suitable residences, in consequence of the distance from which the materials must in several instances be brought, has proved very great. From the peculiar circumstances of the place and state of society, the erection of a house and chapel at Badagry appeared absolutely necessary, as a first step towards the commencement of a Mission there; but the building materials could not be procured, nor the services of workmen be obtained, within a distance of almost four hundred miles from the spot. And the erection of Missionpremises in Kumasi was attended with similar difficulties; as many of the requisite articles were conveyed from CapeCoast, nearly half of that distance, on the heads and shoulders of native carriers,the almost trackless forest not allowing of any other method for the transmission of goods. A considerable portion of the large expenditure which has been incurred, it is thus apparent, will not require to be annually repeated, as the buildings which have been erected will answer the purposes of the Mission for many years to come; but, allowing the full force of this consideration, the Committee, after a careful review, since Mr. Freeman's recent arrival in this country, of the state and prospects of their Missions in Guinea, find sufficient reason to conclude, that their annual cost will impose a burden upon the regular and ordinary income of the Society greater than it can possibly sustain; unless, however, a special provision be made to meet the excess of expenditure during the years 1841, 1842, and 1843, above the sum of £12,238. 11s. 10d., which a comparison of this amount of the special subscriptions and three years' ordinary expenditure on the scale of 1840, with the entire expenditure for those years, (£20,173. 12s. 1d.,) shows to be £7,935. 0s. 3d. If this were not done, if this large excess were to be provided for out of the regular and ordinary income of the Society, the Committee would, in consequence, be compelled, by necessity, to reduce the annual grant for the support of these and other Missions to so low an amount as could not fail greatly to impair their efficiency, if not contract them within much narrower limits. It is their earnest hope that they may not be driven to the adoption of this alternative. They persuade themselves that, in this part of Africa at least, they are engaged in a work which not only recommends itself to those who support the Society for considerations purely Missionary, but also to all others who are interested in the common cause of philanthropy, and are especially solicitous to remove the miseries under which Will Africa still suffers, and to make her some compensation for the wrongs inflicted by European cupidity. And may it not be expected, that those who have sympathized with the wretched victims of the slavetrade will contribute to support a Mission which promises to afford such important facilities for putting an end to the accursed traffic, in one of its principal seats? not those who have been so laudably anxious to form channels for the flow of a healthful commerce, and the blessings of Christian and civilized life, into central Africa, practically prove that they do not contemplate with indifference those remarkable openings to Yariba and even Hausa, so inviting to the efforts of philanthropy, which Providence itself is now making by means of the return of the emigrants to their native land? Will they not indeed derive a new and powerful inotive to exertion from the fact, that SierraLeone is now furnishing such a number of trained native agents, inured to the climate which proves so unfriendly to the European constitution, and that God is singularly giving them favour on their return, in the sight, not only of their countrymen generally, but of even their former oppressors? To these questions the Committee cannot but anticipate a favourable response; and they venture confidently to make a second appeal to the Friends of Africa and of Missions, for that pecuniary assistance which will enable them to meet the excess of expenditure up to the end of December, 1843. Encouraged by this substantial mark of public favour, they will cheerfully proceed with their important and interesting work, and endeavour to maintain it in a state of moderate efficiency, from the regular annual income of the Society. Subscriptions towards meeting the excess of expenditure for the three years ending December last, £7,935. Os. 3d., will be thankfully received by the Rev. Thomas B. Freeman, by the General Treasurers and Secretaries of the Society, and at the banking-house of Messrs. Smith, Payne, and Smiths, No. 1, Lombard-Street, London. (Signed) JABez Bunting, President of the Wesleyan Conference. THOMAS FARMER, JOHN SCOTT, General Treasurers. JOHN BEECHAM, ROBERT ALDER, ELIJAH HOOLE, General Secretaries. Wesleyan Mission-House, BishopsgateStreet-Within, London, October 15th, 1844. II. SHORTLY after the preceding Statement had been prepared, public attention was called to another of a very different description. On the 25th of October, a letter appeared in the "Times" newspaper, assailing the character of Mr. Freeman, and disparaging the successful labours of himself and fellow-labourers in the same field of Missionary toil and hardship. From its own internal evidence, the letter was immediately recognised by the Committee as the production of an individual with whose proceedings, as an agent of the Society, they had had just cause of dissatisfaction; and who had sought to cover his retreat, in the course of the preceding year, by preferring a list of charges against Mr. Freeman, under whose general superintendence he had been placed. This letter, which derived its importance from the fact, that the writer had concealed his real name under a fictitious signature, and had obtained admission for it into the columns of a leading journal, called forth, on the following day, a decided testimony to Mr. Freeman's character, and