In conformity with such ideas, and on the basis (it is probable) of Mr. Smeathman's design, was laid the plan of a Free Colony at Sierra Leone, on the coast of Africa. Mr. Smeathman was to lead the Black poor to the destined spot, as soon as due preparations could be made; and Granville, in the mean time, distributed to the intended settlers, from his own purse, a weekly allowance, which was to be continued till the time of their sailing.

Application was now made to the Minister of England for assistance. The Government had long regarded the numerous Negroes who begged in the streets as a nuisance, and therefore readily consented to lend a helping hand to the project. A small weekly allowance," says Mr. Sharp, “was made from the Treasury, for the subsistence of the settlers, and navy transports were hired to carry them out.'

To Granville Sharp, Esq.

"Bread Street, 12th April, 1786.

"Mr. Smeathman presents most respectful compliments to Mr. Sharp. Extreme fatigue prevents him having the honour of waiting on Mr. S., to acquaint him that he was introduced this day to Mr. Rose, and that it is settled that Government is to allow Mr. Smeathman 127. for each person, for any number that are willing to go and settle with him.

"Mr. Smeathman indulges the flattering hopes that Mr. Sharp will continue his benevolent protection to this plan, so interesting to mankind."

66

At this important moment, Mr. Smeathman's impaired health suspended the execution of the plan. He was taken ill of a fever, and died in about three days. The expedition seemed now at a stand; and Mr. Sharp stood involved in all the expenses which had attended its outset: the demurrage of the vessel had commenced, and the weekly pay to the settlers continued*." In this situation of affairs, the Government again interfered: provision was made for the settlers, both for transporting them, and for supplying them with necessaries during the first six or eight months of their residence in

Obituary Account.

Africa; and Captain (afterwards Admiral) Thompson was appointed to accompany them in the Nautilus sloop of war, and to see the promises given by Mr. Sharp fulfilled toward them.

At length the little fleet sailed on the 8th of April, 1787.

As the history of this colony, now so respectable as the cradle of African Civilization, is either little known, or the knowledge of it confined to a very limited number of persons, it will be necessary to give a cursory account of its establishment and progress; which, for the sake of clearness, will be continued, without interruption, to the period of its final surrender into the hands of Government.

It is, indeed, a history deserving, from its nature, of a more ample elucidation than the present narrative can with propriety admit. In a short portion of time and place, it contains an "abstract and brief chronicle" of the noblest virtues and the basest vices of mankind : it exhibits the conflict of savage ignorance with refined cultivation, of Christian purity and benevolence with some of the worst passions that tear and deform the human breast.

The first particulars here related concerning the settlement are principally extracted from the Reports of the Directors. Mr. Sharp's own accounts of his undertaking will follow.

CHAP. II.

THE Negroes who were sent out, in the manner and with the views already described, to form the colony of Sierra Leone, amounted to somewhat more than four hundred, to which number were added about sixty Europeans, chiefly women. On their arrival, a grant of land, of considerable extent, was obtained for their use from a neighbouring chief*. It was hoped that the remembrance of former distress, and the necessity of their situation, would bring the settlers into habits of order and industry, and animate them to free, productive labour.

The commencement of this enterprise was inauspicious. During a long detention of these poor people in the Channel, and during their passage to Sierra Leone, they were extremely unhealthy-in most instances, from disorders brought on board with them and aggravated by intemperance; in consequence of the delays that had occurred, they were landed in the rainy season, when no sufficient order or regularity could be established among them; and, being exposed to the weather, a great portion of them very soon died."

In

*“The district purchased for the settlement at Sierra Leone is nearly twice as large as the island of Barbadoes, being twenty miles square, containing 256,000 acres of land, well watered with salubrious springs, and situated on a fruitful peninsula, between two noble navigable rivers, the great river of Sierra Leone and the Sherbro', which receives the waters of many others. The peninsula rises into hills forming upon one another into lofty mountains, the sides and summits of which are covered with timber.

"The extraordinary temperature and salubrity of the air for European constitutions in this peculiar spot of the torrid zone, has been remarked by ancient writers and by modern travellers of respectability." [Their account, however, must be allowed to have been greatly exaggerated, as the climate has in many instances proved unhealthy.] "The river has a safe deep channel for ships of any burthen; and St. George's Bay, the first approach to the new settlement (and so named by Captain Thompson, who carried out the settlers, having been before called Frenchman's Bay), is perhaps the finest harbour in the world; and is of the more importance, as there is no other good harbour on the coast for many leagues either way.

