ed, that the cultivation of cotton might be advantageously introduced amongst the NEWLY arrived Africans, under certain regulations. But that those Africans WHO HAVE BEEN SOME TIME LOCATED IN THE COLONY, will ever be induced to engage in it to any extent, on their own account, is greatly to be doubted. Generally speaking, their mode of life is formed, and they appear to be satisfied with it. Where such is the case, it will not be found easy to induce laborious habits in pursuit of an object, to which neither their wants nor desires at present stimulate them." (P. 75.) "In fact," say Messrs Savage and Gabiddon (the latter a black man, and a Justice of the Peace,)" such employment" (A FIELD LABOURER!) "is considered degrading; necessity may compel him to undertake it; but that necessity must be strong indeed that will make him continue it for any length of time. The wages of one month will keep him FOR SIX; and variety is the delight of the liberated African, because so different from his former condition." (P. 77.)

Such are the liberated Africans, their industry and their dispositions to wards industry! Such, it is repeated, are the liberated Africans in Sierra Leone, and of the Nova Scotians, and the Marcons; the Commissioners, p. 73, state, "the great majority of them were estranged from agricultural occupations; and it is stated by Messrs Savage and Gabiddon, (the latter himself a Maroon,) (Appendix, C. 26,) that as far as relates to the Nova Scotians and Maroon settlers, AGRI

CULTURE IS AT A LOWER EBB NOW

than it was during the administration of the Company and of Governor Thompson!!"

This is the sum of Sierra Leone agriculture! "In short," say the Commissioners, p. 55, "the results of 18 years' experience, as exemplified in the condition of those liberated Africans, located in Sierra Leone, seem to justify the inference, that either the mode pursued, with the view of improving their condition by AGRICULTURAL PURSUITS, has not been judicious, or that their character and habits are unfavourable to that kind of improvement. However this may be, the RESULTS ARE IN THEM SELVES INCONTROVERTIBLE, and leave little room to hope, that with

out the adoption of more effectual measures, the adult class of negroes will be induced to improve their present condition, which probably appears to them, when compared with the past, a state of considerable enjoyment!"

In Sierra Leone, our failure has been most complete; and I leave it to you, sir, and to my readers, to say, after perusing these facts and these proofs, what can be thought of Mr Kenneth Macaulay, who has had the temerity to come before the British nation and assert, and attempt to prove, the contrary!!

The situation of Sierra Leone, in every point of view, but more especially in an agricultural point of view, has been stated to be the worst that could have been pitched upon on the Western coast of Africa for a British settlement. Let the Commissioners, and even Kenneth Macaulay himself, bear witness in proof of the fact. "Generally speaking," say the Commissioners, p. 5, "the valleys are contracted, and the ravines deep. The mountains are composed chiefly of granite; and the soil, although generally light and inadhesive, derives a transient fertility from the admixture of vegetable matter; but its productive powers are sooN EXHAUSTED. The mountains are clothed to their summits with thick impervious woods and jungle, which shoot up through the interstices of the rocks, and from the scanty soil which is formed by their own decay. When cleared and prepared for the purpose of cultivation, this mountain-soil makes, for ONE SEASON, a satisfactory return; but, having lost, by the process of clearing, the support which had retained it in its place, it is washed away by the rains of the ensuing season, leaving only A ROCKY SURFACE, unfit for the general purposes of agriculture."

"The appearance of the settlement," say the Commissioners, p. 7, " when viewed from the sea, forms a picturesque coup-d'œil; but the inquiring eye SEARCHES IN VAIN for those traces of cultivation, which denote the residence of an agricultural people. The SPONTANEOUS PRODUCTIONS of nature alone present themselves," &c.! In short, the whited sepulchres" of ancient times, are proper images of this fatal spot,-without, "beautiful to

the eye," but within, "full of rottenness, and dead men's bones!!"

Let us now contemplate the picture, as drawn by the equally powerful and experienced pencil used by Mr Kenneth Macaulay, putting his words curiously, but correctly, together. In the high ground we have "granite mountains," and ground which, as soon as it is cleared of the "immense forest trees" which grow upon it, is so washed by the rains as to leave only "a surface, which has the appearance of GRAVEL ;" and, in the low ground, we have, "round Freetown, several small plains of hard indurated claystone, covered with grass, which NO MAN would ever think of cultivating;" and in the more central parts, "a belt of thick forest of considerable depth, BREEDING MIASMA AND FEVER," and which gives to "the immediate vicinity of Freetown AN ASPECT OF DESOLATION!"