the beneficial effects of the Gold-Coast Mission, from the pen of J. Topp, Esq., the Commandant of British Akrah, then on a visit to this country; which was followed, in a few days, by another similar testimony from J. H. Akhurst, Esq., a respectable merchant from the Gold-Coast. The welcome letters of these gentlemen will be given in a subsequent page. Mr. Freeman, who was in Norfolk when the slanderous attack upon his character was made, immediately on his return to London, prepared a full and circumstantial reply to the several allegations contained in the letter of "Omega," which reply was published in the "Times" newspaper on the 1st of November; in which Number also appeared, as an advertisement, a series of Resolutions adopted by the Committee on a review of the whole case. two documents we give next in order. I. MR. FREEMAN'S FIRST LETTER. To the Editor of the Times. SIR,- The absence of a few days from town, in a distant part of the country, has prevented me from giving an immediate answer to the letter of "Omega," in the "Times" of Friday last. Doubtless your correspondent had, what he deemed, weighty reasons for writing under a fictitious signature. He might, I presume, be fully aware that were he to give his real name, I should be able to show how little cause he had for bringing me before the bar of the public, seeing that he had repeatedly refused to attempt to substantiate his charges against me before those who were properly authorized to inquire into both his conduct and mine. He states that he was a Missionary at Cape-Coast Castle for more than two years. Now, there was a person who, after having been educated at the expense of the Wesleyan Missionary Society, was appointed to Cape-Coast Castle in 1840. In a few weeks after his arrival, he began to manifest the spirit of dissatisfaction against These myself and my proceedings; and, in about two years, he addressed a letter to our General Missionary Secretaries in London, containing, among other complaints, the principal charges preferred against me in your columns by "Omega;" and he returned to England upon the alleged ground that he could not any longer co-operate with me in the Missionary work. On his arrival in London, in July, 1843, in what he himself termed, in a letter which has been shown me, "good health and spirits," I am authorized to state, that he was requested to proceed to Sheffield, where the Wesleyan Conference was then sitting, that he might give the explanation which was reasonably required, as to the course he had deemed himself called on to pursue. He, however, declined going to Sheffield, on the plea of personal indisposition, and set out to the north of England to visit his friends. Subsequently, when my written answer to his charges had been received at the Wesleyan Mission-House, he was informed by letter, that my reply had arrived, and he was again invited to meet the Committee, in London; but neither did he see fit to accept this invitation. It is scarcely necessary to add, that in consequence of his thus refusing to meet those by whom he had been employed, it was not deemed safe or proper to appoint him to any other Station, and his further services were in consequence dispensed with by the Wesleyan Missionary Committee. Whatever may be his show of reasons for so doing, he will not deny the fact that he wholly declined to meet the Conference and the Committee for the purpose of attempting to substantiate his charges in opposition to my reply. Now, if your correspondent, who signs himself "Omega," be this identical Missionary, (and if he be not, let him take off his mask and show himself,) I leave it to all who love honesty and straight-forward dealing, to decide whether he had placed himself, by his previous conduct, in a position to warrant his summoning me before the tribunal of the public under a fictitious name. To come to the charges which he has been pleased to specify in his letter of the 21st inst.:- He asserts that I made a false statement respecting ground having been cleared for a plantation at Domonasi ; and that towards the plantation I received £100, "from the African Civilisation Society." I never received one shilling from that quarter; but the Committee of the Anti-Slave-Trade Society did intrust me with one hundred pounds' worth of agricultural implements to be given principally to the Chief of Domonasi; and I was gratified to learn that that Committee was pleased with my report of the distribution of the implements which had been committed to my care. The ground to which "Omega" refers, I again assert, had been cleared. The forest-trees and brushwood with which it was covered had been cut down, and a crop of Indian corn, preparatory to its being planted with coffee and other tropical seeds, had been actually reaped. But because, when "Omega" visited it, weeds and brushwood, which speedily luxuriate in that soil and climate, had, in the absence of the superintendence of the Missionary, who had been removed by death, again sprung up, Omega" "has the hardihood to assert that not one inch of ground was even then cleared. Had it suited his purpose, this veritable witness could have told that we had done much more than I stated. He could have informed you, (supposing he be the person I have before described,) that upon his first visit to Domonasi, I took him with me along new roads, wide enough to admit carriages, two miles in length, which we had cut through the forest for the purpose of opening a better communication with Domonasi. At the present time, I assert, we have a considerable number of fine coffee-plants in our plantation at Domonasi, (besides nearly fifteen thousand others growing nearer to the coast,) several of which are now bearing fruit; and I still further remark, that Domonasi, which is from twenty to twenty-five miles in the interior, in consequence of the improvement effected there by the Missionaries, is becoming a place of occasional