75. Mr. Secy. Canning to Henry Hayne, Esq........ Foreign Office, 14th Jan. 465 SURINAM. 76. C. E. Lefroy, Esq. to W. R. Hamilton, Esq. Surinam 77. C. E. Lefroy, Esq. to The Marq. of Lon Surinam..... 19th March 465 Surinam... .... May 1.... May 4... 1st May 466 Surinam ...... 10th May 467 468 469 470 Surinam. 16th May 471 ....... 4th June 471 471 Surinam . 2d July 472 473 Surinam 80. C. E. Lefroy, Esq. to The Marq. of Lon- 83. C. E. Lefroy, Esq. to The Marq. of Lon- 87. Mr. Secy. Canning to C. E. Lefroy, Esq... Foreign Office, 25th Sep. 479 88. Mr. Secy. Canning to J. H. Lance, Esq.... Foreign Office, 25th Sep. 479 89. C. E. Lefroy, Esq. to J. Planta, jun. Esq. Surinam.......24th Oct. 480 Incl. 1.-Deposition of Cornelius O'Sulli 90. Mr. Secy. Canning to Messrs. Lefroy and Lance.... 482 483 483 Foreign Office, 25th Oct. 483 91.-C. E. Lefroy, Esq. to Earl Bathurst..... Surinam......28th Oct. 484 Incl.-The Governor of Surinam to the British Comm1y. Judge, Oct. 26.... 92. Mr. Secy. Canning to Messrs. Lefroy and Lance 485 .... Foreign Office, 1st Nov. 486 93. Mr. Secy. Canning to C. E. Lefroy, Esq... Foreign Office, 6th Nov. 486 94. Mr. Secy. Canning to Messrs. Lefroy and Lance.... Foreign Office, 12th Nov. 486 95. Mr. Secy. Canning to Messrs. Lefroy and Lance... Foreign Office, 26th Nov. 487 96. Mr. Secy. Canning to Messrs. Lefroy and Lance.. .... 97. C. E. Lefroy, Esq. to Mr. Secy. Canning.. 98. C. E. Lefroy, Esq. to Mr. Secy, Canning.. Incl. 1.-The Governor of Berbice to C. E. Lefroy, Esq. Foreign Office, 26th Nov. 487 ...December 6............. 2. The British Commissary Judge to 99. Mr. Secy. Canning to Messrs. Lefroy and Lance.... 489 489 100. C. E. Lefroy, Esq. to J. Planta, jun. Esq.. Surinam.. 14th Jan. 490 101. C. E. Lefroy, Esq. to Mr. Secy. Canning, Surinam.. 102. C. E. Lefroy, Esq. to Mr. Secy. Canning, Surinam....... 103. C. E. Lefroy, Esq. to Mr. Secy. Canning, Surinam. 104. J. H. Lance, Esq. to Mr. Secy. Canning, Surinam.. 25th Jan. 491 .25th Jan. 491 ..27th Jan. 492 SIERRA LEONE.-(General.) No. 1.-Messrs. Gregory and Fitzgerald to The Marquess of Londonderry.-(Received July 19.) MY LORD, Sierra Leone, April 30, 1822. In the very general notice for the year recently terminated, which we had the honour to address to your Lordship on the 10th of January last, in explanation of the Report of the state of the Slave Trade, dated the 5th of January, 1821, no mention was made of the Foreign Cruizers employed on the Coast in the course of that year to counteract and restrain the Slave Traders of their respective Nations. We consider it a matter of duty now to supply that omission, and to add some further facts which appear material to a correct understanding upon the general subject. The French armed Schooners, Momus and Iris, showed themselves in this harbour on the 13th of May, 1821, and sailed two days after with the professed intention of going down the Coast in search of French Slave Traders; but no intelligence has been received of their having taken any, although the reports current in the Colony at the time of their departure stated, that Ships bearing the French Flag were to be found in all the known Stations, trading openly for Slaves. So far as the immediate information of this Place extends, these Two Schooners formed the whole of the French Cruizing Force sent to the southward of the Bissagos in the year 1821, and this was the whole range and effect of their operations. Accounts from Goree have, however, stated, that His Most Christian Majesty's Brig Le Huron, bearing the broad pendant of Monsieur Du Plessis, who commands the French Squadron on the Coast, went down to the Bight of Benin without approaching Sierra Leone. This Officer, it is understood, detained in the course of his Cruize a French Vessel charged with violating the French Laws prohibiting the Slave Trade, which Vessel the Judicial Administration of Senegal refused to condemn. Monsieur Du Plessis came into Sierra Leone in the Huron, on the 1st of February in the present year, and sailed again on the 7th of the same month, having prolonged his stay some days with the declared design of conferring with Commodore Sir Robert Mends, and of taking advantage of any suggestion which Sir Robert might communicate for the purpose of rendering his Cruize more effective. Captain Du Plessis, before he entered the Harbour of Sierra Leone, had gone down the Coast, in the