LOTT CARY.[129]

After many months of delay[130] the school was established November
10, 1827, at Big Town, Grand Cape Mount. John Revey was in charge.
"The school room," says Cary,[131] "is nearly fifteen feet by thirty.
We made arrangements to have worship in it on the ensuing Lord's day,
and I had the honour to address a very attentive audience twice,
through brother John. After service I informed the congregation that I
should need their assistance the following day in preparing seats,
&c., and they turned out like men, and performed more labour by eight
o'clock, than I expected to have accomplished in the whole day. We got
seats prepared for about 60 children by 4 o'clock, and gave notice
that as the school would be organized on the day following, at 9
o'clock, A.M., all persons wishing to have their children instructed
were requested to come at that time and have them entered, and the
number received was 37. I read and explained a short set of
regulations which I had drawn up; and as I had the king and his head
men present, I got them to sign the articles of agreement in the
presence of the whole congregation. For twelve months I think the
school will, of course, be expensive. The present arrangement is--I
agree to allow brother Revey $20 per month, and find him provisions,
washing, &c."

Mr. Cary thought that by this arrangement the station at Grand Cape
Mount would net better results than the one at Monrovia. Neither he
nor the Richmond African Baptist Missionary Society were able to
maintain both. Some funds were received[132] but it developed in about
a year that the school had to be given up for lack of funds and
assistants.[133]

Other duties, moreover, required some time. Lott Cary realized from
the beginning of the colony that a missionary in Africa ought to be
more than a corrector of moral ills and a "doctor" of divinity; he
would be fortunate indeed if he could mend human bodies. As a result,
Cary was constrained to forego much of the joy which he had
anticipated from efforts to show men the living Christ by accepting
the position of Health Officer of the colony, August 31, 1822.[134] He
had no medical schooling but with the use of home remedies, patent
medicines,[135] and common sense, he was able to cure some. Until the
31st of August, 1823, he was practically the only physician in the
settlement (excepting Dr. Ayres who was present a part of the year
1822). After that Dr. Ayres retur