contradiction. Mr. PhilHppo 
 informed Mr. Barrett and his friends in the manner least likely to 
 give ofiFence, of the views the church entertained. Referring to 
 the table of the Lord, he said, That, Mr. Barrett, is not my 
 table ; I cannot do at it as perhaps my feelings would prompt me 
 to do adding, “ but here,” referring to his own table, “ you shall 
 have a hearty welcome. I believe you to be ministers of 
 Christ, and as such I receive you with all cordiality. Whatever 
 my own views of communion at Christ’s table may be, the church 
 is strict, and as I believe they are so from principle, you would 
 not wish that principle violated by any influence I might be able 
 to exert for that purpose.” j\Ir. Phillippo did not offer to give 
 ]Mr. Barrett and his companions the Lord’s supper privately. He 
 could not do so, for that from the commencement of his missionary 
 course he has, both publicly and privately, deprecated such a 
 practice, and still maintains a conscientious objection against all 
 private celebrations of this hallowed rite. 
 
 I am grieved to have thus to call in question Mr. Barrett’s 
 recollection in a case where especial care and correctness were 
 necessary. I must, how^ever, do this, as I would not impute to 
 him intentional misrepresentation ; but shall the depositions of a 
 witness be taken whose memory is so much at fault ? 
 
 It may seem beside the purpose to dwell upon these little 
 matters ; but, be it observed, they are the matters which Mr. Bar¬ 
 rett urges as illustrations of the delinquency of the Jamaica bap¬ 
 tists, and this delinquency is the cause of the exposures he and his 
 brethren make. If he have given graver matters, they shall also 
 be examined. 
 
 Mr. Barrett is exceedingly anxious to have it believed that 
 the Baptist JMissionary Committee have frequently and long 
 had before them, in letters from their own missionaries, the 
 
13 
 
 charges which he and his brethren have so industriously cir¬ 
 culated. He is at issue with the Committee when they say the 
 statements referred to have seldom come before them in either a 
 direct or specific form. Third parties principally have made 
 them, and that in so general a form as to render them incapable 
 of investigation or reply, p. 3. lie seems desirous of fixing on the 
 Committee the imputation of either neglecting or suppressing 
 allegations which ought to have been carefully sifted. Truly he 
 is a modest and most kindly judging censor! What, however, 
 does he urge in proof? Mr. Coultart wrote to the Committee, 
 fully unfolding “ his sentiments on the large number of baptisms 
 and indiscriminate admission to church fellowship,” p. 4. Mr. 
 Coultart did in his correspondence occasionally advert to apprehen¬ 
 sions which on these subjects he sometimes entertained, but these 
 apprehensions related to the churches under his own care at suc¬ 
 cessive periods ; and moreover he again and again stated, as may 
 be seen in his published letters, and as probably will be remem¬ 
 bered by many, in his public addresses, that he never received an 
 individual into communion who he had not good reason to believe 
 w^as savingly converted to God. All the other baptist missionaries 
 could with equal truth and honesty say the same thing. Now, 
 were Mr. Coultart’s apprehensions, the fears which might oppress 
 his heart at his most anxious moments, capable, or even deserving 
 of being investigated by the Committee ? lie was a man noto¬ 
 riously of a morbid, melancholy state of mind, the prevalence of 
 which at some periods was distressing to those who knew and 
 loved him. Committees will have enough to do if apprehensions 
 such as these are to be made matters of strict, searching inquiry. 
 Where is the pastor who has not sometimes felt, and in the con¬ 
 fidence of brotherly correspondence has not expressed himself 
 somewhat as Mr. Coultart does ? Witness the numerous pas¬ 
 toral biographies on our book-shelves. To make the use of such 
 correspondence which Mr. Barrett makes of Mr. Coultart’s letters, 
 I’eminds me of the proof alleged by Roman Catholics, that Martin 
 Luther w'as almost a devil Incarnate. His diary records his con¬ 
 flict with the sins of his own heart, with the temptations by which 
 he was assailed, and the apprehensions as to his own piety, of 
 which he not infrequently was the subject. 
 
14 
 
 J3ut Mr. Coultart’s letter, which was about to he published iu 
 Jamaica! I wish Mr. Barrett had favoured us M'ith it in his 
 pages, as it might then have been replied to. I have seen it, 
 though it is not now within my reach, and if my recollection 
 serves me correctly, it is a specimen of just such correspondence 
 as I have referred to above. It tells the apprehensions he enter¬ 
 tained concerning the people to whom he had ministered, more 
 especially during the latter years of his life. Now, if they had 
 been quite as superstitious and ignorant as Mr. Barrett would 
 have us believe most of the members of the Jamaica baptist 
 churches are, no surprise ought to be felt. They had not pre¬ 
 viously been favoured Avith missionary instruction. Mr. Coultart 
 himself did not live among them. His ministrations, almost 
 confined to the pulpit, were of necessity infrequent. He resided 
 at nearly twenty miles distance, and it must be remembered 
 that such a distance in Jamaica is a different thing from twenty 
 miles in England. His complaint is, if I remember rightly, 
 that he could find no materials of Avhich to form a church; 
 but surely this is no proof of the impurity of our churches. 
 IIoAV, moreover, does Mr. Barrett connect with this letter—a 
 letter which the Committee never saw—the obligation resting 
 on them to investigate the purity of the baptist churches 
 generally ? 
 
 I\[r. Ban-ett Telies a good deal on the testimony of JNIr. Reid, 
 who a short time since was a baptist missionary. Not only in the 
 present pamphlet, but while as yet the matters in question were 
 chiefly agitated in Jamaica ncAvspapers, he AA’ill remember his 
 anxiety to enlist Mr. Reid against his brethren, the baptists. A 
 letter to Observator in the Jamaica Morning Journal of June lU, 
 1841, bearing Mr. Barrett’s name, professedly cjuotes from a dis¬ 
 course which Mr. Reid had recently delivered at an ordination. 
 Mr. Reid, UTiting to me under date 29th September, makes the 
 following remarks on that quotation : “ From the first appearance 
 of JMr. Barrett’s letter to Observator, I regretted the insertion of the 
 quotation respecting which you desire information, for, 1. It Avas 
 in no Avay Avhatever connected Avith his object in Avriting.... 2. 
 Mr. Barrett quoted from memory, and I cannot charge myself Avith 
 having spoken the identical Avords reported in your letter; and, 3. 
 
The passage was separated from its connexion with the discourse 
 to which it belonged, and published without my knowledge ; and 
 owing to the naked form in which it was made to appear, it 
 seemed like an attempt on my part to defame the baptist churches 
 in a manner which I would be ashamed to acknowledge.” Mr. 
 BaiTctt says, in the Evangelical Magazine for August last, p. 400, 
 that he has a copy of this letter, furnished to him of course by 
 Mr. Reid. If he have, let him test the accuracy of my quotation 
 and abide, calmly if he can, the judgment that will be pronounced 
 upon him. 
 
 But Mr. Barrett inserts an extract from a letter of Mr. Reid, 
 published in Jamaica in November last; a letter formidable in its 
 charges and asseverations truly, less fearful however, at least on 
 the principal point for which Mr. Barrett brings it forward, than 
 at first sight it seems. The letter was addressed to the Committee, 
 and Ml*. Barrett might naturally believe it would be in their 
 possession. It was not. Till April last they did not know 
 of its existence, and not till long afterwards had they the 
 necessary evidence that, though it bore IVIr. Reid’s name, it had 
 been written by him or published with his sanction. Notwith¬ 
 standing, therefore, the “ solemn charges” it contains, the Com¬ 
 mittee were quite right in saying that the accusations had not been 
 made in so direct and specific a form as to be capable of investi¬ 
 gation or reply. 
 
 The letter is now public. Its “ solemn charges” are in the 
 hands of all men. It behoves, therefore, to examine them. Mr. 
 Reid says, he is “ prepared with evidence to prove—evidence 
 arising from facts which have arisen rvithin the reach of my own 
 observation,” four points in the system adopted by the baptist 
 churches, in the character of the leaders they employ, and in the 
 Christian knowdedge of the great majority of their members. 
 These points are confessedly of the gravest kind. He gives, how¬ 
 ever, no proof; he is content to reiterate the accusations, without 
 presenting one particle of evidence. I must take leave to remind 
 Mr. Barrett, that this is not the proof his pamphlet ought to 
 have contained. There should at least have been inserted names, 
 places, species of conniption, something that might enable the 
 Committee to examine into what is so confidently urged. It is 
 
16 
 
 not repeatedly denouncing a man that can make liim a criminal. 
 AVe must have the specific charges, and when we have these, 
 we want the evidence on which they rest; we ask the privilege 
 of examining the witnesses. Mr. Reid says he is prepared 
 with evidence. Be it so: let the Committee have it ere judg¬ 
 ment he moved. In the mean time, one circumstance in his 
 declarations cannot fail to attract attention, Ilis evidence arises 
 from facts 'icithin his own observation. It makes out that the 
 majority of those who have been baptized ([throughout the island^) 
 were at the time strangers to a change of heart. This is bold. 
 Has Mr. Reid acquainted himself with the baptist churches 
 in Jamaica generally? His location amongst an uninstructed 
 people; a people whom the missionary of the society nearest 
 to them could but seldom visit, may have made him acquainted 
 with evils deeply to be deplored; but he speaks of the majority 
 of the members of the baptist churches. It surely is not ir¬ 
 relevant to inquire, how far does Mr. Reid’s own personal 
 observation extend ? and it may be affirmed, that he is precisely 
 the missionary whose knowledge of the churches he maligns is 
 less than that of any other. He has had but very little intercourse 
 with his brethren or their churches. His acquaintance with the 
 leader and ticket system, which he so vehemently denounces, has 
 been confined, of necessity, within narrow limits. I do not say 
 this disparagingly. He has had no good opportunity for the inter¬ 
 course and observation in question; but then he should scarcely 
 have affirmed what certainly he is not prepared to maintain, what 
 indeed no man can maintain. AVhether hearts are changed or 
 not, except where there are manifest proofs of impurity and vice, 
 must be left to Him to determine whose prerogative it is to search 
 the heaH and try the reins of the children of men. 
 
