CHAPTER XVI 



RECENT HISTORY 



SIR ARTHUR HAVELOCK had succeeded Sir Samuel 

 Rowe for a time as Governor of Sierra Leone in 1880, 

 and under his administration of that colony renewed steps 

 were taken to procure British predominance over the territories 

 between the Sherbro and the Mano River. It was resolved to 

 exact Liberia's consent to this restriction of her frontiers, and 

 also to compel the payment of an indemnity to Harris. Ac- 

 cordingly, Sir Arthur Havelock (who was also Consul-General 

 for Britain in Liberia) came to Monrovia on March 20th, 1882, 

 with four gunboats, and demanded that the Liberian Government 

 should at once give its consent to a frontier delimitation, which 

 would bring the British Protectorate up to the River Mafa 

 and the vicinity of Cape Mount. Also the Liberians were 

 simultaneously to pay the indemnity of ^^8,500 claimed on behalf 

 of Harris and the other merchants. President Gardner, over- 

 awed by the appearance of this section of the British fleet, 

 hastened to appoint Dr. Edward Blyden (then Minister of the 

 Interior) to arrange the bases of an understanding with Sir 

 Arthur Havelock. It was agreed between the two plenipoten- 

 tiaries that Liberia should pay an indemnity to Harris and the 

 other merchants supposed to have suffered from the Vai in 

 1871, that Liberia should abandon her rights to any territory 

 west of the Mafi or Mafa River (subject to a promise from 



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