THE SIERRA LEONE COMPANY INCORPORATED

In 1791 the St. George's Bay Company was incorporated by an Act of Parliament under the title of "The Sierra Leone Company." Immediately after the incorporation, the Society proceeded to the election of officers and members; and there figured in the list of Directors such names as William Wilberforce, Thomas Clarkson, Granville Sharp, and Mr. Thornton. To carry out their project, a capital of £230,000 was raised, and schemes for augmenting the number of Settlers in the Colony were formulating, when, by a fortuitous circumstance, in the same year, 1791, a Negro, Thomas Peters by name, arrived in England from Nova Scotia, as a deputation from his countrymen then living there, who had been sent thither in 1783. Peters was sent on an embassy to the people of England to represent to them their situation.

My people have sent me to inform you, sirs," he said, "that the climate of Nova Scotia has been unfavourable to them. The grants of land, contrary to promise, have been withheld from them, and we cannot live any longer there. We wish to go to the new Settlement at Sierra Leone."

LIEUTENANT JOHN CLARKSON, R. N.

The Directors lost no time in availing themselves of this opportunity, and, having obtained the aid of the British Government, which promised to defray the transport expense of the free Blacks from Nova Scotia, engaged the services of Lieutenant John Clarkson, brother of the philanthropist, Mr. Thomas

Clarkson; he, on the 19th August, set sail for Nova Scotia.

EMBARKATION OF SECOND BATCH OF SETTLERS, 1792

On reaching the island, Lieutenant John Clarkson found that not less than 1,196 persons, consisting of members of various families, were ready to leave for Sierra Leone, all of whom embarked in a fleet of sixteen ships under Lieutenant Clarkson's command.

Meanwhile, the Directors of the Sierra Leone Company, in anticipation of the dearth they conceived might follow from an abnormal disproportion between demand and supply of foodstuff in the Colony, manned three ships deeply laden with provisions, the earliest of which arrived in the Colony in February, 1792, and the rest a few weeks in advance of the Nova Scotian fleet.

ARRIVAL IN SIERRA LEONE

The fleet arrived early on March 16th, 1792, but when they arrived, many of the colonists-sixty-five in number-had died on the voyage.

Of the rest many were ill and sickly, too sickly to be able to clear up roads and lay the site of their future homes. General mortality, moreover, had set in, which reduced their number considerably, and deprived them of most of their leading and medical men. There was a handful of them, however, hale and hearty, who, with the active assistance of Lieutenant Clarkson, succeeded in settling the foundation of their new town, to which the name of Free Town (improperly written Freetown)

was given in accordance with the instructions of the Directors.

EARLIEST OCCUPATION OF THE COLONISTS

As it was the desire of the Sierra Leone Company that the colonists should labour at the soil on their own account, lands were divided amongst them, by families, at the very outset ; but most of them, being indisposed to agricultural pursuits, neglected the soil, subsisting only upon what little they could otherwise earn, and thus left their lands uncultivated. The Company itself established a plantation of its own for the purpose simply of supplying the Colony with seeds and plants, and teaching the science and art of agriculture. For this purpose the services of a qualified botanist, Mr. Afzelius, were secured for two years, and matters were progressing before the French invasion broke in upon them.

COMMERCIAL PROSPECTS.

Meanwhile, the Governor had despatched two of the Company's servants on an expedition to the interior, some 300 miles inland, who made Timbu, the capital of the industrious Foula nation, their destination. The object of this expedition was attained, and, as a result, a deputation of chiefs from the Futa District waited on the Governor to open up trade communications with the Colony as early as 1794. Timbu at that time numbered about 8,000 inhabitants, and the people were described as being far more civilised than the people on the coast-line. There were regular Mohammedan

schools, and the children were taught to read and write Arabic.

It was about this time that the Company established factories at the Rio Pongo, as being a great highway to Futa Jalo; but partly from insecurity of life and property, partly from diminished funds, partly from other causes, the commercial prospects of the Company became clouded and that station was abandoned.

PROGRESS OF THE COLONY

The progress of the Colony, in 1794, before the French invasion, cannot be better described than in the words of an eye-witness-Mr. A. Afzelius-in a letter to Baron Silverhjelm, secretary to the Swedish Ambassador in London, dated May 11th, 1794.

"I thrive now much better at Sierra Leone than I did before. Indeed, not only myself but the whole Colony begins now to flourish under our sensible leaders. Its advancement, during my absence, is astonishing. We have now a regular town of at least 200 houses, some of them very decent, but, as yet, the streets are somewhat obstructed by the roots of trees. The land is cleared of wood for several miles around the town, and in many places cultivated, which has rendered the climate so salubrious that, at this moment, there is not one sick in the whole Colony, consisting of 1,400 persons, and the deaths during my absence did not amount to twenty. The fame of the Colony begins now to spread throughout Africa, and we had lately an embassy from the Powerful Nation of the Foulas, whose king reigns over several millions of subjects and whose land flows with milk and honey."

CHAPTER II.

A FRENCH INVASION

BUT the colonists were just then entering upon new difficulties. Apart from those of famine and climate, a third enemy put in an appearance-a conflagration that broke out on board the Company's storeship— this reduced the ship to ashes. They had scarcely got over their murmurings when, in 1794, they were attacked by a French squadron. It was early on a September Sunday morning of that year when the booming of guns was mistaken for the signals for the long-expected Harpy, one of the Company's storeships; but their hopes were soon turned into anxiety and self-resignation to a fate inevitable, as they beheld the French ships, one by one, entering the harbour by Cape King Tom, firing as they entered. Shell after shell fell to the ground and exploded. As soon as the colonists discovered the evil intent of the invaders, they betook themselves in the direction of Pa Demba's farm, and left the enemy to satisfy themselves with the destruction of the objects of their social improvements that had been to them an eyesore. What reparation the "envious ivy" has been compelled to make for this wanton de