cwt.

1842
1843

£ 8. d. .127,821 14 6 .190,250 9 3

barrels imported. In the time of slavery it, which puncheons and hogsheads were made, was purchased by the planter to feed his and the hoops with which they were bound. negroes, and was then subject to a tax of 3d. Before the introduction of freedom, the duty per barrel. At the time of freedom, when on staves was 12s.: they have kindly rethis law was passed, when the free peasant duced it to 2s. The tax on wooden hoops had to purchase it, the tax was raised to 3s. was 4s., and they have reduced that to Is. per barrel. Of rice, which is consumed- The fact is, they use them, and the people do and there is no difference in the tariff between not; while upon the white pine and the pitch slave-grown and free-grown rice-rice, which pine, which the labourers wanted to build is consumed very considerably by the people their houses with, that which was 4s. before -there were 14,077 bags brought in, each is made into 8s. for white pine and 12s. for bag weighing, I should think, about two cwt. pitch pine. Those who have been in the The tax, when the slave owner had to feed colonies know full well that, if the emancihis slave, was 13. per cwt. It is now 4s. per pated labourer wished for a comfortable home, Salt fish, which is another article of instead of thatching it, he must have shingles, food very generally consumed, and of which almost the whole of which come from Aine150,000 cwt. was brought in last year, was rica. Before freedom, the tax on shingles without a tax at all, or a very trifling one, not was 1s., but that has been raised to 4s. and more than 6d. per cwt.; but that has been 8s. Now there is just as much wood in one increased to 23. Pork, and especially Ame- white oak stave as there are in two shingles; rican pork-that which the better classes of so that on the same amount of wood they peasants use; and, indeed, it is their staple have taken off 12s. and put 2s. on, and with food, with which to sweeten their yams-was respect to shingles, which were formerly ls., subjected to a trifling tax during the time of they have now put on 4s. and 8s. The imslavery: they have now raised it, on American ports of shingles have been 7,526,293 feet of pork, to the tune of 20s. 6d. There were white pine and pitch pine, while of staves brought into Jamaica, last year, 29,803 bar- imported for the planter there has been rels of pork; and, to show you the difference 827,262. The whole taxes raised on imbetween that brought from England and that ports, principally from the articles on which I from America and I have been very par- have referred, have been as follows:ticular in my statistics-I must state that 4718 barrels came from Great Britain and Ireland, which were brought in at a tax of 15.; and 27,106 were from America, and these were taxed by the House of Assembly at 153. per barrel. The English tax laid by the House of Commons is 3s. per cwt., or 55. the barrel; so that, from this single article alone, consumed by the peasants, or nearly so -at any rate, the lower classes-a tax has been raised of nearly £29,000. This same principle runs through the whole. They will not allow the free man to wash his hands without taxing the soap to a larger amount than they did before. The tax on soap was then 9d. per box; now they have made it 2s.; and when I tell you that 30,930 boxes were imported last year, you will see how, in this article, the free man is made to feel it. I was afraid that my friends in England were not fully aware, as I believe they were not, of the extent of the necessity of providing food from another part of the world; and of the wicked conduct for I cannot designate it by a lower term-of these men, who, while they were proclaiming their own distress, fastened such a bond upon their hapless victims, taxes were made to press heavily upon the lumber that was brought in, though the effect has not been so severe as that arising from the taxes on the food they must eat every day. But to show the animus of these men-as soon as the freeholds had been purchased, there was a demand for white pine, and pitch pine, and lumber shingles. The tax was taken off, or nearly so, from white and red staves, with

