Now, to resume and conclude our narrative, we have but to say
we may speak of these difficulties in the past tense; they no
longer, praised be the great Disposer of Events, they no longer are
experienced at Sierra Leone; but have vanished, gradually, before the
enlightened policy of the superintendants, and the mild influence of
Christian doctrine. The enjoyments of the present life, the bright
hopes of a future state, are now communicated to thousands of our
fellow-creatures, formerly in a state of mental and moral darkness,
and obnoxious to the most frightful miseries, victims of the basest
passions, subjects of the most alarming fears.
Justice, mercy, and courageous perseverance, are now reaping their
high temporal reward; and the blessing of the Almighty upon patient
continuance in well-doing, enables England to boast that she has
overcome the most inveterate prejudices, the most firmly-established
interests, built upon the basest passions; and this by the simple
power of experiment, and the eloquence of truth.
Sierra Leone, where this experiment has been made, now presents itself
as a medium of civilization for Africa. "And in this point of view,
(it has been most justly observed,) is worth all the treasure that
has been expended upon it; for the slave-trade, which was the great
obstacle to this civilization, being now happily abolished by the
universal voice of England, there is now a populous metropolis, from
which may issue the seeds of reformation to this injured continent,
and which, when sown, may now, watered by the genial dews of heaven,
be expected to grow into fruit, without check or blight. New schools
may be transplanted from thence into the interior; teachers and
travellers be sent from thence in various directions; the natives
resort in safety to it from distant parts, mark the improvements,
witness the comforts, taste the enjoyments, and feel the protection
of it. Hence will mistrust give way to confidence, emulation will be
raised, imitation be encouraged, a desire of instruction be excited,
and the predatory ignorant savage be gradually moulded into the useful
citizen and the rational man.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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