won a first victory for the United States Navy, bringing the captured French commerce raider back to St. Kitts. In 1804, the French Admiral Édouard Thomas Burgues de Missiessy and General La Grange forced Nevis and St. Kitts to pay ransoms of 4,000 and 18,000 pounds respectively. This was followed by Jérôme Bonaparte's raid in 1806. In 1806, the Leeward Islands Caribee government was split into two groups, with Antigua, Barbuda, Redonda and Montserrat in one group, and St Kitts, Nevis, Anguilla and the British Virgin Islands in the other. The islands in the new grouping however, were able to keep their great degrees of autonomy. The grouping then split entirely in 1816. Lord Combermere bought Russell's Rest Plantation following the defeat of France in the Battle of Waterloo. Combermere Village and School are named after him. The Roman Catholic religion was practiced by the French, and the Church of England by the English, yet a Jewish synagogue existed on Nevis since 1684. The Moravian Church was established on St. Kitts in 1777, and numbered 2,500 by 1790. Bishop Thomas Coke paid his first of three visits to Nevis and St. Kitts in 1788, establishing the Methodist Church on the island. Membership grew to 1,800 on Nevis and 1,400 on St. Kitts by 1789. In 1824, the Cottle Church was established on Nevis, welcoming slaves and masters alike. The African slave trade was terminated within the British Empire in 1807, and slavery outlawed in 1834. A four-year "apprenticeship" period followed for each slave, in which they worked for their former owners for wages. On Nevis 8,815 slaves were freed in this way, while St. Kitts had 19,780 freed. The 1835 hurricane, followed by the drought of 1836–1838 and the fire of 1837, devastated Nevis. Sugar prices continued their decline due to production in other parts of the world where costs were cheaper, so that by 1842, Nevis saw a decline in its population as workers fled the island, if unwilling to stay and make a living sharecropping in Nevis' increasingly less fertile soil. St. Kitts' soil was not so depleted. Then several earthquakes struck in 1843, followed by a cholera epidemic in 1853–54, killing more than 800 on Nevis and 3920 on St. Kitts. In 1872, St. Kitts was connected to the international telegraph system. However, the connection did not extend to Nevis until 1925. The Federation of the Leeward