John Ryland, Bristol, to John Sutcliff, Olney, stamped 1 March 1805.

My dear Brother

         I recd by this days post a Letter from Mr Beeching of Maidstone,[2] Mrs Clark’s Agent, by wch I find the sole Cause of the Draft’s being returned, is the failure of the Maidstone Bank. Being ten or eleven days clear from the date of the Draft, before they stopt paymt, Mr Beeching concluded it had been presented & accepted by their Bankers in town, previous to the 29th of January, wch was the day they first refused to accept. Bills sent to Londn are always presented for acceptance the day received or the next, or otherwise the Holders make them their own. But when sent so far distant as Bristol the Case no doubt is different, says he.

         The Expences on the Bill are not easily to be accounted for. Mr Skinner the Banker thinks them exhorbitant, and indeed I cannot make out how they are reckoned. The following is a Copy of the Paper confer’d on, to the Note.

         A Letter came to our House on Lord’s day for Mr Coles of Bourton from Marshman, dated Septr 1804, in which there is very little News. But a few lines I transcribed, viz. 

         The first Edition of the Bengalee N. T. is nearly distributed, & another is begun, in which we have advanced as far as the 2d Epistle to the Corinthians. Luke the Acts & the Romans are not however included, as it is our intention to strike off 10,000 Cops extra of the 3 Books, when we print them; this necessarily occasioning a considerable addition of Expce in Paper, causes a little delay.

         Lord’s day Septr 2. we Bapd 3 Hindoos, one of them a young Brahman, Soroop by name the Son of a considerable Teacher among them. Before his Bm his Father came & with many Tears and entreaties besought his Son to return, but he very steadily refused, saying, “that to return to Hindooism, was to plunge himself into Hell.” The other two are young men of the writer Cast. These make the No12, which we have Bd this year.—We have however been greatly afflicted wth the walk of some of our Members this year; have been compelled to suspend some, & exclude others: yet we cannot but conclude that there is among them a holy seed wch shall be unto the Lord for an eternal Excellency.

         If you have had any Letters from India, I hope you will soon let me know some of the News. When will No xiv. be out? Would it be worth while to send Mr Morris this extract from the Letter to Coles?  No other Letter is come hither.

         I shd have expected that Marshman’s Journal wd have come by the same conveyance probably directed for me—I guess’d Bror Fuller might have opened it in Londn but then I shd tho’t it wd have been forwarded by this time.—I think Care shd no[w] be taken to abridge their Accts of the Discipline, & there is no Need of letting all the World know every Difficulty of that sort, any farther than just to shew the faithfulness of the Men.  We make no other Church Transcriptions public.

         I shd not have delay’d sending you the money, but Mr Skinner tells me it will not be safe to do it, till I hear again from Maidstone, under present Circumstances, as the Bill was not presented for Acceptce nor return’d in time.

                                                                                 [no signature]

Text: Eng. MS. 383, f. 1773b, JRULM. On the back page Sutcliff has written: “Rec.d Mar. 26. 1805.”Mrs. Clarke of Bristol was the descendant of John Clarke (1687-1734), early 18th c. Latin scholar and translator of Cornelii Nepotis Vitae Excellentium Imperatorum; . . . Or, Cornelius Nepos’s Lives of the Excellent Commanders (1723), the fifteenth edition appearing in London in 1797. Her donation (£2.2, plus another £2.8 from the “profits on Clarke’s Lives”) to the BMS was received for 1805 (see Periodical Accounts, vol. 3, p. 127). Others mentioned above include William Skinner of the Broadmead church in Bristol; Thomas Coles (1779-1840), Baptist minister at Bourton-on-the-Water, 1801 to 1840; and Ram Kaunt, Hawnye, and Soroop, who were baptized by Carey at Serampore (see Periodical Accounts, vol. 3, pp. 44-45).