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
Preface. over, were greatly magnified, were sufficient of themselves to deter others from engaging in such an enterprize; and would (if peace had even continued) have prevented those few, who remained upon the island of Bulama, from receiving any con siderable reinforcement to their numbers, before the pernici ous effects of these exaggerated reports had been considerably- weakened. War however took place; and all hope of suc couring the few who still kept possession of that island was at an end. Thus, without succour or assistance of any kind, after having maintained their position for nearly a year and a half, they were obliged to abandon the island, and the only two white men left, of those who had sailed on the expedi tion, returned to Europe. If it be asked why these Memoranda have so long been kept back, and why they were not before made public—I answer that it never was my intention to make them so t but, if it had, they could not have appeared much earlier ; for, soon after my return to England, I sailed on the ex pedition to the Cape of Good Hope, thence went to India, was afterwards, when in Europe, constantly in the Channel fleet, and latterly in the Mediterranean, from which I did not return till the summer of 1802. So that, for eight years after my return from Bulama, I had scarcely my foot out of a ship, and was very little in Europe; all which time my African papers were left in England. Had it therefore been my intention, it was not in my power to have published earlier than the beginning of 1803. Such intention however 2