with a brief notice of the neighbouring tribes, soil, productions, &c. and some observations on the facility of Colonizing that part of Africa, with a View to Cultivation; and the introduction of letters and religion to its inhabitants: but more particularly as the means of gradually abolishing African Slavery relative to an attempt to establish a British Settlement on the Island of Bulama, on the Western Coast of Africa, in the year 1792
with a brief notice of the neighbouring tribes, soil, productions, &c. and some observations on the facility of Colonizing that part of Africa, with a View to Cultivation; and the introduction of letters and religion to its inhabitants: but more particularly as the means of gradually abolishing African Slavery relative to an attempt to establish a British Settlement on the Island of Bulama, on the Western Coast of Africa, in the year 1792
The following pages will make the reader acquainted with the melancholy, and unfortunate, result of an ill-contrived and badly executed, though well intended, expedition to the coast of Africa, in the year 1792: this expedition was proposed and undertaken by a few gentlemen, -with a view to ascertain whether or not it were practicable to cultivate tropical pro ductions on the coast of Africa, by means of its free natives. The question of the abolition of the slave trade had, at that time, for four or five years, been violently agitated; and some of those, who were advocates for its continuance, boldly asserted that the Africans were incapable of enjoying freedom, or being in any great degree civilized : and it was thought that this expedi tion would decide the injustice of such an opinion. Unfor tunately however, for the Africans, it was so exceedingly ill conducted, that it was totally given up, ere the latter part of that opinion could be put to the proof; though the for mer part of it was unequivocally ascertained to be erroneous. The ill success of this attempt, the report of the numbers killed by the natives, of those who had died from the un healthiness of the climate, and of the mortality which had taken place on board the ship Hankey, all of which, more- a