286 Sierra Leone, and [MARCH, 



ciates are content to see, and who are the more disposed to abuse the trust 

 reposed in them, and to pursue their own individual interests, knowing 

 that the censure which may attach to the company's actions must fall 

 upon the members only in their collective capacity. 



The company having nominated its directors at home, and its gover- 

 nor and council abroad, availed itself of the discontent created by the 

 non-fulfilment of promises, alleged to have been made to the liberated 

 negroes who bad served in the British army during the American war, 

 to invite them from the uncongenial climate of Nova Scotia to a country 

 said to be more suitable to their habits and constitutions. Lands, houses, 

 and every assistance was to be provided for them. 



Above eleven hundred of these prematurely liberated slaves sailed for 

 Sierra Leone in the year 1792, under Lieutenant Clarkson, but on their 

 arrival they found that they had been deceived as to the state of the 

 colony that no proper provision had been made for their reception ; 

 they accused the Philanthropists of having most shamefully violated their 

 promises ;* they could scarcely be persuaded or compelled to make any 

 exertion for their own support ; and, instead of assisting in the civilization 

 of others, soon became very unruly subjects themselves ! 



It might reasonably have been expected, that under proper manage- 

 ment, these people would have proved an invaluable acquisition to the 

 colony ; many of them were intimately acquainted with every species of 

 tropical agriculture, and disposed to make a good use of their know- 

 ledge. But if it be true, that " the Governor and Council were selected 

 rather from their views of religion than from any knowledge of coloni- 

 zation and government, and when they ought to have been engaged in the 

 discussion of parish boundaries, and the allotment of lands, they were 

 thinking only of the conversion of souls" we need not be surprised at the 

 total failure of all the great expectations of advantage to Africa by this 

 accession of "free labourers" Certain it is, however, that the dispo- 

 sition to be industrious, which they are acknowledged to have possessed 

 on their first arrival, seems to have been quickly destroyed ; and even 

 the survivors, now reduced to four or five hundred, are still character- 

 ized in the last report of the commissioners^ as being in effect the least 

 industrious class in the colony. 



The next body of any consequence, in point of numbers, that joined 

 these " civilizers of Africa," consisted of 550 maroons in the year 

 1800. The history of the surrender and deportation of these unfor- 

 tunate people, from their native mountains in Jamaica to the severe 

 climate of Nova Scotia, would seem to indicate that government still 

 owes them reparation for the bad faith with which the terms of their 

 capitulation in Jamaica was observed. They seem to be the only race 

 whose numbers have not been permanently diminished by the pestilen- 

 tial climate of Sierra Leone ; for, although there was a falling off while 

 under the tender mercies of the Philanthropists, they have since reco- 

 vered under the British Government, and in 1826 they amounted to 

 36 souls. They have always shown a disinclination to agricultural 

 pursuits ; but, nevertheless, in point of intelligence and industry, they 

 seem to have taken the lead of the other settlers. 



The Sierra Leone Company having got quit of their original capital of 



Vide Commissioners' Report Parliamentary Papers, 1817 312 p. 10. 

 t No. 312, in the Parliamentary Papers of 1827- 



