re permitted
to pass across the river and commence the laborious task of clearing
away the heavy forest which covered the site of their intended town."[1]
Then the agent returned to effect the removal of the colonists from
Fourah Bay, leaving a very small company as a sort of guard on
Perseverance (or Providence) Island at the mouth of the river. Some
of the colonists refused to leave, remained, and thus became British
subjects. For those who had remained on the island there was trouble at
once. A small vessel, the prize of an English cruiser, bound to Sierra
Leone with thirty liberated Africans, put into the roads for water, and
had the misfortune to part her cable and come ashore. "The natives claim
to a prescriptive right, which interest never fails to enforce to its
fullest extent, to seize and appropriate the wrecks and cargoes of
vessels stranded, under whatever circumstances, on their coast."[2] The
vessel in question drifted to the mainland one mile from the cape, a
small distance below George's town, and the natives proceeded to act in
accordance with tradition. They were fired on by the prize master and
forced to desist, and the captain appealed to the few colonists on the
island for assistance. They brought into play a brass field piece, and
two of the natives were killed and several more wounded. The English
officer, his crew, and the captured Africans escaped, though the small
vessel was lost; but the next day the Deys (the natives), feeling
outraged, made another attack, in the course of which some of them
and one of the colonists were killed. In the course of the operations
moreover, through the carelessness of some of the settlers themselves,
fire was communicated to the storehouse and $3000 worth of property
destroyed, though the powder and some of the provisions were saved. Thus
at the very beginning, by accident though it happened, the shadow of
England fell across the young colony, involving it in difficulties with
the natives. When then Ayres returned with the main crowd of settlers on
January 7, 1822--which arrival was the first real landing of settlers on
what is now Liberian soil--he found that the Deys wished to annul the
agreement previously made and to give back the articles paid. He himself
was seized in the course of a palaver, and he was able to arrive at no
better understanding than that the colonists might remain only until
they could make a new purchase elsewhere. Now appeared on the scene