H[arriet]. Hope, Secretary of Society for Promoting Female Education in the East, [London], to [Joseph Angus, Baptist Mission House, London], 14 July 1842.

July 14.42

Revd Sir,

   I am requested by Mrs Thomas, wife of your Missionary at Calcutta, to apply to you for payment of her debt to the Society for promoting Female education in the East. Before Miss Wilson was sent out as their agent she signed an engagement binding herself, in the event of her marriage within five years after her arrival at Calcutta to refund the sum expended by the Society, on her account a fifth part being deducted for every year that shd previously elapse – 

   The sum expended was £150, & she married Mr Thomas fifteen months after her arrival, consequently the sum due to the Committee is £82 – May I request you to have the goodness to pay this sum to Messrs Williams Deacon & Co Birchin Lane, on account of the “Society for promoting female education in the East” & to address a line to our assistant secretary, Miss Webb, 61 Stafford Place, Pimlico, informing her of your having done so – she will then return to you Miss Wilson’s bond – 

                           I am Revd Sir

                                      Yours truly

                                             H. Hope. Secy

Text: Timothy Whelan, Baptist Autographs in the John Rylands University Library of Manchester, 1741-1845 (Macon: Mercer University Press, 2009), pp. 239-40 (annotated version); also MAW, Box 39 (no BMS number), John Rylands University Library of Manchester. The Society for Promoting Female Education in China, India and the East was formed in 1834; its purpose was to send women teachers to various English schools already established in India. Harriet Hope may have been the daughter of the prominent Baptist layman from Liverpool and correspondent of William Carey, Samuel Hope.