recreation, during the unhealthy season of the year, for the European residents at Cape-Coast. "Omega" next denies that a Missionschool had ever been commenced at Kumasi. On what authority does he make such denial? If he be the person I take him to be, he has never seen Kumasi; he has never been to any part of Ashanti. Now, I assert that such school had been commenced at the time to which he refers. Although the King, for reasons which I need not detail, expressed hesitation at the establishment, at first, of schools on an extended scale, when I went up to Kumasi in 1841-2, to commence the Mission there, yet, shortly after my return to the Coast, Mr. Brooking succeeded in forming an evening school. Since that period, the Schoolmaster has been employed during the day in teaching the Prince Apoko Ahoni, and many members of his household, on his own premises, by which means the second in succession to the throne of Ashanti is now being taught, with many of his people, to read the word of God in the English language. We Your correspondent's third charge against myself and brother Missionaries at the Gold-Coast is our alleged encouragement of concubinage. This I utterly deny. The whole strength of this charge lies in the wilful perversion of language; for what he stigmatizes as concubinage is really and truly marriage. The principle on which we proceed at the Gold-Coast is, that the marriage-bond, as the earliest of all the divine institutions, having been introduced into Paradise previously to the fall, was of universal obligation before Christianity came into the world. further hold that wherever marriage is celebrated according to the law and usage of the country, even though that country be heathen, it is in substance or essence a valid marriage. This view of the subject we derive from apostolic teaching. The great Apostle of the Gentiles, in addressing the church at Corinth, a church which had been formed among a heathen people, gives the following directions:-"If any brother hath a wife that believeth not, and she be pleased to dwell with him, let him not put her away. And the woman which hath an husband that be lieveth not, and if he be pleased to dwell with her, let her not leave him; for the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband; else were your children unclean; but now are they holy." (1 Cor. vii. 12-14.) In this passage, the Apostle, unquestionably, as we judge, recognises the validity of marriage as celebrated when the Corinthians were in a heathen state, and speaks of the children of heathen marriages as obtaining a relative holiness or sanctification, when even only one of their parents had become Christian. Now, in adverting to our practice of receiving persons into our religious society at the Gold-Coast, it is not necessary that I should dwell on the fact that we give no countenance whatever to polygamy; for "Omega" himself, (presuming him to be the quondam Missionary I have before referred to,) in the letter of charges which he addressed to the General Secretaries, admits that he was "not aware that strictly speaking there are any polygamists connected with us." With regard to persons living in what is properly concubinage, or fornication, who have not been married according to the laws and usages of the land, we give them no place among us; until, however, they truly repent and forsake their sin. But when a native convert offers himself as a candidate for admission, we do not venture to set aside the apostolic rule by refusing him the privilege of Christian fellowship, because be remains faithful to his one "unbelieving (heathen) wife," to whom he has been married according to the law or established custom of their country. We dare not require the native convert "who hath a wife that believeth not," to "put her away," and thus bastardize his children, and deprive them of the relative holiness which the Apostle represents as belonging to the children of believers, and which entitles them to participate in such privileges of the Christian church as they are capable of enjoying; neither do we violate the spirit of the Apostle's instructions by telling the convert that, because he has an unbelieving wife, he must not be permitted to enjoy the advantages of religious fellowship. We deem it to be the more scriptural course to admit the convert as a candidate for religious communion, and instruct him more fully in the divine sanction and permanent obligation of the marriage-bond; and when the wife also has so far profited by our teaching as to admit the truth of Christianity, and feel, in some good degree, the force of the obligations which it imposes, we then formally recognise the existing marriage tie in the house of God, and sanctify it by prayer. We, of course, also carefully observe the apostolic rule when the native convert is a female, "which hath an husband that believeth not." Having thus stated our general plan of proceeding, I need only to remark that the twenty-seven cases at Domonasi were not exceptions to our ordinary rule. After a careful inquiry upon the spot, I have no doubt that the persons whom "Omega" slanderously maligns as living in heathen concubinage, were in circumstances similar to those Corinthians whom the inspired Apostle recognised as living in the marriage state. In passing, I may further briefly remark, that when we unite together in marriage those of our converts who have been previously living in a single state, we use the form of the Church of England, as abridged in Mr. Wesley's "Sunday Service of the Methodists." To secure publicity, aud guard as far as possible against imposition, we have also adopted the practice of the previous publication of banns. " I have now replied to all the charges which "Omega "has thought proper to specify, and have given them an unequivocal denial. He may, if he chooses, reiterate them from his hiding-place; but your readers will now require something more than the