Fox's Book of Martyrs / Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant / Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs

by John Foxe

The public papers have stated four charges as forming the indictment against him, but of their accuracy the directors are not enabled to judge. They trust that, under the direction of Divine Providence, he has been able to prove himself guiltless of them all.

It is not, however, to be concealed, that he will have had much to contend with from the violence of public prejudice in the Colony, and it is to be feared from the false assertions of some of the unhappy negroes, whom the hope of favour towards themselves may have led to bring against him "things that he knew not." Indeed, the directors are informed, upon authority on which they can rely, that some of the condemned negroes, finding the hope of life taken away, had in the most solemn manner declared that they had been induced so to act; and that others, on being questioned whether they had not been induced to rebellion by Mr. Smith, had in the strongest terms which their broken language could supply, denied the imputation. It is stated by the writer of one letter, that he has often heard charges circulated against the missionaries, as if spoken by the negroes at the time of their execution, which he knew, (for he was a near spectator,) that they never had uttered.

We can as yet learn little more respecting the evidence which was produced before the court than that some of the negroes testified that the instructions of Mr. Smith had a tendency to make them dissatisfied with their condition, and that he knew of the plot before it was carried into execution.

He was condemned, and sentenced to death. The sentence was however transmitted by the governor, to England, for the consideration and ultimate decision of the king. What we know of the decision will be seen in the following paragraph, copied from the New-York Observer of March 27th.

It appears from the London papers, that "the king has remitted the sentence of death of the court martial on Mr. Smith, the missionary of the London Society in Demerara, (which sentence was accompanied by a recommendation for mercy on the part of the court,) but has given orders that he should be dismissed from the colony, and should come under obligations not to reside within any of his majesty's colonial possessions in the West Indies." The charges against Mr. Smith appear to have originated in the perjury of some of the negroes engaged in the insurrection.

In the mean time Mr. Smith was languishing under the influence of disease, which rendered the stroke of the executioner unnecessary to remove him from the earth. He died in prison, before the intelligence had arrived that his sentence was reversed. The following notice of his death appeared in the Demerara Courant.

Died,—In the Colonial Jail, at Demerara, February 9th, where he had been confined, as a state prisoner since the 26th of November last, on the termination of his trial by the general court martial, on a charge of high treason, sentence thereon having been transmitted to his majesty for his final decision—JOHN SMITH, missionary; he had been in a poor state of health, and had been attended regularly by skilful physicians. We are happy to state, from personal inquiry and inspection, that this unhappy man had the utmost attention and kindness shewn to him, by the humane keeper of the prison, (Mr. Padmore,) all the time of his confinement. His apartment was airy and commodious, he had always at his command every comfort which his taste fancied or his necessities required. He has left a widow to deplore his fate, and deplore his loss.

The conviction which results from the present state of our information on this subject, is that, through prejudice and exasperated feeling, Mr. Smith was condemned, being innocent. The directors of the society under which he laboured, have, however, given us reason to look for further intelligence in a future number of the Missionary Chronicler, which we hope will soon arrive.

It appears that none of the negroes under the instruction of any missionary, either of the London or Wesleyan Missionary Society except Mr. Smith, were implicated in the insurrection. Respecting the Methodists in the colony we quote the following statement from the Wesleyan Methodist Magazine:

We stated in our last number, that Messrs. Mortier and Cheesewright, our missionaries in Demerara were safe, and that only two of the members of our society there had been apprehended on suspicion of being implicated in the late revolt. We have received a second letter from Mr. Mortier, dated Demerara, September seventeenth, which communicated the gratifying intelligence that these two persons, who were servants of the governor, had been liberated upon full conviction of their entire innocence, and that no one of the members of our large society of twelve hundred and sixteen, chiefly slaves, had been in the least concerned in the revolt: and that the slaves of another estate, under the care of Mr. Cheesewright, had not only refused to join the rebels, but had conducted their master to a vessel, by which he reached Georgetown in safety.