AM KNIBB 
 
 UC-NRLF 
 
 MRS. JOHN JAMES SMITH 
 

AVILLTAM KNIBL. 
 
LLIAM KN1 
 
 [ N J A M A I v 
 [OIR 
 
 M.A. 
 
 s-2 the bands of wickedness, tf o 
 free, and that ye J i 
 

WILLIAM KNIBB: 
 
 MISSIONARY IN JAMAICA 
 
 A MEMOIR 
 
 BY 
 
 MRS. JOHN JAMES SMITH 
 
 WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY 
 REV. J. G. GREENHOUGH, M.A. 
 
 ; Is not this the fast that I have chosen ? to loose the bands of wickedness, to un-io 
 
 the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break 
 
 every yoke?" 
 
 ALEXANDER & SHEPHEARD, FURNIVAL STREET, E.G. 
 
 1896. 
 
yniversif^^^^hfr^^u J 
 
 Wll 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 SINCE the proof sheets of this little book have 
 come from the printer the writer's attention has 
 been called to the funeral sermon preached by 
 the Rev. John Aldis in Maze Pond Chapel on 
 the occasion of Mr. Knibb's death (November, 
 1845). A few sentences quoted from it will, 
 perhaps, form a better preface than any other. 
 
 "A little more than one-and-twenty years ago you 
 might have seen a young man, accompanied by his wife, 
 going on board a ship. He leaves for a distant island, 
 to be a schoolmaster, perhaps an assistant preacher of 
 the Gospel, to ignorant and wretched slaves. A few 
 friends attend him, who regret his departure, and hope 
 he may be useful in the humblest rank of missionary 
 labourers. At home, a widowed mother commends him 
 ^ to GOD, saying in spirit, 'I had rather he died on his 
 passage than disgrace religion.' To his countrymen 
 his enterprise is unknown or contemptible. Of his own 
 denomination but few have ever heard his name. Un- 
 known, uncared for, he departs unnoticed, as the single 
 leaf falls in the forest. A few weeks ago he was carried 
 to his grave. Wise and good men, from the distance 
 of many miles, were gathered to that solemnity. Ministers 
 of different denominations officiated at it. Magistrates, 
 men of wealth and station, were there as mourning a 
 public calamity. Eight thousand of the grateful poor 
 hung about that procession. A deep, unutterable grief 
 
 282 
 
iv Preface. 
 
 saddened every countenance and swelled every heart. 
 The proud were humble, the noisy quiet, the malignant 
 kind. One spell-word bound them all : c He is dead ! ' 
 There is much in the interval between that voyage and 
 that funeral. 
 
 "The true leader not only has an intuitive sagacity to 
 discover the right way, and the promptitude and courage 
 to advance in it, but the strange power of fascination, 
 which draws others after him. 
 
 " This is the honour we claim for our departed friend ; 
 or, rather, this is the grace which we conceive our GOD 
 conferred upon him. He was a leader, and a great one." 
 
 Not that Mr. Knibb was alone in the work. 
 Among his brother missionaries he worked 
 shoulder to shoulder, but here in England he 
 was often their spokesman, and had the power to 
 make his story tell. So he was the most widely- 
 known and the recognised leader of the movement. 
 
 William Knibb " had good tidings of great 
 joy " for those who walked in darkness " the 
 glorious Gospel of the blessed God." 
 
 The poor people of Jamaica received the 
 message, many of them, with joy, but as children 
 needing constant guidance, and very dependent 
 on the missionary. It was his earnest desire and 
 constant effort that these babes in Christ should 
 grow to the stature of a " perfect man in Christ 
 Jesus ; " and that for all the coloured peasantry 
 a good primary education should be provided, 
 such as would help them to gain an honest 
 livelihood, not only as labourers earning fair 
 wages, but with opportunity, such as had it in 
 
Preface. v 
 
 them, to rise, and there were many capable of 
 this. And if they maintained themselves they 
 were also to feel the responsibility of maintaining 
 their pastors, educated pastors, and of contributing 
 towards sending to others the Gospel they valued 
 themselves. 
 
 The struggle was hard, both to obtain freedom 
 and to live through troublous years following, 
 when, from various circumstances, the times, in 
 our West Indian colonies, were so bad that some 
 people began to doubt the expediency of emanci- 
 pation, but the good fruit has ripened now, and 
 the desires of William Knibb have largely come 
 to pass. Nor his desires alone. William Carey, 
 the wonderful leader of the modern missionary 
 movement, prayed as well " for the slaves as 
 for the heathen." Carey went, that being the 
 path opened to him, to the heathen, but God 
 answered both his prayers. 
 
 The first thought of writing another account of 
 William Knibb had its birth in the centenary year 
 of the Baptist Mission. Not a word too much 
 was said about Carey, but some of those who 
 remember the Jubilee meetings at Kettering 
 knew that Mr. Knibb, a Kettering man, had been 
 on that occasion the centre of interest. It seemed 
 a sad thing that one who had done so much for 
 the sons of Africa should pass in any degree out 
 of memory. 
 
 It has been difficult not to say more of co- 
 adjutors, but it has been thought wise to kee 
 
vi Preface. 
 
 this effort in so small a compass as to concentrate 
 the attention on Mr. Knibb, who went through, 
 and led others through, all the struggle. 
 
 Thanks are due and heartily given to the Rev. 
 John Brown Myers for much valuable assistance ; 
 to the Rev. Ellis Fray for the loan of his grand- 
 father's letters ; and to the Rev. D. J. East for 
 allowing the use of original documents about the 
 troubled times of 1832, notably the MS. journal 
 of the Rev. W. Dendy, who arrived just in the 
 worst of the disturbance. It may be stated that 
 the form admitting the missionaries to bail and 
 the subsequent letter setting them free, no charges 
 having been found against them, are both in 
 Mr. East's possession. 
 
 M. E. S. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 INTRODUCTION Xi 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 EARLY DAYS I 
 
 Kettering. Bristol. Religious decision. Goes out to 
 Jamaica as a schoolmaster. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 FIRST YEARS IN JAMAICA IO 
 
 Kingston. Port Royal. Move to Falmouth. 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 ERUPTION OF THE MORAL AND SOCIAL VOLCANO . . . l6 
 
 False reports that the negroes were to be set free. Riots. 
 Exasperation of the planters. Missionaries arrested and 
 sent to Montego Bay. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 DISTURBANCES , NOT OVER 3 1 
 
 No charges being substantiated against the missionaries, 
 they are set free. Feeling against them only the more bitter. 
 Chapels in ruins. Property gone. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 " I WILL HAVE SLAVERY DOWN " 38 
 
 Mr. Knibb deputed by his brother missionaries to visit 
 England. He is determined to tell his story fully. 
 
viii Index. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 PAGE 
 FREEDOM -51 
 
 Recommencement of public services. Rebuilding the 
 chapel at Falmouth. Mode of admitting members. 
 Pastoral letters. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 WORKING INTO THE NEW CONDITION OF THINGS ... 68 
 The labour question. Education. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 VISIT TO ENGLAND, 1840 77 
 
 Evil reports. Voyage home. Proposal for a West 
 African mission. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 ENGLAND, 1842 93 
 
 Reports again. Anniversary of the Emancipation in 
 Jamaica. Mrs. Knibb's house. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 JUBILEE OF THE MISSION IOI 
 
 Jubilee of the Baptist Missionary Society. Mr. Knibb's 
 children. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 QUEEN CONSORT AND QUEEN REGENT IOS 
 
 Life on the mission stations as reported by Mr. Knibb 
 to Mrs. Knibb while she was in England. 
 
Index. ix 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 ENGLAND FOR THE LAST TIME. . . . . . . 114 
 
 Drought and Depression. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 "IT is ALL RIGHT" ......... 120 
 
 November I5th, 1845. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 AFTERWARDS MRS. KNIBB'S DEATH . . 126 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 CHIEFLY ABOUT MR. BURCHELL I2Q 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 PORTRATT OF MR. KxiBB . . . . Frontispiece 
 
 HOUSE WHERE MR. KXIBB WAS BORN . .3 
 
 SAVANNA LA MAR . .11 
 
 FALMOUTH BAY 15 
 
 MONTEGO BAY 24 
 
 Rio BUEXO 52 
 
 CHAPEL FALMOUTH, AS IT WAS REBUILT IN 1835 . . . 54 
 
 POOL USED BY MR. KXIBB FOR BAPTISMS AT RIVER H.-;AD, 
 
 NEAR STEWART TOWN 80 
 
 SPECIMEN OF ONE OF THE FREE VILLAGES . . . . 115 
 MAPS OF STATIONS FORMED UNDER MR. KNIBB'S MINISTRY 123 
 PORTRAIT OF MRS. KXIBB, TAKEN NOT LONG BEFORE HER 
 
 DEATH 127 
 
 PORTRAIT OF MK. BURCHELL 133 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 JAMAICA has changed little in its external features 
 since the memorable days which are treated of in 
 the following pages. There has been no rapid 
 march of civilisation and commerce converting 
 sea-board hamlets into grimy ports, and sylvan 
 scenes into dense masses of smoke-charged 
 ugliness. The country is as rural and as 
 lovely as when Knibb saw it, and there are few 
 signs of the engineer save in the somewhat 
 scanty but well-kept highways and in the narrow 
 railroad which threads its course across the 
 island so deeply imbedded in rich vegetation 
 that it cannot in any degree mar the beauty in 
 which it is hidden. 
 
 The population, however, has increased from 
 about 400,000 to nearly 650,000, and is composed 
 of white and coloured people. The former number 
 only about 15,000 ot the whole, and the latter 
 call themselves, by way of distinction, " the 
 people/' 
 
 Much the same may be said of some of the 
 towns. Kingston, it is true, presents a consider- 
 ably different aspect. A wide, sandy area in the 
 centre of the city has been converted into an 
 ornamental public garden ; the streets are now 
 
 b 2 
 
xii Introduction. 
 
 lighted with gas, and nearly all the public 
 buildings, churches, and chapels with electric 
 luminants. The wharfage has been largely 
 extended for the accommodation of Atlantic and 
 coasting steamers, which have largely supplanted 
 sailing ships. 
 
 But Old Spanish Town, with its massive public 
 buildings, relics of ancient dignity, preserves in 
 semi-slumber a sort of decayed gentility, and makes 
 one wonder how the people in it live. Falmouth, 
 too, with its spacious market-place, its quaint 
 buildings, its military barracks, its malarious 
 marsh-land, its ubiquitous mosquitoes, and its 
 doctoring sea-breezes, has just the old face un- 
 changed which- Knibb knew and loved so welL 
 And Montego Bay, where some of the leading 
 and most tragical parts of his life were played, 
 still nestles semi-circled on the hill slopes, looking 
 down on a sea of marvellous beauty, with hardly 
 an added feature or building with which he would 
 not be familiar. But a line of steamers now 
 runs between this port and New York ; and Port 
 Antonio vies with it by another line, especially in 
 its fruit trade. 
 
 The occupation and industries of the people 
 are not quite as they were. The sugar-growing, 
 which was formerly the main source of wealth, 
 is now not of principal importance. One sees,, 
 indeed, acres and acres of .the sugar-cane which 
 was once so famous, and here and there, in 
 the midst, a factory, but the product of this is 
 
Introduction. xiii 
 
 not simply the innocent article which serves for 
 the sweetening of tea, but the far stronger 
 article which is known as Jamaica rum. One 
 catches the pungent flavour of it in all parts ot 
 the island, and is agreeably and thankfully 
 surprised to find that with this alcoholic com- 
 modity everywhere plentiful and cheap, there is 
 comparatively little excess in drinking among 
 the negroes. But fruit growing now forms a 
 continually increasing item in the business and 
 exports of the island, and a large number of 
 tropical products, such as spices and dye woods, 
 have been added to that which had once almost a 
 monopoly. 
 
 In many parts, and particularly on the higher 
 levels, the land is cultivated by small freeholders, 
 who, with their three or four acres of bananas, 
 oranges, yams, and prolific mangoes, manage to 
 maintain themselves and families and to have a 
 little to spare. They live in a very simple and 
 somewhat rude style, but all their necessary wants 
 are supplied, and they are very proud of the inde- 
 pendence which they have gained. Some of our 
 most vigorous churches in the island are found 
 where these men and their households form the 
 bulk of the membership. The wages paid for field 
 labour by the larger landowners are so small not 
 much, if any more, than a shilling a day, that one 
 is hardly surprised to find the people reluctant to 
 undertake it if they can turn to anything which is 
 easier or more remunerative. They prefer naturally 
 
xiv Introduction. 
 
 to be their own masters, and work a little plot of 
 their own, if it is by any means procurable ; and it 
 may be that from this cause has arisen the complaint 
 which the planters are constantly making about 
 the laziness of the negroes. But certainly, if any 
 trustworthy conclusion could be drawn from a 
 hurried visit, and what one sees in the course of it > 
 I should not say they are exceptionally addicted 
 to that particular vice. I saw hundreds of them, 
 toiling early and late, under the scorching sun, 
 in a way of which no British labourer would be 
 ashamed. But, for the most part, they were work- 
 ing on their own land, which makes all the 
 difference. 
 
 In the matter of carrying and fetching, however, 
 the male member of the negro community has still 
 a few needed lessons to learn. He seems to think 
 that his work is done when the product is ready 
 for market, and lays upon his wife the burden of 
 conveying it thither ; and many a time one's 
 patience is a little tried, and a feeling of disgust 
 slightly provoked, by seeing the husband on horse- 
 back entirely unencumbered, while his gentle 
 partner trudges wearily at his side for miles, 
 bowed down undsr a load of fifty or sixty pounds 
 weight. She takes it cheerfully enough, and so 
 does he, naturally ; but an Englishman, who looks 
 upon this unequal division of labour with perhaps 
 prejudiced eyes, is tempted to revile. This, no 
 doubt, is a relic of long-established habit dating 
 from slavery times. 
 
Introduction. 
 
 Those days are not quite forgotten. One meets 
 with very old men who remember vividly the 
 sadness and the cruelty and the horrors of them, 
 and find a mournful pleasure in going over the 
 dark recital. Very dear to these old men are the 
 names of those heroic missionaries who stood up 
 for the oppressed in those evil times, and hardly 
 less dear to the middle-aged men, who received 
 the story direct from their suffering fathers. In 
 Falmouth, and all around the district, the mention 
 of Knibb's name brings tears. At Montego Bay 
 and Mount Carey, Knibb is recalled with profound 
 feeling, but Burchell's is the name held in greatest 
 reverence ; while at Spanish Town and in the 
 south of the island there is no word so potent as 
 Phillippo. 
 
 But the young generation know slavery only 
 as a fading tradition, a thing of the past with 
 which they have but a remote historical con- 
 nection. They do not like to be reminded of 
 it, and told that their grandsires were bought 
 and sold like chattels. They have an unques- 
 tionable pride, which endeavours, as much as 
 possible, to ignore that humiliation, and, in 
 speaking to them, one soon learns the wisdom 
 of touching lightly, if at all, on those ancient 
 facts. They are glad to be spoken of as free- 
 born subjects of the Queen. The people, both 
 young and old in fact, but the young especially, 
 are British in sentiment though African by race. 
 They are proud of the empire of which they 
 
xvi Introduction. 
 
 form part. The geography of the British Isles 
 and of the empire is taught in all the 
 Elementary schools, and the young people 
 acquire fair knowledge of it; and young 
 and old are passionately loyal to the Queen. 
 No assembly in our own land would sing the 
 National Anthem more enthusiastically than one 
 hears it in the gatherings of Jamaica people. 
 
 The people have made great advance in both 
 mental and moral qualities since they were 
 delivered from the degrading bondage by which 
 body and mind were chained down and aspiration 
 crushed. The educational system, generously 
 supported by Government, is now well nigh 
 universal, and at least brings elementary instruc- 
 tion within the reach of all. There is, I think, 
 no compulsory attendance, but the strong senti- 
 ment in favour of education, and the laudable 
 ambition of the people to have their children raised 
 in social status, produce the same or better results 
 than compulsion. One meets with a considerable 
 number of older persons who are unable to read 
 and write, but very few of the younger men and 
 women, and in a comparatively short time the 
 illiterate class will have practically ceased to 
 exist. 
 
 These pages show the profound interest which 
 Knibb took in the matter of education and the 
 establishment of schools. His far-seeing and 
 statesman-like mind, while earnestly engaged in 
 the urgent demands of the moment, was ever busy 
 
Introduction. xvii 
 
 laying wise plans for the future. He saw that if 
 the people were to be really elevated and free, 
 and the churches intelligent and self-supporting, 
 secular teaching must go hand in hand with the 
 religious work. The happy results of his foresight 
 are everywhere apparent. Nearly all our churches 
 have their schoolhouse and schoolmaster, which, 
 with the help of the Government grant, are 
 sustained by the free-will offerings of the 
 people ; and my visits to these schools brought 
 me to the conclusion that the children are 
 nearly as well taught as, and perhaps more 
 eager to learn than, the children in our Board 
 schools at home. 
 
 Knibb was equally solicitous about the training 
 of a native ministry which should gradually take 
 the place of the European missionary, and the 
 institution of Calabar College was largely due to 
 his efforts. In that institution there are now 
 between thirty and forty students, two-thirds of 
 whom are being trained as schoolmasters, and the 
 rest for ministerial work. They are young men 
 of intelligence and fervent spirit, and in general 
 ability and culture compare not unfavourably with 
 the students in our home colleges. The general 
 maintenance and management of the college are a 
 charge upon the Jamaica churches, save that the 
 tutors receive their stipends from the Home 
 Society. 
 
 This is the last remaining burden on the funds 
 of that Society, the religious work being in all 
 
xviii Introduction. 
 
 other respects self-supporting, and we may well 
 regard that expenditure without distrust when we 
 consider the admirable part which the college is 
 taking in supplying the religious needs of the 
 island. The men trained in it are gradually 
 displacing the white minister. Two-thirds of the 
 churches are now happily shepherded by men 
 of their own colour, and this proportion is 
 continually increasing. The white ministers are 
 greatly loved and honoured, and they are in 
 nearly every instance men whose fine spirit, 
 temper, and culture would command respect 
 anywhere. The Jamaica negroes are rapidly 
 acquiring self-respect. There is great pride of 
 race, self-dependence, belief in themselves and 
 in the capabilities of their people. And there 
 is so much of latent energy and promise in 
 this feeling that it is welcome to everyone 
 who takes a large and generous view of their 
 future. 
 
 While the people are steadily growing in intelli- 
 gence they seem to have made more rapid strides 
 in morality and religion. When it is remembered 
 that emancipation found them in an almost 
 sickening moral degradation, with no clear 
 notion of even the elementary virtues, with 
 the sexual relations depraved, with habits long 
 established of dishonesty and untruthfulness, 
 it is almost surprising, and truly gratifying-, 
 to observe the change for the better which 
 has been wrought. The members of our 
 
Introduction. xix: 
 
 churches especially are in many respects as 
 exemplary in conduct and character as the 
 average professor at home. Large numbers 
 of them, especially of the young people, are 
 total abstainers, and sobriety is so well- 
 established among them that cases of church 
 discipline in which intemperance is involved 
 are exceedingly rare. If in any one respect 
 they compare unfavourably with the home 
 churches, it is in the greater frequency with 
 which the sin of unchastity has to be dealt 
 with, though in this particular there is a 
 continual advance towards better things. 
 
 In religious feeling they show all the finer 
 qualities of the negro race. Their emotions are 
 easily stirred and easily wrought into enthusiasm ; 
 their fervour is genuine and deep, and, as long 
 experience has proved, well sustained. Their 
 delight in all religious exercises is unmistakable ; 
 and their joy in the Lord, and in their appreciation 
 of His undeserved grace, is enough to provoke a- 
 sense of shame in colder natures, and to bring tears 
 to the eyes of those who are more sensitive. 
 Altogether, the religious element is more to them 
 than it is to the majority of our own people more 
 in the sense that it occupies a larger proportionate 
 space in their regards, and enters more largely into 
 their every-day thoughts. 
 
 One of the most welcome features in their Church 
 life is the part which youth has in it. Most of the 
 candidates for baptism are of an early age, and 
 
Introduction. 
 
 nearly one-third of those who keep the Feast of 
 Remembrance at the Lord's Table are young men 
 and women. Equally gratifying is the interest 
 which all alike take in the spread of the Gospel 
 through the heathen world. Their missionary 
 meetings are seasons of profound interest and 
 unbounded fervour. They have a missionary 
 society of their own which carries on evangelising 
 work in those neighbouring islands, where the 
 people of their own race are either in heathen 
 darkness, or in the darkness well-nigh as dense 
 of Romanism in its most superstitious and 
 degraded form. And the fact that they con- 
 tribute more than two thousand pounds out of 
 their very poverty for this work is one of the 
 most striking testimonies that could be given to 
 the depth and earnestness of their religious 
 thoughts. 
 
 The Baptist Churches have held their ground 
 well through all these years, and slowly increased 
 their membership, but it was not to be expected, 
 nor was it possible indeed, that the rapid growth 
 and extension which the early days of the mission 
 witnessed could be continued. 
 
 The statistics of our churches show a membership 
 of about 37,000, and if to these are added all 
 those, not church members, who are more or less 
 associated with them in worship, they may be said 
 to embrace nearly one-fifth of the entire population. 
 They stand first in number among the religious 
 bodies. The Episcopal Church comes next and 
 
Introduction. 
 
 then the Wesleyans, while the Independents and 
 Presbyterians have a smaller but not insignificant 
 place. Altogether the island is pre-eminently 
 Christian, the number of habitual church-goers 
 being far greater in proportion than we are able to 
 boast of in our own favoured land. 
 
 The course of the narrative in the ensuing pages 
 shows, in pathetic and sympathetic lines, the suffer- 
 ings and trials in which the work was begun and 
 carried on a work which has yielded such large 
 and abiding results. Very literally the people 
 " received the word in much affliction with joy 
 of the Holy Ghost/' The missionary was opposed 
 and reviled, and his hearers threatened and 
 terrorised and spitefully used at every step, but all 
 these things eventually worked together for. good. 
 For, not to speak of the patience and splendid 
 heroism which \vere developed in the missionaries 
 by their rough and often tragical experience, 
 there was another outcome of the persecution 
 which no policy could have foreseen or planned, 
 and which favoured immensely the progress of 
 the work. 
 
 The fact that the missionary's presence was 
 resented, and he himself suspected and hated by 
 the white planters, and, indeed, the whole white 
 colony on the island, forced him to throw in his 
 lot entirely with the suffering coloured population 
 whom he had come to evangelise. He could not 
 make his home and friendships or even visiting 
 acquaintances among the higher class people of 
 
Introduction. 
 
 his own race. There was no temptation to dwell 
 among them, or in any way to prefer their society. 
 That which the missionary commonly and almost 
 inevitably does in India, was made impossible in 
 Jamaica by the incidents of the position. He was 
 practically ostracised from white society, and all 
 his sympathies and interests were engaged on the 
 side of the oppressed negroes. He championed 
 their cause, defended their rights, pleaded on 
 behalf of their wrongs, had his house built among 
 them, shared many of their privations, treated 
 them as equals and brothers, and was everywhere 
 regarded as a father and friend. From the first 
 he won their trust and tearful gratitude, and 
 they responded with hearts full of love and eagerly 
 open to his message. The Gospel was presented 
 to them in its most attractive and persuasive form, 
 in lives that were embodiments of Christian com- 
 passion, self-denial, and sweet brotherhood, and 
 they embraced it with all the swift fervour and 
 emotion of their nature. 
 
 The close and tender relationship which was 
 thus established between the missionary and his 
 convert remains, to a large extent, to the present 
 time in the happy, trustful bonds which bind pastor 
 and Church together. The reverence and love in 
 which the people hold their minister are most 
 touching and impressive. His influence among 
 them is almost beyond computation. He might 
 exercise all the authority of a priest if his 
 principles did not forbid it. His word is almost 
 
Introduction. xxiii 
 
 sacred, and his counsel implicitly followed. As in 
 the former days, so still, to a great degree, they 
 go to him for help and advice in all difficulties. 
 In many districts he is the lawyer to whom they 
 refer all disputes, the doctor whose help they seek 
 in sickness, the father whose direction they ask 
 in questions of marriage, and the friend to whom 
 they carry all their hearts' troubles. Every day 
 and almost every hour he seems to be at their 
 service, and his house is never long without its 
 applicant for some guiding and kindly word. 4t 
 morning and evening prayers there is often a 
 small congregation those of the people who dwell 
 near or are working in the neighbouring fields 
 steal in one by one at the appointed time to follow 
 the reading and join in the prayer, and sing with 
 the utmost heartiness the sweet familiar hymn, 
 and then, after a respectful and loving greeting, 
 quietly depart. 
 
 " Blessed are the people who know the joyful 
 sound/' and blessed were the feet of those who 
 first brought to them this sound. Nowhere is there 
 a finer demonstration of the power of the Gospel, 
 or a nobler vindication of missionary effort than is 
 furnished in Jamaica. The sufferings of ,Knibb 
 and his co-labourers have been fruitful beyond 
 measure. If one may quote without irreverence 
 words which were spoken of the Highest, we 
 might say of these heroic pioneers, "They shall 
 see of the travail of their soul and be satisfied." 
 Great was their toil, magnificent their faith and 
 
x x i v Introduction. 
 
 courage, and great is the harvest which has been 
 reaped from their labours. There is an inspiration 
 in the story of their lives, and an incentive to 
 patient hope in the results of their sanctified 
 energies. Truly " they rest from their labours, 
 and their works do follow them." 
 
 J. G. GREEXHOUGH. 
 
WILLIAM KNIBB. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 EARLY DAYS. 
 
 WITH his heart full of the great enterprise which 
 he had as yet no power of carrying out, Carey 
 prayed in private and in public for the " slaves and the 
 heathens." 
 
 In 1793, he himself went to the heathen, our first modern 
 English missionary. How shall his prayer for the slaves be 
 fulfilled ? 
 
 As there were reformers before the Reformation, so there 
 was evangelical teaching before the system of modern 
 missions began. In the West Indies the Moravians were 
 the pioneers, as in some other parts of the world. They 
 went to Jamaica in 1754. Later, the Methodists did some 
 good work, but before they arrived came the first Baptist 
 preacher a coloured man from America named George 
 Leile. His master had left him his freedom by will, and 
 he came to Kingston and set up in business as a carrier. 
 
 NOTE. A tradition has been handed down amongst the people of 
 the Manchester Mountains, Jamaica, that many years ago a free black 
 man visited the neighbourhood ; that he talked to the slaves about 
 Jesus, and afterwards baptized some of them. At length, on one of 
 his preaching excursions, he was seized by the opponents of the Gospel 
 and hung. If this is true, Jamaica has had her proto-martyr. See 
 " Voice of Jubilee," p. 37. 
 
 i 
 
William Knibb. 
 
 Having been the pastor of a coloured congregation in 
 Georgia, he soon began work among the West Indian 
 negroes. 
 
 He had his share of persecution, being put in prison on a 
 charge of sedition, of which he was acquitted, and also had 
 the misfortune, having made himself responsible for the 
 arrears due on his chapel, of being imprisoned for debt. 
 
 The people who gathered round Leile in Kingston formed 
 little knots among themselves when they moved away. 
 They were very ignorant. Old superstitions and the old 
 moral code soon mixed themselves up with the recollection, 
 ever growing fainter, of Christian doctrine, so that when 
 the English missionaries came, they found them for the 
 most part in need of much further training before they 
 could be consistent Church members. In fact, these 
 negroes held aloof in general from the European pastors. 
 
 It was, however, from one of Leile's followers that the 
 call, "Come over and help us," came. A certain Mr. Wynn 
 having bought some of Mr. Leile's people, discovered that 
 they were much distressed for want of their religious 
 services. He must have been a kind master, for, finding 
 them unhappy, he engaged Moses Baker, one of Leile's 
 people, to come and teach them. 
 
 Moses Baker, good but illiterate, when he found age 
 creeping over him, had wisdom enough to apply for help to 
 Dr. Ryland. (One wonders how he knew there was such 
 a person.) Here was the opening Dr. Ryland had 
 desired. It reanimated a long-cherished feeling, and gave 
 it a practical direction. " I have waited," he says, " for 
 several years with great anxiety for some one to send." 
 The first missionary sent out was John Rowe, of Yeovil, 
 Somersetshire. He arrived in Jamaica February yth, 
 1814. 
 
 The sixth name on the list of missionaries is that of 
 Thomas Knibb ; of those who preceded him the best 
 

 WILLIAM KNIBB'S BIRTHPLACE. 
 
Early Days. 
 
 remembered names were James Coultart and Joshua 
 Tinson. 
 
 Thomas Knibb was born in 1791 ; his brother William 
 in 1803; the latter ten years after Carey's departure for 
 India, Kettering, the very town where the Baptist 
 Missionary Society was formed, being the birthplace of 
 both. 
 
 Thomas learnt with avidity, and was recommended, when 
 old enough, by his teacher to Mr. J. G. Fuller, son of 
 Carey's staunch friend and co-worker, who brought him into 
 his printing-office, and on his removal to Bristol took the 
 lad with him. Thomas begged that his brother William 
 might go too : William, the good-natured, popular, vivacious 
 boy, governed by his affections, but hardly to be controlled 
 in any other way. He had, however, according to Mr. 
 Fuller, already, at thirteen, developed the Carey-like trait 
 of a resolute, unbending pursuit of everything he under- 
 took. 
 
 After a while both brothers were persuaded to teach in 
 the Sunday-school. The question soon came home to 
 William, how he could urge upon the boys that religion 
 was of vital importance, unless he were a Christian 
 himself. In this state of mind an address given by 
 his master, Mr. Fuller, was used by God's Spirit to 
 bring him to a decision. 
 
 On the yth of March, 1822, he was baptized by Dr. 
 Ryland, who had baptized Carey thirty-nine years before 
 another point of touch with the pioneers of the Mission. 
 
 In the same year Thomas Knibb was designated by the 
 Baptist Missionary Society for Jamaica. Missionary work 
 was no new idea to him. His first thought had been drawn 
 to it while he was putting in type the periodical accounts 
 of the mission for Mr. Fuller. Those of us who are 
 accustomed, at this end of the century, to the constant 
 appeal for more missionaries, will read with curious interest 
 
 i* 
 
WiUiam Knibb. 
 
 the following quotation from Mr. Thomas Knibb's address 
 on the occasion of his designation : 
 
 "Towards the end of 1815. while conversing on the 
 subject of missionary work with Mr. Fuller, he asked me 
 whether I should like to go, and intimated, at the same 
 time, that should native preachers speedily be raised up, 
 European missionaries would not be required. I could not 
 help secretly wishing that all the posts of missions might 
 not be filled up till I was old enough to go." 
 
