thousands of captured negroes brought to Sierra Leone since the year 1807; how they were disposed of, and where they now are to the best of his knowledge and belief: you may then learn how the benevolent objects of the British nation have been carried into effe t, by those placed in their stations at your recommendation; from whom your representations are derived; and who look to you at t' is moment, for patronage and promotion. "Had the captured negroes, when liberated from their prison ship been suffered to enjoy the blessings of British protection; had vil ges been established, the families unsevered allotted farms, supplie with implements of agriculture, and with seeds and plants to culti ate far their support, the beautiful amphitheatre of hills enclosing Sierra Leone, would have become an asylum of happiness for five thousand souls, who looked to us for relief, and to whom we were bound and pledged to extend it. They would have been a bulwark of protection to the Colony, furnishing a granary of provisions for the inhabitants, and exhibiting the finest African monument of British philanthropy." Dr. Thorpe. P. 23 The Special Report admits (p. 117.) that in Dr. Thorpe's account of the low state of morals at Sierra Leone, "There is doubtless much truth;" but by way of parrying the charge, "doubts whether the example of even Dr. Thorpe was peculiarly calculated to diminish the evil." We leave it to our readers to determine, how far the Institution have either consulted their character, or removed the weight of responsibility from their own shoulders, by this sort of vague insinuation, and recriminating hint against the private character of their accuser. In the Ninth Report, however, the public are informed, "It could hardly have been believed possible, that the wretched creatures drawn up from the holds of slave-ships, and relieved from their fetters, and from the very lowest extremity and degradation of misery, should in the course of a few months become so comfortable, and so useful*; that much appears to have been done for the present comfort and future prosperity of the captured negroes in the island of Sierra Leone, and that they appear now to be as happy and as comfortably situated, and are as likely to rise in the colony, as any cass of persons in itt." Thoughts on the Abolition of the Slave Trade. P. 63. Now it is somewhat extraordinary, that at the very time this Report was given to the public, accounts had reached England, of a meeting being called at Free-town, in consequence of information, that these very captured negroes, had joined the natives "Report IX. p. 60.” +Ibid. p. 62.". in a conspiracy to massacre all the white inhabitants in the settlement. We shall leave it for the Directors in the Tenth Report, to reconcile these two opposite statements. In his Postscript, Dr. Thorpe makes a powerful attack upon what he terms the misrepresentations and delusions of the Ninth Report; in which the state of the recaptured negroes at Sierra Leone, is held out to the public as comfortable and desirable in the extreme. Against Governor Columbine, Governor Maxwell, and Mr. K. Macaulay, as superintendent of these negroes, some very strong charges are preferred. Those against the lat ter were lodged with the Secretary of State, and are as follows. "Charge That the aforesaid Mr. Kenneth Macaulay, in his capacity of superintendent of the captured negroes, did coerce and chastise the said negroes most cruelly; that he allowed them, at one time, to be almost starved, and at other times suffered their hospital to be most shamefully neglected; that he permitted them to stray away from the Colony t, many of them to be kidnapped and inveigled from the Colony, and intrusted them to persons who sold, or placed them in slavery; that he has neglected to make suspected persons, to whom they were intrusted, account for them, or to enforce the penalties against such as had used them ill; that he has even entrusted them to a woman of infamous character, who was known to prostitute them in the Colony; that if he was forced to account for those delivered to his charge, (as he is bound to do,) hundreds would be proved missing; that he not only suffered them to be employed on the Governor's houses and farms, but employed numbers himself on his own farms and plantations, * "Captain Columbine, convinced he could not otherwise dispose of the Ferrean Flour* found in the Slave Vessels he had captured, induced the Superintendent to purchase it for the negroes; and it was served to them for food, even when sour, until they were almost famished: they were obliged, for the preservation of life, to devour morbid offals wherever they could find them, and became so covered with a wretched disease called the Craw-Craws, that existence was protracted misery." +"In Governor Columbine's administration, many captured negroes fled from the Colony, many were taken away, and others hid themselves in the mountains; a public whipping post was erected, and many of these unhappy creatures were unmercifully lashed, for merely seeking subsistence in the streets." "Woodbine, the master of a vessel, to whom some were intrusted, having sold them in the adjacent rivers, returned to the Colony, and was not punished!" "A most wretched food made from Cassado root, for the Slaves." while they were maintained at the King's expense; that he was known to have debauched many of the girls, and to have lived with them in the most profligate state, and that he bartered the public money with Governor Maxwell for the various things wanted in the captured negro department." Dr. Thorpe. P. 9. It is rather extraordinary that no notice of these charges should be taken in the Special Report, but that Mr. K. Macaulay should be quietly deprived of his office, and return again to the Colony as the agent of his relation. "Mr. Kenneth Macaulay was in England for two months after I had laid this charge, with others, against him; I presume if it could have been defended, he and the powerful friends of his relative would have insisted on impartial inquiry, and have prevented the stigma; he was quietly deprived of his appointments, but considered by Mr. Z. Macaulay as most happily qualified to be his Agent at Sierra Leone; since his return to the Colony, he has again crept into office, and his services in collecting materials for the benefit of the Institution, are fortunately continued." Dr. Thorpe. P. 11. To sum up the whole of this investigation, we must observe, that as far as relates to Dr. Thorpe as an individual, he must have had very considerable