, who was part owner of the Minerva, and had the sole
management of the concerns of her voyage; and I am happy to give him this
public testimony of the many obligations he conferred upon me, while on
this part of the coast, which unceasingly continued until my arrival in
England, by the way of the West Indies.

The countries bounded by the Rio Pongo and the Gambia, are inhabited by the
Nilloes and various tribes, who carry on a considerable trade with that
river, the Rio Noonez, and Rio Grande, and inland to the two latter, is the
powerful nation of the Foolahs, possessing an extensive country, about 200
miles in breadth from north to south, and 400 miles from east to west.
Teembo, the capital of the Foolah king, is about 270 miles inland from the
entrance of the Rio Noonez. The paths for trade and communication with the
interior, from this position, are at the king's pleasure, and he opens and
shuts them by his mandate. The Foolahs are tall, well-limbed, robust and
courageous, grave in their deportment, are well acquainted with commerce,
and travel over an astonishing space of the country. Their religion is a
mixture of Mahomedanism, idolatry, and fetishism. One of their tenets,
which inculcates the destruction of those they term infidels, is peculiarly
friendly to slavery, and as the greater part of their neighbouring tribes
are of that description, they are continually practising every violence,
and, are frequently engaged in wars. When I suggested to a chief of very
considerable intelligence, and one of the Foolah king's head men, whom I
met in the Rio Pongo, the enormity of their injustice to the surrounding
tribes, and how displeasing it was to the God they prayed to, his reply
was, "True, this be bad fashion to Foolah, or Mandingo man, but these
people we make war against never pray to God, nor do we make war with those
who give God Almighty service." While this barbarism exists, and the slave
trade is continued, humanity will have to, bewail the miserable condition
of the African slave. For this, and various other reasons that might be
urged, and considering the position and extensive influence of the Foolah
nation, their king claims a high consideration in a combined scheme of
establishment upon the coast.

So impressed was this chief, of the beneficial advantages to be derived
from agriculture, that he tendered land, cattle, men, &c. to the agents of
the Sierra Leone Company, only requesting from them, in retur