he purchased slaves illegally brought into the state and sold publicly at Milledgeville. However, Meade did not consider slavery a sin, merely a hindrance to economic growth. He believed Christian principles could teach masters to treat their slaves well. Thus, in 1813 Meade compiled and published a compilation of Christian proslavery tracts by authors including Anglican minister Thomas Bacon and Baptist Edmund Botsford. After his consecration, one of Meade's earliest pastoral letters (in 1834) concerned religious instruction for slaves. Beginning in 1833, Bishop Meade, Judge William Leigh of Halifax and lawyer Francis Scott Key administered the will of their friend John Randolph of Roanoke, who died without children and who in his final testament directed his executors to free his more than four hundred slaves. The executors fought for a decade through Virginia courts to enforce the will and provide the freed slaves land to support themselves. In 1841 Meade reported for a diocesan committee concerning the best means for instructing slaves, urging clergyman to devote at least part of each Sunday's sermon at slaves, or hold Sunday afternoon or weeknight services for them, and that if they could not catechize both white and black children, reserve those limited resources for slave children. Meade repeated the educational theme through his addresses and parochial reports, and in 1856 was criticized by an anonymous correspondent for remarks concerning slavery "in the presence of ten or twelve Negroes, who were candidates for confirmation." Meade convinced himself of the reciprocal nature of the master-slave relationship, and by 1857 published Christian proslavery tracts in his own name, declaring in his historical masterwork "If the evil passions are sometimes called into exercise, the milder virtues are much more frequently drawn forth." In 1858, his suffragan John Johns took charge of the committee and emphasized missionary work among slaves. Johns later summarized Meade's position as disliking slavery and considering it politically disadvantageous to the country, but relying on his own experience concerning manumission's failures. As Meade grew older, perhaps influenced by slave rebellions in Virginia, or his family's business interests, his views concerning slavery became more conservative. Biographer Johns stated that bishop Meade wrote to an American Tract Society meeting in New York opposing "an attempt ... made to introduce the leaven of New England fanaticism" and that Meade was unable to attend such meeting, but failed to mention the year the Tract Society's directors then defeated