Although the colony was prosperous, many Dutch farmers were as dissatisfied with British rule as they had been with that of the Dutch East India Company, though their grievances were not the same. In 1792, Moravian missions had been established for the benefit of the Khoikhoi, and in 1799, the London Missionary Society began to try to convert both the Khoikhoi and the Xhosa. The championship of Khoikhoi grievances by the missionaries caused much dissatisfaction among the majority of the colonists, whose conservative views temporarily prevailed, for in 1812, an ordinance was issued which gave magistrates the power to bind Khoikhoi children as apprentices under conditions little different from those of slavery. In the meantime, the movement for the abolition of slavery was gaining strength in England, and the missionaries appealed at length, from the colonists to Britain.