 He was sixteen at the time of this conversation, and 
 sadly troubled lest he should grow up too late to be 
 of use. 
 
 William by this time was longing for the same work, 
 but not troubled by the same fear. Always hopeful, he 
 comforted his brother by saying, " Never mind, Thomas, 
 the Society cannot do without printers, and I am sure 
 Mr. Fuller will recommend us, and then we can preach, 
 too, if we like." 
 
 The desire for usefulness abroad showed its healthy 
 character by leading William to such channels of useful- 
 ness at home as he could enter. 
 
 " Andrew first findeth his own brother Simon and brought 
 him to Jesus," William Knibb wrote, a few weeks after 
 his baptism, to his brother James and to his sister Fanny ; 
 his twin sister Ann was also given to his prayers and 
 efforts on her behalf. At Bristol his activities widened 
 from the Broadmead Sunday-school to a village station 
 at Stapleton, two miles off, and deepened into the dark 
 under-life of Brick Lane, where a blind man, a member 
 of the church at Broadmead, had instituted a mission, 
 
 His congregation at Brick Lane rose in twelve months 
 from about ten persons to sixty. Brick Lane led to Beggar's 
 Opera, or Beggar's Uproars, as it came to be called, not 
 without appreciation of the fitness of things. Here 
 he would find men carousing, and it is said that "when 
 
Early Days. 
 
 he spoke to them they at once became still and hearkened 
 to him with great attention." The Uproars was a place 
 into which few people would have ventured, and in 
 which far fewer would have been listened to. 
 
 Thomas Knibb landed in Jamaica on the 2oth of 
 January, 1823. He wrote home a glowing account of 
 his first Sunday on the island, and gave some hope that 
 an opening might be made for William. The following 
 is an extract from William's answer : 
 
 " I refer to the question which you propounded in your 
 last, and wished me to state my views respecting it. 
 
 "But what, my dear brother, what shall I say? How 
 shall I reply ? Oh, I do earnestly implore the guidance and 
 assistance of the Holy Spirit to enable me to decide aright, 
 and I can truly say that I have made, and do still make, it 
 a matter of earnest prayer to be guided by unerring wisdom ! 
 My prayer is, that, if it be consistent with the glory of God 
 I should go, He would open a way; but if not, that I may 
 never leave the British shores. 
 
 "For some time before you left Bristol, or I had any 
 thought that you would go to Jamaica, 1 felt an earnest 
 desire to be employed in teaching the poor children of the 
 negroes. This desire has been considerably strengthened 
 since your leaving England, and I do feel that no earthly 
 tie could keep me from offering to go, did a situation offer, 
 and did it appear to be the path of Providence. I have 
 endeavoured to examine the motives which have induced 
 me to make this choice, and though I have too often dis- 
 covered them to be unworthy of so noble an undertaking, 
 yet I do trust that they arise from a desire to be useful in 
 the cause of Christ. 
 
 " Should it be the will of God that I should go, I think 
 it will be as a schoolmaster. Here I feel in my element, 
 and I should love to engage in it. I do not think that I 
 could be ordained. My talents for public speaking are but 
 
IVuliam Knibb. 
 
 small, and if this could not be dispensed with I feel afraid 
 it would prove a hindrance. 
 
 " I should not have the least objection to address the 
 natives in Jamaica, but to speak to congregations in 
 England is what I do not think myself capable of. I do 
 still at times go to Thomas Street, and find it pleasant, 
 though I feel a difficulty in speaking without writing first, 
 which I have not time to do ; but, perhaps, some part of 
 this might wear off. 
 
 " However, preaching does not seem my element ; but if 
 a person was wanted to go out as a schoolmaster, and to 
 assist in addressing the negroes at times, it would be the 
 joy of my heart to be permitted to go." 
 
 What would the brothers, dear friends as well as brothers, 
 have thought if they could have known what " the oppor- 
 tunity " would be for William's going out ? 
 
 Thomas, with his heart full of loving service, died after a 
 few days' illness, three months from the time that he landed 
 at Kingston. William, who had longed to go and be with 
 him, went to take his place. When the intelligence of his 
 brother's decease was communicated to him by Mr. Fuller, 
 his feelings were strongly excited; but immediately after 
 the first gush of feeling had subsided, he rose from his 
 seat, crying, "Then, if the Society will accept me, I'll go 
 and take his place." 
 
 It does not appear that this resolution gave rise to any 
 application to the Society on his part, or that it was even 
 communicated at the time to any of those who conducted 
 its concerns ; but Mr. Dyer, the Secretary, had already 
 written to consult Dr. Ryland as to his fitness for the 
 East. 
 
 " He is a good printer. I rather question his capacity 
 for learning a language. More suitable for the West 
 Indies." So ran the response. Was Dr. Ryland very 
 naturally looking back to the days when Carey would get 
 
Early Days. 
 
 some Hebrew out of him or any other minister he met, 
 and to whom no language came unwelcome as a subject of 
 study? And again, "William is a good lad, but not equal 
 to Thomas." " Chiefly distinguished for the exuberance of 
 animal spirits, and the almost irrepressible tendency to 
 frolic, marked rather by incessant activity than by any deep 
 or earnest thoughtfulness," wrote a gentleman at the 
 Borough Road Training School, where he had gone to 
 prepare for his work as a schoolmaster. 
 
 But another language was not wanted. As to his vigour, 
 his irrepressible activity, the Master had need of them, and 
 they were freely rendered back in His service.* 
 
 On the 5th of November, 1824, he sailed with his bride, 
 Mary Watkins, by the same ship that two years before had 
 taken over his brother Thomas The Ocean^ Captain 
 Whittle. A good friend to him was this captain. 
 
 The parting from his home at Kettering was full of 
 sadness. 
 
 " Since I parted from you," he writes to a friend, " I have 
 had a series of trials to pass through. My beloved mother 
 I have left on a bed of sickness. The feelings of my 
 relations were of the tenderest kind. My dear sister Ann 
 was overcome with grief, and only three of them could 
 endure to say farewell. Nor could my dear mother endure 
 the conflict, though she expressed herself perfectly resigned 
 to the will of God. The artless simplicity of my youngest 
 brother affected me much, and the scene is more easily to 
 be imagined than described." 
 
 From this extract it would appear that Mrs. Knibb 
 parted with William, her second large contribution to 
 the welfare of Jamaica, in her chamber and in silent 
 
 * NOTE. Twenty years after, a little of this fire showed itself one 
 day at dinner: "Mr. Knibb, how do you stand the climate, sir?" 
 asked a guest in rather a ponderous tone. " Sit it when I can't stand 
 it," flashed back across the table. 
 
8 Wi'Kam Knibb. 
 
 sadness, or breathing only an expression of resignation 
 to the Divine will. Ill as she was, it would not have 
 been surprising or unnatural if it had been so. It 
 was otherwise, however. After he had left the room 
 she rose from her sick bed, and went to the window, 
 where, with the half undrawn curtain in her hand, she 
 again caught his eye, and in this attitude she addressed 
 to him these memorable words : " Remember, I would 
 rather hear you have perished in the sea, than that you 
 have disgraced the cause you go to serve." Having 
 said this she sank again on her pillow to suffer and to 
 pray, scarcely less heroic than that devoted son who 
 sped him joyously to his destiny of conflict and of triumph. 
 He landed at Kingston on the i6th February, 1825. 
 
 Mr. Knibb speaks from the first in warm terms of 
 interest in the people, and a few lines to his mother dis- 
 closed the ballast in his character, which prevented his 
 uncommon vivacity from carrying him into anything 
 regrettable. 
 
 " I feel much pleasure," says he, " in looking forward 
 to my engagements, but at times the weight of responsi- 
 bility almost overwhelms me. I need much of the 
 gracious aid of the Holy Spirit, for I am poor and weak, 
 and without Him I can do nothing. What a mercy it is 
 that He will afford it, and make those who confide in 
 Him instruments of advancing His glory in the earth. 
 Oh, for grace thus to live, that death may be eternal 
 gain ! " 
 
 Of course, he could not at that date be a day in Jamaica 
 without seeing slaves. It is worth notice that his first 
 impression was not of their physical misery, but of the 
 moral evil the system fostered. He writes to his mother : 
 
 "The cursed blast of slavery has, like a pestilence, 
 withered almost every moral bloom. I know not how any 
 person can feel a union with such a monster, such a child 
 
Early Days. 
 
 of hell. For myself I feel a burning hatred against it, and 
 look upon it as one of the most odious monsters that ever 
 disgraced the earth. The slaves have temporal comforts in 
 profusion ; but their morals are sunk below the brute, and 
 the iron hand of oppression daily endeavours to keep them 
 in that ignorance to which it has reduced them. When 
 contemplating the withering scene my heart sickens, and I 
 feel ashamed that I belong to a race that can indulge in 
 such atrocities. It is in the immorality of slavery that the 
 evil chiefly consists. I can easily account for persons 
 becoming familiarised with slavery, and having a dislike to 
 the slaves, as they are very trying ; but it ought ever to be 
 remembered that this proceeds from the system, and that 
 the owner has a large portion of the blame attaching to 
 him. 
 
 " To proclaim liberty to the captive, and the opening of 
 the prison to them that are bound, is a delightful employ- 
 ment, and here I would dwell that I may be thus employed; 
 with my present views, however, nothing else on earth 
 should tempt me to remain." 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 FIRST YEARS IN JAMAICA. 
 
 WILLIAM KNIBB had been sent out to succeed 
 his brother as a schoolmaster. His first glimpse 
 of the school was taken the morning after his arrival. 
 The following account of his reception and impressions he 
 gives to Mr. Fuller : " The little dears leaped for joy when 
 I entered, and many could not refrain from dancing ; for a 
 negro must express his joy. Many of them are slaves, but 
 the greater part are free. Their writing is excellent, and 
 they improve vastly. Could you visit the school, you would 
 feel abundant cause to say that my brother had not run 
 in vain, neither laboured in vain." 
 
 The school improved from the first hour of Knibb's 
 superintendence, and, notwithstanding the climate, he was 
 engaged in it from nine in the morning till three in the 
 afternoon, and had soon the pleasure of seeing order 
 restored within, and of receiving accessions from without. 
 The Admiral then on the station gave him a proof of his 
 confidence, by committing to his care a young African who 
 had just been taken out of a slave-ship. He found that the 
 children made great progress, and felt peculiar pleasure in 
 seeing two slaves a boy and a girl at the head of their 
 respective departments in the school. 
 
 A new schoolroom was promptly resolved on and built. 
 Its erection was justified by the reception of 150 more 
 scholars in six months. A Sunday-school was also 
 organised, not only for children, but adults; and, if their 
 teacher loved the merry boys and girls, he was more 
 
First Years in Jamaica. 1 1 
 
 deeply touched by watching an aged slave win his 
 difficult way from alphabet to New Testament. 
 
 The new schoolroom was followed by a separate apart- 
 ment for the girls an occasion for a procession, white frocks 
 and flowers. He could hardly have done the negroes good 
 if he had not entered into their demonstrativeness, the 
 white frocks and nosegays, and dancing for joy. 
 
 Engaged in this vigorous teaching, from 9 a.m. to 3 
 p.m., in the hottest town of Jamaica, Mr. Knibb's health 
 broke down. He was advised to try living at Port Royal, 
 nearer the sea, where he soon became pastor of the 
 church. Port Royal -not proving change enough, he 
 undertook the combined stations of Ridgeland and 
 Savanna-la-Mar, hoping that himself and his wife would 
 have better health, by living up at Ridgeland, and only 
 visiting at Savanna-la-Mar, which is on a marshy plain. 
 The following letters refer to his pastoral and private life 
 at this period : 
 
 "To Miss WILLIAMS: 
 
 "Sketch of a baptism at Port Royal 
 
 " Picture to yourself a spacious harbour, about four miles 
 across. Tents are erected at the water-side, and a small 
 portion of the bay is protected by ropes and stakes arranged 
 in a circle. This spot is surrounded by canoes filled with 
 spectators ; the fortifications are covered with people ; all as 
 still as possible. By-and-by you hear distant sounds of 
 voices, and a little band approaches you, two and two, 
 clothed in white, singing as they walk over the sand : 
 
 " ' Jesus, and shall it ever be, 
 
 A mortal man ashamed of Thee ? ' 
 
 " They arrive ; a hymn is sung, a prayer offered, and, just 
 as the sun sheds its first beams on the Sabbath, we descend 
 into the water; and there, surrounded by multitudes, I 
 baptize them in the name of the adorable Trinity. When. 
 
12 William Knibb. 
 
 I was baptizing I was filled with joy and peace, and gave 
 out in the water, 
 
 " ' Why was I made to hear Thy voice, 
 And enter while there's room ? '" 
 
 Death-bed of a Slave. 
 
 " I have lately been called to witness the death-beds of 
 some whose experience has rejoiced my heart. One poor 
 female slave, who had been ill of a decline a year, was of 
 the number. I found her lying on a mat on the floor, her 
 head supported by a chest. Never did I see such an 
 object. When I entered, she said, 'Oh, massa, me glad 
 to see you ; me thought me should die, and not be able to 
 tell you how good our Lord is ; Oh, massa, Him too good, 
 too good for me, poor nigger.' After questioning her, I 
 asked her if she was afraid to die ? Her eyes sparkled with 
 delight : 
 
 " ' No, massa, Jesus Him die for me ; me no afraid to 
 die and go to Him Him too good ! ' Ah ! thought I, 
 this is religion. Here is a poor slave, with scarcely any 
 comforts, who has been lying for a year in this hut, and 
 can talk of nothing but the goodness of God." 
 
 The following, from a letter to his mother, refers to his 
 own feelings : 
 
 " I do enjoy religion here secluded from the world. 
 Though scorned and condemned, I feel that I am the 
 servant of Jesus, and that He will one day vindicate the 
 character of His missionary subjects. I do enjoy religion" 
 
 If the black school children were "little dears," how 
 much shall we expect said of twins (William and Mary) of 
 his own ! But the joy soon had its shadow. Little Mary 
 died in ten days and was buried by the side of his (the 
 father's) brother Thomas, leaving the parents clinging with 
 anxiety to the frail life of the boy. He lived, however, to 
 make them very happy. 
 
First Years in Jamaica. 13 
 
 Take next the chronicle of a seaside holiday : 
 
 " Brooks Pen, Windward Road. 
 
 " Well, here I am, wife, child, and all in one of the 
 hottest places under the skies, and yet to me filled with 
 beauty. The owner of this humble place was once a slave, 
 is now free, and is one of the deacons of the church. He 
 invited me here for a day or two ; it is about eight miles 
 from Kingston, close to the seaside, healthy and pleasant. 
 The old man sent his horse and chaise for us, and we 
 jogged on farmer like. I think we never looked so family- 
 like before. The chaise was easy and old, the little horse 
 had passed his best days, the harness was none of the best, 
 the black servant was sitting behind, and we three formed 
 one of the oddest appearances. 
 
 " In the evening we stood on the seashore, that sea 
 which parts us from England ; talked of Bristol friends, 
 sang, 'Jesus shall reign where'er the sun,' and earnestly 
 longed for the time when it should be the case. At ten at 
 
 night I met a few poor slaves in an old 1 know not what 
 
 to call it : there was a table and a chair and an old lamp 
 under my nose, the smell of which was horrid. Poor 
 things, they had walked far to see me. I sang, ' Come, 
 let us join our cheerful songs ' to a negro tune. When I 
 see you I will sing it to you ; talked to the poor things 
 about Jesus Christ, read, and prayed with them, and sent 
 them home. They seemed gratified ; I was delighted. I 
 meet some more about eleven to-night. 
 
 " I wish I could give you an idea of this grotesque 
 establishment ; but I am sure I cannot. It is a little, long, 
 square place, with a wooden roof; in our bedroom two 
 hair trunks placed on two stools make a chest of drawers, 
 on which stands the glass. The other room, where the man 
 and his wife sleep, is kitchen, cellar and all. I am now in 
 the hall, where wife is sewing with little Bill in her lap, full 
 
14 William Knibb. 
 
 dressed in his shirt ; around me dogs, pigs, black children, 
 &c. To decorate the walls there is a likeness of their 
 majesties, two looking-glasses, sundry other pictures, and a 
 funnel. Before me rolls the beautiful and wide-spreading 
 ocean, which wafts health to my emaciated frame. After 
 playing awhile with little Will, who holds out his mouth 
 most sweetly to present a kiss, I will try and proceed in 
 my wandering musings. 
 
 " I suppose it is natural for folks to talk of their children, 
 and you see I am as foolish as the rest." 
 
 From Savanna-la-Mar Mr. Knibb removed to Falmouth in 
 the summer of 1830. Two incidents, connected with the 
 people at Falmouth before Mr. Knibb went to them, are 
 not out of place as showing how eager they were to receive 
 a missionary. They sent frequent deputations, begging Mr. 
 Burchell to write home for a missionary. The narrative is 
 Mr. Burchell's : " The members of one of these deputations 
 having arrived at his house, at the very time he was 
 preparing letters for the packet, they clasped their hands, 
 and dropping on their knees addressed him thus, in the 
 most impassioned tones, ' Write hard, massa ; write hard us, 
 massa.' " 
 
 On another occasion, after long and bitter disappointment, 
 one of them, a free man and possessed of a little property, 
 plaintively said, " Come yourself, massa." " I cannot," was 
 the reply. " It shall be no expense to you, massa." " I 
 did not refer to expense, my friend, I cannot preach to my 
 own people with sufficient frequency, but what did you 
 mean by saying it should be no expense ? " "I have a 
 house, massa, worth ^300 or ^400, gained by the 
 savings of my past life, and I will sell it to support the 
 cause." Who can wonder that the missionary continued 
 month after month to " write hard," or at his poignant 
 regret in writing so often in vain. 
 
First Years in Jamaica. 15 
 
 At last, a Mr. Mann came, dear to many memories, 
 but when he had been settled at Falmouth, he died of 
 fever, after a short but very successful term of labour, and 
 Mr. Knibb, who succeeded him in the spring of 1830, 
 called his new station "the very garden of missionary 
 labour." 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 ERUPTION OF THE MORAL AND SOCIAL VOLCANO. 
 
 "A great door and effectual is opened unto me, and there are many 
 adversaries." 
 
 ABOUT the time of Mr. Knibb's arrival in Jamaica 
 there was a lull in the hostility of the planters 
 toward Christianity, especially towards the preaching by 
 dissenting missionaries, and the prayer-meetings of dissent- 
 ing negroes. It was not in the nature of things that this 
 tranquillity should last long. The people heard the Word 
 gladly, flocked to the meetings, and, what some of the 
 planters liked worse, told one another the good news. Even- 
 ing meetings were as much as possible stopped, and evening, 
 when the day's work was done, was the one time in the 
 week when the negro could attend ; but this passing of the 
 Word from lip to lip, learning a hymn, which, with a negro, 
 means singing it, and praying with one another was very 
 difficult to hinder. The Sunday congregations were 
 crowded. Where it was possible, large meeting-houses 
 were built, and there were many baptisms. 
 
 The following instances of negroes who did earnest work 
 among their fellows, and who " endured hardness " as good 
 soldiers of Jesus Christ, are too interesting to pass over. 
 
 " Sam " had been a great favourite in his master's house 
 on account of his violin playing. He became a Christian ; 
 the prayer-meeting superseded the dance-music with which 
 they were accustomed to make merry. 
 
 Fearing lest his musical instrument, which had hitherto 
 been his delight, might now prove a snare to him, he broke 
 
Eruption of the Moral and Social Volcano. \ 7 
 
 it, for he thought that if he sold it he might be tempted to 
 buy another with the money. One day his master told him 
 that he would soon be wanted to play his part as usual. 
 
 Without any attempt at concealment, he replied, "The 
 fiddle's broken, master." 
 
 " It must be mended, Sam." 
 
 " Broken all to pieces, master." 
 
 " Well, we must get a new one, Sam." 
 
 "I think that no good, master; it will soon be broken." 
 
 The master began to suspect this destruction of fiddles 
 must have to do with religion, and, therefore, added in an 
 altered tone, and with a lowering countenance : 
 
 " I hope you do not go to pray, and go after those mad - 
 headed folks, Sam." 
 
 "To tell the truth, I have gone, master." 
 
 He was now threatened with punishment, and told he 
 should be flogged. 
 
 With firmness he replied, "That no good, master, the 
 whip cannot flog the Word out." Dismissed from his easy 
 post in his master's house to toil in a field of labour under 
 a tropical sun, he felt somewhat dejected at first, but soon 
 perceived that an opportunity for doing important good was 
 set before him. In his situation in town he had mingled 
 with a. few domestics ; now he was in the midst of three 
 hundred slaves ; he began, therefore, to tell them about his 
 great and gracious Saviour and to invite them to go and 
 hear his minister. Many of them yielded to his invitations 
 and, in a little while, of these three hundred, about one 
 hundred and fifty became regular hearers of the everlasting 
 Gospel. His master heard of this, and felt still more 
 incensed. 
 
 Having called for him he addressed him with severity : 
 " How dare you trouble my negroes ? I will have no praying 
 negroes." 
 
 " Me no tink they be troubled, massa ; they do not seem 
 
 2 
 
1 8 William Knibb. 
 
 much troubled, massa. Do they work much worse, or are 
 they much saucy, massa ? " 
 
 "That is nothing to you. How dare you trouble my 
 negroes ? " 
 
 " To tell de truth, massa, me think dat the bread dat is 
 good for my soul is good for broder neger, and me think if 
 it be a good thing for me to escape hell it is good for 
 broder neger ; and if heaven is a good place for me it is 
 good for broder neger ; and me pray, and me pray for my 
 rich massa, and me think if my rich massa would once go 
 and hear the missionary he would always go afterwards." 
 
 This was too much for the master's patience; he called 
 the negro " Parson Sam," banged the door, and sent him 
 away. Parson Sam, very thankful to escape so easily, only 
 thought what more he could do for God's glory. 
 
 In the evening, when his work was done, he went to 
 some of his master's other plantations to tell his fellow 
 slaves there about the Saviour. He was rewarded by 
 seeing about 500 persons become regular hearers of the 
 Gospel. 
 
 Here is the other instance, which attracted more public 
 notice. As it happens, the name again is Sam but a 
 different man with a different master and it was not the 
 ill-will of the owner which in this case caused the tyranny. 
 
 " SAVANNA-LA-MAR, 
 "To MR. DYER, " April 26, 1830. 
 
 " An excellent young man of the name of Sam Swiney, a 
 deacon of my church in this place, is now in prison for his 
 love to Jesus. During my sickness, he and others, both 
 bond and free, met at my house to pray. Information of 
 this'was carried to the magistrates, and, though I procured 
 three respectable persons, neighbours, including the head 
 constable, to prove on oath that no noise was made, which 
 the informer had sworn to, the poor fellow was convicted. 
 The magistrate would have it that preaching and praying 
 
Eruption of the Moral and Social Volcano. 19 
 
 were the same. I tried to convince him of the difference, 
 but it was of no use ; so for offering a prayer to God, and 
 nothing more, this poor fellow is sentenced to receive twenty 
 lashes on his bare back, and to be worked in chains on the 
 roads for a fortnight. I did all I could to save him, and so 
 did his owner, a respectable gentleman of colour (Mr. 
 Aaron Deleon), who told the magistrates that he had his 
 permission. Next morning I went to see him flogged, 
 determined to support him as well as I could, however 
 painful to my feelings. There he was, a respectable 
 tradesman, though a slave, stretched indecently on the 
 ground, held firmly down by four slaves, two at his hands 
 and two at his feet. The driver was merciful, or every lash 
 would have fetched blood. ' Oh ! what have I done,' was 
 the only exclamation that escaped from his lips, accom- 
 panied by a moan extorted by the pain. 
 
 " He was raised from the ground, chained to a convict, 
 and immediately sent to work. I walked by his side down 
 the whole bay to the no small annoyance of his persecutors. 
 Amidst them, I took him by the hand, told him to be of 
 good cheer, and said loud enough for them all to hear, 
 ' Sam, whatever you want, send to me and you shall have it.' 
 
 "The good people here have behaved nobly to him, 
 encouraging him by every means in their power. I shall 
 see that he wants for nothing, and by my public notice of 
 him show that I consider him a persecuted Christian." 
 
 Such was the feeling in the island against Christian 
 negroes. This case attracted much interest in England, 
 and Sam Swiney's liberty was procured for him. The 
 planter-interest did not love the missionaries the better for 
 it, especially when the magistrates who had awarded the 
 punishment were dismissed in consequence by the Governor 
 (Lord Belmore) and the English Minister (Lord Goodrich). 
 This decision arrived in the autumn ot 1831 ; a very 
 critical time. 
 
V> r illiam Knibb. 
 
 The spirit of the magistrates may be illustrated by the 
 speech of one* of them to Mr. Burcheli : 
 
 " Sir, you missionaries are a body of persons whom we 
 (the legislature) do not acknowledge. You have intruded 
 yourselves on the island unsolicited and unwelcomed. So 
 long as you proceed on your own resources, you are 
 licensed on the principle of toleration ; but we have passed 
 this law that you may not raise an income here for carrying 
 on your purposes, and to prevent your further increase 
 among us." 
 
 "This law" referred to a clause in the Consolidated 
 Slave Act, forbidding the slaves to subscribe to the expenses 
 of the new chapels or the minister's salary. There were 
 other vexatious restrictions as to hours of meeting and 
 holding meetings among themselves, which were fearfully 
 hard on the slaves, and the penalties meant to enforce 
 obedience were very severe. Three times the Act was 
 sent home to England for the ratification necessary, three 
 times it came back refused by Mr. Huskisson and Sir John 
 Keane, the Lieutenant-Governor. The planters had to give 
 it up and fall back on some old regulations. 
 
 Meantime, in the British House of Commons a more 
 aggressive tone had been taken. 
 
 On the isth April, 1831, Mr. Fowell Buxton brought 
 forward a motion relating to British Colonial slavery, and 
 upon this occasion His Majesty's Ministers, although not 
 accepting the terms of Mr. Buxton's motion, announced 
 their fixed determination to take up the subject. 
 
 When this became known to the planters of Jamaica, 
 they had recourse to their usual mode of defeating the 
 benevolent intentions of the British Government; they 
 raised a clamour against the measure proposed, and wrought 
 
 * Mr. Gregson, Member of the Assembly for the parish. " Burcheli 's 
 Life" 1 2O. 
 
Eruption of the Moral and Social Volcano. 2 1 
 
 themselves up to a high pitch of excitement. During the 
 months of July, August, and September, public meetings 
 were held with much excited speaking, and besides these 
 meetings the island was pervaded by a habit of free and 
 passionate conversation among the colonists. Everyone 
 was talking of the proceedings of the British Parliament, 
 everyone said that the King of England was going to give 
 freedom to the slaves, and everyone indulged himself in 
 the unrestrained expression of his anger. 
 
 The reader has now before him the whole machinery by 
 which the slave population was thrown into a state of 
 excitement in the autumn of 1831. They had heard that 
 the king was going to set them free, and that their masters 
 were determined to prevent it ; but they learnt this through 
 the masters themselves. The parish meetings were open 
 and some slaves were always present ; the conversation 
 at table was unguarded. The town slaves got hold of the 
 newspapers, and circulated what they could make out as 
 far as possible. That they should be set free was delightful 
 and exciting to the last degree, that their masters should 
 withhold the boon of the mother country was maddening ; 
 and, if possible, the irritation was increased by the violent 
 language in which the planters expressed their rage. The 
 master of one slave told him that freedom was come from 
 
 England, but that he would shoot every black rascal 
 
 before he should get it. Another heard his master say, 
 " The king is going to give us freedom, but he hoped all 
 his friends would be of his opinion and spill their blood 
 first." 
 
 For rough language the Home Government fared no 
 better than the negro slave, only it was too far off to be 
 heard. 
 
 A statement made in the House of Commons by Dr. 
 Lushington was called unfounded and treasonable ; another 
 declaration in the same place " bespoke insanity." The 
 
22 Wlliam Knibb. 
 
 allegations of the Anti-slavery Party were stigmatised " as 
 the false and infamous representations of interested and 
 infuriated lunatics." There is a whole page of such 
 amenities. 
 
 The Governor, Lord Belmore, did not escape. Appealed 
 to by some of the missionaries, his secretary replied that 
 his lordship had anticipated their petition by a proclama- 
 tion just promulgated through the island, enjoining the 
 magistrates to find out and punish the authors of such 
 outrages (destruction of chapels, c.). The proclamation 
 was posted up. Under the copy in the court-house, 
 Montego Bay, was found written : 
 
 " Whoever gives information respecting the above shall 
 entitle himself to be tarred and feathered." 
 
 Surely, a threat held over anyone who would obey the 
 Governor was worse treason than anything laid to the 
 charge of the missionaries, who were kept in close custody, 
 while certain magistrates searched their papers in hopes of 
 finding something on which to found an indictment. 
 
 One would think that Englishmen, of all people, would 
 sympathise with desires after freedom. They think so 
 much of the liberty of the subject when they are the 
 subjects. Have we to confess that there is another not so 
 generous instinct in them masterfulness, the craving after 
 someone to rule over, and further that absolute power 
 over their fellow-creatures is an intoxication few can stand, 
 especially when they have satisfied themselves that the 
 fellow-creature is of inferior race, and have possibly shaped 
 their conduct towards keeping him so ? 
 
 As Christmas drew near, the irritating elements which 
 the planters had diffused through the slave population 
 began to do their work, under a full, though mistaken 
 conviction, that the king had made them free. It was 
 suggested by a slave named Sam Sharp, that they should 
 not work after Christmas without wages ; and in order to 
 
Eruption of the Moral and Social Volcano. 23 
 
 engage many persons in concert for this purpose, meetings 
 were held by him on a plantation called Retrieve, from 
 about the middle of October. His plan, and nothing 
 further seems to have been originally intended, was that 
 the drivers when they went at the usual hour for orders 
 on New Year's Day should say, " The people know well 
 that they are free and will not work any more without some 
 satisfaction, we don't rebel, but we work [have worked] 
 long enough for nothing." Some more violent spirits must 
 have entertained a further idea of setting fire to the 
 properties. They thought they had concerted their 
 measures in secrecy, but the planters seem to have known 
 all and were prepared for the outbreak. The slaves had 
 been more successful in keeping all knowledge from 
 the missionaries, their opinions being too well known to 
 admit of any hope of gaining their sanction to it.* Samuel 
 Sharp was executed at Montego Bay, May joth, attesting 
 with his last breath the innocence of the missionaries, and 
 declaring that, if he had listened to their instructions, he 
 should never have come to that awful end. 
 
