LETTER VII

LETTER VII.

FREE TOWN, SIERRA LEONA, 10th April, 1792.

Dear Madam,

Here I am once more exposed to the influence of a Torrid Sun, near three thousand miles apart from my dearest friends, experiencing not only the inevitable hardships of Colonization, but wallowing in a multiplicity of trouble and confusion very unnecessarily attached to an infant Colony.

We sailed from Falmouth the 19th of December and arrived at this place the 16th of February, when we found the Harpy, [captained by] Wilson, a Company ship that left England some time after us; but our voyage was prolonged in consequence of being obliged to stop at Teneriffe¹ for a few pipes² of Wine.

Anna Maria debates at some length whether to provide more details of the voyage from England, but decides against it, for events have been too distressing to put into words. When they called at Teneriffe in the Canary Islands, Alexander Falconbridge was enchanted with the local wine and imbibed so much of it that he was falling-down drunk when it came time to return to the Amy. Watching him carried on board, Anna Maria had been embarrassed almost to tears. The memory was too painful to bear reference.

Immediately on entering the river we were visited by Captain Wilson, and after the customary civilities, he told us [that] several Colonial Officers, a few Soldiers, and some independent Settlers came passengers with him, who were greatly rejoiced at seeing the Amy; for being all strangers, they were at a loss what to do and wholly relied on Falconbridge to make good their landing. [The 85 junior English officers and artisans who were to supervise and build the settlement arrived in Sierra Leone before Lieutenant Clarkson and his 1,200 Nova Scotian immigrants.]

In the course of conversation many sentences escaped Captain Wilson importing a very unfavourable account of his passengers, but imagining they proceeded from some misunderstanding between them and him, neither Falconbridge or myself allowed what he said to bias or prejudice us in any shape.

Neither Anna Maria nor Alexander Falconbridge know quite what to make of Captain Wilson. He is gruff, opinionated, and out-spoken, making a poor first impression. Not wanting to find fault with the first Company employee they meet, they both reserve judgment. Besides, Captain Wilson has brought his wife with him, and Alexander thinks that female companionship may soften the sharp tongue Anna Maria has directed at him ever since they left the Canary Islands.

Captain Wilson having directed the most eligible spot for us to bring up, waited until our anchor was gone and then returned to his ship. Falconbridge accompanied him to make his obeisance to the Ladies and Gentlemen on board. In a short time he confirmed our surmise with regard to disagreements subsisting between the parties was well grounded, for they were constantly snarling at each other; but it required very little penetration to arrive at the true source of their animosities, and before I proceed further I must acquaint you, the Directors have appointed eight persons to represent them and conduct the management of their Colony under the dignified appellation of Superintendant and Council.

Anna Maria is writing a travel book. She feels it inappropriate to name any of these officials except for the governors. She occasionally uses the first initial of their last names.

It is a pity when making those appointments, they had not probed for characters of worth and respectability, as success in any enterprise greatly hinges on skilful, prudent conduct; qualities more especially requisite in an undertaking like this, laboring under a load of enemies, who will no doubt take advantage to blow the smallest spark of mal-conduct into a flame of error.

Perhaps the Directors imagine they were particularly circumspect in their choice of representatives; if so, they are grossly deceived, for never were characters worse adapted to manage any purpose of magnitude than some whom they have nominated. Are men of little worth and much insignificance fit to be guardians and stewards of the immense property required for erecting the fabric of a new Colony?³ Are Men whose heads are too shallow to support a little vicissitude and unexpected immaginary [sic] aggrandizement, whose weak minds delude them with wrong notions of their nominal rank, and whose whole time is occupied with contemplating their fancied consequence in place of attending to the real and interesting designs of their mission, calculated for the executors of a theory, which can only be put in practice by wise and judicious method?

Certainly not; yet of this description are the greater part who guide and direct our Colony; a majority of whom came passengers in the Harpy, and who, intoxicated with false ideas of their authority, wished to assume the prerogative of controuling [sic] Captain Wilson in managing and governing his ship. But the latter treated their arrogance with contempt and consequently grew the dissentions alluded to, which have since been the cause of many disagreeable unpleasant occurrences.

