Directory_and_Chronicle_1841 — Page 470

1841.

Medical Missionary Society.

451

present have long since become acquainted. He came out in con- nection with the London Missionary Society; and having immediate- ly offered his services to the committee, they were not less imme- diately accepted. On the 28th of February, 1839, the hospital at Macao was accordingly placed under his charge. The study of the language engaged all his attention at the first, and the hospital was not therefore formally opened (though some few patients were received) until the 1st of July. Unfortunately, it had not been long open, when the measures of the Chinese government against all bear- ing the name of Englishmen, compelled Mr. Lockhart, on the 13th of August, again to close it.

Seeing little to be done at that time, Mr. Lockhart, with the ap- probation of those members of the committee whom he was able to consult, resolved on spending some months at Batavia, with the view of further studying the Chinese language under the tuition of Mr. Med- hurst, and of gaining an acquaintance with the Chinese in those parts. He left China in September, 1839, and did not return till towards the close of June, 1840.

In the interim, two other medical missionaries, Wm. Beck Diver, M. D., from the United States, and Benjamin Hobson, M. B., M. R. Č. S., from England, the former in connection with the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, the latter in connection with the London Missionary Society,-had arrived in China, and notified to your committee their desire of offering to the Society their ser vices. This offer was made, and their services accepted on the 1st of July, last year; and Mr. Lockhart having, August 1st, reöpened the Macao hospital, these gentlemen gave him their assistance until his removal to Chusan at the end of that month, when the hospital was placed, for the future, under their joint care. In December, however, Mr. Diver's health failing, he was compelled to take a voyage for its recovery; and finding little benefit from a short trip, taken in the first instance, to the straits of Malacca, he was induced to proceed from Singapore to the United States. Mr. Hobson has continued in charge of the hospital till now, receiving assistance from Mr. Lock- hart, since that gentleman's return from Chusan in March last. Mr. Hobson's report is in the hands of the secretary, and will be read to the meeting.

During the time that Canton was thrown open to merchants of England, by the occupation of the river by the British forces, in April last, Mr. Hobson made a renewed attempt to reopen the hos- pital at Canton; but the senior hong-merchant continued to refuse