William Carey, Serampore, to S. Hope, Esq., Hope Street, Liverpool, 21 November 1818.

My Dear Sir

          Accept my thanks for the present of 5 Doz. of Beer, and two Cheeses, which Bro.r Pearce informed me you had sent for my acceptance. I received them safe and in good order. I have also to thank you for the present of a very fine Kalaidascope which I have also received safely. This instrument is certainly a wonderful application of the science of Optics, and colours. I saw one for the first time a few days before I received your kind present, which is the property of the Physician of the Place.

         I formerly wrote you some account of the exertions, which are making all over India to instruct the rising Generation. Last year a School Book Society was constituted in Calcutta, which promises to be of much advantage. The first hint of this Society arose from the Countess of Loudoun; but it has now assumed a much more substantial form, and greater extent than was at first contemplated.

         We have tried with various success for some years past to establish Schools in the villages around us: Many Gentlemen in different parts of the Country have also set up Schools upon our plan; and three or four years ago Government made one experiment of the same kind, and employed Bro.r May, now deceased, as superintendent of them. We have the last year being [been] exerting ourselves to improve the native Schools in which the parents pay the Masters; and have considerable hopes of success; A good number of these schools for a small encouragement have adopted the plan suggested by us, and their instruction may be extended much further than it could be on the plan of wholly supporting them at our own expence.

         One of the most important events which has lately occurred of this kind is the proposed introduction of Schools into all the newly conquered Provinces, now called Rajpoothana.  A country nearly as large again as England. This work originated with the Marquis of Hastings, who while he was in the upper Provinces wrote us word that he had been thinking that the instruction of the people of these Countries by setting up Schools in them would be the most likely method of curing them of their predatory habits, and gradually raising their character. He desired us to turn the matter over in our minds against his arrival at the Presidency. Soon after his arrival he invited us to dine with him (His country residence is just opposite our House on the opposite side of the River.) After Dinner he entered into a discussion of this matter with me; and committed the whole management of it to us, at the same time promising us a pretty long Subscription towards the beginning. He has since settled the amount of this Subscription 6000 Rupees, and has procured the consent of the Supreme Counsel to send my third son Jabez (who arrived unexpectedly from Amboyna a few days before we dined with him) to Ajmeere, at the expense of Government. The Schools, however, are not to be considered as government Schools, but as our private ones. My Son left us for that place a week ago. The journey will take four Months and a half. S.r David Ochterlony will direct him as to situations for Schools; we know him to be quite friendly to our plans.        

         The committing of this business to us may be considered as a memorable interposition of Divine Providence; We have commenced printing the Bible in all the Languages spoken in these parts, and were able to send the Gospel by Matthew in one or two of them. It is memorable that just at this time a Diocesan School Society was instituted, at the Head of which is the bishop of Calcutta. Another society, denominated the Calcutta School Society also was formed about the same time.

         Bror Wards Nephew is going to Sumatra with a Printing Press. Sr T. Raffles wrote to us as soon as he arrived there; He is now in Bengal and lately spent a Day and Night with us. He is desirous of setting up Schools there, and would give all the protection he can to Missionaries. Young Mr Ward is very pious, and I trust will be of much use there. He goes in a few Days with Sr Thomas. Thus the Lord is enlarging our sphere of Action. May He now give that Spiritual prosperity without which outward advantage will be ineffectual.—We shall have occasion for large draughts upon the Liberality of the Christian public, and great need of help from above. I trust we shall not be forgotten in your prayers.

                           I am, My Dear Sir,

                                             very truly yours

                                                               W Carey

Serampore

21.st Nov.r 1818            

N.B. I have taken the liberty of consigning a box of Seeds and another of bulbs, to your care for M.r J. Cooper, Gardener to Lord Molton, Wentworth Hills, near Rotheram, Yorkshire; I formerly sent them to M.r Shepherd, of the Botanic Garden. M.r Cooper is I trust a pious man, but he entertains suspicions of M.r S. which I do not wish to perpetuate. These are sent by the [illegible word] Capt. Harris. I shall also consign to you two similar ones for the Hon.ble W.m Herbert, Spofforth near Wetherby, Yorkshire. I have written to M.r Cooper and M.r Herbert to apply to you for them. I hope I am not presuming too much in doing thus. The Boxes for M.r Herbert will be shipped on the Princess Charlotte, in which Bro.r Ward goes to England, and by which I send this

Text: Timothy Whelan, Baptist Autographs in the John Rylands University Library of Manchester, 1741-1845 (Macon: Mercer University Press, 2009), pp. 185-88 (annotated version); also Eng. MS. 387, fol. 20b, John Rylands University Library of Manchester. This letter sent by the ship Princess Charlotte. Samuel Hope (1760-1837), prominent Baptist Liverpool banker and active supporter of the BMS. Flora Mure-Campbell (1780-1840), 6th Countess of Loudoun, married Francis Rawdon-Hastings in 1804. Francis Rawdon Hastings (1754-1826), 2nd Earl of Moira and later 1st Marquess of Hastings, was appointed Governor-General of Bengal and commander-in-chief of forces in India on 18 November 1812, succeeding Lord Minto. He successfully waged a campaign to subdue the Ghorkas in Nepal, and for this service was created Viscount Loudoun, Earl of Rawdon, and Marquis of Hastings on 13 February 1817. By the end of 1817, Hastings had established the supremacy of the British throughout India. Jabez Carey (1793-1862), third son of William Carey and BMS missionary in Amboyna and India, 1814-32. Sir David Ochterlony (1758-1825) was a 1st Baronet and army officer in the East India Company, 1778-1826. In 1804 he became the resident commander in Delhi, but in 1806 was forced to give up his position to a civilian, Archibald Seton. He was appointed major-general by Lord Hastings in 1813. For his work in the Nepalese campaign in 1814-15, Ochterlony was appointed a KCB and created a baronet. He was instrumental in bringing peace to the province of Rajputana and for his work was named by Hastings in March 1818 as resident and commissioner-general to the Rajput states. In December 1818 (one month after the date of the above letter) he would be appointed resident at Delhi, and in 1822 resident of Malwa and Rajputana. 

Ward’s nephew, Nathaniel Ward, along with Gottlob Bruckner, worked in Sumatra until 1850, at which time the BMS mission ended, but not before completing a translation of the Java New Testament, undertaken at the behest of Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles (1781-1826), director of Sumatra for the East India Company, 1813-16, and governor, 1818-24. William Herbert (1778-1847) was a naturalist, classical scholar, linguist, politician, and clergyman, noted primarily for his work on plant hybridization, which led to a correspondence with Charles Darwin. He was Rector of Spofforth, Yorkshire, 1814-40, after which he became Dean of Manchester, 1840-47. Shortly before the date of the above letter, Herbert had published Musae Etonenses (1817). He would soon follow with On the Production of Hybrid Vegetables (1819). He also authored a short Biographical Notice of the Rev. William Carey, D.D. of Serampore (Newcastle, 1843). See F. A. Cox, History of the Baptist Missionary Society, from 1792 to 1842, 2 vols. (London: T. Ward, and G. and J. Dyer, 1842), 1: 354; “Calendar of Letters,” Baptist Quarterly 7 (1934-35), 45.