1844 .................................................192,517 12 7 making a total of what is raised by the House of Assembly, chiefly on the food which the peasant eats, and the lumber he purchases, during three years, of £510,589 16s. 4d. Perhaps it will be said that I ought to tell you how the money spent. We have to deplore a spirit in the islands of the west which appears never to be satisfied when matters are doing well; and hence there has been, especially during the last two or three years, a continued and well-directed effort to deluge Jamaica with other labourers at the labourers' expense. Lord John Russell stated that this was the fact. There has been expended on immigration-chiefly from 1835 to 1844, for premiums, or salaries, or bounties on shipsthe sum of £105,514 93. 6d., and to erect houses, £22,757 6s. 11d., making a total of £128,271 16s. 5d.; and to keep up the tale, they have this year, in the midst of the whole of their distress, voted no less a sum than £95,000 for bringing in labourers, when I could prove, and have stated in Jamaica that I could prove to a demonstration, that they had not work enough for the labourers they possess. You will say, How could they be so blind to their interests? Why, every act they pass puts something into their pockets. There is Mr. Commissioner this, and Mr. Comptroller that, and Mr. Superintendent the other; and snug berths for themselves and ruin for the colony, is the motto on which

they appear to act. There is another source first two years of freedom, Sir Lionel Smith on which these taxes are placed, and fearfully placed. When I last appeared among you, I told you that I felt we might have some difficulty with respect to the extension of the church. They do not, in my estimation at least, appear to number honesty among the Christian virtues; and I never can have sympathy with any man, however he may pretend to be sincere, who takes from me that which I do not feel inclined to give, for the support of a system which he tells me comes from God. It may come from him: but I think, with all due deference to every bishop that breathes, and every archbishop that lives, that that God who has told us to "do unto others as we would that they should do unto us," cannot have sent down a system fraught with such injustice and wrong. The public expenditure raised up by these taxes has been a good deal frittered away by the uselessness of a church establishment. In the year 1842 the House of Assembly voted £27,538 9s. 8d.—just about the duty they got from the pork. Then we have another system of wrong. The vestries vote as much as they like to this system, and they voted £23,710 7s. 4d., and for schools £3185; so that we have to pay for an established church, the sum of £54,433 17s. This is 371,165 dollars, which is 4s. per head for every man, woman, and child living in Jamaica, for the support of a religion from which nine-tenths of the constituency dissent. This is without what the bishop receives, and those various grants which are given to churchmen, and I exceedingly regret to say to some dissenters, for their religious establishments. Hence it is that, except with respect to our Presbyterian and Independent friends, we cannot receive any sympathy from other denominations, because they touch the accursed thing. They come to us with hands defiled with it, and therefore they cannot open their mouths wide about it. It is right to state that we have in Jamaica 84 clergymen; that the church has 76 churches and 11 chapels and school rooms. They say that they have, and it may be true for aught I know, accommodation for 51,000 persons. If so, each person must sit at ease when he visits it; but this includes only about an eighth part of the population. Now there are 267 ministers of all religious denominations. The church has 84, the rest belong to the dissenters, and they labour, while they are thus taxed, with 150,000 of the inhabitants beneath their care. In this, and several other ways, have taxes been laid on the people for the support of that which they do not approve, and to bring in labourers that are not wanted. While this has been done, they have superadded, an armed police, travelling with muskets through the length and breadth of Jamaica, the expense of which comes out of the imports, and amounts to more than £40,000. During the

disbanded the militia and the police too, and I hesitate not to say that five-sixths of the quarrels in Jamaica are fomented by the police, that they may have the pleasure of quelling them. Those emigrants who have been brought in from Ireland and Germany, at a bounty of 15s. per head, instead of making sugar, are carrying muskets; and so long as this system of emigration continues, you will have little sugar from Jamaica, but we shall receive an increase of crime and misery. Thus I have endeavoured, briefly, to lay before you some of the features of the case. It would take more time than you can spare to state the whole; and, therefore, I have only presented you with a sample. Perhaps you may be ready to say, Why do you not correct this state of things; for you were freeholders long ago? I went, one day, to the authorities, with the intention of enrolling from 2 to 300 freeholders; it being necessary that the names should be recorded twelve months before the individuals are entitled to vote. But the House of Assembly was dissolved the ensuing week-a year before the usual time, in order that the representatives might be returned by the old constituency, thus making the registration null and void. But it is for a time only. I ought to have said that, during the year, they sent home a petition from the House of Assembly, stating that they were ruined-that they could not support taxation-that sugar could not be made. While, however, they were thus grinding the people to the dust by taxation, they took the very honest care to put their salaries down in sterling instead of currency; £100 currency being £60 sterling. While the labourer was to pay for salt fish, they thought they would eat turtle without paying for it; and, therefore, turtle and such like fish were brought in free of duty. I wish to clear the minds of any individuals here from the supposition that, if we are now relieved, we shall soon be in the same difficulties again. Difficulties cannot arise from the same causes, however much the inhabitants of Jamaica may be oppressed. Our chapels have been all erected within the last ten or twelve years, with the exception of two or three. We have erected, since 1835, thirtynine substantial chapels; we have twentyfour mission houses, and sixteen school rooms. We have now in the island of Jamaica 47 chapels, 30 mission houses, and 22 school rooms. These cost, and are still worth, for the purposes for which they were intendedfor they are almost all new, slavery having destroyed the old ones, and you having enabled us to put good ones in the placethe sum of £157,900; that amount of property is vested in the Baptist Missionary Society, and cannot be touched. On this property we owe a debt of £18,000, the interest of which is pressing us to the dust.

