means of conveyance, should be furnished to the Missionaries for
their expeditions; nor did it seem unreasonable to stipulate that in
return for these substantial benefits, they should say or do nothing
prejudicial to the Company's interests either among the natives, or in
their Reports to the Conference in England, to whose jurisdiction the
Mission was transferred. The great evil of this arrangement was, that
the Missionaries, from being the servants of God, accountable to Him
alone, became the servants of the Hudson's Bay Company, dependent
on, and amenable to them; and the Committee were of course to be the
sole judges of what was, or was not, prejudicial to their interests.
Still, it is impossible to blame very severely either Mr. E. or
the Conference for accepting offers apparently so advantageous, or
even for consenting to certain restrictions in publishing their
Reports:--with the assistance and co-operation of the Company great
good might be effected;--with the hostility of a Corporation all but
omnipotent within its own domain, and among the Indians, the post
might not be tenable.

For some time matters went on smoothly: by the indefatigable exertions
of Mr. E. and his fellow-workers, aided also by Mrs. E., who devoted
much of her time and labour to the instruction of the females, a great
reformation was effected in the habits and morals of the Indians.
But Mr. Evans soon perceived that without books printed in the Indian
language, little permanent good would be realized: he therefore wrote
to the London Conference to send him a printing press and types, with
characters of a simple phonetic kind, which he himself had invented,
and of which he gave them a copy. The press was procured without
delay, but was detained in London by the Governor and Committee; and
though they were again and again petitioned to forward it, they flatly
refused. Mr. E., however, was not a man to be turned aside from his
purpose. With his characteristic energy he set to work, and having
invented an alphabet of a more simple kind, he with his penknife cut
the types, and formed the letters from musket bullets; he constructed
a rude sort of press; and aided by Mrs. E. as compositor, he at length
succeeded in printing prayers, and hymns, and passages of Scripture
for the use of the Indians. Finding their object in detaining the
press thus baffled, the Governor and Committee deemed it expedient to
forward it; but with the express stipulation