preciating the good done by Methodists and Dissenters, who had long been labouring among the slaves while the Church was asleep); and yet, in a subsequent part of the report (p. 55, 56) as is well observed in a recent tract by the Rev. John Riland, the Society gives us, instead of evidence of this full success, only "assumption, theory, and misty prospects of future good, if certain obstacles are removed. It is now confessed" by the Society, "that Sunday markets are not abolished; that the condition of the slaves is not raised to an available point; that the slaves have not leisure for improvement; that instructors are not sufficiently provided; that all estates are not open; that catechists are not permitted to teach reading; in short, that the whole system is all but nugatory, and that we must not expect the end without the means!"—(Riland's Letter, p. 11). How strange it is that in enumerating the obstacles to improvement, this Society should have overlooked the fact, that the Sunday is a day of forced labour in the greatest part of the West Indies, as the slaves must labour in their provision grounds on that day or starve. It alludes to Sunday markets indeed; but this, though a sad evil, is not by any means, nay, not a tenth part so bad, so ruinous, both to body and soul, as the compulsory labour of the agricultural slaves in their grounds on the Sunday, of which the framers of the report say nothing and yet they seem to have had it in their eye, when they tell us that "on the plantations" "the task of conveying religious instruction" "is rendered doubly difficult in the case of the negro, who is kept to hard labour at all seasons of the year, and works during the harvest with the LEAST POSSIBLE INTERMISSION."What a picture! Yet, the report adds (and this seems to stand as the grand result of all the preceding statements of brilliant progress and full success) "something is evidently doing"-though, in the West Indies, "every thing connected with the Christian church is still in a state of infancy." It is indeed— not even a Sabbath yet given to the slaves!

So much for the auxiliary, whom the British Critic has called to his aid. It may be well, before we proceed farther, to exhibit a specimen of the reliance which may be placed on the statements of the British Critic himself, in respect to religious improvement in the West Indies. He tells us, (p. 434) "the parochial returns from the island of Barbadoes, for the year 1828, have just reached this country, and they contain much encouraging information. The congregations at church, in almost every instance, have increased. Sunday schools for plantation slaves, in some of which reading is taught, while others are merely catechetical, have been opened in every parish except one, and in that one the deficiency is lamented, and will shortly be supplied. These schools are attended both by adults and children, and are conducted by clergymen, - who thought, five years ago, that the slaves formed no part of their spiritual charge."-We have now before us a copy of these parochial returns, to which our Critic refers; and we venture to say that they are most unfairly represented in the above extract.

"The congregations at church, in almost every instance," says the British Critic, "have increased."

The very words of the returns in answer to the question "Have your congregations increased?" are as follows: 1, St. Andrew, "my congre

gations have increased." 2, Christ church, "The coloured congregation has considerably increased. The whites as usual." 3, St. George, "They have." 4, St. James, "They have not diminished. I cannot venture to assert they have increased." 5, St. John, "The congregation in the morning continues the same. In the evening it has diminished." 6, St. Joseph, "They have." 7, St. Lucy, "The congregation of whites has somewhat increased during the last three months of the year. That of the slaves has not increased in the morning, and has decreased in the afternoon." 8, St. Michael's, "No increase has taken place except at the additional service on Sunday evenings," (instituted a few months before) "when the church is very much crowded." 9, St. Peter, "It has by the addition of a few." 10, St. Philip, "Our congregations have increased." 11, St. Thomas, "They have in the number both of whites and coloured."

Again, says the British Critic, "Sunday schools, for plantation slaves, in some of which reading is taught, while others are merely catechetical, have been opened in every parish except one," &c. "These schools are attended both by adults and children."