The chapel with which I am connected is out soon after freedom-and you know that the of debt; but if I had been in the same condi- licentiousness before was such that it could not tion as some of my brethren, I should not be talked of--there have been registered in our have felt the least hesitancy in laying my proper law books 20,059 marriages. Omitting cause before those who have assisted us in much which I had intended to say, I would times of past distress. I know that there urge upon you to assist the Committee. My have been complaints, and just complaints, speech was to have been to induce you to of the largeness of our churches, but, with assist me; but they have, with a kindness the exception of one or two instances, that is that will never be effaced from my heart, the case no more. In Trelawny, when I taken the burden from me. The moment I entered in the year 1830, there were without retire from this meeting, I shall write a letter chapels, without houses, without homes, 650 to Jamaica, which will infuse fresh joy into members; and there have been baptized the hearts of my bret' ren there. During my since that time 3100 persons. I have dis- brief sojourn in this country I shall try, with missed, to form other churches, since 1835, a heart devoted to it, to help the Committee 2050 members; 320 have died; and there as much as they have helped me. Happy have finally left us, 100; so that, since the shall I be if the noble spirits by whom I commencement of the church at Falmouth, shall be surrounded in different parts of the under the labours of him who addresses you, country, will respond to the appeal, as they there have been 3750 members connected did when the liberty of the slave was the with it. Instead of one chapel, there are subject. Happy shall I be if, when I shake now the following:-Falmouth, with 1280 hands with the secretary, he shall say, "You members; Refuge, 780; Rio Beuno, 313; have got the money, and we are free from Waldensia, 746; Unity, 340; Stewart Town, debt." I think the Chinese mission ought to 814; and last, though not least, there is Ket-be taken up. It would diminish the pleasure tering, with its 200 members, living in their I feel if the exigency in which we are placed own freeholds; so that from 650, in the space militated against your future labours. Now, of about ten years, there are 4473 members, farewell. For the fourth time I appear before and we have seven chapels, capable of hold-you, with a heart pleased by the reception I ing 8400 persons. We have done what we have received. It is twenty-one years, within could to extend the cause of Christ; and, as a few months, since I left you a stripling, this difficulty has arisen in part from our unknown. I have been forced into notoriety desire for that extension, we feel assured that by the calumnies that have been uttered we shall receive your sympathy. To show against me; but I defy any man, or any set how oppressive the tax is to which I have of men, to find a flaw in the statements I referred, with respect to the established church, have made respecting the amount of taxation I will take Trelawney as a fair specimen. imposed on the free labourers, and the purAfter fifty years' toil in Trelawney, the pose for which it is levied in the lovely national places of worship being five, they islands of the west. Come, then, fellowcannot accommodate above 3000 persons; I Christians, to the help of the Lord against have been in all of them; in the same district the mighty. Help us from the load of interest, there are nine Baptist chapels, five Methodist, which amounts to £2000 sterling annually, two Free Presbyterian, and one Independent that we have to pay; and no missionary, chapel. These chapels, seventeen in number, worthy the name of a missionary, will vacate will hold 14,800 persons; the population of his post, though he lives on the common Trelawney being about 30,000. Now, in the name of common sense, why should these 14,000 free labourers--supply money for the accommodation of 3000 of the white population, when, at the same time, they pay for themselves? You will be delighted to hear that morality has increased. I have brought I entered thereon, a poor slave sought refuge over a list of the number of marriages that from Cuba; unhappily, he was discovered have been performed in Jamaica from April, before the vessel left the shores. The man 1841, to April, 1844; and it will show also the came on deck, was ordered to get into a boat, relative position of the denominations there. and go back to slavery. The poor fellow The Baptists have recorded marriages, in said, Never," and taking a razor, slashed these four years, 8446; the native Baptists, his throat in pieces, and fell dead on the those who were there before us, 264; the British vessel's deck. We need your sympaWesleyan Methodists, 5120; the Association thies for the great, the mighty work of freeing Methodists, 430; the native Methodists, 21: man. Oh! that this great and mighty work the Moravians, 2839; the Presbyterians, may advance, and that it may soon be pro2332; the London Missionary Society, 351; claimed from the mountain's top, that a slave the Congregational Missionary Society, 203; exists not on earth, and that no part of the the Roman Catholics 3; the established universe is cursed by bondage. Let there church, 8294-less than the Baptists by be a holy and a generous excitement tonearly 200 so that, in these few years, so day.

