India (1812)

C H A P T E R I

India

[ 1812 ]

HE Caravan was not long out of sight of land before Harriet and Nancy became aware of something unpleasant about the rise and fall of the vessel on the open ocean. Within a few hours both were seasick. Probably their husbands were, too, but they did not record their sensations in their journals.

Harriet was completely incapacitated for several days. Nancy wasmore fortunate. The first night she “had many distressing apprehensions of death,” and “felt unwilling to die on the sea, not so much on account of my state after death, as the dreadfulness of perishing amid the waves.” But she was less sick than she had eXpected, “no worse, through the whole, than if I had taken a gentle emetic.” Meanwhile, five days out, the Caravan scared everybody by springing a bad leak and nearly sinking in spite of the efforts of all hands at the pumps, until the hole was finally located and stopped. After a week or so, however, all four of the passengers began to enjoy the voyage.

Captain Heard and his officers and crew treated their passengers with great kindness and respect. The first Sunday at sea, bad weather and sickness had prevented any formal observance of the day. But the next Sunday—March r, rSrz—the passengers suggested to him that worship be held in the cabin. Heard agreed at once, and from then on he and at least two of his officers joined in regular Sabbath services every week.

The Christian behavior aboard the Caravan went so far that Nancy noted with wonderment, “I have not heard the least profane language since I have been on board the vessel. This is very uncommon.” Even when the ship had seemed to be sinking, there had been no language stronger than the Captain’s cool observation that only the hand of Providence could save them.

As the long days passed, the weather became warmer. There was little to do but read. Evenings were spent in “religious conversation.” Occasionally the monotony was broken by the sighting of a ship. Sometimes they could even see the men on deck, but Captain Heard faithfully obeyed his orders not to Speak to any vessel.

For a while the missionaries had poor appetites. “Everything taSted differently from what it does on land,” wrote Nancy, “and those things I was the most fond of at home, I loathed the most here.” Finally they decided the trouble was lack of exercise.

They tried walking, but the cluttered decks lacked room. Then someone thought of skipping rope, and for hours every day the two couples diligently skipped. Finally it occurred to them that dancing was just as good exercise and more fun. From then on they danced long and often, and health and appetite returned — although through the whole voyage Harriet remained finicky about her diet and never could stomach coffee or tea without milk.

But Harriet had a reason. She was pregnant and looked forward to the birth of her baby about November. It would be born, she supposed, in India or Burma. Perhaps she would have no help but that which her husband could give her.

Meanwhile, the four young people found a good deal of enjoyment in their long honeymoon. Nancy thought Adoniram “one of the kindest, most faithful and affectionate of husbands.” Harriet echoed her: “My dear mother, unite with me in praising God for one of the best of husbands. Oh what would have been my wretchedness, had I found Mr. N. a cold, inattentive partner. But he is all I could wish him to be.”

Presently the Caravan entered the torrid zone. The missionaries discovered the invigorating effects of a bath in salt water; following her first, Harriet noted that it “has refreshed me much. I think I shall bathe regularly every other day.” Even so, they were often “lethargic.... While my dear ,mother, brOthers and sisters are probably shivering over a large fire, I am sitting with the window and door open, covered with sweat. Brother and sister Judson are asleep on one bed, Mr. N. lounging on another, while I am writing.”

This was their life as the Caravan slowly crossed the infinity of ocean. Buoying up their spirits was their faith in God and their belief in their mission; and, almost equally, the richness of the love each husband found in his wife, and each wife in her husband. But there were moments of nostalgia, too. “We often look the way where Captain H. tells us Haverhill lies. But alas! a vast ocean and the blue sky is all we can see.”

