discussion, a scheme was matured for the colonisation of Sierra
Leone by liberated slaves. A company was organised, with a
charter from the Crown, and a board which included the names of
Granville Sharpe and Wilberforce. A large capital was speedily
subscribed, and the Chair was accepted by Mr. Henry Thornton, a
leading City banker and a member of Parliament, whose determined
opposition to cruelty and oppression in every form was such as
might be expected in one who had inherited from his father the
friendship of the poet Cowper. Mr. Thornton heard Macaulay's
story from Thomas Babington, with whom he lived on terms of close
intimacy and political alliance. The Board, by the advice of its
Chairman, passed a resolution appointing the young man Second
Member in the Sierra Leone Council, and early in the year 1793 he
sailed for Africa, where soon after his arrival he succeeded to
the position and duties of Governor.

The Directors had done well to secure a tried man. The colony was
at once exposed to the implacable enmity of merchants whose
market the agents of the new company spoiled in their capacity of
traders, and slave-dealers with whom they interfered in their
character of philanthropists. The native tribes in the vicinity,
instigated by European hatred and jealousy, began to inflict upon
the defenceless authorities of the settlement a series of those
monkey-like impertinences which, absurdly as they may read in a
narrative, are formidable and ominous when they indicate that
savages feel their power. These barbarians, who had hitherto
commanded as much rum and gunpowder as they cared to have by
selling their neighbours at the nearest barracoon, showed no
appreciation for the comforts and advantages of civilisation.
Indeed, those advantages were displayed in anything but an