These strong opinions must have been developed over time. Anna Maria could not have sized up the Sierra Leone Company officials so speedily. She comes to these conclusions over a period of some months, but as she prepares her manuscript for the printer, this seems the appropriate place to insert them.

Falconbridge soon returned with Captain and Mrs. Wilson, whom we had invited to dine with us; four Honorable Members of the Council, dressed cap-a-pie⁴ in a uniform given them by the Directors to distinguish their rank, came with them to make their bows to your humble servant, as the wife of their superior, Falconbridge being the eldest member of this supreme body.

Falconbridge was appointed one of eight councilors who were to govern Freetown and is thus the highest ranking official present. Anna Maria enjoys the homage of the four councillors who come to dinner, but thinks their uniforms are ridiculous. Wool jackets with gold braid and epaulettes, swords, and fancy hats in this climate! What are they thinking of?

A message was then sent to King Jemmy (opposite to whose town the Amy lay) to announce our arrival to him and King Naimbana (who was there at the time), requesting they would come on board. Naimbana, accompanied by Mr. Elliotte and a number of attendants, soon complied with our request, but Jemmy would not be prevailed upon.

The old King was overjoyed at seeing me. Being seated, Falconbridge shewed him the portrait of his son (the first of his family transferred on canvas), a present from the directors. The picture is an admirable likeness, and the poor Father burst into tears when he saw it.⁵ He stayed with us five days; and notwithstanding every courteous art was used to persuade King Jemmy to honour us with a visit, we could not effect it. He once consented on condition I remained in his town a hostage till he returned; this I agreed to and went on shore for the intention; but his people dissuaded him just as he was going off.

You may remember I mentioned in a former letter the ground where the first settlers were driven from by King Jemmy being the most desirable situation hereabouts for a settlement, but by the Palaver it was objected to. However, with coaxing and the powerful irresistability of presents, King Naimbana was prevailed upon to remove whatever objections there were, and on the 28th of February, put us in quiet possession of the very spot which is named Free Town, from the principles that gave rise to the establishment. (It is situated on a rising ground, fronting the sea; six miles above Cape Sierra Leone, and eighteen from Bance island; seperated from King Jemmy's town by a rivulet and thick wood near half a mile through. Before the Town is pretty good anchorage for shipping, but the landing places are generally bad in consequence of the shore being bound with iron rocks and an ugly surge most commonly breaking on them.)

White men had been stopping on that shore by the Sierra Leone estuary for two centuries or more before Freetown was founded and had slashed away the jungle that was in their way with reckless abandon. Those who stayed there to trade cleared ground to live on and felled trees to build shelters. When the freed salves from the American colonies arrive, they find the site they chose long since denuded of virgin growth, and they set about ruthlessly and systematically slashing away the secondary growth which mars their vision of neat rows of houses, each nestled in its flourishing garden.

When their clearing finally reaches the fringe of the untouched jungle, the axes and machetes are wielded with renewed vigor as the relentless drive to provide each settler with his promised twenty acres of land goes forward. Actually the area on the south side of the high ridge would be far more suitable for farms than the narrow slopes along the harbor chosen for Granville Town and Freetown, but the Company has no way of protecting settlers at such a remove from the indigenous Africans who live in tiny hidden villages tucked into the jungle. The steady effort to clear farm land laid bare the narrow plain at the base of the mountains to the scour of unchecked torrents rushing down from the heights above. Children who fall into the ditches along the lanes will be swept down into the sea and drowned.

The second day after our arrival there was a grand council held on board the Amy, when their secretary delivered Mr. Falconbridge new instructions from the Directors directly counter to those he received in London; subjecting him in his commercial capacity to the control of the Superintendant and Council, and acquainting him [that] Lieutenant Clarkson was appointed Superintendant. This has disconcerted Falconbridge vastly and inclines him to construe their conduct to us in England as juggle and chicane for the mere purpose of enticing him here, knowing he was the fittest, nay only person, to secure a footing for the Nova Scotia emigrans [sic]; but I cannot think so harshly.

