Letters to William Wilberforce, M.P., on the Cultivation of Sugar in the East Indies, as the means of Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade Report of a Committee of the Liverpool East India Asso- ciation, appointed to take into consideration the Restric- tions on the East India Trade ib. THE INVESTIGATOR. JULY, 1823. Necrological Retrospect of the Year 1821 concluded. THE Church of England did not, during the year 1821, lose any of her bishops, and few of her dignitaries, by death, but she had to lament the removal of several of her ministers, distinguished by their zeal, their learning, or the exemplary manner in which they discharged the duties of their most holy calling; though in their doctrinal views they differed widely from each other, and some of them from what we consider to be the testimony of scripture on certain longcontroverted points of faith. Of these, Archdeacon Outram was a distinguished scholar, a laborious divine, and a pastor whose private character was so benevolent and urbane, that his body was attended to the grave by many of the ministers and members of the various sects of dissenters, several of whom his writings had attacked. There are many others worthy to be particularized, but we select as the principal, the Rev. Henry Kiplin, vicar of Plumstead, in Kent, with the chapel of East Wickham annexed, to the ministers and churchwardens of which he bequeathed £1000 towards the support of their Sunday-schools; the Rev. Frederic Thurston, M. A., officiating minister at Bayswater chapel, but formerly minister of the English churches in Switzerland, an eloquent preacher and laborious pastor, who, at the early age of thirty-three, was taken from the labours of the work to which he was earnestly and conscientiously devoted, after having faithfully discharged its duties, and given to the world a proof of his mental vigour, in a work upon Prophecy; the Rev. Thomas Moses Lyster, rector of Newton, Billingsley, and Oldbury, in Shropshire; the Rev. Henry Morland, rector of Horsonden, Kent; the Rev. Benjamin Wynberley Salmon, 40 years rector of Caister, Norfolk; the Rev. F. Gisborne, the venerable and exemplary rector of Staveley, Derbyshire, whose charities in life, and at his death, were most extensive; the Rev. Dr. George Cope, one of the canons residentiary of Hereford cathedral, and vicar of Bromyard and Madley, a man who, by the munificence of his bequests, testified his attachment to the VOL. VII.No. 13. B church, of which, in his life-time, he was not an useless member. A similar testimony was afforded by the Rev. Charles Francis, M.A., rector of Minal and Collingbourne Ducis, Wilts, and one of the prebendaries of the cathedral church of Salisbury. To him we add the Rev. Wm. Jameson, rector of Clapham, and vicar of Horsham, in Sussex; the Rev. J. G. Hannington, D.D., one of the prebendaries of Hereford, and for many years rector of Hampton, one of the most valuable livings in that diocese; the Rev. W, Williams, the pious and laborious curate of Denton and Long Crendon, Bucks; the Rev. Richard Hill, of Hawkestone, a member of a family long dear to the friends of the gospel, as of late years it has given an honourable name to the military heroes of our country. From our very limited knowledge of the character of the ministers of the Church of Scotland, we can only name amongst her losses of the last year, the Rev. James Innes, of Yester, in East Lothian; Dr. John Findlay, upwards of 40 years minister of the High Church at Paisley; the Rev. Kenneth Bayne, minister of the Gaelic chapel at Greenock; and the Rev. Alexander Macleod, of that at Cromarty. With these we appropriately connect Dr. Nicol, for 25 years the able, laborious, and exemplary pastor of the Scotch Presbyterian church in Swallow-street, London. Those of the various classes of Dissenters were not numerous, consisting chiefly, among the Independents, of the Rev. Henry Field, of Blandford; Thomas Northcote Toller, of Kettering, (of whom a regular obituary has been given); George Ford, of Stepney; Peter Jenkins of Brychgoed; the venerable Noah Blackburne, of Delph, called suddenly, though in a good old age, from his useful labours to his great reward; and the Rev. John Griffin, jun., of Exeter, summoned to that reward at his very entrance on what promised to be a most useful, and even a very brilliant course. Upon his father, as well as upon the excellent parent of our favourite Durant, this melancholy event devolved the task of becoming the biographer of a son, from whom he might rather have expected the performance of that most painful, yet interesting duty. The principal Baptist ministers removed, were the Rev. Wm. Britton, 40 years pastor of the church in Dean-street, in the Borough; W. Freeman, of Cardington, Cotton End, the place where the philanthropic Howard used when at home frequently to attend; C. Hunter, of Richmond, and John Sharp, of Bradford, Yorkshire; and G. Smith, formerly pastor of the church in Eagle-street, but lately of Shrews bury. Of the Rev. Joseph Benson, one