Missionary in the West Indies. Born a slave in Barbados, he was taken by his master (who was also his father) to Bermuda, where he came under the influence of the missionary James Dunbar and Enoch Matson, a Presbyterian minister. He became a class leader andlocal preacher. When he was accepted for the ministry in 1827, his master liberated him and he was appointed to Dominica. He served as District Secretary for 18 consecutive years. As a valuable advocate of the missions he visited Britain twice and shared a missionary platform with Dr. Robert Newton.
'Refinement of thought and speech was his chief characteristic… [He] was well worthy to have his place in the long procession of the notabilities of Methodism at the close of the first century of its history… No one could have been more qualified for the mission for which he was invited to this country: "To raise funds for educational and religious purposes in the West Indies," at a time when slavery in the British Empire had received its sentence of death; and a nation. "born in a day," was to be educated to use wisely its new-found liberty. Himself a noble specimen of culture, manliness and polish, he was a persuasive proof of the intellectual and spiritual capabilities of the slaves who had just then "sprung to men at the sound of Britannia's voice." .. The very attractivenes of the man who, till the age of twenty-eight, had been a slave, only set forth more strikingly the hatefulness of the system. He was a noble trophy of Wesleyan missions in the West Indies.'
Benjamin Gregory, Autobiographical Recollections (1903) pp.203-4