OCR Text |
Show . '•···' •' ~\ 134 JAMAICA. d b · may truly be said to be blossom-of thorns an nars . . 1 " f Sharon." We heard excellent Ill"' bke t w rose o " f h king of the people on the estates accounts o t e wor . . . hb 1 ood except only where they have m this neig orl ' . . d hy the misapplicatiOn of the rent been oppresse system. . On leaving the place the next morn_mg, we called 011 the Wesleyan minister, and met at h~s door a la_rge we dd.m g co mpa, ny , all of them, I believe, labormg peop I e, b n t h·,m dsomely attired, and on horseback. It was a scene which could not be matched among the peasantry of Great Britain. . . . We then drove through the fertile sugar plams of the parish of Trelawney to Falmouth, a considerable town on the seacoast, and the seat of the useful labors of William Knibb, the Baptist minister, so weU known as the staunch and effective friend of the negro population. He was now absent o~ a l_egation to t~e Anti-slavery Society and the Baptists m England, m company with one of his black brethren ; and the attachment of the people to their minister, as well as their own prosperous condition, had been amply evinced by their raising a voluntary subscription of £1,000 currency (near three thousand dollars) to de· fray the expenses of the mission.1 On our way we passed through another prosperous village called Stewartstown, which contains a large store, a well attended church, Methodist and Baptist chapels, schools of course, and a large number of freehold settlements . d w·n· K 'bb that of the t I have since been informed by my fnen l lam . m ' l'ed to £1,000 currency raised on this occasion, only £130 sterlmg was app 1 the expense of his mission to England. JAMAICA. 135 occupied by the negroes. At Ba' rnstaple, a sugar es-tate on the road, where we stopped to refresh ourselves and our horses, the overseer informed us that he had on_e ~undred_ people well at work, on wages from one shiiimg sterlmg to half a dollar per day-" no complaints, all comfortable." In our friend William Knibb's absenc.e , we were kindly received at his house, and met a warm welcome from "Brother Ward," his able representative. Afterwards we met seven or eight hundred of the people in the chapel, who seemed to lend a willing ear to th plain advice which we ventured to offer them on seve~ ral practical points-the cultivation of the soil, the ~du_cation of their children, the daily use of the Holy Scnptures, the duties of mothers, &c. The next morning_ we visited the jail and house of correction for the pansh of Trelawney, and found only two prisoners in the _former, and one in the latter-a white sailor. Dunn~ sia;ery and the apprenticeship, there were sometimes from eighty to one hundred miserable inmates, in this house of correction. We also made agreeable calls on the Scottish and Wesleyan ministers, and on the clergyman of the parish church who has a day school under his care, of three hundred children. Thus, under different administrations the good Mwo rk 0 f ch ri· stl·a n education is making rapid' progress. uch t_hat we saw and heard during our journey, in the parishes of St· A nne• s an d T relawney was of an encouraging nat 'fh . ' d ' nre. e sugar cultivation was evi-ent. l y go·m g on su bs tanti.a lly well; temporary diffi-culties had b 1 een surmounted; and, so far as we could earn, nothing b ut a c'e w Il' Dgen· ng attempts to compel |