Chap. XYIII. WANT OF AGENTS. 353 



at less than a penny per pound. lSo great amount, certainly, 

 when compared with the thousands of bales which come from 

 other countries ; but still sufficient to prove that cotton 

 of superior quality can be raised by native labour alone ; 

 and but for the slave-trade, which soon afterwards swept all 

 these people away, it is highly probable, that in a few years, 

 the free-labour could have been turned to account in the 

 markets of the world. 



It was never intended that a Government Expedition 

 should become a mere cotton collecting or mercantile specu- 

 lation. We ascertained that the part of Africa in which 

 we laboured was pre-eminently suited for the better varie- 

 ties of the cotton-plant ; that two species of excellent cotton 

 had already been introduced, and so widely distributed by 

 the natives themselves, as to render new seed unnecessary, 

 and the indigenous kind quite an exception in the country. 

 The climate and soil were found to be so well adapted for 

 raising this product, that no clanger need ever be appre- 

 hended of the crops being cut off by frosts ; and, from all we 

 could learn, free-labour was as available here as it is in any 

 other country in the world. But a mighty want was felfc in 

 the entire absence of those blessings which England has 

 unquestionably conferred on the West Coast. There were none 

 of those Christian natives that can be numbered by thousands 

 at Sierra-Leone and elsewhere, who, whatever defects they 

 may have, do possess the qualification of being trustworthy 

 trade-agents among their countrymen. Having carefully 

 examined and compared both Coasts, and making allowance 

 for the fact that perhaps a majority of those on whom 

 English benevolence has been expended have been the 

 lowest of the low — liberated African slaves, — and likewise 

 giving all due weight to the assertions of the traders who 

 have used strong language to express their injured feelings 



2 A 