 The opinion, or as Mr. AVhitehorae has it, the “ firm conviction” 
 of other baptist missionaries also is quoted by Mr. Barrett in 
 proof of the charges he would substantiate. Messrs. Kingdon 
 and Whitehorne are tbe baptist missionaries referred to. AV'hat 
 has been said, how'ever, of Mr. Reid’s w'ant of knowledge might be 
 repeated here. Neither Mr. Whitehorne nor Mr. Kingdon knows 
 much of the character of the churches and leaders they impugn. 
 Those at their own stations they may know, but these were stations 
 
-1 
 
 1 / 
 
 where almost no Christian instruction had previously been fur¬ 
 nished, either by the Baptist or any other missionary society. 
 Mount Charles, for instance, the station occupied by Mr. White- 
 home, was one of Mr. Coultart’s out-stations when he resided at 
 Kingston. He could but seldom visit it. A missionary was sent 
 out to occupy the ground, but obstacles were thrown in his way, 
 and long intervals occurred during which the people saw not 
 their teachers. The times were those of slavery, when every 
 body knows but few efforts could be successfully made to teach 
 the people. What if they were ignorant and superstitious—who 
 can wonder ? Where is the mission station whose people would 
 not be equally ignorant and superstitious in similar circumstances ? 
 But there is a difference between ignorance and wickedness. Mr. 
 Whitehorne says the leaders were bad men. They might be so ; 
 but it will be observed that Mr. Coultart founded the church, and 
 admitted its earliest members, among whom are many of the 
 denounced leaders; and he says again and again that he never 
 baptized any of Avhom he had not good reason to believe that 
 they were converted to God. Moreover, Mr. Whitehorne’s “ firm 
 conviction” that they were “ bad” men is unsustained, and his 
 allegation that all the leaders are bad men, because, in his opinion, 
 the few he had met with at Mount Charles were so, deserves no 
 answer as argument, it can only be rebuked as gratuitous assertion. 
 
 The leaders are affirmed to be bad men; not that any specific 
 charges are alleged against them. What do they do to meet 
 the allegation ? As soon as they hear of it they assemble and 
 make inquiry for the purpose of ascertaining the grounds on 
 which they are thus accused. Failing in this, they declare to 
 the world that they have been calumniated. They publish 
 their names and places of abode; they challenge their accusers 
 to substantiate their charges, or to point out the “ bad men,” 
 in order that the churches might deal with them accordingly. 
 AVhat other course, more dignified, more satisfactory and Chris¬ 
 tian, could they take ? I have before me documents of this 
 nature, signed by one hundred and seventy-four of the accused 
 parties. None of the accusers has taken up the challenge. Mr. 
 Barrett and others may after this continue to affirm that the leaders 
 are bad men. None will hesitate in denoimcing the charge as 
 
 B 
 
18 
 
 calumny. God forbid that they who make it should be imi¬ 
 tated, or that the accused and aggrieved parties should ever return 
 railing for railing. In some instances, as in the large churches at 
 Jericho and Mount Hermon, the traduced parties meet and deli¬ 
 berate, and at length resolve to take no other notice of the charges 
 brought against them than to watch more diligently over each 
 other, and to observe with greater faithfulness the scriptural 
 injunction to promote by every possible means the faith and holi¬ 
 ness of the Christians among whom their lot was cast. 
 
 Pursuing the subject of the ignorance and corruption of the 
 baptist churches, Mr. Barrett gives what he would call proofs, 
 which, for the sake of distinctness, I throw into the following 
 order. 1. Members of baptist churches seek to have their children 
 baptized. 2. They would rather remain at home than attend the 
 preaching of other than baptist ministers. 3. The native baptist 
 churches are awfully impure and superstitious. And, 4. Admis¬ 
 sions to Christian fellowship by the baptist missionaries are hasty 
 and indiscriminate. 
 
 As to the first, does not Mr. Barrett know that during slavery 
 the registei-ing of children was demanded of the negroes ? 
 Whether bond or free they were obliged to register ; the former, 
 at the bidding of their owners ; the latter, to protect their free¬ 
 dom. It is not unlikely, that all the testimony on this subject 
 which Mr. Barrett can adduce, were it dated, would be found 
 to refer to the times either of entire or modified slavery. And if 
 not, does ]\Ir. Barrett suppose that when the master evil was 
 removed, all and every the mischiefs it induced would be re¬ 
 moved too ? Is there no such thing as habit in what is A\Tong 
 not easily or soon relinquished? But Mr. Barrett talks, p, 
 5, of the “public blessing” of children, and says it is regarded 
 as equivalent to infant baptism. I do not think the practice 
 a good one, the sooner it is abandoned the better; but Mr. 
 Barrett knows, and indeed in effect says, that it is not adopted 
 by all the missionaries. IMr. Phillippo says, “ I never ‘ blessed’ a 
 child in my life, and my conviction is, that the majority, if not 
 nearly all, of my brother missionaries, with whose practices I am 
 as well acquainted as IVIr. Barrett can be, are equally guiltless.” 
 1 say nothijig of the Clnistian charity of Mr. Barrett’s insinuation, 
 
19 
 
 tliat tlie practice is invented to meet a strong prepossession in 
 favour of infant baptism; it is enough tliat what he alleges about 
 the practice itself is not true. 
 
 The members of baptist churches, Mr. Barrett says, are un¬ 
 willing to attend on the preaching of other than their own 
 ministers. If this be the criterion of purity, woe to the churches 
 in England, and not to those of the baptist body merely. Enough 
 has already been said on this point while meeting the charge of 
 denominational prejudice. Can it be wondered at, that men u lio 
 have been insulted, traduced, and held up to scorn, should refuse 
 to attend the religious ministrations of those who treat them 
 thus. Let Mr. Barrett and his brethren learn gentleness, and 
 manifest good will, whether to the baptist or pa?dobaptist. Let 
 the law of kindness be in their hearts, and the language of kind¬ 
 ness on their lips, and I make no doubt that they will be wel¬ 
 comed as occupants of the waste places of the land. 
 
 On the next point, viz., the awful impurity and superstition of 
 the native bajjtists, I need not make much remark. The baptist 
 missionaries have no more connexion with the native baptists, and 
 are no more responsible for the course they pursue than Mr. Bar¬ 
 rett and his brethren. He knows this; hence he says, “They 
 were leaders or members of different stations of yours in the 
 island, who quarrelled with their ministers, and Averc expelled for 
 sin, or else Avithdrew, always taking Avith them a number of the 
 people, Avho became the nucleus of their present churches and 
 congregations,” p. 8. To the latter part of this statement I can 
 only say, that the AvithdraAving or expelled parties did not ahvays, 
 nor even generally, take Avith them a number of the people; and 
 if they had, surely Mr. Barrett does not intend to charge impurity 
 upon the churches because a number of disaffected persons Avalked 
 no longer Avith them. If they Avere ungodly, superstitious persons, 
 ^ so much of Avhat churches should not contain Avas lost Avhen they 
 left. I can hardly give Mr. Barrett credit for meaning, though 
 his language implies it, that all Avho thus left Avere bad men, there¬ 
 fore all, or nearly all, Avho remained Avere bad men too. 
 
 Mr. B. has given, as he tells us, an account in the “ Christian 
 Examiner ” of the Native Baptists. He has. It is before me, and 
 it exhibits a similar discrimination, charity, and judgment, Avith 
 
 B 2 
 
 % 
 
 4 
 
20 
 
 his “Reply.” All the “ native baptists” are not bad men, as be 
 repjresents them ; but if they were, what is that to us, except that 
 we ought to deplore that men can be so depraved under semblance 
 of religion; and to leave no means untried that may, by God’s 
 blessing, make them better men? It is, however, a remarkable 
 fact, that the native baptists, with their vices and superstitions, 
 abound most either in districts to which missionaries from Europe 
 have not gone, or in those districts where the brethren dwell, 
 who have been so eager in reiterating charges of impurity against 
 the baptist churches. In the neighbourhood of IVIr. Whitehorne 
 there are, I believe, seven of the native baptist stations, and in 
 Mr. Reid’s neighbourhood, very near, by the way, to Mr. Bar¬ 
 rett’s, there are ten; while in Mr. Phillippo’s neighbourhood 
 there is but one : at Kingston, the largest town in the island, 
 there are but four; and none at all will be found in parishes 
 and districts where other baptist missionaides labour, among some 
 of the largest churches existing in the island, Falmouth and 
 Montego Bay to wit. 
 
 Mr. Barrett further affirms, that admissions to baptist churches 
 are hasty and indiscriminate, and adverts to one circumstance in 
 proof. “ A people living forty miles from Mr. Phillippo, whom he 
 had ■visited but twice, were baptized by Mr. AVilliams, a newly 
 arrived missionary, within six weeks of his arrival, and before he 
 could possibly have time to become acquainted with their charac¬ 
 ters,” p. 14. Now if this be intended as a sample of the haste 
 with which baptism is usually administered, Mr.^ Barrett is alto¬ 
 gether wrong. Candidates for that ordinance are seldom baptized 
 till for periods varying from six months to two years they have 
 been before their respective ministers, subjected to the closest 
 examination, instructed with great care, and narrowly observed. 
 These examinations, repeatedly had with the same individmUs, 
 are so conducted as to ascertain what led them first to think of 
 their own condition, the views they take of sin, of themselves as 
 sinners, their views of God, his holiness in hating sin, his justice 
 in punishing it, and his love in surrendering his Son to die on its 
 account. They are examined on the subject of their own worthi¬ 
 ness, their inability to effect their own salvation, the gospel 
 method of salvation, the person of Christ, the atonement, and the 
 
21 
 
 love of Christ. They have to tell the missionaries Avho receive 
 them, the evidence on which they believe they love Christ, and 
 that they are new creatures. Searching inquiries are made touch¬ 
 ing their views of practical religion, its duties, its holiness, the 
 effect it has on themselves, together with the views they take of 
 its ordinances. Besides these examinations, the most minute 
 inquiries into their conduct are invariably made on the properties 
 where they respectively reside. Whether there should be so long 
 a delay is not my question ; that it does take place is incontro- 
 vertibly true, and Mr. Barrett’s allegation falls to the ground. 
 
 As to the particular case alleged, the people of Porus. Mr. 
 Phillippo had visited them three times, not twice, as Mr. Barrett 
 says; many of them had attended at Four Paths, Mr. Baivett’s 
 Chapel, and at other places where the independent brethren 
 ministered; they had had repeated opportunities of seeing Mr. 
 Phillippo at Sligoville, and for twelve months previously to Mr. 
 AVilliams’s arrival, had been under the instruction of a pious and 
 exemplary coloured Christian and schoolmaster, who, according 
 to instructions given to him, left no means untried to ascertain 
 their tme character, and to teach them the way of the Lord. 
 Mr. ^Filliams received the testimony borne to the character of the 
 parties, examined them individually, and subsequently yielded to 
 the conviction so produced, and baptized them in the name of 
 Christ. Against one of the parties a charge was soon afterwards 
 alleged, which was carefully examined and disproved. If Mr. 
 Williams ought not in Mr. Bairett’s judgment to have baptized 
 these people, why is not something urged in support of this 
 opinion, or why did not Mr. Baivett give the necessary informa¬ 
 tion to Mr. Williams ? Is it not unjust and cruel to implicate 
 parties in a general, vague charge, without specifying even so 
 much as one evil thing that may be investigated ? 
 
