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6 - Troubled Years 1807–1812

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2013

Penelope Carson
Affiliation:
King's College, London
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Summary

Now we are likely to get stations fixed with the public permission of Government & we (like toads) shall be tolerated, and not hunted down like wild beasts.

(William Ward)

The Persian Pamphlet Controversy

THE FEARS expressed by Grant and Parry that missionaries in India might be restricted further materialised within months of the arrival of Lord Minto, the new Governor-General (appointed July 1806). Minto told George Tierney, who had recently given up the presidency of the Board of Control, that he believed that a primary cause of the Vellore mutiny had been the spreading of rumours that the British were trying to convert India. By September 1807 Minto had come to the conclusion that there was no danger. Nevertheless, he felt that ‘the only successful engine of sedition in any part of India must be that of persuading the people that our Government entertains hostile and systematic designs against their religion’ and that therefore there was some danger by ‘the indiscretion of the well-meaning … but very mischievous zeal of the European missionaries’. Given this opinion, it was not surprising to find Minto precipitated into action when he received a complaint that the Baptist press had printed a pamphlet abusive of the prophet Muhammad.

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Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
Print publication year: 2012

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