Two things were stated regarding the trade of the place; first, that the colony within its bounds did not produce one of the articles which were exported from it; and, secondly, that the whole, or nearly the whole, of the trade of the settlement, was in the hands of one powerful and influential mercantile concern. To come to the proofs.

In reply to inquiries, the collector of the Customs of the place states, say the Commissioners, p. 80; "with refe rence to the queries and answers, Nos. 1 and 7, NONE OF THE ARTICLES EXPORTED TO ENGLAND ARE THE ACTUAL PRODUCE OF THE COLONY, BUT

ARE COLLECTED FROM THE INTERIOR, AND COASTWAYS, and deposited here until they become of sufficient quantity, or until opportunities offer to ship them!!" The timber trade, the most valuable branch, say the Commis sioners, same page, 66 may possibly be considered to have reached its maximum," for, says Mr M'Cormack, who first introduced it, "I do not think the timber denominated African teake, or No. 1, will be procurable in sufficient quantities for more than seven or eight years in this place; from the circumstance of the distance, the natives will have to haul it out of the woods; and, from the state of the country, it is impossible to use carriages of any description; and I do not think the natives would be disposed to make roads, at least at present." "The timber trade," says Mr Williams, p. 80, VOL. XXIII.

"

"could not well be pushed beyond its present state.' Besides, conunues he, in fact, it has become ALMOST A PRIVATE AFFAIR!!"

How, and to whom, it has become a private affair, let the Commissioners, page 81, state: "No PART OF THE

TIMBER EXPORTED IS PRODUCED WITHIN THE LIMITS OF THE COLONY,

and few of the liberated Africans are employed by the trade; but there can be little doubt that advantage is derived by the NATIVES in the vicinity of the rivers, from the occupation which it affords. This is exhibited in the instance of the chief, Dalla Mahommadu, who is principally EMPLOYED in procuring timber for THE HOUSE OF MACAULAY and BABBINGTON, from which he is said to have received about L.500 for less than one half of the last shipping season. The advan tage, however, it is to be feared, is not diffused generally amongst the people to the extent which could be desired. They are USUALLY THE DOMESTIC OR PURCHASED SLAVES OF THE CHIEF FOR WHOM THEY LABOUR, and by whom the profits are either accumula ted, or EXPENDED IN AUGMENTING THE NUMBER OF HIS SLAVES! It may, therefore, be inferred, that no great pecuniary benefit is obtained by the labourers, although their condition is probably ameliorated in other respects!!"

Here we have undeniable proofs of two things, namely, that the timber trade of Sierra Leone is " a private affair"-in the hands of "Messrs Macaulay and Babbington ;" and, notwithstanding the racket which is made in this country about the productions of slave labour being sinful, shameful, and contaminating, especially by members of that concern, still it is seen that the Teake timber trade of Sierra Leone is the production of slave labour, and that its proceeds go to augment the numbers, and increase the purchase of slaves; while that very house and the British Government participate in the trade; for we learn, through the means of a babbling Sierra Leone advocate," Mr FORSTER, NO. 8, New City Chambers, London," that Government receive this Teake timber upon contract, and, consequently, from the house alluded to. This contract is a national document, which will ere long be called for and produced.

L

After having been purchased from the native Princes, this timber is put on board the ships principally by the labour of Kroomen. Of these unhappy people, who yet remain, without a single exception, in their native dark and barbarous state, the Commissioners, p. 17, state-"It has not been the fate of the Kroomen to have much intercourse with the individuals who were likely to bestow much pains upon their moral and religious improvement; ON THE CONTRARY, they have been employed chiefly BY THOSE to whom they have been recommended by THEIR

PHYSICAL CAPACITIES AND DISPOSI

TION FOR LABOUR. It could not, therefore, be expected that much time or attention would be bestowed upon the improvement of their mind by such persons, who, although THEY find it profitable to employ them in preference to others, acknowledge their UTTER WANT of morality and religion !"

How often, I am here compelled to remark, have the West Indian Colonists been reproached, unjustly reproached, and by Mr Z. Macaulay, with considering and estimating their slaves only according to "their physical capacities and disposition to labour," while his agents and his house are really pursuing the same system with the Kroomen!!

The Gold Trade of Sierra Leone is next in importance to the timber trade. Let us see in whose hands it is, and how those hands came to obtain the whole of it.