 But the very fact that their reason for being on the island 
 was the good of the negroes envenomed the planter party, 
 and an evil construction was put upon everything done by 
 them. Thus, it had been agreed many weeks before, that 
 several of the pastors should meet together at Salter's Hill 
 for the sake of special services in connection with opening 
 a new chapel there ; these services were taken to be a blind, 
 screened by which they could meet and conspire, and a 
 good deal of trouble was made in consequence, though at 
 this very meeting Mr. Knibb, as senior missionary present, 
 and spokesman for the rest, spoke so strongly to the slaves 
 as to the falsity of the idea of being set free on New Year's 
 Day, that they accused him violently of being bribed by 
 
 * Hinton's "Life of Knibb," p. 116. 
 
24 William Knibb. 
 
 the planters to deceive them. He had not long returned to 
 Falmouth when the news came of an actual outbreak on 
 the country plantations, and the glow of incendiary fires 
 could be seen at night. Then followed some days of 
 confusion and great apprehension of danger. The 
 missionaries were sent for repeatedly to the court-house, 
 always in great uncertainty how they should be treated. 
 One day things seemed going well enough, for when told 
 they must all enlist, Mr. Whitehorne was allowed to make 
 application for his former rank as captain of militia, and 
 Mr. Nicholls allowed a pass to go home as he was in ill- 
 health. 
 
 The next day while on guard, they (Messrs. Knibb, 
 Whitehorne, and Abbott) were arrested. An hour or two 
 afterwards they were told that the Colonel had received 
 such intelligence as had induced him to send them to head- 
 quarters, for which purpose a conveyance would be ready 
 in half-an-hour. Permission to see their wives was refused, 
 only a memorandum of necessaries and a message to the wives 
 to go to Montego Bay by land was allowed. The conveyance 
 was an open canoe. It was nearly noon, and they were un- 
 protected from the meridian sun. No charge had been 
 made against them ; the cause of this treatment they knew 
 not, further than the general clamour of their having 
 promoted the rebellion; and this uncertainty of course 
 augmented their sufferings. Having spent six hours in 
 this open canoe they reached Montego Bay, where a great 
 scene of horror presented itself. The houses which had 
 recently adorned the neighbouring hills were now in flames, 
 and the confusion and noise of war prevailed. Two men- 
 of-war were lying near the town, guard boats were flying 
 about, and on land at a little distance flashes of musketry 
 were seen announcing that the angel of death was abroad. 
 
 On their landing at night, they were first marched to 
 the court-house, under their armed guard, and then to 
 

Eruption of the Moral and Social Volcano. 25 
 
 the lodgings of Sir W. Cotton, where they were kept 
 waiting before the door for half-an-hour, a detention 
 willingly borne, as their wives were able to be with 
 them for a few minutes; thence they were sent to another 
 magistrate, a Mr. Barrett, finally back to the court- 
 house. The missionaries soon discovered that they were 
 considered answerable for the crimes of the slaves, and 
 they were conducted into the presence of Major Coates^ 
 the officer of the guard, who told them "that he had 
 received orders from the Gustos to put them under guard 
 in that place." 
 
 They were placed in the jury-box, which was raised 
 eight or ten feet from the floor. Here they were 
 emphatically "a gazing stock," a candle being placed 
 before them, evidently for the purpose of exposing them 
 to public view. In this situation they had to endure the 
 greatest insults and indignities, and to listen to the grossest 
 language. 
 
 On entering the jury-box, Mr. Knibb (who had been 
 ill for a day or two, and whose physical condition was 
 not improved by seven hours' exposure in an open boat, 
 his feet wet all the time) asked permission to lie on 
 the floor, no very great luxury one would say, but the 
 sentry vociferated with awful oaths, "No, you rascal; if 
 you attempt to move an inch, I'll thrust this bayonet 
 through you, you villain ; '' and at the same time pointed 
 the bayonet to his breast. This man afterwards said, in 
 a conversation with another guard, " This is the notorious 
 Knibb, who robs our negroes of their macaronies ; but, 
 never mind, I am happy to say he will be hung to 
 morrow " ; he also added, " that he was a ruined man, 
 but he was now compensated for all his losses by the 
 satisfaction he felt at seeing Knibb brought to the 
 gallows." This individual had previously threatened to 
 stab Mr. Knibb for stumbling as he ascended the steps 
 
26 William Knibb. 
 
 of the jury-box. He said, " it was a shame to put four 
 men to guard these fellows, they ought to be handcuffed 
 and put with the negroes." Mr. Abbott was feeling a 
 severe pain in his back, heightened above its usual degree 
 by fatigue and anxiety. He mentioned this to Mr. White- 
 home, and wished to shut the window behind him, when 
 this guard pointing his bayonet at Mr. Abbott, said, " Hold 
 your tongue, you rascal; don't speak to that other prisoner 
 again or I'll give you the bayonet, and I won't speak to 
 you twice either, you villain." In the presence of such a man 
 they dared not attempt to refresh themselves with either 
 food or sleep, but rested their heads on a bar which 
 was before them, endeavouring to compose their minds to 
 their situation till the morning. 
 
 But, between ten and eleven o'clock a deliverer came 
 named Roby, an old acquaintance of Mr. Whitehorne, 
 and he kindly undertook to use his exertions for the 
 release of all for the night, and after midnight took them 
 to the custom-house. 
 
 Next morning he fetched their wives and presented them 
 with a paper * he had procured from Mr. Barrett releasing 
 them on bail, each of them to find a security for ^50, and 
 to promise to be ready to appear when called for. It 
 speaks much for the conviction of their innocence that the 
 
 * Copy of original paper in possession of Rev. D. J. East, late of 
 Kingston, Jamaica. 
 
 The Major-General having placed William Knibb, William White- 
 home and T. Abbott at my disposal, and there being no specific 
 information lodged against them, I have determined that they shall be 
 released on condition that each of them finds a security to the amount 
 of ^50 ; that he will not leave the town of Montego Bay, and will be 
 ready to appear when called on. The security to be entered into before 
 any magistrate. 
 
 RICHARD BARRETT, Gustos. 
 
 Montego Bay, January $th, 1832. 
 
Eruption of the Moral and Social Volcano. 2 7 
 
 securities with Mr. Roby were a magistrate * and the col- 
 lecting constable of Montego Bay. 
 
 It is right, after speaking of the spiteful malice of some of 
 their adversaries, to record with warm gratitude the kind- 
 ness of other individuals among the class of whites who 
 were in general opposed to them. Mr. Knibb, in old days at 
 Port Royal, owed his freedom from annoyance to the 
 friendship of the senior magistrate of that place. Mr. 
 Vaughan had stood firmly by Mr. Birchell at Montego 
 Bay. Mr. Roby candidly told them that though his love of 
 justice constrained him to interfere, he thought them unin- 
 tentionally mischievous to the slaves and wished them off 
 the Island. Where, "love of justice," merged into inde- 
 fatigable kindness, it is hard to say. 
 
 Perhaps our good missionaries Knibb, Abbott, and 
 Whitehorne were safer on bail than if they had been set 
 quite free. No service had been attempted on the Sunday 
 morning, | only family worship at their lodgings, and Mr. 
 Knibb had read aloud a printed sermon. This grew by 
 report into preaching to a large concourse of negroes, and 
 occasioned a summons to the court-house. Some weeks 
 after their capture they ventured to visit in open daylight a 
 remarkable cave near them. Of course, it was reported 
 that there were rebels in the cave with whom they had 
 an appointment. 
 
 Mr. Gardner, who had come into Montego Bay, was 
 arrested (on the false witness of a negro who afterwards 
 repented), and added to the number already on bail, and 
 on the 7th January the Garland Grove came to anchor 
 in the bay, having on board Mr. Knibb's old associate Mr. 
 Burchell, and a new missionary Mr. Walter Dendy. Mr. 
 Burchell had returned from a cruise for his health, and 
 might fairly be considered free from blame as to the 
 
 *Mr. Maunderson. f First Sunday in January, 1832. 
 
28 Witliam Knibb. 
 
 disturbances going on, but he was decidedly the negroes' 
 friend and a missionary. So he was immediately put into 
 strict ward on board a man-of-war, in the harbour, and his 
 papers searched for some evidence which might give colour 
 for proceeding against him. 
 
 Mr. Dendy, quite new to the field, seems to have been 
 left at large. The printed accounts of these trying weeks 
 select and make summaries of the news. Mr. Dendy 
 kept a diary, which gives a better idea of the reality of 
 the daily horrors among which they lived than any of 
 these printed accounts. 
 
 Some of the brethren were on land, others on board 
 ship. They saw one another at intervals, and sometimes 
 under the constraint of supervision ; and every day brought 
 its bad news, for the trouble was not confined to 
 Falmouth and Montego Bay, nor to the Baptist 
 missionaries alone. 
 
 Day-by-day the entry begins something like this : 
 "Report that the Methodist Chapel should be pulled 
 down," brought by Captain Pengelley ; <; that they would 
 not let Mr. Burchell alone till they had had his heart's 
 blood," this came through an American friend ; " Mr. 
 Maunderson said," " Mr. Roby came on board with the 
 news," " The lieutenant of the North Star came on board 
 with cautionary information," so it goes on, 
 
 Reports all of them, and mentioned as such ; but is it not 
 true that the worst of reports is, that one does not know 
 how much to believe or how much to act upon ? Besides, 
 the brethren could hardly disregard the warnings of people 
 who were exerting themselves so much, and undergoing 
 so much inconvenience for their sakes. 
 
 Another thing the diary brings to light is, that the 
 conduct of the missionaries won by degrees upon the 
 captain and officers of the North Star (the man-of-war 
 lying in the harbour), The captain had unwillingly given 
 
Eruption of the Moral and Social Volcano. 29 
 
 some of them refuge for one night from the mob. By 
 the morning time he detained them till written security 
 could be had for the missionaries' protection ; and, when 
 a note from Gustos Barrett was obtained, still detained 
 Mr. Knibb, against whom the rage seemed strongest. 
 
 This quotation is interesting, and does credit to the 
 candour of the officers of the North Sfar, and to the 
 missionaries whose conduct won their good opinion : 
 
 " Mr. Whitehorne informed me that, in conversation 
 with the officers on board the North Star^ they told him, 
 when first they came into the harbour, they did not think 
 the missionaries implicated ; but, hearing the statements on 
 shore, they supposed the missionaries had something to do 
 with it, and wrote home accordingly. But after they heard 
 the statements of the brethren, they were satisfied with 
 their innocence; and they now believed the case to be 
 such as they thought it when first they came."* 
 
 POSTSCRIPT TO CHAPTER III. 
 
 The destruction of mission property and of the private 
 property of missionaries was very large and very spiteful. 
 It began with the large and quite new chapel at Salter's 
 Hill, about eight miles from Montego Bay, by a party 
 of the St. James's Militia, under the command of two 
 officers. 
 
 To the utter destruction of the chapel at Falmouth a 
 magistrate led the way, employing the St. Ann's Regiment, 
 which had used it as a barracks and was just leaving the 
 
 * Diary, February gth. The original manuscript of this journal has 
 kindly been put into the hands of the writer by the Rev. D. J. East. 
 Mr. Burchell was so intimately Mr. Knibb's friend and fellow- worker 
 that some extracts from the diary, and from Mr. BurcheH's own letters 
 relating to him, are added as an appendix. They throw light, too, on 
 the general state of affairs. Other authoiities: Hintori's Memoir 
 of Knibb, 79-117 ; Voice of Jubilee, 56-60. 
 
30 William Knibb. 
 
 town (yth February, 1832). Montego Bay Chapel followed 
 next day. The chapels at Savanna-la-Mar } Brown's Town, 
 Lucea, and St. Ann's Bay, were pulled down. Those at 
 Fuller's Field, Ocho Rios, and Ebury were burnt. Others 
 not destroyed were injured and their furniture wrecked. 
 
 There is an ugly list in Cox's History ii. 114, of the 
 persons known as participators, or using no means to 
 hinder, including eleven magistrates, fourteen army or 
 militia officers (those of this standing who were magistrates 
 are not counted over again), and finishing with the head 
 constable. Another list follows of depredators of the same 
 social standing. Houses belonging to the mission, or the 
 private property of the missionaries were ransacked, some- 
 times destroyed. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 DISTURBANCES NOT OVER. 
 
 On the gth of February, 1832, the Gustos, Richard 
 Barrett, wrote as under to Mr. Maunderson : 
 
 " MY DEAR SIR, Having examined the evidence against the 
 missionaries of the Baptist persuasion, in whose behalf you have 
 interested yourself very humanely, I have to inform you that there is 
 no evidence in my possession that implicates Mr. Abbott and Mr. 
 Whitehorne, and no legal evidence implicating Mr. Burchell. These 
 persons must therefore be discharged from their bail. I am, my 
 dear Sir, your faithful and obedient servant, 
 
 (Signed) RICHD. BARRETT, Gustos." 
 
 The original letter is in the possession of the Rev. D. J. 
 East. 
 
 On the tenth of February, as before stated, Messrs. 
 Whitehorne and Abbott were set quite free. Mr. Knibb was 
 still on bail for a few days longer. 
 
 On this loth of February he wrote to his mother : 
 " Whether this will be the last letter you will receive from 
 your son is known only to that kind and indulgent God 
 who has hitherto preserved my unworthy life." 
 
 It was the last, not because he died, but because she 
 entered into peace a private and tender sorrow for him to 
 bear in the midst of so much harassing annoyance, amount- 
 ing, from time to time, to very real danger, at his distant 
 post. 
 
 The next day, February nth, he writes, "I looked back 
 on all the goodness and mercy which the Lord God had 
 caused to pass before me. This day, seven years ago, I 
 
32 William Knibb. 
 
 landed on this island, and do I repent coming? No ! 
 With eternity and a jail in prospect, I do not. I mourn 
 over my sins, I long to be more active in the service of 
 God, and earnestly do I pray that I may come forth from 
 the furnace of affliction purified as gold seven times tried. 
 Held a prayer-meeting in the afternoon, secretly, for fear of 
 our enemies, to pray that God would protect dear brother 
 Burchell, who is fetched as a prisoner on shore. Heard the 
 painful news that both he and dear Gardner are recommitted 
 to jail ; may God support them. O that His glory may be 
 promoted by us all ! " 
 
 " On the 1 4th Mrs. Knibb went to Falmouth, to look after 
 the furniture saved from the infuriated whites by our female 
 friends, and to collect evidence ; the Lord in His mercy 
 protect her ! In the evening heard that I was released from 
 my bail, having been a prisoner seven weeks, and not any 
 charge brought against me. Heard that they were trying to 
 find one; may the Lord disappoint them, if it be His 
 will." 
 
 " Copy of my discharge, after seven weeks' and one day's 
 detention. 
 
 " Montego Bay, 
 
 February 14, 1832. 
 
 " Having examined the evidence of Samuel Stennett, 
 
 Adam, and Paris against Knibb, Baptist missionary, 
 
 and finding nothing therein to support a criminal prosecu- 
 tion, I declare the said Knibb discharged, with his 
 
 sureties, from their recognizances, 
 
 " RICHARD BARRETT, Gustos." 
 
 Thus released he went the next day to Falmouth. The 
 feeling of the white inhabitants was so violent that his land- 
 lord begged him not to return to his house, and he accepted 
 the entertainment offered by Elizabeth Dunn, a free person 
 of colour and one of his church members. 
 
Disturbances not Over. 33 
 
 Without a home, without even lodgings, for with an angry 
 mob howling round her house, Elizabeth Dunn was 
 frightened into desiring him to leave, with cautions from 
 two gentlemen that there was a plan for murdering him, 
 one of them having been invited to assist in tarring and 
 feathering him, which was to be so managed as to cause 
 death ; with a chapel in ruins and what money he had, lost, 
 his first days of liberty were anything but joyous. 
 
 The comfort was to find that his own people, with only 
 three exceptions, had been quite quiet during all the 
 disturbances.* Some of them, in places of trust as foremen 
 or stewards, had saved the estates on which they served. 
 Mr. Knibb gives instances of such in his evidence before 
 the Committee of the House of Commons. f 
 
 * Perhaps it ought to be made plain that there were two quite 
 distinct sets of mobs the negroes, who, maddened by the idea that 
 the freedom given by the king was kept from them, rose on the 
 estates ; while the men who attacked the missionaries were the roughs 
 of the towns, sometimes connived at, sometimes even led, by a 
 magistrate. 
 
 t On Green Park Estate, in Trelawney, where he had thirty or 
 forty members, and eighty or a hundred connected with the church, 
 he stated that they (the negroes) mounted guard every night, and 
 when the rebels came down to set fire to the trash-house, they put 
 it out. 
 
 With reference to one man in particular, Charles Campbell, Mr 
 Knibb testifies : " He took charge of the property and defended it. 
 There were twenty-seven Baptists on that property (Weston Favel). 
 The overseer gave everything into the hands of that man; he was 
 absent about a month, and during that time the man took care of the 
 whole. He turned the people out regularly to work ; and he stated to 
 me that not a single Baptist on the property refused to turn out when 
 the rest did." For his good conduct the man received his freedom 
 from his master. 
 
 In this district of the county of Cornwall 74 slaves were rewarded 
 by the authorities. Of these, 25 were Baptists, which, compared with 
 the whole population, makes this proportion I slave out of every 
 500 Baptists ; I slave out of 1,927 not Baptists. 
 
 3 
 
34 William Knibb. 
 
 At any rate after the formal release written by Mr. 
 Barrett, the Gustos, Mr. Knibb might believe the charges 
 against him were withdrawn and that no criminal prosecu- 
 tion would be attempted. Not so the planters could not 
 suffer their intended victim so easily to escape. 
 
 When the Cornwall assizes met on the i2th of 
 March at Montego Bay, the Attorney-General announced 
 his intention of sending up indictments against Messrs. 
 Gardner and Knibb. Mr. Knibb heard of it as he was 
 walking along the streets. He surrendered himself for trial, 
 obtained bail for ^"1,000 and set to work busily to prepare. 
 Far from being troubled, he was in truth rejoiced at this 
 occurrence, since it would afford him the opportunity he 
 had all along desired of publicly proving his innocence. 
 
 The trial of Mr. Gardner actually came on the 23rd, but 
 the case got up against him altogether broke down- 
 Warned by this issue, the Attorney-General at once 
 abandoned the charge against Knibb, by entering a nolle 
 prosequi. This was greatly to Knibb's disappointment. 
 It was however, equivalent to a verdict of acquittal. 
 
 It seems a curious contradiction to all that was said 
 against him that while this trial was pending, on the 
 gravest criminal charge, he was applied to by the Hon. 
 William Miller, Gustos, of Trelawney, for assistance, in 
 discovering the place and ramifications of the revolt. Mr. 
 Miller said he had conferred with the Chief Justice as well 
 as one of the magistrates on the bench, and they agreed 
 they could not do better than ask him to assist them. 
 
 After the proceedings at law were abandoned, the 
 malignant spirit of the white population continued to 
 threaten his life. Mr. Miller and Dr. Gordon sent for him 
 and said : "Mr. Knibb, it is our decided opinion that your 
 life is not safe. We would do anything to protect you, but 
 we cannot protect you." By their urgent advice he left that 
 part of the island. 
 
Disturbances not Over. 35 
 
 Though thus obliged to leave the neighbourhood of 
 Falmouth for a time, he had no desire to give up his work 
 there. He writes to Mr. Dyer on the 5th of March : 
 
 ' ' I hope I shall not have to leave the island ; 1 feel as if 
 it were impossible to quit the people. Do pray for us. 
 Do entreat the British Christians for us. Many have 
 bound themselves by an oath to murder us. Shall we look 
 and cry to Britain in vain ? I know we shall not to God. 
 Oh, remember our poor slave members ! Their sufferings 
 now would make a heart of stone weep. If something is 
 not done speedily for them many of them will be martyrs. 
 That God in His infinite mercy may guide, bless, keep, and 
 preserve you, and give you and the committee all the 
 wisdom you so much need in this deeply bitter trial, is my 
 earnest prayer." 
 
 The destiny which he deprecated, however, awaited him ; 
 his brethren in Jamaica commissioned him to visit England 
 on their behalf, and co-operate there with Mr. Burchell, 
 " on account of his intimate acquaintance with the mission 
 in the disturbed part of the island, and his knowledge of 
 circumstances immediately connected with the rebellion." 
 Mr. Knibb and his family sailed from Kingston on the 
 26th of April. Just as he was about to leave the island he 
 received credible information that twenty persons had 
 sworn to put him to death. If they had known the work 
 he was to do they would have wanted to kill him three 
 times over ! 
 
 To the planter-party it was very disappointing. They 
 had not succeeded in procuring the conviction of one of 
 the missionaries for whose banishment they so longed. 
 
 Details have been given of one little knot of missionaries, 
 but the same spirit of persecution vented itself on many 
 others in different parts of the island. 
 
 There was not only the operation of a severe law strictly 
 carried out ; but there was a spirit of hatred and ruffianism 
 
 3* 
 
36 William Knibb. 
 
 abroad producing results which, looking back on them 
 through a distance of years, would seem hardly credible if 
 we had not names, dates, and details these, if untrue, 
 should have been contradicted shortly after their first 
 publication. 
 
 For instance, it was said in the hearing of a certain 
 Lieutenant Shenton, that the Governor had borne testi- 
 mony to the inoffensive and guiltless conduct of the 
 missionaries. Mr. Shenton remarked, " that is but his 
 (Earl Belmore's) opinion, for my part I think it would 
 be best to take out all the missionaries, placing them 
 in a ring with the Governor in their midst, and so shoot 
 them all together." 
 
 The intimidation practised on Mr. Knibb's landlord 
 at Falmouth, and upon the good-natured coloured woman 
 who allowed him house-room, has been already mentioned. 
 Any free coloured people who risked an act of kindness 
 to the missionaries were in danger of very rough usage. 
 In proof of this spirit, take the following : Mrs. Brown, 
 a free woman of colour residing on her own property, 
 was summoned to appear at Manchioneal, the professed 
 object being to elicit criminating evidence against the 
 missionary, Mr. Burton, who had preached at her place. 
 Her infant was only five days old ; and while she lingered 
 at Manchioneal, too weak to return home, Mr. Panton 
 and three other magistrates went to her house to search 
 it. Locks were broken, and barrels of flour and pork 
 rummaged to find the free paper which they supposed 
 Mr. Burton might have left. Miss Duncan, who resided 
 at the house, was struck in the face by Mr. H. W. 
 Speed, a magistrate, during the examination, because 
 she spoke the truth respecting some of his slaves ; and 
 Mrs. Brown's mother was struck repeatedly, and knocked 
 to the ground. 
 
 Terribly disappointed that the Home Government would 
 
Disturbances not Over. 37 
 
 not allow their Consolidated Slave Act, the planter interest 
 devised another scheme. A meeting was called at St. 
 Ann's Bay, on the 26th of January, from which resulted 
 the celebrated compact, entitled "The Colonial Church 
 Union." In furtherance of the object of this meeting, the 
 following paper was placarded at several places on the Bay, 
 and printed in some of the island journals : 
 
 " INHABITANTS OF JAMAICA ! 
 
 " Your danger is great. If you have discovered the source 
 of your disease, lose not a moment in expelling the poison 
 from your veins. Rally round your church and kirk before it 
 is too late, and defend yourselves from all who attack them : 
 the preservation of your wives, your children, your properties, 
 your houses nay, of your very lives, demands it. A Colonial 
 Church Union is all you want to unite the friends of the colony 
 in a defence which must then succeed." 
 
 This association is said to have caused almost as much 
 annoyance to really religious Church people as to the Dis- 
 senters. What was its attitude to the latter, the report of 
 one of its general meetings will show : " Several resolutions 
 were passed, the sixth of which bound the Union to support 
 and protect the chapel destroyers." This meeting was held 
 on the 1 5th of February, the day after the mission premises 
 at St. Ann's Bay with the Wesleyan chapel there had been 
 destroyed, and by some of the same party two chapels 
 burnt at Ocho Rios. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 " I WILL HAVE SLAVERY DOWN." 
 
 " So long as the islands were peopled by the impoitation of native 
 Africans, who lived and died in heathenism, the relation of master and 
 slave might be expected to be permanent ; but now that an indigenous 
 race of men has grown up, speaking our own language, and instructed 
 in our own religion, all the more harsh rights of the owner, and the 
 blind submission of the slave, will inevitably, at some period more or 
 less remote, come to an end." 
 
 Despatch of Viscount GODERICH to the Earl of BELMORE, 
 
 Dated the 1st of March, 1832. 
 
 " What of your own William Knibb ? God raised him up for a special 
 work ; and how wonderful the endowments which He gave him for it ! 
 He was ordained of God to fight the battle of negro freedom. Some 
 preceded him in that holy war. His beloved brother Burchell and 
 others stood side by side with him, and aided in the conflict ; but 
 William Knibb led the noble army of emancipation on to the victory. 
 
 " Who that knew him will ever forget his holy indignation against 
 oppression and wrong ; his manly compassion and tearful sympathy 
 with the down-trodden and afflicted ; his inflexible resolution to snap 
 the fetters of the enslaved, and to bid the oppressed go free; or that 
 overpowering and impassioned eloquence which, flowing out of the 
 fulness of his heart, bore all before it with resistless force. He was a 
 God-made man, eminently gifted by God Himself for the work which 
 God had given him to do. " Rev. D. J. EAST, 
 
 ." To the people of Falmouth. 
 
 " ' Who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a 
 time as this.' ESTHER iv. 14." 
 
 WHEN the pilot came on board the ship in which 
 Mr. Knibb was, in the English Channel, he 
 brought the news that the Reform Bill had passed. " Thank 
 God," exclaimed Mr. Knibb ; " now I will have slavery 
 
" / will have Slavery Down'' 39 
 
 down. I will never rest day or night till I see it destroyed, 
 root and branch." 
 
 He was burdened with anxieties as to how far the Baptist 
 Missionary Society would sustain their missionaries in the 
 great effort of reconstructing the Mission, and how far they 
 would co-operate with him in his active efforts for the over- 
 throw of slavery ; these were burdens of thought and heart 
 almost too heavy to be endured. 
 
 The policy of the several societies had been to keep as 
 quiet as might be on the subject of slavery, lest a political 
 character should be given to the Mission, and with the 
 feeling that, unless silent, they would be debarred from 
 working among the negroes, and so from giving them the 
 spiritual benefit of which they had been the messengers 
 hitherto, by speaking of God's great grace to their souls. 
 Mr. Knibb, on the other hand, was burning to tell out the 
 truth about slavery ; and, in general, about slaveholders. 
 Mr. Price gives this account of Knibb's meeting with the 
 committee : 
 
 " However, we went. Knibb gave a detailed account of 
 his sufferings and those of his brethren, which was received, 
 of course, with the deepest interest. Mr. Dyer exhorted 
 to prudence and a temperate policy. 
 
 " At length Knibb stood up, and his words, as near as 
 I can recollect certainly in substance were : ' Myself, my 
 wife, and my children are entirely dependent on the Baptist 
 Mission. We have landed without a shilling, and may at 
 once be reduced to penury ; but, if it be necessary, I will 
 take them by the hand and walk barefoot through the 
 kingdom ; I will make known to the Christians of 
 England what their brethren in Jamaica are suffering ! ' 
 I [Rev. Thomas Price] believe I was the first to speak 
 after this declaration; and, I need not say, I exhorted 
 him to stand by his avowal, and assured him of the 
 sympathy and co-operation of many." 
 
40 William Knibb. 
 
 At the annual meeting of the Society on the 2ist of 
 June, Messrs. Phillippo and Knibb were to represent 
 Jamaica. The former spoke tenderly and interestingly 
 on the way the blacks had welcomed the Gospel. Mr. 
 Knibb followed on Slavery. He had been warned to be 
 moderate, but he declared that he could no longer restrain 
 himself. The warning touch was presently given. It was 
 a solemn moment, and the man was made for it* He 
 paused, gave a lightning glance at the awful atrocities of 
 the past, the glorious possibilities of the future, and the 
 grandeur of his own position, as encompassed with terrible 
 responsibilities ; then, concentrating all the energies of 
 thought, feeling, and voice, he exclaimed : " Whatever may 
 be the consequence, I will speak. At the risk of my 
 connection with the Society and all I hold dear, I will 
 avow this ; and if the friends of missions will not hear me, 
 I will turn and tell it to my God ; nor will I desist till this 
 greatest of curses slavery is removed, and, 'Glory to God 
 in the highest,' is inscribed on the British flag ! " 
 
 The hesitation was over. The thrill passed through 
 the assembly, through the Christian Church, through the 
 country. There was to be no more silence as to the 
 state of things in the colonies, that by silence the 
 missionary might be tolerated in preaching to the slaves. 
 The slave was to be free ! 
 
 * Authorities have been given and care has been taken not to colour 
 them. Here is a piece of oral tradition. A gentleman present at this 
 meeting, or one held soon after, told the mother of the writer that 
 he found himself next to a returned Jamaica missionary of another 
 denomination. As Knibb's narrative poured from his lips, he heard 
 his neighbour's undertoned comment; "How dare he! How dare 
 he ! He can never go back ! " "Do you mean that it is not true ? " 
 asked our informant. "True ; yes, ever) 7 word of it ; but how foolish, 
 foolish, he can never go back ! " But the power of the testimony 
 worked on the listener, and, presently when his turn came, he 
 confirmed every word that Knibb had uttered. 
 
" / will have Slavery Down" 41 
 
 Mr. Dyer writes : " It must be evident to the dullest 
 capacity, and is universally seen and felt here, both by 
 friend and foe, that either Christianity or slavery must fall. 
 Unless slavery be extinguished, the hope of freely pub- 
 lishing the Gospel in Jamaica is fallacious. Instead, 
 therefore, of picking leaves off the tree, we are laying the 
 axe at the root with all the strength we can command, and, 
 by God's blessing, will not cease to do so till its fall be 
 accomplished." 
 
 At other meetings in London, and everywhere over 
 England, Knibb went to bear his testimony. The story 
 wanted no working up; just the same over again at different 
 places : the power that slavery gave to a master to oppress 
 his slave, and the effect this power had on the master to 
 make him a tyrant. There were noble men, as we have 
 seen, in this narrative, and to whom Mr. Knibb bore 
 witness, on whom the smell of ihe fire had not passed ; but 
 what of the naturally tyrannical, the naturally irascible? 
 What of the weak, who could not withstand temptation ? 
 And what of the victims of such men and women ? And 
 if idle, dishonest negroes got no more than their 
 deserts, it was into the souls of those who desired 
 to live an honest, sober, and godly life that the iron 
 entered; those who had picked up a little education, 
 and had, in spite of every obstacle, grown into something 
 like manliness, felt their bonds the heaviest. Of course, 
 the religious among them felt it most of all. And when 
 such fell into the hands of men who hated the Gospel, 
 they were made to surfer terribly. At a distance of time, 
 speeches read tamely; spoken, and at the time, these 
 statements set forth by a warm-hearted man, who 
 thoroughly believed what he said, were instinct with 
 life and fire. 
 
