Jimmy' by the crew of an English vessel, who burnt
his town. The people dispersed, and were collected from the bush with some
difficulty by Mr. Falconbridge. This official was sent out from England
early in 1791, and his wife wrote the book. In the same year (1791) St.
George's Bay Company was incorporated under Act 31 Geo. III. c. 55 as the
'Sierra Leone Company.' Amongst the body of ninety-nine proprietors the
foremost names are Granville Sharp, William Wilberforce, William Ludlam,
and Sir Richard Carr Glynn. They spent 111,500_l_. in establishing and
developing the settlement during the first ten and a half years of its
existence; and the directors organised a system of government, closely
resembling the British constitution, under Lieutenant Clarkson, R.N.

Next year the second batch of colonists came upon the stage. The negroes
who had remained loyal to England, and had been settled by the Government
in Nova Scotia, found the bleak land utterly unsuitable, and sent home a
delegate to pray that they might be restored to Africa. The directors
obtained free passage in sixteen ships for 100 white men and 1,831
negroes. Led by Lieutenant Clarkson, they landed upon the Lioness range in
March (1792), after losing sixty of their number.

Bred upon maize and rice, bread and milk, the new comers sickened on
cassava and ground-nuts. They had no frame-houses, and the rains set in
early, about mid-May, before they had found shelter. The whites were
attacked with climate-fever, which did not respect even the doctors.
Quarrels and insubordination resulted, and 800 of the little band were
soon carried to the grave. Then a famine broke out. A ship from England,
freighted with stores, provisions, and frame-houses, was driven back by a
storm. Forty-five acres had been promised to each settler-family; it was
found necessary to diminish the number to four, and the denseness of the
bush rendered even those four unmanageable. Disgusted with Granville Town,
the new comers transferred themselves to the present site of Freetown, the
northern _Libreville_.

The Company offered annual premiums to encourage the building of
farm-houses, stock-rearing, and growing provisions and exportable produce.
Under Dr. Afzelius, afterwards Professor at Upsal, who first studied the
natural history of the peninsula, they established an experimental garden
and model farm. An English gardener was also employed to naturalise the
large collection of valuable pl