354 TRAVELS IN 
the part of the fathers, which is the cafe with moft other 
miflionaries, to fwell the catalogue of converts to Chriftianity, 
being more folicitous to teach their trades to fuch as might chufe 
to learn them. Adopting the idea of the humane and ingenious 
Count Rumford, their firft great objed feemed to be that of 
making men happy, that they might afterwards become vir- 
tuous, which is certainly much founder philofophy, than the 
reverfe of the proportion. 
It would be fuppofed, that men like thefe, fo truly refpedable 
in their miflionary charader, and irreproachable in their conduct, 
would be well received and encouraged in any country ; yet fuch 
is the brutality and grofs depravity of the peafantry of this 
colony, that a party, confifting of about thirty, had entered into 
a confederacy to murder the three teachers, and to feize and 
force into their fervice all the young Hottentots that might be 
found at the place. Thefe horrid wretches had actually alTem- 
bled at a neighbouring houfe, on the Saturday evening, intending 
on the following day, in the middle of divine fervice, to carry 
their murderous purpofesinto execution. Luckily for the miffion- 
aries, they had intimation of what was going on through a Hot- 
tentot, who deferted the fervice of one of the intended alTaffins 
for that purpofe. They had laid their apprehenfions before Sir 
James Craig, who, in confequence, iffued his injundions, in a 
letter to the overfeer of the poft of Zoete Melk valley, that no 
inhabitant fhould in any fhape moleft the Hernhiiters, on pain 
of incurring the heavieft difpleafure of the government. The 
letter arrived on the very day they were aifembled, and the 
paltroons, on hearing it read, fneakcd off each to his own home, 
and 