 But Mr. Slatyer is quoted as affirming that a baptist missionary 
 had baptized on one occasion eighty-seven persons, when he 
 expected but sixty-seven, and that to thirty-seven of them the 
 baptist missionary had never spoken previously to his going with 
 them into thew’atcr,p. 12. This maybe quite true. I believe, indeed, 
 that from information given to me privately by Mr. Barrett, I can 
 point out the missionary to whom he refers. I am not disposed 
 
22 
 
 fo justify this conduct of the missionary in question ; nay, 1 believe 
 that none of Ids brethren in the island would justify it. Yet let 
 me add, in excuse for my brother, the thirty-seven persons were 
 examined by those on whose testimony he thought he could 
 rely. Mr. Barrett will tell me he was wrong as to one of the 
 exaniinei*s, and perhaps he was. He is not now a member of 
 the missionary’s church, having been withdrawn from. He is, 
 however, a member of Mr. Barrett’s, how influential or in what 
 office, Mr. Barrett may tell, I shall not; but at all events Mr_ 
 Barrett cannot think him unworthy of credit when speaking of 
 the religious experience and character of persons Avhom he might 
 have examined. Moreover let ]\Ir. Barrett say whether the know¬ 
 ledge of this fact Avas not arrived at through the missionary’s 
 unreserved confidence in the Christian kindness and brotherly 
 feeling of the missionary reporting it. Mr. Barrett or Mr. Slatyer 
 must have attained to a most enviable degree of noble generosity, 
 so easily to publish the faults of a brother to Avhose unsuspecting 
 confidence he Avas admitted, and so readily to lift his hand to 
 Avound the breast that opened to him in the fulness of disinterested 
 kindness. Mine oicn familiar friend^ in tchom I trusted^ tckich 
 did eat of my bread, hath lifted up his heel ayainst me. 
 
 Mr. Barrett is abundant in the names and sayings of parties 
 Avho think as he does as to the purity of the baptist churches. In 
 addition to Messrs. Kingdon, Reid, and Whitehorne, already no¬ 
 ticed, Ave have IMessrs. Blyth, AlloAA’ay, Vine, RenshaAv, Slatyer, 
 Avitli evangelical clergymen and catechists, Avhom he does not 
 name. This is a someAvhat formidable array, but I could adduce 
 oj)posite testimonies, from men as numerous, as unimpeachable, 
 .and as likely to knoAv the things concerning Avhich they speak. 
 Names, Avhen given simply in repetition of accusations, or as 
 merely declaring opinions on questions of fact, are not entitled 
 fo consideration. AVe Avant something more, but to Air. 
 Barrett’s names Ave look in vain. One catechist, p. 13, is an 
 exception : he reports Avhat may be regarded as a fact. Mr. 
 
 < ’ornford’s leader and head deacon Avas an habitual drunkard, 
 and the people of his class Avere suspected of conduct not consistent 
 Avith their profession. But then he goes on to state, Air. Cornford 
 ‘ had resolved to expel the leader and some of his class, and to 
 
23 
 
 suspend the rest.”—This testimony yields no very powerful sup¬ 
 port, therefore, either to the charges of impurity in the churches, 
 or of the dominancy of the leaders. Mr. Barrett’s ‘ valued friend’ 
 —I know not whether he be the pious clergyman or the school 
 superintendent,—testifies only that in his judgment the facts and 
 statements put forth by the brethren of the London Missionary 
 Society are substantially true. What would be thought of the 
 value of such testimony in a court of justice ? If I could fix 
 on the witness in this case, I might have something to say 
 certainly not calculated to add weight to his testimony. As 
 to Mr. Blyth and “ the whole presbytery ” with their “ faithful 
 remonstrance,” I trust readers will not apprehend much of evil 
 from this quarter. The whole presbytery is no very large body, 
 and if it were their unanimity on this subject can be easily 
 accounted for. Bring us men who have carefully informed them¬ 
 selves on the matters to Avhich they testify, who have no party 
 bias to guide their conclusions, who are prepared to lay their 
 facts before us, who do not shuffle when called upon to do this, 
 and who take no shelter under unanimity in a “ remonstrance ” 
 which though published in this country, had not been sent to the 
 parties immediately concerned, and attention shall be given to their 
 statements. Mr. Barrett must excuse me, if I say that as yet I 
 see no reason to regard as important any part of the sayings of the 
 men whom he has sought to array against the baptists. 
 
 The ‘ leader and ticket system,’ however, it is alleged, must be 
 corrupt, and most deeply injurious to the purity of the churches. 
 Now on this system (I call it so in deference to the practice of Mr. 
 Barrett and his friends—not admitting that the term is correctly 
 employed) I have three things to observe. First, the society is in 
 no way whatever responsible for it. The missionaries use it or 
 not according to their own judgment alone. Some of the largest 
 baptist churches have not leaders—Jericho church and the church 
 at Mount llermon are instances in point. Secondly, it is by no 
 means confined to baptist churches. All know that methodists, 
 every where, employ it. Tickets, a part of the system, or “ tokens,” 
 pretty nearly the same thing, are used by the presbyterians and 
 other bodies in Jamaica and elsewhere, not even excepting inde¬ 
 pendents or missionaries of the London Society. I am not con- 
 
ceriied to pronounce either approval or disapproval of the use of such 
 things. They are quite as likely to be useful as injurious. Thirdly, 
 iiiidouhtedly the system may be abused, leaders may be found who 
 employ their power improperly, tickets may have ideas attached to 
 them which they were never meant to convey. Mr. Barrett’s pam¬ 
 phlet contains abundant evidence that he and his friends in reality 
 kziow but little of the ‘ system.’ I will select only one specimen. 
 iMr. Vine says, p. 9, that the leaders are the old drivers of the gang 
 metamorphosed. It is not so. I can meet Mr. Vine’s asser¬ 
 tion in no other way. He must be misinformed. There are 
 some cases unquestionably in which the old driver is now a leader, 
 A great change, but still not quite so great as that which made of 
 a man who eagerly persecuted the church of God, its most active, 
 laborious, and successful apostle. The old drivers were usually the 
 persons of the greatest intelligence, activity, and faithfulness. They 
 were commonly selected for these and other similar qualifications, 
 and were set over parties of their fellow slaves, called gangs, fi'om 
 ten to one hundred in number, being answerable to the overseers 
 for the performance of the allotted task. Now if into the heai’ts of 
 these men the grace of God were introduced, as in many cases it 
 happily has been, the qualifications fitting them for one office 
 would not be altogether unsuitable to the other; but a man’s 
 having been a driver is often held to sufficiently disqualify him for 
 office in the church. It is thought that he will fiill in tenderness 
 and affection, or in conciliating the confidence, which the office 
 requires. He may be in many respects the fittest man, but on this 
 single account he is often not employed. 
 
 In the old times of slavery, and still to a considerable extent, 
 the negroes lived on estates more or less remote fi-om the chapels 
 Avith Avhich they were connected. They were not permitted, at 
 least in many cases, to leave the estates except on Lord’s days and 
 holidays; prayer-meetings, and meetings for mutual exhortations, 
 must be held there if any where, and without permission from the 
 overseers, often refused, the minister could not visit them. 
 Hnder these circumstances some one, perhaps more than one on 
 each estate, would have a kind of superlntcndency over the rest. 
 'I'lie man among them most fit would ])residc in their social 
 convenlions. To him the minister would look for an account of 
 
25 
 
 tlie religious condition of the members among whom he lived, and 
 to him doubtless he would make communications intended for 
 them. These are the leaders. They at first arose out of the ne¬ 
 cessities involved in large churches widely scattered and favoured 
 with hut few missionaries. They continue for the same reason. 
 ATill Mr. Vine tell me how a pastor, or even two pastors, can, with¬ 
 out some such help, watch over, counsel, and instruct churches 
 consisting of 1000, 1500, and even 2000 members? The leaders 
 ought to be selected with great care ! Undoubtedly ; hut you must 
 select from those you have, not from those whom you have not^ 
 Care is taken, increasing care as opportunities augment ; and not¬ 
 withstanding all that may he affirmed to the contrary, the leaders 
 as a body are the best men among the people. 
 
 As to the dominant power they are said to possess, Mr. Barrett 
 himself overthrows this allegation by saying that leaders have been 
 withdrawn from on account of iniquity, an exercise of Christian 
 discipline to which I can assure him the churches are not back¬ 
 ward, whensoever it is unhappily necessary, nor need it be imagined 
 that they are therefore broken up or Aveakened by divisions. A 
 sinning leader commonly loses at once his character and relation. 
 Except in few instances he is folloAved by none, pitied by all. 
 
 The design and use of the tickets have been often explained, yet 
 it may he right to repeat the explanation here. Mr. Knibb gave 
 a specimen in his speech at Exeter Hall, April 28, last. Prima 
 facie, tickets ansAvering to the specimen are not likely to mislead, 
 demoralize, and destroy the people to Avhom they may be given. 
 Let the reader examine it. 
 
 Pray for the Conversion of Africa. 
 
 S(/ioa9^cf 
 
 
 S IS A MEMBER OF THE BAPTIST CHURCH IN FALMOUTH. 
 
 =r- ' 
 O I 
 
 n I 
 =r I 
 
 o ( 
 EJ- 
 
 WILLIAM KNIBB, 
 
 Pastor. 
 
 O 
 
 c 
 
 o 
 
 Pray for Grace to live near to God. 
 
 AV'^hat can there be in this docunu'iit liable to the terrible 
 charges wliich Mr. Barrett repeats ? 
 
26 
 
 For a testimony as to tlie use of tickets somewhat relevant to 
 the present point, I am indebted to Mr. Whitehome, one of JNfr. 
 Barrett’s own witnesses. In a letter from Mount Charles, giving 
 gratifying indications of a growing attachment to the gospel, Mr. 
 Whitehome says, “ I am glad to say that the number of attendants 
 has so much increased as to oblige me to give up exactly one half 
 the accommodations hitherto reserved for the minister. I have 
 not done this hastily ; for almost every sabbath for the last six 
 months the chapel has been completely filled, and very frequently 
 there have been nearly as many outside as wdthin. The number 
 of members and inquirers in my book is nearly six hundred. I 
 am sure that five hundred of them attend several times each 
 month. I have accurate means of ascertaining the attendants by 
 name once h month. T/ie tickets used at the ordinance have the 
 names of the members %critten on them, and I always make a note 
 on them whether the parties have attended or not, which serves to 
 mark the general regularity of attendance, or otherwise. And, on 
 another day, I meet the whole of the inquirers, about a hundred 
 and fifty in number, whose names I call over, and bestow an hour 
 or two in talking to them in various ways, and informing myself 
 of their lives aird proceedings.”* 
 
 ]Mr. Barrett will tell me, things at Mount Charles are very dif¬ 
 ferent now, or have been since the above letter Avas Avritten. I 
 knoAV it. lie Avill further add, this difference is OAviug to JMr. 
 AVhitehonie’s haA'ing broken up the leader and ticket system. 
 This I more than doubt, and if I had room for a minute history 
 of the station, I should shoAV, Avithout imputing any other than 
 unhappy mistakes, probably, to Mr. Whitehome, that other causes 
 produced the change. 
 
