clarksost. 353 



four of whom .died before they sighted land, and 

 eighty-six in the first four months after landing. 

 The philanthropists thus produced a middle passage 

 at which a slave trader would have been aghast. In 

 a short time the white women were dead, and the 

 Granvilles, as they are traditionally called upon the 

 coast, adopted savage life. But the settlement was 

 re-peopled from another source. In the American 

 Revolutionary War, large numbers of negroes had 

 flocked to the royal standard, attracted by the pro- 

 clamations of the British generals. These runaway 

 slaves were sent to Nova Scotia, where they soon began 

 to complain ; the climate was not to their taste, and 

 they had not received the lands which had been pro- 

 mised them. They were then shipped off to Sierra 

 Leone. They landed singing hymns, and pitched their 

 tents on the site of the present town. The settlement 

 was afterwards recruited with negroes in thousands out 

 of slave ships ; but the American element may yet be 

 detected in the architecture of the native houses and 

 in the speech of the inhabitants. 



In the meantime the slave-trade was being actively 

 discussed. Among those who felt most deeply on 

 the question was Dr Peckard of St John's College, 

 Cambridge, who, being in 1785, Vice-Chancellor, gave 

 as a subject for the Latin essay, " Anne liceat invitos 

 in servitutem dare ? " — Is it right to make men 

 slaves against their will 1 



Among the candidates was a certain bachelor of 

 arts, Mr Thomas Clarkson, who had gained the prize 

 for the best Latin essay the year before, and was de- 

 sirous of keeping up his reputation. He therefore 

 took unusual pains to collect materials respecting the 

 African slave-trade, to which he knew Dr Peckard's 



