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Ander these restrictions it has been my custom, when an unhappy instance of grave offence has occurred, to point out to the offender the ruinous conse- quences of a public trial, and to persuade him to resign an office from which, But this course is open to ut a great expense, he was liable" to be removed. serious objections, and may clearly at any time be altogether repudiated by the party accusing or accused. In the event of such repudiation, the ground on which the Bishop must tread is indeed hazardous and insecure. Obsolete canons, statutes of uncertain application, contravening local laws, meet him on He must base his every side; "Incedit per ignes suppositos cinere doloso."
course either on the Island Clergy Bill, or on the ground supplied by his letters- patent from the Crown. 'The one is too loose and indefinite to afford the directions which he needs; the other prescribes a procedure according to the laws and usages of the Church of England and Ireland, and the adoption of Courts Spiritual, which it is scarcely possible, under the circumstances of the Colony, legally to constitute. The remedy, then, that I would suggest, is either an extension of the late, or a better new, Church Discipline Bill by the Imperial Parliament to the West India Colonics, or a Royal Instruction to the Governors of those Colonics, to invite their respective Legislatures to adopt such Bill by local enactment.
Another matter, not altogether foreign to this subject, requiring legislative interposition, is the possible position of a Bishop incapacitated by age or illness for the fulfilment of his official duty.
At the first institution of the West India Episcopate, Mr. Canning secured to a retiring Bishop a pension of 1,000l. per annum, after ten years' occupancy of his diocese, or in the event of permanent illness. This clause in the Act of Parliament, involving as it did an expense to the nation, extraneous to the per- manent grant for the West India bishoprics, was within a few years abolished; and, according to the existing law, a Bishop, who holds his office and his whole salary for life, may remain for years in a state of mental or bodily incapacity, to the manifest obstruction of the Church, and without any power subsisting to compel or provide for his resignation. In England, where there are many neighbouring Bishops, the duties of an invalid diocesan may be vicariously performed; but in our isolated position, the evil of which I complain will, if not remedied, be severely felt.
The endowment of the West India Episcopate is, however, quite sufficient to provide a remedy; and I would venture to affirm that you would confer a great and lasting benefit on the West Indian Church, by procuring an amending clause to the Act 4 & 5 Viet., c. 4, for this purpose. The clause which I would submit would give a discretionary power to the Secretary of State to permit any Bishop of a West Indian See, who shall have been ten years employed from the date of his consecration, to retire with a pension not exceeding one-third of his episcopal salary, the amount of such pension to be deducted from the salary of his successor, and to be restored to such successor on the demise of the retiring Bishop.
I annex to this letter a schedule of the existing endowments or stipends paid to the Bishop and Clergy of Jamaica from the Consolidated Fund and from the Colonial revenue, exclusive of the salaries of the parochial and missionary clergy in the Honduras, the Bahamas, and Turk's Islands, which form part of my diocese; and of 1,000l. per annum paid to the Archdeacon of the Bahamas from the Consolidated Fund.
I append also, for the convenience of reference, a printed copy of Her Majesty's letters-patent translating me to this diocese.
I have, &c. (Signed)
AUBREY G. JAMAICA.
The Lord Bishop
15
Recapitulation of the Establishment.
The Three Archdeacons...
From the Treasury for Curates and Catechists.
From the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel for
Missionaries..
The Registrar
-
The Apparitor
Twenty-two Rectors
Fifty Island Curatės
Paid by Great Britain in Sterling Money.
Paid by the Colony in Sterling Money.
2. d.
£ 1. d.
£
3,000 0 '0
2,000 0 0
2,100 0 0
900 0 0
120
0 0
30 0 0
12,292 12
19,500 0
0
0
Total
8,000 0 0
31,942 12 0
21320