A. D. 1 794. 3 1 1 



fiderable way up in the country, where they were well received. They 

 reported, that Teembo contains about 7,000 inhabitants, who are Mo- 

 hamedans. Tlie chief people have books and can write ; and there are 

 fchools in every town. They have manufadlures of iron, filver, wood, 

 leather, and cloth, and are in all refpeds fuperior to the Negroes on the 

 coaft. They alfo reported, that the effe<5l of the war in Europe was very 

 favourable to that part of Africa, where they enjoyed comparative peace 

 and tranquillity, in confequence of the flackened demand for flaves. 



The favourable fituation and profpeds of this little colony were fud- 

 denly reverfed. A French fleet, confifting of one fhip of 50 guns and 

 a number of privateers, two of which carried 32 guns each, fitted out 

 by the flave-merchants of Bourdeaux and L'Orient, inftigated and aflift- 

 ed by two flaving captains, whofe crimes had made them fly from Eng- 

 land and America, arrived in the harbour (September 28""), took all 

 the vellels belonging to the company, deftroyed the public buildings, 

 and plundered all the property they could lay their hands upon. After 

 doing all the mifchief they could at Sierra Leona, they failed along the 

 coaft, and plundered fome of the Britifh Have fadories. 



The French government had promifed that Sierra Leona fhould be 

 exempted from the ravages of the war. But it might be expecfted, that 

 a fettlement, eftablifhed for the exprefs purpofe of annihilating the 

 flave-trade, could not efcape the pointed vengeance of flave-merchants, 

 as foon as the laws, or cuftoms, of war fliould put the power of conduc- 

 ing hoftile enterprifes into private hands. 



As fome amends for the recapture of a Weft-India ifland and the 

 deftrudion of an infant fettlement on the coaft of Africa, the Britifli 

 forces in the Mediterranean made the acquifition of an entire European 

 kingdom in the ifland of Corfica, the fovereignty of which was annexed 

 for ever to the crown of Great Britain (June 19'"). The parliament of 

 that kingdom engaged to adopt all regulations, confiftent with their new 

 conftitution, which fliould be enaded by the parliament of Great Britain 

 for the extenfion and advantage of the empire. In return they were 

 afllired, on the part of their new fovereign, of the fame protedion to 

 the trade and navigation of Corfica, which is given to the trade and na- . 

 vigation of his other fubjeds : and the viceroy moreover promifed them 

 a participation, not only of the treafures of trade, but alio ot the fo- 

 vereignty of the fea *. 



The union of this kingdom with Great Britain was of too fliort a 

 duration, to afford fufficient knowlege of the commercial advantages to 

 be derived from the connedion. From the cuftom-ho^fe books it ap- 

 pears, that 27 veflels from Corfica were entered inwards at the ports of 

 Great Britain in the years 1795, 1796, and the beginning of 1797, and 



* The population of Corfica was eftimatcd at 120,000 fouls by Theodore, who once had the. 

 title of king of it. 



