Following a petition by free people of colour seeking civil rights to the Jamaican assembly, Taylor confided to Arcedeckne that he feared that events could go the same way in Jamaica as they had in French Saint-Domingue, where clashes between free people of colour and whites had preceded a large-scale slave uprising. He was worried about the influence of Methodist missionaries in Jamaica and pinned the blame for events in Saint-Domingue on British abolitionists (mentioning Granville Sharp, Thomas Clarkson, and William Wilberforce). He wanted Arcedeckne to keep news of the petition quiet in case it encouraged support from abolitionists, showing the degree to which he believed that abolitionism was behind social unrest and revolution in the Caribbean.
[…] We are quiet here with our negroes, but I send you a petition that some of the free people of colour gott drawn up, and wanted Mr Shirley to present to the House of Assembly, but upon his remonstrance to them concerning the falsities sett forth, and the impropriety of it, and by their pretending to claims which never would be allowed them, they thereby prevented their getting what was reasonable, they then desired to withdraw the petition, and I have no doubt but that their real grievances will be redressed, by giving them protection for their persons, and repealing the clause in the inveigling act, and giving them a tryal by jury in the Grand and Assize Courts. It is a very dangerous beginning, and it behooves every man in the island to have a very strict eye over their people, for a sett of worthless Methodists here are using every means to push them on, and was this matter known to the gang at home, I have not a doubt but that they would be coming to resolutions, & raise subscriptions to support these people in their claims, I have sent to you the letters sent to the Agent on this occasion, and doubt not but you will see the impropriety of making it public, but I conceive it to be necessary that you and other gentlemen concerned for the West Indies should know it, for it is the exact plan that was first used at Hispaniola, to make divisions between the whites and people of colour there, and then to stir up the rebellion, and as we have every reason to believe was the productions of the brain of Sharpe, Clarkson, & Willberforce, and by them communicated to the Jacobin Clubbs in France, they are by no means quiet in Hispaniola, they have proscribed and sent home upwards of 70 people In France the accounts are almost too horrible to read, God grant the same may not happen in England […]
(Vanneck-Arc/3A/1792/14, Simon Taylor to Chaloner Arcedeckne, Spanish Town, 5 December 1792)