Anna Maria does not feel compelled to explain who the Nova Scotia emigrants are, for this is a travel book. Her reader must look elsewhere to learn that 3,000 black loyalists, most of them slaves freed by the British for service during the American Revolution, were evacuated from New York to Nova Scotia in 1783. They expected to receive land grants and become prosperous farmers, but few of them were given land, and those who did receive their grants found the land rocky, swampy, and stingy of garden produce. Impoverished, they suffered for eight years in the harsh climate and scrounged for a livelihood. One of their number, Thomas Peters, went to London in 1790 to seek redress for his fellows, at the time the Sierra Leone Company was being formed. Thomas Peters was introduced to the English abolitionists and the directors of the Sierra Leone Company, who took up his cause. The British government agreed to pay transport costs for any blacks in Nova Scotia who wanted to go to Sierra Leone. Lieutenant John Clarkson was sent to Halifax to recruit settlers and signed up 1,200 so quickly that he had to stop recruiting to find transport for all of them. They sailed from Halifax in January 1792.⁶

John Clarkson expects to find an English governor awaiting him in Sierra Leone, directing the beginnings of an organized colony. He is astonished when a group of councillors dressed in cockaded hats and gold-braided, epauletted waistcoats row out to meet him. Although the company directors have reluctantly sanctioned the wearing of these conspicuous uniforms by their officials, the inappropriate garb is the first hint to Clarkson of where their priorities lay. They tell him, again to his surprise, that the directors have decided that he himself should step into the superintendent’s position on his arrival.⁷

After being here a fortnight, Mr. Clarkson arrived with the blacks from America, a part of whom came some days before him. [The fleet from Nova Scotia consisted of 15 ships, which were separated during the voyage by fierce storms.] When he left Nova Scotia, they amounted to between eleven and twelve hundred, but during the voyage a malignant fever infested the Ships and carried off great numbers.

Sixty-seven of the Nova Scotian settlers died on board, and another thirty-eight during the first weeks on shore.⁸

Mr. Clarkson caught the fever and miraculously escaped death, which would have been an irreparable loss to the colony, being the only man calculated to govern the people who came with him, for by his winning manners and mild, benign treatment he has so gained their affections and attachment that he can by lifting up his finger (as he expresses it) do what he pleases with them.

Anna Maria finds it amazing that such a sweet man can have come out of an early naval career. Doesn’t the navy make men tough? She watches John Clarkson treat the settlers from Nova Scotia with all the patience and concern of a beloved parent, and they adore him for it.

She asks her husband about Clarkson. "Is he single?"

Falconbridge’s snort is disdainful. "Yes, but engaged. Haven’t you noticed how he’s naming everything Susan? So far we’ve got a Susan’s Bay and a sloop named Susan."

Anna Maria grimaces at how critical Falconbridge is of everything around him. She sighs and turns away.

Clarkson himself is feeling far from sweet-tempered as he surveys the slopes beside the Sierra Leone estuary. He is appalled that the scores of officers and artisans sent from London have done absolutely nothing to prepare for the needs of the black settlers except to erect a single canvas shelter on the shore in which some of them sleep. In the daytime they use it for "dining, preaching, praying, working, palavering, & Council Chamber."⁹ No streets have been laid out, no surveying done, no storehouse erected to protect supplies, no houses started—in spite of the many letters Clarkson has written to Chairman Henry Thornton in England stressing the importance of appointing sympathetic officials who would exert themselves on behalf of the settlers. Clarkson’s experience gathering the blacks together in Nova Scotia has made him very aware of how sensitive they are to the way whites treat them. He empathizes completely with their feelings, and writes to Thornton of his worries about "captains of your vessels, sailors, keepers of the storehouses and inferior people, who would think no harm in calling these people what I cannot mention on paper . . .. You may probably say that none will be appointed but those who detest slavery . . . but consider the education of man . . . and you have reason to fear."¹⁰

Clarkson immediately sends men on shore to clear a path to the tall cotton tree that stands like a beacon on a narrow plateau halfway up the mountain. On March 10, Alexander Falconbridge, second in command, conducts his sixth and last council meeting on board the ship, and swears in Clarkson as governor—first among equals in a council of eight. On Sunday, March 11, the entire company—black and white—goes ashore early from their anchored ships, which rock gently on the broad estuary in the nacreous morning light, and climb the slope to the cotton tree, where they hold a service of thanksgiving.¹¹

They are in general a religious, temperate, good set of people.

