THE London Periodicals for January and February, furnish us with the following articles of information, respecting the painful occurrences in the West India Islands. They authorize very pleasing hopes.

London Missionary Society-Demerara.

The Directors have at length the satisfaction of informing the Members of the Society that they have received a letter from Mr. Elliot, dated October 18th, enclosing a copy of one written to the Treasurer on the 25th September, but detained in the Colony; besides communications from other persons.

The letters of Mr. Elliot assert the innocence of the Missionaries of all participation whatever in the crime of the Insurrection; and the Directors entertain no apprehension of advancing that which they shall have to retract, in saying, they give full credit to the declaration. They will quote the terms in which these assurances are made to themselves, convinced that the manly feelings of conscious integrity which shine through them, will carry to the bosom of every impartial reader a conviction of the veracity by which they are dictated.

"Numerous false reports have been sent forth against Mr. Smith," (Mr. Elliot might have added against himself also)

but assure yourself and all the Directors, that whatever reports you may hear, the only crime the missionaries have committed is their zeal for the conversion of the Negroes. They have neither been so weak nor so wicked as to excite the Negroes

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to rebellion. The missionaries want justice only; they have no favour to ask; they have nothing to fear. The missionaries have not degraded their holy calling, nor dishonoured the Society of which they are members, by sowing the seeds of rebellion instead of the Word of Life. The real causes of the rebellion are far, very far from being the instructions given by the missionaries." He adds, "We are not cast down; the

Lord our God supports us; and we are persuaded that He who protected Daniel in the lion's den, will support and prō

tect us.

The Directors are persuaded that the friends of the Society will approve of their not making larger quotations from these communications at present, and that they will accept the brief statement which they are about to offer, in the confidence that they will be enabled, ere long, to present to them a circumstantial justification of the character and conduct of their greatly calumniated missionaries.

The statement, brief as it is, will be sufficient to show the falsehood of the almost innumerable reports which have been industriously circulated through the kingdom, and indeed through the world.

The Colony of Demerara is divided into the East and West Coasts by the Demerara river, the former, including Mahaica, being on its right bank. Mr. Elliot is stationed on the West, Mr. Smith on the East Coast, about twenty miles distant from each other.

It appears that the insurrection was entirely confined to the East Coast, so that no commotion whatever took place on the estates on which Mr. Elliot labours, and not one of the Negroes under his instruction was implicated in the rebellion.

Mr. Elliot's being taken into custody was therefore owing only (though he had threatenings given him) to an alleged "disobedience of orders," which he had not understood to be such, in visiting Mr. Smith at the Colony-house the day after he was sent thither. After a detention of about ten days, dur

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ing which his papers were all taken from his house, he was allowed to return home, under an injunction not to interfere with the trials. No charge was preferred against him; and thus are the vehement accusations against all the missionaries of the Society within the Colony, circulated for several weeks past throughout the country, reduced to that only against Mr. Smith.

The insurrection, it should seem, manifested itself first in Mahaica, the district to the eastward of that in which Mr. Smith resides. Its appearance on the Le Ressouvenir estate, where Mr. Smith resides, was on Monday, the 18th August, in conse. quence of an order to take into custody two slaves belonging to an adjoining plantation, whom the Negroes of the Le Ressouvenir, as the prisoners had to pass over it, rose to rescue. Mr. Smith was at home. He successfully used his endeavours, on perceiving the tumult, to rescue the Manager from the Negroes, and continued his exertions to induce them to return to their duty, till he himself was driven with violence, and with a weapon held to his body, from the estate.

Mr. Smith was taken into custody on the evening of the 21st August, and all his papers seized. He is kept a prisoner in the Colony-house, and has since the 24th of August, had a guard stationed over him. Mrs. Smith is not detained as a prisoner, but does not avail herself of her liberty, lest on leaving her husband, she might be refused access to him again. After the 22d of August, Mr. Elliot had no communication with him. Mr. Smith was on Monday, the 13th October, brought to trial before a Court Martial, the legality of which proceeding is greatly doubted in this country. 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 incited 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.

The issue of Mr. Smith's trial is not yet known in England; but it is stated in the public papers that by a vessel arrived at one of the out-ports, letters have been received of the date of the 27th October, which mention that the evidence for the prosecution closed on the 25th October, and that the Court would meet on the 1st November to proceed on the defence.

While waiting for the decision, the Directors are much grieved in knowing that the health of Mr. Smith has for some time been in a dangerous state, and that his physician had, just before the insurrection broke out, advised him to take a voyage to England, as the best means of recovery. The Directors have written to him, recommending his compliance with this advice as soon as circumstances will allow him so to do, which it may be hoped will be the case ere long.

The Directors have received letters from Mr. Davies, dated the 15th and 18th October. He arrived with his family in Demerara on the 11th of that month, through the divine goodness in health and safety. Under the shock which the state of affairs occasioned, he had the happiness to find his own congregation enjoying tranquillity, and that not one of the Negroes who attend his ministry took any part in the insurrection. He speaks of the kindness with which the Governor received him, and states that he was allowed to preach as before.

Berbice.-Destruction of Mr. Wray's Chapel.

By a letter from the Rev. John Wray, our missionary in the Colony of Berbice, (bordering on the Colony of Demerara) dated September 25, 1823, the Directors have received the distressing intelligence of the destruction of his chapel by fire, on Monday, the 22d of that month. The fire began in a small house close to the chapel, and being to the windward, immediately communicated to it, and in a short time reduced it to ashes. It appears that no person was in the house when the fire commenced; but in what manner it was kindled, was not known when Mr. Wray wrote. Many of the inhabitants, of all colours, with the captains and seamen of the ships in the river, lent their assistance, and used every exertion in their power to save the chapel, but in vain.

Mr. Wray's dwelling-house, which adjoined the chapel, was with much difficulty preserved from entire destruction, but it was greatly injured; a large part of the roof was uncovered; all the windows broken; most of the furniture spoiled by being thrown out of the windows, and much other damage done. The Governor and Fiscal were using every means to discover whether the fire was accidental or intentional.

At a meeting of the Directors, on Monday, the 22d of December, the communication from Mr. Wray being read, it was unanimously resolved, That the sum of FIVE HUNDRED POUNDS be granted for the purpose of aiding in rebuilding the Chapel and School-house.

As the loss sustained by the total destruction of the Chapel and School-room, and the damage done to the dwelling-house and furniture is calculated to amount to nearly Two Thousand Pounds sterling; the liberal donations of the Friends of the Missionary cause throughout the United Kingdom are respectfully solicited.

Since the Missionary Chronicle was closed on the 24th of January, intelligence of the issue of the trial of Mr. Smith has