s, to physicians,
barristers, and merchants, to clergymen, missionaries, and teachers, we
are indebted for their uniform readiness in furthering our objects, and
for the mass of information with which they were pleased to furnish us.
To the free colored population, also, we are lasting debtors for their
hearty co-operation and assistance. To the emancipated, we recognise our
obligations as the friends of the slave, for their simple-hearted and
reiterated assurances that they should remember the oppressed of our
land in their prayers to God. In the name of the multiplying hosts of
freedom's friends, and in behalf of the millions of speechless but
grateful-hearted slaves, we render to our acquaintances of every class
in Antigua our warmest thanks for their cordial sympathy with the cause
of emancipation in America. We left Antigua with regret. The natural
advantages of that lovely island; its climate, situation, and scenery;
the intelligence and hospitality of the higher orders, and the
simplicity and sobriety of the poor; the prevalence of education,
morality, and religion; its solemn Sabbaths and thronged sanctuaries;
and above _all_, its rising institutions of liberty--flourishing so
vigorously,--conspire to make Antigua one of the fairest portions of the
earth. Formerly it was in our eyes but a speck on the world's map, and
little had we checked if an earthquake had sunk, or the ocean had
overwhelmed it; but now, the minute circumstances in its condition, or
little incidents in its history, are to our minds invested with
grave interest.

None, who are alive to the cause of religious freedom in the world, can
be indifferent to the movements and destiny of this little colony.
Henceforth, Antigua is the morning star of our nation, and though it
glimmers faintly through a lurid sky, yet we hail it, and catch at every
ray as the token of a bright sun which may yet burst gloriously upon us.

BARBADOES

CHAPTER I.

PASSAGE

Barbadoes was the next island which we visited. Having failed of a
passage in the steamer,[A] (on account of her leaving Antigua on the
Sabbath,) we were reduced to the necessity of sailing in a small
schooner, a vessel of only seventeen tons burthen, with no cabin but a
mere _hole_, scarcely large enough to receive our baggage. The berths,
for there were two, had but one mattress between them; however, a
foresail folded made up the complement.

[Footnote A: There are several English steamers