Volltext Seite (XML)
246 African Memoranda. 1793. Fine weather. At six P. M. anchored the Felicity in this har- Monday, hour. The Perseverance returned last night, with fowls only. July 22. as b e f ore< Tuesday, Employed cutting pales and inclosing. Received from the Felicity ten barrels of pork and a box of shoes. Sick, Hood, Hayles, Williams, Bennet, Watson, Hodgekinson, and Ashworth. Arrived a canoe from Bissao, and- in her came a Mr. Ginioux, a merchant of that place, with a view, I believe, to purchase things from the Felicity. Wednes. "Weather variable. Employment and sick as before. Wrote 24th ' to the trustees. Although no earthly consideration would have induced me to have placed myself in my present situation, could I have foreseen, on our leaving England, that we were so near a war, or even that there was a distant probability of one ; yet being here, I cannot leave it. Had, I say, war been foreseen, I had never been here : and although I have every thing to ex pect—promotion—wealth—honour—by immediately joining my profession ; nay, though by the condition of my leave of absence by the Admiralty, I am obliged so to do within six months after being so required by the Gazette, which time is now elapsed, yet I cannot do it.* How can I go ? If I take every body with me I abandon the colony when there is no necessity for so doing ; I deceive those who placed themselves under my care ; I betray the subscribers at home ; I betray the interests of humanity. expressing a confidence in obtaining a charter, a promise to send out more settlers in about two months, an exhortation not to leave the island, an approbation of our con duct, and an opinion that the war would not last beyond the current year. See Ap pendix, No. 13. * My half-pay was consequently stopped, not for the time that I was in Africa only* but for the six months preceding, which I have never since received.