RETURN OF MR. AND MRS. HENRY. 39 
with which she was proceeding from South Ame¬ 
rica to Port Jackson. The commander of the 
Betsy having intimated his intention of returning 
in five or six months, Mr. Harris proposed to his 
companions to visit New South Wales; and on 
the 1st of January 1800, he sailed from Matavai 
bay, intending to return when the ship should 
revisit the islands. By this conveyance, the 
remaining Missionaries wrote an account of their 
circumstances and their prospects to the directors 
in London, stating, that although they had not 
acquired a sufficient knowledge of the language to 
enable them publicly to preach the gospel, they 
had observed, whenever they had conversed with 
the natives, that though they could perceive the 
difference between Christianity and paganism, 
their attachment to the abominations of the latter 
was too strong to be removed by any other influ¬ 
ence than that of the Spirit of the Most High. 
Anxious to avoid unnecessary expenditure of 
those funds which British benevolence furnished, 
they had on a former occasion written, to prevent 
the Society’s incurring any further expense on 
their account, as their remaining on the island was 
uncertain; but now, as there was a prospect of 
peaceable continuance, and the liberal supply they 
had taken out in the Duff, being, by plunder, 
presents, &c. nearly expended, they found it 
necessary to solicit a few articles for their own 
use, and others for presents to the chiefs, whom 
they described as daily visiting their dwellings, and 
treating them with kindness. 
Five days after the departure of the Betsy, the 
Missionaries had the satisfaction to welcome again 
to their Society, Mr. and Mrs. Henry; who re¬ 
turned from Port Jackson in the Eliza, a South 
