Feeling ran very high in Jamaica in those times. The Colonial Church Union was formed, and the members behaved in a manner that would have been unseemly in a collection of drunken pugilists, let alone people declaring themselves supporters of the Established Church of the realm. Up and down the land they waged war against the “sectarians,” they visited the houses of these preachers, and on more than one occasion tarred and feathered those they particularly disliked. On one occasion they even wreaked their wrath on Bleby himself. Now I do not think any man should be tarred and feathered, but if any man was going to be, I am really glad it was Bleby. There is something about his book which makes me--who would like to be an impartial historian--thoroughly dislike him. I can quite appreciate the effect he had upon his compeers. The editor of the _Courant_, a paper which appears to have been published at Montego Bay, wrote: “The bills against the painters of parson B-------- have all been thrown out, and the chapel razers have not been recognised; so they are all a party of ignoramuses! I have only to say for myself, that if a mad dog was passing my way, I would have no hesitation in shooting him; and if I found a furious animal on two legs teaching a parcel of poor ignorant beings to cut my------------- or to fire my dwelling, my conscience would not trouble me one bit more for destroying him, than it would for the destruction of a mad dog.” There we have the feelings of the two classes in a nut-shell, as quoted by that pestilential person Bleby himself. The planters were very sure that the dissenters by their teaching were inciting the negroes to rebellion, and having read Bleby carefully, I can quite understand how the teaching of men like him undoubtedly widened the breach there must always have been between master and slave. Most dissenters I fancy came under suspicion. There was a young man called Whiteley, a relation of the absentee proprietor of an estate called New Ground, who had been sent out by his relation with letters to the manager, and a suggestion that he should be given work on the estate. But what he saw there he did not like. He spoke openly of his dislike and incurred the displeasure of the St Ann's Colonial Church Union, and they sent him a deputation of two of their number, stating:-- “1st. That they had heard he had been leading the minds of the slaves astray by holding forth doctrines of a tendency to make them discontented with their present condition. “2ndly. That he was a Methodist. “3rdly. That they had a barrel of tar down on the bay to tar and feather him, as he well deserved, and that they would do so by G------!” Now his offences appear very mild, and hardly deserve such drastic treatment, though I think the young man was a little smug. Here are the offences:--