266 
THE WESTERN COAST. 
emerging from its original obscurity, began to at- 
tract the notice of all the chiefs on the western 
coast of Africa, and to receive ambassadors from 
nations situated at a great distance in the interior 
parts of the country, when its prosperity was in- 
terrupted by a deplorable reverse of fortune. On 
the 28 th of September 1794, a French squadron 
suddenly appeared in the river, instigated with the 
hopes of obtaining an immense booty, by an Ame- 
rican slave-captain, who imagined that he had been 
affronted by the governor ; and, as the colony had 
been lulled into a fatal security by the declaration 
of the French convention, they plundered and de- 
stroyed the colonial town without meeting with any 
resistance. By this attack, the funds of the Com- 
pany sustained an enormous loss, and the colony was 
again plunged into that calamitous situation, which 
the deficiency of provisions and the want of pro- 
per shelter had occasioned ; but harmony was ef- 
fectually restored among the colonists, and, by the 
exertions of the Company, their affairs were soon 
retrieved from these complicated disasters. The 
French squadron, which consisted chiefly of pri- 
vateers, and had been fitted out against the English 
slave-factories on the coast, by interrupting the 
traffic in slaves, increased the influence of the co- 
lony, and promoted its commercial views. 
Soon after the restoration of the colony, in Au- 
gust 1792, Mr Nordenskiold the mineralogist, 
who had been emaciated with sickness before he 
