general feelings of the island, or to promote its interests, we might have been induced to consider them as brethren in affliction; but it is with real grief we observe that their proceedings have arisen from error in judgment, and ignorance of our real situation, of which we hope they will soon be convinced, and join us in asserting and defending our rights." The tone of proceedings in the Colonial Assembly is of the same description. And what is it that has excited all this vehemence of indignation? As far as we know as yet, a recommendation on the part of his Majesty's Government, that females should no longer be punished with flogging, that the cart-whip should be laid aside as the stimulant of labour, and that certain other measures of reform should be adopted; and an intimation that the mother country, which supports the existing system of oppression by a profuse expenditure of her blood and treasure, will insist on a compliance with these reasonable requi sitions. The planters of Trinidad, if less violent in their expressions than those of Jamaica, are still more explicit in their statements; To deprive the master of the power of inflicting corporal punishment on any slave, whether male or female, would, in the opinion of this meeting, subvert the discipline of every estate in the colony, without answering one single beneficial end." This is at least a frank admission that Trinidad; that every proprietor who ordered a punishment to be inflicted, should himself be present to to Witness its infliction. But these colonists say, "that" they contemplate with dismay an enactment to compel every proprietor, whatever may be his rank and station, to witness a scene" (a scene indeed!) "which a sense of duty alone may have compelled him to order: and should that proprietor be a feinale, they hope that something will be found due to those feelings, arising from a sense of shame, at once the pride and ornament of their sex, which Lord Bathurst is so anxious to implant on the minds of Black females!" So that punishments which, these slave-holders and slave-drivers regard as a scene too bad even to be witnessed by persons of rank and station, and as utterly polluting to the eyes of White women, may nevertheless be ordered to be inflicted on Black men and women, at the caprice of these squeamish ladies and gentlemen,without one feeling of distnay or apprehension at the possible abuse of this *! tremendous power The conduct of the Barbadoes legislature is much in the same spirit with that of the planters of Trinidad. They make large general professions of their desire to ameliorate the condition of the slaves; but they have their objections in detail to some of the most indispensable particulars of reform which have been called for; and their general feelings may be judged of by the on the of estates at present the conduct displayed by their con restę whip, administered not by the law or by the magistrate, but by the individual owner of his or her delegate, This cruel discipline it would of course subvert. Again: The present meeting con siders the abolition of Sunday markets as tending in no way to the promotion of religion." Come, ye Christian nations, and learn a new code of morality from the planters of Trinidad. "Innocent occupations, embracing practical utility, have ever been recognized," say they, "by the British legis lature, as no violation of the sanctity of the Sabbath." In the same way almost every other suggested reform is frittered away or rejected, as not "compatible with the well-being of the slaves themselves, with the safety of the colonies, and with a fair and equitable consideration of the interests of private property." A very salutary regulation, it seems, had been proposed to the planters of stituent body in respect to Mr. Shrewsbury and his chapel, as already detailed in an earlier part of this Number. In short, they will make no changes but what accord with their own despotic views. A short time will now shew what real and effective (not nominal) reforms have been the result of the reference of this great question to the We shall be colonial authorities. most agreeably disappointed if even the smallest advance shall appear to have been made by them in improving the legal condition of their bondsmen. It is perfectly obvious, that none can be made that will prove availing while the colonial law of evidence remains on its present footing. *The law of villeinage in this country went much farther than Lord 'Bathurst. The villein could not be chastised but by the hands of his lord. Such a law would indeed be a law of mercy in th West Indies. In conclusion, we trust that every man in the kingdom, who has the fear of God before his eyes, and who has any regard for the obligations of humanity and justice, will feel himself called upon to employ every constitutional expedient which is in his power for preventing the success of any attempt to divert Parliament