FEBRUARY 22.
During many years the Moravians have been established upon
the neighbouring estate of Mesopotamia. As the ecclesiastical
commissaries had said so much to me respecting the great appetite of the
negroes for religious
instruction, I was desirous of
learning what progress had been made in this quarter, and this
morning I went over to see one of the teachers. He told me,
that he and his wife had jointly used their best efforts to produce a sense of
religion in the minds
of the slaves ; that they
were all permitted to attend his morning and evening lectures,
if they chose it; but that he could not say that they showed any
great avidity on the subject. It seems that there are at least
three hundred negroes on the estate ; the number of believers
has rather increased than diminished, to be sure, but still in a
very small proportion. When this gentleman arrived there were
not more than forty baptized persons; he has been here upwards
of five years, and still the number of persons " belonging to his
church " (as he expressed it) does not exceed fifty. Of these
seldom more than ten or a dozen attend his lectures at a time.
As to the remaining two hundred and fifty, they take no notice
whatever of his lectures or his exhortations : they are very civil
to him when they see him, but go on in their own old way,
without suffering him to interfere in any shape. By the overseer of
Greenwich's express desire,
the Moravian has, however,
agreed to give up an hour every day for the religious instruction
of the negro children on that property: and I should certainly
request him to extend his 1abours to Cornwall, if I did not think
it right to give the Church of England clergymen full room for
a trial of their intended periodical visitations ; which would not
be the case if the negroes were to be interfered wit by the professors of any
other communion :
otherwise I am myself ready
to give free inpress and egress upon my several estates to the
teachers of any Christian sect whatever, the Methodists always
excepted; but I confess I have no hope of any material benefit
arising from these religious visitations made at quarterly intervals.
