INTRODUCTION 33 



the Eskimos. It ended in failure. The four mission- 

 aries had erected a house, the frame and materials of which 

 they had brought with them, when five or six members of 

 the crew, among them the mate, who was a Brother, were 

 treacherously murdered by the Eskimos. The mission- 

 aries were obliged to return with the ship, in order to 

 help man her, and they left their house standing on the 

 bleak and desolate coast. It was seen next year (1753) 

 by Captain Swaine, of Philadelphia, who was exploring the 

 coast in the ship Argo. 



The attempt to found a mission was not renewed until 

 1764. In that year Jans Haven, a member of the 

 Brotherhood who had been working among the Eskimos 

 of Greenland, landed at St. John's, Newfoundland. Sir 

 Hugh Palliser, the new governor, was anxious to improve 

 the relations between the white men and the Eskimos, 

 and he did all in his power to further Haven's aims. At 

 last, at Quirpont, Haven met an Eskimo. "I ran to 

 meet him," he says. Great was the surprise of the Eskimo 

 at being addressed in Greenlandic. 



The next year three other missionaries came out, one 

 of them an old man whose race was nearly run. They 

 selected the spot which they thought best for their mission, 

 and then asked from the government a grant of 100,000 

 acres in connection with it. This demand fell on the ears 

 of the government like a thunderbolt. It was excessive; 

 it savoured even of ulterior designs. The missionaries 

 explained that the vicious influence of the European 

 traders and fishermen on the coast made it necessary that 

 the natives should, as far as possible, be preserved from 

 contamination. In 1769, after long delays, the grant was 





