ants from the East and West Indies and the
South Sea Islands supplied by Kew. The Nova Scotians, however, like true
slaves, considered agriculture servile and degrading work--a prejudice
which, as will be seen, prevails to this day not only in the colony, but
throughout the length and breadth of the Dark Continent.

Meanwhile war had broken out between England and France, causing the
frequent detention of vessels; and a store-ship in the harbour caught
fire, the precursor of a worse misfortune. On a Sunday morning, 1794, as
the unfortunates were looking out for the Company's craft (the _Harpy_), a
French man-of-war sailed into the roadstead, pillaged the 'church and the
apothecary's shop,' and burnt boats as well as town. The assailant then
wasted Granville, sailed up to Bance Island, and finally captured two
vessels, besides the long-expected _Harpy_. Having thus left his mark, he
disappeared, after granting, at the Governor's urgent request, two or
three weeks' provision for the whites. Famine followed, with sickness in
its train, and the neighbouring slave-dealers added all they could to the
sufferings of the settlement.

In the same year Zachary Macaulay, father of Lord Macaulay, became
Governor for the first time. The Company also made its earliest effort to
open up trade with the interior by a mission, and two of their servants
penetrated 300 miles inland to Timbo, capital of that part of Pulo-land. A
deputation of chiefs presently visited the settlement to propose terms;
but the futility of the negro settler was a complete obstacle to the
development of the internal commerce, the main object for which the
Company was formed. Yet the colony prospered; in 1798 Freetown numbered,
besides public buildings, about 300 houses.

In 1800 the Sierra Leone Company obtained a Charter of Justice from the
Crown, authorising the directors to appoint a Governor and Council, and to
make laws not repugnant to those of England. During the same year the
settlers, roused to wrath by a small ground-rent imposed upon their farms,
rose in rebellion. This movement was put down by introducing a third
element of 530 Maroons, who arrived in October. They were untamable
Coromanti (Gold Coast) negroes who boasted that among blacks they were
what the English are among whites, able to fight and thrash all other
tribes. They had escaped from their Spanish masters when the British
conquered Jamaica in 1655; they took to the mountains, and, joine