 Sympathy was evoked all over the country. Not only 
 warm-hearted feeling, but principle had been awakened 
 
42 W*lliam Knibb. 
 
 from a long sleep, and with open eyes saw right from 
 wrong. Now came the contest for lawful authority to 
 do the right. It began as all such battles should begin, 
 with a day set apart for united and importunate suppli- 
 cation to Almighty God. This was on April 20th. 
 Christian missions were not alone in the fight ; they 
 could hardly be said to be the first in the field. For 
 many years the Anti-Slavery Society had been at work, 
 led by Clarkson and Sturge, while Wilberforce and Buxton 
 had their party in the House of Commons, a minority 
 certainly, but an influential minority which had been 
 instant in season and out of season in their efforts to 
 induce the Government and people of England to do 
 justice to the oppressed children of Africa. They had 
 as supporters a host of devoted men of all sections of 
 the Christian Church. 
 
 Their first object had been the abolition of the slave- 
 trade; but now the set time for releasing the slaves 
 already in the colonies had come. A reformed Parliament 
 was returned, the members of which for the most part 
 were pledged to emancipation. The Christian Church 
 was aroused to action by the events which had occurred 
 in Jamaica, and by the burning eloquence of Knibb and 
 other missionaries, who had been witnesses of the negroes' 
 sufferings. The people at large were appealed to by their 
 sense of justice, and their love of liberty ; and the tide of 
 public feeling in favour of emancipation rolled on daily, 
 acquiring new strength, till it became like a resistless torrent, 
 and petitions from all parts of the country, and from all 
 classes of men, were poured into the Houses of Lords and 
 Commons, praying with an importunity that would take' 
 no denial, for the total and immediate abolition of 
 slavery. 
 
 In the middle of May, 1833, Mr. Stanley, afterwards 
 Earl of Derby, Secretary of State for the Colonies, 
 
/ ivill have Slavery Down" 43 
 
 introduced into the House of Commons " An Act for the 
 Abolition of Slavery throughout the British Colonies, for 
 Promoting the Industry of the Emancipated Slaves, and 
 for Compensating the Persons hitherto entitled to their 
 Services." Of course, the Bill pleased nobody. It was 
 not enough for the anti-slavery party ; it was too much for 
 the planters. Mr. Knibb was called from his public 
 meetings to give evidence before the Committees of the 
 Houses of Lords and Commons ; to say again just the 
 same facts he had so often pleaded ; this time in cool, 
 business fashion, and on oath. Wherever he was, it was the 
 same story ; as true on the platform as when answering 
 questions in Committee ; as full of heart before the 
 Committees as in the public meeting. It burnt so into the 
 heart of good Lord Harewood that, after a sleepless night, 
 he called Mr. Knibb into a private room to inquire into 
 the management of his own estates. Mr. Knibb was glad 
 to be able to tell him that the manager a moral man 
 himself did what he could for the good conduct of those 
 under him. " I should have slept had I known that last 
 night* ; promise me if you find anything of the kind going 
 on on my estate you will immediately inform me." The 
 expression of perfect confidence and the hearty shake of 
 the hand with which the interview concluded, formed a 
 refreshing episode in the six days' strict cross-examination, 
 from the i3th to the 2oth July. 
 
 The friends of the slave worked hard to free the 
 Abolition Bill from what they considered its objec- 
 tionable features. They succeeded in inducing the 
 Government to shorten the apprenticeship to six years, 
 and to insert a clause in the Bill to secure to the 
 apprenticed negroes the full use of the Christian Sabbath, 
 and liberty to attend any place of worship they chose, 
 
 * Of course, this refers to evidence given the day before. 
 
44 William Knibb. 
 
 without any denial or interruption whatever. To meet 
 the requirements of the slave-owners, and to secure their 
 co-operation in carrying out the abolition, the Government 
 changed the loan of ^"15,000,000 into a grant of 
 ^20,000,000. 
 
 William Knibb had gone out young, as a schoolmaster. 
 From sheer want of enough men who were in any way 
 suitable, he became the pastor of a church and a preacher, 
 without academical instruction or training. At first, on his 
 return to England, his manner was not graceful, says Mr. 
 Eustace Carey, his fellow deputation, nor was his diction 
 rich, nor were his words tastefully selected. His topics 
 were limited in number, his illustrations were constantly 
 repeated, and he was speaking to assemblies who carped at 
 every sentence. Yet, continues Mr. Carey, " I have wit- 
 nessed congregated masses in that city (Edinburgh) burn- 
 ing and almost raving with indignation at the slave system, 
 as he depicted its cruelties and demonstrated its crimes. His 
 tact and self-possession in a little time became so remarkable 
 that he would easily convert adverse and startling occurrences 
 into an occasion of profit, and even of triumph to his 
 cause." Mr. Carey instances the second meeting held in 
 Edinburgh. "A dense crowd had assembled, but Mr. 
 Knibb was depressed, embarrassed, and showed it plainly 
 at the beginning of his speech, which seemed likely to 
 become a failure. As in this condition he narrated some of 
 the hardships of the slaves, a stentorian voice shouted from 
 the other end of the place, "That is a lie." 
 
 The stranger was called up to the platform, where, as 
 far as chairman and deputation were concerned, he had his 
 say out, but not without note and comment as it went 
 along, from the audience. He did Mr. Knibb service ; all 
 the depression and embarrassment were gone. The pro- 
 slavery advocate had quoted " Servants, obey in all things 
 
I will have Slavery Down" 45 
 
 your masters according to the flesh." "It is a pity," said 
 Mr. Knibb, as he rose to reply, " the gentleman did not 
 read a little further ; he would have found written ' Masters, 
 give unto your servants that which is just and equal, know- 
 ing that ye also have a Master in heaven.' " 
 
 The meeting resolved itself into one of the most 
 interesting and influential he ever held in Scotland, and the 
 effect of it followed to the end of that important itineracy. 
 
 " His topics were limited." But what topics ? Single- 
 hearted and quite sure of his facts ; speaking not for his 
 own reputation but that the slaves. might go free, he had all 
 the charm of a man who was heartwhole on one idea, and 
 that an unselfish one. But all in-born qualifications as 
 brought out by circumstances failed to account for his 
 marvellous power over multitudes. Must we not say that 
 it " was given him in that hour what he should speak " ? 
 
 Here is another instance in which Bunyan's story comes 
 true of the fire -on which a man continually threw water 
 but which burnt brighter and brighter because it was as 
 constantly, but secretly, supplied with oil. The words are 
 Mr, Saffrey's, who was travelling with him, and being 
 taken ill in the night sought his assistance. "It 
 was about three in the morning, and I was surprised, on 
 entering his chamber, to see him on his knees. On 
 expressing my regret for having intruded on him at such a 
 time, he said, " Never mind. I was anxious to secure some 
 time for prayer this morning. Without doing so I should 
 be afraid to trust myself to reply to the attack of that news- 
 paper." (The newspaper attack had been malignant.) 
 
 The incessant moving about did not eclipse his regard for 
 private friends. Here is an instance to Mr. Abbott, dated 
 Beverley, September, 1832, in which he sends warm 
 messages of thanks to Messrs. Maunderson and Lewin, and 
 to his own people : " Have the kindness to send to my dear 
 flock at home. My heart yearns over them. Tell them to 
 
46 William Knibb. 
 
 draw together, to pray much, to love each other much, and 
 in their different stations to act as in the fear of God. Oh, 
 how I long to be among them ! The state of the churches 
 here makes me love Jamaica more than ever. I will try and 
 write to them soon, but shall trust to you to comfort their 
 hearts." * 
 
 To his brother Edward he wrote from Norwich his delight 
 " in finding his sister-in-law a disciple of the lowly Jesus," 
 and goes on to ask whether his brother had made a public 
 profession of Christianity. " Have you yet devoted yourself 
 to the service of the Redeemer ? If you feel the love of 
 Christ . . . and the necessity of the Holy Spirit to 
 guide, to cheer, and to counsel you, then go to the people 
 of God and say, * This people shall be my people, and their 
 God shall be my God.' 
 
 His letters to his wife are simple private letters. In all 
 the press of constant moving, so tired sometimes " that he 
 did not know what to do with himself," they show that he 
 was going on from day to day in great anxiety as to his 
 eldest boy William. He writes to his wife begging for news, 
 giving the most probable addresses, one of which will find 
 him, always with the patient "if you can" following the 
 direction where to write, as only those say it, who consider 
 how difficult it is for a mother nursing a sick child, to turn 
 to correspondence. 
 
 The very charm of these letters is that they are common- 
 place. He has been to Edinburgh ; St. Andrews ; Dundee, 
 with a few words about each ; so and so has been very 
 kind; the weather has been cold; and so forth; but all 
 intensely affectionate,, going into details of his wife's comfort 
 and very anxious about his boy. Yet there is a good deal 
 in a little sometimes. Some one had given him/^r himself 
 a present of ^5. He is going to get out of it : a greatcoat ; 
 a picture frame ; and a present for his wife ;' and in strange 
 
 * See letter, p. 63. 
 
"/ will have Slavery Down." 47 
 
 juxtaposition, the next sentence runs, will she write to so 
 and so and enquire the possibility of buying Mary, the wife 
 of Lewis Williams, will she enquire the price, and he will 
 procure the money. Then from the redemption of the 
 slave Mary Williams he turns to his sick boy. A letter has 
 come in. " Your welcome letter reached me ; I had been 
 exceedingly anxious respecting dear William, and return 
 thanks to that kind Father who has so mercifully preserved 
 him." This is from Newcastle, when returning from the 
 Edinburgh meeting ; of the excitement, of the success there, 
 not a word. 
 
 From Cork a little gleam of fun shooting across his 
 intensity shows itself for a moment. u Expecting that I 
 shall find a letter from you on my return to Dublin, I seize 
 the earliest opportunity of answering it. This you will say 
 is in true Irish style." He carried the sheet back with him 
 to Dublin, where it became a true answer, for he was not 
 disappointed of his letter. Once he touches a tender 
 subject, the salvation of children, old enough to do wrong, 
 and know they are doing it, and manifesting no beginnings 
 of faith, but still children : "a mysterious subject, fitter to 
 be prayed over than speculated on." 
 
 There is one more episode completely in private life. A 
 little son had been born to him, October, 1832, and named 
 Andrew Fuller. The father's heart was divided between joy 
 at this new gift, and anxiety for his first born. William 
 recovered, but the fifteen months old baby lies buried beside 
 his great namesake at Kettering. 
 
 On the 28th August, 1833, the magna charta of negro 
 liberty having passed the House of Lords and Commons, 
 received the Royal Assent, and became law. 
 
 The following is its most important clause : " Be it 
 enacted that all and every person who, on the first day of 
 August, one thousand eight hundred and thirty-four, shall 
 
48 William Knibb. 
 
 be holden in slavery within any such British Colony as 
 aforesaid shall upon, from, and after the said day, the first 
 of August, 1834, become to all intents and purposes free, 
 and discharged from all manner of slavery, and shall be 
 absolutely and for ever manumitted, and that the children 
 hereafter born to any such persons, and the offspring of such 
 persons' children shall in like manner be free from their 
 birth, and that from and after the first day of August, one 
 thousand eight hundred and thirty-four, slavery shall, and is 
 hereby utterly and for ever abolished, and declared to be so 
 throughout the British colonies, plantations, and possessions 
 abroad." 
 
 Thus, after years of toil and self-sacrifice, God answered 
 the prayers of His people on behalf of their oppressed 
 fellow-men. 
 
 His testimony borne, Mr. Knibb's idea was to go speedily 
 back to his people, but another important thing remained, 
 and he and Mr. Burchell set themselves to that object. 
 The chapels had been purposely destroyed, often the 
 ministers' houses. The island authorities declined alto- 
 gether to give any compensation, though in many cases 
 they had encouraged the destruction when a firm inter- 
 ference would have saved the property. 
 
 They were receiving ^20,000,000 for the terrible loss of 
 having to pay their workmen instead of employing slave 
 labour. The chapels were burned, so much the better for 
 their side of the question. 
 
 There was nothing to do but (helped by Mr. Buxton's 
 powerful influence) to appeal to the Imperial Government 
 at home, which allowed first, ^5,510, the amount of unpaid 
 debt on the demolished properties, and secondly, on further 
 application, ,6,195, being one half of the remaining loss 
 sustained, ,12,390, on condition that the other half was 
 undertaken by the society. 
 
 The sympathy roused was very warm. On the yth of 
 
"/ will have Slavery Doivn" 49 
 
 August, twenty-one days before passing the Emancipation 
 Act, a public meeting was held at the London Tavern 
 to receive the offerings of the churches to restore the 
 ruined chapels, and bid farewell to the two noble men who 
 by their zeal and eloquence had so largely created the 
 deep interest on behalf of the slaves. The amount asked 
 for was the ^"6,000, but upwards of ^"ro,ooo was brought 
 in, increased during a few days more to ^13,000. 
 
 This attained, Mr. Knibb and his family left London 
 for Jamaica on the 27th of August, 1834, Mr. Burchell 
 leaving two days after and returning via, the United States. 
 
 Of course, neither of them were in Jamaica on the day 
 of emancipation, The following remarks on the observ- 
 ance of this day in Jamaica are from Mr. Burchell's 
 memoirs. "This peaceful joy, this delicacy towards the 
 feelings of others, was all that was to be seen, heard or 
 felt on that occasion, over all the chain of the Antilles. 
 Amusements there were none, not even those by which 
 they occasionally beguiled the hard lot of bondage, they 
 kept as a sacred Sabbath the day of their liberation. 
 From an early hour their sanctuaries were the central 
 points of attraction ; young and old alike pressing forward, 
 not coldly to comply with a formal ceremonial, not to 
 give mouth-worship or eye-worship, but to pour the full 
 and warm tides of their hearts in praise to the Giver 
 of all good." 
 
 Mr. Phillippo, who had returned to the island, speaks in 
 the same terms of the morning services of the day of 
 emancipation. He quotes the prayer of a negro which 
 so embraces the subject of the day that it may be 
 given here. " Since Thou hast done this great thing, 
 oh, that we may love Thee and Thy Gospel more ; may 
 we be diligent in our proper calling, fervent, serving the 
 Lord ! O Lord ! now do Thou make Thine arm bare, 
 
 4 
 
50 William Knibb. 
 
 and turn the hearts of all the people to Thee. We bless 
 Thee that Thou hast inclined so many poor dying sinners 
 to come up to Thy house this day. O Lord ! teach their 
 hearts, turn them from their own ways, the same as Thou 
 didst the city of Nineveh." 
 
 The service over, there was a distribution of many little 
 presents which had been entrusted to Mrs. Phillippo while 
 in England as keepsakes of the day ; and then it was the 
 school children's turn to be made as happy as possible. 
 Accounts of the same kind arrived from all the stations. 
 
 Surely the influence of the Christian negroes shows their 
 religion to have been strong and consistent. The accounts 
 of large meetings held, of very exciting days, and crowds 
 collected without riot or drunkenness ; of the quiet, orderly 
 Sundays that set in with the apprenticeship, make one 
 think that the Christians were in the majority. It was not 
 so. The Baptist Church at Falmouth, for instance, with its 
 regular attendants, who were waiting for membership till 
 the times were settled and they got their minister back, 
 might be reckoned at 2,000. There were other congrega- 
 tions in the same place Presbyterian, Wesleyan, Congrega- 
 tionalist, beside the English Church, of which no statistics 
 are at hand. If we reckon these at 5,000, still the 18,000 
 to 20,000 blacks of the parish who were not in attendance 
 at any Sunday services outnumber the churchgoers as three 
 to one, and among this majority were the incendiaries who 
 had fired the estates. A riotous minority will often lead a 
 number exceeding their own; yet on Emancipation Day 
 and other great holidays of that time all was orderly and 
 quiet. It is always easier for noise and excitement to lead 
 than for the quiet party ; yet this time the prayer-meeting 
 led. Hollow Christianity would not have done it, nor 
 sincere, but weak, sentimentality ; there must have been 
 truth and strength, and God's guiding spirit among the 
 people. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 FREEDOM. 
 
 T 7ARIOUS cases of persecution had occurred during 
 V the time Messrs. Knibb and Burchell had been in 
 England. Messrs. Dendy, Abbot, Nichols, and others had 
 been in prison, and in many districts no services were 
 allowed. 
 
 Mr. Knibb's large church had been left as sheep without 
 a shepherd. He was working for them with all his heart, 
 but was not allowed to work with them. The 885* 
 members in communion, besides regular attendants and 
 children, had no minister to speak to them. Their chapel 
 had been destroyed, the ministry was forbidden. They 
 met together as they could, in little groups "for conver- 
 sation." 
 
 It was not till February, 1833, that Mr. Nichols visiting 
 the place got permission with some difficulty to preach to 
 the free people, the first service after the disturbances/ 
 The congregation increased in spite of all disadvantages. 
 The first place of meeting held barely 200 people for an 
 audience of 500. A shed was run up, from which they 
 had presently to take one side and attach a large awning to 
 shield the hearers from the tropical sun. To this shed 
 belongs the historical interest of having sheltered as far as 
 it could the large congregations of the day of emancipation, 
 August ist, 1834 the day when they exchanged slavery 
 for apprenticeship. Six large spaces had been cut out of 
 
 * This refers to Falmouth ; the outlying stations increased the 
 number by 100, and more than doubled the candidates for baptism 
 awaiting his return. 
 
 A* 
 
52 William Knibb. 
 
 the walls that persons on all sides might share the proceed- 
 ings within it. The people collected on this day nearly 
 ;6o towards the re-erection of their chapel. The congre- 
 gation was reckoned at not less than 1,600 persons, and 
 the day passed off in a perfectly orderly manner. There 
 was joy, but no riot, nor even noise a fact with great 
 justice ascribed to the influence of the Gospel and that of 
 the persecuted men who had preached it. 
 
 Mr. Dendy took this opportunity of making known to 
 the people the resolution of the British and Foreign Bible 
 Society to present a copy of the New Testament, with the 
 Psalms, to those apprentices who either could read or 
 whose children were learning to read ; and those who could 
 claim the gift came forward with eagerness to have their 
 names entered for the purpose. 
 
 Mr. Knibb's return, October 25th, 1834, was too 
 late for his presence on this emancipation day. His 
 arrival, however, had a joy and excitement of its own. He 
 describes his landing at Rio Bueno : 
 
 " The people saw me as I stood on the deck of the boat. 
 As I neared the shore I waved my hand, when they, being 
 fully assured that it was their minister, ran from every part 
 of the bay to the wharf. Some pushed off in a canoe, into 
 which I got, with my family, and soon landed on the beach. 
 We were nearly pushed into the sea by kindness. Poor 
 Mrs. K. was quite overcome. They took me up in their 
 arms, they sang, they laughed, they wept, and I wept, too. 
 * Him come ; him come, for true.' ' Who do come for we 
 king, king Knibb. Him fight de battle ; him win de 
 crown.' On they rushed to the chapel, where we knelt 
 together at the throne of mercy. 
 
 "On the following morning we started by land for 
 Falmouth. As I entered I could scarcely contain my 
 feelings : nor can I now. The news spread, and from 
 twenty to twenty-five miles distant the people came, * Now 
 
Freedom. 5 3 
 
 Massa we see enough, him dead; him live again. God 
 bless you Massa for all the good you do for me.' ' God 
 him too good.' 
 
 " In the evening we had a prayer-meeting. 
 
 " On the Sabbath-day when the people could come from 
 the country, the scene was the most interesting I ever 
 beheld. In the afternoon we celebrated the Lord's Supper. 
 After the service two African women came to me each with 
 her infant born after the ist of August. When they pre- 
 sented their children and thanked me for their freedom, my 
 feelings completely overcame me. I left them, and retired 
 to weep." 
 
 " Nothing can be written with greater simplicity than 
 this narrative, and nothing can be more fitting than that the 
 circumstances it details should be placed on record." So 
 writes Mr. Hinton, adding that Mr. Knibb requests as he 
 closes, that if his letter is printed, whatever savours of 
 egotism may be expunged. 
 
 The first object naturally was to rebuild the chapel. The 
 shed and awning contrivance was temporarily replaced by a 
 large tent given by W. B. Gurney, Esq.,* and when obliged 
 
 * A note written by Mr. Knibb to Mr. Gurney's daughters may not 
 be without interest : 
 
 " FALMOUTH, 
 
 "April 2Qth, 1835. 
 
 "Mv DEAR FRIENDS, 
 
 " I take the liberty of sending each of you a ruler made by one 
 of my deacons from a portion of one of the pillars of my old chapel in 
 this town that was destroyed in the riots of 1832. 
 
 " I thought that you would perhaps feel some interest in possessing 
 a small portion of the wreck of our mission property, and have there- 
 fore sent it. 
 
 " The church here is prospering ; the number that attend is really 
 astonishing. Last Sabbath I think I had full 3,000 hearers, though 
 the chapel will not hold more than 600. 
 
 "The tents are very useful indeed. I know not what I should do 
 without them. Underneath them our Sabbath-schools are held and 
 
54 W'lliam Knibb. 
 
 to take that down, leave was actually obtained to use the 
 very Court-house where the declaration was signed that 
 Mr. Knibb should never preach any more, and which. had 
 since been put to happier use by Lord Mulgrave, when he 
 had the slaves collected there to tell them that they were 
 to be free. 
 
 The building time was harassing beyond that of most 
 chapel building, for the contractors failed, but the people 
 geneiously conquered their difficulty, and the debt was 
 liquidated on the first anniversary of the opening. "We 
 will have it off," said the people. " Let us know if what we 
 bring is enough, if not we will try again." " They gave their 
 all," writes Mr. Knibb ; " I believe many who gave had not 
 fourpence left." 
 
 Of the money collected in England Mr. Knibb had a 
 grant of .3,000. The chapel to be large enough for the 
 people was to cost ,6,000, and this outlay was increased 
 by the failure of the contractors. 
 
 Another absorbing interest was the admission of new 
 members to the church. After the recommencement of 
 services, Mr. Nichols and Mr. Dendy had looked after Mr. 
 Knibb's stations as well as their other duties would allow, 
 but it had not been thought desirable to add to the church 
 roll. The number of inquirers had risen to about 1,000. 
 
 numbers listen to the sounds of mercy. Yesterday morning I had the 
 pleasure of baptizing ninety-two in the sea. Their simple confessions 
 of the change wrought in their hearts -delighted me. Full 3,000 
 spectators were present, and the utmost decorum prevailed. 
 
 " To-day I am fatigued, having preached twice yesterday, adminis- 
 tered the Lord's Supper to full 900 of my members, besides the 
 baptizing, &c., &c. 
 
 "Among the individuals baptized was a young man who had been a 
 preacher among the Wesleyans for several years. He was once a 
 soldier in the regiment in which Chamberlain, our missionary in the 
 East, was made so useful, and is the only one left alive . that was in 
 India at that time." 
 
Freedom. 5 5 
 
 They were not for the most part new Christians, most of 
 them "having been regular attendants before the disturbances 
 began. OF these, 138 were selected for the first baptisms, 
 about three months after Mr. Knibb's arrival in the Island. 
 Many of these spoke of the blessing that Mr. Mann's short 
 but fervent ministry had been to them. His harvest was 
 ripe now. Other baptisms followed as more and more of 
 the eager applicants could be seen, and wise inquiries made 
 about them. 
 
 It may be as well to quote here the method used with 
 these and other candidates. Mr. Knibb writes : " Either 
 myself, Mrs. Knibb, or some one whom we know to be fully 
 competent, speaks individually to the candidates, Mrs. 
 Knibb generally taking the females. To each man I speak 
 myself, and hear his views of divine truth. When Mrs. 
 Knibb has spoken to the females, on receiving her report, I 
 talk with them, either individually or collectively. I do not 
 think I ever fail speaking to them in some such manner as 
 this : " You have assured me that you love Christ that you 
 pray to Him every day and love to do so that you are 
 not living in any known sin. You do not believe that 
 baptism will save you, nor the Lord's Supper nothing but 
 the blood of Christ ? You voluntarily profess to love Christ; 
 no one forces you ; if you do love Him, He will bless you ; 
 if not, I beseech you not to put on'^His name." 
 
 He further describes how he calls over the names of those 
 already seen and examined, at a church-meeting, charging 
 those present, if they know anything against any of these 
 candidates to come to him and tell it j giving a week for 
 this purpose. 
 
 Once in the year the church deputed some of the 
 deacons or other active members to visit every property 
 where there were members ; and the investigations were 
 minute and important, as the reports demonstrate. They 
 are all concluded with the statement, "Love prevails." 
 
56 William Knibb. 
 
 Then came the question of education. In each of the 
 large districts allotted to our missionaries several schools 
 were necessary to keep pace with the demand of the time. 
 When home in 1832, Mr. Knibb had estimated the number 
 of his congregation who could read at about fifty ; in 
 February, 1836, he counts them, including children, at 600. 
 This had been brought about by the gratuitous kindness 
 of some of his people on the different estates in setting up 
 evening schools. Falmouth, he said, could take care of 
 itself if the outlying estates were left to their fate. It was 
 the village stations and schools, with urgent need for some 
 sort of room to be used for meetings, as well as schools, 
 which loaded him and his people with expense ; and yet, 
 with "from 18,000 to 20,000 apprentices in this parish 
 alone," receiving no instruction and attending no place of 
 worship, how were they to give up all effort for them ? 
 The correspondence of this date has constant reference to 
 these stations, six, eight, or ten miles from Falmouth. One 
 quotation is just as apt as another this one is about Silver 
 Grove. It might, with difference of detail, be Refuge, 
 Waldensia, or Wilberforce, or Suffield. 
 
 " I enclose," says he, " a plan of a plot of land which 
 is to be conveyed to the Society on Silver Grove, where 
 Camberwell School is now held. It is a most important 
 station, and, as the proprietor has, through his attorney, 
 George Gordon, Esq., promised to give it, I have earnestly 
 to request that you will have a title prepared as soon as 
 possible, conveying it in trust to the Society, and let it be 
 presented for signature in the most acceptable manner as 
 speedily as possible. We have in the neighbourhood full 
 1,000 persons connected with us ; there are 140 in the 
 day, and 250 in the Sabbath-school, and this is the only 
 spot of land that can be procured." 
 
 How to supply teachers ? There were no, or next to 
 no, teachers with any training at all, nor a coloured 
 
Freedom. 
 
 Christian minister with any fit education even for a village 
 charge. For Falmouth School he speaks of getting out 
 a well-trained man from the Lancastrian Schools ; for 
 Wilberforce he had "a very pious and intelligent young 
 man in training with Mr. BurchelPs schoolmaster at 
 Montego Bay," to act as day schoolmaster, Sunday-school 
 superintendent, and holding of the Sunday service (reading 
 one of Burder's village sermons), if no other supply 
 was within reach. "I have three such schoolmasters, I 
 have also twenty active Sabbath-school teachers who are 
 doing all they can ; thus three Sabbath-schools, three day 
 schools, and three evening schools are in constant opera- 
 tion ; while three chapels in a dense population of full 
 16,000 persons are constantly open. The only way in 
 which it is possible to train these young teachers is in 
 schools ; they are married, and must be supported. 
 
 "Constant preaching, the supply of the stations and 
 schools, . the redressing the injuries of the poor people, 
 and the general interests of the mission, engross all my 
 time. That men will arise here I have no doubt, and 
 I shall hail the day ; but education must precede it." 
 
 At Endeavour, one of the deacons had begun a school 
 and held a Sunday service. The people there had put up a 
 shed. It was eleven miles from Falmouth ; separate service 
 and school were excusable at the distance. 
 
 Government grants in aid were accepted for Wilberforce 
 and Suffield, in the difficulty of much money being wanted 
 and other resources very much strained. 
 
 Very busy work it was, not only at Falmouth and its 
 outlying stations, but wherever a devoted missionary had his 
 centre station in a town, with knots of people in the 
 plantations for miles round. But evangelisation and 
 church organisation, incessant as their claims were, could 
 not be allowed to engross all the attention ; it became more 
 and more apparent that the apprenticeship system was not 
 
58 William Knibb. 
 
 working well. Some things the negroes must have gained, 
 but on the whole the treatment of the apprentices was still 
 such as to slaves. New treadmills were erected, stories of 
 exceptional cruelty varied the monotony of every-day 
 injustice. The apprenticeship law passed by the House of 
 Assembly in Jamaica was " very bad," " I pray God that it 
 may be disallowed." The slaves those who had saved 
 some money had been eager to buy up their time, as 
 allowed by England, and go quite free. Prohibitory prices 
 were put on them. "The fact is," Mr. Knibb writes, "that 
 under the Abolition Act they were purchasing them- 
 selves so fast that the Jamaica law was made to stop 
 them." 
 
 On the 24th of February, 1835, he writes: "Some of 
 the special magistrates flog most cruelly, and I fear will 
 create much discontent. If the Anti-Slavery Society were 
 to send out one or more staunch men, who would be 
 present at the trials of apprentices, and faithfully report 
 them, they would do great good. It would be a check 
 upon the magistrates which they would much feel." In 
 fact the well-known and honoured friends of the slaves, Joseph 
 Sturge and Thomas Harvey, arrived soon after. They came 
 to the West Indies for the express purpose of ascertaining, 
 by personal observation and inquiry, whether the Act of 
 Emancipation was being honestly carried out. They visited 
 the mission stations, where they had opportunities of 
 hearing from the lips of the people themselves, accounts of 
 the sufferings they endured. 
 
 On the ist of June Mr. Knibb writes again : " Oh, this 
 thrice-accursed apprenticeship ! Nothing but blood, mur- 
 derous cells, and chains ! I think nearly forty young apd 
 old females pass my door in chains every morning. Not one 
 school is yet established, while most abominable cells and 
 treadmills are being erected all over the island ! This is to 
 prepare the poor things for freedom ! ! You tell me to be 
 
Freedom. 5 9 
 
 quiet, and I am; but if I were at home, I would publish what 
 I know as far as I could travel." 
 
 But when it came to not only putting women on the 
 treadmills, but flogging them while upon it by two men at 
 once, Mr. Knibb sent affidavits of two such cases to the 
 Governor himself, and got redress for certain grievances. 
 But the thing remained as a whole, relieved only by the 
 personal character of those managers who were not 
 tyrannical. The feeling grew stronger and stronger that the 
 term of apprenticeship ought to be shortened. The friends 
 of the negro worked for that in England. The Marquis of 
 Sligo,* who had large estates on the island, set all his people 
 free without waiting for legislation, and so did some others. 
 There grew up a strong conviction that the Christian people 
 on the island ought to give up their apprentice slaves, and 
 the missionaries did their best to persuade their flocks. 
 Mr. Knibb had some such in his own congregation, most of 
 them people who had little else in the way of property, of 
 whom he writes : 
 
 "To Mr. STURGE. 
 
