819.

"MY DEAR BROTHER--I am sorry you addressed your letter of January the
9th to me alone, because it places me in a most awkward situation, as
it respects my elder brethren, with whom I have acted in concert for
the last nineteen years, with as great a share of satisfaction and
pleasure as could reasonably be expected from a connection with
imperfect creatures, and whom I am thereby called to condemn contrary
to my convictions, or to justify at the expense of their accusers. It
also places me in a disagreeable situation as it respects my younger
brethren, whom I highly respect as Christians; but whose whole conduct,
as it respects the late unhappy differences, has been such as makes it
impossible for me to do otherwise than condemn it...

"You ask, 'Is there no ground for the charges of profusion, etc.,
preferred against Brother Marshman?' Brother Marshman has always been
ardently engaged in promoting the cause of God in India, and, being of
a very active mind, has generally been chosen by us to draw up our
Reports, to write many of our public letters, to draw up plans for
promoting the objects of the mission, founding and managing schools,
raising subscriptions, and other things of a like nature; so that he
has taken a more active part than Brother Ward or myself in these
public acts of the mission. These things placed him in the foreground,
and it has been no uncommon thing for him to bear the blame of those
acts which equally belong to Brother Ward and myself, merely because he
was the instrument employed in performing them.

"The charge of profusion brought against Dr. Marshman is more extensive
than you have stated in your letter. He is charged with having his
house superbly furnished, with keeping several vehicles for the use of
his family, and with labouring to aggrandise and bring them into public
notice to a culpable extent. The whole business of furniture, internal
economy, etc., of the Serampore station, must exclusively belong to
ourselves, and I confess I think the question about it an unlovely one.
Some person, we know not whom, told some one, we know not whom, 'that
he had been often at Lord Hastings's table, but that Brother Marshman's
table far exceeded his.' I have also often been at Lord Hastings's
table (I mean his private table), and I do therefore most positively
deny the truth of the assertion; though I confess there is much
domestic plainness at the table of the Governor-General of Ind