By a series of specially providential events, as it seemed, such as marked the whole early history of this first missionary enterprise of modern England, Carey and Thomas secured a passage on board the Danish Indiaman Kron Princessa Maria, bound from Copenhagen to Serampore. At Dover, where they had been waiting for days, the eight were roused from sleep by the news that the ship was off the harbour. Sunrise on the 13th June saw them on board. Carey had had other troubles besides his colleague and his wife. His father, then fifty-eight years old, had not given him up without a struggle. "Is William mad?" he had said when he received the letter in which his son thus offered himself up on the missionary altar. His mother had died six years before:-- "LEICESTER, Jan. 17th, 1793. "DEAR AND HONOURED FATHER,--The importance of spending our time for God alone, is the principal theme of the gospel. I beseech you, brethren, says Paul, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable, which is your reasonable service. To be devoted like a sacrifice to holy uses, is the great business of a christian, pursuant to these requisitions. I consider myself as devoted to the service of God alone, and now I am to realise my professions. I am appointed to go to Bengal, in the East Indies, a missionary to the Hindoos. I shall have a colleague who has been there five or six years already, and who understands their language. They are the most mild and inoffensive people in all the world, but are enveloped in the greatest superstition, and in the grossest ignorance...I hope, dear father, you may be enabled to surrender me up to the Lord for the most arduous, honourable, and important work that ever any of the sons of men were called to engage in. I have many sacrifices to make. I must part with a beloved family, and a number of most affectionate friends. Never did I see such sorrow manifested as reigned through our place of worship last Lord's-day. But I have set my hand to the plough.--I remain, your dutiful son, "WILLIAM CAREY."