By the first of May they had crossed the Equator and run into cold, rainy weather as they began to round the Cape of Good Hope. On this day Harriet summed up her feelings:

i care not how soon we reach Calcutta, and are placed in a Still room, with a bowl of milk and a loaf of Indian bread. I can hardly think of this simple fare without exclaiming, oh, what a luxury. — I have been so weary of the excessive rocking of the vessel, and the almost intolerable smell after the rain, that I have done little more than lounge on the bed for several days. But I have been blest with excellent spirits, and today have been running about the deck, and dancing in our room for exercise, as well as ever. What do some females do, who have unkind husbands in sickness? Among the many signal favors I am daily receiving from God, one of the greateSt is a most affectionate partner. With him, my days pass cheerfully away — happy in the consciousness of loving and being beloved. With him contented would I live, and contented I would die. This, my mother, is the language of your Harriet’s heart.

Meanwhile Adoniram had involved himself in a theological inquiry which was showing unexpected results.

In Andover he had begun a translation of the New TeStament from the Greek, which he continued on board ship. Along toward April he became interested in the Greek word which is usually translated as “baptism.” Adoniram had been baptized as an infant in the Congregational way, by the sprinkling of a few drops of water on his head. But as he conned the New Testament he could find no indication that anyone mentioned there had ever been baptized by sprinkling. In every case in which it was described, baptism had been performed in a river, and the people baptized actually went down into the water. Studying the word itself, he could not find that it was ever used to mean anything but immersion.

More than once he spoke to Nancy of his discovery. Of course, he was a Staunch orthodox Congregationalist, but he admitted to her with some chagrin that in this case, at least, it looked as if the Baptists were right and the Congregationalists wrong. No matter how he stretched the sense, he could not see how any impartial person could ever make that Greek word mean “sprinkling.”

As a missionary, he was disturbed, because his instructions from the American Board told him to baptize “credible believers and their households.” Naturally, only the “credible believers” were to be admitted into church membership, but their “households” could and must be baptized. In New England this would have meant their infant children. In the Orient, it would also mean adult sons and daughters and probably servants as well, since the believers would probably never have heard of Christ until Adoniram told them. This was much different from baptizing newborn children of church members, one by one as they came along, New England fashion. What would the thirty-year-old still-pagan son of a newly admitted church member think of being baptized? Would he consent? If he did, what good would baptism do if he remained an unbeliever?

Adoniram had another reason for concern. He carried with him a letter from Dr. Worcester to Dr. Carey and the missionaries at Serampore, outside Calcutta, asking them to give the Americans their advice and aid. The Serampore missionaries were Baptists, and as such baptized only believers, not their children and servants. With them, the ceremony was inseparable from personal conversion; in Adoniram’s words, “the initiating ordinance of the church.”

The Baptists and orthodox Congregationalists of New England had always been on friendly terms. In fact, Adoniram had met Dr. Lucius Bolles, pastor of the First Baptist Church of Salem, before the departure of the Caravan, and had urged that American Baptists follow the example of British Baptists in forming a missionary organization. But Adoniram was not so sure about his relation with the Serampore Baptists. If they attacked the Congregational position on baptism, how could he defend it? He feared much more, however, the dilemma in which he would find himself if natives asked him to explain the difference! They might even conclude there were two competing religions, each calling itself Christian ——and thus find it easier to resist conversion.

With his usual vigor Adoniram plunged into a study of the matter.

INDIA

Finally he came to the conclusion that baptism of infants and unconverted members of a household, as Congregationalists performed it, grew out of the way church membership was acquired in the Old Testament, as illustrated by the case of Abraham. Abraham’s male descendants and servants were automatically members of the church from birth. They did not have to join it by an act of individual choice, because the church consisted of the whole people. They left it only by being “cut off from the people.” But in the New Te3tament, the basis of Christianity, so far as he could see, the membership of a church was restricted to the individuals “who gave credible evidence of being disciples of Christ.” Baptism was mentioned “always in connection with believing.”

But this was the Baptist position! It worried him. He began saying to Nancy, “1 am afraid the Baptists may be in the right.”

It worried Nancy even more. She did not feel the point was vital, but she was afraid that if he kept on this way her uncompromising Adoniram might come to believe that the Baptists were right in other things. Then where would they be? But although she never hesitated to argue with him, she must have learned by now that she was wasting her breath. He continued to worry the subject and it continued to worry him.

