the British army during the Revolutionary War in America, and,
accepting the offer of the British Government, took land in this
colony as a reward for services performed in the army. Another fever
did its hateful work; and fifty or sixty Europeans, and many blacks,
fell under its parching and consuming touch.[104] Jealous feuds rent
the survivors, and idleness palsied every nerve of industry in the
colony. In 1794 a French squadron besieged the place, and the people
sustained a loss of about two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Once
more an effort was made to revive the place, and get its drowsy
energies aroused in the discharge of necessary duties. Some little
good began to show itself; but it was only the tender bud of promise,
and was soon trampled under the remorseless heel of five hundred and
fifty insurrectionary maroons from Jamaica and Nova Scotia.

The indifferent character of the colonists, and the hurtful touch of
the climate, had almost discouraged the friends of the movement in
England. It was now the year 1800. This vineyard planted by good men
yielded "nothing but leaves." No industry had been developed, no
substantial improvement had been made, and the future was veiled in
harassing doubts and fears. The money of the company had almost all
been expended. The company barely had the signs of organic life in it,
but the light of a beautiful Christian faith had not gone out across
the sea in stalwart old England. The founders of the colony believed
that good management would make the enterprise succeed: so they looked
about for a master hand to guide the affair. On the 8th of August,
1807, the colony was surrendered into the hands of the Crown, and was
made an English colony. During the same year in which this transfer
was made, Parliament declared the slave-trade piracy; and a naval
squadron was stationed along the coast for the purpose of suppressing
it. At the first, many colored people of good circumstances, feeling
that they would be safe under the English flag, moved from the United
States to Sierra Leone. But the chief source of supply of population
was the captured slaves, who were always unloaded at this place. When
the English Government took charge of Sierra Leone, the population was
2,000, the majority of whom were from the West Indies or Nova Scotia.
In 1811 it was nearly 5,000; in 1820 it was 12,000; it 1833 it was
30,000; in 1835 it was 35,000; in 1844 it was 40,000; in 1869 it was
55,374