Volume VI Part 16 (2/2)

11. And be it enacted, that the minister shall have power to punish any negro for disorderly conduct during divine service, by a punishment not exceeding [ten] blows to be given in one day and for one offence, which the overseer or his under agent or agents is hereby directed, according to the orders of the said minister, effectually to inflict, whenever the same shall be ordered.

[Sidenote: Spirituous liquors not to be sold.]

12. And be it enacted, that no spirituous liquors of any kind shall be sold, except in towns, within ---- miles distance of any church, nor within any district during divine service, and an hour preceding and an hour following the same; and the minister of each parish shall and is hereby authorized to act as a justice of the peace in enforcing the said regulation.

[Sidenote: Register of births, burials, and marriages.]

13. And be it enacted, that every minister shall keep a register of births, burials, and marriages of all negroes and mulattoes in his district.

[Sidenote: Synod to a.s.semble annually, and to form regulations,]

14. And be it enacted, that the ministers of the several districts shall meet annually, on the ---- day of ----, in a synod of the island to which they belong; and the said synod shall have for its president such person as the Bishop of London shall appoint for his commissary; and the said synod or general a.s.sembly is hereby authorized, by a majority of voices, to make regulations, which regulations shall be transmitted by the said president or commissary to the Bishop of London; and when returned by the Bishop of London approved of, then, and not before, the said regulations shall be held in force to bind the said clergy, their a.s.sistants, clerks, and schoolmasters only, and no other persons.

[Sidenote: and to report to the Bishop of London.]

15. And be it enacted, that the said president shall collect matter in the said a.s.sembly, and shall make a report of the state of religion and morals in the several parishes from whence the synod is deputed, and shall transmit the same, once in the year, in duplicate, through the governor and protector of negroes, to the Bishop of London.

[Sidenote: Bishop of London to be patron of the cures.]

16. And be it enacted and declared, that the Bishop of London for the time being patron of the shall be patron to all and every the said cures in this act directed; and the said bishop is hereby required to provide for the due filling thereof, and is to receive, from the fund in this act provided for the due execution of this act, a sum not exceeding ---- for each of the said ministers, for his outfit and pa.s.sage.

[Sidenote: and to have power of suspending and removing ministers.]

17. And be it enacted, that, on misbehavior, and on complaint from the said synod, and on hearing the party accused in a plain and summary manner, it shall and may be lawful for the Bishop of London to suspend or to remove any minister from his cure, as his said offences shall appear to merit.

[Sidenote: Schools for young negroes.]

18. And be it enacted, that for every two districts a school shall be established for young negroes to be taught three days in the week, and to be detained from their owner four hours in each day, the number not to be more or fewer than twenty males in each district, who shall be chosen, and vacancies filled, by the minister of the district; and the said minister shall pay to the owner of the said boy, and shall be allowed the same in his accounts at the synod, to the age of twelve years old, three-pence by the day, and for every boy from twelve years old to fifteen, five-pence by the day.

[Sidenote: Extraordinary abilities to be encouraged.]

19. And it is enacted, that, if the president of the synod aforesaid shall certify to the protector of negroes, that any boys in the said schools (provided that the number in no one year shall exceed one in the island of Jamaica, and one in two years in the islands of Barbadoes, Antigua, and Grenada, and one in four years in any of the other islands) do show a remarkable apt.i.tude for learning, the said protector is hereby authorized and directed to purchase the said boy at the best rate at which boys of that age and strength have been sold within the year; and the said negro so purchased shall be under the entire guardians.h.i.+p of the said protector of negroes, who shall send him to the Bishop of London for his further education in England, and may charge in his accounts for the expense of transporting him to England; and the Bishop of London shall provide for the education of such of the said negroes as he shall think proper subjects, until the age of twenty-four years, and shall order those who shall fall short of expectation after one year to be bound apprentice to some handicraft trade; and when his apprentices.h.i.+p is finished, the Lord Mayor of London is hereby authorized and directed to receive the said negro from his master, and to transmit him to the island from which he came, in the West Indies, to be there as a free negro, subject, however, to the direction of the protector of negroes, relatively to his behavior and employment.

[Sidenote: Negroes of Dissenters.]

[Sidenote: their marriages, &c., to be registered.]

20. And it is hereby enacted and provided, that any planter, or owner of negroes, not being of the Church of England, and not choosing to send his negroes to attend divine service in manner by this act directed, shall give, jointly or severally, as the case shall require, security to the protector of negroes that a competent minister of some Christian church or congregation shall be provided for the due instruction of the negroes, and for their performing divine service according to the description of the religion of the master or masters, in some church or house thereto allotted, in the manner and with the regulations in this act prescribed with regard to the exercise of religion according to the Church of England: provided always, that the marriages of the said negroes belonging to Dissenters shall be celebrated only in the church of the said district, and that a register of the births shall be transmitted to the minister of the said district.

[Sidenote: Regulations concerning marriage.]

21. And whereas a state of matrimony, and the government of a family, is a princ.i.p.al means of forming men to a fitness for freedom, and to become good citizens: Be it enacted, that all negro men and women, above eighteen years of age for the man and sixteen for the woman, who have cohabited together for twelve months or upwards, or shall cohabit for the same time, and have a child or children, shall be deemed to all intents and purposes to be married, and either of the parties is authorized to require of the ministers of the district to be married in the face of the church.

[Sidenote: Concerning the same.]

22. And be it enacted, that, from and after the ---- of ----, all negro men in an healthy condition, and so reported to be, in case the same is denied, by a surgeon and by an inspector of negroes, and being twenty-one years old, or upwards, until fifty, and not being before married, shall, on requisition of the inspectors, be provided by their masters or overseers with a woman not having children living, and not exceeding the age of the man, nor, in any case, exceeding the age of twenty-five years; and such persons shall be married publicly in the face of the church.

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