Page:History of Bengali Literature in the Nineteenth Century.djvu/128

 104 BENG ALI LITERATURE could surely do no better than seek its protection for the purposes of their mission. In selecting this city instead of any other, they did what was best under the circumstances. “ Had we stayed at Mudnabutty or its vicinity”? Carey wrote “it is a great wonder we could have set up our press ; Government would have suspected us, though without reason to do so and would, in all probability, have pre- vented us from printing; the difficulty of procuring proper materials would also have been almost insuperable.””! Srirampur is situated in one of the richest and most densely peopled tracts in Bengal, very close to the metro- polis; and it was here that the earliest European factories in Bengal were established, the Danes planting themselves at Srirampuar, the French at Chandan-nagar, the Dutch at Chinsurah, the English at Hugli, and the Portuguese at Bandel. Two of the missionaries speedily fell victims to the climate. Marshman and Ward, Carey leaves North i LY gree ‘Tee ea Bengal and joins Whose names are indissolubly linked Marshman and Ward with that of Carey, who had taken at Srirampur (1800). : : i up his residence with them on January 16, 1800, resolved to start systematic mission-work, forming a brotherhood somewhat on the idea of the Pentecostal Church. The mission in The Srirampur Mis- ne cartel. its disinterestedness, its lofty aims, and its kindly commonsense deserves sympathetic study. The spirit which animated them is to be clearly seen in the Form of Agreement, drawn up by them, which exhibits the high aims, the simple and disinterested life of work to which the Srirampur brethern bound themselves from the beginning. This earnest 1 E. Carey, op. cit. p. 379-80,