of the oldest, most learned, and most laborious of the preachers in the Wesleyan Methodist connection, we should say more here, than that he was one of the best examples of what a minister of the gospel should be that we ever met with, but that we hope ere long, in a review of the life which has been published of him, to do justice to a man, whom we knew and loved. The connection also lost in the same year, the Rev. Theophilus Lessey, who terminated at Manchester a very useful ministry of four and thirty years. Within a very few days of each other, two of their missionaries were also removed from the work which seemed prospering in their hands at Jamaica, the Rev. James Underhill, and the Rev. George Johnstone, both of them dying at Morant's Bay, in that island. The death of the Rev. James Lindsay, D.D., pastor of the Presbyterian church in Monkwell-street, was awfully sudden; and though diametrically opposed to the theological sentiments which he held as orthodox, upon points of vital importance, we readily embrace this opportunity of renewing our cheerful testimony to the extent of his learning, the liberality of his conduct, and the excellence of his private character. He was neither a narrow bigot, nor a fiery controversialist, but conciliatory in his spirit, and gentlemanly in his manners. His death appears to have accelerated that of his most intimate friend, the Rev. Thos. Morgan, LL.D., for many years librarian to the institution within whose walls Dr. Lindsay was struck with death. They were of the same religious sentiments, and maintained them with the like liberality towards those who differed from them. Dr. Morgan was never very celebrated as a preacher, though the discourses which he published are by no means discreditable to his talents, which found however a more congenial and appropriate soil for their display in the critical department of the New Annual Register, and "the General Biography," first begun by Dr. Enfield, and continued by Dr. Aikin. But it was as librarian to the library of the Dissenters that his loss will be more immediately felt; for we can testify, from long personal experience, that no man could fulfil the duties of that office with more care, urbanity, gentlemanly attention, and liberality towards all men, whatever their sentiments, political or religious, than he did; though we are grieved to add, that since his death a very different course has been pursued. It has, however, been remonstrated against by those who will not suffer their remonstrances, when well founded, to be slighted, and will, we hope ere long, be changed. Verb. sap. sat. we would say to the trustees of an institution, of which no body of Dissenters, be they heterodox or orthodox, can be suffered to have any thing like an exclusive, or even a favoured, use. The same character of liberality applies to Dr. Everard, the late Roman Catholic archbishop of Cashel; and from such, good men of every persuasion may agree to differ. This also was the case with the Rev. Peter Gandol¡ hy, a very eloquent and powerful preacher of the same faith in London, where he was so anxious to remove the stigma of encouraging ignorance, which has been long and but too deservedly fixed upon his church, that, having translated her prayers into English, he applied to Bishop Poynter for a license to permit the use of them amongst the people of his charge; and on his refusal, repaired to Rome to try the effects of a similar application to the Pope, with whom, however, we believe, that he was equally unsuccessful. The churches and philanthropic institutions of America had one of their lights taken from the midst of them in the Rev. Dr. Worcester, one of the secretaries to the American Board of Missions, and, whilst life and health permitted, a valuable correspondent of the Investigator; nor will they soon forget the early removal from his labours to his rest of the Rev. Samuel Newell, one of their Missionaries at Bombay, a labourer in his Master's vineyard, well known throughout the Christian world as one of the joint authors of that most interesting tract, "The Conversion of the World." In reverting to America, it would be unpardonable not to add a name that would do honour to any country, that of the Hon. Elias Boudinot, LL.D., the venerable founder of the American Bible Society, and the liberal patron of every philanthropic institution with which his country is abundantly supplied. Of him, however, we shall take an early opportunity of presenting our readers with an extended obituary. We close our necrological review with two of our own countrymen, who, though not falling within either of our divisions of this article, applied too much mechanical genius to the useful purposes of life, to permit their omission bere. Of these, Rennie, the celebrated engineer, is a man who must stand by himself. To name him in England, a country which possesses so many monuments of his skill, is sufficient, as it now indeed would also be abroad, where his talents have been so highly estimated, that his death |