else their most conspicuous faults.

The Presbyterians live in great charity with them, and with one
another; their minister as a true pastor of the gospel, inculcates
to them the doctrines it contains, the rewards it promises, the
punishments it holds out to those who shall commit injustice.
Nothing can be more disencumbered likewise from useless ceremonies
and trifling forms than their mode of worship; it might with great
propriety have been called a truly primitive one, had that of the
Quakers never appeared. As fellow Christians, obeying the same
legislator, they love and mutually assist each other in all their
wants; as fellow labourers they unite with cordiality and without
the least rancour in all their temporal schemes: no other emulation
appears among them but in their sea excursions, in the art of
fitting out their vessels; in that of sailing, in harpooning the
whale, and in bringing home the greatest harvest. As fellow subjects
they cheerfully obey the same laws, and pay the same duties: but let
me not forget another peculiar characteristic of this community:
there is not a slave I believe on the whole island, at least among
the Friends; whilst slavery prevails all around them, this society
alone, lamenting that shocking insult offered to humanity, have
given the world a singular example of moderation, disinterestedness,
and Christian charity, in emancipating their negroes. I shall
explain to you farther, the singular virtue and merit to which it is
so justly entitled by having set before the rest of their fellow-
subjects, so pleasing, so edifying a reformation. Happy the people
who are subject to so mild a government; happy the government which
has to rule over such harmless, and such industrious subjects!

While we are clearing forests, making the face of nature smile,