[ 284 ] [MARCH, 



SIERRA LEONE, AND THE SLAVE TRADE. 



THE history of the settlement of Sierra Leone presents a stronger 

 instance of the fatal consequences of zeal, untempered by discretion, 

 than we recollect to have seen recorded in the annals of any country, 

 ancient or modern. 



Experience has shewn that colonization is, under the most favourable 

 circumstances, a very difficult task ; and that to conduct and establish 

 the first adventurers in a manner conducive to their future welfare, and 

 consistent with the dictates of prudence and humanity, requires a rare 

 unity of purpose and foresight in the projectors, and of local and 

 general knowledge, combined with firmness and decision, in the im- 

 mediate conductors, together with such individual disinterestedness in 

 all as is seldom to be found in any body of men whatsoever. 



In the instance before us there seems to have been a total want of all 

 the qualifications enumerated, although their presence to unite and con- 

 trol the first motley and heterogeneous collection of emigrants was 

 required in an eminent degree. Blind zeal seems, even as early as 1787, 

 to have been considered all-sufficient in the first instance, and incipient 

 personal interests, and a greater talent for humbug, seem to have been 

 the only additional qualifications brought forward by the second con- 

 ductors in 1791. 



The subsequent progress of the colony exhibits such a mass of decep- 

 tive juggling, and of ambitious scheming for individual profit under the 

 guise of philanthropy, supported at the same time by such industrious 

 plausibility, that the eyes of the public, and, we may also add, of his 

 late majesty's government, seem to have been completely blinded to the 

 true condition of the settlement, and real views of the leading parties ; 

 and if any individual, whose local knowledge and acquaintance with the 

 actual state of affairs enabled him to detect and expose the current of 

 misrepresentation, attempted to draw aside the veil, evil intentions were 

 imputed to him, his veracity and motives were impugned, and his single 

 voice was drowned in the clamour immediately raised by a designing 

 band of pretended philanthropists, and their well meaning, but ignorant, 

 supporters. 



Its progress since 1807, when the British government were unfortu- 

 nately induced to take it off the hands of the Sierra Leone Company in 

 order to combine and render its management subservient to the pre- 

 mature, ill-digested, and, consequently, abortive attempts, to put a stop 

 to the foreign slave trade, has been attended by such an extravagant 

 waste of public money, and constant destruction of human life, without 

 the slightest benefit either to this country or to the cause of humanity, 

 that the mind seeks in vain for any rational grounds upon which to rest 

 a justification of the past, or an excuse for keeping future possession of 

 this great charnel-field, the climate of which has proved equally fatal to 

 the brave and scientific European, and to the savage or semi-barbarous 

 native of Africa ! 



We shall endeavour to give a brief sketch of the rise, progress, and 

 present condition of this worse than useless settlement, stating such facts 

 as have come to our knowledge regarding the loss of life, and treasure 

 expended upon it ; premising that we shall consider ourselves at liberty 

 to revert to the subject whenever further documents are made public, 

 and that, when we have occasion to notice the conduct of individuals, it 



