Thoughts on the Religious Instruction of the Negroes of this Country

. Thomas--in New Providence--and the other Bahama Islands. In these labours the Methodists often met with little encouragement. Thus in Nevis many of the most opulent planters at first opposed the design, from an apprehension that it would introduce a spirit of insubordination among the negroes. Hence for a considerable time they would not permit the Methodists to have access to the slaves on their estates; and when some at length ventured to invite them, they observed the utmost caution in their manner of proceeding: and in some instances, the missionaries, after having preached a few times, were discarded, without being informed of any reason for such a singular mode of treatment. They were rarely however without employment. When dismissed from one plantation they were solicited to visit others, and after a short season were treated in the same manner as they had been before.

In Jamaica, matters were still more unpleasant. A number of the white people at Kingston, soon after the opening of a chapel b