Ordered, That Mr. Stuart Wortley, Mr. Evans, Mr. Wilson Patten, Mr. Aldam, Mr. William Hamilton, and Mr. Metcalfe, be added to the Committee.
REPORT.
The SELECT COMMITTEE appointed to Inquire into the State of the British Possessions on the West Coast of Africa, more especially with reference to their present Relations with the neighbouring Native Tribes, and who were empowered to Report their Observations, together with the Minutes of Evidence taken before them, to The House;——Have considered the Matters to them referred, and have agreed to the following REPORT:
YOUR COMMITTEE, previous to reporting the result of their Inquiries into the subject which has been submitted to them by Your Honourable House, think it desirable to state the circumstances which led to their appointment. In the course of the Year 1839 information was communicated to the Marquis of Normanby, then Secretary of State for the Colonies, that a Spanish Slaver, the Dos Amigos, had, a short time previous to seizure, been allowed to trade freely at Cape Coast, a British Settlement on the Gold Coast, and had been supplied there by a British Merchant, a Magistrate, with some of the Goods, not Equipments, requisite for carrying on her unlawful Traffic. This information led to further inquiry, in the course of which it appeared that such practices were not unusual, and that Captain Maclean, the Governor, appointed by the Committee of Merchants in London, on whom the charge of the Settlements of the Gold Coast had been devolved by Parliament, in the Year 1828, did not consider himself entitled to interfere with the Traffic of any Vessel of a friendly Nation, whatever her purpose, coming to purchase Goods, in themselves lawful, within the waters of a British Settlement. In consequence of this information, Lord John Russell, then Secretary of State for the Colonies, concurring with his predecessor, gave strong Instructions for the discontinuance of this practice, and for the punishment of it as illegal, expressed his opinion that it was desirable the Government of these Settlements should be resumed by the Crown, and instructed Dr. Madden, a gentleman who had formerly been employed as a Stipendiary Magistrate in the West Indies, and subsequently in the Mixed Commission at Havana, to proceed as Commissioner to the Gold Coast, and the other British Settlements on the West Coast of Africa, for the purpose of investigating these and other matters connected with the administration and condition of these Settlements. He was at the same time instructed to inquire into, and report upon, the Prospects of Emigration from Sierra Leone to the British West India Colonies.
The Reports which were the result of this gentleman’s inquiries, involving materially the interests of Humanity and of Commerce, and impeaching gravely the character of individuals engaged in the British Trade with Africa, in a manner which seemed to call for further investigation before any conclusion could be fairly come to upon the questions at issue, have been laid before Your Committee, have in fact formed the basis of their proceedings, and are published with this Report; but in publishing them, Your Committee beg to state, that while they do full justice to the value of much of the information contained in them, and to the zeal and diligence of Dr. Madden, they do not concur in all his conclusions, or intend to warrant the accuracy of his statements. His inquiries were conducted over a vast surface of Coast in a short period, and under circumstances of considerable interruption from health disordered by the climate, and in many instances he apparently found himself compelled to take his information from third parties, the accuracy of whose statements and the correctness of whose opinions he had not the opportunity of testing.
In many of his recommendations they concur; on some, and those of no slight importance, they have come to an opposite opinion; but thinking it would be more convenient that they should give their own conclusions upon the whole subject submitted to them in a consecutive form, rather than in the shape of a commentary upon his Reports, they beg to submit the following statement and recommendations to The House, as the conclusions at which they have themselves arrived.
GOLD COAST.
In the first place, then, we recommend that the Government of the British Forts upon the Gold Coast be resumed by the Crown, and that all dependance on the Government of Sierra Leone should cease.
We fully admit the merits of that Administration, whether we look to the Officer employed, Captain Maclean, or to the Committee under whom he has acted, which, with the miserable pittance of between 3,500l. and 4,000l. a year, has exercised, from the four ill-provided Forts of Dixcove, Cape Coast, Annamaboe, and British Accra, manned by a few ill-paid black soldiers, a very wholesome influence over a Coast not much less than 150 miles in extent, and to a considerable distance inland; preventing within that range external Slave Trade, maintaining Peace and Security, and exercising a useful though irregular Jurisdiction, among the neighbouring Tribes, and much mitigating and in some cases extinguishing some of the most atrocious practices which had prevailed among them unchecked before. We would give full weight to the doubts which Captain Maclean entertained as to his authority, until specifically so instructed, to prevent vessels, suspected of being intended for the Slave Trade, but not having Slaves on board, from trafficking in lawful goods within his jurisdiction; and we do not infer from that circumstance, that the Government of these Forts had any partiality for an abominable Traffic, which, on the contrary, they have done much to check; but we think it desirable, for the sake of enlarging the sphere of usefulness of these Settlements, and of giving greater confidence in the character and impartiality of their Government, that it should be rendered completely independent of all connexion with Commerce, by a direct emanation of authority from the Crown, and that it should be placed, with increased resources, in direct and immediate communication with the general Government of the Empire.