Liberia 



«*^ 



1839, ^^^^ induced an important merchant to interest himself 

 in the establishment of a kind of colony and trading station 

 at Cape Mount, a site to which Canot had taken a great liking. 

 He endeavoured at this time to free himself entirely from all 

 connection with Pedro Blanco, but for monetary reasons this 

 seems to have been not altogether possible. He revisited New 

 Cess in 1842, but found that Governor Buchanan had destroyed 

 all the slave-trading stations. There is no doubt, therefore, 

 that after his return to Liberia he gave some slight assistance 

 to the slave trade from his settlement at Cape Mount, although 

 affecting the greatest friendship and community of interests with 

 the young state of Liberia. He purchased the promontory 

 of Cape Mount ^ and offered it to the British Government, who, 

 however, coldly declined. At Cape Mount he seems to have 

 done great things in the way of planting, but in 1847 his 

 whole establishment was burnt and utterly destroyed (including 

 the plantations, which was a pity) by a force of British sailors 

 and marines landed from one of the gunboats. 



Canot then left the coast of West Africa and settled at 

 New York. His experiences as related and transcribed by 

 Mr. Brantz Mayer are of thrilling interest, and it is surprising 

 that they attained but little vogue, though they were published 

 at New York and in London (Routledge) at the modest cost 

 of eighteenpence. Whether his story is all true or whether 

 Canot was an earlier De Rougemont, is impossible to determine. 

 There seems, as already shown, to be some discrepancy between 

 Canot's account of Ormond, the mulatto slave trader on the 

 River Pongo (if one compares dates) and the information 

 given of Ormond's Liverpool father in Wadstrom's compilation.- 



' Of course ignoring the previous purchase by Ashmun. 



- An Essay on Colonisation applied to the West Coast of Africa, by C. B. 

 Wadstrom. London, 1795, pp. 87, 88, 2nd part. 



170 



