St. Thomas } 2 } St. Croix } 1732 3 } 32 St. Jan. } 2 } BRITISH ISLANDS. Jamaica 1754 4 10 Antigua { 1756 3 } 16 { 1817 1 } St. Kitts 1775 1 4 Barbadoes. 1738 3 11 SOUTH AMERICA } generally. } 1765 1 4 —— —— 20 77 The Dutch took possession of the Cape of Good Hope in 1650. Slaves from various parts of Africa, Mozambique, and the Malay Islands were introduced; we have no means of knowing to what extent. Somerville found the city of Cape Town to contain 1145 houses, 5500 white and free people of colour, and 10,000 slaves. In all of the years 1736–1792, and 1818, the Moravians established 27 missionaries to the blacks. But they, nor no other people, have ever been able to produce any considerable effect there, or elsewhere, upon the natives, except upon such as were in slavery among a Christian people. The sound of the gospel had no charms for the wild, roving savage. But, as reported in the Christian Observer, vol. xiv. page 830, Campbell says—“In the colony of the Cape of Good Hope, considerable efforts have been made of late, particularly by Sir John Cradock, aided by the zeal of the colonial chaplain, the Rev. Mr. Jones, to diffuse the blessings of Christian instruction, not only among the slaves, but among all classes. * * * Several of the negroes read the New Testament tolerably well, and repeat questions from Walls’s Catechism: on the Lord’s day they were well-dressed, and attended church.” But, page 829, same vol.: “At Cape Town, Mohammedanism is much on the increase. The free Mohammedans are strenuous in their efforts to make proselytes among the slaves,” &c. We have endeavoured to show that the providences of God towards the African races in slavery to Christian nations, tend to their deliverance from idolatry, and to their restoration to an acceptable worship of the true God. And may we not inquire whether the introduction to this worship was not foretold by the prophets? “Thus saith the Lord, The labour of Egypt, and merchandise of Ethiopia and of the Sabeans, men of stature, shall come over unto thee, and they shall be thine: they shall come after thee; in chains they shall come over, and they shall fall down unto thee, they shall make supplication unto thee, saying, _Surely_, God is in thee; and _there_ is none else, there _is_ no God” _beside_. Isa. xlv. 14.