HISTORICAL. 
31 
died as they passed from the ship to the boat, and, indeed, the work 
of unloading had to be proceeded with so quickly that there was no 
time to separate the dead from the living. 
Not only did the establishment of the Liberated African Depot 
at the Island afford a considerable amount of employment to the 
people, hut it was also the cause of bringing to the place a large 
expenditure of money. Her Majesty’s ships of war, composing the 
British squadron then cruising on the West Coast of Africa for the 
suppression of the slave trade, made it their head-quarters for 
recruiting health, and through this means thousands of pounds were 
annually circulated. This source of profit did not, however, last for 
many years, and while the Islanders were rejoicing in it, they were 
unaware of the disadvantages ultimately arising from it ; viz., the 
introduction of a new race of people, which, after some few years, 
developed into a poverty-stricken, dependent portion of the popula- 
tion. 
After some years the squadron was reduced, the Liberated 
African Establishment abolished, and, in 1874, excepting an occa- 
sional visit from a British gunboat, which appears more by accident 
than by any other means to get to St. Helena, the place, once so gay 
with naval men and ships, now knows them no more. But the 
negroes, which could have been best spared, still remain. 
There was yet another, and even still greater, evil which arose 
out of this Liberated African depot, and that was the introduction of 
the termites or white ants, which were taken into the Island in some 
logs of wood from one of the slave ships, and, creating much havoc in 
the houses and property of Jamestown, ruined many of its inhabi- 
tants. The St. Helenians naturally feel the strong claim they have 
upon Great Britain, their Island home having aided so much in 
building up her commercial greatness and prosperity ; but apart from 
this they very reasonably expect aid from England, because it was 
through her successful efforts to suppress the slave trade on the West 
Coast of Africa that both the aforementioned causes have added so 
greatly to the impoverishment of the place. 
It was on the 8th of October, in this same year, viz., 1840, that 
the French frigate, La Belle Poule, accompanied by the corvette 
Favourite, with his Royal Highness the Prince de Joinville and suite, 
arrived at the Island for the purpose of removing Napoleon’s remains 
to France. The body was exhumed on the 15th, taken from the 
