THE WESTERN COAST. 
261 
While Mr Falconbridge was attempting to re* 
trieve the ruinous affairs of the colony, the mem- 
bers of the St George's Bay Association were in- 
corporated by act of Parliament, under the name 
of the Sien-a Leone Company, to continue for the 
space of thirty-one years, from the 1st day of July 
1791. By the act of incorporation, a Court of 
Directors, consisting of thirteen persons, chosen 
by the members from among themselves, every 
year, was to be invested with the management of 
the Company's affairs ; the Company, its agents, 
and servants, were prohibited from engaging in 
the slave-trade, and appropriating, or employing 
slaves in their service ; and his Britannic Majesty 
granted to the Company an exclusive right to the 
lands of Sierra Leone, purchased, or to be pur- 
chased, from the native chiefs. The Directors of 
the Company, conscious of the immediate neces- 
sity of giving a permanent foundation to their es- 
tablishment, dispatched five vessels, without delay, 
to Sierra Leone, to convey stores and articles of 
trade, artificers, soldiers, and a few select English 
settlers, with a council for the government of the 
colony. Considering the stability and security 
which a colony derived from numbers, connected 
by a common interest, and at the same time aware 
of the danger that would necessarily result from 
the intrusion of idle, unprincipled,, or extravagant 
Europeans, impatient of subordination, of despe- 
