Life and Letters of Zachary Macaulay

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1900 edition. Excerpt: ... chapter vi missionary difficulties The wearisome period of detention was now over, and the Calypso sailed from Portsmouth on the 23rd of February 1796. Macaulay had looked forward with interest to associating with the band of Missionaries who were placed under his care; but companionship on a sea-voyage is said to be the safest existing criterion of character, and on this occasion the rule held good. He had been harassed, even before quitting Portsmouth, by their constant disputes among themselves and with the other passengers, but now, on better acquaintance with their dispositions, he began to feel serious anxiety as to the results of the.expedition. They had been chosen by Dr. Coke, who professed to have exercised great caution in the selection, and whose business in life consisted in the appointment and superintendence of the foreign Missions of the Wesleyan Methodists. He had incurred considerable personal danger in America by the open profession he made of his detestation of slavery; and his high reputation had induced the Directors to confide entirely in his discretion, and to leave the whole responsibility of choosing the Missionaries to him. Dr. Coke's character for discrimination, however, never recovered the blow as far as any of the Directors are concerned. Macaulay also discovered that Dr. Coke had charged the Missionaries privately with a letter from himself to the King of the Foulah nation, a letter which certainly was never intended to be seen by Macaulay's critical eyes, but which the Missionaries exhibited during the voyage with pardonable exultation. Whatever might be the impression intended to be produced upon the mind of a barbarous Chief, there could be no doubt that the language in which the letter was couched was...