from carrying into full effect its righteous purpose of admitting the slaves in our colonies to a full participation of "those rights and privileges which are enjoyed by other classes of his Majesty's subjects," at the earliest period which is compatible with the weilbeing of the slaves and the safety of the colonies, whatever may be the sacrifice the country may be required to make in order to afford a fair and equitable compensation to the parties immediately concerned. And in any case, we trust that the nation will not be willing to continue, at a large expense in bounties and protecting duties, and in other ways, to support the present system, which has been clearly proved to be as unprofitable and impolitic, as it is unconstitutional and unchristian, Thurtell was found guilty of the murder of Mr. Weare, and Hunt of being an accessary before the fact. The evidence was indubitably decisive against both. Hunt, on account of Some hopes having been held out to hin, which led to his confession and to the discovery of the body, has been respited. Thurtell conducted himself with calmness to the last; and the chaplain of the jail speaks highly of the propriety of his conduct. He, however, neither confessed nor denied his guilt. His fearful example strongly impresses those important lessons which we attempted to point cut in a former Number, in referring to the circumstances of his crime. The revenue account for the year is highly favourable. The customs, the index of foreign trade, have increased more than a million; and, notwithstanding the late reductions and repeals of taxation, the absolute decrease in the Excise department is little more than 600,000l. ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS. INDIGNISSIMUS; A SOCIETY OF CONSTANT READERS; C. L.; E. M. B.; C. E. Y.; Acyopia; and Y. N.; have been received, and are under consideration. A LOVER OF ORDER had better address his query to the expounders of Ecclesiastical Law. We think, however, he will find that indecorous behaviour will not legally warrant a clergyman in addressing the offender during Divine Service, and that he is liable to punishment as a brawler" for so doing. B. C. will perceive that his information respecting Dr. Gifford's copy of Tindal's first edition of the New Testament is superseded by a fuller communication from another correspondent. In reply to B. C.'s remark, that “ he is not aware of the existence of any other copy," it may be interesting to him to be informed, that Mr. Cotton, in his elaborate List of Editions of the English Bible, printed at the Clarendon press in 1821, states, that it had been his fortune, in examining the library at St. Paul's cathedral, to discover a second copy." This copy, however, is imperfect, both at the beginning and the end; and its former owner, as if afraid of a second Bishop Tonstal, has contrived mosE ingeniously to disguise and disfigure it, by intermixing the Gospels and Epistles with each other in the strangest manner. The volume is in half binding, and is lettered, for what reason does not appear, "Lant's Testament." Mr. Cotton strongly recommended that it should be taken to pieces and examined; the deficient parts supplied by a transcript from the Bristol copy, and the whole re-bound in order, and placed nuder lock and key, under the special superintendence of the Librarian. We would suggest to the proprietors of the Bristol copy, whether it might not be desirable to have a few copies of this rare and unique book (the St. Paul's copy being imperfect, the Bristol copy must still be considered unique), printed, in order to secure from casualities the text of the First Translation and Edition of the New Testament in the English Language. In the present flourishing state of biblical studies, a re print of this work would be a valuable accession to sacred literature; and the work infinitely better deserves reprinting than scores of volumes of black letter trash which have of late years been rescued from oblivion, and re-obtruded ppon the world. A Clergyman, who is making a collection of Occasional State Prayers for pub. lication, would be glad of any of a date anterior to 1758, if left for him, free of charge, at Messrs. Hatchards', directed to W. J. N. THE CHRISTIAN OBSERVER. No. 266.] FEBRUARY, 1824. [No. 2. Vol. XXIV. RELIGIOUS COMMUNICATIONS. For the Christian Observer. WE E have delayed announcing to our readers the lamented death of the late revered Mr. Grant, till we could lay before them a somewhat copious memoir of his eminently valuable and useful life. Our pages have recorded the lives and deaths of many distinguished men and distinguished Christians; but we know not when the grave has closed over the mortal remains of an individual whose life has furnished more valuable lessons to mankind, or whose departure has deprived the world of a larger share of Christian piety, and public and private virtues, than that of the subject of the