living on roots,
and berries, and other natural productions of the ground, till they were
joined by other fugitives from the hated slave-dealers. At length,
their numbers increasing, they ventured forth from their cavern, and
began to cultivate the ground and to build themselves houses. They
chose as their chief a liberal-minded, talented man, called Shodeke; and
it is said that at present there are upwards of 80,000 people in their
community. They have built a large town, which they have called
Understone, or, in their own language, Abeokuta, in memory of the cave
under which they first took shelter. Now, if the blockading squadron
had never done more than what I am going to tell you about, they would
have performed a very great and blessed work. Among the thousands of
negroes they have captured and liberated were many hundreds who had been
taken from the Yoruba country, and who were settled at Sierra Leone.
Here many of them had grown rich, and a considerable proportion had been
converted to Christianity. Among them was a man named in their language
Adgai, but called in English Crowther. He had been embarked as a slave
on board of a slaver at Badagry in 1822. That slaver was captured by
one of our cruisers, and taken to Sierra Leone. At that place he was
well educated, was converted, and ordained as a minister of the Gospel.
Now, several of the Yoruba natives I have spoken of, who had become
possessed of property, purchased a vessel, and visited Lagos and Badagry
to trade. At those places they heard of Abeokuta and the stand it had
made against the slave-trade. On their return to Sierra Leone, from the
accounts they gave of the new settlement, a considerable number of their
countrymen resolved to go there. Among the first was Mr Crowther. He
is, I am assured, a man of high intellectual powers, and of eminent
piety. He persuaded other Christian Africans to accompany him. Nearly
the first people he met on arriving at the new city were his mother and
sisters, and they were his first converts. The greater part of the
inhabitants are now Christians, and Mr Crowther is engaged in
translating the Bible into the Yoruba language.

"The King of Dahomey looked with an evil eye on the growing power of
Abeokuta, and led his army to destroy it; but he and his forces were,
however, most signally defeated. On this he instigated the King of
Lagos to attack Abeokuta. That chief has got a hundred war canoes,
fully five