1830,] The Slave Trade. 291 



in the month of December preceding, called, in consequence of a dis- 

 covery that these comfortably situated people had joined the neighbouring 

 savages in a conspiracy to massacre all the while people of the settlement ; 

 the civic authorities recommended that arms should be distributed, and 

 that the captured negroes happy and rising people ! should be shut 

 up in the fort after a certain hour of the evening. Circumstances 

 attended this proceeding, which made much noise in the settlement, and 

 the matter was, of course, fully known, but carefully concealed, by the 

 reporter at home ! 



Our limits will not permit us to scrutinize the measures of the manag- 

 ing members of this institution further at present, and we shall take 

 leave of them by repeating, in the words of Judge Thorpe, that " their 

 reports prove, that, in 1814, they were beginning to inquire into the con- 

 dition of Africa and Sierra Leone, though they had pledged themselves 

 to the performance of such wonders in civilization, cultivation, instruc- 

 tion, and morals, when the institution was formed in 1807 '," and that 

 the committee have not been able " to prove the institution had ever 

 performed a promise., carried into execution a profession, or done any 

 one thing beneficial for Africa, either before or after these representa- 

 tions."* 



Eighty-five rebel slaves, sent from Barbadoes in 1819, were, during 

 that year, added to the colony ; and, in 1822, the disbanded pensioners 

 from the African corps and the West India regiments, amounting to 

 twelve hundred and twenty-two men, with their families, were also 

 brought to it. These, when added to the crowds of miserable Africans 

 liberated from the slave ships, runaways, and people from the interior 

 and other quarters, had, notwithstanding the constant mortality, in- 

 creased the amount of the population, in 1822, to above fifteen thousand. 



In pausing to consider some of the methods adopted for civilizing and 

 improving the morals of the liberated Africans up to this periocl, we 

 must not for a moment lose sight of one of the only inducements Great 

 Britain has had to expend such enormous sums upon this modern Gol- 

 gotha namely, that by the influence and example of a European settle- 

 ment planted in the country itself, and under the observation of its- 

 inhabitants^ managed by humane and philanthropic governors and godly 

 missionaries, industry, education, and a knowledge of the gospel, might 

 be introduced among the savage tribes of Africa ; that the most 

 important part of this scheme had been for the preceding thirty-five 

 years, under the particular direction of societies at home, possessing 

 great influence with the legislature, and laying claim to greater sanctity, 

 philanthropy, and humanity, than the generality of their countrymen ; 

 and that, during the whole of this period, they had boasted of their 

 eminent success. 



Some years prior to the arrival of the first judge appointed by the 

 British government, and some time before the appointment of the mixed 

 commissions, the liberated Africans were entirely under the guidance of 

 these philanthropists ; and it is painful to find, that against one of their 

 principal agents, this judge should have found it his duty to prefer 

 before the secretary of state for the colonies a charge of the following 

 nature : " That the aforesaid Mr. , in his capacity of superin- 

 tendent of the captured negroes, did coerce and chastise the said negroes 



* Preface to a Letter to Mr. Wilberforce. Third Edition, p. 11. 



2 P 2 



