JAMAICA.
215
large canvass tent, which is crowded on the Sabbath by Negros from neighbouring and distant estates. When it ceased to be practicable for him to remain on Arcadia, J. V I N K wished to obtain by purchase a small piece of ground separated from the rest of the estate by a public road. He would then have been situated in the centre of a circle, comprising a population of five thousand persons, the outer circumference of which would have been in every part, three or four miles, from any other mission station whatever. He shewed us a map of the locality, which he had traced, exhibit足 ing its extent and population. After a tantalizing correspondence, his request was refused, because in the opinion of the attorney of Arcadia, the vicinity of chapels and schools, lessens the value of West India property. No similar situation could be obtained ; all the land within the circle described, being attached to large sugar estates, and not to be purchased, because, in some instances, the estates were mortgaged, and, in others, worldly minded and hostile proprietors re足 fused to wave an objection, which had such weight with one who was a professor of religion, and a patron of the mission. J. V I N E obtained his present very in足 convenient station with considerable difficulty and at an exorbitant price. A neighbouring proprietor told the person who sold it, that he would have given a still higher price, rather than a missionary should have had it. It is several miles from Arcadia.* On our way to Falmouth, we called for a short time at Hyde Hall, an estate belonging to E. SHIRI-EY, which has been mentioned with distinction in the first report of the apprenticeship committee of the House of * S e e Appendix F , Sec. vi.