Over time the superintendent began to request additional missionaries and laymen be sent to relieve him of temporal duties. This view was shared by Daniel Lee and later missionaries, all of whom complained of having to spend too much time away from conversion efforts. Additionally Lee downplayed the accounts from fellow priests by proclaiming that hundreds of natives had become Methodists. It wasn't until the arrival of George Abernethy in 1840 that Lee was finally allowed to focus solely on proselyting to indigenous peoples.
