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THE

LIFE

OF THE

Williams.

REV. THOMAS COKE, LL.D.

INCLUDING IN DETAIL

HIS VARIOUS TRAVELS

AND

EXTRAORDINARY MISSIONARY EXERTIONS,

IN

ENGLAND, IRELAND, AMERICA, AND THE WEST-INDIES:

WITH

An Account of his Death,

ON THE 3D OF MAY, 1814, WHILE ON A MISSIONARY VOYAGE TO THE

ISLAND OF CEYLON, IN THE EAST-INDIES.

INTERSPERSED WITH NUMEROUS REFLECTIONS;

AND CONCLUDING WITH

AN ABSTRACT OF HIS WRITINGS, AND CHARACTER.

BY SAMUEL DREW,

OF ST. AUSTELL, CORNWALL.

SO LYCIDAS SUNK LOW, BUT MOUNTED HIGH,

THROUGH THE DEAR MIGHT OF HIM WHO WALK'D THE WAVES.

MILTON'S LYCIDAS.

New-York:

PUBLISHED BY J. SOULE AND T. MASON, FOR THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL

CHURCH IN THE UNITED STATES.

A PAUL, PRINTER.

1818.

LIBRARY

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DEDICATION.

To Robert Carr Brackenbury, of Raithby Hall, Lincolnshire; Thomas Roberts, King-Street, Bath; and John Holloway, City-Road, London, Esquires; Executors in Trust of the late Reverend Thomas Coke, LL.D.

GENTLEMEN,

I DEDICATE to you this volume, from a full

per

suasion, that as intimate friends of the late Rev. Dr. COKE, and guardians of his property, you must feel an interest in his reputation.

When our mutual, but now deceased, friend sailed for India, and consigned to your care the management of his temporal concerns, he committed to mine the delineation of his character. You were acquainted with this fact. And it has been to me no small source of consolation, while prosecuting the task of high responsibility, which his unexpected death has now

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assigned me, to learn that his appointment of a Biographer has received the sanction of your approbation. For my work, which is now presented through you to the world, I hesitate to entertain correspondent hopes.

If Dr. Coke had lived to reach the place of his ultimate destination, my undertaking would, in all probability, have been less arduous than it is at present. It was his intention to have furnished me with documents, facts, and incidents in chronological order; and to have transmitted them from India, that they might have been arranged for his inspection, in case he had lived to return, or for publication, if he had visited Europe no more. This was a point which he kept in view while on his voyage, and his last letter to me, which was written off Madeira, chiefly turned on this topic.

But the overruling Providence of God, which permitted this plan to be formed, has mysteriously interposed to prevent the execution of it. And, how paradoxical soever it may appear, the same awful stroke, that has partially taken from me the means of fulfilling his wishes, has laid me under an additional obligation to comply with his request.

From the difficulties of this situation you have happily afforded me some relief, by giving me access to all his papers that were in your possession, and by readily answering such questions as I found it necessary to propose. Furnished with these materials, in addition to my own resources, I have endeavoured to draw the outline of a faithful picture, without introducing an exu

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