Anna Maria observes the fervor of this service, the tears of joy, the obvious piety of the newly arrived settlers and comes to a very general conclusion. She probably does not attend any of the black chapel services, where the preaching has a passion and vigor that astonishes and dismays the staid Anglicans. The congregations respond with shouting, hand-clapping, stomping, and fervent embracing as individuals act out their ardent faith in salvation and redemption.¹²

She is, however, so insulated from their daily concerns that she makes no effort to know any of them as individuals. Or, if she does, she does not think them pertinent to a travel book so does not record them anywhere in her journal. Perhaps she is just not very interested in these newcomers. They were, after all, before their departure from the colonies, slaves, and slaves must seem like a strange breed of animal to a sheltered Englishwoman. They are certainly not of her social class, whereas she perceives the Temne chiefs as being royalty—something she greatly esteems. The English officials sent out to manage the settlement would also appear closer to her social class, although their dilatory behavior soon makes her contemptuous of many of them.

Because the immigrants from Nova Scotia are an undifferentiated mass to her, Anna Maria never outlines what John Clarkson makes clear in his journal—that whole Protestant congregations, led by charismatic evangelical preachers, wound up their affairs in Nova Scotia to come to Freetown.¹³ Thomas Peters, who had gone to England in their behalf, and America Talbot brought their entire Methodist congregations from Digby. Moses Wilkinson led his devoted Methodist followers from Birchtown, Richard Ball from Halifax, Henry Beverhout from St. John. Boston King brought his Wesleyans from Dartmouth. The Countess of Huntingdon Methodists followed Cato Perkins and William Ash to Freetown. David George and Hector Peters brought their Baptist chapels from Shelburne and Birchtown.

Because these black congregations had been kept segregated in Nova Scotia by white prejudice or indifference, they developed a strong sense of unity and opposition to the authority and rigidities of the white churches and government there. Their self-appointed preachers had persuaded them of the validity of their understanding of God’s message and their right to follow their own path to redemption. As a result, their chapels become their guarantee of both spiritual and temporal security, the bulwark of their communities. Their preachers were their natural leaders before they even left New York and through the nine long years in Nova Scotia; they would guide their communicants in their exodus to their new African home.

At present they are employed in building huts for their temporary residence till the lands promised them can be surveyed. When that will be, God only knows. The surveyor, being a Counsellor and Captain of our veteran host [militia], is of too much consequence to attend to the servile duty of surveying, notwithstanding he is paid for it.

James Cocks was sent to Freetown to be the surveyor, but before Clarkson’s arrival, his fellow officers had named him captain of the soldiers, a role he much preferred.¹⁴

Clarkson immediately gives Cocks a plan for laying out town lots on the slopes above the landing, drawn up at his request by the chief surveyor in Nova Scotia. Twelve streets, each named for a company director, are to be cut—nine running up the slope at right angles to the waterfront, and three broad avenues (80 feet wide) parallel to the river. One of the three, Water Street along the waterfront, is to be double the width of the others. The streets will be paved in Bermuda grass and cropped by cattle, sheep, and goats. Two squares are to be laid out, one with a tower in which to hang the great bell that will be rung at sunrise to start the day’s work. Above this grid the hump of the mountain above the cotton tree is named Thornton Hill after Chairman Thornton and designated for the governor’s future residence. Settlers are to occupy the town in whatever random order the lots are laid out, until such time as a lottery can be held to determine permanent locations.

Few of the settlers have yet got huts erected; they are mostly encamped under tents made with sails from the different ships and are very badly off for fresh provisions. Indeed such is the case with us all, and what's worse, we have but half allowance of very indifferent salt provision and bad worm eaten bread. (The James of Bristol, being unfit to proceed her voyage, was condemned and sold at Bance Island about this time; from her a quantity of beans and other provisions were purchased which was a fortunate circumstance for the colony, then in a starving state.)

