In the month of May, 1788, Mr. Granville Sharp sent off a vessel laden with provisions, different materials, and about thirty-nine artificers, to establish a colony at Sierra Leone. This colony, whose principal settlement was afterwards at Free-town, had for its basis principles entirely philanthropic. The colonists were to employ themselves in the cultivation of the lands and the civilization of the Africans, while the slave trade was to be totally renounced amongst them.
The fortune of an individual was of course insufficient for such an undertaking. Mr. Sharp, therefore, in 1790 formed a society of twenty-one persons, which in a few months became still more numerous; and an act of parliament was passed, authorising them to make a company, and to enjoy for thirty-one years the privileges granted to them by the act. Messrs. Thornton and Wilberforce were then the directors, and the members who had most influence over the company. The first regulation which it made, excluded every individual who was interested in the slave trade; and it was not only agreed that they should for ever abandon that traffic, but that there should never be slaves in the colony.
In the month of March, 1791, the company caused 1131 Blacks to be brought from Nova Scotia to Sierra Leone: they were engaged for a certain time, and were to be free when their period of servitude expired. Portions of soil were given to them to cultivate for their own advantage; but it was impossible to keep them to the spots which had been assigned to them. Being influenced by a commercial spirit, and wishing to obtain a portion of the money which the company had imprudently introduced into the colony, these new settlers abandoned their fields, and all came to reside in the chief place, called Free-town.
The subscription was closed on the 1st of June, 1792; and the capital of the company then amounted to the vast sum of 242,899l. sterling. This sum was employed in the following manner:
| The first expences of the establishment amounted to | £82,620 |
| The dead stock, that is to say, the ships, soil, and articles relative to the defence of the colony, to | 24,685 |
| Capital employed in commerce | 27,400 |
| Capital placed at interest in the public funds | 108,194 |
| £242,899 |
These expences, however, greatly exceeded the idea which had been formed by the company; they were occasioned by a concurrence of circumstances which it was impossible to foresee, but which are all properly explained in the different statements that have been published by the directors.
The colonists arrived in the rainy season, which occasioned a general sickness and many deaths. Several of the principal officers were taken ill, and obliged to return to England; and a great many of the subordinate agents fell sacrifices to the additional labour which they in consequence had to perform. It appeared that the air of Free-town, like that of all the positions on the coast, is bad, and even dangerous during the rainy and stormy season; but that it is good and agreeable for the rest of the year.
The cultivation went on slowly, and experienced many difficulties; nevertheless the directors were of opinion that the soil of Africa might be managed by its native inhabitants. They were of this opinion from the apparent success of the plantations, which they had undertaken; but they adhered to their system of making the future progress of such plantations depend on the abolition of the slave trade.
Under the article of civilization, the directors comprised a form of government for the colony: it is founded on the principles of the English constitution. The trial by jury perfectly succeeded; and the Africans appeared to incline to the measures adopted in the colony to introduce Christianity and civil regulations. But the success of the enterprize was a subordinate consideration compared with the grand object, the abolition of the slave trade. Yet to overcome the first difficulties was far more easy, than what they had afterwards to encounter: for they had some severe misfortunes to try their constancy.
On the 27th of November, 1794, a French squadron entered the river of Sierre Leone, and fired on Free-town. The inhabitants conceiving all resistance useless, begged to capitulate, but in vain: the French landed, plundered the houses and magazines, and conducted themselves with extreme rigour. They were encouraged in their excesses by the captains of two American ships employed in the slave trade. It was impossible to check the animosity of Arnaud, the commander of the expedition: he protested that he would burn all the houses belonging to the English; and he kept his word. The books of the company were seized and destroyed, and all the bibles and prayer-books were trampled under foot. The collection of the botanist Afzelius was ravaged; his plants, seeds, birds, insects, drawings, and memoranda were dispersed and spoiled, and his mathematical instruments and machines broken to pieces. Even the church was plundered, and the sacred books consumed; nor did the invaders spare the drugs and medicines for the use of the colony. The loss to the company on this occasion was estimated at 40,000l. sterling.