A[rthur]. Tidman, Blomfield Street, London, to Joseph Angus, [Baptist Mission, 6 Fen Court, Fenchurch Street, London], 21 February 1843.

Blomfield St  Feb 21

My dear Sir

   I have much pleasure in sending the inclosed. You should have had it earlier but it was adopted only last Evg.

                           Yours very truly

                                       A Tidman

Revd J Angus.

Our Petitions will be presented by the Marquis of Landsdown & Sir George Grey

Accompanying this letter is a MS. copy of a petition by the Directors of the London Missionary Society to the House of Commons, undated; Angus has marked through references and statements related to the LMS and replaced them with statements and figures relative to the BMS. Angus’s additions to the text appear in {}.

   To the Honorable the Commons of the united Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in Parliament Assembled

   The Petition of the undersigned the Directors Committee of the London Baptist Missionary Society Humbly Sheweth,

   That your Petitioners are entrusted with the direction and management of an Institution, formed in London in the year 17952, for the sole object of spreading of Christ among heathen and other unenlightened nations’ diffusion of he Kingdom of Jesus Christ thro the heathen world, and that for the accomplishment of this benevolent and sacred design, the generous contributions of the Members of the Society, now exceed £80,000 per Annum.

   That in addition to extended operations in the Islands of the South Pacific Ocean, Africa and the West Indies West Indies and Africa, the Society has prosecuted Missionary labors in India for more than five and forty 50 years, and that it has at present in that Country (including the Honorable Company’s Territory and the protected States,) 51 24 Missionaries, 373 83 Europeans and Native Assistants, who occupy upwards of 120 40 Stations; and that with these there are connected nearly 500 100 Schools, in which instruction is gratuitously afforded to many some thousands of the native population.

   That encouraged by the measure of success which, under the blessing of God, has attended the various labors of the selfdenying and devoted Agents of the Society this and other kindred Societies, your Petitioners confidently anticipate, from the unrestricted general application of the same scriptural means, the gradual improvement of the Natives in knowledge, and in social habits; and the ultimate triumph of the Christian faith over the absurdities and abominations of Idolatry Heathenism.

   That your Petitioners deeply sensible of the serious obstruction to the propagation of Christianity in India, which heretofore existed in the connection of the British Government with the idolatrous rites and ceremonies of the natives, have regarded the various measures adopted by Her Majesty’s Government, and the Honorable the Court of the Directors of the East India Company, for the removal of this evil, with pleasure and thankfulness.

   That under the influence of these feelings your Petitioners have read with deepest regret, and the most painful apprehensions the proclamation of the Right Honorable the Governor General of India, addressed to the Hindoo Chiefs and People, in which they are congratulated, in the strongest terms, on the victorious removal, by the united British and Native Army of the gates of an ancient Idol Temple [notorious for cruelty and licentiousness] from the Tomb of a Mussulman Conqueror at Ghuznee, accompanied by while directions {are given} for the transmission of ‘these trophies with all honor to the restored Temple of Sournanth.

   That while your Petitioners abstain from pronouncing {an opinion} on the impolicy of these measures this measure, and while they are unwilling to condemn the motives of His Lordship the Governor General in adopting such proceedings, they entertain the strongest conviction that {(}by the native population of India{)}, they it will be regarded as {an} expressions of the highest honor, from the Representative of a Christian Nation to their false Gods, and that by their its direct tendency they it will operate as a formidable obstruction to the labors of the Christian Missionary, by strengthening the prejudices of the Mahometan and confirming the blind confidence of the {Hindoo} Idolater.

   Your Petitioners therefore most earnestly pray that your Honorable House will adopt such measures as may be best calculated to counteract the influence of these  this illjudged measures proclamation, and to prevent the recurrence of proceedings so dishonorable to our character and so injurious to our influence as a {professedly} Christian Nation.

   And your Petitioners will ever pray  &c

Text: Timothy Whelan, Baptist Autographs in the John Rylands University Library of Manchester, 1741-1845 (Macon: Mercer University Press, 2009), pp. 302-05 (annotated version); also MAW, Box 39 (BMS 2687), John Rylands University Library of Manchester. Arthur Tidman (1792-1868) was a Congregational minister who served in the office of the Foreign Secretary of the London Missionary Society, 1833-1868.