SOME account of "John Wray, Pioneer Missionary," by the present writer, appeared in the Evangelical Magazine for 1887. Based upon an acquaintance, personal and otherwise, with the scene of his labours and with surviving converts, it was such a condensation of scattered printed matter as about twenty pages would allow. Yet, so far as the author is aware, the little attempt was the first of its kind; and certainly, so far as he was concerned, it seemed not unlikely to be the last. As of John Wray's own parentage and family, so of his widow and children after their return to England, the writer knew nothing. What inquiries he had made proved unavailing; and the brief history soon began to mingle with the stream of things behind, which are on the way to being forgotten. A letter to hand, August, 1888, put a new aspect on matters. Written by a gentleman quite unknown to the recipient, but expressing, at his wife's request and in sympathy with her, thanks "for your kind remembrance of her father, John Wray," of which "remembrance" they had just been informed; it led both to a most interesting and valued correspondence, and to the loan, for a while, of such MSS. and Diaries as are herewith detailed. The lady, Mrs. Tuckett, for the last forty years or so wife * of the Rev. E. H. Tuckett, retired Baptist minister of Exeter, was previously wife and widow of the Rev. James Howe, of Berbice, fatally smitten in the same house and hour as her father. She is the second daughter of John Wray, and the elder of two surviving sisters, all that remain of his family. Born in 1811, during the critical period in the history of the new Mission which determined her father's sudden return alone to England, and during the anxious time therefore of his absence; despite her many years and changeful experience; the perils, pains, and losses of earlier days, and the infirmities of later age; her intellect is clear, her memory good, her spirit truthful, and her hand steady enough for most legible penmanship, so that her long letter of reminiscences and the two shorter letters of reply to inquiries are as dependable as they are interesting. John Wray's relation to the British Guiana Mission was such that the Directors of the London Missionary Society requested him to write its history. For this purpose they wished him to prolong his stay in England when (1831) he had returned in company with Mrs. Wray, seeking restoration to health and real rest. To their request he assented in part; he would undertake the authorship, but the pressing claims of his home and of the Mission led him not to delay his return to Berbice. The attempt was made, therefore, along with the care and burden of those claims resting upon him, claims increasing rather than diminishing with Negro Emancipation. Amid all he fell; his history, apparently in its first rough draft, not being more than one-fourth accomplished. Papers and Diaries were then forwarded to the Missionary Society, the Directors placing them in the hands of their Foreign Secretary, the Rev. Wm. Ellis, whose prolonged illness, however, led ultimately to his resignation altogether of office. After a time their return was requested by Mrs. Wray, and with the family they have since remained. So complete and expensive a work as would at that time. have commanded a ready sale, is obviously now not to be thought of. Too late in the day for such a production, it is nevertheless believed that a record of the striking and peculiar incidents of such a course and of the chief features of such a character and conquest as John Wray's, can never be too late. Regretting, therefore, the non-appearance of the work in prospect fifty years ago for the service of the Church and of the world, the attempt is now made, con amore, to supply a record of this latter kind; and, omitting much that has since become well known, or that may be better gathered from more recent works of science, travel, or manufacture, to produce such a memoir as, notwithstanding its imperfections and shortcomings, shall at least constrain the feeling-Better this than none, and "Better late than never." COTTINGHAM, NEAR HULL, LIST OF MSS., &c. I. History of the Mission, written in accordance with Resolution of Directors. About 200 out of more than 400 folio pages; the sheets in hand, barring loss of 8 or 10 intervening pages, reaching from 16th June, 1811, to 9th December, 1815. II. Diary, January, 1824, to September, 1834; about 355 pp. Written in bound folio volume. III. Diary, September to December, 1834; January, 1836, to April, 1837, in folio sheets; blank pages being left for 1835. IV. Several Letters: John Wray to his children in England or elsewhere; to his friend and benefactor, John Thompson, Esq., Albion Street, Hull; and of Rev. James Howe to his father-in-law. V. Letter of Reminiscences by Mrs. Tuckett to Editor, 53 pp.; and two other Letters of reply to inquiries, 18 and 10 pp. respectively. VI. Several subsidiary Documents, also Portraits and Engravings. CONTENTS. V. SECOND RETURN TO ENGLAND, TO INSURRECTION IN DEMERARA, AND DEATH OF JOHN SMITH, |