Meanwhile the Caravan was approaching India. By early June Captain Heard thought they were within a hundred miles of Ceylon. Warm torrential gales blew from the shore. But by now even Harriet was hardened: “I know not how it is; but I hear the thunder roll; —see the lightning flash; —and the waves threatening to swallow up the vessel;—and yet remain unmoved.”

The missionaries began to pack up their belongings. Adoniram dropped his preoccupation with baptism, much to Nancy’s relief. The first visitors came from land —two birds and a butterfly. And the next day, the twelfth of june, “after seeing nothing but sky and water for one hundred and fourteen days, we this morning heard the joyful exclamation of ‘land, land!’ It is the coast of Orissa, about twenty miles from us.”

The first day all they could make out were “the towering mountains of Golconda,” but the following morning they were close enough to shore to distinguish trees, which they delightedly assured each other muSt be orange and palm trees. They spoke to two vessels and were happy to hear the sound of a new voice. At nightfall Captain Heard anchored in the dangerous, shallow Bay of Bengal until he could secure a pilot.

In this bay vessels had been known to wait for a pilot as long as ten days, but the Caravan was lucky. A vessel turned up the next morning with the English pilot, his leadsman, an English lad, and a Hindu servant. They all came on board, but the missionaries had eyes for nothing but the Hindu, the first they had ever seen. He was a small man, perhaps twenty years old, of “a dark copper color,” wearing “calico trousers and a white cotton short gown.” He was a Mohammedan, and Harriet thought his countenance expressed “the most perfect apathy and indolence.” She doubted whether “he had force enough to engage in any employment.” Nancy agreed: “He looks as feminine as you can imagine. What an alteration would a belief in Christianity make in such a degraded creature.”

If the Hindu lacked energy, the pilot had enough for ten. Until dusk he guided the Caravan through the intricate lanes between the shoals, seeming to propel her largely by the force of his blistering oaths.

At nightfall the brig came to anchor, but not for long. One of a series of heavy seas rolled the vessel until water flooded the missionaries’ quarters. Another snapped the anchor cable, and the Caravan began to drift dangerously with wave and tide in the shallow waters. The rest of the night the Caravan was kept slowly under way, the pilot’s cursing reaching new heights as he navigated by guess in the dark. Nancy was unable to catch a wink “in consequence of the continual noise, and profane language on deck. The captain has never used any profane language since we have been with him; but the pilot, much more than we ever heard before.”

As the sun rose and the Caravan entered the calmer waters of the Ganges delta, the pilot carefully (and perhaps less profanely now that he had the vessel safely out of the dangerous Bay) guided her between the little islands until he had her moving up the Hooghly River, one of the mouths of the Ganges, toward Calcutta.

With land almOSt within touch after so many months at sea, the missionaries spent most of the morning running from rail to rail pointing out new wonders to each other or dashing below deck to describe them in letters. The exotic sights on shore—and the delicious fragrances drifting to the ship—fulfilled all their expectations of India. Nancy had never “witnessed nor read anything so delightful as the present scene”:

On each side of the Hoogli, where we are now sailing, are the Hindoo cottages, as thick together as the houses in our seaports. They are very small, and in the form of hay-stacks, without either chimney or windows. They are situated in the midst of trees, which hang over them, and appear truly romantick. The grass and fields of rice are perfectly green, and herds of cattle are everywhere feeding on the banks of the river, and the natives are scattered about, differently employed. Some are fishing, some driving the team, and many are sitting indolently on the banks of the river. The pagodas we have passed are much larger than the houses.

Harriet, perhaps thinking of the child she expected to bear among these people, liked especially the natives “walking with fruit and umbrellas in their hands, with the little tawny children around them.” There was no sign here of the hardships she had anticipated. All in all, she decided, “this is the most delightful trial, I ever had.” About noon some natives came aboard the ship —the Hindu crew of a port-boat which visited the Caravan to pick up mail. To Harriet’s slightly shocked surprise, they “were naked, except a piece of cotton cloth wrapped around their middle.” But they had “much more interesting countenances than the Hindoo we have now on board. They appeared active, talkative, and as though capable of acquiring a knowledge of the Christian religion, if instructed. Their hair is black—some had it shaved off the fore part of the head, and tied in a bunch behind; that of the others, was all turned back.”

