reproach to the name of Protestants, especially in a land of Christian
light and liberty. Sundays and holidays are indeed allowed the negroes in
Carolina, the former cannot consistent with the laws be denied them; the
latter, as they are commonly spent are nuisances to the province.
Holidays there are days of idleness, riot, wantonness and excess; in
which the slaves assemble together in alarming crowds, for the purposes
of dancing, feasting and merriment. At such seasons the inhabitants have
the greatest reason to dread mischief from them; when let loose from
their usual employments, they have fair opportunities of hatching plots
and conspiracies, and of executing them with greater facility, from the
intemperance of their owners and overseers.

After all, it must be confessed, that the freemen of Carolina themselves
were for many years in a destitute condition with respect to religious
instruction; partly owing to their own poverty and the unhealthiness of
the climate, and partly owing to troubles and divisions subsisting among
them during the proprietary government. At that time the first object of
their concern would no doubt be to provide for themselves and their
children: but since the province has been taken under the royal care,
their circumstances in every respect have changed for the better,
insomuch that they are not only able to provide instruction for
themselves and families, but also to extend the benefit to those living
in a state of servitude among them. Now they are arrived to such an easy
and flourishing situation, as renders their neglect entirely without
excuse. The instruction of negroes would no doubt be a difficult, but by
no means an impracticable undertaking, and the more difficult the end,
the more praise and merit would be due to those who should effectually
accomplish it. Even the Catholics of Spain pitied the miserable condition
of negroes living among the protestant colonies, and to induce them to
revolt, proffered them the advantages of liberty and religion at