herbs of the country. I would that America may not have to lift up her voice exultingly and say, the scheme of emancipation has failed. I trod, the other day, the deck of the British vessel that conveyed me to this country, and on that deck, a few weeks before

Mr. E. CAREY then moved the following | Tahiti, in connexion with the London Missionary resolution, which was seconded by Dr. Society. It hereby offers to them the cordial exSHARPE, of Boston, and unanimously carried.

"Resolved, That this meeting has heard with much sorrow of the protracted suffering and persecution of their Christian brethren in Madagascar and

Pression of its sympathy, and trusts that the God of

all consolation may still comfort, stablish, and strengthen them, and that he may speedily (as he certainly will eventually) overrule all these trials to their spiritual good, and to the advancement of his own cause."

EVENING MEETING.

An adjourned meeting was held in Surrey Chapel, at which Joseph Tritton, Esq., presided, and addresses were delivered by the Chairman, the Rev. T. Winter, of Bristol, the Rev. J. Aldis, of Maze Pond, the Rev. T. B. Freeman, Wesleyan Missionary, the Rev. E. J. Francies, from Jamaica, the Rev. W. Brock, of Norwich, the Rev. W. Knibb, and W. Felkin, Esq., of Nottingham.

Our young friends will be glad to hear that the Juvenile Herald for July will contain papers by the Rev. W. Knibb, the Rev. C. M. Birrell, the Rev. R. McCheyne, and other friends.

The circulation is now about 40,000, but the sale of an additional 20,000 is required before it can be said that the object of the publication is answered. If each school buying twenty can buy an additional ten, this will be done. The previous numbers may be had at our Publishers.

Subscriptions and Donations in aid of the Baptist Missionary Society will be thankfully received by W. B. Gurney, Esq., Treasurer, or the Rev. Joseph Angus, M.A., Secretary, at the Mission House, Moorgate Street, LONDON: in EDINBURGH, by the Rev. Christopher Anderson, the Rev. Jonathan Watson, and John Macandrew, Esq.; in GLASGOW, by Robert Kettle, Esq.; in DUBLIN, by John Parkes, Esq., Richmond Street; in CALCUTTA, by the Rev. James Thomas, Baptist Mission Press; and at NEW YORK, United States, by W. Colgate, Esq.

IRISH CHRONICLE.

THE ANNUAL SERVICES.

THE Annual Sermon was preached on the 25th of April, by Mr. MURSELL, from Jeremiah viii. 11, in which he shewed how plainly the sentiment of the passage was applicable to British Christians in their too general indifference towards Irelandand having specified the causes of it, suggested the remedy, exhibited the reasons for its immediate application, the preacher closed by a most earnest and effective appeal on behalf of the Mission to that country. The attendance was large and respectable, and the collection liberal.

The thirty-first anniversary of this Society was held at Finsbury Chapel, on Tuesday evening, April 29th. The attendance far exceeded that of last year, and great interest was evidently taken in the proceedings. The chair was occupied by J. WHITEHORNE, Esq. We subjoin the following condensed report.