The pastoral river banks gave way to something entirely different when they reached Calcutta and docked that afternoon at about three. It was the largest and “by far the most elegant” city, with its blocks of white-painted brick buildings, any of them had ever seen. The maSts of ships palisaded the shore for miles, and the wharves and waterfront streets swarmed with hundreds of natives who flocked “thick as bees” around the ships, keeping up a “continual chattering” in Bengali. The two women were “almost stunned with the noise.”

But there was compensation: fresh food from shore, sent by a friend of Captain Heard’s—exotic delicacies new to them, such as pineapples and bananas (the latter tasting like “a rich pear”); and, most delicious of all, what Harriet had dreamed of all the months on the ocean, milk with fresh bread!

With these viands Nancy and Harriet regaled themselves in a cabin. Adoniram and Samuel, meanwhile, went ashore with Captain Heard to comply with the first obligation laid on every visitor to the East India Company’s domain—that of reporting to the police station.

On the way they were able to secure a little firsthand information about Burma through some of Captain Heard’s acquaintances. Nearly all they knew came from Symes’s book, the one Adoniram had read in Andover. Few Salem ships had visited Burma since Captain John Gibaut’s unfortunate experience with the Astra in 1793, nearly twenty years before. Gibaut’s ship had been commandeered as soon as he entered Pegu, near Rangoon, and taken up the Irrawaddy. Although he had finally managed to get her back, he had found nothing in the way of trade; only some curiosities which he had deposited in Salem’s East India Museum. A year later Captain Hodges had taken aboard a good deal of gum lacquer in Burma, but on his return had found no one to buy it. After these two eXperiences, Salem ships had left Burma strictly alone.

Now Adoniram and Newell learned that it was the unhappy experience of Gibaut and Hodges, rather than Symes’s glowing account, which most nearly represented the true Burma. Symes, in his ignorance of Burmese customs, had not realized that, instead of being treated as a distinguished visitor, he had actually been led about with subtle mockery, and dealt a succession of calculated insults in the guise of compliments. The Burmese court had silently rocked with laughter during his whole mission.

Ava had no intention of dealing with the West, and no conception of English power. Two missions to Burma had failed, although Dr. Carey’s son Felix still hung on at Rangoon. The fact was, any inhabitant of Burma — even of a border seaport such as Rangoon —lived at the mercy of a despotic governor. Everything depended on

I N D I A

his whim. Officialdom was unspeakably corrupt. Treaties meant nothing. The Burmese had no conception of trade, and only contempt for foreigners. Missionaries would have to live like rats in holes, unable to teach the Gospel, exposed to arbitrary torture or execution if discovered. For a man, life would be difficult; for a woman, impossible.

Captain Heard’s friends, shaking their heads gravely, warned the American newcomers to put any thought of a Burmese mission out of their heads. Let them go back to America, or anywhere else in the world—but forget Burma.

With this unsettling news in their heads Adoniram and Newell soberly made their way through the bustling streets, crowded with dark-hued humanity and hurrying carriages, to the police station. A bored, unfriendly clerk questioned them. Did Mr. Judson and Mr. Newell have permission from the Court of Directors of the Company to live in India? No; they were Americans, with no purpose but the conversion of heathen. They had intended to Stop in Calcutta only until they could find a ship to Burma; but judging from what they had just learned, they might have to ask to stay in India a little longer than they had intended.

It was most unlikely, said the clerk, that they would be permitted to remain. That would be decided by the authorities. Meanwhile, he would give them a certificate showing that they had complied with regulations by reporting.

Leaving the police station with their certificates, they made one more call before returning to the ship — this one on William Carey, dean of the Serampore group, pioneer of the English Baptist missionaries, to whom Adoniram had a letter written by Dr. Worcester asking for any help he could give.

