William Carey’s acceptance of the position happened just in the nick of time, because four days later, in the middle of the night on May 8, 1801, British troops crept into Serampore and captured it without a single shot being fired. The next morning, all Europeans in Serampore were summoned to King’s House and informed that news had just reached India that the British navy under Admiral Nelson had fought and defeated the Danish fleet at the Battle of Copenhagen. (The battle actually occurred in April, but it took a month for the news to travel overland to India.) Britain and Denmark were officially at war with each other, and as part of the war, Serampore had been captured and occupied. The Danish flag was lowered and the Union Jack hoisted in its place. Serampore was officially declared British territory, and the Danish governor was jailed as a prisoner of war.
It had been only eighteen months since the missionaries had fled to Serampore to avoid being arrested by the British and returned to England. Now because of a war in Europe, they were once again living in British territory. They had no more protection from being arrested and deported to England, except for one thing: The leader of their mission was the newest appointee to the staff of Fort William College, Lord Wellesley’s pet project. To their surprise, there was no longer any talk about rounding up the missionaries and sending them home. As long as William taught at the college, they were all welcome to stay in India!
Even though he was the head of the Language Department at the college, William was given the title of tutor. Since it was a government position and he did not belong to the Church of England, he could not be given the title professor. The job did come with some benefits, however. William had a room to live in, free food from the dining room, and a salary of five hundred rupees, or about sixty-five pounds, per month.
When the Serampore mission house was first opened, it had been agreed that all the money each person earned would go into a common account. William gladly turned over to the group the money he earned. Much of it was spent buying paper and employing more Indians to assist William Ward and Felix in the print shop.
Soon William had developed a routine that suited him well. On Monday evening, just before the sun set, he would row down the river to Calcutta. He would stay there and teach until Friday evening, when he would row back up the river to see his family and spend time preaching in Serampore. While he was away during the week, William Ward watched over the two older Carey boys. Felix was William Ward’s full-time printing assistant, and thirteen-year-old William Jr. worked after school in the Bindery Department. Eight-year-old Jabez and five-year-old Jonathan were under the firm but kind care of Hannah Marshman, who also watched over Dolly Carey when William was gone. By now, Dolly was completely deranged and had to be confined to her room.
The war between Britain and Denmark was soon over, and six months after they had captured it, the British handed Serampore back to the Danish government.
At the same time, the mission continued to grow. Krishna Pal’s wife and daughters found the courage to be baptized, as did Gokul’s wife. Thousands of gospel tracts were printed and given away, and many Hindus who did not feel comfortable talking to Europeans, silently made their way to Krishna Pal’s home in the late evening to talk to him about Christianity.
There were some sad times in the mission too. In July 1801, Daniel Brunsdon died following a short illness, and just three months later, Dr. Thomas died. William mourned both deaths. Although Dr. Thomas had been difficult to work with, he had been the one who inspired William to go to India, and he had also played a vital role in winning their first Hindu converts to Christianity. Despite his erratic behavior, Dr. Thomas had been loyal to the end and generous to the mission, though he did leave behind a lot of debt!
William worried. There was so much to do, and now so few missionaries to do it. He tried to think of a way to have a “backup” for each of the remaining missionaries. That way, if one of the other missionaries died suddenly, the backup person could step in and take over his responsibilities. But William needn’t have worried. The three surviving men, William Ward, Joshua Marshman, and William Carey himself, would all remain in excellent health for the next twenty-three years! The men worked together so well that they became known in Europe and North America as the “Serampore Triad.”
By the end of 1801, more Hindus had been converted, the group enjoyed the protection of the British and Danish flags, copies of the Bengali New Testament were continuing to roll off the press, the missionary community was stable, and William had a job that allowed him to meet with some of the most powerful people in India. And of course, he always used such meetings to push for the spread of the gospel message throughout India.
One of the men William got to know well through his new position was Lord Wellesley. As governor-general, Lord Wellesley took his responsibility to rule British India seriously. For some time, he had been considering the practice of sati. The question was whether he should ban the practice altogether? Many high-caste Hindus told him that their sacred writings demanded that a widow die beside her husband. Others, though, told him privately that the shastras did not say that at all. Because Lord Wellesley didn’t know whom to believe, he turned to the one man he knew he could trust to give him an honest and complete answer—William Carey.
William spent many months researching the practice of sati, and in the end came to the conclusion that while it was suggested in the shastras, it was never actually commanded that a widow be burned with her dead husband. He gave his report to the governor-general and added a report on another practice that had bothered him for a long time—infanticide. In particular, the practice was carried out on the island of Saugor, in the mouth of the Ganges River, where live babies were thrown into the river to be devoured by crocodiles as a form of human sacrifice. William hoped that Lord Wellesley would act to outlaw both sati and infanticide.
