Liberia «*- 



Association in 1792, but was abandoned in 1793, owing to 

 the determined hostility of the Negroes on the mainland and 

 the sickness which prevailed amongst the repatriated Africans/ 



The first recruits for the Sierra Colony in 1786 were 

 obtained in an extraordinary way ; for besides sweeping together 

 and sending out all the Nova Scotian and West Indian blacks 

 that were then to be found in England, there was added thereto 

 a company of sixty irreclaimable London prostitutes, who were 

 to be landed at Sierra Leone and begin a new life under different 

 conditions, as the spouses of some of these repatriated Africans. 



About four hundred Nova Scotian Negro ex-slaves were 

 sent (with the prostitutes) in 1787, and 1,131 more Nova 

 Scotians in 1792. All these proceedings at Sierra Leone were at 

 first conducted under the British Sierra Leone Company, whose 

 prospectuses were a mixture of pure philanthropy and shrewd 

 commercial propositions. In 1794 the settlement was much 

 damaged by a French squadron, and in 1807 Sierra Leone 

 became a Crown Colony under a Governor, the British in the 

 interval having begun to appreciate the strategic value of Sierra 

 Leone harbour.^ 



When the British Government after 1833 began to take 

 severe repressive measures against the slave trade, and captured 

 slaver after slaver, the liberated slaves were landed usually at 

 Sierra Leone, independently of their place of origin. The 

 most extraordinary and heterogeneous collection of Negroes 

 that could be imagined were got together on this little promon- 

 tory of the Guinea Coast. The wonderful linguistic researches 



' On account of this attempt, sovereignty over Bnlama Island was afterwards 

 claimed by the British. The Portuguese, who, amid all their dynastic troubles, 

 had somehow managed to retain a hold over the rivers of what is now styled 

 Portuguese Guinea, disputed the British claim in 1870. It went to arbitration, 

 and the case was decided against the British. The capital of Portuguese Guinea 

 is on Bulama Island. 



* The best harbour along the whole West African Coast, 



T?2 



