5522. Mr. _W. Patten_.] At Sierra Leone?--Yes. 5523. _Chairman._] You have spoken in your despatch, which you read at the last meeting of the Committee, of an extended scheme for promoting emigration from the coast of Africa to the West Indies; will you explain that more fully?--I would propose that the negroes should be sent to the West Indies after emancipation, in the same way as they have been of late years sent to the different colonies there from Havannah. Dr. Madden, who has made this Report, was the person appointed by Government, and specially sent out for the purpose of superintending the emigration of the emancipated negroes from Havannah to the different West India islands, and he would be able to give to the Committee all the details of the regulations which were adopted and sanctioned by the Government. I am not aware of the rules that were laid down for his guidance; but it appears in the slave trade papers of former years, during the time that the Duke of Wellington was Foreign Secretary, that he required a certain proportion to be observed between males and females, and also that negroes should be examined by a medical man, and no unhealthy ones sent; there were other regulations also by which he was bound; all the negroes that he could get he sent to Trinidad in the first instance, and I believe he sent some afterwards to Honduras and other places. 5524. Should you propose that they should remain a certain time in the colony before they were removed to the West Indies?--No, certainly not; I would have the removal take place immediately after emancipation. There is an emigration agent established at Sierra Leone, so that the whole machinery is ready at hand at once. 5525. How would you propose that the expense of transport across the Atlantic should be defrayed?--There would be no difficulty whatever about the expense, because the colonies to which they are sent would gladly pay any expenses of removal. The difficulty that the Government would experience would be, in distributing the negroes among the different colonies; but any West India colony would gladly pay the expense of removal of any number to their own shores. 5526. What is usually the expense incurred on account of each liberated African under the existing system at Sierra Leone?--The commissariat issues notice of tenders; when recruits are sent across from Sierra Leone to the West Indies, which they are continually to supply the West India regiments, it is open to any persons who have vessels unemployed to tender for their removal; and if the Government undertook to remove the negroes, I suppose it would be done in the same way. 5527. What is the expense now incurred for the maintenance of a liberated African at Sierra Leone?--He is maintained for six months; the allowance has been varied from 1_d._ to 2_d._ a day; but I believe now it is 1½_d._