ia30.] The Slave Trade. 293 



" The expense of this establishment has been very great." " The whole 

 system is defective." " There is not one person who has the slightest 

 knowledge of agriculture ; nor can I learn that there ever has been any 

 person employed in the colony who had any acquaintance either with 

 European or tropical agriculture." The General proceeds to state, that 

 by his exertions (exertions which, alas ! soon brought him to his grave,) 

 he had accomplished a saving of 17,000/. a year,* without reference to the 

 stores from England, although he had greater numbers to support than 

 at any former period ; and that he had diminished the number receiving 

 rations one half. Could there be a stronger proof of the necessity of 

 inquiry ? or of the serious waste of public property that had formerly 

 prevailed ? But the peculators know that dead men tell no tales ; and 

 that, while there are no living witnesses to confute them, the public 

 money is safe in their pockets ! 



The impossibility of sustaining the cares and anxieties of office 

 in such a climate, and amongst such a population, is too evident, 

 by the sacrifices that have already been made. The nature of 

 these difficulties cannot be more forcibly stated than in the ominous 

 words contained in General Turner's dispatch of the 25th January, 

 1826 : " I am obliged to approve, sign, and become responsible for all 

 expenditures, on account of these people ; and it is quite impossible that 

 I can examine into these matters, which are very voluminous. I happen 

 to have very good health, and some acquaintance with business, but / 

 cannot expect, in such a climate as this, to be able to continue such labours ; 

 those about me have all suffered, and I have lost their services" 



It appears, by the report of the commissioners,t that, with a view of 

 curbing the slave trade by interference in the interior of the country, 

 General Turner had procured an extension of the territory of Sierra 

 Leone in 1824, but that the influence of the European slave dealers had 

 defeated his measures ; and the commissioners recommend their discon- 

 tinuance, as tending to warfare with the natives ! 



Notwithstanding that the settlement has been in our hands since the 

 year 1787, no traces of agriculture are, generally, apparent. " The 

 spontaneous productions of nature alone present themselves ; and 

 although a more intimate acquaintance with the localities and nature 

 of the soil, in some measure accounts for this state of things, there is 

 still sufficient to justify and confirm the unfavourable impression which 

 this first view must produce of the progress in agricultural improve- 

 ment." J " Near to Freetown stands a belt of thick forest, of considerable 

 depth, breeding miasma and fever" " its immediate vicinity (Freetown, 

 viz.) wears an aspect of desolation." And all this with thousands of 

 labourers at command, for each of whom the country has paid a large 

 sum of head money, and an enormous sum in contingencies. Can there 

 be a stronger proof of the folly of the whole system ? The territory, 

 generally, is said to consist of granite rocks and a surface of gravel ; this 

 soil, says General Turner, already " begins to refuse to them" (the libe- 

 rated Africans) " a scanty subsistence ; and they have begun to wander 

 in search of better soil and easier maintenance : and the evident tendency 

 of this is, that they will retrograde in the woods into a state of nature and 



Expenditure, in 1824, was 40,907; in 1825. it was 31,965 ; and, in 1826, only 

 17,671 ! 



f Parliamentary papers, 312, Sess. 1827. 

 $ Commissioners' Report. 

 Sierra Leone Vindicated, p. 105. 



