It was about this period of Mr Wesley’s history that he wished and proposed to go as a missionary to the East Indies. The only English missionary society then existing was the Society for Propagating the Gospel in Foreign Parts. This society was instituted by King William III. in 1701, and had for its object the maintenance of clergymen in the British plantations, colonies, and factories. It was managed by a board of ninety persons, including the two archbishops, several bishops, and a number of the nobility, gentry, and clergy. Mr Wesley’s scheme was threefold. First, he proposed to inquire into the state of English colonists, in all the English factories and settlements, from St Helena to India and China; travelling wherever it was possible to travel, either by land or sea; and where that could not be done, making the same inquiry by means of correspondence from Surat, which he seems to have intended to be his place of residence. He wished to inquire into the number of the English colonists, their morals, and their ministers; and to revive among them the spirit of Christianity, by catechising, by good books, and by other means of the same description. The second part of his scheme had reference to other Churches. He would endeavour to open a correspondence with the Church of Abyssinia, or, if the English board of management thought fit, he would try to pierce into that country himself. He would also personally inquire into the state of the poor Christians of St Thomas, who were scattered all over India, and would settle a correspondence between them and the Church of England. He also proposed to convey Protestant books among the Roman Catholics, translated into the language of the countries where he found them dwelling. Then, in the third place, he would exert himself to benefit the heathen natives. He would endeavour to learn the language of Hindostan, that he might be able to reason and to preach to the people in their native tongue, and so convert them and their Brahmins to the religion of Jesus Christ. He acknowledges that he is not “sufficient for the least of these designs, much less for all together; but it would be well worth dying for to make some progress in any one of them; and he would expect the same assistance as to kind, though not to degree, which was granted of old to the first planters of the gospel.”