naries want
justice only; they have no favour to ask; they have nothing to fear. The
missionaries have not degraded their holy calling, nor dishonoured the
society of which they are members, by sowing the seeds of rebellion
instead of the Word of Life. The real causes of the rebellion are far,
very far from being the instructions given by the missionaries.

On the 13th of October, Mr. Smith was brought to trial before a _court
martial_. All the accounts which we have yet seen of the charges brought
against him are very obscure and imperfect. The January number of the
Missionary Chronicle, from which we have already quoted, says,--

The public papers have stated four charges as forming the indictment
against him, but of their accuracy the directors are not enabled to
judge. They trust that, under the direction of Divine Providence, he has
been able to prove himself _guiltless_ of them all.

It is not, however, to be concealed, that he will have had much to
contend with from the violence of public prejudice in the Colony, and it
is to be feared from the false assertions of some of the unhappy
negroes, whom the hope of favour towards themselves may have led to
bring against him "things that he knew not." Indeed, the directors are
informed, upon authority on which they can rely, that some of the
condemned negroes, finding the hope of life taken away, had in the most
solemn manner declared that they had been induced so to act; and that
others, on being questioned whether they had not been induced to
rebellion by Mr. Smith, had in the strongest terms which their broken
language could supply, denied the imputation. It is stated by the writer
of one letter, that he has often heard charges circulated against the
missionaries, as if spoken by the negroes at the time of their
execution, which he knew, (for he was a near spectator,) that they never
had uttered.

We can as yet learn little more respecting the evidence which was
produced before the court than that some of the negroes testified that
the instructions of Mr. Smith had a tendency to make them dissatisfied
with their condition, and that he knew of the plot before it was carried
into execution.

He was condemned, and sentenced to _death_. The sentence was however
transmitted by the governor, to England, for the consideration and
ultimate decision of the king. What we know of the decision will be seen
in the following paragraph, copied from the New-York Observer of Mar