THE FIRST APPENDIX TO THE JOURNAL

Summary

I should have concluded what I had at present to offer respecting my mission, but that I lately received, from the President of the Correspondents, the copy of a letter directed to him from the Society for Propagating Christian Knowledge, dated at Edinburgh, March 21, 1745, expressly enjoining upon their missionaries: “That they give an exact account of the methods they make use of for instructing themselves in the Indian language, and what progress they have already made in it. What methods they are now taking to instruct the Indians in the principles of our holy religion; and particularly, that they set forth in their Journals what difficulties they have already met with, and the methods they make use of for surmounting the same.”

As to the two former of these particulars, I trust that what I have already noted in my Journals from time to time might have been in a good measure satisfactory to the Honourable Society, had these Journals arrived safely and seasonably, which I am sensible they have not in general done, by reason of their falling into the hands of the enemy, although I have been at the pains of sending two copies of every Journal for more than two years past, lest one might miscarry in the passage. But with relation to the latter of these particulars, I have purposely omitted saying anything considerable, and that for these two reasons.