 ]\Ir. Burchell, a missionary of long standing, and of extensive 
 knoAvledge of the Avorking of AA’hat is called the “ leader and ticket 
 system,” gives the folloAving account of it. 
 
 “ In consequence of the number of persons connected Avith us, 
 scattered OA'er a space of many miles, I adopted the plan of em¬ 
 ploying approA’ed individuals united to the church, as ‘ leaders,’ or 
 ‘ actiA'e members,’ and dhided the people into classes, to be super¬ 
 intended by them. To the members I give tickets, Avhich are 
 
 * Cox’s History of the Ituptist Missionary Society, vol. ii. j)age‘204. I can¬ 
 not rcter to this work without strongly recouimciuling it to the friends of missions. 
 
27 
 
 renewed quarterly, so long as they conduct themselves becoming 
 the gospel. These tickets are required to he produced in the 
 cliapel on those sabbaths when the Lord’s supper is administered, 
 wlien myself and the deacons go round and examine them, to see 
 that no individual is present but regular and approved members : 
 the propriety of this plan is evident, as I have frequently detected 
 by this means improper characters who had obtruded themselves 
 at the table. 
 
 “ To the inquirers also I give tickets (these are different from 
 tliose of the members) ; at which time their names and residences 
 are inserted in a book kept for that purpose. The leader is re¬ 
 quired to visit the people under his care as often as may be in his 
 power, to converse with them and inquire respecting them ; when 
 he has to give an account of the same to me, and observations are 
 made in the inquirer’s book of any inquirer concerning whom he 
 may report, whether good or bad. On these occasions the tickets 
 of the persons who are reported are brought, so as to afford me an 
 o])portunity of conversing with the individuals on their application 
 for them. They are then retuimed cr retained, as the nature of 
 the case may require. 
 
 ^ “ Under this system, therefore, I am enabled to obtain a general 
 and pretty correct knoAvledge of this large body of people, which 
 I could not do but by observing some such method. Indeed, I 
 have no doubt that under this system I have a better acquaintance 
 ^vith the character and habits of the members of this congregation, 
 consisting of above four thousand individuals, than I could of a 
 church of one fourth of that number upon the plan generally pursued 
 l>y ministers in England. The ticket system I consider necessary 
 also, to prevent designing and evil disposed persons imposing upon 
 tlic people.” 
 
 ’J’o tills testimony I will only add, that Mr. Burchell’s plan is 
 for substance, that which the baptist missionaries generally adopt. 
 If it be felt that one missionary should scarcely have so many as 
 four thousand souls under his care, let it be borne in mind, that 
 since Mr. Burchell made the above statement, many more mis¬ 
 sionaries have been sent to Jamaica. The congregations are now 
 divided into smaller numbers, and are favoured with more pastoral 
 care—a benefit which Avill increase in proiiortion as suitable men 
 
28 
 
 to send are found, and the means of sending and supporting them 
 are furnished. 
 
 But we are reminded of the money paid for tickets, of their 
 renewal at set periods by incompetent men, and of the super¬ 
 stitious use made of them. In reply, I beg to state first, mem¬ 
 bers’ tickets are not renewed by any other person than the mis¬ 
 sionary himself on the personal application of the member, except 
 in cases of illness or similar impediments. Secondly, that money 
 is not invariably paid on the renewal of the ticket; and when it is, 
 the design of the payment is clearly explained and understood. 
 It is a subscription, or it may be more than one item of subscript 
 tion, perfectly voluntary, in support of the cause of God either 
 among themselves or elsewhere. All such payments go into the 
 hands of either the minister or the deacons, and are given public 
 account of to the contributors themselves, since they are an 
 inquisitive people as to the application of the moneys they 
 have contributed. It is not true that “ much gain is connected 
 with the leader’s office.’’ They get nothing for themselves, as in 
 truth they ought not. Thirdly, tickets sent in cases of slight 
 illness, or when in the judgment of the missionary no sufficient 
 cause of personal absence exists, are not infrequently left in his 
 hands unrenewed for weeks, nay for months. W ould they be so if 
 the people attached salvation to the possession of them—if it were 
 at all a general thing for them to think they can have “ no com¬ 
 fort, nothing to show for their religion,—no safe way to the judg¬ 
 ment seat,” when they have either lost their ticket or had it taken 
 away. 
 
 I am quite aware that Mr. Barrett may be able to cite what 
 appear to him facts from the proceedings adopted in some one of 
 the churches under conduct of a baptist missionary; and he has 
 dexterity enough, so to dispose these facts as to make them appear 
 as if taken at random, and as if they afforded a fair view of the 
 baptist churches in general. Against this course I at once enter 
 my protest. Let us have the names and places and dates of the 
 occurrences he may allege, if he expects them to receive attention. 
 We cannot now exact this demiuid as to his lleply; but I would 
 advertise him that, as it is certainly not an unreasonable demand, 
 it must b‘e complied with in all that he may in future ^vrite on 
 
29 
 
 this subject. There will, at all events, be this advantage : the bap¬ 
 tist missionaries and the whole committee (I may say so, for I 
 know their views), cordially disapproving of whatever may be 
 superstitious and sinful in the plans adopted by brethren beloved, 
 will know where to direct their censure. 
 
 Mr. Barrett adverts to the sale of tickets, and to a story of their 
 having been obtained for horses and dogs. The fact out of which 
 this story has growm occurred to a missionary now in this country, 
 Mr. Burton, late of Amersham. It took place a few months after 
 he had arrived at his station. Port Maria, nearly fifteen years ago; 
 in the time of slavery be it observed, and when the missionary could 
 see the people only on the Lord’s day. The tickets w^ere not 
 members’ but inquirers’ tickets,—viz. tickets given through the 
 medium of leaders to those who either in person or by their 
 friends, expressed a wish to attach themselves to a particular con¬ 
 gregation, and, as opportunity might occur, to converse with the 
 missionary on their spiritual condition. Inquirers’ tickets were not 
 understood to indicate any thing more than this—no professions 
 of piety were implied in holding them—they have been given to 
 many who have never been judged fitting persons to unite with 
 the churches. The character of those churches for purity is 
 therefore perfectly distinct from that of such inquirers. Many 
 a man might obtain inquirers’ tickets, whether for himself or 
 others, on avowing the desire I have mentioned, w'ho nevertheless 
 was a hypocrite and a deceiver. The money paid on the reception 
 of these tickets, one w'ould suppose, would operate as a guard 
 against, rather than as a bonus on hypocrisy. 
 
 Mr. Burton gives the following account of this transaction. 
 
 “ My next door neighbour and his partner in trade were among 
 the most drunken and immoral men in the village ; and one sab¬ 
 bath one or other of them, perhaps both, gave a man something to 
 come to me, pretending to be religious, that he might obtain an 
 inquirer’s ticket: directing him also to ask for another for his 
 friend, who w^as represented as desirous of coming with him, but 
 that he was unexpectedly detained on the estate. I heard, in the 
 following w’eek, of the deception Avhich had been practised, my 
 neighbours boasting that they had cheated the parson. The appro¬ 
 priation of the tickets to the horses or dogs might be a subsequent 
 
30 
 
 thought, or it might have hocn intended at tlie time they Avere 
 applied for; it aa'us certainly very easy, horses, dogs, men, and 
 Avomen being named, as well as treated, all alike. IMy opinion is, 
 that it Avas a half drunken frolic.” 
 
 What must be thought of the men, Avliether ]\Ir. Blyth, or 
 Mr. Barrett, or any others, Avho, Avhile avoAving a tender regard 
 for the interests of truth and piety, can convert into a charge 
 against brethren, or into evidence supporting such a charge, so 
 gross an act of folly, hypocrisy, and falsehood ? If Mr. Barrett 
 does not blush at this, I can only say he must be far gone towards 
 a condition to which 1 trust he will have but feAV folloAvers. 
 
 There is but one thing more in Mr. Barrett’s pages Avhich I 
 deem it of moment to notice. In the appendix, Mr. AlloAvay is 
 quoted as referring to the tabular vieAv of the bajAtist churches for 
 the year 1840, the excommunications upon Avhich are exhibited 
 as evidence of their impurity. Strange evidence this! Suppose 
 the Avhole of the individuals AvithdraAvn from bad men, Mr. Allo- 
 AA\ay’s argument seems to be. Your churches haA'e excommunicated 
 five hundred unAvorthy communicants, they must therefore be 
 exceedingly corrupt. The humours thrown off to purify and give 
 health to the body, are adduced as proof of its present unsound 
 and unhealthy state. 
 
 But five hundred and forty-one excommunications seem to 
 be a someAvhat formidable amount. Let us, then, look at it. 
 The first thought aAvakened in my mind is, the churches cannot 
 be so greatly negligent of discipline. So large a number of 
 exclusions is eA’idence, rather, of their care in this respect. 
 Chmehes negligent of their purity do not exclude unAvorthy 
 members. The tabular AueAV in question gives the number 
 of members as 27,7fiG- The exclusions, therefore, amount to nearly 
 tAvo per cent., i. e., for someAvhat more than every hundred members 
 tAA'o are excluded during the year. This shoAving is deeply regretted. 
 It is for a lamentation that any make shipAvreck of faith and of a 
 good conscience; but the vast impurity of the Jamaica churches 
 above all other churches, is not substantiated by such a shoAving. 
 Brethren of the London ^Missionary Society do not, that I am 
 aAvare of, publish similar defiiils; I cannot, therefore, institute a 
 comparison, but I may venture to ask Avho Avould denounce a 
 
31 
 
 cliurch of 120 members, or thereabouts, even in this country, as 
 extraordinarily impure, which in the course of one year finds it 
 needful to withdraw from or excommunicate tAvo of its members ? 
 This consideration becomes the more important Avhen it is borne 
 in mind that the tabular vicAV for 1840 gives a larger number of 
 exclusions than ordinary. The average of four years ending 1840, 
 Avill be about fifty less than for that one year. It may be re¬ 
 marked, in passing, that, according to the last report of the Baptist 
 Union, the exclusions in this country from baptist churches last 
 year were betAveen one and one and a half per cent, not far olf 
 from the Jamaica numbers. 
 