Carey spent as much time in Calcutta, now, as in Serampore. The Government, disapproving his mission but recognizing his attainments, had made him professor of Oriental languages at the college at Fort William, and given him a good salary and a huge stone house. He had accepted, in order to use his position to gain toleration for Serampore and his colleagues Marshman and Ward.

Something like this he told them as they talked in his highceilingcd second-floor study. Studying the quiet, elderly man, small of Stature and unpretentious in appearance, they could sense his I 3 4 immense determination. They knew he had arrived at this lordly house from a poverty-stricken beginning as an all-but-illiterate cobbler in his native England. He had entered India as superintendent of an indigo plantation, had succeeded, and had finally been able to emerge in his true role as missionary. His translation of the Gospel into Bengali had been a great accomplishment. Now his knowledge of Oriental languages was second to no one’s.

Carey painted a discouraging picture of the Americans’ prospects in either Burma or India. Really, Burma they might as well put out of their minds. It was true that his son Felix had been there four years now, but he was the only one—of four missionaries, representing two separate missionary societies—who had been able to stay; and that, probably, was because he had married a Burmese woman of European extraction and so enjoyed some small amount of official favor. Burma itself was an anarchic despotism embroiled in a fierce war with Siam. Enemy raids, the tyranny of the government and the constant rebellion of the tax-burdened people made life so uncertain that a man never knew, when he woke in the morning, whether he would be allowed to live until night. Religious toleration was unknown; the viceroy in Rangoon had not the faintest idea that the missionaries had come to convert the natives —he thought they were in Burma to minister to the few Europeans in Rangoon. This was why every missionary effort so far had got nowhere. Pritchett and Brain, who had been sent by the London Missionary Society, had failed. Brain had died in Burma, and Pritchett had given up and gone to Vizagapatam. Chater, Carey’s son Felix’s colleague, had given up, too, and gone to Ceylon. But he was in Calcutta now, and could give them firsthand information. As for Felix, he himself said that he could do nothing but translate the Scriptures, and this he could do as well in Serampore, if he brought a Burmese scholar with him.

But if prospects were dismal in Burma, Carey told them, for Americans they were equally dismal in India. Even the Serampore missionaries, native-born English subjects, found great difficulty in remaining. The fact was, the East India Company was using any means in its power to discourage missionary activities. The Company did not want the natives to learn Western ideas —— particularly the subversive revolutionary ideas of the Gospel. They could lead to unrest, disturbances, even revolt. Meanwhile, Carey would do what he could to help Mr. Judson and Mr. Newell remain. But he could promise nothing. And with this cold comfort, after being introduced by him to his colleagues Marshman and Ward, who happened to be in the city, Adoniram and Newell returned to the Caravan.

The next day, leaving Nancy and Harriet still on board, they set out with Captain Heard once more for the police Station. They had no sooner arrived than they received another sample of what they might expect from the East India Company. Mr. Martyn, chief of the police force, promptly gave Captain Heard a dressing down for bringing missionaries to India without permission and without notifying the government.

It turned out that the Calcutta new5papers had-published their names as missionaries and passengers on the Caravan but the clerk had failed to give their papers of yesterday to the chief police magistrate. It took some time to straighten out the confusion and lay the blame on the clerk, where it belonged. But the incident did nothing to improve their standing with the police. Mr. Martyn was more than doubtful whether they would be allowed to stay in India.

That night was to be the last the missionaries spent aboard the Caravan. The next afternoon they had two offers of accommodations ashore — one from Captain Heard, who had just succeeded in renting a house for himself, and one from Dr. Carey. Captain Heard’s invitation touched them; it was one more example of his unfailing courtesy and kindness— but they felt they had no right to continue being a burden on him; and, after all, their future, they hoped, lay with men like those of the Serampore group. Late that afternoon, with profuse thanks to the maSter of the Caravan, they left the ship.