"Sierra Leone is about 8 deg. 12 min. North latitude, and the longitude about 12 deg. West. It is generally about a month's sail from England, though more in returning, on account of the interruption of the trade winds."-First Report, 1791.

the course of the first year their numbers were reduced nearly half: many died before they reached the coast, and a greater number in a short time after their landing: some few also had deserted. The remainder, however, was still sufficient for building a small town.

After the first year, no extraordinary mortality prevailed. In the two succeeding years, not more than five or six of the settlers died, out of two hundred who were in the same town. During that time they gradually improved in their circumstances; and, though far from being regularly industrious, were able to supply themselves with a sufficiency of food, and to secure a small but constantly increasing property *.

They were, however, too poor and too ignorant to avail themselves of all the natural advantages of the country; and being chiefly men of unsettled habits, so many migrated to the neighbouring parts, that the community was at one time in the most imminent danger of extinction.

The arrival at this critical moment of a small brig, called the Myro†, laden with various articles of considerable present use to the necessities of the colonists, preserved the infant colony. The distressed wanderers found in its appearance on their coast a renovation of hope; and as they had learned, by dangerous experiment, that they could not subsist so well in any other place, the greater part of them returned to the settlement.

On this occasion also, a confirmation of the original grant of land was obtained from Naimbanna, the king of Sierra Leone, who resided at the small island of Rohanna, between the English slave factory at Bance Island and the French one at Gambia‡.

* Report, 1791.

+ The history of the Myro will be found in the account of Mr. Sharp's particular concern in the colony.

The lands on which the English forts have hitherto been erected on the African coast, have generally been only rented of the Native Chiefs, whereas the new district of Sierra Leone has been actually purchased, and given up by the Native Chiefs, under a ratified charter from themselves and their heirs for ever, to the Crown of England, for the use of the settlers and their successors for ever: so that it is not only an English settlement, but an English territory, where all the free customs and rights of the English common law immediately take place.Report, 1791.

But toward the end of the year 1789, while the colony was again in a state of advance, the settlers received a formal notice from a great council of the neighbouring Chief, that he had resolved on burning their town, in retaliation for a similar injury done to his own capital by the marines and crew of an English ship of war*; and that he allowed them three days for the removal of their goods. They had no resource: they fled from their homes, and abandoned their plantations; and the judicial sentence was carried into execution at the appointed time.

This attack was an overwhelming blow to the colony, and threatened it once more with entire annihilation. But the same provident care which had sent the Myro to its aid in its utmost need, had also secured the means of affording it further protection, by the establishment of a Company in England (called the St. George's Bay Company), united for the purpose of carrying forward the benevolent design of the Founder and a Memorial was now addressed to his Majesty,

the

* "A Native Chief, living within half a mile of the English settlement, had lost, as he affirmed, two individuals of his town, by the depredations of an American slave-captain, and had been some time waiting for an opportunity of retaliating on any vessel from the same country that might come within his reach. The opportunity, after a while, occurred. A boat, which was found to belong to an American ship, happening to pass up the river, was attacked and plundered by him and his people: the crew, consisting of three or four men, were put to death, one only excepted, who escaped, and conveyed the news to the neighbouring slavefactory, to which the boat had been going. The principal agent of the factory, after some consultation with the officers of a man of war then lying in the river, determined on becoming avenger of the outrage. Ineffectual attempts were first made to induce the Chief to come on board the frigate: and after an interval of two or three days, the slave-factor himself, together with a lieutenant from the King's ship, and a body of British sailors and marines, set out on an expedition to the town of the Chief. On the approach of this armed body of men, the Chief and his people fled, and the town was plundered and set on fire. The slave-factor, however, and the party with him from the King's ship, returning in the dusk of the evening, were suddenly attacked by a discharge of musketry from among the bushes, and an engagement ensued, in which several were killed on both sides. The Chief used afterwards frequently to vow that he must now retaliate again for the further loss of people that he had sustained. The slave-factor, however, against whom his rage was principally directed, soon afterwards quitted the coast.

"A palaver, or council, was then called of all the surrounding Chiefs, who (according to the African custom of directing vengeance against every person, guilty or not guilty, whom they have in their power, and imagine in any degree connected with the authors of the injury received), having heard that two of the free settlers were among the hostile party, determined that their whole town should be burned."-Report, 1793.