following pages. Whether we view him as a Christian, as a man of business, or as a philanthropist, his strict integrity, his mature wisdom, his firmness of character, his Christian simplicity, his uniform consistency of life, his love for his fellow-creatures, his zeal for their welfare, and, above all, and the spring of all, his deep, selfabasing, and truly scriptural piety towards God, were eminently conspicuous. In drawing up our narrative, we have availed ourselves of the biographical sketches which his death has called forth, and of the description of his character given by the Rev. Daniel Wilson, in the funeral sermon. preached on that occasion. MEMOIR OF THE LATE CHARles GRANT, ESQ. The late Charles Grant, Esq. was born in Scotland, in the year 1746. By the decease of his father, soon CHRIST. OBSERV. No. 266. after the birth, of this son, the care of his infancy and youth devolved upon an uncle, at whose expense he received a good education in the town of Elgin. This signal benefit afterwards excited in Mr. Grant's mind feelings of the most grateful respect for his uncle's memory; and these he expressed by a memorial placed over his grave. In the year 1767, Mr. Grant proceeded to India in a military capacity; but, on his arrival there, he was taken into the employ, and under the immediate patronage, of Mr. Richard Becher, a Member of the Bengal Council. In 1770 he re-visited his native country, where he united himself by marriage with a lady of the name of Frazer, who survives him. Having, while in England, obtained the promise of an appointment as a Writer on the Bengal Establishment, he re-embarked for India in May 1772, accompanied by his wife, her mother and sister, and Lieutenant Ferguson, a friend of the family. In the course of this voyage, he formed an intimacy with that eminent Christian missionary, the Rev. Christian Frederick Swartz, with whom he maintained a correspondence till the decease of the latter. After the death of Mr. Swartz, who had rendered important services to the East India Company, Mr. Grant recommended to the Court to perpetuate the remembrance of them by the erection of a memorial in St. Mary's church, at Fort St. George, at the public expense. This suggestion was adopted; and the monument was erected at the cost of the East India Company. L Almost immediately after Mr. Grant's arrival at Calcutta, he was promoted to the rank of Factor, and soon afterwards was appointed Secretary to the Board of Trade; which office he held for upwards of eight years, performing its duties with exemplary industry and ability. In 1781 the Bengal Government relieved him from his secretaryship, and stationed him as the Company's commercial resident, in charge of their valuable silk factory at Malda. In June 1784, he obtained the rank of Senior Merchant, and in February 1787 was summoned to Calcutta, that he might take possession of the seat and office of Fourth Member of the Board of Trade, conferred on him by Lord Cornwallis, in consideration of his distinguished abilities and approved integrity. But, in less than three years after he had received this appointment, the impaired health of his family compelled him suddenly to quit India, and return to England. Lord Cornwallis, who had held frequent communications with Mr. Grant, and entertained the highest regard for him, when solicited to allow him to quit the presidency, expressed regret at the necessity which deprived Government of his most essential assistance. His return to England was accompanied by unusually strong expressions of the high satisfaction with which the Government regarded his zealous and faithful services in the commercial department. A distinguishing and most honourable feature of Mr. Grant's character, while in India, was his solicitude to uphold, to the utmost of his power, both by his example and influence, the public profession of Christianity by the Europeans. In this cause his zeal was most earnest; and it was the more conspicuous and self-denying, because at that period there was little in India to countenance, and much to check, a faithful adherence to scriptural principles. To his influence and example at this early period, followed by his zealous and enlight ened devotion to the same cause throughout his long life, may we attribute, under the Divine blessing, more than perhaps to almost any other human agency, that cheering progress of true religion in India which has of late years been witnessed, and which no individual beheld with greater delight and gratitude to God than he who had been among the first to lay the foundations of its growth. The following examples may be mentioned, as proofs both of his zeal and his liberality. The church originally constructed at Calcutta for the English settlers was destroyed by a furious hurricane in October 1737; and from that period till the erection of the mission church in 1770, no Protestant place of worship existed there. Towards