By now Adoniram and Samuel Newell were familiar with the way to Dr. Carey’s house. But to Nancy and Harriet, who had not yet set foot on shore, everything was strange and a little frightening. Each of the wives traveled in a palanquin carried by natives. The bustle in the streets, the noisy native crowds, the babel of unknown tongues, the rushing English carriages—nothing was like Salem 0r Boston. They began to understand why “no English lady is here seen walking the Streets.” Adoniram had set out for Dr. Carey’s house on foot. The men who trotted off with Nancy’s palanquin went so fast that she soon lost sight of him. For a few panicky moments she wondered where she was being taken, until all at once her bearers came to a stop and set the conveyance down, next to Harriet’s, in front of a stone house so large that to her wondering eyes it looked like a palace.

It was the first Calcutta house Nancy and Harriet had entered. They stared with awe at the immense rooms with their twenty-foothigh ceilings. One of those rooms could hold almost a whole house of the Bradford and Haverhill variety. Nothing was like the homes they knew. There were no fireplaces or chimneys anywhere. Instead, huge glassless windows opened from room to room to let the air circulate freely.

And the servants! They were everywhere, in obsequious hordes. Apparently no white person in India ever lifted a finger to perform any household task. There were too many servants. They were in each other’s way. It was embarrassing, but there was no help for it, “for their religion will not permit them to do but one kind of work; For instance, one servant will sweep a room; but no persuasion will be sufficient to make him dust the things.”

They liked Dr. Carey, who greeted them in his study. He had an invitation for them on his own account, and a special one from the Marshmans and Wards, to stay at the Serampore mission until Rice, Hall and the N0tts should arrive in the Harmony.

It is not hard to imagine the pride (and perhaps the amusement) with which Adoniram and Newell showed their awed wives the sights in the vicinity of Dr. Carey’s house. That evening they attended services in the English Episcopal Church and Nancy was delighted to hear the organ play her old favorite tune “Bangor.” The tune and the service were familiar, but there was an oriental touch -—the immense fans called punkahs (“punkies,” as she spelled it), which hung inside the church and were operated from the outside by natives pulling ropes. She could not keep her eyes off the majestically swaying “punkies.”

And the next morning she saw her firSt mission school, almOSt next door to Dr. Carey’s house. It had nearly two hundred students, both boys and girls, mostly casteless natives and children of Portuguese parentage. And she saw a wedding procession, with a bridegroom only ten years old riding in a palanquin—her first sight of child marriage.

That afternoon, when it was time to leave the ship permanently, the Judsons and Newells wrote to Captain Heard expressing their overflowing thanks and appreciation for all he had done for them. Ruefully they added, “We wish that we could make some suitable return for your goodness, but as this is far out of our power, we can only express our feelings.” All four signed the letter. Then they stepped aboard a boat for the fifteen-mile upriver trip to Serampore.

The Serampore mission, where they were met at the waterside by Marshman and Ward, was a revelation. It was a complete, almost self-contained community. The dwellings consisted of four roomy stone buildings commanding a beautiful view of the river. Dr. Carey’s wife, who was seriously ill, occupied one building with her husband when he was not in Calcutta. The Marshmans lived in one, and the Wards in the third. In the fourth, “the common house," the Judsons and Newells were each provided with “two large spacious rooms, with every convenience we could wish.”

The Americans’ four rooms took up only a fraction of the space in the building. Besides the visitors’ apartments, it contained a dining hall capable of seating a hundred or more, “a large elegant chapel, and two large libraries.”

In addition to the four houses, there were numerous outbuildings -—including a cookhouse, and even a factory for making paper. Until a few months before there had been still another building housing a printing plant where Gospels translated by the missionaries and tracts written by them had been printed, but this had been destroyed by fire and not yet rebuilt.

The Americans had never seen such a garden as the mission had. It was beautifully cared for and it covered acres. Everything seemed to grow in it—- fruit trees, vegetables, flowers, plants of all kinds —some familiar, but many unknown. Nancy, who had grown up on a farm, thought it “as far superior to any in America, as the best garden in America is to a common farmer’s.” But even she could not fully appreciate what it really was. Dr. Carey had a passion for horticulture almost equal to his passion for translation. For a score of years he had been acquiring specimens through correspondence with naturalists all over the world. At this time he had well over four hundred species of plants growing, and b0tanists knew, if others did not, that the garden at Serampore was one of the finest in existence.

