G. K. Prince, Bridgwater, to Joseph Angus, [Baptist Mission House, London], 21 March 1843.

Bridgwater—21 Mar. 1843

My dear Sir—

   I hope Mr Evans will be at liberty to preach at New Park St & that his promise to have a farewell at John St for the Afr. Missies has gratified you—he expressed himself much pleased on Thursday eveng & several of his people were pleased to Manifest their interest in this Mission, & of the ladies some mean to prepare a box for Fdo Po—he thinks the members will be glad to correspond with us abroad and will have their sympathies quickened by the Connexion.

   Mr Crowther, the black Catechist who accompanied Mr Schou from the Coast with the Niger Vessels to Ferdo Po is abt to be ordained for Afr. & I think it more than likely that there is some intended connexion between that purpose & the one wh:  Mr Trew is urging for adoption in his pamphlet addressed to Bishop of London, for a Normal institution in our island—I daresay (for I have not had the oppty for readg it) your attention wod not be ill bestowed by a perusal of “Africa wasted by Britain & restored by Native Agency”—

  I have taken fright at a favorable notice of it in a provincial paper, which hopes that the Ch. Of Engld will lead the way in the island of F. Po. & take [illegible word] possession, else some others will, & thus deprive it of that honor!  I have a thought of openg the Eyes of that Editor of limited Misry information

  As soon as I finish the Somersetshire tour, I should like to be at liberty (if the occasion shod be still existing) to go to Liverpool to provide for & to inspect accommodations for Sea—& from thence I coud go to Edinh where I have business to transact before my final departures—

  The Glentaura is advertised as having arrived on the 17th at Livrpl from Bonney & Ferdo Po—last the 25th Decr so I hope the W Afr Co have intelligences that may help to close our business with them, & that you have been put in possession of fresh & welcome news from Mr & Mrs Sturgeon.

  I trust that the business upon which our quarterly Comee will deliberate tomw will issue to the promotion of this Afr. Mission.

  I shall lament if the Steamer be vaporised & our hopes be made visionary—Mr Simpson in his brief acct of the Niger Expedition says reports many things favorable to our Mission at F. Po—& has a striking paragraph expressive of the desires of King Agua at Cameroons for religious instruction, tis most impressively in unison with Christian’s report to this same effect of his visit to Agua’s people. Oh I trust the Spirit will give faith to our Managers to observe practically what the recorded saying which the Socty has borrowed for a motto one of its earliest & most revered originators—

     Please oblige me with some succinct references to the very interesting objects upon wh. I have touched, as soon after they have been deliberated upon as you can & to the care of Mr Baynes, Wellington

   I am Dear Sir, with much esteem,

                                       Yrs   Geo. K. Prince

Text: Timothy Whelan, Baptist Autographs in the John Rylands University Library of Manchester, 1741-1845 (Macon: Mercer University Press, 2009), pp. 316-18 (annotated version); also MAW, Box 39 (BMS 3030), John Rylands University Library of Manchester. James Harington Evans (1785-1849) ministered at John Street Chapel [Baptist] in London, 1818-1848. Samuel Ajayi Crowther (c.1807-1891) served as bishop of Western Africa for the Anglican Church, 1864-1891. Joseph Baynes (1795-1875) was Baptist minister at South Street, Wellington, Somersetshire, 1820-1861. Clarke would partially win this battle with Angus and the Mission Committee, which chose to purchase, not a sailing schooner, which he feared they would do, but rather a seventy-ton ironclad steam-powered schooner, the Dove, complete with an Archimedes screw to be used for the transportation of missionaries to Jamaica and West Africa until 1853. For a drawing of the Dove, see Baptist Magazine 35 (1843), 541; Missionary Herald (January 1845), 48; (March 1845), 158-59; and Geoffrey R. Breed, “The Dove,” Baptist Quarterly 40 (2004), 440-42.