Note 454 — Chapter XI · WILLIAM CASLON, 1720.

This Society, which was established in 1698, had already displayed considerable activity in the introduction of printing into the distant fields of its missionary effort. In 1711 it sent out to the missionaries of Tranquebar, on the Coromandel Coast, a printing press furnished with Portuguese types, paper, etc., which, after an adventurous voyage, in which the vessel was plundered by the French of all her other cargo, reached its destination and enabled the missionaries to commence the printing of a Tamulic New Testament, of which the Gospels appeared in 1714, with the imprint “Tranquebariæ in littore Coromandelino, typis Malabaricis impressit G. Adler, 1714.” It is related that the publication of the remainder of the work was delayed from a scarcity of paper, their types being very large; till at length the expedient was adopted of casting a new fount of letter from the leaden covers of some Cheshire cheeses, which had been sent out to the missionaries by the Society. The attempt succeeded, and with these new and smaller types the remainder of the Testament was printed, the whole being published together in 1719. (Cotton, Typographical Gazetteer, 2nd edit., p. 289.)