 " FALMOUTH, 
 
 "July nth, 1837. 
 
 " I have to convey the pleasing intelligence that the poor 
 members of my church who hold apprentices have resolved, 
 one and all, to set them free on the ist of August, and 
 that the manumissions of most are already in my possession. 
 
 * The governorship of the Marquis of Sligo, although of brief 
 duration, embraced a most difficult period of the island's history. 
 Society was in a transition state: the masters having to learn the 
 duties of consideration and equity in reference to their inferiors, and the 
 peasantry to acquire the sentiments and habits of free men. Towards 
 each class his lordship maintained an honourable bearing. The paternal 
 character of his administration had so won on the negroes, that they 
 raised a subscription among themselves, in order to purchase a piece 
 of plate for presentation to him. 
 
60 William Knibb. 
 
 I requested each of them to make it a matter of prayer ; 
 and when the result came I wept for joy. Not one has 
 held back. When the first came and signed, ' There,' she 
 said, 'I have now an easy conscience.' Another said, ' I 
 have long wished to do it, but I have two children to 
 support, and they are my all ; but I can now trust God. 
 My heart is at rest.' Others blamed me for not telling 
 them of it before ; and all have said that they have given 
 the apprentices up from a firm belief that it was sinful to 
 retain them. I have been to several persons in the town, 
 and have succeeded in obtaining the manumissions of 
 eight or ten more, and I am trying to interest others in the 
 matter. On the ist of August I shall publicly read the 
 manumissions in the chapel, and shall address the freed 
 people and the apprentices that are left, who do not belong 
 to Christian owners. I shall have a high day, and, blessed 
 be God, the last vestige of slavery will be removed from 
 the members of the church." 
 
 The writer can well remember hearing her mother say of 
 the day of emancipation, " If I had been in Jamaica I 
 should have lived through the day and died for joy at 
 night." She little thought how nearly this was literally true 
 of another, and that other Mr. Knibb's eldest son, the boy 
 William, whose health had caused him so much anxiety 
 while in England. He entered into his parents' warm feel- 
 ings for abolition, and his mother herself told years after how 
 fond the negroes were of him, and how proud when " little 
 massa " could undertake to play for the Sunday services in 
 chapel. The day when he heard that the members at 
 Falmouth would agree to set their apprentices free, he 
 spent in eager joy, but at night fever took possession of him, 
 and in a few hours it became certain that the day which 
 had begun with his parents in such joyous thankfulness 
 must be reckoned as the beginning of a terrible sorrow. 
 He died on the 25th of July, and the bereaved father went 
 
Freedom. 6 1 
 
 from the loss of his " brightest earthly hope " to distribute 
 the formal free certificates to such apprentices as had 
 belonged to his own people. Alas ! for the high day 
 anticipated. How heavily some of the Lord's people to 
 whom He gives great success seemed ballasted. Little 
 Andrew Fuller died in the midst of his father's successful 
 public meetings in England, and was left to sleep by the 
 side of his great namesake, and now William, the first-born, 
 and developing so much as his father could wish, is taken 
 away. 
 
 In another year, August the ist, 1838, complete freedom 
 was granted, two years before it had been originally intended 
 that the apprenticeship should cease. 
 
 Throughout the whole of the British West Indies this 
 ist of August was a day of unparalleled and unbounded 
 rejoicing. Nowhere was it more joyous than in the island 
 of Jamaica, and nowhere in Jamaica were the demonstrations 
 of gladness more energetic or more characteristic than in 
 Falmouth, where alone it is the writer's business to describe 
 them, and even there, only so far as Mr. Knibb was con- 
 cerned in them. 
 
 On the evening of the 3 ist of July the Baptist chapel was 
 opened for worship, a transparency, with the word FREEDOM, 
 having been placed over the front entrance to the chapel- 
 yard. A crowded congregation filled the place an hour 
 before midnight and continued in devotional exercises 
 till within a few minutes of twelve o'clock. Then came 
 a short interval of silence, when Mr. Knibb arose, 
 pointed to the face of the clock, and exclaimed, " The hour 
 is at hand, the monster is dying." There was stillness as 
 of death while the clock struck out its twelve strokes, then 
 Mr. Knibb exclaimed, " The monster is dead, the negro is 
 free" The people rose as one man, and broke into a loud 
 and long continued burst of exultation. " Never," says Mr. 
 Knibb, " did I hear such a sound, the winds of freedom 
 
62 William Knibb. 
 
 appeared to have been let loose, the very building shook at 
 the strange, yet sacred, joy. Oh, had my boy, my lovely, 
 slavery-hating boy, been there !" It was a terrible heart-ache 
 that his eldest son could not stand by his side on this day 
 of victory ; without a son, to dedicate if not to sympathize 
 he knew not how to exist, and in the supreme hour he 
 fetched his baby boy and held him in his arms in 
 the chapel. The burst of exultation was followed by 
 three hearty cheers for the Queen, and by the singing of 
 a hymn. The next day religious services were held 
 throughout the day, and in the evening a public meeting 
 was held at which all the speakers were descendants of 
 Africans, and acquitted themselves with credit. Mr. Knibb, 
 in concluding, proposed a well-deserved vote of thanks to 
 Sir Lionel Smith, whom he justly designated as "the highly- 
 esteemed Governor of this colony, and the ardent and 
 sincere friend of its enfranchised population." The meet- 
 ing universally rose in testifying their concurrence in this 
 vote. In the evening the crowds retired to their homes. 
 Throughout the day not a drunken man had been seen 
 in Falmouth, and at its close scarcely was the voice of a 
 stranger heard in the streets. 
 
 The next day, the 2nd of August, was given up to making 
 the school children as happy as possible. It began with a 
 procession of children made gay by a multitude of banners, 
 and headed by a carriage containing the children of 
 missionaries. There were portraits for them of Clarkson, 
 Wilberforce, Buxton, and other friends of the negro, there 
 was feasting and singing and play, and they ended with 
 proposing "The Queen's health," " Peace and Prosperity to 
 Jamaica," and " Success to the good town of Falmouth " all 
 given with "immense cheers." The children dispersed 
 singing " We'll all go home together." 
 
 The outward and visible sign of something much deeper 
 is sometimes acceptable. Those who knew Mr. Knibb 
 
Freedom. 63 
 
 could hardly be surprised at a touch of the dramatic 
 element amid the solemnities of the first day. A coffin was 
 prepared, and in it were placed collar, chain, and whip 
 the emblems of slavery ; the coffin was duly lowered into a 
 grave, and the British Flag reared on the ground. 
 
 Without quoting the negroes' speeches at their public 
 meeting, some sentences may be put down. 
 
 Mr. (they have been free some sixteen hours and they 
 are all of them Mr. with a double name after it), Mr. 
 Edward Barratt, " We have been made to stand by and see 
 our wives flogged, and we could not help them. The 
 people of England did not see us, but God see us, and 
 God stir up their hearts to get us freedom, and now we are 
 all free people. Let us lift up our hearts and bless God, 
 let us bless Queen Victoria." 
 
 Mr. George Prince-of- Wales, "My dear friends, this isthe 
 day for us to rejoice. Walk upright. Remember it is your 
 duty to support our pastor, his wife, and his children ; if 
 you do not support religion, you are not worthy of religion." 
 
 Mr. John White, "The ladies in England expect to 
 hear something good of us ; we must try to behave ourselves 
 as other ladies and gentlemen in this island do. Let us 
 ask that Redeemer who sits on His throne, for grace to 
 behave ourselves. Let us show the people in England that 
 more sugar can be made by free ladies and gentlemen than 
 was made by slaves. Let us be kind to our ladies. Let 
 the friends in England hear something worthy of us." 
 
 Mr. Thomas Gardner, " My dear brothers and sisters, 
 now the black man can unite with the white ; no distinction 
 now, only of character. If any man will not behave him- 
 self, he is not free yet." 
 
 When he found himself detained longer than he expected* 
 * See letter to Mr. Abbot, Ch. V., p. 46. 
 
64 William Knibb. 
 
 in England, Mr. Knibb wrote a pastoral letter to his people. 
 In reading it, it should be remembered that the majority of 
 the people to whom it was addressed were at that time 
 slaves, and could neither read nor write. It is therefore 
 simple and short, without being childish. 
 
 "November 17^, 1833. 
 
 " MY DEAR FRIENDS, 
 
 " Till within the last few days I had fondly hoped 
 that ere the receipt of this, I should have been among you, 
 for the purpose of again ministering lo you in holy things. 
 Circumstances, however, render my stay in England for a 
 time necessary; and I therefore address this letter, that 
 you may hear of my welfare, and that in your reply my 
 heart may be comforted, by hearing that you are walking in 
 the fear of God, and in the comfort of the Holy Ghost. 
 
 " Though I have not received any direct communication 
 from you, it has rejoiced my soul to learn that you 
 have the ordinances of God's house once more as your 
 portion. 
 
 " Prize them highly, and endeavour to improve under 
 them. Let your prayers daily ascend to God, that He 
 would sanctify the Word to your souls, and to the conversion 
 of those who yet know not God, and who obey not the 
 Gospel of His Son. Most affectionately would I impress 
 upon you the duty and importance of prayer; without it 
 you can never thrive on the way to heaven ; with it you are 
 sure of the blessing of God. Guard, I entreat you, against 
 falling out one with the other, and cultivate much the spirit 
 of love. Be anxious to attend the means of grace whenever 
 your duties will permit. Live near to Christ and heaven is 
 yours. Daily add to your faith virtue, and to virtue every 
 grace that adorns the Christian. I cannot exactly say when 
 I shall return, but I will inform you as early as I have 
 opportunity. The cause of my stay is on your account. It 
 
Freedom. 65 
 
 is supposed that I shall be needed to appear before Parlia- 
 ment in the hope of procuring money to re-erect the chapels 
 that have been destroyed ; therefore it is on your account 
 that I remain. I do confidently hope that you will testify 
 your love to me, and your gratitude for my exertions on 
 your behalf, by frequently meeting to pray that God would 
 bless my humble exertions, and restore me to you, in the 
 fulness of the blessing of the Gospel of peace. 
 
 " I know it will please you to know that Mrs. Knibb and 
 the children are in health. She often thinks of you, and 
 prays for you, and it will afford her much pleasure if she 
 finds that you all, and especially the female portion of the 
 church, are living as becometh the children of God. 
 Remember that when your religious privileges are granted 
 you, God will expect much more from you. When you 
 have more time to serve Him, He will expect more devotion 
 to His cause. In all probability some of you will die before 
 my return ; see to it, that I meet you with joy at the right 
 hand of God. That will compensate for all our trials on 
 earth. 
 
 "Daily do I think about you, daily do I pray for you. 
 My happiness is bound up in your welfare. The knowledge 
 that I am serving you in England makes me regret the less 
 the separation I am constrained to endure ; and oh, may 
 the God of all mercy grant, that when I do see you my 
 heart may be gladdened by beholding your steady attach- 
 ment to Jesus, and your daily attention to all His 
 commands ! 
 
 " ' Such is your faithful pastor's charge, 
 Whose soul desires not yours, but you ; 
 Oh ! may he there, at God's right hand, 
 Himself and all his people view.' 
 
 " Let me hear soon of your welfare. Remember me to 
 those country members who are not present when this is 
 read, and tell them to watch and pray. 
 
 5 
 
66 ~;:iiam Knibb. 
 
 "That God in His infinite mercy may bless you, and 
 bring you at length to His heavenly kingdom, that He may 
 sanctify all your trials, and heighten all your joys, is the 
 earnest prayer of 
 
 ur very affectionate pastor, 
 
 "WILLIAM KNIBB." 
 
 i other letter is preserved, dated six months later, June, 
 I, in which he tells them of the arrangement he had 
 made with Mr. Dexter, and bespeaks for him their good- 
 will. 
 
 "Mv DEAR BELOVED FRIENDS, 
 
 " Oh that I could fly on the wings of a dove and tell you 
 the feelings of my heart ; but as this cannot be, I bless God 
 that I can write to you. By this time I suppose my beloved 
 cousin, Rev. Benjamin Dexter, is with you, breaking to you 
 the bread of life. Let me entreat you to cheer his heart by 
 your kindness, your steady attendance on his ministry, your 
 consistent conduct, your zeal for God, your fervent prayers. 
 Then he will be happy with you, and your God has done 
 much for you, and may justly claim much from you. Oh that 
 there may be in each of you a heart to show forth His praise ! 
 
 :eart is pained, pained exceedingly at the many who 
 have backslidden ; pray for them, pray for them, my dear 
 people ; speak to them, try to win them back to Jesus, so 
 shall my heart rejoice even mine. I wish I could say I had 
 succeeded in procuring the money, but I do hope at length 
 to be able to say it I hope to be able to tell you . . 
 that God has blessed my efforts and restored my health. 
 You know there is a debt of ^200 on the chapel (the one 
 burnt down), I trust that you will try and raise this as soon 
 as possible, that when I come I may instantly commence a 
 new building. I hope the deacons and members will assist 
 all they can in the re-opening of the stations at Stewart town 
 
Freedom. 67 
 
 and Rio Bueno. Almost every day I am toiling for you, 
 frequently I am praying for you. Pray for me, that I may 
 be restored to you the sooner. I do wish that you would 
 hold special meetings that God will direct me. That God 
 may bless you, and that I may soon see you, and find you 
 cheerfully obeying every law made for you by the Governor, 
 is the earnest prayer of 
 
 " Your affectionate pastor, 
 
 "WILLIAM KNIBB." 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 WORKING INTO THE NEW CONDITION OF THINGS. 
 
 TWO days, rejoicing, and then danger and difficulties. 
 Mr. Knibb had been out for two or three days when 
 at one of his stations Waldensia he received a 
 letter of warning which made him hurry towards Falmouth. 
 He was met by groups of armed men who had heard that 
 he was to be hung. He persuaded them to give him their 
 weapons, which were deposited in the carriage; nothing 
 would induce them to leave him. Arriving in Falmouth it 
 seemed generally known that an attempt would be made to 
 hang him in effigy in front of the chapel. He found a 
 magistrate at his house, who assured him that he had taken 
 steps to prevent this scene coming off, and Mr. Knibb's 
 volunteer guard were satisfied to depart home peaceably. 
 There was no hanging, and no riot between his defenders 
 and the other side which, on investigation, it appeared had 
 been reckoned on by some guilty parties, who intended foul 
 play if the requisite confusion had only been brought about. 
 The affair is told to Mr. Dyer as follows : 
 
 " I know that an attempt was meditated for my murder, 
 and had it not been for the firmness of Sir Lionel Smith, 
 together with the determination of those who, though they 
 have no religion, are attached to me, I should not now have 
 been in the land of the living. 1 wish you distinctly to 
 understand that I can prove that two magistrates were at the 
 bottom of the hanging in effigy. My information is from a 
 magistrate whose veracity is unimpeached. Besides this, a 
 gentleman, who has sworn me to secrecy, has assured me that 
 another magistrate told him that he knew a sum of money 
 
Working info the New Condition oj Things. 69 
 
 had been collected to assassinate me. In speaking to a 
 magistrate only yesterday, he said : c Mr. Knibb, it is 
 nothing but their rank cowardice that has kept them from 
 destroying you.' I know that it is the hand of Him Whose 
 I am and Whom I love to serve. Fears I have none. My 
 calm conviction is that I am in the path of duty, and that I 
 cannot fall without the permission of Him Who has so often 
 been my help and my stay." 
 
 Then came the vexation of erroneous versions of the 
 affair in the papers such as that he had entered Fal mouth 
 armed, at the head of an armed mob. He pointedly says, 
 in reference to this, that he never had carried weapons at 
 all, all through the disturbed time. The evil reports reached 
 England, and, for the time, were in part believed ; and 
 admonitory letters, prompted by the Colonial Office, were 
 sent out from Fen Court. It wounded Knibb deeply that 
 the Jamaica papers had been believed as to this, and as to 
 the conduct of some of his members. 
 
 Happily for the whole island, a cool head and firm hand 
 were ruling, " The firmness of the Governor (Sir Lionel 
 Smith) alone had prevented the effusion of blood." 
 
 Not among the least convincing to others, or the least 
 gratifying to himself, of the proofs that the course he 
 pursued was entitled to the approbation of right-minded 
 men were the marks of kindness conferred upon him, in 
 common with the Baptist missionaries at large, by the 
 noble minded Governor of Jamaica at that period. 
 
 In confirmation of this remark one example is given of 
 the manner in which his Excellency was wont officially to 
 express himself. In his reply to an address from the 
 Baptist missionaries, met in their annual association in 
 January, 1839, ne said: 
 
 " I shall say but little to you in regard to the calumnies 
 of which you complain. 
 
 "Abuse is often honourable, and it has done great 
 
7o W'lliam Knibb. 
 
 service to your cause, for you may be assured it has 
 extended the knowledge of your exertions, which have 
 gained you ample honour in every other country. 
 
 (t Had it not, and as long as 1 can give satisfaction to my 
 country and my sovereign, I will gladly partake of that 
 abuse, as a gratifying proof that we are fast destroying the 
 last remnant of slavery throughout the world." 
 
 It is anticipating as to date, but this seems the best place 
 to quote a letter of Mr. Knibb's written on Sir Lionel 
 Smith's departure from the Island, October ist, 1838. 
 
 " Our good old governor sailed yesterday, and I do hope 
 that a hearty welcome awaits him at home. Richly does 
 he merit all the esteem which the friends of the oppressed 
 can show to him. His name will long be associated with 
 the liberties of Jamaica. He has promised us his likeness, 
 and we intend to have medals struck in silver, in bronze, 
 and in metal, surrounded by his memorable answer to the 
 government, in reply to the accusations of the planters that 
 he wished the females not to work: 'I preferred the dictates 
 of humanity to the policy of short-sighted planters.' I made 
 the request for this when we presented our address, and 
 he very promptly replied, ' Mr. Knibb, you shall have it.'" 
 
 To some the complete emancipation of the negro would 
 have seemed the fulfilment of his labours. To Mr. Knibb 
 it was the opening to fresh effort. 
 
 " I must establish more schools, and increase my native 
 agency ; I need, and must have, five or six more schools 
 immediately, and I have the men and the rooms all ready. 
 
 " I long to extend operations here. The abolition of 
 slavery has thrown the door wide open. The young men 
 rising up rejoice my heart. Oh that God would still bless 
 my humble efforts ! 
 
 " The complete emancipation of the inhabitants of this 
 colony has opened a glorious door for the extension of the 
 Gospel in the interior of the island, which will very soon be 
 
Working info the New Condition of Things. 7 1 
 
 peopled by those who will fly from the tyranny which will, 
 in too many instances, be practised. Most of the labourers' 
 grounds are on the borders, or in the heart, of these 
 mountains, so that they are perfectly acquainted with the 
 most advantageous spots, both as to fertility and water; 
 while roads, at least passable, are in many instances made. 
 Many have already either purchased or settled on lands, and 
 I believe that I could now, if I had the means, purchase 
 from 500 to 1,000 acres in one of the most lovely spots on 
 earth, where scarcely human foot has trod, for about 2 or 
 ^3 sterling per acre. This I would purchase at once. I 
 could soon re-sell to families in lots of from two or four 
 acres each, which would enable the worthy members of my 
 church, with others who are fearfully oppressed, to settle 
 and form a village of their own. 
 
 "Of course, much, very much, remains to be done. We 
 are only on the threshold of our work. The destruction of 
 slavery has given us an open field, which we must labour 
 to make ' as the garden of the Lord.' " 
 
 Every sentence describing one form of effort introduces 
 some other sort of work, either consequent on, or necessary 
 to, the carrying out of the first. Schools, for instance, are 
 always insisted on. One can fancy Mr. Dyer looking on 
 the Falmouth (Jamaica) post-mark and saying, " This 
 means another school." And the schools wanted school- 
 masters, and the schoolmasters themselves needed to be 
 taught. These lines have the germ in them of Calabar 
 College : 
 
 " I look upon our schools as the grand lever by which 
 we shall raise the people in intelligence, and the Gospel 
 will then produce, I hope, in richer luxuriance all its 
 precious fruits. One pleasing feature is that many of our 
 young men are learning to read, and they attend regularly 
 on the means of grace. More, I am confident, would learn 
 to read had we a better supply of effective agency ; this I 
 
72 William Knibb. 
 
 hope our day-schools will soon afford. I hope also that 
 from thence we shall have pastors for our churches, as well 
 as masters for our schools, while benighted Africa shall by 
 them hear the glad tidings of salvation. 
 
 " Two or three of my schoolmasters natives are daily 
 increasing in piety; while I have others who, I arn- con- 
 fident, under judicious training, might be made efficient 
 in the Redeemer's cause. Now, if some of the wealthy 
 disciples of Jesus would, for a year or two, take such 
 persons I mean by paying for their education, which 
 could be easily attended to here an immense blessing, at 
 a comparatively trifling expense, would be conferred on the 
 Church of Christ in Jamaica, and a native agency prepared, 
 fitted to carry out that extension of the Gospel which is so 
 much needed. Would not the Society patronise such a 
 plan ? 
 
 " My decided conviction is that the time is come for 
 this to be tried, and my soul rejoices in it, and I write to 
 you under the full impression that you will prayerfully take 
 up the mighty subject, and have the happiness of laying 
 the foundation of a permanent ministry in Jamaica. For 
 some time I think it will be necessary for ministers from 
 England to have the principal stations, as fathers to the 
 church; and oh, may God, in His infinite mercy, spare 
 those who are here, that the country stations may be thus 
 supplied under their superintendence ! But happy shall I 
 be when even that can be with propriety withdrawn." 
 
 In respect to the relations with the Society at home, Mr. 
 Knibb was bent on stirring up the native churches to 
 support their own pastors and erect their own buildings, 
 confining the assistance asked from England to extra 
 efforts. 
 
 To Mr. Dyer 
 
 " I sincerely hope and trust that most of the churches in 
 Jamaica will support their pastors ; if mine will not, I will 
 
Working into the New Condition of Things. 73 
 
 not remain with them. I hope that next year I shall be 
 completely out of debt, and that ^100 sterling will be all 
 that I shall require during the year to meet every expense. 
 If I can do without this, you may depend upon it I will, 
 
 " I have now fourteen paid agents of the mission to 
 support, besides myself and family ; but the church is able 
 to do it, and I am determined that, if possible, they shall 
 do it. I must enlarge Waldensia immediately, but I do not 
 want any assistance, though I know you would give it if I 
 did, were it in your power. I merely wish to say for once 
 that the chapels and other mission property have cost 
 ^9,000 sterling, that it is all paid, and that the chapels are 
 all vested in the hands of trustees, and recorded in the 
 Public Office in this island. I mention this lest any should 
 suppose that the property is mine, a reflection which I 
 should deeply feel."* 
 
 The natural healthy desire of the converted Africans in 
 Jamaica was to take or send the Gospel to their Fatherland,, 
 of which more anon. 
 
 Socially the labour question was the leading one. For 
 a few days after the ist August, the negroes hung about, 
 hardly knowing how to settle down, or on what terms. 
 Then they had to come to some arrangement with the 
 planters, who tried, many of them combining, to starve down 
 the amount of wages to 6d. a day, with hut and allotment 
 ground. 
 
 But negroes can count as well as dock-labourers and 
 British miners. They had two points to start from : the 
 money which had been paid from master to master when 
 one hired out his slaves to another, and the prices charged 
 to those who had wished to purchase themselves free at the 
 beginning of the apprenticeship. 
 
 *Hinton's Memoir of William Knibb, p. 274. 
 
74 William Knibb. 
 
 Mr. E. D. Baynes writes to Lord Sligo : " Mr. Lord, of 
 Bowerwood, will not take less than is. 5d. per day Mr. 
 Borrows less than 25. a day for common labour. I find an 
 instance in the Parliamentary papers, in which a labourer 
 who had four years of his apprenticeship to purchase, was 
 appraised at the enormous sum of ^166. which was two 
 shillings per day for every working-day comprehended in 
 the period. Thus the value of labour was fixed by the 
 planters themselves." Grant that this was an exceptional 
 negro of high value, still there is a vast difference between 
 two shillings a day and sixpence. " The people cannot live," 
 said Mr, Knibb, " on sixpence a day. This system will reduce 
 the whole labouring population to pauperism. They shall 
 not accept of it." Mr. Knibb's plan was soon formed, and in 
 course of execution. It was a counter-combination of the 
 apprentices, a universal and pledged determination n A to 
 take less than so much ; the sum he proposed was one 
 shilling per day, with houses and provision grounds. A 
 great outcry was made against " King Knibb, the monster," 
 for interfering with the wages question, but in truth he was 
 no enemy to the planters, and helped them wherever he 
 could in making a fair bargain. 
 
 The proprietor of Oxford Estate, in defiance of the 
 sixpenny plot, offered one shilling sterling per day, and 
 requested Knibb to use his influence with the labourers to 
 accept of it. Knibb went to the estate, and had the 
 happiness of effecting the first agreement to labour made 
 after emancipation ; and when someone went among the 
 negroes in order to make them dissatisfied, by telling them 
 that their minister had made a bad bargain for them, he 
 went over again and said, "You have made the bargain, 
 and if you do not keep it I will never help you make 
 another." 
 
 There were some proprietors who would not employ free 
 negroes and evicted them, pulling down their huts j and 
 
Working info the New Condition of Things. 75 
 
 some masters for whom no free man would work. Jane 
 Reid's husband, for instance, who had seen his wife put on 
 the treadmill for not being strong enough for the day's task, 
 and beaten by two men at once, could he have done a 
 willing stroke of work for the master who ordered it, or 
 taken his wage? Could he ever have respected himself, 
 or could anyone else have respected him if he had ? 
 
 For these people other work was to be found, and 
 unoccupied spaces of land were bought, divided into 
 allotments, and sold to the negroes, already accustomed to 
 earn something by their provision grounds. Mr, Phillippo 
 started the first of these villages, calling it Sligoville, after 
 their good governor. Mr. Knibb bought and re-sold to the 
 people three other sites. 
 
 How did the people while slaves get so much money ? 
 It seems that rations of bare necessaries were served out to 
 them, but, in addition, they had each an allowance of 
 ground. From this came all their comforts. They raised 
 vegetables and poultry for themselves, and sold what they 
 had to spare. It was common with those who were con- 
 verted to set apart a fruit tree, or the eggs from one- 
 particular hen, for the cause of the Lord. 
 
 The Jamaica papers were full of evil reports as to both 
 missionaries and negroes. Their vituperation was let 
 alone, but from time to time they made statements 
 concerning individuals which had to be sifted and 
 disproved. It is no use at this distance of time repeating 
 these cases. The one of most importance as to the people 
 engaged on the trial was the case of an English paper, the 
 John Bull, which reprinted an article from a Jamaica 
 paper. It came before Lord Denman the Attorney-General 
 (Campbell) and Sir William Follett, with other lawyers, 
 pleading for their respective clients, and some of the leading 
 London merchants on the jury. 
 
7 6 William Knibb. 
 
 * " The trial took place at the Guildhall before a set of 
 London merchants, among whom were no less than three 
 West India merchants. I almost despaired of anything 
 more than nominal damages when I found the jury thus 
 constituted, all evidence of the falsehood of the libel 
 excluded, the tame address of Campbell, and the extremely 
 artful and powerful address of Follett. Nothing but the 
 honesty of Lord Denman and the high character of London 
 merchants (for there were some of the leading merchants on 
 that jury) saved the case. The court was crammed, and 
 the feeling was too strong to be got rid of by nominal 
 damages ; but there was an hour's fight for it between the 
 summing-up and the verdict. 
 
 " The result of such a verdict in such a court, between a 
 persecuted missionary and the recognised organ of the 
 planters abroad and the high church party at home, was 
 highly beneficial to Mr. Knibb in the scene of his labours. 
 He was deeply grateful for it, and I believe to the day of 
 his death felt his obligation for the trouble, expense, and 
 anxiety with which I pursued, and ultimately achieved, his 
 vindication." 
 
 These social questions were enough to fill the hands 
 of a very energetic man. Mr. Knibb might have added, 
 " Besides that which cometh on me daily," the superintend- 
 ence of "three stations with a population of 16,000 persons, 
 four male and four female teachers, seventy people con- 
 ducting prayer-meetings in seventy different estates, thirty 
 deacons, and twenty Sabbath-school teachers." 
 
 * Statement of Henry Wait Hall, of Bristol, who undertook to carry 
 the case through. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 VISIT TO ENGLAND, 1840. 
 
 AT the beginning of the year 1840 it became desirable, 
 for several reasons, that the Jamaica Mission should 
 have a spokesman in England. His fellow mission- 
 aries deputed Mr. Knibb as their representative at the 
 approaching Anti-slavery Convention. There were other 
 matters of importance more missionaries were greatly 
 desired; so were the means of training native ministers 
 and schoolmasters on the spot. Besides, the African negro 
 churches in Jamaica, undertaking the support of their own 
 pastors, earnestly hoped that the London Committee would 
 organise a mission to their fatherland, and they wanted this 
 claim enforced. 
 
 And then there were the evil reports. There was a 
 planter-party in England, as well as in Jamaica. There 
 were, too, irreligious people always ready to believe 
 anything against a convert; and, besides all this much 
 of which they could have afforded to disregard were the 
 doubts of really good people as to whether the mission 
 was being wisely carried on, and whose fears were fanned 
 by the representations of two Jamaica ministers of other 
 denominations, who disapproved the methods of the 
 Baptist missionaries. This last circumstance grieved Mr. 
 Knibb deeply, for he had worked hard with one of them, 
 trying to keep the people quiet in the disturbed New Year 
 of 1832; and the other had been on "such brotherly 
 terms with him." He conquered them both, as a Christian 
 should, by a personal interview, going over the matter as 
 reasonably as possible. The result he tells to Mr. Dyer 
 
78 William Knibb. 
 
 It is highly characteristic of the generous nature of the 
 writer : 
 
 " It will afford you pleasure," says Mr. Knibb, " to learn 
 that I have had an interview with Mr. Blyth ; that we have 
 agreed to forgive and forget all past differences, and to 
 act as brethren in future. We knelt at the throne of mercy, 
 and prayed, each of us, with and for each other. I go 
 this week to assist in his church in the formation of a 
 branch Bible society. May the Lord bless the union to 
 the advancement of His glory ! " 
 
 And with regard to the second : " Immediately on the 
 receipt of yours I copied the extract referring to Mr. Vine, 
 and sent it by express to Arcadia, together with a note 
 expressive of my regret at the circumstances to which it 
 referred. To it I received a kind reply, and subsequently 
 I had an interview with Mr. Vine, whom I highly esteem, 
 when he left the impression upon my mind that nothing was 
 further from his intention than to cast a slur upon the 
 whole of our churches ; that his remarks were intended to 
 be confined to Arcadia; and that not knowing members of 
 our churches he could not thus have designated the 
 whole." 
 