The storekeeper and accountant do not arrive until May. In the meantime, supplies are unloaded from the ships and taken ashore, unpacked, then left where they are scattered. Settlers and Africans alike appropriate what they find lying about—knives, hoes, axes, and other tools. The rains, of course, soon ruin everything left out in the open. The store tent becomes unfit to work in. John Clarkson writes in his journal of the "nauceous putrid stenches produced by stinking provisions, scattered about the town—rotten Cheese, rancid Butter, bad provisions, damaged pickled Tripe. Sacks of flour infested by insects and drenched with Molasses leaking from the Casks."¹⁵

A supply ship, the Trusty, arrived in May, but was so badly packed in London that the cargo was worthless—lime and coal in casks so old they fell apart in the sunlight; beef and pork tainted; biscuits, flour, and oatmeal in leaking bags rather than in casks; butter rancid; molasses leaking from barrels into the dry staples.

Painfully do I say nothing promises well. Mr Clarkson, as Superintendant, is so tied up that he cannot do a thing without the approbation of his Council, and those opinionated upstarts thwart him in all his attempts. He is an amiable man, void of pomp or ostentation, which his senatorial associates disapprove of exceedingly from the ridiculous idea that their dignity is lessened by his frankness. How truly contemptible is it to see men stickle in this way after foolish unbecoming consequence, blind to the interest of their employers, whereby they must without question rise or fall.

John Clarkson shares Anna Maria’s contempt for the members of the Council. In his journal he wrote that "their brains have been turned from being allowed to wear a flaming sword and cockade with a fine coat and epaulette, when a jacket and trousers would have been more consistent for those employed in founding a new settlement."¹⁶

Their absurd behaviour (Few days escaped without a quarrel, which sometimes came the length of blows: Members of Council were daily ordering goods from the ships, not wanted, and inevitably to be destroyed, merely for the purpose of shewing their authority) make them the laughing stocks of the neighbouring Factories and such masters of slave ships as have witnessed their conduct, who must certainly be highly gratified with the anarchy and chagrin that prevails through the Colony.

The Blacks are displeased that they have not got their promised lands; and so little do they relish the obnoxious arrogance of their rulers that I really believe, was it not for the influence of Mr. Clarkson, they would be apt to drive some of them into the sea.

The independant European Settlers [mostly artisans] are vastly disappointed and heartily wish themselves safe back in their own country. About a hundred Europeans, employed by the Sierra Leone Company, came in the first expedition, as well as ten who came as independent settlers. This is not to be wondered at when in addition to the calamity of being in a new Colony over-run with confusion, jealousy, and discordant sentiments, they are exposed to the oppression of wanting almost every necessary of life, having no shops where they might purchase, or any other medium of procuring them.

I have only one piece of pleasing intelligence to give you: The Colony just now is tolerable healthy; very few deaths have occurred among the Blacks since their arrival, and but two among the Whites; the latter were Doctor B— , (our physician), and the Harpy's gunner.¹⁷

Strong drink is regularly prescribed to assuage fevers. John Clarkson’s first encounter with Dr. John Bell, the chief physician, is on March 12, when the doctor returns from a visit to Bunce Island, feverish and too drunk to recognize anyone.

Anna Maria protests to her husband. "Why would the company send such a man out here?"

"He’s said to have had great experience with diseases in warm climates."

"But still . . . such behavior sets a terrible example."

Falconbridge shrugs.

Dr. Bell dies the following night. Clarkson argues that Dr. Bell’s drunken behavior sets a very bad example to the settlers, but the councilors immediate lower the flag to half-mast, for he is one of their own. The next morning they don their fancy gold-braided uniforms to accompany the coffin in a solemn burial at sea. The Harpy’s guns are fired at one-minute intervals as Bell’s body is removed.

The gunner's death was occasioned by that of the former, who brought on his dissolution by inebriety and imprudence. Being a member of the Magisterial body, he was buried with all the pomp and ceremony circumstances would admit of. While the corpse moved on in solemn pace, attended by the Members of Council and others in procession, minute guns were fired from the Harpy. In executing this, the gunner lost his arm, of which he died very shortly.

I yet live on ship-board, for though the Directors had the goodness to send out a canvas house purposely for me, I have not the satisfaction of occupying it, our men of might having thought proper to appropriate it another way.

