On 10th October 1800 the missionaries had thus written home:--"There appears to be a favourable change in the general temper of the people. Commerce has roused new thoughts and awakened new energies; so that hundreds, if we could skilfully teach them gratis, would crowd to learn the English language. We hope this may be in our power some time, and may be a happy means of diffusing the gospel. At present our hands are quite full." A month after that Carey wrote to Fuller:--"I have long thought whether it would not be desirable for us to set up a school to teach the natives English. I doubt not but a thousand scholars would come. I do not say this because I think it an object to teach them the English tongue; but, query, is not the universal inclination of the Bengalees to learn English a favourable circumstance which may be improved to valuable ends? I only hesitate at the expense." Thirty years after Duff reasoned in the same way, after consulting Carey, and acted at once in Calcutta. By 1816, when, on 25th June, Carey wrote a letter, for his colleagues and himself, to the Board of the American Baptist General Convention, the great idea, destined slowly to revolutionise not only India, but China, Japan, and the farther East, had taken this form:-- "We know not what your immediate expectations are relative to the Burman empire, but we hope your views are not confined to the immediate conversion of the natives by the preaching of the Word. Could a church of converted natives be obtained at Rangoon, it might exist for a while, and be scattered, or perish for want of additions. From all we have seen hitherto we are ready to think that the dispensations of Providence point to labours that may operate, indeed, more slowly on the population, but more effectually in the end: as knowledge, once put into fermentation, will not only influence the part where it is first deposited, but leaven the whole lump. The slow progress of conversion in such a mode of teaching the natives may not be so encouraging, and may require, in all, more faith and patience; but it appears to have been the process of things, in the progress of the Reformation, during the reigns of Henry, Edward, Elizabeth, James, and Charles. And should the work of evangelising India be thus slow and silently progressive, which, however, considering the age of the world, is not perhaps very likely, still the grand result will amply recompense us, and you, for all our toils. We are sure to take the fortress, if we can but persuade ourselves to sit down long enough before it. 'We shall reap if we faint not.'