“He was a respected and useful class leader in the Wesleyan Society at Beechamville,” says Bleby. Can't we imagine him? He was a driver when he wasn't in religion, a slave on Rural Retreat, and the adjoining estate belonged to our friend the Rev. George William Bridges. This was extremely unlucky for Henry, for evidently the attorney who managed Rural Retreat and Mr Bridges got talking together, and doubtless agreed on the unfortunately growing tendency of the slaves to think for themselves. More particularly did they object to this chapel-going, and the attorney of Rural Retreat instanced Henry as a particularly virulent specimen of the genus Black Baptist. They concocted a plan which holds them both up to contempt. The manager of Rural Retreat sent for Henry, and though he was not in the habit of going to any place of worship, told him that he was going to church at Mr Bridges' house and desired the attendance of all the slaves on Rural Retreat. None were to go to Bellemont chapel, which appears to have been the place they affected. But none came to Mr Bridges' house save and except Henry. Even his wife and children had gone to Bellemont as usual. On his master asking him why he had not obeyed his order and brought the people to service, he answered meekly enough that the people were not under his direction on Sunday. “But have I not told you,” said his master, “that you and the people are not to go to Bellemont chapel preaching and praying? How dare you go when I tell you not and encourage the people to disobey my orders? I'll teach you to disobey my orders. You shall not go to Bellemont for nothing!” And he actually sent the unfortunate man to the Rodney Hall Workhouse, the most dreaded workhouse in the whole island--this man who was a class leader and a man of standing among his own people--with his hands tied behind his back and in charge of other slaves like a common criminal, though they knew perfectly well that he would have gone and delivered himself up to receive what was coming to him. “I have no mind,” said his master, “that you should go there as a gentleman, as if you were going on your own business.” “Excessive labour, miserable diet, chains and the whip, soon brought down his strength,” writes Bleby, and he goes on to tell at length of his suffering. His leg was so diseased that he could not put it to the ground, he had been thrashed till his back was one unspeakable sore, so pestiferous that the prisoners in the same cell complained that the stench proceeding from his wounds was too great to be endured. At last he was released. And I suppose for want of any other place to go to, made his way back to his own people. And his master made him the text of his discourse to his slaves.