instructions, it was said, to
assist in carrying out that arrangement. He did not agree with Mr.
Gobat in respect to the treatment due to the American missionaries;
and when the Druzes inquired of him what support they might expect
from England, the answers they received led them to the conclusion,
that England would not protect them unless they renounced the
American missionaries, and put themselves under the exclusive
instruction of clergymen from the English Church. This they were not
ready to do. Mr. Gobat retired, in a spirit of catholicity. Neither
did Mr. Nicholayson prosecute his mission, being disheartened, it
may be, by the civil war which shortly arose between the Maronites
and Druzes. His intervention was unfortunate, and I find it referred
to, thirty years afterwards, by a venerable member of the mission,
as a warning against similar intrusions.

The Patriarch now deemed himself strong enough to enter upon his
project of crushing the Druzes. His power in the mountains being in
the ascendant, he ordered the Druze sheiks to assemble at Deir
el-Kamr. They came armed, and, as they approached Deir el-Kamr, were
required to send away their followers and lay aside their arms. They
refused. A battle ensued, and the Maronites were defeated. The
Patriarch then proclaimed a crusade against them, ordered his
bishops to take arms, and marched his forces towards the Druze
territory. But the Druzes seized the mountain passes, and defeated
every attempt to enter. Though greatly inferior in numbers, they
went desperately to work to exterminate or expel every Maronite from
their part of the mountains. Not a convent, and scarce a village or
hamlet belonging to the Maronites, was left standing. They then
descended and dispersed the main army of the Maronites; and were
ready to march northward into Kesrawan, and attack the Patriarch in
his stronghold, but were persuaded by British officers to suspend
their march. The Turkish army, which might have prevented the
conflict, now took the field, and separated the combatants.1

1 Tracy's _History_, pp. 417, 440. Report for 1842, pp. 117-124.
_Missionary Herald_, 1842, pp. 196, 229, 362.

This was very properly regarded as a providential deliverance for
the mission, which had never been threatened with so formidable an
opposition as at the beginning of the year. It now entered into a
correspondence with nearly all the principal Druze sheiks, who felt
that they had, by their sword