“They made Sierra Leone on the 23rd August, and reached its southern side on the 25th, where they had five fathoms of the lowest ebb; having had for about fourteen leagues, while running into this harbour, from eight to sixteen fathoms. At this place they destroyed a negro town because the inhabitants had killed one of their men with a poisoned arrow. Some of the men went four miles up the harbour in a boat on the 3rd September, where they caught plenty of fish, and going on shore procured some lemons. They saw also some buffaloes, on their return to the ship. On the 6th they went out of the harbour of Sierra Leone and staid one tide three leagues from the point at its mouth, the tide there flowing S.W. “The 7th they departed for one of the islands which lie about ten leagues from the point of Sierra Leone, called the Banana Isle, and anchored that same day off the principal isle, on which they only found a few plantains.” In 1622 a Dutch fleet consisting of eleven vessels put into the harbour of Sierra Leone, where they stayed for about three weeks. The visit is described as follows:— “They anchored in the road of Sierra Leone on the 11th August. Here on the 15th some of the crew being on shore ate freely of certain nuts resembling nutmegs, which had a fine taste, but had scarcely got on board when one of them dropt down dead, and before he was thoroughly cold he was all over purple spots. The rest recovered by taking proper medicines. Sierra Leone is a mountain on the Continent of Africa standing on the South side of the mouth of the river Mitomba, which discharges itself into a great bay of the sea. The road in which ships usually anchor is in Lat. of 8° 26 N. This mountain is very high and thickly covered with trees, by which it may be easily known, as there is no mountain of such height anywhere upon the coast. There grows here a prodigious number of trees producing a small kind of lemons called limasses (limes), resembling those of Spain in shape and taste, and which are very agreeable and wholesome if not eaten to excess. The fleet arrived here at the season when this fruit was in perfection, and having full leave from the natives the people eat them intemperately, by which and the bad air the bloody flux increased much among them, so that they lost forty men between the 11th August and the 5th September. “Sierra Leone abounds in palm trees, and has some Ananas or Pine-apples with plenty of wood of all sorts, besides having anchorage. They sailed from Sierra Leone on the 4th September, on which day the Admiral fell sick.” In 1730 the Merchants of Havre and Nantz sent out some armed merchant vessels with the alleged object of exterminating the pirates in Pirates’ Bay, Sierra Leone; history is silent as to the result of this expedition. They visited the Colony of Gambia and destroyed some trading centres owned by Englishmen.