said offences shall
appear to merit.

[Sidenote: Schools for young negroes.]

18. And be it enacted, that for every two districts a school shall be
established for young negroes to be taught three days in the week, and
to be detained from their owner four hours in each day, the number not
to be more or fewer than twenty males in each district, who shall be
chosen, and vacancies filled, by the minister of the district; and the
said minister shall pay to the owner of the said boy, and shall be
allowed the same in his accounts at the synod, to the age of twelve
years old, three-pence by the day, and for every boy from twelve years
old to fifteen, five-pence by the day.

[Sidenote: Extraordinary abilities to be encouraged.]

19. And it is enacted, that, if the president of the synod aforesaid
shall certify to the protector of negroes, that any boys in the said
schools (provided that the number in no one year shall exceed one in the
island of Jamaica, and one in two years in the islands of Barbadoes,
Antigua, and Grenada, and one in four years in any of the other islands)
do show a remarkable aptitude for learning, the said protector is hereby
authorized and directed to purchase the said boy at the best rate at
which boys of that age and strength have been sold within the year; and
the said negro so purchased shall be under the entire guardianship of
the said protector of negroes, who shall send him to the Bishop of
London for his further education in England, and may charge in his
accounts for the expense of transporting him to England; and the Bishop
of London shall provide for the education of such of the said negroes as
he shall think proper subjects, until the age of twenty-four years, and
shall order those who shall fall short of expectation after one year to
be bound apprentice to some handicraft trade; and when his
apprenticeship is finished, the Lord Mayor of London is hereby
authorized and directed to receive the said negro from his master, and
to transmit him to the island from which he came, in the West Indies, to
be there as a free negro, subject, however, to the direction of the
protector of negroes, relatively to his behavior and employment.

[Sidenote: Negroes of Dissenters.]

[Sidenote: their marriages, &c., to be registered.]

20. And it is hereby enacted and provided, that any planter, or owner of
negroes, not being of the Church of England, and not choosing to send
his negroes to attend divine se