 Mr. Barrett after all seems to think that the Avork of conversion 
 is going on too rapidly in Jamaica to be sound. This I take to 
 be the meaning of his “ hasty indiscriminate baptisms.” In a let¬ 
 ter to myself of August 10th, last, he says on this subject, “What 
 can be thought of one minister baptizing in one year seven hun¬ 
 dred and seventy-seven persons ? There was nothing equal to it 
 in apostolic times.” Mr. Barrett has read the Acts of the Apostles 
 to but little account. According to his argument, the sound con¬ 
 version of three thousand hy one sermon is an impossibility; their 
 increase Avithin much less than a year to five thousand is a mere 
 chimera. He can be no believer in the predictions Avhich intimate 
 that coiiA'erts shall fly as a cloud, and as the doves to their Avindows, 
 and that Christ shall have folloAvers numerous as the morning 
 dcAv-drops. He can have but Ioav views of the omnipotence of 
 divine influence, and must be calculating on a much slower pro¬ 
 gress of the cause of God than Avould promise any thing like its 
 speedy triumph in the AA orld. I do not envy him his sentiments. 
 But feAV missionaries Avill sympathize Avith him, and facts in the 
 history of the society Avith Avhich he himself is connected, tell 
 against him. 
 
 I have thus gone through Mr. Barrett’s Reply, it is hoped Avith- 
 out unnecessarily inflicting a single wound or pang upon him. 
 Some things in it I have not noticed—I could not bring myself to 
 notice them; they are either misunderstandings betAveen brethren 
 which make nothing in the case on either side, as for instance the 
 door being shut in Mr. Reid’s face by Mr. Taylor, p. 15 : or per¬ 
 versions, as selling tickets, p. 11 : or trifles, as the story about 
 
32 
 
 tlie strangers, p. 7- Mr. B.’s statement, p. 15, about tlie Committee's 
 leaving Mr. Reid subject to pecuniary privations, is not true. The 
 Committee have more than fulfilled their engagements with him. 
 The tickets which till then, in common Avith his brethren, he had 
 given, were withdrawn at the latter part of 1837- The Committee 
 have never dishonoured a bill of Mr. Reid’s; and, from Jan. 1838, 
 to his having been Avithdrawn from, he has received, as I liaA^e 
 found on inquiry, from the funds of the Society, exclusive of con¬ 
 tributions fi’om his people, to the amount of <£1280. 
 
 If by any thing I have said Mr. Barrett feels himself rebuked, 
 I have Avritten more in sorrow than in anger. It Avill be seen 
 that he merely repeats often reiterated charges, adducing no de¬ 
 tails Avhich can be examined; that in cases Avdiere he alleges Avhat 
 he calls fact, the evidence is against him ; that he Avrites under 
 the influence of party and denominational prejudice, not to say 
 irritation; and that as he looks Avith a jaundiced eye, the matters 
 concerning Avhich he testifies may be any thing rather than Avhat 
 he represents them. 
 
 If there be honour in receiving hospitality and at the very time 
 treasuring up Avhat may occur in the confidence of good Avill and 
 friendship for a future season, to be used against the persons Avhose 
 hospitality is received, then are Mr. Barrett and some of his friends 
 most honourable men. If it be Christian fidelity and holy soli¬ 
 citude for the cause of the Redeemer to take the faults of brethren, 
 and pour them doAAm at the feet of adversaries of our common 
 faith, then is the Christian fidelity of these brethren unimpeach¬ 
 able, and their holy solicitude incomparably tender and jealous; 
 and if it be lovely and of good report to employ the foulest pages 
 Avhicb even a Jamaica press can produce,* to circulate statements 
 calculated to expose missionaries to contempt, and churches to 
 scorn, then have Mr. Barrett and his friends succeeded to a most 
 enviable degree in folloAAdng after these things. For myself and 
 my beloved brethren, I had rather Ave Avere the accused than the 
 accusers, and Ave Avill pray that the mistakes Avhich Mr. Barrett 
 and others have committed, and the mischiefs they have occa¬ 
 sioned, may all be overruled to the furtherance of the gospel. 
 
 • The Morning Journal, Falmouth Post, and St. Jago de la Vega Gazette, 
 have all contained letters such as those Mr. Barrett quotes from. 
 
 Printed by J. Haddon, Castle Street, Finsbury. 
 
THE LONDON MISSION IN JAMAICA 
 
 INEXPEDIENT AND UNNECESSARY. 
 
 DIRECTORS 
 
 A LETTER 
 
 ADDRESSED TO THE 
 
 OF THE LONDON MISSIONARY SOCIETY 
 
 
 IN WHICH 
 
 THE DISSENSIONS BETWEEN THEIR MISSIONARIES AND THE BAPTISTS 
 ARE TRACED TO THEIR CAUSE, 
 
 AND 
 
 THE REMEDY SUGGESTED. 
 
 BY THOMAS PEWTRESS, ESQ. 
 
 LONDON; 
 
 G. AND J. DYER, 24, PATERNOSTER ROW. 
 
 1843. 
 
 Price Sixpence. 
 
...I /{l 
 
 J, SJMIOUX, }>aitfT«K, CikSILE STREET, riNSUpRY-. 
 
ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 It is proper to inform the reader of the circumstances under 
 which this pamphlet is published, that if any person should 
 conceive offence at it, all may understand where to place the 
 blame ; for although from the first the writer contemplated the 
 possibility of this step, he was most anxious to avoid it. 
 
 Not in a printed form, but in manuscript, it was sent to the 
 Directors at the London Missionary Society’s House, Blom- 
 field Street, on the 17th Dec. last year. Understanding from 
 Mr. Arundel, one of the secretaries, that no meeting of the 
 Directors would take place till the 9th Jan., the period of four¬ 
 teen days mentioned in the P.S. for which its publication would 
 be deferred, was extended to a month. On the 10th Jan. the 
 letter was sent back, with a note from that gentleman, stating 
 that the Directors returned it unread. Still indulging the hope 
 that, if they would give him a hearing, they might find that 
 something he had to say was worthy of their consideration, and 
 sincerely desirous to avoid publication, the writer resolved on 
 making another effort to gain their ear. With this view he 
 
 A 2 
 
2 
 
 waited till the expiration of the month, and then sent the 
 letter in print to each of the two hundred and forty Directors, 
 whose names stand at the beginning of the Society’s Annual 
 Report for 1842. With it he sent also a note, stating the above 
 particulars, and concluding with the following words, “As I have 
 no wish to bring it before the public, but am anxious that the 
 subject of it should be calmly considered by the Directors, I 
 greatly regret that they should have adopted the course above 
 mentioned. Under the influence of the same feelings, I shall 
 still further withhold the publication until the 17th of next 
 month; and in the meantime I submit a copy to every Director, 
 in the earnest hope that they may yet be induced to give it that 
 attention which I think the matter contained in it demands, 
 with a view to such an adjustment as may be for the prosperity 
 of the missionary cause. It is printed simply for the sake 
 of convenience, and not for general distribution.” 
 
 He has been favoured in reply with a few communications 
 from individual Directors, but nothing has reached him officially. 
 He now, therefore, brings the matter before the public, leaving 
 it to make its own impression, only adding, that he is moved by 
 no hostility to the London Missionary Society, but by a sincere 
 desire to do it good service, and to restore harmony between 
 the friends of two kindred and most important Institutions. 
 
TO THE DIRECTORS 
 
 OF THB 
 
 LONDON MISSIONARY SOCIETY. 
 
 Gentlemen, 
 
 The continued hostility manifested by the missionaries of 
 your society to the Baptist missionaries in the island of Jamaica, 
 must occasion very painful feelings to every pious mind. The 
 long-cherished friendship and affectionate esteem which I enter¬ 
 tain for those highly honoured ministers of Christ, have com¬ 
 pelled me strictly to examine, that if possible, I might ascertain 
 the cause of this unhappy disturbance. Amidst the various 
 difficulties and diseouragements which attend the efforts of 
 Christians to propagate the gospel amongst distant nations, those 
 which arise from the prejudice and opposition of brethren con¬ 
 nected with other sections of the Church of Christ, are the most 
 painful to sustain. It has been the singular fate of the Baptist 
 Missionary Society, to experience trials of this description, 
 which, I venture to say, cannot be paralleled in the history of 
 missions. For a long time these severe and unprovoked assaults 
 have been borne with forbearance, until not only have unwar¬ 
 rantable prejudices been excited in the minds of Christians of 
 other denominations; but the invaluable labours of their devoted 
 missionaries have suffered damage in the estimation of their own 
 friends. 
 
6 
 
 They have scarcely been allowed time for repose, since the 
 trial they were called to endure from the attack, principally 
 originating with the missionaries of your society, made upon 
 their translations of the scriptures into the languages of the 
 East. For many years, their long-acknowledged claims upon the 
 bounty of the Christian public, for the support of their versions, 
 were controverted and denied by them, till they had accom¬ 
 plished their object, and compelled the British and Foreign Bible 
 Society to expel an entire denomination from its bosom, though 
 in doing so it had to adopt the unprecedented course of violating 
 its constitution, and of pronouncing a condemnation on its own 
 conduct for the previous five and twenty years. The Baptist 
 body has thus been driven out of an institution to the establish¬ 
 ment and early successes of which they and their missionaries 
 contributed certainly in an equal degree, perhaps in a greater, 
 than any other denomination. For no person acquainted with 
 its history can be ignorant, and happily for the interests of truth 
 and justice in the case, its records show that its reputation in the 
 field of foreign labours was for years largely derived from the 
 learning and toils of the Serampore translators. But past 
 obligations were obliterated, and the pleadings of equity and 
 love were silenced in this unnatural strife. The lamentable 
 consequence has been the disruption of ancient bonds of amity, 
 separate action where there should have been nothing but unity, 
 and a work which, for its moral grandeur and magnitude, ought 
 to have been upheld by the combined resources of the whole 
 Christian church, is cast upon the limited means of one, in point 
 of wealth, of its least considerable branches. The unhappy 
 cause of this disunion is to be traced to a course of proceeding 
 similar to that which has been subsequently adopted in the 'West 
 Indies. How long is this unwise ^wlicy to be pursued ? Is 
 there no part of the world, into which Baptist missionaries can 
 be sent without having their steps overtaken, and their laboui’s 
 impeded by the missionaries of the London Missionary Society ? 
 
