In 1681 an Act was passed for the maintenance of ministers and the poor, and erecting and repairing churches. Ten vestrymen and two churchwardens were yearly elected by the freeholders of each parish. The law provided for the keeping of a register of births, christenings, marriages and burials. Port Royal was to pay £250 to its minister, St. Catherine £120, St. Thomas, St. Andrew and St. John £100, and other parishes £80. These stipends were apparently not sufficient inducement, for in 1706 an Act was passed “for the encouragement of good and able ministers to come to this island.” The salary of St. Catherine was fixed at £150 (or £250 if the vestry wished); for St. Thomas-in-the-Vale, St. Dorothy, Kingston, Vere, and Clarendon, it was £150 (or £200), and for the other parishes (including Port Royal, by reason of its recent disasters) £100 (or £150 if the vestry wished). This system of payment of the rectors by the parishes was continued till late in the eighteenth century, when they were placed on the Island Establishment. In 1682 Sir Thomas Lynch sent home to the Bishop of London a detailed report of the state of the Church in Jamaica. He says: “At St. Jaga de la Vega the minister is also a Swiss, Mr. Howsyer; he has £140 a year by law, and, since I came, £150. He is a reasonable preacher, a good liver, well esteemed, and very rich. The church is a Spanish church, and the parsonage good. The parish is called St. Catherine’s.” When, by an Act passed in 1789, burying in churches was prohibited, on penalty of £500 imposed on any rector who permitted it, the rectors received compensation in lieu of fees, the largest amount falling to the rector of Kingston, who received £100 per annum, St. Catherine being next with £70. As evidence of the relative value of the livings in the island at the time it is interesting to quote from the “Jamaica Magazine” that in November 1814, “The Reverend Alexander Campbell has been translated from the living of Kingston to that of St. Andrew’s, vacant by the death of his father, the reverend John Campbell; the Reverend Isaac Mann to that of Kingston; the Reverend William Vaughan Hamilton from St. Elizabeth’s to St. Catherine’s; and the Reverend William Peat from St. Dorothy’s to St. Elizabeth’s.” In 1800 Ecclesiastical Commissioners were appointed. But it is evident that they had not been able to effect much by April 1802, when Lady Nugent wrote: “I will conclude my tour through the island with a few remarks. In this country it appears as if everything were bought and sold. Clergymen make no secret of making a traffic of their livings; but General N—— has set his face against such proceedings, and has refused many applications for the purpose. He is determined to do all he can towards the reformation of the Church, and thus rendering it respectable. It is indeed melancholy to see the general disregard of both religion and morality throughout the whole island.”