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Calcutta and the River Hooghly, with an East India Company Indiaman on the river, and a palanquin in the foreground. Courtesy 'The Centre for the Study of the Life and Work of William Carey D.D., 1761 - 1834'.

Arrival in Calcutta

The whole party landed in Calcutta on 11th November, 1793. As the 'Cron Princessa' was a foreign vessel, and had started her voyage from a foreign port, it is supposed that the captain was not required to deliver a passenger list to the pilot at Sagor. Carey and Thomas entered Calcutta without being molested , or even noticed.

They immediately rented a house, and Ram-basoo, one of Thomas's enquirers, made Carey a 'moonshee'. The funds brought out had been invested in goods, and Thomas, who had 10 years experience of trade in Bengal, sold the goods to realise the funds. He set up a more expensive establishment than their resources could justify and Carey had to move to cheaper accommodation in Bandel, 2 miles north of the town of Hooghly.

It was while at Bandel that Carey met Kiernandier, then 84, who was living in the Dutch settlement of Chinsurah.

Even Bandel was too Europeanised for Carey's plans as he intended to live the native life. This he believed would give him access to the people and make more effective his missionary work. Mr. Thomas had persuaded him that the country around Malda, 200 miles further north, would provide a 'desirable sphere for missionary labour', but there was no way of reaching it.

Thomas and Carey returned to Calcutta. Thomas was persuaded by his creditors to resume his former occupation, in order to appease them. He set up a large establishment without regard to his fellow missionary, and Carey was forced to accept the offer of a small house in Manicktollah, South Calcutta, provided through the generosity of an opulent Bengali native. In 1794, Carey moved his family of 7 into that wretched and ill-ventilated house. In later life, when Carey had attained an influential position in Calcutta, and the opulent Bengali native had suffered a heavy reverse of fortunes, Carey was able to offer him ease and comfort.

At this time Carey was reduced to the most severe distress he had yet experienced in the previous 20 years of his life. He was in a foreign land, without a friend or a farthing. He was cut to the quick by the discontent of his wife who compared Thomas's extravagant lifestyle with their own.

Carey decided to move to the Sunderbans, at the mouth of the Hooghly, where land could be had rent free. He intended to build huts for his family and live off the land. He turned to Mr. Thomas for financial assistance but found that every last farthing was gone.

The Rev. Brown had previously taken an interest in Thomas's labours and Carey decided to call on him. But he was received with cool indifference and was not even offered refreshment.

With Ram-basoo as his interpreter he visited parts of the city, where people gathered, day after day, and preached the Gospel. At home he continued to study Bengali and to revise the rough Bible translations that Thomas had begun. On the 4th February he managed to get a small supply of money from Mr. Thomas and he embarked in boats for the wilderness of the Sunderbans ­ a vast tract of mangrove swamps, stretching across the mouth of the Ganges.

Forty miles east (1) of Calcutta, at Debhata, he spotted a European with a gun, shooting game, a little distance from his bungalow. The whole family went ashore and introduced themselves. The sportsman was Mr. Short, a government assistant in the Salt Department. He was incredulous at Carey's mission but welcomed them with great cordiality and invited Carey to make his house his home for 6 months, or longer, until he could provide accommodation for his family. Soon after Carey proceeded to the opposite side of the river, to a place called Hasnabad, and started to erect, what he called 'huts' for his family, on a tract of land cleared from the jungle. In a letter to England he wrote, 'Wild hogs, deer and fowl, are to be procured by the gun, and must supply us with a considerable part of our food. I find it an inconvenience in having so much of my time taken up in procuring provisions, and cultivating my little farm. But when my house is built, I shall have more leisure than at present, and have daily opportunities of conversing with the natives, and pursuing the work of the Mission.'

The Sunderbans was not a healthy place, particularly during the monsoon season, and it was fortunate that a turn of events further north would rescue him from so unpromising a place for the future of Missions.

Before the Society had been formed, Thomas had worked for Mr George Udny, the commercial resident at Malda, a man of genuine Christian benevolence. Udny, together with Grant, had previously been supportive of Thomas's missionary labours in Malda, but due to the latter's wayward conduct, Udny had relinquished all connection with him.

In an unfortunate accident, Udny's brother, and his brother's wife, were drowned when the boat in which they were crossing the river, capsized. Udny, and his family, were plunged into a state of deep distress. On hearing of this calamity, Thomas wrote to him expressing his condolences, and expressing the desire to leave immediately for Malda and offer his family all the support he could offer. Udny generously invited him to Malda and offered to underwrite all his expenses. Thomas travelled to Malda and was offered the management of one of the two indigo factories Udny owned. Thomas brought to his attention the solitary and forlorn position of his fellow missionary, William Carey, in the Sunderbans. Udny authorised him to offer the management of the other indigo factory to his friend.

The letter reached Carey on 1st March, 1794. His thoughts had always turned to Malda and it didn't take long for him to accept the invitation. It was at this point that Carey saw it as his duty to write to the Society, in England, stating that he was now in a position not to need any more financial support and that his salary should now be devoted to the printing of the Bengali translation of the New Testament.

The Committee of the Society had been enlarged and was in the hands of men of 'smaller minds' and in the reply to his letter upbraided him for 'allowing the spirit of the missionary to be swallowed in the pursuits of the merchant'. Mr. Carey replied with subdued indignation, 'I can only say, that after my family's obtaining a bare allowance, my whole income ­ and some months much more ­ goes for the purposes of the Gospel, in supporting persons to assist in the translation of the Bible, in writing out copies of it, and in teaching school. I am indeed poor, and shall always be so until the Bible is published in Bengalee and Hindoostanee, and the people want no further instruction.

Carey reached Malda on 15th June, 1794. The next day, the Sabbath, he preached his first English sermon in India in the Company's factory hall to an audience of 16.

The indigo factory in which he was now the superintendent was at Mudnabatty, thirty miles north of Malda. In that quiet seclusion Mr. Carey was to pass more than five years of his life, until the arrival of William Ward, from Serampore. His monthly allowance was 200 rupees, plus a commission on all the indigo he manufactured. Of this income he was able to devote, by rigid economy, a quarter, and sometimes a third, to missionary objectives.

Notes

(1) John Clark Marshman, in 'The Life and Times of Carey, Marshman and Ward', 1859, describes, in this instance, the village of Debhata as being forty miles south of Calcutta. Later on, when Ward visits the village in 1801, Marshman describes the village as being east of Calcutta. Checking on the map there is a village of Debhata, forty miles East of Calcutta, and I have decided that it is the most likely place.

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