The governor-general studied both reports closely, and in 1802, he issued a law banning infanticide. When it came to sati, however, he was under mounting pressure from Hindus not to ban the practice. So while he disagreed with it, he allowed it to continue.
Meanwhile, William’s reputation as a teacher grew each year. In 1806, the rules of the college were changed so that the title of professor could be bestowed on him. His salary was doubled to go along with the new title!
The next year, 1807, was mostly a happy one for William. His son William Jr. became an ordained Baptist minister. William Jr. married and moved upriver to Malda to be a missionary to the workers involved in the indigo dye industry. As the year drew to a close, though, there was sadness. On December 7, Dolly Carey died after a short illness. Most outsiders thought that William would be secretly relieved, since she had been such a burden to him for so long. But William grieved for her. He had always loved his wife. When people had urged him to put Dolly in an institution for insane people, he’d always refused, saying that no matter what happened, she was his wife and the mother of his children and he would keep her with him till the end.
Because Dolly Carey had been such a burden to her husband, there was a lot of concern six months later when William announced that he and Charlotte Rumohr were to be married. Charlotte was the Danish countess who lived in the house next door and who had taken an active interest in the work of the mission since the early days when Krishna Pal had been baptized.
Everyone in the community loved Charlotte, a bright and kind woman. There was just one problem: She was partially crippled. When she was fifteen years old, the castle where she lived with her family had caught on fire. Charlotte had awakened to find her bedchamber filled with smoke. Instead of escaping the fire, she had run through the flames to awaken her parents. As a result, everyone escaped alive, but Charlotte’s legs had been so badly burned she was not able to walk much after that. Her lungs had also been damaged by the smoke, and sometimes she found it difficult to talk.
Despite people’s concerns that Charlotte would be another burden on him, William went ahead with the wedding. Lady Charlotte Emelia Rumohr became the second Mrs. Carey. The two were very happy together. Charlotte had a mind that was as brilliant as William’s, and she spoke seven languages herself. She was a great help to her new husband in his translation work.
Charlotte helped the mission in other ways. She donated her house to the mission school and rented out another of her properties to support Indian preachers who were being sent out from Serampore into the surrounding countryside to spread the gospel message. Although she spent much of her day lying on a couch, she took an active interest in all that was going on around her. William often turned to her for advice and comfort, something he would need a lot of very soon.
Chapter 15
Rebuild and Replace
March 11, 1812, found William Carey eating lunch with several of his assistants at Fort William College. Between mouthfuls, the men discussed the new multilanguage dictionary that was being typeset and prepared for printing back in Serampore. Many of the assistants eating lunch with William had helped on the project, which had taken five years to complete. The dictionary gave a word in Sanskrit and then its translation in every language in Asia. Even though it had been time consuming to prepare, William knew it was a resource that would make all future translation work much easier.
The bell on the college clock tower had just chimed one o’clock when Joshua Marshman burst into the room where the group was eating. William turned to him with a surprised look on his face, wondering what he was doing in Calcutta.
“I have to speak to you,” Joshua Marshman said in an urgent voice.
The serious look on Joshua’s face caused William to get up quickly and lead Joshua to his office. Seated in the office, Joshua Marshman told William his reason for coming. “It’s the print shop,” he began. “Last night a fire swept through it, and there’s nothing left.”
William’s mouth dropped open. Stunned, he sat in silence for a moment, absorbing what he had just heard. Then finally he uttered, “Nothing left? What do you mean, nothing left?”
“It started in the paper storeroom. William Ward had stayed after the workers had gone home. He was sitting in his office when he smelled smoke. He turned and saw it seeping in under the door. He ran down the corridor, with the smoke getting thicker all the time, until he couldn’t go any farther. He could hear the flames crackling in the storeroom.”
William placed his elbows on the edge of his desk, leaned forward, cupped his head in his hands, and let out a deep sigh.
Joshua Marshman continued. “William Ward knew the fire was too big for him to fight alone, so he ran back through the building, closing all the windows and doors as he went. He raced outside yelling. A few of the workers were still milling around outside, and they ran for buckets of water. I was in the schoolroom and raced outside. By then, smoke was billowing from the roof. That’s when I saw William Ward running back from the toolshed with a saw. He yelled for me to climb onto the roof with him. He sawed a hole right where he thought the fire had started, and then buckets of water were hoisted up, and we poured them down onto the fire. It took four hours to put it out, and even then some of the paper was still smoldering.”
Joshua Marshman shifted position in his chair, and as he did so, William noticed how tired he looked. Joshua had rings under his eyes. Then William thought about what Joshua had just told him. “So the fire destroyed only the paper? Thank God the translations and typefaces are safe. What would we have done if we had lost them?”
