serve, if it were possible, to the rest of my family, as the Culloden at the Nile.” (The allusion is to a ship-of-war which ran on a reef, and was of no use in the fight except as a warning to its friends.)
Mr. Lefroy’s remaining years of office were more agreeable than he had ventured to hope. In fact, his project in publishing “Outalissi” was publicly justified. By appointment of the Netherland Government, Major-General Van den Bosch came to Surinam in 1828 to investigate into the state of the colony, and (says Mr Lefroy) “the very first thing he did on his arrival was to send all my official antagonists to the right about, and completely remodel the Colonial Government. He introduced many salutary regulations, as well for the protection of the slaves as the general prosperity of the colony — regulations which reflected more severely upon the prior local administration and the general moral character of the colony than any charges either expressed or implied in the narrative of Outalissi, and would themselves have been a gratuitous libel, if these charges had not been substantially true.”
The last sight we get of Mr. Lefroy in Dutch Guiana is himself and the Dutch Commissioner and the Governor unitedly encouraging the building of a church for the Moravian missionaries. I insert the following letter:—
“to the Editor of the ‘Guiana Chronicle’?
“Surinam, 1st January 1829. — Sir, — For the honor of this colony, you would much oblige me by inserting this letter, with the enclosed circular and a list of subscribers which, besides the names of the Governor, Fiscal, and Bookholder-general, comprises those of almost all the respectable inhabitants, excepting some few who subscribed liberally but requested the omission of their names. And lest the amount of my own subscription, in comparison with that of my superiors, should be charged with ostentation or a breach of proper etiquette, I think it right to say that at the time His Excellency General De Veer, who has a large family, gave me permission to collect, he kindly and repeatedly expressed his wish to me that neither myself nor others should consider the amount of his own as an impassable maximum. The chapel has since been completed upon a scale of 95 feet in length by 60 in breadth, and above 50 in height (Rhynland measure), with two galleries, one above another the whole course of the parallelogram, but at a very great additional expense to the Moravians themselves, beyond the amount of subscriptions, of nearly as much again. It is a plain but capacious building, and will contain commodiously a congregation of between two and three thousand persons. No Colonial Government has any excuse for holding its slaves in ignorance of Christianity that has so safe a vehicle for communicating a knowledge of it as that which is afforded by the Moravian establishment in this colony. Indeed, to do justice to this colony, of which I have now been a constant resident and a very close observer for nearly nine years, I must say that almost every individual in this colony respects them, that has the least pretension to respectability himself. And I don’t know that I shall over-colour the estimation in which they are held if I say that they are generally spoken of not only in terms of respect but affection, so much so, that I told their very amiable Warden the other day, the Rev. Mr. Ghent, that they were under the curse of Scripture, for everybody spoke well of them.
“The chapel was opened on the 21st day of July last, under the auspices of the Lord High Commissioner-General Vandenbosch and his lady, our present Governor, Admiral Sir Paulus Roeloff Cantzlaaz, his lady and family, several naval and military officers, and almost all the beauty and fashion of Paramaribo. I beg your acceptance of a lithographic sketch of it, which perhaps you will do us the justice to affix up in your kantoor; and I think it would be no more than a neighbourly action if you would insert in your respectable paper the enclosed advertisement which I have cut out of the Surinamsche Courant for the 23d of July, as our funds are still inadequate to the object proposed, and there may be possibly amongst you some wealthy and serious Dutchmen who would contribute to them. — I am, Sir, your most obedient humble servant,
Chris. Edward Lefroy,
“Judge of the Mixed Court for the suppression of the Slave Trade on the
“part of His Britannic Majesty.”
The editor of the Guiana Chronicle complied with Mr. Lefroy’s request, and also on 11th February 1829 published a leading article in praise of the Moravian missionaries, adding, “We are glad that so humble, unostentatious, and withal so useful, a class has met the support of the best and highest individuals in Surinam.”
Having left Surinam at peace with the colonists, what must have been the surprise of Mr. Lefroy, on his arrival in London, to find the Duke of Wellington still in an enraged state of mind? On the ground (I suppose) that the honourable Commissary Judge had not retired but had been recalled, he refused to act upon Lord Castlereagh’s letter, and reduced his pension to £600, thus inflicting for life upon a faithful public servant a heavy annual fine of £150, which (says Mr. Lefroy) was “imposed on me without judge or jury.” In this connection, it is nothing but justice to Christopher Edward Lefroy to quote the testimony of his nephew, Sir Henry Lefroy, that this action of the Duke “never abated his enthusiastic admiration of that great