 The two brethren themselves were conquered for the 
 time, but the reports had given an uneasy feeling to the 
 churches in England ; not the animosity of an enemy, but 
 the ultra conscientiousness of a friend a friend who believes 
 you mean right, but are not working in just the right way. 
 
 In those days it was supposed that a Baptist church in 
 Jamaica should be exactly like a Baptist church in England. 
 Perhaps they read about being "very jealous for the Lord 
 of Hosts " oftener than they read "diversities of gifts, but 
 the same spirit," and feared the West Indian stations were 
 going astray. The good people at home wanted to know if 
 communion tickets were not an evil. They were not in 
 use at home then as they are now ; it was contrary to our 
 
Visit to England, 1840. 79 
 
 customs. The enemy went much further, declaring that they 
 were purchased by those who would, without regard to 
 character ; others that they were held in superstitious awe as 
 charms.* 
 
 Other doubts formulated themselves into questions such 
 as these : Did not the very largeness of the churches show 
 that sufficient care was riot taken. in admitting the members? 
 Then, is it not making Methodists of them to have classes, 
 and class-leaders ? Were not the leaders often unfit persons, 
 ignorant, and loving rule and authority ? 
 
 This system of classes had been formed to meet the 
 circumstance that the Christian negroes were scattered 
 over many estates, and that it was desirable to have some- 
 one on each estate who could look a little after the rest. 
 Mr. Knibb speaks of seventy prayer-meetings on seventy 
 different estates. These leaders were ignorant, which at 
 that time they could not help. Whoever has been under 
 the tender mercies of the darkey porter of an American 
 hotel will surmise that they could be authoritative ; but 
 they were chosen as true-hearted men, and dismissed if it 
 was found they were exerting their influence wrongly. 
 Then, were not the missionaries luxurious ? They kept 
 horses, while the village pastor in England went afoot ; 
 they ate turtle, while he ate bread and cheese. f 
 
 "In Jamaica," reported Dr. Angus at Exeter Hall, after 
 
 * Hintorfs Memoirs of William Knibb, 207. "Respecting the 
 value the negroes place upon the tickets, I have asked Mandingo, 
 Guinea, Eboe, and Creole slaves ; I have also sent the most intelligent 
 of the members to inquire on the remote estates, and I have not jet 
 discovered one instance where any superstitious regard is paid to them. 
 Indeed, the slaves consider themselves insulted when you ask them 
 the question. ' Do you think we are such fools as this ? ' they reply." 
 
 f Some years after the writer asked Mr. Knibb's daughter married , 
 and in the thick of housekeeping what was the price of turtle ? The 
 answer was, " 6d. the pound, the same as other meat." 
 
8o William Knibb. 
 
 being in the West Indies, " turtle is the economy, and bread 
 and cheese the expense," the natural products being cheap 
 there, while imported over here they are a great luxury at a 
 high price. 
 
 Without the horses it was explained the out-stations must 
 be left to themselves, and the little knots of people already 
 spoken of, to the ignorance of the native class-leader. Mr. 
 Phillippo could minister at Kingston, Mr. Burchell at 
 Montego Bay ; but to look after stations and schools eight , 
 ten, eleven miles off could only be done by constant 
 travelling, in a tropical climate, and where there were no 
 public conveyances. Hence the horse, the alternative being 
 another white missionary at every station. 
 
 Again, the number of church members was a stumbling- 
 block. People read happy accounts of large churches they 
 did not see, and therefore did not realise the number of 
 careless godless people in the district, or calculate the large 
 spaces from which the one church was drawn. The 
 missionary on the spot could contrast his 2,000 members, 
 attendants and school children, with the 20,000 living 
 without God in the world, and feel the work was only 
 beginning. And this again enforced the cry for more men. 
 Geographically, all these large churches might well have 
 been divided into two or three, each with its own pastor, 
 But where were the men ? 
 
 So with all these questions to answer as best he might, 
 Mr. Knibb set forward on his voyage to England. He had 
 his own two daughters with him, his cousin, Mrs. Dendy, 
 and her son, with two black members of his church in his 
 charge as well. The sea voyage in a sailing ship is a 
 change of subject, and details are ventured on : 
 
Visit to England, 1840. 81 
 
 To his wife, 
 
 "Ax SEA, OFF THE ISLAND OF CUBA. 
 
 " 3 ist March, 1 840. 
 
 " MY DEAR MARY, 
 
 " When I shall finish this depends much upon the 
 weather. Hitherto we have been placed in such trying 
 circumstances that I knew not that I should ever write to 
 you again ; but we have had to sing of mercy as well as of 
 judgment, and a kind and powerful Father has appeared for 
 our succour. You will have learned by my last from 
 Kingston that we were obliged to return to Port Royal, the 
 vessel having sprung a leak. We again set sail on the 
 Friday following, and all appeared ready for a prosperous 
 voyage. 
 
 " On Saturday morning the alarming sound, ' Breakers 
 ahead ! ' was heard, and as the sun had not shone for two 
 days, and a strong current was running, we knew not 
 exactly where we were. However, these we weathered in 
 safety, and all appeared right ; but the same evening, when 
 I was looking for a psalm to read, and the dear children 
 were preparing for bed, the vessel struck upon a reef, going 
 full seven miles an hour at the time. 
 
 " Oh, it was a serious time ! I had all the children 
 dressed, commended them to God, and went on deck to 
 see what could be done. There lay the vessel on a bed of 
 hard sand, surrounded by rocks, on which the waves dashed 
 and foamed. 
 
 " During the night she pitched heavily, and I feared she 
 would go to pieces. But God was there. The wind lulled, 
 and our opinion soon was, that she would lie till morning. 
 The dear girls expressed a humble hope in the blood of 
 Jesus, and soon fell fast asleep. Dear little William 
 (Dendy) said with great simplicity, 'Not my will, but Thine 
 be done,' and then he, too, fell fast asleep. I sat up with 
 Mrs. Dendy all night, or nearly so, and I think we both felt 
 
 6 
 
82 William Knibb. 
 
 the value of an interest in Christ, and a good hope through 
 grace of eternal life. 
 
 " Towards morning the ship rolled heavily, and we longed 
 for the break of day that we might attempt something for 
 our rescue, having secured a change of linen, should we 
 be obliged to leave by the boats. The captain sent out a 
 small anchor, to see if the vessel would wear off, but the 
 ground was so bad that it would not hold. 
 
 " The only hope left was in throwing the cargo overboard, 
 and all hands at once commenced. I think I never 
 worked harder in my life.* About half-past four, Sabbath 
 evening, our efforts were crowned with success ; she floated, 
 a breeze sprung up in the right quarter just at the same 
 moment, and in a few minutes the vessel was in deep 
 water. 
 
 " Though we had been on the bank for twenty-two hours 
 she had not sprung a leak. We had to throw over about 
 five thousand pounds' worth of coffee and preserves, and 
 other materials of which the cargo was composed. We had 
 not got off more than three hours when the wind shifted 
 and blew half a gale, so that had we not succeeded when we 
 did, as far as human supposition can go, we must have been 
 a complete wreck. Thus again has life been preserved, and 
 I hope it will be for the glory of God. 
 
 " A very kind kiss to the little Africans (two children that 
 he had taken out of a slave ship), a kind message to 
 Charlotte and Nellie, tell them to walk in the fear of God, 
 and then happiness is assured. Let George know that I 
 am interested in his welfare, and I hope that he will train 
 up his children in the nurture and admonition of the 
 Lord." 
 
 (There is a note in Mrs. Knibb's handwriting, written 
 across the letter to explain that Charlotte and Nellie were 
 their servants. Nellie was an old African who had been 
 
 * " Either prayed harder or worked harder," he writes to a cousin. 
 
Visit to England, 1840. 83 
 
 with Mr. Mann, and lived with the Knibbs to a good old 
 age. George, too, had lived with Mr. Mann and grown up 
 in the family, and was, at the date of this letter, a class- 
 leader, and very useful in the church.) 
 
 " May 2nd. We are still on board the vessel, with a foul 
 wind. It is rather a gloomy aspect : our food is nearly all 
 consumed, the children's clothes are nearly all torn or 
 dirty, and patience has not yet her perfect work. At our 
 family prayer-meeting the children have read with myself 
 and Mrs. Dendy, and we have thus gone through the 
 Psalms. The children have very generally repeated a hymn 
 and a verse of Scripture, which I hope they will remember 
 when they are separated from both of us." 
 
 To the same. 
 
 " Liverpool, May zoth. I left the ship, in company 
 with Mrs. Dendy and the children, at Holyhead, about 
 sixty miles from Liverpool. It was calm, and yet with 
 every prospect of a foul wind, and our provisions 
 were nearly exhausted. We found out Mr. Morgan, the 
 Baptist minister, and were soon comfortably housed at an 
 inn kept by a Wesleyan sister. It would have delighted 
 your heart to see how the children made the bread-and- 
 butter disappear. It really did my heart good to see them 
 so happy. And then, how the folks did stare, and the 
 children jabber ! Surely Babel was not more confounded 
 than we were. Nobody spoke English except the dogs. 
 We went round the town to see the churchyard, the 
 meeting-house ; then to the abode of an aged female 
 disciple ninety years has been her pilgrimage. Her 
 cottage was the picture of humble neatness. Let me 
 see there sat the fine tortoise-shell cat close to the fire, 
 which quietly consumed itself for our benefit. The 
 two old arm-chairs would have spoken if they could, 
 and told of the wonders of the last century. The 
 best set of fire-irons, polished like a mirror, were 
 
84 William Knibb. 
 
 posted on a small wainscot, which separated a small 
 room used by the rev. divine as a study, in which were 
 a chair, a table, and a candlestick, with portraits from 
 the Baptist Magazine of some of the worthies. Then the 
 bright copper warming-pan, the smoke-jack laid up in 
 ordinary, and all the implements of enlarged cookery, 
 arranged with the precision of a toy-shop, and as clean as 
 labour could make them, gave the extended mantelpiece a 
 most inviting appearance. The other parts of the room 
 were in perfect harmony ; indeed, a crockery shop could not 
 have displayed more taste. It was necessary that everything 
 should be in its place, for there was no room for it any- 
 where else. Well, there we are seated cannot you see us ? 
 The good old body stirring up the fire, and shutting out 
 every breath of air. She talks of the poor slaves, rejoices 
 that they are now free, when all of a sudden out comes a 
 volume of real Welsh. Oh, that you had been there to 
 interpret it, and to assist in drinking, in a glass of the days 
 of George I., some of her choicest raspberry cordial, which 
 I suppose was kept for special visitors ! She was a lovely 
 Christian, and assured us with simplicity that she never went 
 to bed without praying for the missionaries. The next 
 morning we started at five, and all nature was dressed in 
 loveliness ; the mounting lark (which sang in English) 
 sweetly warbled the praises of its Maker ; the blossom of the 
 may-bush sent forth its fragrance ; the corn sprang up in its 
 freshness, and the shrubs and the trees were clothed with 
 leaves, while the blossom of the apple and other fruit trees 
 assured us that there was not only beauty but plenty in 
 store for man. We sang mother's favourite hymn, as Kate 
 calls it, ' Guide me, O thou great Jehovah ' ; and after a 
 pleasant ride of twenty-three miles we came to the Menai 
 bridge, the most wonderful structure I ever beheld. There 
 we took a steamer, which in six hours safely brought us to 
 Liverpool." 
 
Visit to England, 1840. 85 
 
 Mr. 'Morgan, the Baptist Minister of Holyhead, reported 
 that Mr. Knibb seemed to have no great taste for ecclesi- 
 astical antiquities, as he failed to take much notice of the 
 Parish Church, thirteen centuries o)d. An attempt to get 
 into fellowship with the aged Welsh sister by trying to sing 
 the Old Hundredth together he in English, she in Welsh 
 likewise failed ; never mind, it was a wonderfully happy 
 morning. The brightness deepened into thankfulness, 
 when some days afterwards, May loth, the ship they had 
 left dragged herself into Liverpool harbour, having en- 
 countered a severe gale, lost part of her bowsprit, and with 
 only a few biscuits and a little salt pork left in the way of 
 provisions. 
 
 He and his party were warmly received at Liverpool. 
 
 His feelings as to his appointed work during this visit to 
 England find expression in a letter to Mr. Dendy, dated 
 May 2nd. 
 
 "Of course, I am all in the dark respecting my future 
 movements, and I hourly feel that I need much prayer to 
 keep me from disputing God's will, or murmuring at His 
 dispensations. Oh, that He may sanctify me thoroughly, 
 and in some humble measure fit me for the awfully import- 
 ant mission on which I am sent ! That mission rises daily 
 in importance in my mind, and I hope that all my beloved 
 brethren will bring it frequently before the churches over 
 which they preside, and be earnest at the throne of grace for 
 the promised blessing." 
 
 Mr. Knibb had been eagerly expected for the annual 
 meeting of the Society, for which the contrary winds had 
 made him too late. He had, however, so much that was 
 important and interesting to tell, that an extra meeting 
 was convened at Exeter Hall to welcome him and hear his 
 statements. 
 
 He took one point after another. 
 
 The export of sugar was less ? True, but then more was 
 
86 William Knibb. 
 
 used in the Colony, and other things, which had been kept 
 out for the sake of the sugar crops, were now being cul- 
 tivated for the use of the inhabitants. 
 
 " The negroes were idle." On this point he says : " I 
 delight in being able to read the testimony of an esteemed 
 brother with whom I was once at variance on the subject 
 of emancipation, the Rev. George Blyth, on this point. 
 He says, ' Instead of accusing the labourers of indolence 
 I am rather disposed to blame them for being too anxious 
 to make money. I do not know a healthy person in the 
 congregation who can justly be called idle.' There are 
 many circumstances contributing to the diminution of 
 colonial produce. If the planters choose to risk their 
 property in the hands of idle men, I ask that you should 
 blame the right persons. I should like to know if any 
 farmer in England could go to a dance, to the opera, 
 employ one person at ^500 per year, another at ,300, 
 and others at ^70, to attend to his grounds, and then 
 expect more than 100 per cent.? There is no soil in the 
 world can do it, and Jamaica cannot do it. 
 
 " We have determined to prevent pauperism if we can. 
 Among the lately emancipated negroes there is not a 
 pauper in connection with our churches in Jamaica, and I 
 have no doubt the same may be said of the churches of my 
 esteemed brethren of other denominations. In the parish 
 in which I reside, it was asserted at the last vestry meeting 
 that since the abolition of slavery the poor rates had been 
 doubled, I knew the inference that was intended to be 
 drawn from this. I went to a vestryman, to whom I said, 
 ' You have told us part of the truth, now tell me the whole. 
 How many blacks who were once slaves are there among the 
 paupers ? ' What was the reply ! ' Oh, not one.' 
 
 " The improvement of society is to be seen in the diminu- 
 tion of crime. In my own parish, containing 30,000 
 individuals, only one person was tried at the last assizes. 
 
Visit to England, 1840. 87 
 
 Mr. J. J. Gurney visited the gaol, and found one person in 
 it a white man. In the parish of St. Ann's the gaol has 
 been shut up for six months. 
 
 "The women are kept at home whenever the men can 
 afford it. We have 5,203 children in the day-schools ; 645 
 in the evening-schools ; 9,159 in the Sabbath-schools, and 
 other denominations are as successful as ourselves." 
 
 Part of the speech was on the question of missions to 
 Africa, in advocating which Mr. Knibb said he had come 
 in the name of 50,000 Baptists who want their fatherland 
 to receive the Gospel. " I met some of the Africans of the 
 churches of Kingston before I left. One of them said, ' I 
 will go as your shoeblack if you will take me.' 'When 
 will you be ready to go?' 'To-morrow,' was the reply. 
 I said to them, ' Perhaps you would be made slaves again 
 if you were to go.' What was their answer ? ' We have 
 been made slaves for men, we can be made slaves for 
 Christ ; these are the men that ought to go.' " 
 
 Before launching into his long speech he had introduced 
 his two negro fellow travellers, Barrett and Beckford. It 
 was Beckford's province to go steadily to a normal school 
 and qualify as teacher. Barrett, a much older man, went 
 about a good deal with Mr. Knibb. He had a touching 
 story. Some years before he had, while a slave, rendered 
 some public service, for which the House of Assembly gave 
 him his freedom. He thanked them, but said he was 
 growing an old man and had not many years to enjoy it, 
 would they confer the freedom on his son. They did so, 
 and the generous old father remained a slave till the 
 abolition set every one free.* 
 
 Mr. Knibb had something else with him which sent a 
 thrill through his audience, the spiked collar and manacles 
 which, if memory serves right, one of these men had worn. 
 
 *This is from memory, the vivid memory of early impressions 
 thoroughly believed to be correct. 
 
88 William Knibb. 
 
 Having shown them, he threw them down on the floor of 
 the hall, amid such a burst of excitement as made one 
 young auditor at least thoroughly frightened, thinking the 
 building would give way. 
 
 After the public meeting came the business meeting with 
 the committee, when he entered with them into the two 
 objects on his heart : the appointment of additional 
 missionaries to Jamaica, and the commencement of a 
 mission to Western Africa. Both points he carried as to in- 
 tention, promising to go himself about the country as soon as 
 freed from the Anti-Slavery Convention, which he had come 
 over to attend, and stir up the churches for the right men 
 and the means, while the theory of the African mission had 
 to be shaped into practical working order. The first step 
 was to send out two pioneers, Rev. John Clarke and Dr. 
 Prince, who reached Fernando Po, January ist, 1841. 
 
 The fact that he was away from his wife gives us 
 the advantage of his numerous letters, written to her 
 very much in scraps of time and carried from 
 one place to another till the sheet got full. The 
 following is selected because it is in fact, though not 
 in form, the journal of a week, and, with the excep- 
 tion of the Anti-Slavery Convention (to sit the next 
 week), all his interests seem mentioned wife, children, 
 station, false reports, additional missionaries, money (not 
 copied), Africa, Committee of the House of Commons, 
 travellings often, weary waiting for the information he 
 wanted for the Colonial Office all compressed into one 
 closely written quarto sheet : 
 
 " IPSWICH, 
 
 "July $M, 1840. 
 
 "Mv BELOVED MARY, 
 
 "I am anxiously awaiting the arrival of the packet, 
 which I hope will convey tidings of your welfare. My 
 heart so yearns over the church and station that I can 
 
Visit to England, 1840. 
 
 scarcely get on at times with the important duties I have to 
 perform. To-day I have to preach three times in this 
 place, but I seize a few spare moments to hold converse 
 with you, whom distance makes doubly dear to my heart. 
 Oh, that I could tell you all I do feel on this subject, but 
 it is needless ; soon I hope to be able, not with pen and 
 ink, but in sweet intercourse, to hold fellowship with 
 you. Since I last wrote I have been incessantly travelling 
 and holding meetings on behalf of Africa, and in every 
 place the Lord has given me favour, so that a deep 
 interest is excited on behalf of degraded Ethiopians. 
 Three missionaries* are already accepted for Jamaica, and 
 two others will be in a short time. I cannot do any more 
 in female education till I hear from Jamaica. Many more 
 offers (such as are good) have already been made than can 
 be accepted." 
 
 Details follow about one pair of these new missionaries to 
 be sent off quickly, and received, if she thinks fit, by Mrs. 
 Knibb The sheet is taken up again next day " I sent 
 out to Br. Dendy by last mail a copy of a letter I had 
 received from the Colonial Office respecting the laws of 
 Jamaica. I have since heard that they will not be allowed 
 unless much altered. I do hope we shall at length succeed, 
 though the tide is evidently very much against us. 
 
 " Tell Mr. Dendy that I think petitions sent home from 
 the peasantry would do good. I fight on as best I can. 
 
 "The subject of native agency is much canvassed now by 
 all denominations, and will be attended to by all. I hope, 
 therefore, our litle academy will not go to the ground, and 
 that the scheme of female education will meet the attention 
 it deserves. 
 
 "I go this morning to breakfast with the venerable 
 
 * Some of the ten that he had pleaded for earnestly with the 
 Committee, and for whose expenses he was collecting, as well as for the 
 proposed African Mission. 
 
90 William Knibb. 
 
 Clarkson, after which I proceed to a public meeting at Diss, 
 and another at Bury. I shall be sincerely thankful when 
 the time comes for my return. I do not wish at all to be 
 repining, as I humbly hope God is making some use of me 
 to promote the Kingdom of His Son. Oh, how happy 
 should we be could we always live near to Him and devoted 
 to His blessed cause ! " 
 
 " London, Friday. I came up from Ipswich to appear 
 before a Committee of the House of Commons. 
 
 " I am exceedingly anxious that the Jamaica mail should 
 arrive, as the false reports of the meeting at Falmouth 
 are doing harm. ... I am doing the best I can for 
 the people, but it is wearying up here " [waiting for the 
 desired information]. 
 
 More details about the sailing of Mr. and Mrs. 
 Henderson, about the children, and movements to and fro. 
 
 " Norwich, Sabbath morning. ' Hail, blessed day ! ' 
 Oh, that it may indeed be blessed to our souls and 
 those of the Church ! Tell the deacons a very kind 
 'howdee,'and tell the leaders to give my love to all the 
 people, and to beg them to pray much for me and for one 
 another. The claims of Africa wake the deepest interest." 
 
 A later letter, i4th August, reports: "Travelling all 
 night, and the West Indian mail leaving this evening. 
 Not a line to Jamaica written, and many things to write 
 about," besides the pleasure of writing to his wife. He 
 finds time for a sentence about Bristol next to Kettering, 
 the place of his early affections : " It is very much altered, 
 especially the Kingsdown and the places most familiar to 
 us houses, and new street close by the house where you 
 used to live. I did feel a sacred joy in thinking of bygone 
 days in the few minutes I had to spare for visiting that 
 part. I have seen Miss Spurrier," &c. 
 
 The letter closes with messages, the remembrances he 
 always made time for : " Give my love to the dear children 
 
Visit to England, 1840. 91 
 
 to the people. Tell them to pray for me, and to live 
 near to God. To George : I am glad he is so attentive 
 to the Africans may they be the Lord's; to old Nelly 
 and Charlotte ; to the deacons ; yea, to all, for my soul 
 yearns for their salvation." 
 
 A few weeks later, October 4th, he can write, " Well, 
 now for the news, I have taken my passage in the Reserve, 
 and expect she will sail at latest by the 5th of November. 
 I write thus early that our friends may remember us in 
 their supplications." 
 
 The later letters, among lists of places where he had 
 been or had still to go, have in them three pleasures that 
 came to him. Mr. Clarke, " dear Clarke," and Dr. Prince 
 really started for the West Coast of Africa, so the much- 
 longed-for African Mission might be reckoned as begun ; 
 he had had an interview with Joseph John Gurney, of 
 Norwich, " whose ' Letters on the West Indies ' are just 
 printed, and will do immense good ; " and the last and 
 nearest to his heart, a letter from his own Catherine. 
 " Dear father, when do you think I may be baptized, for 
 I long to be a partaker of the Lord's Supper. I thought 
 how it would rejoice your heart to see me a child of God. 
 Oh, that I were more like my blessed Saviour, more meek, 
 holy, and submissive to my heavenly Father's will ! My 
 thoughts followed dear Mr. Clarke, and I hope he will 
 succeed in his mission. My fervent prayers accompany 
 him." 
 
 So much copied the father with a hand unsteady for 
 very joy, for the mother's heart to share in the purest 
 parental joy that Christian parents know. Our children 
 are not quite ours till they are God's children, too. 
 
 Mr. Knibb summarized his work during his visit thus 
 " When I look at the results of my mission in England, 
 I am both thankful and humble. Oh, what a condescend- 
 ing Being must God be to employ such an instrument in 
 
92 William Knibb. 
 
 His service ! I have been in England scarcely five months' 
 and now there is every reason to expect that the laws in 
 Jamaica will be altered ; the African mission has been 
 commenced ; eight missionaries have been accepted by the 
 Society out of the ten for Jamaica ; within a few pounds 
 the money has been raised for their passage and outfit ; 
 and I have every prospect, if health is continued by the 
 blessing of God, of raising the remaining sum required, and 
 of finding the men by the time I have engaged to leave. 
 Oh, this is a mercy, and God shall have all the glory ! 
 How 1 desire that a successful blow may be aimed against 
 American slavery, and that it may fall, all bloody as it is, 
 before the cross of the Redeemer." 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 ENGLAND, 1842. 
 
 SOME delay, owing to damage done in rough weather 
 while the Reserve was still in the Thames, put the 
 voyage off to November i6th, when Mr. Knibb sailed with 
 some of the new missionaries he had entreated for, and some 
 ladies who were to take up the cause of female education 
 on the island a party of fifteen in all. They landed on 
 January yth, at Rio Bueno, receiving an enthusiastic 
 welcome. Very glad was Mr. Knibb to be with his own 
 people again. A public meeting to welcome him on the 
 1 2th January was followed on the iQth of February by 
 a missionary meeting on behalf of Africa, so crowded that 
 an overflow meeting was opened in the Suffield Schoolroom. 
 After these came large Baptisms. Following one of them, 
 the churches of Falmouth, Refuge, and Waldensia united in 
 observing the Lord's Supper, when the communicants filled 
 the large chapel. 
 
 So much has been said from time to time about careless 
 admissions to the church, that it may not be out of place 
 to quote Mr. Knibb's charge to the newly baptized. 
 
 "You have now all solemnly declared to us that you 
 have felt sincere repentance towards God on account of 
 your sins, and that you have fled for refuge to the Lord 
 Jesus Christ as the only Saviour of sinners; and on this 
 profession you have this morning been baptized in His 
 name, and are now about to be received into communion 
 with the Church. Did my time and strength allow, I 
 should now offer you a few words of Christian caution and 
 entreaty; but it is not needful. You have often been 
 
94 William Knibb. 
 
 assured by my lips that without holiness not one of you 
 shall see the Lord. Let it be yours, then, most earnestly 
 to seek after holiness, to manifest the temper of Jesus 
 Christ, so that at last you may be received by Him, and 
 sit down with all the sanctified in heaven. 
 
 " It remains for me now only to give you, in the name of 
 this church, the right hand of Christian fellowship. With 
 that hand you will receive a heart that longs most intensely 
 for your salvation, and your entire conformity to the will of 
 God. In the name of this church I welcome you among 
 us, and may every blessing ever rest upon you ! " 
 
 Before the distribution of the Lord's Supper Mr. Knibb 
 had said, " I am sorry, very sorry, that those who are not 
 members must now withdraw. My dear fellow sinners, 
 there will be room enough for you in heaven. Jesus is 
 ready to receive you, and the church will welcome you." 
 
 Let us get a glimpse at what was to the negroes the 
 festival of the year, the ist of August, a day of gladness and 
 faithful remembrance of the Lord's mercy, but not now at 
 this date, 1841, of such strong excitement. The custom 
 seems to have been for the mission family to go round to 
 the different stations as far as possible, and Mrs. Knibb 
 writes to her daughters : 
 
 " KETTERING, 
 
 "August 27 th, 1841. 
 
 " You will see in the Herald an account of our August 
 meetings. They were very pleasant, as they generally have 
 been in bygone days, and much, very much, were you 
 talked of by your father and myself, and often have we 
 wished you had been going the usual round with us. 
 
 "We had one or two more places to visit this year than 
 we used to have when you were with us. At Unity the first 
 post of a new chapel was stuck in the earth (it is to be built 
 of wood), under the scorching rays of an afternoon sun ; 
 there were about 1,000 persons present. It would have 
 
England, 1842. 95 
 
 highly amused and pleased you to see how amply the poor 
 people had provided for us ; three or four fowls, boiled or 
 roasted, a pig, yam, and although we were none of us 
 hungry, we were obliged to try and eat a little, lest the 
 friends should feel disappointed, after having taken so much 
 trouble. So I sat down on the grass under the shade of a 
 .mango tree, and took the fowls in my lap, to cut up and 
 hand round to the friends of our party. From thence we 
 went on to Waldensia, where Mr. and Mrs. Cornford joined 
 us and spent with us the remainder of the week." 
 
 Then the tone of the letter changes from its easy gossip, 
 to detail a summons at midnight to go to Mrs. Cornford, 
 who was very ill. "We never could have thought that our 
 cheerful, happy friend would in less than a week be 
 numbered with the dead. We all feel it much, and you will 
 feel it, too, for she loved you both, and was often talking 
 about you. Oh, the infinite value of that hope which 
 supports the mind in a dying hour, and enables her 
 sorrowing friends to look through the gloom by which such 
 a scene is surrounded to the brightness of those pleasures 
 which our dear friend is enjoying ! " 
 
 As it throws a light on Mr. and Mrs. Knibb's character 
 not yet shown in this Memoir, part of a letter from Mr. 
 Cornford is quoted here. He says : " Not a sacrifice has 
 seemed too great for them (Mr. and Mrs. Knibb) to make. 
 They came to us at midnight, when first they heard of our 
 woe. They tried every means to supply our wants. They 
 closed the eyes of my dying wife ; they took me from the 
 awful scene to their own home, where I have since been 
 cared for as an only child. I am supplied with all that 
 affection could suggest or heart desire." 
 
 About this date there arose another battle to be 
 fought for philanthropic ends. This time it was on behalf 
 of the Irish immigrants, who had been persuaded 
 to come by those planters who wished to supersede 
 
96 William Knibb. 
 
 the negroes. These poor creatures for the most part 
 sickened, the climate did not suit them, nor the food, 
 nor work under a tropical sun. Mr. Knibb comforted 
 some, buried a good many, and, as he had done in bad 
 cases among the slaves, sent affidavits of special hardness 
 straight to the Governor, Sir Charles Metcalfe. Mr. Hinton 
 prints some of the letters received in answer, with money 
 assistance for the sick, and for paying the passage home 
 again. A commission was instituted. Some of the 
 evidence taken was too ugly to publish, and was suppressed. 
 Mr. Knibb gave over a copy he obtained to the Anti-Slavery 
 Society. 
 
