84 Voice of the Counlry Abolition of Slavery. 



" the Society for Propagating the Gospel in Foreign Parts" an accusa- 

 tion originally brought forward in that repository of mendacity, the Anti- 

 Slavery Reporter, and successfully refuted, as Mr. Wilson ought to have 

 known, in the tenth number of the British Critic (pp. 435 to 454), we 

 would refer in further refutation of this charge to the annual report of 

 the society itself, and also to the report of another society, viz. the Negro 

 Conversion Society, for 1828, pp. 90 and 91, from which we make the 

 following extract : 



" Upon the estates held in trust by the Society for the Propagation of the 

 Gospel, under the will of the late General Codrington, ' for the erection of a 

 college on the property, established as a public institution for the advancement 

 of learning, and to be maintained by the labour of slaves/ there is a regular chap- 

 lain, whose views are exclusively directed towards the promotion of Christian 

 knowledge and Christian habits among the slaves. He performs divine service 

 twice on tbe Sunday, and gives catechetical instruction to 25 scholars for two 

 hours in the body of the chapel previously to public worship j and out of crop 

 season on one day of the week. The chapel is open to the neighbouring pro- 

 perties, and is attended by many free coloured persons and slaves from them. 



" The society also maintains a school for the younger children in a small neat 

 house, situated between the two estates, in which there are 48 scholars. They 

 are taught to read on the national plan, and remain under the tuition of their 

 governess, Miss Davies, from 9 till 1 every day, Saturday excepted. 



" An ample provision is thus made for the religious instruction of the negroes 

 on these estates. Their number is 366, in which there was an increase by births 

 of 53 within 7 yearn, exclusively of 3 who had purchased their freedom.' 



Further details of the management of these estates are contained in a 

 printed letter addressed by Mr. Forster Clarke to the Rev. A. Hamil- 

 ton, from which we extract the following passages : 



" You have no doubt received the fullest information respecting tbe school, 

 and plan of religious instruction pursued on these estates, from the chap- 

 lains who have resided on them. Every child on the estate, from six to ten 

 years of age, attends the daily school, argeeably to the instructions of the society, 

 (but in no instance are they removed too young, many remaining until they are 

 14 years old) ; and after that period they are taken into the Sunday-school, and 

 are carefully instructed in the knowledge of religious duties and Christian princi- 

 ples. They are also compelled to attend the chapel on Sundays, when a large 

 portion of the adult and older slaves also assemble, and where divine service is 

 performed twice a day on Sundays, with a lecture by the chaplain at each ser- 

 vice : and the society have been most fortunate in the appointment of persons to 

 fulfil these duties, which have been performed by their late and present chaplain 

 with an uncommon degree of zeal and assiduity. 



" My observations are confined to the system pursued on the Codrington 

 estates, where the continued and regular increase of the population is an evident 

 proof of the welfare of the slaves, and of the benefit of these regulations." 



And to sum up the whole, Mr. Coleridge, in his Six Months in the 

 West Indies in 1825, pp. 60 and 61, states that 



" The trustees of Codrington College comprise a large portion of the learning 

 and virtue of England ; their disinterestedness is perfect their intention excel- 

 lenttheir care commendable. Their disposable funds are ample, and the trust 

 estates remarkably flourishing. They deserve this prosperity ; their zeal for the 

 welfare of their slaves is most exemplary, and they have gone to the utmost 

 bounds of prudence in advancing the condition of those negroes whose happi- 

 ness and salvation have been committed to them. A chapel and a school have 

 been erected almost exclusively for their use, and a clergyman, (the Rev. J. H. 

 Finder,) fixed amongst them, whose talents, kindness, and simplicity of man- 



