182 Evil Consequences of' Sectarian Influence in [[FEB. 



the distinct charges above mentioned. The committee, in a subsequent 

 letter, offer to submit such particulars of these cases as they have re- 

 ceived from their correspondents, if it be the wish of government ; to 

 which Mr. Horace Twiss replies, in substance, that they may exercise 

 their own discretion, and that due attention will be paid to any state- 

 ments they may send. In reply to this letter, the missionary committee 

 wrote a few days afterwards to say " The case of the punishment of 

 slaves in Jamaica for attending the mission chapel in St. Ann's parish 

 were not made matter of complaint," &c., but they send, for the perusal 

 of Sir George Murray, such extracts from the letter of Mr. Whitehouse 

 (the accuser) as relate to the cases referred to, " which are not, however, 

 the only instances which have occurred of the punishment of slaves for 

 attending the ministry of our missions." 



Then comes long extracts from the letters and journal of Whitehouse, 

 containing such a mass of contemptible tittle-tattle, alleged to have 

 passed between him and various negroes, his confidants, as we are sure 

 must disgust every man of common sense who reads them; but, at the 

 same time, throwing out the most bitter calumnies against Mr. Betty, a 

 magistrate, and the Rev. Mr. Bridges, the rector of the parish. (< I 

 lately fixed," says he, " on Henry Williams for a leader or catechist." 

 This man it appears is a slave on an estate of which Mr. Betty had 

 the management as attorney, and Whitehouse does not pretend to say 

 he ever asked Mr. Betty's consent to Henry's becoming a catechist, a 

 matter which, in common courtesy and seeing that it was very likely 

 to intefere with his duty on the estate, he certainly was bound to do. 

 Mr. Betty is alleged to have said to Henry, "I hear you are becoming 

 a great preacher at the chapel, but if I hear that you ever go there 

 again I'll send you to Rodney-hall workhouse." " This is a place," says 

 Whitehouse, " of extraordinary punishment," and negroes are sent from 

 different places of the island " to this seat of darkness," because it is 

 generally known that they are treated with the greatest severity. 



Mr.. Betty, it is said, (for all this is the mere ipse dixit of Whitehouse) 

 visited the estate next day, and threatened the negroes with the sever- 

 est punishments 'if ever they w r ent to the chapel again, and hearing 

 one of the women (Henry's sister) sigh, said, " Lay her down, she is one of 

 the preachers too." She, although a free- woman, was immediately laid 

 down, says Whitehouse, and received a very severe flogging ! An al- 

 leged conversation between the rector and this slave Williams, is next 

 detailed, wherein, " his reverence," as Whitehouse ironically denominates 

 him, is described as telling Henry, " there is an account, in the last week's 

 papers, of the Methodists in England being hanged by hundreds." After 

 a good deal of going backward and forward between Whitehouse's resi- 

 dence, and that of another missionary Mr. Martin, one of the servants of 

 the latter, is said to have told Whitehouse, that he had met the slave Wil- 

 liams going to the workhouse lashed round, and his arms bound with 

 new ropes, although he was ready to go unbound. " I felt/' says 

 Whitehouse, " how necessary it was to act with prudence ; but as I am 

 fully sensible that one poor man in the course of the last year died from 

 punishment which he received in the St. Ann's workhouse, for coming 

 to our chapel, I felt it to be my duty to endeavour at least to prevent 

 a second death of this kind." And what does he do ? He rides off to 

 ask Mr. Betty about it, and what was the result ? why, " Mr. B. was 

 from home/'!!! 



In another letter from Whitehouse, a long, rambling account is given 



