1808. ]} Christianity 
Lo the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. 
SIR, 
FRIEND lately put into my hands 
, a pamphlet, from the Bishop of 
Loudon, addressed to the West. India 
planters, on the subject. of promoting 
schools similar to the plan of Joseph 
Lancaster; the origin of which he very 
unfairly, 1 think, attributes to the chap- 
lain of the factory at Madras, who cer- 
tainly adopted a part of his new method 
from the practice of the Hindostan school- 
masters. When he gave me leave to pe- 
ruse. this address, I was not a little re- 
Joiced to hear, by way of recommenda- 
tion, that the object was to convert to 
Christianity the whole race of negroes, 
still, to our disgrace as Christians, re- 
maining slaves in the islands. 
Buta greater disappointment I never 
received than in the perusal of this 
pamphlet. | 
_I expected, when a prelate conde- 
scended to address a body of people on 
such a subject, that he would at any rate 
have stated to them, with apostolical sim- 
plicity, the necessity there was, for their 
own sakes, both here and hereafter, to 
think of some mode! of persuading their 
‘slaves to become Christians, lest, under 
the want of Gospel restraints, these peo- 
ple, guided by the passions natural to 
man, should, from a principle of retribu- 
tion, reverse the tablet; and, by dint of 
numbers, and a heathen sense of their in- 
juries, overwhelm their enslavers, and, at 
last, take possession of the fields which, 
by cultivation, they had been forced to 
render fertile under whips and_priva- 
tions, to which no human being is prone 
by nature to submit. z 
{ also flattered myself his lordship 
would have shewn them that, to prohibit 
the trade in men from Africa, and conti- 
nue it in the islands, was a mockery of | 
God, a crime under the idea of an expi- 
ation, and that unless they found out 
Some Means to put a stop to slavery i 
toto, of which our legislature had even 
expressed its abhorrence (in times the 
most profligate England ever knew), ail 
that had. been done would be nugatory, 
both in a moral, religious, and political 
sense. ; 
And lastly, I did think it was impossi- 
ble for a bishop to write to a set of peo- 
ple, who are so remarkable for the laxity 
of their morals, and neglect of Chnstian 
duties, without hinting to them the ne- 
cessity of a plan of reform among them- 
elves. 
Great, therefore, was my disappoint- 
ment, to find none of these expectations 
and Slavery. 493 
realized ; aud profound was my dismay, 
on advancing a few pages, to hear a Pro= 
testant dignitary begin by lamenting the 
fall of the Jesuit’s society, those Politico- - 
Christian-Quixotes, who once spread 
rank Catholic doctrines among the In. 
dians, to induce them to be conveni- 
ent slaves to the murderers of their an= 
cestors: and while he reserves all his ad 
miration of converters for the Moravian 
teachers among the Protestants, never 
adverting to the duties of our own church~ 
men, so daringly neglected, or giving a 
grain of praise to the sect of Methodists, 
who surely sacrificed themselves in num- 
bers to the work of conversion, before 
even one bishop was found subscribing 
his mite to a Bible Society. 
But the man who, in speaking of the 
utility of schools, could overlook Joseph 
Laucaster’s, for giving cheap education 
to the poor, may well be conceived ca- 
pable of this glaring inattention. 
These discoveries damped and stag- 
gered my hopes; but when I came to the 
main drift of this melancholy argument, 
which was, that, by giving the negroes 
(now in their power, by a horrid law) a 
day to cultivate their own gardens, and 
abolishing the Sunday-market, a day 
usually spent im vice and debauchery, 
they might thereby lay the foundation of 
their conversion to Christianity, which 
would not only make them better ser- 
vants, but increase their value considers 
ably, us articles of trade; for that a good 
Christian slave would now sell in the 
markets of Antigua (that is, a Moravian 
slave) for more, a great deal, than a 
heathen one; and all this without even 
a comment on the vileness of one Chris- 
tian selling another, I was, as every man 
of only common morality must be, pe- 
trifed with astonishment at the state of 
that mind, which could coolly contems 
plate and propose such an advantage, to 
be derived from such a source! 
Lest, however, this statement should 
be considered as improbable, allow me 
to give the bishop’s own words, from his 
avowed pamphlet:— 
At pages 11 and 12, we read, “ and 
if, by the reasons above adduced, you 
should be of opinion that the religious 
education and instruction of young ne~ 
groes is essentially necessary to restrain 
them from the most fatal excesses in the 
indulgence of their sensual appetites, and 
that such restraint is equally necessary to 
keep up a constant supply of home-borm 
slaves tor the cultivation of your lands,” 
Page 13. (after recapitulating the ways 
and means)—‘ The planter will, ina few 
thee 
