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 service in manner by this act directed, shall give, jointly or severally, as the case shall require, security to the protector of negroes that a competent minister of some Christian church or congregation shall be provided for the due instruction of the negroes, and for their performing divine service according to the description of the religion of the master or masters, in some church or house thereto allotted, in the manner and with the regulations in this act prescribed with regard to the exercise of religion according to the Church of England:  provided always, that the marriages of the said negroes belonging to Dissenters shall be celebrated only in the church of the said district, and that a register of the births shall be transmitted to the minister of the said district.

[Sidenote:  Regulations concerning marriage.]

21.  And whereas a state of matrimony, and the government of a family, is a principal means of forming men to a fitness for freedom, and to become good citizens:  Be it enacted, that all negro men and women, above eighteen years of age for the man and sixteen for the woman, who have cohabited together for twelve months or upwards, or shall cohabit for the same time, and have a child or children, shall be deemed to all intents and purposes to be married, and either of the parties is authorized to require of the ministers of the district to be married in the face of the church.