80 Vmce of the Country Abolition of Slavery. [JULY, 



ample provision is already made by the public and by private persons 

 for the religious instruction of the slaves, Be it enacted/' &c. 



Alexander Barclay, Esq., a gentleman well known as a man of honour 

 and probity, in a letter addressed to Sir George Murray, recently 

 published, states, that " many benevolent persons in England accus- 

 tomed to read the Anti-Slavery Reports, will find difficulty in believing 

 that any portion of comfort, much less of wealth, can be in the posses- 

 sion of " a race of beings degraded to the level of brute and inanimate 

 nature driven by the cart-whip to excess of labour, and stinted of 

 necessary food, even to the shortening of their miserable days." As the 

 colonists deny the existence of any such wretchedness amongst their 

 dependents, the question is, which of the parties is to be believed ? The 

 Reverend James Coultart, a baptist minister in Jamaica, in a letter 

 addressed to his patron, Dr. Ryland, and published in the Baptist Maga- 

 zine, speaking of the means for providing a new chapel, says, " When 

 I consider that by my own feeble exertions, one thousand pounds have 

 been collected in two months among poor slaves or negroes in our own 

 small church, I hope, allowing a little time for the rest, that we shall, 

 if God should spare life, and bless succeeding efforts, obtain our 

 wishes.* * ** What church in England would have done so much in 

 the time, notwithstanding their superior circumstances ?" Mr. Barclay 

 justly observes, that if a thousand of the Jamaica planters had sworn 

 to this fact, they would not have been believed in England ! but here 

 it comes from more undoubted authority. Another of these preachers, 

 the Rev. Mr. Barry, states that at the opening of a new chapel in 

 December last " some person put a gold ring into the plate. Pre- 

 vious to making the evening collection, I took notice of the circum- 

 stance, and said, I thought there were many such superfluous ornaments 

 then in the chapel which might be devoted to the same purpose, and 

 should, if given, be sacredly applied to that use." (?) Here is the fact, not 

 only that their money is taken, but that even the little trinkets of the 

 coloured or black females are actually called for with all the powers of 

 persuasion, and all the denunciations of such ornaments being sinful 

 and forbidden. But it appears that the sectarians of Jamaica go even 

 a step farther, and rival the Catholic clergy of old " Among the most 

 extraordinary, and, as many think, most objectionable modes resorted 

 to by the sectaries for raising money among the slaves, is that of selling 

 f tickets' to them, which is practised, I believe," says Mr. Barclay, {< by 

 all the sects, with the exception of the Moravians, whose disinterested 

 conduct in their holy calling forms a striking contrast to that of their 

 brethren* These tickets are small slips of paper, with a text of scripture 

 written on them. On what grounds the money is asked by the different 

 sects from the poor ignorant creatures who buy them, I know not ; but 

 their value in the minds of the negroes may be understood from the 

 following little anecdote related by a clergyman : c at the conclusion 

 of worship, last Sabbath,' said he, ' an aged man and woman came to 

 me and asked for tickets.' The reverend gentleman, after some con- 

 versation, told them that he would always be glad to see them at wor- 

 ship, and would willingly explain any thing they did not understand, 

 but that he had ' no tickets to sell/ and assured them that tickets would 

 be of no use in taking them to heaven/ This information they received 

 with considerable indifference and incredulity, from which it appeared 

 that they had been too deeply impressed with a belief in the merit of 



