CHAPTER IV. 
THE WESTERN COAST. 
Sierra Leone. — Bulama, — Captain Beaver, — The Gold CoasU 
— Whidah. — Dahomey, ^Reports of African Institution^ and 
Committee on Africa. 
The first person in England who proposed a 
specific plan for the colonization of Africa, upon 
liberal and philanthropic principles, was Dr H. 
Smeathman, in his letters to Dr Knowles, in 1783, 
who conceived the design during a residence of 
some years in that country. This plan he origin- 
ally designed to submit to the respectable society 
of the Quakers, who, in an hour of real inspiration, 
had first emancipated their slaves in North Ame- 
rica. Before this period, indeed, Dr Fothergill 
had suggested the propriety of cultivating the 
sugar-cane in Africa, where it is indigenous, and 
thrives luxuriantly. In 1784, the Rev. James 
Ramsay published an Essay on the Treatment of 
Slaves in the British Sugar-colonies, which alarm- 
ed the planters so much, that, by maliciously en- 
deavouring to ruin the reputation of the author. 