"The trade in this article," say the Commissioners, p. 79, "is of resent origin, having commenced in 1822; and if the opinion generally entertained by the OTHER MERCHANTS be correct, it is chiefly possessed AT PRESENT BY THE FIRM OF MESSRS MACAULAY AND BABBINGTON; that house must, therefore, be considered most capable of estimating the quantity exported. Mr K. Macaulay computes it to have been to the value of between L.20,000 and L.30,000 during the year 1825," &c. How that house come to be masters of the gold trade, let the merchants of St Mary's, Gambia, through the Commissioners, P. 79, tell. "The merchants of St Mary's" assert, "that in proportion as the gold trade of Sierra Leone has increased, that of Bathurst has DIMINISHED. This circumstance they at、

tribute to an UNDUE INFLUENCE gained by the merchants of the former place, through the medium of the presents dispensed from Sierra Leone by the Colonial Government. Those presents, they say, though designed to induce the Chiefs of the gold districts to favour commerce generally, have had practically the effect of turning to Sierra Leone the gold traders who FORMERLY RESORTED TO THE GAM

BIA. No presents being made from this place, it becomes the interest of the Chiefs to use THEIR AUTHORITY in promoting the trade of the other settlement, from which they derive the greatest advantage; this authority,

IN SOME INSTANCES AMOUNTING TO

FORCE, has, according to the statement of the Gambia merchants, been exerted greatly to their prejudice!"

The sums charged against, and drawn from the British Treasury, and expended in these presents, are, we learn from the Commissioners, p. 86, between the years 1814 and 1825, L.9,945, 15s. 10d. sterling, while the vouchers that were produced could only show L.6,928, 6s. 8d.!! Those large sums were expended in presents to the native Chiefs in the interior, as the Commissioners and merchants of St Mary's very pointedly state, by the Colonial Government, as directed by Mr Kenneth Macaulay; and who, by this" undue influence," drew, not only the gold trade, but the most valuable branches of every other trade, to his house; for, say the Commissioners, p. 83, the merchants there " ascribe the superior success of what they term THEIR FIRST HOUSE, to the possession of more extensive means, as well as to what they consider an UNDUE ADVANTAGE derived by THE AGENT of this house from his seat in the Council. The feeling of jealousy entertained on this account by the other merchants, appears to be NOT

Let all these facts be considered, and say wherein I have misrepresented the situation, or brought one false accusation, or one erroneous charge, against Sierra Leone, or those who assume the control of it. To blacken it is impossible.

That the liberated Africans in the place are compelled to work by the application of the whip, has been stated. I am ready, and offer, to prove the fact. The Commissioners indirectly admit this, when, in page 55, they state, that to make them work,

some mild coercive power seems necessary. But this power should not be, as IN SOME INSTANCES IT APPEARS INEXCUSABLY TO HAVE BEEN, LEFT IN THE HANDS OF PERSONS LIKELY TO ABUSE IT. I hold in my hands a communication from the place, dated the 28th May last, which runs thus: "Those liberated Africans that are obliged to work for the public good, are employed in carrying stones, or bricks, for public buildings; or learning some trade, as masonry, and shingling house-tops, or the like, and require to be kept to their labour by the dread of the whip; even under this discipline, I HAVE SEEN THEM idling when the eye of the whipper-in was turned in another direction. This man of the cord is a black invariably. I have often seen one in the wharf when a vessel was unloading, WITH THE CAT IN HIS HAND, and I have asked him what use he made of it. I received for reply-- Suppose THE SLAVE no work good, you know, I can flog him.' This he said with a savage pleasure, and accompanied the words with a smile, and flourish of his whip! What is this better than slavery? or is it as good treatment as the slaves in the West Indies receive under the present administration !!"

The whip and chain, it is clear, are common in Sierra Leone. "The punishment for minor crimes," say the Commissioners, in page 58, is "hard labour in chains. It is by no means uncommon at Freetown to see thirty or forty culprits CHAINED IN PAIRS, and employed in a desultory kind of labour," &c.; and, says Mr Kenneth

Macaulay, page 59, "I have myself seen a Maroon, a Nova Scotia settler, the son of a native chief, a Grumet ta, a Krooman, and a liberated African, working in the same GANG. They are confined by a chain passing round the MIDDLE; and generally two, sometimes three, but I believe seldom or never more, are fastened to the same chain !"