Now for the actual returns. 1, St. Andrew, "I have a Sunday school in my parish, held at the church, open to slaves and free coloured. Some of the slaves attending are taught to read." Average attendance 35, from 10 to 15 being adults. 2, Christ church, "There is one Sunday school for free coloured and slaves." "The average attending number is from 28 to 30, mostly females," eight being adults. 3, St. George, "We have a Sunday school open to slaves and free. The instruction is catechetical." Average number of attendants 12, "chiefly adults." 4, St. James, "We have a Sunday school open to all." "All attending are taught to read," but "not more than from 8 to 10 attend," "some few" being adults. 5, St. John, "There is a Sunday school for white and free coloured children," which last "receive oral instruction alone. The number of whites attending, 40 to 45; of coloured, 90 to 100: no adults." 6, St. Joseph, "There is a Sunday school open to all who will attend." "None are taught to read. Average number attending is 60, besides 8 adults." 7, St. Lucy, "There is a Sunday school open to all slaves and free coloured, but generally attended by six slave children, who are all taught to read. No adults attend." 8, St. Michael (the population 25,652; more than a fourth of the whole island,) "We have two Sunday schools open to all, and all attending them are taught to read. The average number of attendants is from 80 to 90," "60 adults attending." 9, St. Peter, "There is a Sunday school open to all who choose to attend, the only instruction hitherto given having been by catechizing. Number generally attending, 20; of whom 8 or 10 are adults." 10, St. Philip, School not yet opened. 11, St. Thomas, "There is a Sunday school for adults preparatory to baptism, open to slaves and free. No one is taught to read; the average number about 40." The number of adults is afterwards said to be from 20 to 30.

Let the reader mark the unfairness and exaggeration of this stickler for accuracy. He says, "The congregations, in almost every instance, have increased." Yet in some they have been either stationary or dimi

nished. And how does he know that, on the whole, the diminution may not exceed the increase? We do not take it upon us to pronounce; but he does, and that without any adequate data. Whether the increase be two or twenty in this parish, and the diminution ten or 200 in that, he cannot tell; and yet, he says, almost all have increased. Again, "Sunday schools, in some of which reading is taught, have been opened in every parish but one;" and he adds, of himself, for the returns do not say so, "for the plantation slaves." If all had been plantation slaves, the number would still not have exceeded 450 in the whole island. But the possibility is, that not a tenth of these may be slaves at all, and none of them plantation slaves; and yet the effect of his interpolation of the words plantation slaves, is to produce an impression that they are all of that description. In some schools, too, he tells us, reading is taught; which seems to imply that reading is taught to the plantation slaves, the only class he specifies. But what says the return? It is, that in four only of the eleven parishes is reading taught at all. With the exception however of St. Lucy, (Mr. Harte's parish) where the Sunday school contains only 6 slaves, (probably his friend Mr. Leacock's) it is only in St. Andrew that some slaves are said to be taught to read; but whether 2, or 10, or 20, is not told us. The 8 or 10 who attend in St. James, are taught to read; but it is not said that one of them is a slave: they may be all free. So in St. Michael, the 80 or 90 who attend, may be all free. Assuming then the returns to be correct, it may still be true, notwithstanding the vaunting statement of the British Critic, that, besides the persecuted Mr. Harte's six slave children, there may not be more than three slaves taught to read in all the Sunday schools in the island; for this number would salve the expression of the rector of St. Andrew, that "some of the slaves are taught to read." The words "for the plantation slaves," be it remembered, is an interpolation of the British Critic, for which the returns afford no warrant.

But when we pass from our Critic's unfair representation of these returns, to the returns themselves, what do we witness? Our readers will remember the indignation with which our first intimation of the vague and unsatisfactory nature of the details, given by the Conyersion Society in its report of 1827, on the statements of the bishops and clergy, was received :—it was false and calumnious. Let us look now at the returns for 1828, the joint work of the bishop and clergy of Barbadoes! Vagueness! They embody in every line the very spirit of vagueness. If the object had been to mistify the whole subject of slave conversion and improvement, it could not have been more fully accomplished. We defy any man to discover, except from the return from St. Lucy, that a single slave attends in any one of the churches. Nothing is told us of the numbers attending, nor of the proportions of slave and free. On these points, we are left wholly in the dark. The returns would not be falsified, if it were to appear that not 10 slaves attended in all the churches. Then with respect to schools, the statements are equally vague and unintelligible; and it would be perfectly consistent with them if the fact were, that not 20 slaves attended in all the Sunday schools throughout the island. In distinguishing the attendants in church, there may be some uncertainty; still there may be an approximation to

But no

the relative numbers of white, free coloured, and slaves. attempt has been made at any such approximation. In the Sunday schools however, all this might have been given with the most minute accuracy: the omission, therefore, is the more inexcusable. Indeed, it would be difficult to discover any reason for it, but the unwillingness felt by the bishop and his clergy, to reveal the small numbers of slaves who do attend Sunday schools, and the still smaller number of them who are taught to read. What the facts may be we pretend not to say what we complain of is, that the facts are pertinaciously and systematically withheld from us; and we cite, as our authority for saying so, the returns so vaunted by the British Critic, and now before us, of 1828.

