1830-] The Slave Trade. 299 



tingent charges which cannot be specified, is much under the mark. 

 This sum, when added to the expence of the mixed Commissions and of 

 our other attempts to put down the foreign slave-trade up to the year 

 1826, amounted to 5,708,908; and taking the three succeeding years 

 at 350,000 each, the total will be about 6,800,000 ! ! 



A gentleman who has made it his particular study to investigate these 

 matters, has estimated the sums paid by this country for liberated 

 Africans alone (including those paid to the United States, Spain, boun- 

 ties, maintenance, mixed Commissions, &c.), at nearly four millions, and 

 the total expense of all our slave-trade abolition measures, at upwards 

 of Jifteen millions sterling ! !* without estimating the great deterioration 

 of property in the West-Indies, the ascendancy given to the colonies of 

 foreign states, and the future expense which our rash and precipitate 

 conduct has entailed upon us. The country is now alive to the question, 

 and to the enormous sums of money which have been squandered in 

 measures which hitherto have only served to increase the sum of 

 human misery. 



We have no doubt it is the earnest desire of his Majesty's Ministers to 

 cover up the errors of their predecessors : but how is that to be done ? 



It is true that the occupation of the Island of Fernando Po may be 

 regarded as one step towards improvement, but it remains to be seen 

 whether Government will follow up this measure, or any other connected 

 with the colonies, with that firmness, justice, and manly decision which 

 should mark the councils of a great nation, or whether they will con- 

 tinue to listen to the advice of those men whose fanatical irregularity of 

 mind and maudlin ideas of philanthropy have already precipitated the 

 country into such an incalculable train of evils. 



With regard to Sierra Leone, it would appear little short of madness 

 to retain it a moment longer than may be necessary to prepare for the 

 removal of such of the settlers as are inclined to follow us. The only 

 reasons that induced us to hold it have turned out nugatory. It is a 

 place of no political importance in any one point of view. The total im- 

 ports, taking as a criterion the average of nine recent years, amount to 

 about 85,000 a year : the revenue collected, about 5,000. The ex- 

 ports from the whole coast last year scarcely equalled in value one year's 

 ordinary expenditure. 



Teake-wood, one of the principal exports, is not grown on the ter- 

 ritory, t>ut seems to be obtained by the agents of Messrs. Zachary Ma- 

 caulay and Babbington from native chiefs Dalla Mahomadder, for 

 instance who employ slaves to cut it down, and who buy more slaves with 

 the proceeds.-^ That^rm and its connections seem to have been the only 

 gainers by this scheme of " philanthrophy ;" but looking at all the cir- 

 cumstances, we envy neither their immense wealth nor the feelings that 

 must accompany it. According to the report,}: they have also lately 

 drawn the trade in gold dust from its usual channels, owing, say the 

 other British traders, to the undue influence which have been acquired 

 in the distribution of the government presents among the native chiefs ! 



It is evident by the Report of the Commissioners, mat in order to 

 retain Sierra Leone as a British colony, it would be : ecessary, at an 



* Letter to R.W. Hay, Esq., byJaqies McQueen, Esq. 

 f- Commissioners' Report, p. 81. J P. 70.. 



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