Cuffe counted on the help of the Institution to break up the slave trade. He expressed to Samuel C. Aiken, of Andover, the view that general manumission could never occur until this trade was really stopped. He reported that in 1815 two hundred sail cleared from Savannah for this traffic. Six vessels had been brought in by the forces in Sierra Leone. If the road could be kept open between Africa and America, it would help the authorities in Sierra Leone. "I believe," he continued, "if there could be mercantile correspondence opened between the African race in America and Africa it would have good tendency to keep open this communication and acquaint them with each other. It would employ their children; and if religious characters wished to visit that country they would obtain a passage."[49] William Allen had asked him again to come to England to help keep communication open between London and Sierra Leone. In harmony with the invitation Rathbone Hodgson Company of Liverpool wrote, "It will give us much pleasure to learn that you are embarking for England." James Forten seems to have been the leading spirit in the African Institution at Philadelphia. It was no less eager than the sister one in New York to diffuse knowledge about Africa, to help civilize its inhabitants, and to help substitute a beneficial commerce for the slave trade. The Institution had among the members an African Prince, a grandson of King Lurker, who reigned about fifty leagues south of Sierra Leone. He was about eight years old and had been secured by the local Abolition Society in order to educate him. James Forten hoped that his return to Africa would serve to open up a correspondence between King Lurker and the Friendly Society which would be very advantageous to the Sierra Leone colony. Forten reported the Institution greatly concerned over the will of Samuel Gist because there was no asylum for the blacks whom he desired to free and whom he finally colonized in Brown County, Ohio. Neither organization, however, was lively enough to please Cuffe. He feared that their inactivity might cause the mission in Africa to fail. Rather than see the seed planted in Africa perish, he wrote William Allen that he would bestow some further labor; he would come to England if necessary and be used there.