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Untitled Article
been desirous of keeping alive in the minds of the settlers the idea of religion * . He read prayers publicly every Sunday , though prayers were sometimes obliged to give place to necesK sary labour . One of the colonists , a North Briton , objected to working on the Sabbath-day : Capt . B . meeting him on his own ground , assured him , that if on that day he would not work , neither should he eat : his scruples immediately vanished .
Having heard accidentally that the Biafaras , a nation living about 70 miles up the Rio Grande , claimed the property of the island , he made them a visit , and wisely satisfied their - claim ? s , - by re-purchasing Bulama , advancing goods to the amount of twenty-six pounds sterling . The Biafaras are an umvarlike ,
innocent , amiable people . They wondered much that CapU B . would not buy their slaves ! The Bijugas are the reverse of the Biafaras , and their hereditary , inveterate enemies . They are uncivilized , faithless , and cruel . They are distinguished among the neighbouring riations by nhe appellation of wild men : they are the Aloerines
of the Bijuga sea : their slaughter of the colonists , oh their first landing at Bulama , has been described ; they afterwards , visited Capt . Beaver several times ; and nothing but his obvious and admirable intrepidity and precaution prevented them from taking advantage of the reduced state of the settlers to plunder enslave , and niurder them .
The terror which , during the latter part of the time of the occupation of the island , was struck into the hearts of the colonists ( partly , no doubt ^ by the character of the Bijugas ) , wa £ extreme : it completely paralyzed their minds . All of theniy excepting Capt . 13 . lost their memories . One who had had a pretty good education in Scotland , could not by any effort count fifteen . Tear , also , added strength to disease .
< c Since the first of this ' month / ' writes Capt . B . in his Journal oi Dec . 21 , l / O'i , " of nineteen men , four women , and five children , we have buried nine men , three women , and one child , which is , except one , half of the whole colony . It is melancholy , no doubt ; but many have absolutely died through fear . Mcg ' e courage , and greater
exertions , I firmly believe , would have saved many of them ; but a lowness of spirits , a general despondency , seems 16 possess every bddy . When taken ill , they lie down , and say that they know they shall die ; and , what is very remarkable , I have never yet known 0 n 6 recover after having in such a manner given himself up . "
The colonists would not have been able to maintain their ground so long at Bulama , had not their able" chief , by a course * The original Bulama constitution contained but one article on religion , but that one so excellent , as to deserve being written in letters of gold : —¦ - " We eU > hereby declare and ordain , that in our colony no man shall be deemed responsibly : to another for his particular mode of faith or worship , - ' but shall be equally" eligibfe to any post or office , whether legislative oi executive in our colony . "
Untitled Article
322 African Memoranda .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1806, page 322, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1725/page/42/
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