Page:Royal Naval Biography Marshall v4p2.djvu/104

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commanders.

that the Lords of the Admiralty had been pleased to promote him to the rank of commander, by commission dated July 19th, 1821. He returned home passenger on board the Egeria in May 1822. Letters, of which the following are copies, were subsequently received by him from the secretary to the “Church of the United Brethren:”–

London, April 30th, 1822.

“Dear Sir,– Your very obliging letter of the 19th Nov. 1821, ought not to have remained so long unanswered, but I have been nearly the whole of last winter travelling in different parts of England. I received it in Yorkshire, and intended on my return to town to desire Mr. Barrow to forward my answer to you.

“Your account of your visit to our settlements on the coast of Labrador was highly gratifying to me and to our whole society, as likewise to all who have read it. the testimony you are pleased to bear to the character of the missionaries, and to that of the Esquimaux congregations, cannot but be important to those who wish to have such evidence that Christianity has not only been adopted as a system, but that it has brought about a favorable change of heart, mind, and conduct, in a people naturally ignorant and barbarous. This you kindly declare to have witnessed. I can assure you, dear Sir, that if you were gratified, our missionaries were likewise highly delighted with your visit. Both in their official reports and in private letters to me they express themselves in the most lively manner of the sense they have of your goodness, affability, and generous conduct towards the Esquimaux. They feel particularly grateful to you for the good order and discipline you maintained among your crew, insomuch that all their fears of injury to their flocks were immediately quelled. You have thus been a messenger of peace to the Esquimaux, who now declare that their old suspicion that the King of England and his people were not their friends, is now entirely done away with; for that they see that they only mean to do them good. The missionaries feel greatly indebted to his Excellency the Governor of Newfoundland, for having appointed you to command that expedition, and are desirous, if you do me the honor of a visit, that I should express to you once more their esteem and affection, and their thankfulness for the precautionary measures you adopted to keep them from every kind of disturbance. I join them in assurances of sincere regard and esteem, and remain ever, dear Sir, your most obedient and humble servant,

(Signed)C. F. Latrobe.”
London, Feb. 22d, 1823.
“Dear Sir,– It was with great pleasure that I received your very obliging letter of the 6th inst., and I sit down to thank you for it, and for that good will you express towards the institution of our church on