the population entirely
dependent upon foreign-supplies for the daily necessaries of life, a
lower rate of wages may be enforced. Cruel as this may appear to your
lordship, and unlikely as it may seem, long experience has taught us
that there is no possible baseness of which a slave-owner will not be
guilty, and no means of accomplishing his purposes, however fraught with
ruin to those around him, which he will not employ.

Should the peasantry be thus treated, we shall feel it our duty humbly
to implore that the lands belonging to the crown may be made available
for their use. Your lordship will remember that these ill-treated people
became not the subjects of her Majesty by choice, though they are now
devotedly attached to her government. Their fathers were stolen and
brought hither. On their native shores they had lands and possessions
capable of supplying all their wants. If, then, after having toiled
without remuneration, they are prevented even renting a portion of land
which has hitherto been esteemed as their own, we shall ask, and shall
feel assured that the boon will not be withheld, that her Most Gracious
Majesty will throw open the lands belonging to the crown, where we may
retire from the tyranny of man, and with our people find a peaceful and
quiet home.

Though still surrounded by obloquy and reproach, though the most abusive
epithets and language disgracefully vulgar has been employed to assail
us, especially by a newspaper known to be under the patronage of a
bishop, and in which all official accounts of his diocese are given to
the world, yet we assure your lordship that, in endeavouring to promote
the general interests and welfare of this colony, we shall still pursue
that line of conduct which is the result of our judgment, and in
accordance with the dictates of our conscience.

In no part of the island are arrangements made so fully or so fairly, as
in those districts where our congregations reside, and in no part are
the laborers more faithfully performing their duty. We deeply feel our
responsibility at the present crisis, and pledging ourselves to your
lordship and the British Government by the sacred office we hold, we
assure you that ceaseless efforts shall still be exerted, as they have
ever been, to promote the peace and happiness of those around us.

In the name and on the behalf of our churches, for the sacred cause of
freedom throughout the world, we unitedly implore your lordship to t