 The missionaries of your society, having caused this disturbance 
 and injury to the Baptist Mission in the East, have now attacked 
 
7 
 
 it in the West. They seem bent on doing it a mischief; if they 
 cannot destroy, they will at least endeavour to cripple it. To 
 counteract, in some degree, their measures in the island of 
 Jamaica, it becomes necessary to give a short account of the 
 labours and position of the Baptist missionaries, with a summary 
 of the amount of religious agency in operation by other Chris¬ 
 tian societies, up to the period when the London Missionary 
 Society resolved to send missionaries to that island. In the 
 year 1783, George Lisle, the first Baptist preacher, com¬ 
 menced his labours, and erected the first chapel, which continues 
 up to the present time, Moses Baker followed and laboured 
 amongst the negroes with considerable success. In the year 
 1813, at the repeated invitations of the Baptists in the island, the 
 Baptist Missionary Society commenced their labours, sending out 
 for the purpose the Rev. John Rowe, a student from the college 
 at Bristol. Several highly esteemed brethren speedily followed, 
 whose labours, connected with ardent prayer, have produced an 
 abundant harvest, presenting as large a measure of success at¬ 
 tendant on efforts for the accomplishment of the Divine glory, 
 as was perhaps ever witnessed in the church of Christ. In the 
 year 1825, considerable annoyances were experienced by the 
 missionaries. Mr. Philippo was required to appear in the ranks, 
 and render military service, and unreasonable hinderances were 
 presented to the attendance of the negroes on public worship. 
 This spirit, though met with forbearance on the part of the 
 brethren, and entirely discouraged by the government at home, 
 continued to increase in violence until it was evident to all par¬ 
 ties, that Christianity and slavery could not exist together, and 
 that one or the other, therefore, must be banished from the island. 
 The occurrences of 1832 will never be forgotten: our beloved 
 brethren, Burchell, Knibb, Abbot, and others of the missionary 
 band were imprisoned, the chapels demolished, the churches 
 scattered, and a determination was expressed by those who con¬ 
 sidered themselves as possessed of the power, that the sectarians 
 should be driven from Jamaica. But the God of missions inter¬ 
 posed. Slavery was annihilated, Christianity triumphed; and 
 
8 
 
 our suffering brethren reaped the reward of their severe trials 
 and sorrows, in the exhilarating sight of complete emancipation 
 for the slaves, and the possession of perfect freedom themselves, 
 to proclaim salvation by Jesus Christ to the delivered captives. 
 
 During the progress of nearly thirty years the number of 
 stations had been greatly increased. After emancipation, chapels 
 of enlarged dimensions were built, and large accessions of con¬ 
 verts were added to the churches: harmony, peace, and pros¬ 
 perity abounded, and joyful hosannas from many thousand 
 hearts resounded with thanksgivings to their heavenly Saviour 
 and Deliverer. Even our enemies have done us the justice to 
 acknowledge, that the Baptist missionaries fought the battle with 
 slavery. We cannot, therefore, but express our gratitude to God, 
 who gave them strength and crowned them with victory. 
 
 But now, lest our brethren should be exalted above measure 
 by this wonderful deliverance, they have been called to experience 
 another trial, not from foes, but from the friends of Christ. While 
 churches of all denominations in Great Britain were with unite I 
 hearts participating in the universal joy, there was one society 
 busily engaged in devising measures, the inevitable tendency of 
 which would be to interrupt their labours and mar their triumph i , 
 and this was to be done by sending other missionaries to the island, 
 and locating them in the spheres of their successful exertions. 
 
 Let me here solicit every unprejudiced mind to survey the 
 position of the island of Jamaica at this period, with the amount 
 of its population, and the corresponding amount of spiritual 
 instruction provided for it. Jamaica numbers about 400,000 
 inhabitants, white and coloured. The Established church secured 
 a large amount of the people, by a numerous band of rectors, 
 curates, and missionaries from the Society for the Propagation 
 of the Gospel in Foreign Parts. The Church Missionary So¬ 
 ciety had several missionaries, catechists, and teachers. The 
 Moravians had from twelve to fourteen missionaries employed in 
 their service. The AYesleyans, Avith a very large number of 
 missionaries and teachers, iiad long laboured in the island with 
 abundant success. The Scotch Presbyterians furnished their 
 
9 
 
 share of useful labourers, and the Baptist missionaries equalled, if 
 not surpassed, the Methodists in the extent of their labours and 
 of their success. And beside this, there were national schools, 
 and day and Sunday schools attached, more or less, to all the 
 missionary stations. If a division of the population were now 
 made amongst the various ministers in the island, there would 
 probably be found no part of the civilized world, certainly no 
 part of the heathen world, enjoying so largely the means of 
 spiritual instruction.* If these facts be so, is it not worthy of 
 serious inquiry, what could induce the Directors of the London 
 Missionary Society to expend their limited funds, derived from 
 the hard earnings of their voluntary subscribers, in sending 
 missionaries to Jamaica? Search and find, if it is possible, any 
 part of the heathen world, with such an abundant supply of the 
 means of grace. What motive can be imagined to have influ¬ 
 enced their minds in thus sacrificing their missionaries and ex¬ 
 hausting the treasury of the Chui'ch, while in so many other 
 parts of the earth immense masses of human beings may be 
 found entirely destitute of the means of salvation? Would it 
 not have discovered more wisdom and a closer imitation of the 
 holy and disinterested conduct of the apostle, if they had sent 
 their missionaries amongst them ? His noble ambition was to 
 preach the gospel in “ the regions beyond,” and not to boast in 
 another man’s line of things, made ready to his hand. Surely 
 
 * At the present time, to supply religious instruction to a population of 
 about 400,000, there appear to he 
 
 Rectors and curates, about.80 
 
 Church Missionary Society.8 
 
 Baptist do.30 
 
 Presbyterians.11 
 
 Wesleyan Methodists.41 
 
 Moravians.14 
 
 London Missionary Society.11 
 
 Nativ'e Baptist Preachers.16 
 
 making a total of 211 ministers, besides catechists, teachers, and school¬ 
 masters, of whom there are between two and three hundred, and probably 
 many more; while the number of female missionaries is not known. 
 
 A* 
 
10 
 
 this is a pattern worthy of imitation by every Missionary So¬ 
 ciety. 
 
 The proceedings of the Directors in this particular seem to 
 me moreover to be a violation of the fundamental principle of 
 the society. That fundamental principle I find expressed in the 
 following terms. “ As the union of Christians of various de¬ 
 nominations, in carrying on this great work, is most desirable, 
 so to prevent, if possible, any cause of future dissension; it is 
 declared to be a fundamental principle of the Missionary Society, 
 that its design is not to send Presbyterianism, Independency, 
 or Episcopacy, or any other form of church order or government 
 (about which there may be difference of opinion amongst serious 
 persons), but the glorious gospel to the heathen, and that it shall 
 be left (as it ought to be left) to the minds of the persons whom 
 God may call into the fellowship of his Son from among them, 
 to assume for themselves such form of church government as to 
 them shall appear most agreeable to the word of God.” 
 
 At the annual meeting held on the 12th of May, 1824, “Re¬ 
 solved, that a copy of the fundamental principle adopted at the 
 first annual meeting, in May 1796, be printed at the end of the 
 plan.” 
 
 This fundamental principle of the Society, solemnly recognized 
 after twenty-eight years’ experience, and directed to be always ap¬ 
 pended to the plan, that its spirit may influence every movement, 
 and the design of the institution be apparent to all the world, the 
 Directors are bound to maintain and uphold. The property, both 
 funded and floating, committed to their hands to administer, is 
 given in the faith of their adherence to it, and it is a sacred 
 responsibility devolved upon them to see that this property is 
 applied in accordance Avith it, nor can they deviate without 
 undermining the constitution of the Society. Noav I fiairly and 
 openly submit to you and to the Christian public, that your pre¬ 
 decessors in the direction acted in violation of this law in their 
 attempt to establish a mission in Jamaica. 
 
 Of course I am aAvare that this law is meant to indicate what 
 would be called the catholic nature of the Society, and to show 
 
11 
 
 that its object is not to plant churches of any given order of 
 ecclesiastical discipline, but to make known the gospel. But I 
 beg to call attention to what it also defines as the sphere of the 
 Society’s operations. This it declares to be the heathen. Its 
 design is “ to send the glorious gospel of the blessed God to the 
 heathen.” I maintain, then, that neither in the legal nor popular 
 sense of the term, is Jamaica a heathen country; and if it should 
 be said, that though it may not be so in either of these senses, it 
 is in an evangelical sense. I reply that even in this sense it is so 
 only in the same manner as Great Britain is, or any other 
 country, where, though the gospel has been long known, it is not 
 universally believed. 
 
 All persons who consider Great Britain to be a Christian 
 country because Christianity is established by law, must also 
 admit that Jamaica is not a heathen, but a Christian island, for 
 there also Christianity is established by law, and a legal provision 
 is made for its ministers. And if in England we have bishops, 
 rectors, and curates, and the land parcelled out into ecclesiastical 
 divisions called parishes, we have precisely the same thing in 
 Jamaica. Besides this, the gospel had been preached there by 
 ministers and missionaries unconnected with the Established 
 Church, long before the London Missionary Society was origi¬ 
 nated, much more before its Directors sent thither its mission¬ 
 aries. By the blessing of God on their labours, as well as on 
 those of the Established Clei’gy, a large number of the inhabi¬ 
 tants had been converted, and no inconsiderable part of the entire 
 population was brought under Christian instruction. If a fair 
 estimate were made, it would probably appear that the means of 
 religious teaching were placed within the reach of as many per¬ 
 sons in that island, in proportion to the population, as in many 
 parts of Great Britain. On these grounds it ought to have been 
 considered as not coming within the design and scope of the 
 London Missionary Society’s plan; and I repeat, therefore, that 
 your missionaries were sent there in violation of its fundamental 
 law. It is a remarkable fact, that wherever this principle has 
 been departed from, you have met with the least success and the 
 
12 
 
 largest expenditure, while in other nations, where your mission¬ 
 aries have been planted in accordance with it, their pious labours 
 have been crowned with an abundant blessing. 
 
 In view of these considerations, then, it is almost impossible to 
 believe that the Directors could sit down calmly to deliberate on 
 tlie wants of the heathen, and to select the country wdiose neces¬ 
 sities constituted the strongest claim on their benevolence, and 
 under the guidance of this motive, fix on Jamaica. There must 
 have been some other influence at work, directing their minds 
 to that island, and deciding them to send their missionaries there 
 in preference, and to the neglect of other incomparably more desti¬ 
 tute parts of the world. I have, for a considerable part of my 
 life, been accustomed to public business, and it has often been 
 my painful experience to witness the manner in which powerful 
 persons will attain a favourite object; and I have seen as nume¬ 
 rous a body of individuals as compose the direction of your 
 Society, persuaded and brought to concur in measures which, if 
 left to rest upon their merits, would never have received their 
 sanction. Now I know not why I should refrain from expressing 
 my conviction that something of this kind took place in this 
 instance. So many concurring circumstances have at various 
 times, and from different quarters, come to my knowledge, as 
 leave me in no doubt that, from the station and influence of 
 
 illiam Alers Hankey, Esq., the Directors were, as I believe, 
 unwisely induced to take this step. I have no desire to raise a 
 prejudice against any distinguished person: it is not my habit, 
 and is foreign from my feelings ; but if this controversy is to go 
 on, and you require it, I will furnish you with the information 
 and circumstances which have wrought this conviction in my 
 mind. It shall be enough noAV to have indicated what I and 
 many besides me believe to have been the origin of your .Jamaica 
 mission. 
 
