264 
THE WESTERN COAST. 
about twelve hundred blacks embarked with the 
greatest alacrity for Sierra Leone, where they ar-* 
rived in March 1792. This accession of numbers 
inspired the colonists with additional energy, and 
induced the Company to exert themselves with re- 
doubled vigour. The Directors increased their ca- 
pital by subscription, in order to support an esta- 
blishment proportional to the extent of their plan % 
they sent out considerable stores, both to supply the 
exigencies of the colony, and to enable their com- 
mercial agent to establish a trade with the Afri- 
cans in the native productions of the country ; they 
adopted active measures for cultivating the most 
profitable tropical produce ; and, in order to disco- 
ver new articles for commerce in the district of 
Sierra Leone and its vicinity, they engaged Mr A. 
Nordenskiold, an able mineralogist, and Mr A. Af- 
zelius, an excellent botanist. The original settle- 
ment of the free blacks was again chosen as the 
most eligible situation for the colonial town, and 
great exertions were made to erect habitable huts- 
before the commencement of the rainy season. But 
the exertions of the colonists, and the precautions 
of the Directors, in sending out frames of houses, 
materials for building, and various stores, were in- 
sufficient to prevent excessive indisposition, which 
occasioned discontent and depression of spirits, sus- 
pended labour and aggravated expence, nearly de- 
cimated the blacks, and carried off almost the half 