 It was very trying to have the same dissatisfaction re- 
 appearing, with the conduct of the mission that has been 
 spoken of in pages 7 7-9, charges of too luxurious life, to be 
 met as to food by the market prices ; as to the horses and 
 carriages, by the distances to be travelled constantly 
 without any public conveyance,* and the worst and most 
 prominent suggestion, as to the purity of the churches and 
 the appointment of leaders at the out-stations, always a sore 
 question. We need not repeat many of the details ; though 
 in testimony to Mr. Knibb's own character, we must 
 remember that he waded through it all again, being deputed 
 by his fellow missionaries to represent them in England. 
 It was very distasteful to him to leave the people and the 
 work he loved. For their sakes and the brother missionaries' 
 sakes he did it. 
 
 He had requested of the accusers the names of any of 
 
 *NOTE. Mr. East says : " In former years, and at the time of 
 my leaving Jamaica, the cost of a journey from Kingston to Mount 
 Carey, near Montego Bay, and back, with your own buggy and horses, 
 including a needed rest for the night on the road, was 6. The 
 usual charge of a livery stable for the same journey, one way, was 
 ,"10 or ^12. Since the extension of the railway, the same distance 
 may be travelled in four hours and a half at a cost of five shillings 
 each way." 
 
England) 1842. 97 
 
 his own members who might be in fault. The Western 
 Association of Baptist Churches in Jamaica put forth a 
 printed list of all the deacons and office-bearers in their 
 district, and asked for specific charges against any of them, 
 could such be brought. No instance in either case was 
 brought. 
 
 Question had been made as to the accounts of the 
 Society, and for this he gave as referees Messrs. J. J. 
 Gurney, Sturge, and Candler, members of the Society of 
 Friends, who had recently visited the island. One episode 
 under this head is very interesting, and it is not a repetition 
 of detail to quote it from Mr. Knibb's speech : " It has 
 been said that the Baptist missionaries dare not publish 
 their accounts ; if they did, the Baptist Mission would be 
 ruined. Very well, I will publish mine." And forthwith 
 came the charges for chapels (built to replace those burnt 
 down in 1832), school-houses, fences, furniture, and one 
 ^"50 for taxes " the last that we have to pay, for so 
 complete is the change that has come over the spirit of 
 our dreams, that (it is with the greatest pleasure I state 
 it) the opposition has spent itself. The House of Assembly 
 has, unsolicited, passed a law relieving missionaries of 
 all denominations from every public and parochial tax 
 whatever." 
 
 "When I laid this report before the members of my 
 church of the chapels out of debt, and vested in 
 trustees and when they found that the very furniture 
 of the minister's house was theirs, not mine, they said : 
 ' Minister, have you took good care and got a home for 
 your wife ? ' ' No ; do you think I would take your money, 
 without your leave, and buy a house for Mrs. Knibb?' 
 ' If you have not got one, it is time you had. Go to 
 Kettering, and, on the land that is not yet taken up for 
 allotments, build a good house, and we will pay for it.' I 
 took them at their word, for one of them, Edward Barratt, 
 
 7 
 
98 William Knibb, 
 
 said : ' You may die, and we cannot bear the thought that 
 your wife should go home ; let her stop here.' I built 
 the house it cost ^1,000 and assigned it over to Mrs. 
 Knibb and our dear children, determined not to hold any 
 property myself. Mrs. Knibb is in it now." 
 
 He went on to say the people had built their own 
 prayer-houses, sixty of them, where in the villages class 
 meetings and prayer-meetings are held. These did not 
 enter into the accounts he had given of the sums furnished 
 and expended. 
 
 The opinion of the Society at home is thus recorded in 
 their report for the year 1842 : " In churches so large 
 and so scattered as those of Jamaica, where there are a 
 thousand members to each missionary, and nearly as many 
 inquirers, it will readily be seen, that much of the success 
 of the pastor must depend on the co-operation of the 
 members of the church. This co-operation most of our 
 brethren enjoy. The churches are generally divided 
 into districts according to their localities. These districts 
 meet weekly or oftener, for prayer and religious intercourse. 
 The more intelligent and pious of the members preside, 
 and are expected to report the state of their districts from 
 time to time to the pastor. The same plan is adopted in 
 reference to inquirers, and thus by judicial distribution 
 of labour a much larger number of persons have the 
 benefits of religious training than could possibly reach 
 them by other means. The results of these labours the 
 committee have carefully watched for several years, and 
 they are constrained to believe that they are such as 
 deserve the support and ought to awaken the gratitude 
 of their friends." 
 
 Mr. Henderson, who was one of the young missionaries 
 first selected by Mr. Knibb in his visit in 1840, went to the 
 Falmouth group of stations till Mr. Knibb's return, settling 
 at Waldensia. Of course, he was on the missionary side, 
 
England, 1842. 99 
 
 but he may be worth quoting as fresh from England and 
 quite fresh to negro workers and class-leaders. 
 
 He says, " I have no reason to suppose that the deacons 
 at Waldensia are better than those at Falmouth or at 
 Refuge, so that when I tell you that at Waldensia I find 
 in the deacons and leaders a band of devoted pious men, 
 who are willing to give anything for the cause of God, I 
 wish you to understand that I am not singular, but that 
 my brethren are surrounded with those who are quite as 
 devoted, and quite as well-informed, as those who surround 
 me, and without whom I could not do one-third of what I 
 am now able to accomplish." 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 JUBILEE OF THE MISSION. THE CHILDREN. 
 
 THE visit of Mr. Knibb to England, which is the 
 subject of the previous chapter, synchronized with the 
 Jubilee meetings of the Baptist Missionary Society. Among, 
 his own letters to Jamaica, there is only one page as to the 
 part he took in the celebration at Kettering, dated on the 
 Sunday following from Liverpool, June, 1842 : 
 
 " MY DEAR MARY, This is a day of rest, and I have 
 come hither in the hope of enjoying a quiet Sabbath. It 
 has been a most bustling week the Jubilee week at 
 Kettering, some account of which I must try to give you, 
 full details you will have in the Patriot. I took the dear 
 girls, who much enjoyed it. ... I preached twice at 
 Northampton on the Sabbath, and we had a public break- 
 fast on the Monday morning. We returned to Kettering 
 later in the day. The town presented a scene of activity 
 and joy fully in accordance with the object for which we 
 were assembled. 
 
 " I think that from 8,000 to 10,000 persons were present 
 at the different meetings. On the Wednesday evening I 
 had to give three addresses at the Baptist Chapel, at the 
 Independent, and at the tent, which held more than 4,000 
 persons, so that I was about two and a half hours speaking. 
 Public breakfast, 500 strong or more, next morning. 
 Collections, ^"1,300. I went the same day to Birmingham, 
 and on the following held a public meeting in the Town 
 Hall. Mr. James proposed a vote of confidence in my 
 brethren, and I was presented with a silver medal, which I 
 hope to show you by the ist of August." 
 
Jubilee of the Mission. The Children. 101 
 
 And then the letter goes off to other subjects. Mrs. Knibb 
 must content herself with the newspapers for all fuller 
 accounts of the Jubilee meetings till they meet and 
 talk. 
 
 Those who remember this commemoration, remember 
 how he was the special attraction ; how people would not 
 settle down in the overflow meetings without the assurance 
 that he would come and speak there, too. The writer has 
 seen a letter from an ardent young girl who was present. 
 It is deliciously fresh and enthusiastic. The exquisite 
 delight on finding that her railway ticket (numbered in those 
 days to one particular seat) took her into the very carriage 
 in which her hero was travelling, how fatherly he was, how 
 the multitude impressed her, how the interest settled on 
 him, and then how at the refreshments provided afterwards 
 he was as busy as other mortals seeing that the ladies 
 were seated, and provided with food. Is it not written for 
 the benefit of the school friend who could not go ? 
 
 Does anyone say " The words of a gushing girl ! " The 
 fathers and mothers of these enthusiastic children who 
 understood better what had been accomplished were no 
 whit behind them in eager feeling. For it was not the man 
 only that so made them rejoice. It was the victory that 
 he had won, that they had won. The slave was free all 
 over British dominions ; and in the West Indies, wherever 
 evangelization had gone, the negro had stood the over- 
 powering excitement well, and had not broken out into wild 
 lawlessness ; which is the more wonderful as all through, the 
 religious slaves were the minority, but for all that with 
 influence to leaven the majority. 
 
 But all the while Mr. Knibb's heart was set on getting 
 back. "I hope to reach Kingston by the 2yth of 
 July," he writes on the 24th of May. " I do not wish that 
 you should come any way to meet me. I write this because 
 of some joking remarks I made last time, but I had much 
 
102 William Knibb. 
 
 rather our meeting took place in our own lovely home, 
 when prayer shall ascend to the Author of all our 
 mercies. 
 
 " And now, my dear Mary, join your husband in praise. 
 Ere this reaches you I fully expect to have baptized our 
 dear Catherine. She is a lovely, but timid Christian, and 
 when she opened her heart to me it was almost too much 
 for me to bear. She dates her conversion to the grounding 
 of the vessel on the shoal at the commencement of the 
 voyage home 1840."* 
 
 A letter in June says, " Yesterday I baptized our beloved 
 Catherine and six others at Salem Chapel, Brixton, and 
 after the evening service, when I preached to a crowded 
 audience on * Occupy till I come,' I admitted them into 
 the church." 
 
 As on the voyage to England he had written constantly 
 to his wife, so on the voyage out he wrote by every oppor- 
 tunity to the daughters he had left. They were letters full 
 of observation as to natural objects, and references to the 
 history of the places where the vessel touched, advising 
 them to refer to books and maps and get up the subject 
 well. 
 
 Any modern travel-book would give the same details, 
 the point here is, that the letters show so plainly that 
 God was helping His servant, as He does many others, 
 by the sight of His mountains and trees and bright 
 rivers ; by His calm face of ocean, or " stormy wind ful- 
 filling His word." So the voyages and journeys were 
 good gifts from the Father, refreshing soul as well as 
 body for hard work and burdensome anxieties. 
 
 Among the many manuscript letters of this sort was one 
 precious letter to Ann on spiritual matters. 
 
 * Chap. VIII., p. 81. 
 
Jubilee of the Mission. The Children. 103 
 
 " ON BOARD SHIP, 
 
 " OFF MADEIRA, 
 
 "fufy 9//z, 1842, 
 
 " MY DEAR ANN, I employ a few minutes with much 
 pleasure in writing to my own dear girl about that blessed 
 Jesus whom I hope she loves, and to whom I pray her life 
 may be entirely devoted, and I hope ere long to hear that 
 you are the decided follower of the blessed Saviour. 
 Your dear sister Catherine has openly avowed that love 
 to Christ which I would fain hope you feel, and to His 
 willing arms I invite you to fly, assured that He will 
 pardon every sin, conquer every corruption, receive you 
 graciously, and love you freely. You, with your dear sister, 
 will, I expect, ere this reaches you, be thinking of returning 
 to school, after having enjoyed the holidays there new 
 duties will await you, new mercies be granted to you, 
 and you will need the aid of Jesus that you may rightly 
 perform the one, and daily improve the other. You 
 have now youth upon your side with all its manifold 
 advantages of serving God. Oh, then now, my dear 
 girl, approach His mercy and live live for God, live to 
 God on earth as the sure and certain hope, and the 
 only one through the blood of Christ of living with 
 God in heaven ! I feel happy that I shall have to tell 
 your dear mother how much gratified I was with the 
 general conduct of both my dear girls, and I hope by 
 constant perseverance you will both soon obtain that 
 knowledge which will fit you to return and live with 
 us ; but you will both have to work hard to accomplish 
 this, and I hope you will daily strive so to advance, 
 that your industry and advancement may appear unto 
 all. But more than all, as of the last importance, watch, 
 strive, and pray against sin, against all sin. Make the 
 Saviour your daily companion, His word your law, His 
 
104 William Knibb. 
 
 commands your delight ; then will happiness be your 
 portion, God your friend, and heaven your home. 
 
 "Prayer will be your daily solace and your daily joy if you 
 are truly the child of God private prayer, social prayer, 
 and public prayer, when in the house of God you meet to 
 worship His great name; and let me remind you not 
 to forget your relations, your parents, and especially the 
 perishing heathen. Cultivate, both of you, a missionary 
 spirit; so that, should it please God to return you to 
 Jamaica, you may be deeply imbued with the spirit of the 
 work in which I hope you will be through life engaged. 
 I fear I shall not be in Jamaica by the ist of August, but 
 am hoping for the first Sabbath in that month, which 
 will be peculiarly gratifying to me. We have had more 
 favourable weather ; the sun smiles, and the wind is light, 
 but fair. 
 
 " And now, my dear girls, farewell. May the God of 
 your mother be your God, and your portion for ever." 
 
 A few lines, written after he was at home again, speak 
 of their coming home to help, as he hopes, in his work : 
 " It ever gives me pleasure to hear of your welfare. . . * 
 I am looking forward ... to the period when you 
 will be able to return to Jamaica. You must work hard, 
 my own girls, so that the time may not be lengthened. 
 
 " The Jubilee Meetings have been well attended, and 
 have, I hope, done much good." 
 
 An extract from a letter recently written by a niece of 
 Mr. Knibb's will help to throw light on what sort of father 
 was waiting for his daughters to come home. This lady 
 arrived in Jamaica the last day of 1844. Her uncle died 
 November, 1845, and part of the time he was away in 
 England. So she says : 
 
 " I had not many opportunities of seeing him or knowing 
 much of him. I was fourteen when I came to Jamaica, 
 and with him I counted among the children, and he was 
 
Jubilee of the Mission. The Children. . 105 
 
 always happy amongst them. My recollections of him are 
 all happy, but they are all the recollections of childhood. 
 One that is very distinct is seeing him in the pulpit, giving 
 out, 'Stand up, and bless the Lord.' His voice was 
 singularly sweet and clear, and I never read that hymn 
 or think of it without having a vivid picture of him 
 before me." 
 
 It has not seemed a violation of confidence to write as 
 openly as this of the two dear daughters. No "secret of 
 theirs is betrayed ; it is all the tenderness of the father's 
 heart to them, and these two, as well as the others, have 
 long been with him in the "Father's house on high." 
 While speaking of his love to children, it seems best to 
 anticipate a few months, and quote from a letter written 
 to his wife in July of the following year, during her visit 
 to England : 
 
 " It is dull enough here, as there is no child, nothing 
 but the horses, dogs, and fowls, and the stately mother 
 peahen, who will, I think, rear her brood. 
 
 "The dear girls you will see. Fanny will be all alive. 
 The little cherabs in heaven will be happy in their joy, and 
 we will bless God that we have five safely landed in that 
 blessed abode. To the dear children a father's kiss and a 
 father's blessing ; to yourself all you can desire in time and 
 eternity." 
 
 After thus counting his treasures, who can wonder at the 
 next extract (July 2oth) ? " I preached last evening from 
 ' The whole family in heaven.' " It is a delightful subject. 
 In that family there are an innumerable company of children 
 that was one of the divisions. 
 
 His love of children was thus commented on by a friend 
 in England : 
 
 " He was passionately fond of children, who always 
 reciprocated his love ; and he used his influence with them 
 for their highest good. I have seen him gambol with the 
 
io6 William Knibb. 
 
 little ones on the floor, and, when he had won their hearts 
 by his sympathy with them in their childish sports, he 
 would place them on his knees, and. kissing them, he 
 would then talk to them of their Saviour's love to children, 
 till the unbidden tears trickled down their cheeks. So 
 completely did he fascinate them, that they were less 
 willing that he should cease his conversation than they 
 had been just before to finish their play. They clung to 
 him yet more closely, and, if they were less merry, they 
 were more happy. I believe that the fruits of righteous- 
 ness which are now found in many of the young in our 
 churches may be traced to some heavenly seed which, on 
 such occasions, he deposited in their hearts." 
 
 Another person remarked : " I can understand almost 
 everything Mr. Knibb does of a public nature, but I 
 have been surprised to see him enter so deeply into the 
 amusements of his own and other people's children a man 
 with such a weight of cares and so many public duties." 
 
 Mr. Knibb arrived at home on the 4th of August, and 
 found his family in health and his church in peace. 
 
 The people of the Western Union had already decided 
 on a celebration of the Missionary Jubilee in Jamaica, to 
 be held on the 5th and 6th of October. Fresh from the 
 Kettering meetings in England, Mr. Knibb threw himself 
 heartily into the preparations. It was no small undertaking 
 to form a sort of camp where 12,090 human beings and 
 2,000 horses could be kept for several days. One most 
 gratifying part of the preparation was that the planters, by 
 their managers, rendered most essential aid so had the 
 state of feeling changed in ten years. For the negroes, 
 who were unfit, as they then said, for anything but coercion, 
 and whose religion they persecuted, and for the man they 
 wished hung, they were now volunteering kindly service, 
 which Mr. Knibb acknowledged most heartily in one of 
 the meetings. 
 
Jubilee of the Mission. The Children. 107 
 
 There were three days of the meetings " a feast and a 
 good day "might be said of them in the spiritual sense 
 and everything [that could be done was done to make them 
 bright. The captain of a merchantman in the harbour 
 lent his flags ; the overseers from the neighbouring estates, 
 as before stated, did very essential service : the children 
 sang ; the platform had on it many spectators, magistrates 
 and others, to watch the proceedings and carry away their 
 impressions ; and at the end of the time the Lord's Supper 
 was partaken of by about 4,000 communicants. There 
 would have been another day of meeting if the food supplies 
 of the village had held out, but some had, perforce, to return 
 home. Mr. Knibb left the scene to go to other meetings. 
 " I seem to have about a month of it before me," he says, 
 
 And then, in less than six months, what had happened 
 before, in the midst of success and popularity, happened 
 again a very severe private sorrow. 
 
 Of four sons, only one was surviving the child whom 
 he had held as an infant in his arms on the night of the 
 Emancipation, and who was developing like the tenderly 
 loved and remembered William. 
 
 On Saturday, the i8th of March, he seemed quite well 
 in the morning; a little ailing later in the day; ill all day 
 Sunday ; Monday morning he died in his mother's arms. 
 
 They laid him in the same grave as his brothers, William 
 and Thomas. The father controlled himself to write 
 submissively, but very sadly, to his daughters in England. 
 His letter to Dr. Angus breaks down with " I would 
 write more, but I have no heart for anything; the loss 
 of my only son presses me heavily to the dust, for he was 
 a lovely boy." 
 
 No wonder that to such a man the house was "dull 
 enough, as there is no child here" ; no wonder that, in 
 his anticipation of heaven, " an innumerable company of 
 children are there" 
 
CHAPTER XL 
 
 QUEEN CONSORT AND QUEEN REGENT. 
 
 IT became evident early in 1843, that what had only 
 been talked of the year before must be accomplished 
 this year complete change and rest for Mrs. Knibb. 
 
 She started in May, on board the Hopewell, with her 
 youngest daughter. 
 
 Mr. Knibb's letters during this period of separation 
 furnish us with a better account of his usual home work 
 than has been given yet. They will not be quoted entire 
 because so full of detail, but extracts, or sometimes mere 
 tables of contents, are valuable as showing his varied and 
 incessant occupations, arid the extent to which his wife, his 
 Queen Consort and Queen Regent, fondly loved and 
 tenderly cared for, was in all his confidence sharing his 
 burdens as well as his joys, with the freedom of thought 
 and action which he gave freely, and which contributed 
 largely to her usefulness. 
 
 " The enlargement of the chapel at Waldensia has been 
 completed, and a very interesting meeting held in com- 
 memoration of the event. This week I am going, as you 
 are aware, to Coultart Grove, taking Kettering and Brown's 
 Town as preaching places in my way. 
 
 " The congregation at Falmouth was better yesterday* 
 
 * It was Mr. Knibb's principle never to suffer the church under his 
 care to become very large. He much preferred the formation of new 
 churches in suitable neighbourhoods. Acting on this plan, his church 
 at Falmouth underwent an amicable division no less than six times, 
 several hundred members being dismissed on each occasion ; and when 
 lie saw the chapel partially empty, he said cheerfully, " We must work 
 hard to fill it again." 
 
Queen Consort and Queen Regent. 109 
 
 than I have seen it for some time, and I hope that the steps 
 taken to promote a revival will have the desired effect." 
 
 " To-day has applied to be received into the theo- 
 logical institution, so that I must make arrangements for the 
 supply of his place. 
 
 " The premises at * Calabar are progressing very rapidly, 
 and I hope that by August matters will be in a fair way for 
 a thoroughly good commencement. Six candidates have 
 been accepted. 
 
 " This evening we have a special prayer-meeting on 
 behalf of the South Sea Mission, which appears in great 
 jeopardy. Well ; ' The Lord reigneth ; let the earth rejoice, 
 let the multitude of the islands be glad thereof.' 
 
 " I have my fears that this will prove a sickly year, and 
 we as a mission cannot expect altogether to escape. Well, 
 it is all in the hands of a faithful God, and He, you know, 
 my dearest girl, will do all things well. We have the most 
 abundant cause to trust Him. For twenty years He has 
 mercifully helped us, and we have the hope of a happy 
 for ever." 
 
 "At present I bear my temporary widowhood with 
 exemplary patience, though, by the bye, nobody else has 
 discovered the fact." 
 
 " I hope that you will make your mind quite easy on the 
 score of expense. What there is to be seen in London, see 
 it, and do not work too hard. I expect, if practicable, you 
 will visit in many places ; but do not fatigue yourself, and 
 be sure to use your cash on omnibuses and railways." 
 
 " We are all in the enjoyment of health and heat, and the 
 mosquitoes are regular attendants at Chapel." 
 
 The letter of July ist must remain a silent witness, the 
 affairs it speaks of are over, and the people dead ; but it just 
 
 * The Trust deed provided not only for the education of Ministers, 
 but schoolmasters. A normal school as well as a "Theological 
 Institution." 
 
no William Knibb, 
 
 shows how he made Mrs. Knibb partaker and councillor in 
 everything that was going on, the awkward things no less 
 than the smooth. It ends, " The people are already 
 inquiring whether I have heard of you. Some of them 
 designated you by the title of t Mother,' not at all an 
 inappropriate one." 
 
 "The packet is in. No letter from the girls. Quite 
 busy quite well." 
 
 July 1 2th. He discusses : Friendly societies for mutual 
 relief in sickness among the people ; the condition 
 religiously of the neighbouring islands ; paying a visit to 
 Boston, America, at the invitation of the Anti-Slavery 
 Society there ; and then turns to commissions to be executed 
 in England, and domestic matters. The good folks " tell 
 you how-dee." 
 
 July 2Oth. Mentions the sermon about the innumerable 
 company of children in heaven already quoted. 
 
 July 27th. Home affairs, the garden, especially a certain 
 bread-fruit tree, fowls and little pigs ; day-schools, Sunday- 
 schools, hoping that his daughters would take up the one at 
 
 Refuge. Then an instantaneous photograph; " is 
 
 much as usual, full of whims and of piety." 
 
 Again (the same month, day not legible). Enjoy yourself 
 as much as you can, and use all the means that are 
 desirable for the recovery of your health. As you will 
 naturally suppose, I am following you in all your tracks." 
 
 A very grateful and gratifying notice follows the resolution 
 the committee had passed to pay Mrs. Knibb's expenses, 
 though he would like to consult her before accepting it. 
 
 Mention is made of the home her favourite plants and 
 animals. 
 
 " I received an interesting letter from St. Domingo. 
 There is a chapel and a church, and a minister much 
 wanted ; leave I cannot, except some help is sent; yet the 
 call is very urgent." 
 
Queen Consort and Queen Regent. 1 1 1 
 
 " Our dear Coultart's image is almost ever present when 
 at Kettering. Fanny (with her mother in England) I miss 
 much. But it is all right." 
 
 August 4th, is taken up with the ist of August 
 anniversaries. 
 
 August 1 3th, with news of various people ; some dis- 
 couragements ; commissions ; an appeal about taxation ; an 
 opportunity of buying more land to be sold in small 
 portions to cottagers ; the new Kettering village is forming 
 nicely. 
 
 September 3rd, tells of an attack of fever. He believes 
 he shall be quite well by the time the letter has to be 
 posted. It is like some others written journal-wise, a piece 
 each day. " I should not have said anything about the 
 sickness, but your confidence would have been shaken had 
 you heard of it from others. I wish you to be as happy as 
 you can. Make yourself quite comfortable about me. I 
 am safe and happy in the hands of Jesus, nor will He leave 
 nor forsake me. 
 
 "The day this sheet begins to travel, I shall have 
 attained my fortieth year. So is my life flying away. Oh, 
 that I may have the call to work while it is called to-day 
 to be the active servant of the adored Saviour ! " 
 
 Perhaps he was too anxious to prove himself "quite 
 well " the day the mail went, and hurried into work again, 
 for on the loth he has to confess to a relapse, through 
 exposure he supposes, and in the enforced retirement 
 records his thoughts, instead of his doings and his 
 surroundings. "I feel, and long to feel it more, that 
 salvation is all of grace. Oh, what a mixture of vanity 
 and unworthiness does a review of life present ! What 
 an unspeakable mercy that the precious blood of Jesus 
 Christ cleanseth from all sin, and that none are excluded 
 from a fall participation in the benefits it confers ! I 
 think I can say that I had rather endure sickness than 
 
ii2 William Knibb. 
 
 commit sin, and that I do pant for more conformity 
 to God. I know not what hope any one can entertain 
 from anything he has done or can do. Were it not for 
 the Atonement I should sink into despair but 'it is a 
 faithful saying, and it is worthy of all acceptation, that 
 Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners.' 
 
 " I know the deep anxiety you will feel, combined with 
 the fruitless wish that you had been here, and right glad 
 should I have been had Providence so ordered it ; but 
 friends have been very kind and attentive, and I hope that, 
 long ere the packet sails, I shall be about my accustomed 
 duties. You will remember, my dear, that I have told you 
 all. I have not been at all worse than I have said, and I do 
 not at present see any reason to think that I shall be. I 
 mention this that your mind may be quite easy on this 
 matter. You have often committed me to the care of my 
 Father, and He has heard and answered your prayers." 
 
 And there is a joyous ring in the sentence towards the 
 end of the letter, that it is the last but one he shall have to 
 write. 
 
 The Calabar Institution has been mentioned several 
 times in these letters, Mr. Knibb having more to do with 
 the preparation of it than he would have had if it had not 
 been for the serious illness of Mr. Tinson, who was to 
 conduct it. 
 
 The last letter of the 1843 series is an affectionate note 
 to Mr. Tinson, on his having safely passed through a 
 serious operation, summing up with, " Now I shall enjoy a 
 happy Christmas." 
 
 He had another reason for a happy Christmas. He had 
 got his wife and daughters safe home. 
 
 These extracts have been given to convey some slight 
 idea of the variety of a West Indian missionary's duties. 
 The following from a letter to W. B. Gurney, Esq., 
 enforces this view of his life : " ... It has more 
 
Queen Consort and Queen Regent. 113 
 
 than once suggested itself to my mind that you are not 
 fully sensible of the very different position we occupy 
 from that of ministers at home. Here we are obliged 
 to be everything everything religiously, politically, civilly, 
 and (if I may coin a word) buildingly. While our brethren 
 at home have deacons who can manage the temporal 
 affairs of the church, and collect the necessary moneys, we 
 must be responsible for all, and manage all. While at 
 home there are laymen to whom the poor can go for advice, 
 and even for legal advice, here ours is the only appeal. 
 Every disagreement, domestic or civil, comes before us ; by 
 our advice they go to law, or by our advice, abstain. It is 
 just the same in political matters ; not a step will they take, 
 nor an agreement will they sign, without asking us. Often 
 have I had persons come to me for advice who have walked 
 twenty miles to ask it. All their titles are brought to us to 
 see if they are right, and the knowledge that this will be 
 done prevents many attempts at gross oppression. Thus, 
 after the morning is past, a missionary (perhaps more 
 especially myself) is not sure of an hour. Now, what are 
 we to do in such a case ? " 
 
 There is among the letters one with a defaced date, in 
 which he speaks of being at Kingston, having "preached 
 three times on the Sunday, and does not feel quite well, 
 perhaps, because he has not enough to do" 
 
 The next point of interest was the arrival of the 
 Chilmark, with Mr. Clarke chartered to take over to 
 Africa such Jamaica coloured brethren as he, with the 
 concurrence of the resident ministers thought fit for 
 missionary work in their fatherland. 
 
 The plan was not quite in accordance with Mr. Knibb's 
 judgment. He wanted these people to have had more 
 training, certainly, to have been at Calabar ; if possible a 
 year in England; but when his idea was overruled, he 
 entered heartily into the speeding of these new pilgrims 
 
 8 
 
ii4 William Knibb. 
 
 and under due superintendence steered the ship out of 
 harbour. 
 
 They were, especially to him, an interesting group, these 
 men and women who were returning free to the countries 
 from which they had been carried' away slaves. One among 
 them had been taught to read by William, the beloved son ; 
 one Mr. Knibb had trained himself; one was the superin- 
 tendent of his own Sunday-school, and another had only 
 just lost his wife, who dying, had begged him not to give 
 up the cause they had meant to work in together. 
 
 The most familiar to us in England is the Rev. J. J. 
 Fuller, grown grey in the service, a lad then, going in the 
 Chilmark to join his father. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 ENGLAND FOR THE LAST TIME. 
 
 ABOUT this period the affairs of the mission generally 
 became very difficult, through several causes which 
 operated to produce a great scarcity of resources. 
 
 In the very large outlay required by the erection of so 
 many chapels, considerable sums had been borrowed from 
 the banks, then very willing, if not eager, to advance them. 
 Circumstances now forced them to restrict, and in some 
 cases to recall, their advances. A severe drought lasting 
 over two seasons added to the pecuniary pressure on the 
 estates, and reduced the peasantry on their small allotments 
 almost to starvation. 
 
 There is the prettiest picture in the April number of 
 the Missionary Herald, for 1844, of a neatly-planned village 
 of cottages (not one of Mr. Knibb's stations), mountains 
 around, trees nearer in tropical luxuriance, and a distant 
 view of the sea, a delightful home for people well-to-do in a 
 small way ; but, turning the leaf, one reads of the bitter 
 distress brought by the dearth. Those inhabitants who 
 had nothing else than their bit of ground saw their only 
 subsistence perishing before their eyes. From living 
 sufficiently well, and being able to devote their fruit or their 
 eggs as a fund for giving away, they had very hard work to 
 provide bare necessaries, and hardly dare think how to 
 keep or buy seed for the next year's planting. 
 
 So that when island banks or private persons lending 
 money on the chapels could not prolong their loans, it was 
 no time to go to the people for extra gifts; they were 
 
 8* 
 
ii 6 William Knibb. 
 
 suffering themselves, and could hardly bring their usual 
 offerings. 
 
 They had undertaken at the time of the Jubilee the 
 support, independently of the Society, of their ministers 
 and stations, with a tacit understanding that the Society 
 should undertake some African stations, which arrangement 
 had been carried out. 
 
