The West indies in 1837

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BARBADOS.

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pared with the other towns we have yet seen in the Britisli islands. He related to us an instance of a Wesleyan minister, formerly resident in this island, who though a good man and an excellent preacher, lost the confidence of the negros ; and with it his usefulness among them in the country districts, by marrying into a planter's family. The negros said of him, " He eat with manager, and drink with manager, and manager tell him what to say to us." We made many inquiries of him on the subject of education, and it appears from his statements, that the schools are totally inade­ quate to the wants of this dense population. About two hundred children attend the Sunday school at Pro­ vidence Chapel, and he had also established at his own expense a day school, which was attended by seventy children ; but he was about removing immediately to St. Vincent, and it would depend upon his successor whether it was continued. The Wesleyan chapel here was built at the sole cost of a neighbouring planter, now deceased, who has also left the society a consi­ derable reversionary interest in the estates. This gen­ tleman attached himself to the Wesleyans from their first arrival in the island, and shai-ed in their early per­ secutions. He manifested a real concern to promote the physical comfort and moral elevation of his negros, and in his will bequeathed to each of them half an acre of ground. We subsequently passed through a part of the estate which is now in the possession of his widow. The negro houses are large and commo­ dious, and each of them surrounded by a garden filled with cotton trees. We were introduced to an individual in this neigh­ bourhood, who is a man of color, and one of a class of small, independent freeholders, which is scarcely


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