Rev A Brandram
Lindfield 18th June 1831
My Dear Sir
Supposing you now to have got through with the pressure of business necessarily connected with your annual meeting, I address you a few lines respecting the field of formerly mentioned to me in connection with your Society. You will recollect that I declined entering on the consideration of that field on my return from Mexico from a desire to do something that might directly bear on Spanish America in a missionary point of view. I found however upon trial that I could not succeed in the object I had intended, and that therefore it would be my duty to turn my attention to something more within my reach. I mentioned this to you, you will recollect, in answer to your kind inquiries as to what I was doing and what I had in prospect.
About that time the attention of the Society was a good deal drawn by various circumstances to the South of Europe, and it was thought desirable that I should make a tour through that quarter. Upon further consideration however, and from some changes in the political circumstances of those parts it was thought better not to send an agent there at that time. It was providential that this latter conclusion was come to in this matter, as the partial openings that seemed to attract your attention to that field soon after closed up again. The Committee on postponing the sending of an agent to that quarter kindly intimated to me that if I could point out any other field where their labours would be useful they would take it into consideration in connection with my going into it. British America had formerly been proposed to me, and at a still prior period, the West Indies, but from the pressure of business consequent on the near approach of your annual meeting, it was thought better to postpone entering on the consideration of these places until afterwards. As now however the hurry of your anniversary may be considered over, you will not find it perhaps inconvenient to enter on this subject.
In regard to the British America, it is now too will late in the season I believe to go there it in order to travel over it with advantage before the arrival of winter, not to mention the objection of delicacy which I noticed to you as applying to myself. The West Indies then seems the openest field for operations, and to this field I have no objections to go, although there are some disadvantages of climate &c. connected with it, but I have always considered it the duty of a missionary to go to any field the Lord may point out to him. There will I apprehend be no difficulty on your part in regard to this field, as you have had in contemplation for a good while back to send an agent there. The best season of the year perhaps for leaving this country for that quarter would be about the beginning of October. I am not however scrupulous as to the season of my arriving there, and could have no objection to go out from this immediately. But whether I should go out now, or not till the beginning of October, I should still wish you to be so good as take the subject into consideration early, in order that I might have time for preparation, and for making myself acquainted with the field I am going to. You will therefore greatly oblige me by laying the matter before the Committee as early as you conveniently can.
I should think it would fully meet the wishes of the Committee that I should make a descent from the West Indies on the Spanish Main as opportunities might offer. The packets afford convenience for doing this, and we should I think make every attempt to benefit those parts with the word of God, notwithstanding the repulses you have met with in your endeavours to do them good. No fair trial has yet been made in the Caraccas. Now as the English packet goes direct to La Guayra, the port of Caraccas, after leaving the mail at Barbadoes, it would be easy to visit that place. Suppose then that I should go out in the beginning of August, and go to the place now mentioned, and after making proper attempts to circulate the Scriptures there, I might go on to Barcelona lying to the eastward, and from that again to Cumaná still further to the east. These three cities are populous containing 30,000-- 15,000-- and 20,000 inhabitants, not to say anything of the adjacent country. I have always understood that Venezuela, in which these places lie, is one of the most liberal places of Spanish America, and having some acquaintance with one of the best families there and which is connected with the government, I think some facilities might be obtained for our objects. From Cumaná I could easily pass on to Trinidad the southernmost of our West India islands, and the properest place to begin at, and from thence I could visit the other islands in succession. By the course now traced I should reach Trinidad I suppose in the month of November in the very best season to arrive in, and I should then have the whole of the winter before me for operations in that quarter. Be so good as notice to the Committee what I have here sketched, that they may take it into consideration and make such arrangements upon it as they may think best.
I do not know that it is here in the way to notice another field, but it has often occurred to me in the rambling of my thoughts over those parts, I shall mention it, -- I mean the Brazils. The population of that country is about four millions, nearly the same as Peru and Colombia taken together. There are six large cities in it, two of them containing 100,000 inhabitants each, and the other for containing respectively 32,000-- 30,000-- 20,000-- and12,000. There has also been religious liberty in that country for Protestants for some time past, and the intercourse of their with the English is very considerable. The events that have recently taken place there according to the accounts just received would not I conceive by any means hinder your cause, but would rather I should think promote it, as the new government is likely to be more liberal and active at the outset than perhaps afterwards. This was the case in Spanish America, and using that opportunity many copies of the Scriptures were circulated in more parts without the slightest opposition. Should you think it desirable to make some trials there, I am quite ready to go, and should rejoicing such an opportunity to complete my tour of that large continent, as I have already visited all the other states on it, dropping as I went along some copies of the word of Life readily furnished me from your precious stores. Whether or not the West Indies should be connected with the Brazils in that one agency, the Committee will judge of, and point out.
Allow me, My Dear Friend, to say in conclusion that I count upon your long experienced kindness to me to lay the substance of this letter before the Committee, and to forward the objects mentioned at your earliest convenience.
Believe me, Ever Sincerely Yours,
James Thomson.