William Knibb, Falmouth, to Thomas Raffles, Liverpool, 13 September 1836.                                       

Falmouth Jamaica

Sept. 13.  1836

Revd and dear Sir

         At the request of my Brethren I write to solicit the following favour, which I hope will not be denied. We are about furnishing a small supplement of Hymns for the use of our Congregations, and we shall esteem it a peculiar favour if you will furnish one or two Hymns respectg their freedom, or connected remotely therewith which we can use with assurances of that day which in a few years will bring perfect and entire freedom.  Should you kindly comply with the request, and will forward the same to the Revd Mr Willcocks, Baptist Minister Devonport, we shall be truly obliged.  My Brother has informed me that you have some pleasure in the Collection of Curious Letters, I therefore write on this, dear to me, and I think to you. In 1832 I was taken a prisoner and sadly aped in this Court House.

         In the same year the Colonial Church (United) held its fall meetg in the same and declared that Baptists and especially W Knibb should never preach again in the Island 

         In 1834 Lord Mulgrave first proclaimed freedom in the same Spot, and on the 3rd Anniversary of my being taken prisoner, I preached in it the unsearchable riches of Christ to nearly 2000 persons and made a Collection for my new Chapel, amountg to £103.6.8

         Thought you would like to possess the document and I have therefore taken the liberty of securing it

         Wishg you and your amiable lady and family every blessing and hopg to be favoured with a reply.

                                             With all

                                                               Love & resp truly

                                                                                 William Knibb

Revd Dr Raffles

Text: Timothy Whelan, Baptist Autographs in the John Rylands University Library of Manchester, 1741-1845 (Macon: Mercer University Press, 2009), pp. 218-19 (annotated version); also Eng. MS. 387, fol. 130, John Rylands University Library of Manchester. Thomas Willcocks (d. 1845) was the Baptist minister at Devonport, 1811-37. Earl Mulgrave was the Royal Governor of Jamaica at the time of the emancipation of the slaves in 1834. His support for the missionaries and their desire to abolish slavery earned him the hatred of the slaveholders on the island. He signed the bill, ending slavery throughout the British colonies (the bill had been passed by the English Parliament on 28 August 1833) on 12 December 1833. He remarked that “slavery, that greatest curse that can afflict the social system, has now received its death-blow.”  He returned to England in March 1834, just prior to the implementation of the abolition bill on 1 August 1834, and was succeeded by the Marquis of Sligo. See F. A. Cox, History of the Baptist Missionary Society, from 1792 to 1842, 2 vols. (London: T. Ward, and G. and J. Dyer, 1842), 2: 195-98, 205-06; John Clarke, Memorials of the Baptist Missionaries in Jamaica (London: Yates and Alexander, 1869), 110.