 But if, from whatever cause, the London ^Missionary Society 
 resolved to send missionaries to .Tamaica, both the period selected 
 for the commencement of their labours, and the districts in which 
 they are located, are remarkable. I have already referred to 
 
13 
 
 those scenes of fiery trial which the missionaries of the Baptist 
 Missionary Society had to pass through in the terrible conflict 
 with slavery, when their property was destroyed, their lives were 
 endangered, their chapels burnt, and desolation and ruin on every 
 side met their eye and appalled their heart. Now it was just 
 after tliis tremendous storm had subsided, and these persecuted 
 servants of God were beginning again to erect their chapels, and 
 gather back their scattered flocks, that your missionaries were 
 sent amongst them. The eminent director already mentioned 
 never, so far as I can learn, exercised his influence with the 
 Society, to send its agents to the island to instruct his slaves 
 while they were in bondage, nor did the body of Directors deem 
 it any duty of theirs to send help to the negroes and their noble 
 and suffering vindicators, either before the deadly strife com¬ 
 menced, or while it raged. But when the battle was fought and 
 the victory secured, they saw no reason why they should not 
 appropriate, at least, a portion of the spoil. I am no minister, 
 but a simple layman, yet I think I could have given the charge 
 on occasion of the departure of your missionaries to that island, 
 and my text should have been these words: “Herein is that 
 saying true, One soweth and another reapeth. I sent you to 
 reap that whereon ye bestowed no labour: other me.i laboureJ, 
 and ye are entered into their labours.” 
 
 As soon as the Baptist Missionary Society were apprised of 
 this intention, their Secretary, the late Mr. Dyer, solicited an 
 interview with one of the secretaries of your society, and then, 
 in company with two of the Jamaica missionaries, at that time in 
 this country, the Rev. T. Burchell and the Rev. W. Knibb, 
 pointed out the stations occupied by their missionaries, and at 
 the same time presented to his notice those districts in the island 
 which were most destitute. This was carefully done to obviate 
 the possibility of any future collision between the agents of the 
 two societies, or interference with the sphere of each other’s 
 labours. Your Secretary kindly promised that these representa¬ 
 tions should be regarded. The directors, however, instead of 
 acting on this wise policy, pursued just the opposite course, and 
 
14 
 
 your missionaries were instructed to locate themselves, not in 
 those parts of the island where, if at all, their efforts were needed, 
 but in the very midst of the stations occupied by the Baptists. 
 The consequence is what might have been expected, and was in 
 fact foretold. It was utterly impossible, under such circum¬ 
 stances, to prevent collision. Had the intention been to create 
 and foment it, measures more effectual to this end could not have 
 been adopted. Mr. Barrett intimates what he considers to be the 
 cause of all this mischief. “ I repeat,” he says, ‘‘ that the im¬ 
 pediments thrown in our way by the Baptist missionaries in 
 Jamaica were the occasion of this controversy coming before the 
 public.” Then why did not Mr. B. write home and inform the 
 Directors that they had sent him to labour in a district which 
 was already occupied by those who had preceded him, and 
 request to be removed to some other part of the island, or to be 
 recalled altogether. 
 
 I have no intention of replying to the charges brought by that 
 gentleman and others of your missionaries and catechists, against 
 the purity of the Baptist churches in Jamaica, and the kind of 
 agency they employ for extending their usefulness. Some of 
 them I consider absurd, others have been refuted, and as to what 
 remain, the missionaries inculpated are quite able to defend 
 themselves. But I cannot refrain fx’om taking notice of the 
 singular fact, that the principal objectors to the system of lay 
 agency in that island are found in that denomination which has 
 so recently awarded a munificent pxdze to the honoured author 
 of “ Jethro,” for developing its utility, and enforcing its adoption 
 upon their own churches. Surely this circumstance should have 
 served to abate the virulence with which they have assailed it, 
 and have preserved them from the folly of denouncing it as un- 
 scrlptural. Regarding it as a means of Clu’istian usefulness, and 
 apart from particular instances in which it may possibly have 
 been abused, I think the Baptist missionaries are to be com¬ 
 mended for emjxloylng it, and when at home its efficiency shall 
 be more fully realized under the guidance of our pastors, and all 
 the members of our churches are, by means of it, called foi’th to 
 
15 
 
 active service, “ Zion will awake and put on her strength, and 
 we may expect the glory of the Lord to be more manifestly 
 revealed.” 
 
 Mr. Barrett and your other missionaries and catechists, who 
 have subsequently published their “Exposition,” appear very 
 anxious to shield the Directors from the imputation of participat¬ 
 ing in this unholy warfare, and say that they are in no way re¬ 
 sponsible for their several publications, nor have any knowledge 
 of their contents. To this statement I demur, and to this pecu¬ 
 liar course of proceeding in religious societies I object. With 
 all seriousness I inquire, why religious associations of persons are 
 to be held irresponsible for the conduet of their agents, when 
 such a thing would neither for a moment be conceded in civil 
 affairs, nor is allowed in law. The principle is unsound, and the 
 practice must be condemned, as utterly unworthy of the Chris¬ 
 tian character. It is a recognized principle in law that com¬ 
 forting, aiding, abetting, sustaining, and encouraging persons 
 in a course of conduct, renders the parties so engaged par¬ 
 ticipators in the transaction, and responsible for their proceed¬ 
 ings. No society of men, professing to act on the pure and 
 holy principles of Christianity, ought to attempt to disguise their 
 conduct under such a flimsy veil as is thus put forward. To con¬ 
 nive at and abet the conduct of their agents, and then to disown 
 the responsibility, is downright dishonesty. 
 
 Noi*, I apprehend, would it be more difficult to show in this 
 than in similar cases, that the principals have comforted, aided, 
 abetted, sustained, and encouraged the inferior, though more 
 active assailants. Are not these assailants your paid servants? 
 Have they not lived on your bounty all the time they have been 
 employed in defaming their brethren ? Do not their detractions 
 derive whatever force they possess from the fact that they are 
 your missionaries? Is it not in their character of missionaries 
 and catechists of your Society, that their detractions are given to 
 the world ? Have you expressed any disgust at their proceed¬ 
 ings ? Did you prohibit their backbitings and slanders ? I use 
 the terms advisedly, and because I think such things should be 
 
16 
 
 characterized by their right names. Have you discouraged the 
 unseemly outbreaks which have followed, by which good men are 
 scandalized, and the wicked triumph ? Have you not yourselves 
 given currency and countenance to them ? At whose expense 
 were the Jamaica newspapers, containing the accusatory letters of 
 your missionaries, so industriously and widely circulated through 
 this country ? Are not the Evangelical and Congregational 
 magazines in your interest, and edited by members of your 
 body ? By whom are the pamphlets of Mr. Barrett and his allies 
 most welcomed and most commended? You can readily answer 
 these questions, and show that the points suggested by them are 
 without foundation. You can produce the document, if it exists, 
 in which you admonished your missionaries to abstain from these 
 assaults on the reputation of their fellow-labourers. You can 
 exhibit the resolution you adopted, or the minute you reeorded, 
 expressive of your regret and disapprobation. But until you do 
 this, I for one must infer my own conclusion. An intimation of 
 your displeasure, authoritatively given, there can be no doubt 
 would have prevented what you are anxious to disclaim, and that 
 disclaimer, therefore, avails you nothing, but leaves you fixed 
 with your full share of that responsibility whieh your agents in 
 vain attempt to take upon themselves. 
 
 It is manifest that but little friendly sympathy towards the 
 Baptist Mission could exist in the minds either of the agents or 
 the abettors of these attacks; or if it did, they are of all men 
 the most unfortunate in showing it. iMight it not have been 
 expected from friends, that, wdien the intentions of jMr. Barrett 
 on his arrival in England were known, they would have inter¬ 
 posed to divert him from them at least during the year in Avhich 
 the Baptist Mission was celebrating its Jubllee ? At such a 
 time, it might have been hoped that a truce would be given to 
 animosities and feuds. Generosity of sentiment would have 
 suggested, that if hostilities were not to be extinguished, they 
 should be at least postponed. The Directors must have known 
 that ]\Ir. Barrett’s publications Av'ould not only strike in harsh 
 dissonance Avith the sounds of rejoicing every AA’here pealing 
 
17 
 
 through the Baptist churches, but that their tendency would be 
 to lessen the pecuniary results. They are fully aware of the 
 tender and excitable feelings of the religious public, and how 
 readily hesitation, doubt, and neutrality are produced. It can 
 surely afford them no satisfaction to learn that in several instances 
 their measures have been successful. Some of their own friends 
 who on former occasions have taken an interest in the proceeding, 
 of the Baptist Missionary Society, have now stood aloof, and a 
 convenient excuse has been supplied to others for withholding 
 contributions from the Jubilee fund. Can it be doubted that 
 had you thus represented the matter to Mr. Barrett, he would 
 instantly have acted on the kind intimation ? And you might 
 then have yourselves enjoyed, in a larger measure than under 
 existing circumstances it is possible you should, the exquisite 
 Christian privilege of “ rejoicing with them that do rejoice.” 
 