But this is not the only unfairness of which this writer has been guilty, in pretending to give an abstract of these returns. He has not told us, though the returns tell us, that no additional places of church of England worship have been erected in Barbadoes, nor any additional accommodation provided, except a few benches in about half of the churches. He has not told us, nor do we learn from the returns, that there is a single slave communicant in the whole island. He has not told us, though the returns tell us, that in 1828 only four marriages of slaves had taken place in Barbadoes; and four marriages more between slaves and free persons. He has not told us, though the returns tell us, that in seven of the parishes, the minister has never been sent for to attend sick or dying slaves; and in the other four parishes, very rarely indeed. Neither has he told us, though the returns tell us, that except in three individual instances, one in one parish, and two in another, slave mothers have never been "churched" in any of the parishes in the island.

This specimen may well satisfy the most incredulous of our readers respecting both the good faith of the British Critic, and the clearness, as well as the freedom from vagueness and ambiguity, of the returns hitherto furnished by the West India bishops and clergy.

The British Critic seems to think that because Mr. Riland and the Anti-Slavery Reporter were not accurately acquainted with the exact terms of the bequest by which the Propagation Society became possessed of the Codrington plantations, therefore their representations of the conduct pursued in administering those estates must be erroneous. But in considering that question what does it signify whether these estates are held in trust or not, and in what particular manner the proceeds of them are to be applied, whether for one purpose or another? Are not all the funds held by the Society, held in trust for certain definite objects? The funds in this case may be kept separate, in account, from the general funds of the Society, but they are just as much brought into the Society's treasury, as much a part of its means of doing good, as the monies which are collected in the churches of the realm in consequence of a King's letter. Whatever be the final application of the proceeds of these estates, the question still recurs, (and it is a question independent of that application,) Has the Propagation Society faithfully and beneficially administered its trust? Now what we maintain

is this, (and thus much is now admitted at least by Philalethes, the candid writer in the Christian Remembrancer), that for a long time the Society did not faithfully and beneficially administer it; that for upwards of a hundred years it did not perform the duty of a Christian master, in providing for the spiritual necessities of a number of human beings committed to its care, and as entirely dependent upon it, and as much the objects of its responsibility before God, as a man's own children and servants. We fortified our charge of neglect by accurately quoting the statement of the Society itself, that "the slaves on these estates were never provided with any regular system of religious teaching until the year 1818." The British Critic calls this a garbled extract; but we cannot discover wherein it is garbled, nor does he condescend to tell us. He insinuates, also, that we have given an unfair exposition of it, when in reference to it we afterwards 66 say, no regular means of religious instruction were provided till 1818.' The propositions seem to us to be identical, and to express precisely the same idea, notwithstanding the contrary and unexplained assertion of the British Critic, who says, we ought to have known better than to have said so. And yet what fairer course could we by any possibility have pursued, than that of adopting as true the testimony of the Society's own chaplain in 1824, revised and republished, in 1829, by the Society itself? The Society itself has, in this very year, put forth a statement, intended as a complete refutation of all that had been advanced against its conduct. We received its vindication, as given by itself, without question; and having done so, we are now charged with being unfair and disingenuous, because we have overlooked something that was said in some report fifteen or sixteen years ago, and which, had it been material, it was for the Society itself to have produced. Our Critic therefore is surely somewhat unreasonable in his censures and exactions.

The British Critic has altogether shut his eyes to one of the plain and obvious purposes we had in view, in bringing forward the extracts from the sermons preached before the Society for a century past; and in which sermons the duty of providing for the temporal and spiritual interests of the slaves was forcibly insisted upon. We did it, among other reasons, in order to shew that as the good men who preached those sermons, as well as the good men who listened to them, were, in their day, deluded, by their agents abroad, into a belief that the Society was doing its duty, and that the slaves were duly cared for, while they were in fact neglected and left to perish (awful reflection!) generation after generation, in ignorance of every thing belonging to their eternal peace; so the good men of the present day ought to take warning by that affecting example, and not suffer themselves to be any longer deluded by agents unavoidably prejudiced, or by vehement party writers, into a similar belief that all is well now, because good sermons are preached, and plausible reports are written.

It is vain to lull the consciences of the Directors of the Society with such opiates as the British Critic would apply to them. Neither could the horrors of the slave trade while it lasted, nor can the still existing abominations of West Indian economy, excuse them for having continued for 120 years, and for continuing even to this day, to partici