CHAPTER II.

SECOND ADDRESS TO THE PRISONERS.

THE following day is chiefly occupied with the organization of the people. They are formed into three divisions, and placed under the superintendence of three captains, who are cautiously selected from amongst their fellow-prisoners, according to the character given them by the officers of the hulks and prisons, and the impressions produced on my own mind by the expression of their countenances, and general demeanour. Besides the appointment of captains of divisions, as many more of the petty officers are nominated, as can be fixed upon consistently with prudence.

In the afternoon, and just in time to conclude by the hour appointed for mustering the people below for the night, they are assembled, as before, on the quarter-deck-the guard being on the poop-to receive the second address; of which the following is the substance.

SECOND ADDRESS AFTER THE EMBARKATION OF

THE PRISONERS.

In my first address, I endeavoured to assist your recollections of your past lives, in order to

aid you in the secret examination of your hearts; to awaken in you proper desires in reference both to the present and the future; and thus prepare you for entering upon a course of instruction and discipline, with a view to your intellectual and moral improvement. What use you have already made of my suggestions and observations, you yourselves know. Probably there are some amongst you, who have treated all I have said, just as you formerly treated the wholesome and kind counsel of your friends and relatives. But I would cherish the hope, that there are not among you many individuals of this description. I would rather believe that the whole of you have attentively listened to what I have said; solemnly and prayerfully reflected upon it; and that He to whom the night is as the day, and the darkness as the light, hath seen the unfeigned sorrow and contrition of your minds; observed your self-loathing and self-abasement in his sight; and recorded, in the book of his remembrance, the earnest longing of your souls to be delivered from sin and death, and recovered to a state of holiness and life.

My object in assembling you together now is, to acquaint you with the exercises in which it is proposed you shall engage during the voyage before us; to exhibit to you the nature of the discipline under which you are to be placed; and thus to impress your minds with a just consideration of the grand objects which we desire to see accomplished.

I. I call your attention, in the first place, to the nature of the exercises in which you are to be occupied during the voyage; and, in doing this, you will observe, that I do not address you merely as prisoners, but as my fellow-men. Of the causes which have brought you here, I say nothing at present; I have just now to do only with the fact, that you are here. I do not at present notice the circumstances which led to your being placed in prisons or in hulks, and ultimately on board this transport. To some of these we have already alluded; to others we shall advert on a future occasion. All that I have to do with at this moment, are the facts, that I find you here, and that I find myself here, charged with the care of your persons, your health, your improvement, and your happiness. You appear now before me as a portion of the human race; as so many members of that family to which I also belong. I now look upon you as the creatures of God, the offspring of our common and almighty Parent, the Creator and the Preserver of the universe, the Former of our bodies and the Father of our spirits. I contemplate you as standing in certain relations to God, to one another, and to the world; relations out of which necessarily arise many interesting and important duties, and as necessarily involving great responsibilities, and peculiar enjoyments. You are not only the offspring of God, but his rational offspring, the subjects of his moral government. He made you, and he made you for himself. He made

you, at the first, in his own moral image, and under the influence of his blessing; you have lost that image, and have fallen under the influence of his disapprobation. Still you are accountable to him for all you think; for your belief and unbelief; for all you say, and for all you do. And he, as the righteous and immutable Judge of all his rational offspring, must deal with every one of you according to the eternal and unalterable principles of justice and truth. Not only are you accountable, but you are likewise immortal, beings. Every one of you is in possession of a deathless spirit; a spirit which must soon quit the tabernacle of clay it now inhabits, and leaving it to return to the dust from which it was originally taken, must make its appearance before God, to receive at his hand according to the deeds done in the body, whether they be good or evil. In the meantime, the sentence of death, under which transgression has brought you, is, as to its full execution, delayed. God is unwilling that any one of you should perish. Though under a sentence of condemnation and death, he has, in his infinite love and compassion, placed you under a dispensation of mercy.

The apostasy of man from his Maker was quickly followed by intimations of a gracious scheme of redemption. The covenant made in the counsels of the Godhead from the ages of eternity, was published to the fallen and guilty rebels even before their removal from their forfeited paradise.

He who is not a man that he should lie, nor the son of man that he should repent, announced to the guilty and desolate hearts of our ruined progenitors, the joyous appearance of a Divine Deliverer. The eternal Word, by whom all things were made-even the beloved Son of the Father, is to clothe himself in the nature of the fallen and the lost, and appear the "Child born," the “mighty God," the "Prince of Life." He is to magnify the law and make it honourable, and bring in everlasting righteousness; vanquish the power of the great adversary; accomplish a complete salvation for the human race, to be published in due time to all, and to be enjoyed by every one with whom it should obtain acceptance. This is that great salvation which was exhibited to the antediluvians, to the patriarchs, to the nation of the Jews; which was proclaimed to the Gentile world by the apostles of the Lord; and, ever since their days, has been published in the Scriptures of truth, in which the glad tidings of great joy are proclaimed, at this day, to all the sinful and perishing children of men, without distinction of rank or condition; proclaimed to you, for your deliverance from sin and its bitter fruits, for your recovery to God and to holy and blissful obedience. According to your treatment of this message of mercy and peace, will be your future, your eternal condition. If you receive it, you receive pardon, life, and glory everlasting; if you reject it, you choose condemnation, death, and