William Carey's Enquiry and Sailing

The rain had just eased when I stepped into the small back room at Andrew Fuller’s house in Kettering. The table was already crowded with hats and ledgers. Fuller stood at the head, his fingers drumming on a sheet of paper that listed the few pounds they had scraped together so far. Carey sat opposite him, coat still damp, eyes fixed on the ink as though the numbers might change if he stared long enough.

He had carried the Enquiry with him from Leicester. The printed pages were folded twice and tucked inside his Bible. When he spoke of the heathen world he did not raise his voice. He simply read the figures he had gathered on population and languages, then set the pamphlet down. No one answered for a while. The fire popped once. Fuller cleared his throat and said they would need a committee.

Two weeks later the same men met again at the widow Wallis’s parlor. The room smelled of beeswax and wet wool. Carey had walked from Moulton that morning and his boots left faint prints on the floorboards. They voted to form the society on the second of October. The sum they pledged came to thirteen pounds and a few shillings. Carey nodded as though the amount were already enough to reach Bengal.

By spring the plan had grown clearer. He would sail with John Thomas, who knew the country and the language. The East India Company refused every application for passage on British ships. Carey wrote letters until his hand cramped. Thomas sold what he could of his medical instruments to raise more money. Still the doors stayed shut.

Dorothy would not hear of going. She told him plainly that the children would stay in England and she with them. Carey came to me one evening after a meeting and said he might take only Felix, the oldest boy. His voice was steady, but he kept turning his hat in his hands. The next morning he walked back to the house and tried again.

In Nottingham the association met at the end of May. Carey preached from Isaiah. The text was short. He told the gathered ministers they must expect great things and attempt great things. When he finished, the chapel stayed quiet longer than usual. Men who had never spoken of missions before began to talk in the aisle. One of them pressed a guinea into Fuller’s palm before leaving.

The Danish ship was secured in early June. It would carry them to the Hooghly without Company license. Carey packed his Hebrew grammar and the manuscript of the Bengali New Testament he had already begun. Dorothy relented only after Thomas promised her a separate cabin and after she saw that her husband would go regardless. She packed the children’s clothes in two bundles and said nothing more about staying behind.

On the morning of the thirteenth the tide was running fast. The quay at the Isle of Wight was slick with spray. Carey stood on the deck with Felix beside him, the boy gripping the rail. Dorothy held the younger ones below. Thomas checked the crates one last time, counting the paper and type they had managed to bring. The captain shouted an order. The lines came in.

I watched from the wharf until the masts were only a line against the sky. Carey lifted his hand once, not a wave so much as a signal that he had seen us. The packet moved steadily into the channel. No one on shore cheered. We turned back toward the coaching inn with the ledgers still under Fuller’s arm and the list of names still short.