This country has been surfeited with the boasts about the advantages which the liberated, and other Africans, enjoy under the blessings of English law in Sierra Leone. The whole is a farce. The Commissioners draw aside the veil of delusion. At page 91, they state, "when it is asserted that the English laws are universally in practice," it is to be understood that they are in practice, but modified by the dispensers of them, so as to meet the general circumstances of the colony, and THEIR OWN view of the merits of each particular case!!" That is, men who are totally ignorant of what law is, make it what, and apply it just as, they please! Under such a state of things, the Commissioners justly and forcibly observe, "the law must, for a long time, be so only IN NAME!!"-" A certain control is requisite to prevent their" (the liberated Africans) "return to their former habits. This control is, in fact, at PRESENT EXERCISED; and, although tending eventually to their good, must be quite AT VARIANCE with the spirit of the English law," &c. Thus the Sierra Leone bubble is burst, and thus the truth concerning it comes, piece-meal, as it were, to light!

That such a place could ever do any good, even to degraded Africa, is a dream; and that it has been a fatal one to the interests of Africa, we learn from one decided and incontrovertible fact mentioned by the Commissioners, p. 19, namely, that though their ter ritory almost lines with the gardens of Freetown, still "no instance could be traced of a Timmanee having been CONVERTED TO CHRISTIANITY. This, however, cannot be attributed to any invincible attachment to their present superstitions, as many are said to have become converts to the Mahommedan

faith, which is supposed to be making considerable progress among them." These poor people are to this day the most ignorant and rude of all the tribes of Western Africa, although they have been near 40 years in sight of the light established in Sierra Leone! The ignorance of the liberated African is extreme. "His age, the length of time he has resided in the colony or the village, the quantity of land he has in cultivation, of seed which he sows, of produce which he reaps, or the number of months or weeks which he is employed in its cultivation," are all, say the Commissioners, equally unknown to him. Time he only com putes by accidents or particular events, such as when he built his house, or be gan the cultivation of a certain piece of land, by stating who was his superintendent at the time. Few of them, says Mr Gerber, page 43,"will la bour upon their farms, unless they were by some means FORCED TO DO so!" To reclaim them, we send a set of men about as ignorant of human nature, and as deficient in common sense, as themselves; in consequence of which, we have laboured, and still labour, in vain.

Were it possible to bring together the enormous sums of money which Sierra Leone and its miserable dependencies, together with those which Liberated Africans, in various places, and in various ways, have cost this country, the sum total would fill it with astonishment and indignation. But this can only be done by those who have access to all the details of every public account which has been liquidated by the British Treasury during the last thirty-five years:-nay, so numerous are the charges for these purposes, and so much are they interwoven with the accounts of every department, in every year during the period mentioned, that I doubt if all the clerks in the employ of Government could now draw them forth. Special funds have even been created for this and similar purposes, where the amount, without the details, are only given. Referring to my first letter for a general view of this expenditure, I shall bring before you and the public, from a more narrow research into public records; first, the expenditure of Sierra Leone and its dependencies for the last seven years;

and, secondly, the sums of money which have been paid for the value, for the bounty, and for the mainte nance of captured negroes. It is ne cessary, however, to remark, that the sums paid for the maintenance of these idlers in the West Indies, can not be accurately ascertained from any returns which have yet been pro duced; and therefore the undivided estimates, or sums drawn, are taken as the data to bring out the total amount. Moreover, the details under the heads, the Army, the Ordnance and the Barrack Department, do not particularize Sierra Leone; consequently under these heads, the expenditure is incomplete. What are produced, however, with official and particular references, will I doubt not, astonish you and the country in general.

The forts on the Gold Coast, were, by the advice of the Sierra Leone ad vocates, made dependencies upon that fatal place in 1821. From that year, therefore, let us trace the expenditure, civil, military, and naval, of the prince ly place. The Quarterly Review (good authority) states the expenditure un der the naval head to be нHALF A MILLION annually! The whole of this expenditure is properly charged against Sierra Leone, because the navy sta tioned on the coast of Africa, is alto gether employed in capturing slave ships, and bringing these into that settlement, in order to people and to enrich it. But for this, it is clear that Sierra Leone had long since been abandoned, as the few whites, Maroons, and Kroomen, who remain there, remain only to make money by their dealings with and for the captured negroes. Besides the expensive Slave Commissions in different places, we have had Commissions of Inquiry, such as that to the West Indies, to inquire into the state of the Africans liberated there. Each of these commissions cost this country many thou sands annually-the latter above L.3000, and the former upwards of L.18,000. With these observations I proceed to the details of the expenditure, &c. for the period alluded to; remarking, that brevity compels me to omit the full particulars of the first four years; but they are drawn up from the same careful reference to the Parliamentary Papers for each year, as done with the three last years :