William Ward, Serampore, to unnamed correspondent, 16 December 1799.

Serampore,  Dec. 16, 1799.

Very dear Brother,

         On the 24th of May 1799, we entered the Criterion at London. On the 12th October we left it in the river near Calcutta, and the next morning we landed at Serampore. We had a very favourably [sic] voyage. I was almost the only one who escaped the sea sickness. We preached to the sailors on deck on a Lord’s day morning, & in our room to ourselves in the evening. The Capt. indeed always joined us, & took the lead in his turn in family worship. He is a godly elder of a Presbyterian church at Philadelphia, under the pastoral care of the Rev. Dr Smith. We had the pleasure of introducing two of the sailors, apparently under serious concern, unto our Lord’s day evening worship in our own room for a few times. We were once under alarm from privateers & once from violent weather. I will copy a short extract or two from my Journal:—

Tuesday, June 11. At 12 oclock Bay of Biscay 300 miles to our left. Several vessels just in sight, supposed to be privateers. The men go thro’ their exercise at the guns. The vessels get nearer. The Capt. has his fears, & says he shall expect us to take a Musket. Shall I then aim an instrument of death against my fellow creatures?—Unable to answer this solemn question to the satisfaction of my conscience, what shall I do?—The Lord does not put it to the test: 1/2 past One. Capt. says the enemy is gone.—Four o’clock. A vessel is still pursuing us, which the Capt. believes to be a Frenchman.  I feel some alarm, most for our women & children. Oh!  Lord!  be thou our defender!   The vessel seems to make way upon us. Quarter past eleven at night. There is no doubt of the vessel being a French privateer: when we changed our course this afternoon she changed hers. We have since dark changed into our old course again, so that possibly we shall lose her. Two of our Brethren have engaged in prayer, and our minds are pretty comfortable. Thank God there is an hour coming when “The wicked shall cease from troubling” &c. “Thou art my portion, O Lord.”

Wednesday, June 12. Blessed be God, & blessed be his glorious name forever!   We are still in tranquillity on board our vessel, & the enemy has disappeared. The women manifested a deal of courage last night, & slept soundly in spite of the Frenchman.

Thursday, June 13. One o’clock in the morning. Our friends have just waked me out of sleep, with the information that two large vessels are just upon us, & that one of them has fired a gun to bring us to. I dress myself in a hurry, & go upon deck. All hands are at their posts, & the matches are lighted. I go to the end of the ship. I can just see the vessel, tho’ it is very foggy. A ball whizzes over my head, & makes me tremble. I go down, & go to prayer with our friends. My mind calm: we leave ourselves in the hands of our God, that he may decide, whether we shall go to a French prison or to India. Another ball goes over the shrouds. The Capt. thinks its an English frigate. He has scarcely any doubts, & now, lest the mast should be shot away, he orders to haul to, for the ship gets nearer and nearer.  The sails are furled & she is coming along-side. Its a fine sight. The lights thro’ the portholes, & that on the surface of the sea around the vessel, make it charming, even amidst the fear of its being an enemy. They demand our name, our destination, &c. and then inform us, theirs is an English frigate!!   As soon as the sound of these words caught my ears, I was electrified with joy, & word was immediately carried to our friends below; who, however, were greatly supported. The Lieutenant comes on board, & we are all busy writing letters. After the vessel has left us, we fall down & thank our Saviour, & retire to rest.

Friday, Aug. 9. Opposite the Cape of Good Hope. The weather is so pleasant even here, that our sisters have been telling Capt. Wickes, he must have been joking, when he talked of such terrible weather, & that they should never learn to be sailors on a smooth sea. He told them to wait a little, & they should see he was not joking. In the afternoon we had presages of an approaching storm: the wind was boisterous & the sea rough. We held our prayer meeting & retired to rest. The rocking of the vessel almost threw us out of our beds. The night was very dark, & at one time the vessel seemed to be sailing on a sea of fire, the agitation of the waves around the ship causing a friction of the particles of salt in the water, & producing a flood of sparks like those from an electrical machine.

Saturday, Aug. 10. The sea was rough most of the day, but in the evening it became terrible to our sisters. Whilst Brethren Marshman & Brunsdon were sharing just before dusk, the vessel gave such a violent shook, as to throw the former backwards, with an open razor in his hand, & the great stool upon which he sat rolled upon him. I expected his back was broken. He was only very slightly hurt on the arm, & the looking-glass broken. But the whole room was thrown into confusion & uproar; every person & thing almost reeling to & fro like the drunkard. Picture to yourself a scene like this below, & then ascend the deck: the rain pours, the winds roar in the shrouds, & the waves bellow around us, dashing against the vessel, & covering the forecastle with waters.—Now she seems to be climbing a steep hill, now descending into the valley; now reeling to one side, then to the other; the Capt. causing his voice to be heard amidst the storm, & the men running to & fro on the deck of the reeling ship to straiten or take down the sails. You would be delighted to see us at dinner, which is placed on a tray, & the tray tied to the table, & the table fastened to the floor. There the difficulty is to secure our food & our plate, every thing sliding first to one end of the tray & then to the other. Now we hold ourselves, & the plate takes its chance. Sometimes a single sweep of the ship overturns mug glasses, & plates, & blends them all in one common mass. We have been talking of imitating the natives, & eating out of a bucket.