 I cannot but contrast the conduct of the Directors in thus 
 endeavouring to escape from responsibility, with the course 
 pursued by the Committee of the Baptist Mission. They have 
 not stood by, while this controversy has been proceeding, as 
 distant spectators, but have identified themselves throughout 
 with their missionaries. Again and again have they declared 
 their willingness to meet any persons, ministers, missionaries, or 
 Directors, who would produce facts inculpating them or their 
 churches. From inquiry the most searching they have never 
 shrunk, on the contrary they have invited it; but against calumny, 
 slander, sweeping and unproved charges, and the misapprehensions 
 of good but mistaken men, they have never hesitated for a 
 moment to vindicate and uphold them. Their published docu¬ 
 ments show this, and the resolution adopted at the last annual 
 meeting of the Society, at Exeter Hall. To that resolution, if 
 I understand their more recent conduct, they still adhere ; and 
 in the spirit of it encourage their missionaries, and stand by them 
 in the face of the obloquy attempted to be thrown upon them. 
 The resolution I refer to is expressed in the following terms: 
 “ That this meeting unite in expressions of lively gratitude to 
 God for the kind protection afforded to their beloved missionaides 
 
18 
 
 now on the platform, in their return on this occasion to their 
 native land, and receive them with the warmest affection; and 
 they especially desire at the present moment to renew t’le 
 assurances of their unabated confidence in the Christian character 
 and fidelity of their missionaries in Jamaica, and to cheer them, 
 amidst their new trials and continued toils, with their sym¬ 
 pathy and unfaltering support.” This honest and straight¬ 
 forward conduct I understand and cordially approve, and I 
 speak of it the more freely, as I am not, nor at any time 1 ave 
 been, a member of the Committee. It is noble and dignified, 
 and such as becomes honourable men and Christians. Men who 
 act thus are entitled to the warmest support of their brethren of 
 the denomination whose mission they conduct, and of the Chris¬ 
 tian church. Their missionaries, I believe, are like them. Many 
 of them I personally know, love, and honour; and though I will 
 never palliate their faults when they are proved, neither will I 
 shrink from \dndicatlng their characters when they are unjustly 
 assailed. 
 
 Mr. Barrett, I understand, is returned to Jamaica. I pity him 
 sincerely, and his companions, in the difficulties hich surround 
 them;—difficulties, it is easy to perceive, which their publications 
 and speeches in this country are not likely to have diminished. 
 But while I pity them, I blame the Directors. They are the 
 cause of all these troubles to their own Mission and to ours. It 
 is extremely painful to see the piety, talents, and zeal of mission¬ 
 aries enclosed in a district where there is clearly insufficient room 
 for their exercise; and it is to be more earnestly deprecated still, 
 that so lavish an expenditure of the money of the Christian 
 church as your reports show, should be made upon an island 
 so largely supplied with the gospel, while millions of immortal 
 men, in other parts of the world, are sitting in total darkness, 
 with not a single missionary to show them the way of life. 
 
 Having been connected with the Corporation of the City of 
 Imndon for many years, I have had the pleasure of supporting 
 successfidly several aj^idications for their assistance, to promote 
 religious as well as benevolent objects. I enjoyed the privilege 
 
19 
 
 of sustaining a motion for granting £500 towards the purchase 
 of the Camden for the devoted and lamented Williams. It is 
 the invariable practice of the Corporation, before they dispose of 
 their funds, to send all applicants before a Committee, where a 
 searching inquiry is made into the expenditure of the Society on 
 whose behalf they apply. Such an investigation has recently 
 been made on the application of the Church Missionary Society, 
 and the Committee have recommended the Court to grant a 
 liberal sum in aid of that institution. Now I am anxious to 
 know on what ground the London Missionary Society can justify 
 the cost of their mission in Jamaica. It would be difficult to 
 convince any number of disinterested and impartial persons that 
 it was either wisely projected or judiciously commenced; what 
 then would be their astonishment, when they should learn the 
 expense at which it has been maintained ? To support this un¬ 
 necessary mission, altogether uncalled for and unwarranted by 
 the circumstances of the island, and the fruitful source of so 
 much painful and unbrotherly strife, the Directors have expended 
 in eight years nearly Fifty Thousand Pounds. 
 
 The items of expenditure, as I find them in your annual re¬ 
 ports, are as follows: 
 
 
 £ 
 
 s. 
 
 d. 
 
 Raised in 
 
 Jamaica. 
 
 1834 to 1835 
 
 2131 
 
 6 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 
 1836 
 
 3541 
 
 16 
 
 3 
 
 £ 
 
 s. 
 
 d. 
 
 1837 
 
 7090 
 
 7 
 
 0 
 
 260 
 
 18 
 
 5 
 
 1838 
 
 7497 
 
 4 
 
 5 
 
 769 
 
 19 
 
 2 
 
 1839 
 
 6513 
 
 7 
 
 9 
 
 1463 
 
 5 
 
 5 
 
 1840 
 
 6476 
 
 10 
 
 9 . 
 
 . 1100 
 
 15 
 
 8 
 
 1841 
 
 9296 
 
 1 
 
 3 
 
 2012 
 
 16 
 
 4 
 
 1842 
 
 7241 
 
 6 
 
 5 
 
 . 1947 
 
 19 
 
 8 
 
 
 49788 
 
 0 
 
 0 
 
 7555 
 
 14 
 
 8 
 
 
 7555 
 
 14 
 
 8 
 
 
 
 
 
 42232 
 
 5 
 
 4 
 
 
 
 
 Thus deducting the £7555 raised in the island from the gross 
 sum, it leaves a balance of £42,233 of the money of British 
 Christians, to say the least of it, most improvidently spent. 
 
‘20 
 
 I am not saying that the agents you have had in the island 
 during these eight years, could have been supported for less; on 
 this point I express no opinion. They may have been economical 
 and even parsimonious in their mode of living and of conducting 
 their operations, for any thing I know or have inquired. My 
 object is not to impeach their character in this matter, but it 
 is directly to impeach the Directors, and to charge them with 
 an inconsiderate expenditure of public money, such as I think 
 will not easily find a parallel in the history of missions. I 
 maintain that not a fraction of the funds committed to their 
 charge ought to have been laid out in Jamaica at all, and when 
 I find that they have spent upon it the sum above mentioned, 
 under the circumstances exhibited in the preceding part of this 
 letter, and that this ratio of expense is still going on, while the 
 Society is making strong appeals on the ground of pecuniary 
 embarrassment, I say respectfully, but I say frankly, that it is 
 the duty of the Directors to bring their mission on this island 
 to a close. And, however reluctantly, I am compelled to add 
 that if measures are not framed with a view to this object, an 
 appeal must be made to your subscribers and to the Christian 
 public on this distressing question. 
 
 Nor let the Directors be deterred from doing what is right, 
 though it should possibly imply that they have aforetime done what 
 was wrong. “To err is human.” Let them consider that the Chris¬ 
 tian church cannot aftbrd to waste its resources. With all the means 
 it can command, how little is it able to effect! Your Society in 
 particular has, by recent events in the East, a loud call made upon 
 it to direct its attention to China. I sincerely hope you will be 
 able to avail yourselves of the present extraordinary openings of 
 divine Providence, to strengthen and enlarge your mission there; 
 and allow me to put it to your calm judgment if it would not be 
 a wiser, juster, and, in all respects, better expenditure of your 
 money, if you should at once transfer this £6000 per annum 
 from the comparatively Christianized population of Jamaica, to 
 the absolutely destitute Chinese. An example for your imitation 
 and encouragement is not wanting. The Church Missionary 
 
Society, like your own, encumbered with pecuniary embarrass¬ 
 ment, have recently surveyed their various stations, with a view 
 to ascertain what retrenchment may be made, and how their 
 resources may be wisely husbanded, and finding that their mis¬ 
 sionaries were less needed in that island than in any other part 
 of the world, have come to the resolution to withdraw them. 
 
 After the hostility displayed by your agents against the Baptist 
 missionaries and their churches, they cannot continue to labour 
 there with any prospect of comfort or success. The emancipated 
 negroes are sufficiently intelligent and sensitive to distinguish 
 between their friends and their detractors. You can easily 
 imagine the excited feelings which will arise in their minds on 
 their receiving information of the charges alleged against them 
 in Mr. Barrett’s pamphlets. It is not in the power of the 
 Committee of the Baptist Mission at home, nor of their mission¬ 
 aries on the spot, to prevent the collisions which will ensue as 
 the inevitable consequence of these imprudent measures. In 
 venturing to assail the characters of men whom the negroes 
 regard, whether justly or not, as at once their temporal saviours 
 and their greatest spiritual benefactors, your missionaries and 
 catechists have inflicted upon them a deep sense of personal 
 injury. It is impossible to annihilate their ardent attachment to 
 their best friends, and every attempt to interfere with it will 
 recoil upon those who have made it, with increased vexation and 
 trouble. To continue your missionaries in their positions under 
 such circumstances, is to expose them to aggravated and multi¬ 
 plied obstructions and difficulties. In kindness to them you 
 ought at once to remove them, and let their zeal and abilities be 
 employed where they may have free scope. Listen, I entreat 
 you, to this friendly advice. Place your missionaries where they 
 may find a fair and open field. Send them to countries unac¬ 
 quainted with the gospel, and where all danger of collision with 
 their brethren may be prevented. Economize your resources. 
 Spend them upon a soil as yet unbroken by the husbandman. 
 The sphere of operation surely is large enough. “ The field is 
 the world.” Cast in your seed where at present none is sown. 
 
22 
 
 and let every occasion be henceforth removed for this unnatural 
 and ungodly strife. 
 
 I can assure you that what I have thus written has been with 
 no unkind feeling. My earliest associations of interest and 
 affection are entwined with the operations of your Society. 
 I can recall to my recollection its formation. I remember 
 the thrilling delight which I felt at the departure of the 
 Duff with her precious freight, and the pang of sorrow ex¬ 
 perienced at the disasters of the second voyage, which even now 
 vibrates afresh in my heart as I recur to them. Your South 
 Sea and African missions continue to excite a delightful interest 
 by their toUs and their prosperity, nor do I lightly estimate the 
 value of other scenes of your useful labours. From my youthful 
 days I have mingled in your assemblies with the honoured 
 founders of your Society and their living successors, and have 
 with pleasure contributed on these occasions to your funds ; and 
 though I complain, seriously complain of your conduct in 
 Jamaica, yet I hope never to lose those long cherished feelings 
 which attach me to the objects and efforts you pursue. Those 
 objects are common to all evangelical missions, and if there be 
 two Societies which ought to be more closely allied than all 
 others, are they not yours and that to which it is my honour 
 more especially to belong ? Let there be no strife between us, 
 for we are brethren. Is not the whole land before you ? Separate 
 yourselves from us, I pray you, and let all contention cease,— 
 for ever cease. 
 
 I remain. Gentlemen, 
 
 Yours most respectfully, 
 
 THOMAS PEWTRESS. 
 
 30, Gracechurch Street, Dec. 17, 1842. 
 
P. S. The foregoing letter is written with a view to publication, 
 subject to revision. Agreeably, however, to what 1 believe to be the 
 scriptural direction, and which, in similar cases, I have invariably 
 adopted, I send it to you in the first instance. I will defer my inten¬ 
 tion for a limited period of fourteen days, in the hope that, as you 
 will thus have a fair opportunity of considering the subject, you will 
 obviate the necessity of publication altogether. It is my earnest desire 
 that you may be guided by divine wisdom to adopt such measures as 
 may remove every hinderance to the progress of the great object which 
 we all unite in praying may be rapidly accomplished. 
 
 Printed by J. Haddon, Castle Street, Finsbury. 
 
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