ncumbent minister, and copies were given
to the heads of families.

Another effort was the organization in England in 1723 by the Rev.
Thomas Bray of a company called "Dr. Bray's Associates." Dr. Thomas
Bray was the bishop's commissary to the province of Maryland. The
purpose of Dr. Bray's Associates was to establish in the colonies
schools for the education and Christian instruction of Negro children,
and it did a useful work. It did a notable work in the City of New
York, and it conducted schools in other places; one of them at
Williamsburg, in Virginia.

There was another and most unusual development in Virginia. Under the
urge of the Bishop of London's pastoral letter there came a great
increase in the number of baptisms of adult Negroes; so sudden an
increase as to cause concern to Commissary Blair and to Governor Gooch.
In some way a report had spread among the Negroes that ex-Governor
Alexander Spotswood, upon his return from a voyage to England, had
brought with him an order from the King directing that all baptized
Negro slaves be set free. The story, improbable as it was to English
ears, was believed implicitly by the Negroes and it brought many of
them to their parish clergy seeking for baptism. Time passed and there
was no movement to set the baptized Negroes free. They became
indignant, for they believed the colonial authorities had ignored the
King's order. A plot for a Negro uprising was formed; but the plot was
discovered and the ringleaders were punished.

Another incident occurred two years later. A woman slave who had been
baptized was convicted of manslaughter in the Gloucester County Court
which sentenced her to death. She thereupon plead the benefit of
clergy. Her plea brought a new problem to the courts of Virginia for
until that time no woman and no slave in the colony had ever been
permitted to plead benefit of clergy. The County Court considered the
plea and the vote was a tie between granting the plea and enforcement
of the sentence. The County Court referred the matter to the General
Court of the colony; and there again the vote resulted in a tie. The
General Court therefore referred the case to the Attorney General of
England. Meanwhile, the General Court ordered that the woman's plea be
granted, and, in order not to set a precedent in an unsettled question,
directed that she be sold out of the colony. At a subsequent meeting of
the General Assembly the matter was settled so far as Virgin