erecting a new church, by private subscription, Mr. Grant contributed 500 rupees, and assisted in the procurement of valuable materials from Gour. The church or chapel called Bethtephillah, with the schools and burying ground which had been erected by the Protestant missionary I. Z. Kiernander, in the year 1770, for the use of his mission, was in 1787 placed under sequestration by the Sheriff of Calcutta, to answer for the missionary's personal debts. To prevent the desecration and sale of these premises, and the discontinuance of public worship which must have ensued, Mr.Grant paid out of his own purse the sum of 10,000 rupees, being the amount at which they were valued, and immediately placed them in trust for sacred and charitable uses for ever, constituting Mr. William Chambers, a brother of Sir Robert Chambers, with the Rev. Mr. Browne, one of the Company's chaplains, and himself, trustees. After his return to India, and a residence there of, altogether, nearly twenty years, in the service of the Company, Mr. Grant, with his family, re-embarked at Calcutta, and arrived in England in the autumn of 1790. His early promotion to stations of trust and emolument, for which he had been recommended by superior talent and tried integrity, had enabled him to acquire a respectable competency of fortune: and his residence in India, influenced, during the whole term of it, by a peculiarly strong sense of the obligations of religion, had matured his character to that of a Christian philanthropist, and inspired him with lively feelings of solicitude for the moral and intellectual welfare of the immense Mohammedan and Heathen population subject to the British Government. He had instituted a close scrutiny into the character of the natives, which had resulted in the formation and establishment of opinions which governed his subsequent conduct upon occasions of great moral and political importance. His first employment, after his return to England, was to commit the result of his inquiries to paper, in a tract entitled "Observations on the State of Society among the Asiatic Subjects of Great Britain," which was written in 1792, although not submitted to perusal out of the circle of his personal friends till 1797. In that year he laid it upon the table of the Court of Directors, with an Introductory Letter, stating his motives for so doing to be a consideration of its relevancy to certain proposals for communicating Christianity to the natives of India, by granting permission for Missionaries to proceed thither, which had been repeatedly pressed upon the Court's attention. This paper will be again adverted to, in connexion with the final and successful efforts of its author for the attainment of that object. On the 30th of May, 1794, he was elected a Director of the East India Company by the unanimous vote of the proprietors, not more than two months after he had declared himself a candidate for the Direction. He was at this time in the forty-ninth year of his age, in the full vigour of an excellent constitution; possessed of extensive general knowledge; of laborious habits as a reader and writer, with a sound judgment and great firmness, integrity, and benevolence. To attempt a detail of all the important measures connected with the India administration, in the discussion and adoption of which Mr. Grant from this time took an active and often a prominent part, would be impracticable. But a brief reference to a few of them seems necessary for the illustration of his character and history. The subject of greatest commercial moment which Mr. Grant found under the consideration of the Court of Directors when he entered it, and which appears to have attracted his earliest attention, was a question respecting the freight paid by the Company for the hire of their shipping. The friends of Mr. Grant have claimed for him the credit of having been mainly instrumental in effecting the salutary reform which afterwards took place, and by which large sums were saved to the Company. Upon other important questions which were agitated about this time, particularly those respecting the opening of the trade of India, and the prevention of an illicit trade, Mr. Grant strenuously and conscientiously supported what he considered to be the Company's just rights, and rendered them eminent service. Upon a question of great delicacy, the alleged abuse of the patronage of the Court, he was equally diligent and honest in investigating the foundation of the rumour, and in exonerating himself and his colleagues from the imputation. In April, 1804, he was elected Deputy Chairman of the Court of Directors, and Chairman the next year. He was afterwards elected to the same offices several times after going out by rotation; making_altogether a period of six years, during which he held one or other of these highly arduous and responsible appointments. Upon Mr. Grant's elevation to the chair in 1804, he found the |