 This was possibly a premature measure on the part of 
 the weaker stations, and those still encumbered with debt. 
 The larger stations were equal to the burden ; Falmouth, 
 for instance, had paid its way chapel, schoolrooms, 
 minister's house all paid for yet even Falmouth was in 
 straits about its schools. Mr. Knibb writes : " We are 
 grievously distressed by the severe drought we have 
 experienced, and the effect upon our mission and schools is 
 most trying. I have struggled hard to support four day 
 and four Sabbath-schools at an expense of 400 per annum, 
 but shall be obliged to relinquish part of them, which will 
 grieve me to the soul. I do not like to ask help from 
 home, yet our schools are our only hope." 
 
 Another trouble at Falmouth was one which could not 
 have affected that place alone. We have the same thing in 
 England, when we see a good chapel in the midst of a town 
 almost deserted because its members are gone to reside in 
 the suburbs. Mr. Knibb took an opportunity of buying 
 an eligible piece of land near enough to keep some of his 
 people within touch of the chapel, but the hiving off had 
 been very heavy. It was promoted at first, but became 
 a difficulty as the years went on, and more and more 
 people turned their faces towards the mountains. But if 
 his chapel at Falmouth was not in debt, he was responsible 
 to a certain extent for others. He had hung a weight round 
 his neck. In his own words : " Some years ago I very 
 
 foolishly became surety for and for . I had 
 
 not the least idea but that they would long ere this have 
 
England for the Last Time. 117 
 
 paid the bank all they owed. In this I have been dis- 
 appointed, and I am resolved, let the consequences be as 
 they may, to get rid of these responsibilities. I entered on 
 them purely that the brethren might not draw on your funds 
 which otherwise must have been done." 
 
 There had never yet been a year in which the buoyant 
 spirit had been so bowed down the pilgrim's road was 
 heavy and stony, the hope, the determination to succeed are 
 absent for the first time. It wrung from him, what wicked 
 men plotting his life had never wrung, such a sentence as 
 this, " Sometimes I think I will leave altogether." It may 
 be added that the Government of the island was, in his 
 opinion, going the way to ruin it. Also the Mission Com- 
 mittee at home having to refuse many of the requests which 
 seemed to them endless, appeared cold to the strugglers on 
 the stations. 
 
 In this state of things he was requested by the brethren 
 again to visit England, and lay their case before the Com- 
 mittee. He agreed, and sailed the end of March, 1845. 
 From sea he wrote (on April i5tb, 1845) to his daughters, 
 now in Jamaica with their mother, a letter as to the help 
 they might give : 
 
 "Your dear mother has had a hard and sometimes 
 painful path to tread. Added to her maternal cares and 
 the bitter pain endured in the loss of our dear children, she 
 has borne much of the anxiety of the stations under your 
 father's care, and I fear her health is declining. I assure 
 you, my dear girls, that I attribute most of my success in 
 my missionary career to your excellent mother. The 
 accumulated duties and increased anxieties pressing on your 
 mother during my absence will afford you the luxury of 
 showing how much you sympathise with her ; and thus, 
 should I be permitted to return to my dear family, the 
 meeting will be doubly endeared to you, and to us all, by 
 sweet reflection on duty performed." 
 
n8 William Knibb. 
 
 He arrived in London towards the close of April, and 
 met the Committee on the 26th of that month. They 
 received him with tindiminished cordiality, and entered into 
 the consideration of the case entrusted to him in a spirit 
 perfectly congenial with his own. 
 
 He himself states the case most clearly and in fewest 
 words, as follows : " My dear Mary, While I am waiting 
 for my turn to speak at the chapel, I write a few lines, just 
 to say a little about the meeting. The Committee resolved, 
 and the public have agreed to it, that we shall have ^"6,000 
 as a gift to help in our difficulties, but they will not take 
 any station under their care. Nothing is to be drawn until 
 my return, when the whole matter will be laid before the 
 brethren, and the approval of three-fourths of the whole will 
 be necessary to the validity of the matter." 
 
 " I wish to leave it deeply impressed upon the minds of 
 this Christian auditory, that nothing could have exceeded 
 the kindness and the urbanity of the Committee in all 
 the transactions in which I am engaged with them. I 
 undertook the office which I executed with extreme 
 reluctance ; I would not have come on it if I could have 
 avoided it, until stern duty forced upon me this employ- 
 ment, no arguments would have induced me to forsake the 
 beloved people of my charge and the endearments of social 
 life, to come home on what I consider one of the most 
 unwelcome errands on which it was possible to send a man. 
 I have, however, been most agreeably disappointed ; I have 
 been affectionately welcomed, not only by the Committee, 
 but wherever I have gone, and at the simple tale of wrong, 
 the guilty doings of the men that have brought us into this 
 condition, there has been, not merely an approval of what 
 the Committee has done, but a hearty response as far as 
 pecuniary aid could be given." 
 
 He spent two months in England, holding meetings as 
 often as he could, to assist by his powerful eloquence in 
 
England for the Last Time. 119 
 
 raising the money. This money question was not, how- 
 ever, the only question. At these and the Anti-Slavery 
 Society meetings he strove to make his audience conscious 
 how some of the island laws weighed unjustly against the 
 free negro. There were taxes framed to load him heavily 
 while the white man went nearly free, and disabilities which 
 were remnants of the slaveholding spirit. Such were the 
 Ejectment Act and the Trespass Act. By the first the whole 
 population, or any portion of it, could be ejected at a week's 
 notice from the homes in which they had been born ; by 
 the other "the police of the country was empowered to 
 catch hold of and imprison any individual who was found 
 in his former home, after he had received notice of eject- 
 ment." They were miserable cabins, these slave huts, with 
 eight or ten persons huddled into one room, yet it was beyond 
 all reason to suppose that the negroes would improve huts 
 from which they could be turned out at a week's notice. 
 This led the peasants to secure if they possibly could a 
 home for themselves. " It has pleased our heavenly Father," 
 he continues, "to afflict us with one of the most severe 
 and long - continued droughts that I have ever known 
 in Jamaica during the twenty-one years of my residence 
 there. The House of Assembly selected this period, 
 when they knew the peasant could not obtain work 
 to introduce a new tariff. An additional tax was laid 
 upon the wood which the labourer had to purchase that he 
 might erect his own cottage ; which raised it from is. per 
 1,000 shingles to eight; the food was also taxed; when the 
 planter had to feed the slave, the tax on cornmeal was 3d. 
 a barrel ; as soon as the freeman had to feed himself they 
 raised it to 35. ; rice in the same way was raised from is. 
 per cwt. to 45. Other articles were mentioned, and then 
 the speaker turned to the grievance of an expensive mounted 
 police in "peaceful Jamaica," so quiet that the mail 
 carrying thousands of pounds has travelled with only a 
 
120 William Knibb. 
 
 negro boy, and has never been robbed but once, and that 
 by a white man ; and increased rates were levied on 
 behalf of the established Church, " established " only by 
 courtesy. 
 
 In a later part of the speech Mr. Knibb goes into the 
 statistics of the Baptist mission as they stood at that date. 
 There were forty-seven Baptist chapels and thirty mission- 
 houses, besides the schoolhouses, costing altogether 
 ^157,000, of which, with much difficulty and much 
 diligence on the part of the people, ;i 39,000 was paid off; 
 the remainder in a time of scarcity, and with new taxes laid 
 on, was a crushing load, to ease which the sum of ,6,000, 
 already spoken of, had been granted "by the Mission 
 Committee in England, and which Mr. Knibb was up and 
 down the country to help them collect as an extra effort. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 "IT IS ALL RIGHT/' 
 
 THE kindness with which Mr. Knibb had been 
 received and the success granted to his errand, 
 touched him deeply and in most warm-hearted terms 
 he returns thanks for it over and over again. 
 
 " I felt much more in leaving England this time than I 
 ever felt, I know not why, but so it is. The kindness 
 received has been far beyond my merits." 
 
 None the less was his longing for his home in the Island 
 and for his work there. The depression was gone, there is 
 no more talk of wishing he could see his way clear to leave 
 altogether. He has taken his passage for Kingston which 
 he hopes to reach July 3ist. Will Mrs. Knibb send the 
 gig and the horses off in good time, that they may rest well 
 and be fresh ? George is to travel slowly and arrive at 
 Kingston the 29th. The large horse is to be left at St. 
 Ann's Bay, apparently for relay. No one but George is to 
 meet him, that he may have a light load. He will land 
 and make a dash for Falmouth, driving all night to be with 
 his people on the ist of August. 
 
 With all this good will, he can hardly be said to have 
 won the race, for he did not get home till the evening of 
 the day which completed seven years of freedom. An 
 ecstatic meeting it was for all that For the people kept the 
 next day as a festival, forming a long procession, which 
 Mr. Knibb longed for his English friends to see. " How I 
 
 wish and and were here," he kept saying, 
 
 as he watched its progress. 
 
122 }l T illiam Knibb. 
 
 And then the regular work began again, increased by 
 the business entailed by his last visit to England. 
 
 It may not be amiss to copy here his estimates of the 
 stations he had formed, as he gave them in England on this 
 last visit. 
 
 It should be premised that when he first went to the 
 west of the island, the whole of Trelawney was reckoned as 
 his district. 
 
 The population of it was 30,000, the area an irregular 
 square about twenty miles long, and from seventeen to 
 twenty broad ; the stations six, eight, ten miles apart, 
 Stewart Town and Rio Bueno about eighteen from one 
 another in opposite directions ' from Falmouth, with no 
 public conveyances. 
 
 When I went to Falmouth in 1830 (succeeding Mr. 
 Mann), I found the station without a house, without a 
 school, and without a schoolroom. The first house I lived 
 in there had but one room in it, ten feet square, for six of 
 us. I had been there but a year before down came all 
 the wrath of the slave-owners upon us. Chapels were 
 destroyed. . . . Since that time there have been 
 erected the following chapels : Falmouth Chapel, which 
 seats 2,500 people ; Refuge Chapel I built next, which 
 seats 1,500 persons; Rio Bueno, seating 1,000 persons; 
 and Waldensia, which seats 1,200 persons. Unity and 
 Stewart-town Chapels have been built by other brethren, 
 one holding 600 and the other 1,200 people. Last year I 
 repaired and made comfortable a chapel at Kettering (one 
 of the free villages), it holds 400 persons. Thus there 
 have been erected in ten years, chapels for the accommoda- 
 tion of nearly 8,000 persons. 
 
 At the time of which I speak, there was no schoolroom 
 at all in Trelawney to which a black child could be 
 admitted ; there stand now in connection with our own 
 mission, seven or eight. Then, the only room which the 
 
BmcToft Librwy 
 
"fit's all Right." 123 
 
 missionary had was the one to which I referred, now there 
 are five or six dwelling-houses in healthy situations. 
 
 Then I had 650 members. From that time down to the 
 present I have, by baptism, assisted sometimes by other 
 brethren, received into the church, 3,000 persons. I have 
 dismissed to form other churches, 2,050 ; there have died 
 in the faith 320, and as far as I can make out, after a 
 careful examination of the church books, only a hundred 
 have been put away. I will tell you how the numbers now 
 stand: Falmouth, the mother church, is mine, 1,280 
 Refuge, our eldest child, 780; Rio Bueno, 315 ; Waldensia, 
 746; Stewart Town, 814; Unity, 340; and Kettering the 
 newest, has 200 members. 
 
 Rio Bueno was by this time under Mr. Tinson's care ; 
 Stewart Town under Mr. Dexter; Mr. Henderson had 
 been for some years pastor at Waldensia, to which 
 Unity was added; while Mr. Knibb retained Falmouth, 
 Refuge, and the new village station Kettering which he was 
 fostering. 
 
 The map gives Falmouth, Rio Bueno, and the stations 
 Mr. Knibb founded in the Trelawney District. In the 
 fifty years that have elapsed since his death, eight more 
 have been added, "all," Mr. East says, "the extension 
 and outcome of Mr. Knibb's work." The total member- 
 ship at the present date is 4,397, with 640 inquirers. 
 
 They say, " Coming events cast their shadow before." 
 Is it not true that coming glory sends some rays of 
 light before ? Men took knowledge of the apostles that 
 they had been with Jesus ! His friends took knowledge 
 of Mr. Knibb that his spirituality had increased; there 
 was something of the other world resting on him, as 
 well as the eagerness to do all the good he could in this 
 world. 
 
 "It was evident to all our friends," says Mrs. Knibb,. 
 
124 William Knibb. 
 
 "and especially to myself, long before his last illness, that 
 he was rapidly growing in meetness for the inheritance of 
 the saints in light; he was so earnest in pleading with 
 sinners, so mild and faithful in reproving those who he 
 thought did not live up to their high profession and 
 privileges, and so animated and heavenly minded at the 
 ordinance of the Lord's Supper, that although I enjoyed 
 the services, I used to fear there was too much of heaven 
 in them for him to be long an inhabitant of earth." 
 
 Not that any change was apprehended ; he laid the 
 foundation-stone of a cottage for one of the people, saying, 
 " Tell your neighbours I will do the same for them when they 
 are ready." His attendance on meetings, his list of engage- 
 ments, remained unabated ; he was not trying to save his 
 "iron frame" though some short fits of illness might have 
 been taken as a warning. 
 
 Mr. Abbott gives his account of a Sabbath 
 November 9th spent at Falmouth with him. " At six 
 o'clock a.m. we walked together to the house of God, and 
 both engaged at the prayer-meeting. At eleven o'clock he 
 baptized forty-two persons and was unusually touching and 
 solemn in his remarks to each. At the close of the meeting 
 I preached from John vi. 29, and, a short time after, we 
 unitedly administered the Supper of our Lord. He had 
 published that I would preach in the evening also, but, 
 having recently suffered from an attack of influenza, I 
 begged to be excused, with which he kindly complied, and 
 preached himself his last sermon from i Tim. i. 2 : 'The 
 glorious Gospel of the blessed God,' or, as he delighted to 
 say, ' The Gospel of the happy God.' On his return from 
 chapel I sat with him about an hour, when at my request 
 he recapitulated the leading particulars of the sermon. I 
 have spent many days with our sainted brother, but I do 
 not remember ever to have spent one more happily. He 
 was in a calm, solemn, equable, happy frame of mind, and 
 
"// is all Right." 125 
 
 he remarked to me that he had been more pleased with his 
 people that day than at any previous time since his return 
 from England." 
 
 But he had taken a chill. In a profuse perspiration 
 from preaching, he had walked home in the rain with- 
 out overcoat and umbrella. On Monday, Mrs. Knibb 
 thought him over-weary after Sunday's duties, though 
 he had come from Falmouth to Kettering cheerfully 
 enough. 
 
 The low fever of the earlier days became the yellow 
 fever by Friday. Family and friends were round him 
 watching with most anxious care. Mr. Abbott lingered, so 
 did Mr. Burchell who had come into Falmouth on business, 
 these were his fellow-sufferers in all the troublous times, 
 the latter keeping such close vigil that he did not undress 
 during the days that followed. The sufferer as is usual in 
 the low typhoid fever of the first days, was disinclined to 
 speak much, and while the least hope remained was kept as 
 quiet as possible. He did not hope for himself, and spoke 
 of a speedy decease to Mrs. Knibb and the elder daughters ; 
 expressing also to his brethren his faith in the Atonement as 
 his one hope of salvation. His farewell to Mr. Phillippo 
 was full of affectionate concern for the trying circumstances 
 in which the latter was placed. 
 
 He said to his daughters, " My poor girls, you will soon 
 be fatherless; live near to God by prayer and work for Him. 
 Do all you can to keep up the schools. And mind you 
 take care of your poor mother. She has had an anxious 
 trying life and often rough path ; and she will need all the 
 sympathy and tenderness you can show her." 
 
 With the development of yellow fever came delirium, first 
 shown by his giving out a hymn, and setting the tune as if 
 for a large congregation. The hymn was followed by a con- 
 nected and most beautiful prayer. He had no long interval 
 of consciousness afterwards, but in one clear moment he 
 
126 William Knibb. 
 
 stretched out his hand to Mrs. Knibb and said, " Mary, it 
 is all right." They were his last words. 
 
 And so, on Saturday the i5th November, 1845, the news 
 spread rapidly among the people he had loved so well : 
 " Massa Knibb dead." 
 
 " And they lifted up their voices and wept." 
 
 His last Sunday service on his visit to England, so short 
 a time before, had been at Denmark Place Chapel, 
 Camberwell. 
 
 Once before when he had been there, there had been a 
 special farewell communion service. It was said that he 
 was disappointed when he found that he was expected to 
 preach. At the distance of nearly fifty years that service is 
 well kept in mind by some few who remain. 
 
 " We both remember the service you inquire about and 
 often speak of it to each other." So runs the answer to 
 a question put to two old members of Denmark Place 
 Chapel. 
 
 The text was "Son, go work to-day in my vineyard;" 
 and the work God appoints His servants is giving the mes- 
 sage of that other last sermon, at Falmouth ; " the glorious 
 Gospel of the blessed God." 
 
 It is the summing up of his own life. 
 
 After that sermon at Camberwell, he gave out as the 
 closing hymn, 
 
 "What must it be to dwell above," 
 
 and charged all present to meet him in heaven. It sounded 
 as he gave it like no vague benevolent wish, but as a definite 
 appointment. 
 
 Some of us who remain to this present, are going on our 
 way to " keep tryst." 
 
MRS. KNIBB. 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 AFTERWARDS MRS. KNIBB'S DEATH. 
 
 A BABY daughter, Mary, had died in the early Port 
 Royal years, William, the twin brother, died as a 
 boy old enough for many hopes to be concentrated 
 upon him. Three other sons died at a still earlier age, five 
 out of the innumerable company of children in heaven, that 
 he speaks of. Three daughters were living at the time of 
 their father's decease. The elder ones, the Kate and 
 Annie of the letters, married ; the youngest of the flock 
 died after a long and painful illness, borne with Christian 
 patience of hope, and nursed devotedly by her mother. 
 
 It was after this daughter's death that Mrs. Knibb again 
 visited England, in 1863, to the great pleasure of her 
 friends. 
 
 And this sketch is hardly complete without the record of 
 the peaceful death of the noble wife, as told by her 
 daughter in Jamaica, Mrs. Fray, in a private letter to a 
 friend in England : 
 
 "April 2 3 rd, 1866. 
 
 "It is with a veiy sad heart that I write to let you know 
 that my beloved mother has entered into rest. 
 
 "For a long time she had been gradually sinking, but we 
 hoped that she might be spared to us yet a little longer. 
 Our heavenly Father called her home a little after midnight 
 on the ist of April. Her sufferings were very great for the 
 last few days, till within a few hours of her death, when all 
 pain was removed. Early in the morning she said to me, 
 1 There is a land where it is always Sunday, and I am not 
 
128 William Knibb. 
 
 very far from that land now.' During the day she often 
 repeated, ' I will come again and receive you to Myself/ 
 Once we heard her say, ' Nothing in my hand I bring ' ; 
 in answer to questions she expressed herself as trusting to 
 Jesus alone and that He was very near and precious to her. 
 I stood by her side holding her hand. Whenever I had to 
 move she gave it back to me as soon as I returned, so we 
 watched her for hours till the heart that was so full of love 
 ceased to beat, and her ransomed spirit saw the Saviour she 
 so longed to behold, and, with her loved ones, joined in His 
 praise. Often during her long illness has she said to me, 
 1 What should I do now were it not for the Atonement of 
 Jesus ? when I think of the finished work of Christ I feel 
 no dread.' 
 
 " For months she has suffered much, but never a wish has 
 she expressed to have it otherwise ; once she said to me, 
 * All my times are ordered by a loving Father, and I can 
 leave myself in His hands.' We thank God for all the 
 grace given to our beloved mother, and amidst our bitter 
 grief rejoice that for her the conflict is ended, and that she 
 is safe for ever with her husband and seven children. 
 
 " I know you will unite with us in praying that grace may 
 be given us to follow those who are now inheriting the 
 promises." 
 
 Mrs. Knibb survived her husband twenty-five years and 
 a half. 
 
 The circle is complete now, Mrs. Fray having entered 
 into rest. No, the grandsons and grand-daughters will not 
 say complete. They will desire to be accounted part of it. 
 One grandson, the Rev. Ellis Fray, has charge of Kettering, 
 the country station, where their affectionate people had 
 built the house, accepted by Mr. Knibb for Mrs. Knibb, 
 he being resolved to hold no property himself. 
 
 Falmouth is in the hands of Mr. Kingdon, highly 
 esteemed for his work's sake. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 THE foregoing sketch of Mr. Knibb is so slight, con- 
 sidering all the subjects of interest it embraces, that 
 the narrative has been, as much as possible, kept 
 to him personally; but Mr. Burchell stood shoulder to 
 shoulder with him through all the time of their service, and 
 it is hardly possible to speak of one without the other. So 
 it cannot be breaking the resolution of keeping to Mr. 
 Knibb entirely, to add the following details from Mr. 
 Burchell's papers and the diary of the Rev. Walter Dendy, 
 kept during the troubled time of 1832, when all the mis- 
 sionaries were suffering more or less and the group at 
 Montego Bay were being drawn very close together by a 
 common bond of oppression. 
 
 Some months afterwards, when both Messrs. Knibb and 
 Burchell were in England and present at the same drawing- 
 room meeting, a little child, allowed to sit on a stool at her 
 mother's feet, asked, at its close, " Why do they call each 
 other brother, they have not the same name ? " and thus 
 got her first lesson as to brotherhood in Christ, and in this 
 instance very special brotherhood in trials, in interests, in 
 aims, in works, in hopes. 
 
 Mr. Burchell arrived in Jamaica, January, 1824. He went 
 through every possible experience there : of few hearers of 
 the Word, then many ; of doubtful Christians with more 
 superstition than faith, alongside of others entirely devoted 
 to Christ ; of persecution and interminable small annoy- 
 ances from many white men hating the Gospel, contrasted 
 with the firm friendship of one or two ; of building and 
 secular worries; of ill-health in his own person and his 
 
 9 
 
130 Appendix. 
 
 devoted wife lying between life and death for weeks and 
 then recovering by a slow and trying convalescence. 
 
 Truly, by this time he had been educated up to " I can 
 do all things through Christ that strengthened me." 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Burchell had been away seven months 
 when they arrived in Montego Bay on board the Garland 
 Grove, on the yth January, to find the town under martial 
 law. One would have said that no ground of complaint 
 could have been made against them. But Montego Bay 
 was Mr. Burchell's own station. He had acquired great and 
 deserved influence there. The opposite interest were so ex- 
 asperated, that the missionaries on shore were repeatedly 
 told, that if possible there was little doubt he (Mr. Burchell) 
 would be assassinated. Messrs. Knibb, Abbott, and 
 Gardiner were already detained on bail in Montego Bay. 
 
 Before coming to anchor, an officer from his Majesty's 
 frigate Blanche, went on board the Garland Grove, and 
 demanded of Captain Pengelly a list of his passengers. 
 
 He then required Mr. Burchell to accompany him on 
 board the Blanche ; simply replying to his inquiries, " It is 
 martial law." This seizure, however painful, after a tedious 
 voyage, was an evident interposition of Providence; because 
 it placed him beyond the reach of a mob, who displayed 
 the most savage eagerness for his destruction. The deten- 
 tion, however, was made very disagreeable to him. 
 
 Here are extracts from Mr. Burchell's own memoranda of 
 these anxious days : 
 
 ".Saturday, 7th of January: The marine on guard walked 
 in my apartment with his bayonet drawn; though I was 
 not informed why I was apprehended, nor indeed that I 
 was a prisoner. At 8 p.m. I retired to rest in a cot that 
 was slung. The marine on guard continued during the 
 whole night pacing to and fro in my room. 
 
 " Sunday 8th : The marine on guard still continued 
 with his bayonet drawn, pacing the apartments I occupied. 
 
Appendix. 131 
 
 " Monday gth : This morning the marine paced with 
 his bayonet sheathed. Permission was obtained for the 
 visits of Mrs. Burchell ; but it must be in the presence of a 
 third person. About ten o'clock, a lieutenant asked me if 
 I wished to walk on deck ; after a few remarks, I signified 
 my wish, and was then informed that a guard must accom- 
 pany me. 
 
 "Tuesday zoth : The marine on guard paced the deck 
 during the night, with his bayonet sheathed ; did not enter 
 my apartments much ; but every half hour, when he struck 
 the bell, came to my cot and looked upon me. An officer 
 on watch came down several times during the night, when 
 the bell was struck ; and as far as I could understand, 
 inquired if the prisoner was safe. 
 
 "Friday i3th: It was required that all Mr. BurcheH's 
 papers should be sent to the Gustos. 
 
 " i yth : Suffering from the confinement, begged to go 
 on deck for fresh air. 
 
 "i8th: Removed from the Blanche to the Garland 
 Grove. During the eleven days I have been kept a prisoner 
 on board the Blanche frigate. I have received no information 
 of the reason of my apprehension and imprisonment, though 
 during this period I have been deprived of all intercourse 
 with any person but Mrs. Burchell. I have been permitted 
 to go on deck but twice." 
 
 Years after Mrs. Burchell herself told the tale of that first 
 interview " in the presence of a third person." She was in 
 fearful anxiety and had begged hard in several quarters to 
 be allowed to see her husband, before this conditional leave 
 was obtained. It did not reassure her while she was waiting 
 for admittance to overhear some one say he was sorry for 
 Mrs. Burchell and the child. At last a young officer came 
 to conduct her to the cabin ; when she had entered he said, 
 " I am the person appointed to be present at your inter- 
 view," then turned away, went out of the cabin and locked 
 
132 Appendix. 
 
 the door. She enrolled him in her memory as one of her 
 best friends 
 
 On Friday, January the 20th, Mr. Burchell having been 
 returned to the Garland Grove, where Mr. Manderson and 
 Mr. Delisser visited him, he notes, " I asked Mr. 
 Manderson what was the cause of my apprehension, and if 
 he would inform me what charge there was against me ; he 
 replied that there was no charge at present, and that Mr. 
 Gustos Barrett, who was examining my papers, had informed 
 him that hitherto he had found nothing which in the least 
 implicated me, nor which one planter could not write to 
 another/' 
 
 On the same day, and the next, Mr. Burchell was visited 
 by some of the missionaries from the shore, but, as Captain 
 Pengelly got into trouble for this permission, it was not 
 repeated. 
 
 In this situation a prisoner for an unknown cause Mr. 
 Burchell continued till February loth, when Captain 
 Pengelly received from Mr. Gustos Barrett the following 
 official document* : 
 
 " MONTEGO BAY, 
 
 " loth. February , 1832. 
 
 " SIR, You are hereby authorised to release from deten- 
 tion the person of Mr. Eurchell. 
 
 (Signed) " RICHARD BARRETT, Gustos. 
 
 " To Captain PENGELLY, Ship Garland Grove" 
 
 Captain Pengelly called at once on the missionaries on 
 
 * An extract from Mr. Dendy's journal throws some light on the 
 effort to obtain evidence : "Feb. 7-8. . . . was introduced to 
 
 a Miss who had been confined many hours with a view to 
 
 eliciting evidence against Mr. Burchell. She had been taken to a 
 window of the Court-house and shown the gallows, and threatened to 
 be hung if she did not acknowledge that Mr. Burchell had sent her three 
 letters to be read to the negroes to tell them to be free. She replied 
 she would not tell a lie, and that it would have been no use for Mr. 
 Burchell to send her letters for she could not have read them " 
 
Appendix. 133, 
 
 shore, and urged that Mr. Burchell's life would be in 
 danger if he landed, and that he should go away to America 
 for a season, an American vessel being in the harbour 
 which would take him on board. While this was under 
 consideration, a boat came alongside the Garland Grove 
 with a fresh warrant of arrest. The officer in charge was 
 to take him on shore ; he assured them that Mr. Burchell's. 
 person would be safe in his charge. The landing, however, 
 was into the midst of an angry mob, and, in all probability, 
 Mr. Burchell owed his life to a company of the coloured 
 militia who volunteered as an escort. 
 
 Mr. Gardiner was associated with him in this second 
 imprisonment. They were committed on the evidence of 
 a slave named Stennett. This poor man's conscience made 
 him so miserable that he shortly afterwards confessed that 
 he had been bribed to give the evidence he did, and 
 although he was abused and threatened he could not be 
 shaken from his purpose, but persisted that his present 
 recantation, and not the former affidavit, expressed the real 
 truth. To the very faces of the persons who had persuaded 
 and bribed him, he boldly said : " You know you did, and 
 you cannot deny it. And you, Mr. Delisser, Mr. Morris, 
 and Mr. Bowen, .were the first who spoke to me about it, 
 and offered me money if I would do it." This was the 
 nth of February, but these prisoners (Messrs. Burchell and 
 Gardiner) were not released. 
 
 On the 3rd of March their legal adviser, Mr. James 
 Forsyth, arrived from Kingston. In him they found not 
 only an intelligent, zealous agent, but a pious, fervent 
 disciple of their common Lord. He was determined to use 
 his utmost ability to overcome the enemy. 
 
 In the meantime, the chapel at Montego Bay had been 
 destroyed by a lawless mob, and an attack was threatened 
 on the persons and lodgings of the missionaries on shore. 
 As it was considered dangerous to remain on shore for the 
 
134 Appendix. 
 
 night, Mr. Roby obtained a somewhat unwilling permission 
 for them to go on board a king's ship in the harbour. The 
 officers of the wardroom received them kindly, but early 
 the next morning the captain sent them a message that they 
 must prepare to go on shore ; in the end they were allowed 
 to wait till Mr. Roby came on board. It was understood 
 that the feeling on shore had considerably subsided except 
 towards Mr. Knibb, whom the captain of the North Star 
 was persuaded to retain for another night, while Messrs. 
 Whitehorne, Abbott, and Gardiner returned to their 
 lodgings. 
 
 Mr. Roby had obtained through his kindness to the 
 missionaries so much ill-will from the populace that they 
 hung him in effigy in the market-place. The lay figure 
 used for the purpose is said to have been made in the first 
 instance for Mr. Burchell. 
 
 In a pecuniary point of view, Mr. Burchell was the 
 greatest loser of all the missionaries. Not only was his 
 chapel ruined, but his own house, which was his private 
 property (he having resources of his own), was destroyed. 
 
 He left for the United States on being set free from bail, 
 on the advice of some of his non-missionary friends. 
 
 The two friends, or "brothers " in Christ, were not long 
 divided by death. Mr. Burchell followed Mr. Knibb on 
 the" 1 5th May, 1846, surviving him only six months. 
 
 ALEXANIER & SBEPHEABD, 27, Chancery Lane, London, W.C. 
 
J 
 
GENERAL LIBRARY - U.C. BERKELEY 
 
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