mere ipse dixit of a person speaking to them in the dark. Let "Omega' come out into the light, and support his allegations against me with all the weight of his real name and character. I plead "Not Guilty" to the charges which he prefers; and it remains for him to substantiate them, if it be in his power. His intimation that he could produce other matters of complaint, I will meet by giving a copy of a memorial in which my brother Missionaries at Cape-Coast bore their unsolicited testimony in favour of my character and general conduct, at the time when our faithless coadjutor, whom I suppose to be "Omega," preferred his long list of charges against me to our Missionary Committee. They remarked as follows, in reference to those charges, which it is to be remembered included the principal charge of the three I have now answered : "Considering the circumstances which have lately taken place, we, the undersigned, feel it our duty to draw up this memorial as an expression of our entire approval of the conduct of the Rev. T. B. Freeman, in all things connected with this Mission; believing as we do, that its interest, and the welfare and comfort of his brethren, lay near his heart, and that, as far as has been possible, he has endeavoured to give satisfaction to all those over whom he has been placed. "We, therefore, take this opportunity of expressing our unqualified approbation of his conduct in all things, and of our heartily protesting against the base and heartless libel that has been circulated with a view to injure his character. "And as the attempt above mentioned must have been a source of grief to his mind, we would also observe, that we deeply sympathize with him, and do assure him that he will always have our hearty and cordial co-operation in carrying out those plans which shall be deemed most prudent and beneficial for the continued peace and prosperity of this station. "ROBERT BROOKING, "WILLIAM ALLEN. "We heartily concur in the above sentiments, as far as we have the opportunity of judging. "B. WATKINS, "GEORGE CHAPMAN." To this valuable testimony of my beloved companions in the toils and dangers of the Western-African Mission-field, I might add another, would your space allow, from a most unexceptionable witness; namely, your own correspondent. I think I could place "Omega' in direct opposition to himself. In one of the official letters of "Omega," (let him correct me if I mistake his person,) which I have been permitted to examine at the Mission-House, written during the latter part of his stay at the Gold-Coast, he gives as favourable an account of the state and prospects of the Mission as is contained in any of my descriptions or statements, which, in your columns, he pronounces to be "grossly exaggerated," or "positively false." But I must reserve this document, and various other information illustrative of the true character and motives of your correspondent, for another opportunity. I shall not, at present, enlarge further than to express my grateful acknowledgments to the esteemed Commandant of British Akrah, J. Topp, Esq., for his prompt vindication of my general character and conduct, when I was at a distance, and had not even heard of "Omega's" attack; as well as to those many other excellent persons, wholly unconnected with our religious society, who have conveyed to me the expression of their sympathy, and the assurance of their unshaken confidence in my integrity. And I conclude by expressing my confident persuasion, that an enlightened and candid public will rightly decide between myself and the individual who, devoid of the manliness to appear in his own proper name, has sought to destroy my character, and to lower in the public estimation & Mission which the great Head of the church has so signally owned with his furthering blessing. I remain, Sir, your obedient servant, T. B. FREEMAN. Wesleyan Mission- House, Bishopsgate-Street-Within, Oct. 29th, 1844. II. RESOLUTIONS OF THE COMMITTEE OF THE WESLEYAN MISSIONARY SOCIETY. AT a full meeting of the Committee of this Society, held at the Centenary-Hall and Mission-House, Bishopsgate-StreetWithin, London, on Wednesday, October 30th, 1844, the President of the Conference in the Chair, it was unanimously resolved 1. That, after a careful re-consideration of certain imputations against the character and proceedings of the Rev. Thomas B. Freeman, the Superintendent of the Society's Missions on the Gold-Coast, as recently renewed in a letter, under the signature of "Omega," published in the "Times" newspaper of Friday last, this Committee are perfectly convinced that the said imputations are altogether calumnious and untrue; and that the defensive explanations and statements of Mr. Freeman, first transmitted by him to the Secretaries in a letter dated June 26th, 1843, and now repeated and confirmed by him personally, in their presence, are entirely satisfactory on all the points to which "Omega" has referred. 2. That the renewal of these slanderous imputations is the more culpable, because the person from whom they are understood to proceed has had repeated opportunities and invitations, in the course of the last fifteen months, to appear before the proper authorities for the purpose of substantiating, if he could, the accusations preferred, which he has hitherto declined or neglected to do. 3. That, fortified in their view of Mr. Freeman's case by the written assurances of his brother Missionaries in Western Africa, by various other documents long in their possession, by passages in the former communications of "Omega" himself, and by the spontaneous and decided testimony of several highly respectable and disinterested gentlemen, who have observed his proceedings, and borne honourable witness to his labours and his usefulness, this Committee deem it right to assure the public of their entire and undiminished confidence in Mr. Freeman's integrity, and of their high admiration of his eminent |