allegiance before the Governor, or, in his absence, before the senior member of Council.

REMOVAL FROM FREE TOWN OF THE SIERRA LEONE COMPANY

In case the Sierra Leone Company moved their headquarters from Free Town to any place within the Colony, the mode of government at Free Town was also to prevail in the new headquarters, and was to consist, as before, of a Mayor's Court and Court of Requests, etc. The Governor and Council for the time being were to continue Justices of the Peace, etc., but the Mayor and Aldermen and Commissioners of the Court of Requests were to be chosen out of the inhabitants of their new headquarters, and the names of all the courts altered to the name of the Company's presidency, or their principal settlements, instead of their original

names.

TEMPORARY LOSS OF HEADQUARTERS NO CRITERION OF DISSOLUTION OR NONCONTINUITY

The temporary loss of headquarters for the time being, by which the proceedings of the courts were interfered with or suspended, afforded no criterion of dissolution or noncontinuity of the corporation or court; the principal seat, so lost, being restored, the nomination and appointment of officers, by the Court of Directors, continued to be valid until such time as others were nominated and appointed, for which there was a provision, as often as such seat for the time being was restored, and at such a time after restoration as was deemed convenient.

The persons so nominated and appointed had ample power, with the same jurisdiction, and enjoyed the same privileges of their respective offices, as though possession of the original settlement had not been lost. In short, there was to be a continuity of privileges, rights, powers, and jurisdiction of officers.

NUMBER OF COUNCILLORS

In the Court of Directors was vested the right of increasing the number of Aldermen to six if they deemed it expedient; and the nomination and appointment of such Aldermen, who were also Councillors, were carried out in the manner and with the same powers, privileges, and advantages as herein before set forth.

RESERVATION TO THE CROWN

To the Crown were reserved the power and right to revoke, alter, vary, rescind, annul, or substitute the powers, authority, privileges, etc., granted by the Charter.

CHAPTER XII.

THE AFRICAN INSTITUTION, 1808-1827

ALTHOUGH it was provided in the Act of Dissolution of the Sierra Leone Company (47 Geo. III. c. 44, 1807) that the dissolution of the Company was to take effect seven years after the passing of the Act, i.e. in 1814, yet the Company saw the expediency of relinquishing its charge and of withdrawing from the Colony as early as possible; and on the 27th July, 1806, a formal surrender was made to Mr. Thomas Ludlam, an agent of the Sierra Leone Company, who, as directed under instructions of His Majesty's Government, continued, in all respects, the administration of the Government of the Colony as though the Company had not relinquished its charge.

The year of the Sierra Leone Company's retirement witnessed the formation of the African Institution, which, if it discharged functions subsidiary to those of the Sierra Leone Company, was not the less effective in its measures for the material improvement of the Colony. It may truly be said that although formally the Sierra Leone Company retired in 1808, the retirement was not real, as its very promoters were the organisers of the African Institution.

The African Institution, then, can be aptly described as legal representative-heir-at-law of the Sierra Leone Company, which stepped into its place armed with an omnipotence and possessed of a vivacity demanded by the times, when, by reason of worry and a prematurely worn-out frame, strength had failed the Sierra Leone Company.

If the Sierra Leone Company was the offspring of the glorious triumphs of humanity over might, as exemplified in the legal decisions of 1688 in the case of Jonathan Strong, and in 1772 in the case of Somerset, the African Institution cannot otherwise be regarded than as an offshoot of those moral victories won by humanitarianism over avarice throughout the long parliamentary struggles that led up to the victory of 1807.

The Sierra Leone Company and the African Institution, then, were not two distinct bodies but were identical; with the same aim and motive, differing only in time, in which respect they present the same analogy as holds between the caterpillar and the butterfly.

The year 1807, as is known, witnessed the passing of the British Act for the abolition of the Slave Trade, which has been truly called the "Magna Charta of Africa." The African Institution was composed, mainly, of the advocates of the abolition, many of whom had formed themselves into a society of that name. Its chief object was to watch the execution of the Act, to excite in the surrounding nations an interest in the subject, to promote, by every means, the diffusion of light and knowledge in regions which had hitherto been kept

in darkness and ignorance by the operation of a system which was at once disgraceful to the Christian name and derogatory to the character of civilised man, to make the Natives of Africa acquainted with the comforts of social order and with the useful mechanical arts, to point out the manner in which they might avail themselves of the natural products of their country, by substituting an innocent for a guilty traffic. This was the object of the African Institution, to carry out which, as early as possible after the passing of the Act, the promoters, whose names will be seen on comparison with those of the Directors of the Sierra Leone Company to be identical, having formed a committee and passed a resolution expressive of their desire to repair the enormous wrongs suffered by the Natives of Africa in their intercourse with Europe, opened correspondence with persons residing in various parts of the coast, but, chiefly, with Governor Ludlam, who was then administering the government in the interregnum between the government of the Sierra Leone Company and that of the African Institution. The gist of this correspondence, in the main, concerned inquiries regarding :

(a) The natural productions of the country;

(6) Agricultural and commercial prospects and facilities; and

(c) The moral, intellectual, and political status of the Natives.

Having, by this correspondence, obtained sufficient knowledge of local matters, the Institution proceeded to lay down rules for guidance, and in