means of that Colony have really been made, they have not been unsuccessful.

It is not the intention of your Committee to enter on a full explanation of the original plan of the Sierra Leone Company, of the unforeseen and calamitous events which opposed its successful execution, of the objects which have nevertheless been attained by it, or of the circumstances which have lately induced the Company to surrender to his Majesty the territory which they had acquired and settled, together with the public property and civil authorities which they possessed: Full satisfaction on all these points may be obtained from the printed Reports of the Company, and other public documents.

But your Committee will venture to affirm, that whatever disappointment the Proprietors of the Sierra Leone Company may have experienced, there is nothing in the history of that Company of a kind to dis

courage the efforts of the African Institution. If commercial gains were expected by any

of the Proprietors, their object has certainly been lost: even the capital itself has been sunk without having yielded any interest to the subscribers. But these losses have not been incurred through an attempt to civilize Africa by means like those which this Institution proposes to employ.-It is no part of our plan to purchase territory in Africa, to found a colony, or even to carry

on commerce.

Neither has the bad success of this Company arisen from any causes which evince an intractability in the African character, or any other fixed obstacle to our designs. It is sufficiently accounted for by the failure of those just expectations which led to its formation. This Company was instituted in 1791, when the Abolition of the Slave Trade, now at length happily accomplished, was not without reason regarded as an event near at

hand. The Company calculated on being delivered from the rivalship of that traffic, almost as soon as a beneficial substitute for it could be offered to Africa: instead of which, that bane of industry and innocent commerce was permitted to outlive their means of competition with it. They even in vain solicited Parliament to banish it from that almost depopulated region of Africa, in which their settlement was formed. English Slave traders were permitted to the last ta frequent the same coast, to trade even in the river of Sierra Leone, and by their offers of European goods, which they furnish upon credit, to preserve their connection and influence with the neighbouring chiefs. Those unfortunate Africans were therefore easily diverted from improvements, to which the Sierra Leone Company would have led them; and they were at length even persuaded to regard with jealousy and ill-will the benevolent strangers whom they at first received with favor.

The unprecedented political events which soon followed the establishment of the Company might also alone account for its ill fortune. No one could have foreseen in 1791 that a maritime war would so soon have enlarged the expences, and checked the growth of the infant colony; much less that it would, like the Slave Trade, have continued its ruinous opposition during fourteen years.* Sierra Leone, be it remembered, was exposed to all the calamities and disadvantages of war, during the whole term of its occupation by the Company, except for an interval too short to afford any experience of its capacities in time of peace.

It ought not however to be dissembled that in the original design itself there was much improvidence, and such as even under

* It will be remembered that in May, 1792, Mr. PITT declared, that though it was impossible to speak with certainty on such a subject, there perhaps had never been a period in the history of this country when we might look with more confidence to the conti Auance of peace.

less inauspicious circumstances might have defeated its object.

In attempting to found a new Colony, which, if successful, was to give to this country great commercial advantages, the Company took upon itself the whole charge of the civil government, of the public works, and of the military defence of the settlement. At the same time no part of the possible profits was secured exclusively to itself. If the richest channels of commerce had been eventually opened at Sierra Leone, every one of his Majesty's subjects would have had the same right to trade there as the Company or its members. No monopoly, no commercial privilege, was obtained or asked.

In the case that has arisen, the want of such a consideration for the liberal undertaking of the Company, may have been of little importance to its interests: but that undertaking was without any precedent in modern times, and its singular liberality