In this delightful place the four Americans quickly fell into a pleasantly busy routine. For the two women it must have been particularly enjoyable because they had no housework. That was all done by the armies of servants, each inflexibly devoted to his one allotted task.

Nearly every hour had its appointed occupation, which was marked by the ringing of a bell —the first one at five in the moming, to wake the boys for school. Mrs. Marshman also kept a school for European young ladies and the children of the mission families, in which she taught needlework, embroidery, useful arts and languages. The language study was anything but superficial: “Mrs. Marshman’s eldest daughter, fourteen years of age,” noted Nancy, “reads and writes Bengalee and English; and has advanced some way in Latin, Greek and Hebrew.” There were also various meetings of a religious character going on nearly all day, from morning prayers to explanations of the Scriptures. Sundays were given over wholly to religion. There was a service in English in the evening. Adoniram watched the Bengali services with special interest; this was what he hoped to be doing soon himself. Meanwhile, he had to content himself with preaching at the evening service in English.

But the Americans did not wholly lose themselves in the activities in the mission. They were taken “in a budgerow (a boat with a little room in it, cushions on each side, and Venetian blinds)... to see the worship of the Hindoo god, Juggernaut, a few miles from Serampore.” The idol “was only a lump of wood, his face painted with large black eyes, and a large red mouth,” but they took him “out of the pagoda, and bathed him in the water of the Ganges, which they consider sacred. They bathed themselves in the river—repeated long forms of prayer—counted their fingers— poured muddy water down their children’s throats, and such like foolish, superstitious ceremonies.” Watching this Spectacle with horrified fascination, Adoniram, Nancy, Newell and Harriet realized “more than ever the blessedness—the superior excellence of the Christian religion.”

Their serenity at Serampore was shattered abruptly on the first of July, when Adoniram and Newell were summoned to the police station at Calcutta. Here an order was read to them requiring them to leave Calcutta at once and return to America on the Caravan. Captain Heard was told he would receive no port clearance until he gave security that he would take the missionaries home with him. As it happened, he was not planning to leave Calcutta for some time, but the order added one more annoyance to his already numerous troubles. He had found that bills could not be negotiated on any terms on account of the fear of war between England and the United States. (Actually, war had been declared in June but the news had not yet reached Calcutta.) Besides, his cargo was in poor condition and sales very difficult.

The Judsons and Newells were sorry for Captain Heard, but there seemed nothing they could do except draw up a petition to Lord Minto, the Governor General, explaining that they had no intention of settling in Bengal or India. All they wanted was permission to stay in Calcutta until the Harmony should arrive. After that, the whole party would make haste to go somewhere else.

The petition had a little effect. The fifteenth of July they were summoned again to police headquarters and told formally that they could not attempt a mission in any British dominion or the territory of any British ally, including Java and all the eastern islands; but if they could prove they were going still farther, they would not be required to return to America aboard the Caravan. By an ironic chance they were at the police station to receive this order when the Reverend Mr. Thomason, an East India Company chaplain, gave Newell five hundred rupees, which had been collected by friends of missions in Calcutta.

But where could they go?

They had finally put Burma out of their thoughts, for about that country they had learned a good deal more that was unpromising. Chater had repeated that in Burma they would be under both a king and local governors who were absolute despots and that governmental corruption was unbelievable. —And the laws were the bloodiest on earth: the commonest punishments were beheading, crucifixion, and “pouring melted lead in small quantities down the throat,” and these were inflicted for such minor offenses as chewing I40 opium or drinking spirits. Recently, added Dr. Carey, a Burmese commander had ordered five hundred of his men to be buried alive merely because they were recruits sent to him by an officer whom he disliked. Even Felix had been having trouble. Along with the other English in Rangoon he had had to take refuge from a general massacre in an English man-of-war lying in the river. The viceroy had demanded Felix, his wife and child, of the captain; but the captain had refused until he received a written guarantee that they would be protected. Later, a number of the rich residents of Rangoon had bribed the viceroy with large sums of money for permission to leave. Harriet summed up the sentiments of all of them when she remarked: “We cannot feel that we are called in Providence to go to Burmah. Every account we have from that savage, barbarous nation, confirms us in our Opinion, that the way is not prepared for the spread of the Gospel there.” And even if these objections had nor applied, Felix Carey was a Baptist. How could Congregationalists establish a joint mission with Baptists?