In general we had all pretty good health, except sister Brunsdon, who had much sickness & a miscarriage. On Monday evening we had a prayer-meeting—Tuesday evening a text discussed; Wednesday evening experience meeting; Thursday evening question discussed; Friday evening a prayer-meeting; & Saturday evening a meeting to adjust differences, confess faults, & promote brotherly love. We had the Lord’s Supper three times, in which our beloved Capt. joined. We instructed the sailors daily in reading, writing & accounts; & on some impressions apparently were made, but we fear whether any were savingly enlightened. The boys we instructed in Dr Watts Catechism. For a time there was an evident reformation, but at the close of our voyage the blasphemies of some were more terrible than ever, encouraged, I suppose, by two or three profane gentlemen on board. On our arrival at this place we made preparations for going up the country & joining our Brethren, but the Government of the Company prevented us. Our Brethren, therefore, are coming to join us at this place, where the seat of the mission will be placed. This place belongs to the Danes. There is no church. The governor & several gentleman attend preaching at our house. We have preached once in the Governor’s hall. We have all the patronage we could expect, & we can go any where to itinerate. Paper, press, types are ready & before this reaches you, no doubt some part of the Bible will be printed in Bengalee. Our Brethren are still sowing in hope, tho’ in tears. I know not when I shall be able to join them.— Descriptions of the country must be sent in my next. We have lost by Death our dear Brother Grant. He has left a widow & two children. Tho’ well on landing, he died in three weeks after our arrival, of a fever. Brother Carey still looks young. He sends his love to you & family, & begs me to make his acknowledgment for the books. He, however, talks of writing. Let me hear from you while either of us live, & send me an account of the Yorkshire churches, & you will increase those many obligations under which you have laid                                           

                                    Your sincerely affectione son & Servant 

                                                      Wm Ward

My unfeigned love to Mr Johns & all your family, as well as to Mr & Mrs Greaves, & all your church.

Text: Eng. MS. 387, fol. 94, John Rylands University Library of Manchester. This letter was written to a member of the BMS committee, most likely John Rippon. Portions of the journal of William Ward (1769-1823) were reprinted in S. Pearce Carey’s William Carey, D.D. (London: George H. Doran, 1923) 174-75, but this letter is not mentioned in that work. 

Others mentioned above include Joshua Marshman (1768-1837), Daniel Brunsdon (1777-1801), who, with their families, sailed for India with Ward, Brunsdon, and William Grant in 1799. William Johns, a member at Carter Lane in Southwark, would sail for India in 1810 with John Lawson to join Ward and Carey at Serampore. Greaves is unidentified. Capt. Benjamin Wickes often used his ships to transport missionaries to India during the early years of the BMS. Even though he was an elder in the Third Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, Wickes was a strong supporter of the BMS, informing the London Committee, upon learning that his passengers for India were BMS missionaries, that “my heart rejoiced,” bringing “to my mind a desire which I had felt some years past . . . that I might have command of a ship that should convey some of these messengers of peace to the heathen.” According to S. Pearce Carey, Wickes was the son of a Baptist minister. Wickes would later serve as an honorary member of the first board of the General Missionary Convention of the American Baptists in 1814. John Blair Smith (1756-99), after graduating from the College of New Jersey in 1773, served as an educator for many years, including a stint as President of Hampden-Sydney College in Virginia (1779-1789). Smith then served as minister of the Third Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia (1791-1795) before removing to Schenectady, New York, where he served as President of Union College until his death in August 1799. Captain Wickes would have at one time been under the care of Smith during the latter’s pastorate in Philadelphia, but neither Wickes nor Ward would have known of Smith’s death due to their being at sea since May of 1799. 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: 50, 156; S. Pearce Carey, William Carey, D.D. (London: George H. Doran, 1923), 182; Periodical Accounts, 1: 505; Roger Hayden, “Kettering 1792 and Philadelphia 1814: The Influence of English Baptists upon the Formation of American Baptist Foreign Missions 1790-1814,” Baptist Quarterly 21 (1965-66): 11-13; 71-72.