“You are apprenticed, are you not?”
“Yes, sir,” John replied. “My papers were signed in March 1810, so I am free to seek other employment in 1817.”
“Hmm, that’s still a year away. But why don’t you apply to become a missionary anyway, and if you are accepted, we will see what we can do about your apprenticeship papers.”
“Do you really think I have a chance?” John inquired, trying to keep his hopes in check.
The Reverend Wilks nodded. “I can’t promise anything, but I am on the LMS board, and I can personally vouch for your steadfast Christian character and service, and I must say, we are looking for young men and couples to go and take advantage of King Pomare’s openness to the gospel. Come to my office with me, and I will get you an application.”
John hardly slept the next week. His mind raced with thoughts about missionary work. However, as he wrote and rewrote his answers to the questions on the application, he was concerned that he might not seem impressive enough. Actually, he had to admit to himself that he did not look impressive at all!
He had been raised in nearby Tottenham, where he had gone to school for several years to learn writing and arithmetic. But that was as far as his education had gone, and in the spaces on the application marked “College” and “Degrees Earned,” John had nothing to write. The blank spaces discouraged him, until he thought of Henry Nott, who as a bricklayer probably did not have much more formal education than he had.
In the end John decided not to try to make things sound any fancier than they were. He wrote, “In offering the following representation for your perusal I have endeavored to be as frank and plain as possible. If this, and the account which the Rev. Mr. Wilks can give of me, should not meet with your conscientious approbation [approval], I hope, pray and trust that you will, on no account, for the sake of my soul, offer me the least encouragement.” He then went on to list the church activities he had been involved in since his conversion: visiting the sick, handing out tracts, teaching Sunday school, and attending the Reverend Wilks’s self-improvement classes.
Much to John’s surprise, his writing was substantial enough for the board of the London Missionary Society to grant him an interview. At the interview, which was held on August 5, 1816, John answered as best he could a barrage of questions on everything from his opinion of the previous Sunday’s sermon to how to conjugate English verbs. The following week he was asked to attend a second interview, after which Matthew Wilks informed him that he had been accepted as an LMS missionary.
John could scarcely believe it. The mission director himself had told him that the LMS did not have the funds to accept everyone who applied to be sent out by them, and so they only accepted those missionary candidates who showed the most promise.
From the moment John was accepted to be a missionary, things began to change rapidly for him. John told his employer about his new plans, and Mr. Tonkin offered to release him from the remaining months of his apprenticeship in exchange for thirty pounds. The LMS agreed to pay the price, and now there was nothing stopping John from going out as a missionary. He did, however, have something else on his mind. He knew there were very few, if any, single Christian women in the Pacific islands, and so he decided it would be best to marry before he left so that he could take a wife with him. But who could or would be his wife?
There was only one answer in John’s mind—Mary Chawner. The Chawner family had been members of Whitefield Tabernacle for many years, and they took an active interest in missionary endeavors. Lately John had noticed that Mary sounded particularly interested in missionary work herself. Of course there was no way she could go out as a single woman and be a missionary, as such a thing was not allowed. But she could go as the wife of a missionary, and John began to wonder whether the two of them would make a good team. He liked Mary. She was petite, had sparkling green eyes and a ready smile, and seemed to have an easygoing way about her. But how could he ask her to give up her family and friends and accompany him on a dangerous mission with no certain outcome? John decided to wait.
Meanwhile other aspects of his new calling were moving along at top speed. It was normal for the LMS to require its missionary candidates to undergo training at a seminary, but with the urgent need for workers in both the Pacific islands and Africa, that requirement was waived. Instead John met for private lessons with the Reverend Wilks and attended several classes with the other eight candidates who were to be sent out at the same time. It would then be up to the London Missionary Society board to decide where the men should go, though the candidates were allowed to suggest their preferences.
During this time John struck up a friendship with one of the other candidates, a burly Scottish man named Robert Moffat. The two were the same age, and Robert had just finished his apprenticeship as a gardener. As the two missionary candidates discussed their plans, they found that they thought very much alike and so asked for permission to be sent to either destination together.
Much to John’s disappointment, the Reverend William Roby, director of the LMS, told them they could not team up because they were the two youngest candidates and each needed to be under the wing of an older man.
On September 30, 1816, the nine missionary candidates were dedicated in a special missionary service at Surrey Chapel. The first five men who were called to the altar were all bound for Africa; Robert Moffat was among them. The other four men, John, David Darling, George Platt, and Robert Bourne, were commissioned to go to the Pacific islands. As the men were dedicated for their new calling, Dr. Waugh, who was leading the service, walked along the line of men and spoke to each one separately. John looked into his fiery eyes as he said, “Go, my dear young brother, and if your tongue cleaves to the roof of your mouth, let it be with telling poor sinners the love of Jesus; and if your arms drop off at your shoulders, let it be with knocking at men’s hearts, to gain an entrance for Him there.”