But China was equally inaccessible. Morrison, the one missionary there, was employed as an interpreter at Macao and was known only in that capacity. The penalty for introducing Christianity there was death.

They considered Arabia, Turkey or Persia; but Mohammedan intolerance effectively ruled out those countries.

Their friends in Calcutta now advised them to give up the Orient, and to return to America to become missionaries to the Western Indians in the savage Mississippi country, or to go to the wilds of Ohio, Tennessee or Arkansas. But this they would not do—per—haps partly for dread of returning ingloriously by the same ship on which they had departed amidst so many prayers and plaudits.

But where, where, could they go? they inquired frantically. They must know 30072. Captain Heard wanted to leave Calcutta in August, and as matters stood he could not go without the missionaries.

Then, a few days later, the skies brightened.

Dr. Marshman, who had been soliciting everyone he knew in Calcutta officialdom, returned to Serampore with the good news that a secretary of the Company named Rickets had told him unofficially that he would arrange to give the Caravan port clearance without the Americans if they would promise solemnly to leave the East India Company’s territory by some other ship. Thus they might be able to stay until the Harmony arrived, and a door might even open for them to go to “Isle of France,” or to Madagascar. Isle of France (Mauritius or Ile de France), although under British control, was not Company territory.

This concession looked even better at the end of a week, when a letter arrived from the Harmony passengers, who had arrived at Isle of France and reported that the governor was friendly to missions. He would like to see a missionary both on Isle of France and Madagascar, and had even written to the London Missionary Society asking for one.

Armed with the letter, Adoniram and Newell immediately went to Calcutta to see whether official permission would be given them to go to Isle of France. The next day Newell returned to Serampore to tell Nancy and Harriet that permission had been granted and a ship was sailing in four days -—the Col. Gillespie, commanded by Captain Chimminant, “a serious man.” But he would not take passengers. Adoniram was remaining in Calcutta to try to change Chimminant’s mind.

The following mbrning, a Wednesday, Adoniram returned to Serampore in great excitement. After much persuasion Chimminant had agreed to carry two of the missionaries, but no more.

He would sail Saturday. Who should go?

It took little discussion to decide that the Newells should sail with Chimminant. Harriet expected her baby in less than three months. If she had to travel by sea, she had better get it over with as quickly as possible in order to have the baby on land.

There was no time to lose. The Newells began packing. They were short of money—the price of the passage alone was six hundred rupees—but Dr. Carey gave Newell a letter of credit to a commercial house in Isle of France, which he could use until funds from the American Board could catch up with him.

The next morning, after many farewells—tearful on the part of Harriet and Nancy—the Newells stepped aboard a budgerow and, escorted by Adoniram, went down the river to Calcutta.

The thoughts in Harriet’s mind must have echoed in the minds of the others. She and her husband would miss their friends on the Harmony. Perhaps, if the Harmony missionaries decided to I42 establish a station in some distant part of the world, they might never meet again. Worst of all was the thought that Harriet was leaving on a long, dangerous voyage late in her pregnancy “without one single female acquaintance.” But there was no help for it.

As it turned out, the Col. Gillespie did not sail until Tuesday, the fourth of August. The days before had been filled with a thousand tasks: the purchase of an infinite number of little necessities remembered at the last moment; teas, lunches and dinners with a host of well-meaning acquaintances whose kindly but energy-consuming invitations it might have been wiser to refuse. By the time the ship drew out into the river, Harriet was completely exhausted.

Perhaps she had not employed the beSt of judgment in trying to do so much — but she was only eighteen. And her next birthday was to be her last.