76 Timehri. 



but this turning ashore, year by year, of some thousands of half-savage 

 blacks, with the injunction " Reform and civilize them," was too much 

 even for Sierra Leone. There was practically nothing for them to do. 

 The people grew a little ginger, arrowroot, yam, &c., and for the rest 

 idled and got into mischief. 



A Select Committee of the House of Commons, appointed to enquire 

 into the state of Sierra Leone, in 1830, reported that " the progress of 

 the liberated Africans in moral and industrious habits has been greatly 

 retarded by . . . the yearly influx of thousands of their rude and uncivil- 

 ized countrymen" ; that influx should be checked. They considered 

 that the disposal of liberated Africans formed " the greatest difficulty as 

 regards the future of Sierra Leone." 



II. 



This, then, was the position : Sierra Leone getting immigrants it 

 did not want, while the West Indian planter — watching the Freedman 

 trek homewards at mid-day — wanted immigrants he could not get. 



Five years before — in 1836 : the apprenticeship being two years old 

 and not improving on acquaintance — Sir James Carmichael Smyth had 

 suggested Sierra Leone as a possible immigration-source for British 

 Guiana. He understood that there were a considerable number of 

 liberated Africans at Sierra Leone, in which colony labour was of little 

 value. He suggested that, if approved, vessels for British Guiana might 

 touch there and bring such of the liberated Africans as might be willing 

 to emigrate to Demerara as articled servants. But Downing Street would 

 have none of it. Lord John Russell thought that such a proceeding would 

 have the appearance at least of reverting to the African Slave Trade in 

 a new and mitigated form, and might insensibly grow into an encourage- 

 ment if not a revival of that traffic. The suggestion was turned down. 



On August 20, 1840, Governor Doherty (Sierra Leone) re-opened 

 the question. Freedom among the blacks in the West Indies was 

 now an accomplished fact : what might the West Indies do by way of 

 employing, civilizing, &c, the liberated Africans if seat there? Sir Henry 

 Light replied on behalf of British Guiana. There were churches, chapels 

 and schools, clergymen, pastors, catechists and teachers of all sects in 

 this colony, in greater numbers he supposed than in the most favoured 

 countries ; the earth teemed with fertility ; wages were high ; the houses 

 on the estates were far superior to any other West Indian 

 colony he had visited ; land was given for the cultiva- 

 tion of provisions ; the labourers had every opportunity to raise 

 stock which sold at high prices ; they got free medical attendance and 

 medicine if employed on the plantation, and could buy front lands at a 

 moderate price and benefit by the drainage of the estate. He had no 

 doubt whatever as to the benefit to the immigrant of settlement in 

 British Guiana. 



On February 6, 1841, a despatch from Lord John Russell was pub- 

 lished in the " Royal Gazette " stating that after mature consideration it 