Anna Maria never mentions it, but Clarkson wrote in his journal on 27 April that Falconbridge (aided by his brother-in-law) was spending his time building a house instead of going off, as Commercial Agent, on a trading expedition. She nowhere writes in her letters that her brother, Charles Horwood, was with them in Sierra Leone.¹⁸

Mr. Gilbert, our clergyman,¹⁹ returns to England in the vessel I write by, a fast sailing schooner Mr. Clarkson has purchased for the painful but indispensible intention of sending the Directors information of our distracted, deplorable situation; at the same time exhorting them in their wisdom to make some immediate, efficacious change in our government, without which their colony will irrecoverably be stifled in its infancy.

The haughty behavior of the company personnel disgusts the settlers. The councilors seem more eager to attend official receptions and lengthy council meeting than to supervise the work of building a town. They bicker endlessly over every step to be taken, and when agreement is finally reached among the eight, they then jockey with each other to control the execution of every decision.

Anna Maria does not mention it, but Alexander Falconbridge and James Cocks are drinking too much as well, deluded that alcohol will protect them from disease. Clarkson notes as well in his journal that the captain, mates, councillors, and clerks living on board the Harpy consumed 144 dozen bottles of porter and 96 dozen of port wine in less than three months. "Drunkenness—Pilfering the Cargoes—insulting the Natives—and debauching the Nova Scotian women were the most prevailing acts at the Commencement of this intended religious Colony."²⁰

Along with his report of the settlement’s problems, Clarkson sends a request for more executive power. He writes Chairman Thornton that "eight gentlemen, all them invested with great power, each of them acting for himself, and none of them accountable to the other, form . . . a system of government as pregnant with contradictions and inconsistencies as can be imagined."²¹ He refuses to sign the council dispatches and threatens to return to England if he is not given more authority.

Mr. Gilbert is a man of mild agreeable manners, truly religious, without the hypocritical shew of it. He is universally liked in the Colony, and I am sure his absence will be greatly regretted. But Mr. Clarkson's indisposition, rendering him unable to write so fully as he wishes or necessity demands, has prevailed on him (Mr. Gilbert) to return to England and represent to the Directors by word of mouth whatever he may neglect to do in writing.

A party of us will accompany him to the Banana Islands, about ten leagues from hence, where he is in hopes of procuring fresh stock and other necessary sea stores, which are not to be had here for love or money. I do not think it will be in my power to write you from the Bananas; shall therefore close this letter with sincere hopes my next may give you a more favourable account of things.

Farewell, &c.

Endnotes:

1.The largest of the Canary Islands.

2. A cask containing 126 gallons.

3. The Sierra Leone Company had subscribed capital of £235,840. Estimated expenses for the first year were £30,000; for subsequent years, £7,000 annually. Fyfe, A History, p. 30.

4. From head to foot. Fyfe, Anna Maria Falconbridge, p. 75.

5. Clarkson believed that the portrait has done "more in our favour than the most sanguine of us could have expected." E. G. Ingham, Sierra Leone after a Hundred Years (London: Seeley & Co., 1984), p. 150.

6. For complete details see Clifford, From Slavery to Freetown.

7. See Ellen Gibson Wilson, The Loyal Blacks (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1976), p. 240.

8. Fyfe, A History, p. 38.

9. Wilson, The Loyal Blacks, p. 242.

10. Charles Bruce Fergusson (ed.), Clarkson’s Mission to America (Halifax: Public Archives of Nova Scotia, 1971), pp. 3-94.

11. See Clifford, From Slavery to Freetown, pp. 110-111.

12. The same religious fervor is an integral part of services in black churches today.

13. See Clifford, From Slavery to Freetown., Chapter 18.

14. Ellen Gibson Wilson, John Clarkson and the African Adventures (London: the Macmillan Press, 1980), p. 85.

15. Wilson, The Loyal Blacks, p. 247.

16. Ingham, pp. 65-66.

17. Dr. John Bell, despite some obvious drawbacks, was appointed by the directors because of his experience in tropical medicine. Thornton’s introduction of him was not promising; to John Clarkson he wrote: "I am sorry to have to hint to you that I have heard that he has been observed to be in liquor once or twice." 31st Dec. 1791; British Library, Clarkson Papers, MS Add. 41262A, vol. 1.

18. Fyfe, Anna Maria Falconbridge, p. 82.

19. Reverend Nathaniel Gilbert, son of a wealthy Antigua planter.

20. Wilson, The Loyal Blacks, p. 256.

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