A month later, on October 27, twenty-year-old John Williams stood at the altar again, this time with Mary Chawner at his side. He had gathered all his courage and asked her to marry him, and she had agreed. The couple stood saying their wedding vows just twenty-one days before the Harriet was due to set sail on November 17, 1816, and transport them from the only world they had known to a Polynesian kingdom almost halfway around the world.
Chapter 3
The Long Voyage
John Williams stood on the poop deck of the Harriet and breathed deeply. Salt-laden air filled his lungs. As he slowly expelled the air, John thought about how much he loved being at sea. The cry of the gulls circling overhead, the splash of the waves against the side of the ship, the creaking of the rigging as the sails strained against the gentle but steady breeze and pulled the ship forward—they were all sounds that seemed so natural to him now. Even the gentle pitch and roll of the ship beneath his feet felt normal.
The movement of the ship had not had the same effect on John’s wife, however. Mary was below deck, stretched out in the cabin seasick. She had looked terrible when John went below to check on her. Her face was ashen and her eyes sunken. But he could do nothing for her. “She’ll find her sea legs soon enough,” the captain had told him. John hoped that Mary found them soon so that she could leave the fetid atmosphere belowdecks and join him on deck to bask in the sun and breathe the fresh salt air.
John took several more deep breaths before heading belowdecks again. This time he did not go to the cabin to check on Mary. Instead he descended into the bowels of the ship until he was standing on the very bottom of the hull. In dim light John felt his way around, observing how the ship was constructed. He was especially interested in the way iron spikes were used to hold the planks and beams together to form the hull.
John was glad that the captain had given him permission to look around belowdecks. After every foray to observe how the ship was put together, he took notes and drew sketches of the various construction techniques he had observed. John had no idea why he was doing this, other than to pass the time and satisfy his ironmonger’s curiosity as to how things were made.
It wasn’t just how the ship was put together that fascinated John. He was also interested in the various sailing techniques, especially tacking, which allowed the captain to maneuver the ship forward even in a head wind. He also asked the captain question after question about navigating and how he fixed the position of the ship. The captain showed John a sextant and patiently explained how he used it to fix his latitude—his north-south position—from the stars at night and from the rising sun in the morning. He also showed John the extremely accurate chronometer set to Greenwich time that he used to establish his longitude—his east-west position. With these two instruments the captain could fairly accurately pinpoint his position on a map.
One morning the captain rolled out a map in his cabin and showed John the route they would follow on the voyage. They were on their way to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. After taking on supplies there, the Harriet would follow a southeasterly course across the southern Atlantic Ocean, around the Cape of Good Hope at the tip of Africa, across the Indian Ocean, and on to Tasmania. After a stop in Hobart, Tasmania, they would head north to Sydney, New South Wales. There the missionaries would change ships to the Active for the trip eastward across the Pacific Ocean to the Tahitian islands. And using the readings he had taken that morning, the captain calculated the position of the ship and showed John where they were on the map. They were approximately halfway to Rio de Janeiro.
Five weeks after leaving England, Mary had found her sea legs, and she and John stood on the deck of the Harriet and watched as Rio de Janeiro appeared on the horizon. It was a beautiful sight. The city was nestled on the edge of a bay surrounded on the north and west by rocky, forested mountains. A long strip of gleaming white sand beach stretched south from the city as far as the eye could see. An unusual jagged rock formation protruded skyward from a point that jutted into the bay. “Pão de Açúcar, or Sugarloaf,” the captain said, pointing to the rocky landform.
John and Mary could hardly wait for the Harriet to drop anchor in Guanabara Bay so that they could go ashore and explore the first foreign country either of them had ever encountered.
Before they even set foot in Rio de Janeiro, however, John and Mary’s impression of the place was tarnished. Three miles from the city a ship sailed past, headed in the opposite direction. John could make out fifty or more nearly naked black people on board, all chained together. The wailing of the women carried across the water to the Harriet. The vessel was a slave ship, and John supposed it was headed for the Caribbean. He squeezed Mary’s hand tightly until the cries of the women aboard the slave ship trailed off into the distance.
Finally the Harriet sat at anchor in Guanabara Bay, and John and Mary were rowed ashore in a longboat. Once ashore they strolled through the narrow streets of the city until they found themselves in a large, open-air market filled with vendors selling every imaginable thing. John was particularly enthralled with the variety of tropical fruits and vegetables for sale, many of which he had never seen before. Dogs scampered around, and voices and music and laughter rose with the pungent odor of the market to fill the air. It was all so different from England.
Then John saw something else that was very different from England—a slave market. The sight of groups of African men, women, and children, their hands and feet manacled and chained together in groups of about twenty, sickened him. The slaves sat on narrow wooden benches, waiting to be sold. The sorrow etched into their sunken eyes and their blank stares seemed to reach out and grab John.
