I in 1727 the Bergen company for trading with Greenland was dissolved, from the losses it bad sustained, and the Danish government then resolved on founding a colony in Greenland, and sent in 1728 a ship of war, with a body of soldiers under the command of a Major Puns, and several horses, a sufficient proof that the nature of the country was not understood in Denmark, as horses among the rocks of Greenland were totally useless. The soldiers grew mutinous when they saw to what a country they had becu sent, and Egede found his life in more danger from his countrymen than it had ever been from the natives. The death of KingFrederick IV. in 1731 occasioned a change of emirs. The new king, Christian VI., determined to break up the colony and recall all his subjects from Greenland, with the exception of such as chose to remain of their own free will, to whom he gave directions that provisions were to be allowed for one year, but that they were to bo led to expect no further supply. Egede had then been ten years in Greenland, and his labours wero beginning to bear fruit. His eldest eon Paul, who was a boy of twelve when they landed, bad been of much assistance in learning the language and in other ways; his wife and the younger children had aided greatly in producing a favourable effect on the natives, who had seen no Europeans before except the crews of the Dutch trading-vemels. The Angekoks, or con jurers, who might almost be called the priests of the native religion, bad been awed, some into respect and others into silence, by the mild ness and active benevolence of the foreign Angekok ; the natives had seen with wonder the interest he took in their welfare, and if they refused to believe the new doctrines themselves, bad not forbidden them to their children, of whom Egede had a hundred and fifty baptised. The elder Greenlanders, when Egede told them of the efficacy of prayer, asked him to pray that there should be no winter, and when he spoke of the torment of fire said they should prefer it to frost. Egede, confirmed by his wife, resolved to remain, and this resolution greatly increased his influence over the; Greenlanders, who knew that it could only proceed from seal iu their behalf, The king of Denmark, unable to resist his constancy, sent another year's provision beyond what he had promised, and finally, in 1733, announced that he had changed his mind and determined to devote a yearly sum to the Greenland mission. A dreadful trial was approaching. The Greenland children, of whom some had occasionally been sent to Denmark, almost all died of the small pox. Two of them were returning borne from Copenhagen in the vessel which came io 1733, one of them died on the voyage, the other brought the disorder to Greenland, and the mortality was dreadful. From September 1733 to Juno 1734 the contagion raged to a degree that threatened to depopulate Greenland. When the trading agents after wards went over the country they fond every dwelling•house empty for thirty leagues to the north of the Danish colony, and the same devastation was said to have extended still farther south: the number of the dead was computed at 3000. That winter in Greenland offered a combination of horrors which could seldom be equalled, but they were met with admirable constancy by Egede and his indefatigable wife. The same ship that brought the small pox had brought the assistance of some Moravian missionaries, the first of that devoted band who were to continue in Greenland the work that Egede had begun. In the year 1734 his son Povel Egede returned from Copen hagen, whither he had been sent to study, and the elder Egede, finding his health begin to fail, applied for leave to return home. Ho was now unable to continue his active labours as a missionary, but thought he might be of use in instructing in the language those who might devote themeelvse to the work, and would otherwise have to lose a portion of their time on arriving at the spot in studying the rudi ment& The permission reached him in 1735, but his return was delayed from the illness of his wife, who longed to see her native land again, but was denied that gratification, dying finally in Green land on the 21st of December 1735, at the age of sixty-two. Egode
carried her coffin with him to Denmark, and she was buried in Copenhagen, where she was followed to the grave by the whole of the clergy of the city. A seminary for the Greenland mission was estab• lishod there in 1740, and Egedo was appointed superintendent with the title of bishop. In the same year he preferred a memorial for an expedition to be sent out to discover the last 'eastern colony' of the old Norwegians, end offered to accompany it in person, but the proposal was not adopted. Ile had when in Greenland made a land expedition with a similar view, and discovered some ruins of buildings of a different character from those of the Greenlanders. It is now generally believed, since the researches of Graah and others, that Use ' eastern oolouy ' or 'Osterbygd' was so named merely from its position with regard to the other, and that both the ' eastern' and ' western' colonies were on the western coast,. In 1747 Egede retired from hie office at Copenhagen, and spent moat of the remainder of his life at the house of his daughter Christine, who was married to a clergyman of the Island of Falster. While he was at Copenhagen he had married a second wife, who accompanied him to Falster, but before hie last illness he expressed his wish that he should be buried by the side of his first wife at Copenhagen, and said that if they would not promise to carry this wish Into effect, he would go to Copenhagen to die there. Ile died at Falster on the 5th of November 1758.
Egede was the author of two works on the subject that occupied his life. One, the history of his mission, ' Omsteendelig Relation angaaeude den Gronlandske Missions Begyndelse,' published at Copenhagen in 1733, is rich iu materials, but is in itself of a somewhat dry and unattractive character. Its chief recommendation is its plain sincerity. The reader is disposed to give entire confidence to the missionary, who not only tells him that on one occasion he laboured earnestly in his vocation, but that on another he occupied himself for days in the study of alchemy, who not only speaks of the ardour of his faith at times, but tells us that at others he was seized with a hatred of his task and of religion altogether. This book has been translated into German, but not as yet into any other language. Egede's second work, 'Den gamle Gronlands nye Perlustration ' (Copenhagen, 17414), was translated into English in 1745 under the title or A Description of Greenland,' and the translation was reprinted lo 1818. It comprises his observations on the geography and natural history of Greenland, and the manners of its inhabitants.
The account of the mission was continued by his son POVEL or Penn EGEDE, who, as has been stated, had gone to Greenland in 1720 in his twelfth year, had afterwards studied at Copenhagen, returned to Greenland in 1734, finally left it in 1740, became like his father superintendent of the mission with the title of bishop, and died in 1789. He wrote and published a Greenland Grammar and Diction ary, which have been since improved by Fabricius, translated the New Testament into the language, and was the author of a work Efterretninger om ,Gronland ' (' Information on Greenland '), which is one of the most interesting in Danish literature. It gives a history of the mission from 1720 to 1788 in a more interesting style than his father was master of.
Another son of Hans Egede, NIELS EGEDE, who had spent his youth in Greenland, returned there in 1733 from Denmark, disgusted with the coldness of the reception he met with in Europe, and wished to spend the rest of his life among the Greenlanders, but was com pelled to return by the state of his health in 1743. He founded the settlement of Egedesminde, so named in remembrance of his father.