A LETTER TO THE GOVERNORS, LEGISLATURES, AND PROPRIETORS OF PLANTATIONS, IN THE BRITISH WEST-INDIA ISLANDS. BY THE RIGHT REVEREND BEILBY PORTEUS, D.D. BISHOP OF LONDON. London: Printed by Luke Hanfard & Sons, FOR T. CADELL AND W. DAVIES; IN THE STRAND; T. PAYNE, N° 88, PALL-MALL; AND F. C. AND J. RIVINGTON, ST. PAUL'S CHURCH-YARD. 1808. TO THE Governors, Legislatures, & Proprietors of Plantations in the British West-India Islands. GENTLEMEN, HE official connexion which I have with the British West-India Islands, and the Ecclesiastical superintendance which to a certain degree my predecessors and myself have for a considerable length of time exercised over them, has always given me a lively interest in their spiritual welfare, and an earnest desire and endeavour to promote it, as far as the vast distance between those islands and this country would admit. But among the various classes of their inhabitants, my attention has been more particularly directed to that which is by far the most numerous of them all, and constitutes the great mass of people in all our islands; I mean the Negro Slaves employed in the cultivation of the lands possessed by the West-India Planters, whether resident on their plantations or in this kingdom. On these B my |