When the Sierra Leone Company was first settled, they endeavored to bring over to their friendship all the petty African princes in their neighborhood. Among others, they applied to a chief of the name of Naimbanna, who was remarkable for a good disposition and an acute understanding. He easily saw that the intention of the company was friendly to Africa, and entered into amity with them.
They spoke to him about the slave trade, and gave him reasons for wishing to have it abolished. He was convinced of its wickedness, and declared that not one of his subjects should ever go into slavery again. By degrees, they began to talk to him about religion, but he was rather wary on that head. It seems he had formed some prejudices against Christianity.
Finding, however, that the Company's factory contained a very good sort of people, and that they lived happily among themselves, he began to think more favorably of their religion; but he was still backward either in receiving it himself, or in making it the religion of his country. He was well convinced of the barbarous state of his own people, on a comparison with Europeans, and he wished for nothing more than a reformation among them, especially in religion.
But as he found there were several kinds (or forms) of religion in the world, he wished to know which was the best before he introduced either of them. To ascertain this point as well as he could, he took the following method: He sent one of his sons into Turkey, among the Mohammedans; a second into Portugal, among the Papists; and the third he recommended to the Sierra Leone Company, desiring they would send him to England, to be there instructed in the religion of that country.
It appears he meant to be directed by the reports of his sons in the choice of a national religion. Of the two former of these young men, we have no particulars, only that one of them became very vicious. The last mentioned, though I believe the eldest, bore his father's name, Naimbanna. The Sierra Leone Company received the charge of him with great pleasure, believing that nothing could have a better effect in promoting their benevolent schemes, than making him a good Christian.
Young Naimbanna was a perfect African in form, and had the features with which the African face is commonly marked. While he was with the Company, he seemed a well-disposed tractable youth; but when opposed, he was impatient, fierce, and subject to violent passion. In the first ship that sailed he was sent to England, where he arrived in the year 1791.
We may imagine with what astonishment he surveyed every object that came before him: but his curiosity, in prudent hands, became, from the first the medium of useful instruction. During his voyage he acquired some knowledge of the English language; and although he could not speak it with any degree of fluency, he could understand much of what he heard spoken, which greatly facilitated his learning it, when he applied to it in a more regular way.
The difficulty of learning to speak and read being in a great degree subdued, he was put upon the grand point for which he was sent to England—that of being instructed in the Christian religion. The gentlemen to whose care he had been recommended, alternately took him under their protection; and each gave up his whole time to him, faithfully discharging the trust which he had voluntarily, and without any emolument, undertaken.
Naimbanna was first made acquainted with the value of the Bible; the most material parts of the Old Testament, as well as the New, were explained to him. The great necessity of a Saviour, for the sinfulness of man, was pointed out; the end and design of Christianity, its doctrines, its precepts, and its sanctions, were all made intelligible to him. With a clearness of understanding which astonished those who took the care of instructing him, he made those divine truths familiar to his mind. He received the Gospel with joy, and carried it home to his heart as the means of happiness both in this world and the next.