288 Sierra Leone, and [MARCH, 



later period (viz. 1814), states, that " Sierra Leone itself produces 

 nothing exportable but a few bags of coffee for Governor Maxwell, and 

 a few bags of cotton for Mr. Kenneth Macauley, from the appropriations 

 of the unrewarded labour of the captured slaves" any other articles ex- 

 ported not being the produce of the colony, but brought from the 

 neighbourhood ; and these statements are more than fully confirmed by 

 the more recent investigation of the British Commissioners. At home 

 the Directors seem up to the last hour to have kept their seats, and to 

 have continued to swallow the ready-made reports fabricated for their 

 information ; and it was not until they discovered that the whole funds 

 received from subscribers, and from government, were exhausted, that 

 they found it necessary to retire, which they were enabled to do with 

 the less difficulty, as their confidential managers had already arranged 

 for the transfer of the whole concern into the hands of government, and 

 were ready to start a fresh scheme of philanthropy upon a similar foot- 

 ing, but under a different firm ! A number of the subscribers, chagrined, 

 no doubt, at this unexpected termination of their hopes, wished to insti- 

 tute an inquiry into the manner in which their funds had been squan- 

 dered, and how the affairs of the colony had, from the beginning, been 

 conducted; but this did not suit the views of the managing agents, they 

 were outvoted, and the company ceased to exist. 



Let it not be supposed, however, that under the conveniently assumed 

 garb of philanthropy, the managing agents of the old company, or of 

 the new association, were guided solely by the enthusiastic views of the 

 original contributors. Subsequent exposures clearly evince designs of a 

 more ambitious and less philanthropical nature ; and, to their defeat 

 may be traced the rancorous enmity which the disappointed projectors 

 still bear towards our colonies in the West Indies ! 



In proof of the existence of these designs, the following is an 

 extract from the report of a court of inquiry held by Governor 

 Thomson : " After considering the evidence produced before this 

 court, we have no hesitation in declaring, that there appears to 

 this court to have existed a plan, digested, concocted, premeditated, 

 organized, for procuring the abolition of the general slave trade of Africa 

 and the West Indies, and for establishing on its ruins a monopoly in favour 

 of this colony, and of such other settlements upon the coast of Africa, as 

 the persons concerned did expect should be committed to their manage- 

 ment; but with intent to promote the cultivation, of tropical productions by 

 slaves in Africa, in opposition to the cultivation by slaves carried on in the 

 West Indian colonies, with the advantage of having the raw .material, the 

 slave, at their doors, and of having thrown all competitors out of the 

 market. We have marked the unravelling of .the plot in the purchases 

 of many slaves before the transfer of the colony ; in the purchase of a 

 whole cargo afterwards ; in the letters, which here substantiate the fact, 

 that they who did not know that the period of the abolition of the slave 

 trade was the proper period to begin the direct purchasing of slaves 

 ' did somewhat misconceive our ideas in England on the subject ;' in 

 the assertion of the Court of Directors that the money paid for the slaves 

 to the sailors of the ships of war, was a ' premium of apprenticeship ;' 

 and, above all, in the anxiety displayed both in times past and at this 

 moment, to introduce such measures as should prevent ' all attempts to 

 revise what has been done.'* Need we add any further explanation of 



* Recent Transactions in Sierra Leone, pp. 80 to IOC. 



