He was a man of warm temperament, and mingled with such a portion of enthusiasm as does not readily suffer its exertions to be relaxed by difficulties, or the hopes which it has conceived to be extinguished by inauspicious circumstances. For many years he attempted in vain to interest the Danish government in the furtherance of the scheme which he had conceived. His memorials were disregarded, and his proposals were considered as visionary and impracticable. But at last Frederick IV, King of Denmark, issued an order to the magistrates at Bergen to make inquiries of all the masters of vessels and traders, who had been in Davis’s Straits, concerning the state of the traffic with Greenland; and, at the same time, to learn their opinion about forming a new settlement upon that coast. But the answer which they returned was not at all favourable to the wishes of our author, and the project seemed never likely to be accomplished. After more ineffectual attempts, his perseverance at last triumphed over every obstacle; and he persuaded some merchants and others to subscribe some small sums, out of which he collected a capital of about 2000_l._ Of this inconsiderable sum he himself had furnished about 60_l._, which constituted his little all. With these slender means, which seemed totally inadequate to the undertaking, a ship was purchased, called the Hope, in which Egede was to be conveyed to Greenland, and to lay the foundation of the meditated establishment. But, in the spring of 1721, the Danish monarch, who had been brought to think more favourably of the expedition, appointed Mr. Egede to be pastor of the new colony, and missionary to the Heathen, with a pension of 60_l._ a year, and 40_l._ for his immediate exigencies. Egede embarked for Greenland, with his wife and four small children, upon the 12th of May, 1721; and he landed in Ball’s River, in the 64th degree of North latitude, upon the 3d of July, in the same year. The company on board the ship consisted of forty persons. They lost no time in building a house of stone and earth, upon an island near Kangek, which they called Haabets Oe, or Hope Island, after the name of the ship in which they had made the voyage. The conduct of Egede as a missionary deserves the highest praise. He conciliated the confidence of the natives, ministered to their wants, learned their language, and gradually introduced some additional rays of intellectual light into their minds. “As soon,” says Crantz, vol. i. p. 286, “as he new the word _kina_, i. e. what is this? he asked the name of every thing that presented itself to the senses, and wrote it down.” But his children, by continually conversing with the children of the natives, learned the language, particularly the pronunciation, with much more facility than himself; and he was enabled to make considerable use of their proficiency in the vernacular tongue of the country, in promoting the purposes of his mission.