Samuel Mico was by the terms of his aunt’s will given the option of marrying any one of the six nieces of Lady Mico-Jane, Mary and Elizabeth Robinson, and Jane, Mary and Elizabeth Barker; the Jane in each case being apparently the most desirable bride from a monetary point of view as being god-daughter of his rich aunt: and of these Jane Barker was the favourite, unless Lady Mico in her bequest took into account the respective wealth of the two families, for there is evidence in Lady Mico’s will that Jane Barker’s father was not opulent. Apparently not one of the six pleased him; nor could he be induced to change his mind by the promise of his aunt’s best pearl necklace and the unbequeathed portion of her plate. Thus the £1000 went to the redemption of “poore slaves,” _i.e._ Christians held in captivity by the Moors of Algiers, in aid of whose release benevolent persons were at that time wont to make bequests. In the seventeenth century pirates, mostly from Algiers, swarmed along the coasts of the Mediterranean sea, and numberless captives were taken as slaves and detained as such in Algiers and Barbary. During the latter part of the eighteenth and the earlier part of the nineteenth century both France and England had done much to put a stop to piracy in the Mediterranean, and when in 1816 Algiers was taken by Pellew and the slaves, some three thousand in number, mostly Spanish and Italian, were liberated, there no longer existed an outlet for the special benevolence on their behalf of Lady Mico and other philanthropists. In the year 1827 the Court of Chancery referred the matter of the Mico bequest for the redemption of poor slaves to Lord Henley, Master in Chancery, to devise a scheme for the application of the money according to the will of the foundress; and if the Master should find that the same could not be executed according to her will, then “as near its intent as possible,” regard being had to existing circumstances. In the meantime Lady Mico’s £1000 had increased—partly by the re-investment of the unused income, partly by the realisation of a material profit on an investment in London property—to upwards of £120,000, giving a yearly income of £3625, and nobody knew what to do with it; but a matter very “near its intent” was already before the public. While the name of William Wilberforce in England will ever be honoured as the prime mover in the abolition of the curse of the Slave Trade, the completion of his life’s work by the abolition of slavery in the British colonies proved too heavy for his age-enfeebled shoulders. This great undertaking he consigned in 1821 to the care of an earnest colleague, Thomas Fowell Buxton; and it was under this younger champion’s leadership of the forces of Emancipation and through his indefatigable efforts that the inevitable day was hastened, when, in Jamaica, the flag of Great Britain floated—as in every portion of the far-extended British dominions—over none but freemen.