opportunities, in his high official situation, of acquainting himself thoroughly with the subjects upon which he brings forward his charges; his testimony is, therefore, worthy of considerable attention. As a man of honour, he appears to stand unimpeachable; for excepting the recrimination of general abuse, neither the Special Report, nor. Mr. Macaulay, who seem to lose no opportunity of retaliation, have made out any case against him in this respect; his testimony, therefore, is worthy of considerable credit. His failures arise from violence, both of representation and expression, and from neglecting to render his charges both in manner and in matter, sufficiently tangible and compact. In his latter publication, he writes with the feelings of a persecuted man, for sufficiently persecuted he has been, by the influence of those whose conduct he has dared to arraign. All these circumstances have given his adversaries a considerable advantage in parrying his accusations, and in attacking some flaw in the indictment, rather than in answering the main body of the charge. The style of the Special Report is infinitely more calculated to promote its object. Specious, plausible, and insinuating, it contrives to divert the attention of the reader from the principal charge, which it is often forced to admit, by directing it to some minor error in the proof, into which the impetuosity of Dr. Thorpe too often plunges him. One leading feature, also, in this publication, is that personal and pointed recrimination, which is but a bad proof of innocence, and a worse substitute for justification. There is a sort of cool and deliberate malice against the individual, which does not look well, and which is surely most unworthy of the Directors to sanction. Another point also cannot have escaped the observation of the reader, that in this matter, the Directors of the African Institution, are, in most instances, both party and judge. Certain charges are preferred both against them and their agents, of which they pronounce themselves, with sufficient formality, "not guilty," they themselves being judges upon their own trial. Now this sort of edict may satisfy themselves, but it will not satisfy the public, who will not be inclined to receive assertion for innocence. It is too often, indeed, the case in this controversy, that accusation without evidence on the one hand, is met with contradiction, without proof, on the other; leaving the reader amidst this double battery of assertion and counter-assertion to collect as much truth as he can. But notwithstanding the unsatisfactory state in which many points of the question are still left, much important matter has come to light and we think that Dr. Thorpe deserves much credit for his perseverance, considering the rebuff which he experienced from the Institu tion, in December 1813, when, after having preferred almost all the charges made in his pamphlet, a Committee of the Institution pronounced them, naturally enough, fallacious and unfounded. The controversy is now in the hands of the world at large, who will be enabled to judge from the documents be fore them, from the admissions made in the Special Report, and especially from Dr. Thorpe's answer, how far that Committee consulted their duty to the public, by quashing in so arbitrary a style, the first accusations of Dr. Thorpe. For the Directors of the African Institution, as individuals, with scarcely an exception, we profess the most sincere re spect. They are men of tried honour and humanity, and are incapable of any mean or selfish motive. But considered as a body, and in that character alone they can be judged, we are sorry to confess our opinion, that they must fall considerably in public estimation. They have disappointed the high expecta tions which they have raised; they have not only failed in the fulfilment of their promises, but have endeavoured to conceal that failure from the public; and have been clearly convicted in certain instances, of suppressing truth, and of giving currency to delusive and fallacious statements. They have taken to themselves a fictitious"redit, for much which has been done by others, and for still moreer eh has been left undone by themselves. We would not thichh enough to impute to the many honourable men who comentihis body, a cool and deliberate design of deluding the pub are hey have suffered themselves first to be deceived deceived on their weakest side, and then to be made parties in propagating that deceit. The money also of their subscribers has been lavished in profuse and useless expenditure. Their income is not large, nor indeed should we wish it to be, wher it is exhausted in maintaining power and popularity at home, instead of extending the cause of civilization abroad. We extract the following account from the Ninth Report, of 1,8651. expended in petitioning Parliament in 1814, on the subject of the Slave Trade. "By the following expences incurred by the Committee appointed to carry into effect the Resolutions of a Meeting held at Freemason's Hall to petition Parliament on the subject of the Slave Trade: Advertising and Cost of Newspapers sent to all parts of the kingdom £557 4 1 Porterage, postage, carriage of parcels, stationery, &c. 302 1 10 Clerks and persons in attendance at different taverns to take signatures, &c. Parchments for petitions Committee rooms, and hire of rooms at various ta verns, &c. Pamphlets on the Slave Trade Printers' bills for printing resolutions, general notices, &c. Translating small Tracts on the subject of the Slave Ninth Report." P. 77. £1,865 0 0 The Directors know, and the nation knows, that these petitions neither had nor could have the slightest practical effect. What was done at Congress would have been equally done by the English ministers, had not one of these petitions been presented; nor can the public fail to remember that the quackery and absurdity exhibited in their promotion, were a caricature upon the very cause of humanity. In the Special Report we are told, that the annual income of the Society (exclusive of donations to the amount of 9,8501.) does not reach 4001. Yet we find in the last Report, a resolution of the Governors to erect a monument in Westminster to the late Granville Sharpe. We should agree with the Directors, that there are few men in the present age who better deserve that honour for his unwearied exertions in the cause of Christianity thene Mr. Sharpe. Yet that the money for this purpose should leadinten out of a fund for civilizing Africa, appears to us a nnted traordinary sort of proceeding. d |