month of January, as far as Cape Mount, and had examined several French Ships, without detaining any. It appears that the French National Law gives the right of seizure, only in the event of Slaves being found actually on board, or or at least that this limitation is established in practice under that Law. Captain Du Plessis, when he sailed hence in February, proposed to return to the same Stations in the hope of finding some of these Vessels with Slaves actually embarked. It has been ascertained by the Logbook of La Dichosa Estrella, a Shipwrecked Prize of His Majesty's Ship Morgiana, and also by the log-book of the Schooner Joseph, a professed Swedish Schooner, brought in by Lieutenant Clarkson, of the Iphigenia, that both those Vessels were visited by Commodore Du Plessis, off the Gallinas, on the 12th and 13th of February; but the time that has elapsed without advice of any actual detention being made by that Commodore, gives us reason to think that he has not made any. The American Cruizing Force on the Coast, in the year 1821, was reduced to a single armed Schooner. The Alligator, a Vessel of that class, anchored here on the 13th of May, 1821, at the same time with the French Schooners, Momus and Iris, and sailed a tide or two before them. The Alligator made some captures: the ostensible character of some of the Vessels detained by her was not American. Considerable attention was, consequently, directed to the determination respecting them. It was at first reported that all the Vessels thus taken were condemned by the American Courts; but subsequent information has corrected this statement, and it appears, that some or all of these Vessels, not of American character, have been restored. The Alligator was succeeded on the Station by the Shark, a Vessel of the same class. The Shark was in this Harbour about the close of the year 1821, and again in the commencement of the year 1822: she had not made any Captures. On the departure of the Shark from the Coast, a Midshipman and a few Men belonging to her were left in a small Schooner, named the Augusta, to assist the Settlement for American Coloured People proposed to be established near Cape Mesurado. The presence of this detachment has given occasion for the junction of a British detachment with it from the Iphigenia, commanded by Lieutenant Clarkson. A Schooner, named the Joseph, assuming a Swedish National character, was detained and brought in here early in the month of March, by the Augusta, having these joint detachments on board. Proceedings on charges of Slave Trading were, in the first instance, instituted against the Joseph in the Court of Vice Admiralty, on the grounds of British Property or Interest, and British outfit; these allegations were not sustained in evidence, consequently the jurisdiction of the Judge could not reach the Case. But as some prominent facts gave ground to believe, that an examination upon the Standing Interrogatories, would be effectual in eliciting the means of a Conviction in the British and Spanish Court of Mixed Commission, it was recommended from the Bench that a Suit should be instituted in that Court; these proceedings have been commenced accordingly. The detention of the Schooner Joseph took place while Sir Robert Mends was in this Harbour, and within the range of communicating with his detachment in a short time: but questions of some difficulty may arise in the event of the detention of any Vessel by the detachment, while the Iphigenia is at the further extremity of the Coast. These details comprehend the whole of the information which we have to communicate respecting the Foreign Cruizers on the Coast, and their operations since the 5th of January, 1821. The additional facts and circumstances which we have to bring under your Lordship's notice are these: His Majesty's Commissioners, while engaged in the investigation of the Case of the Spanish Schooner Rosalia, detained by Lieutenant Hagan, of His Majesty's Brig Thistle, in the Rio Pongos, in the month of January, were informed by that Officer that this Vessel had come to that River, in this instance, for the purpose of closing an account of Slave dealing, which had remained unsettled from the preceding year. This, Lieutenant Hagan said he had ascertained in the River, and the limited cargo brought by the Rosalia in her present voyage, consisting only of a few bales of cloth and some boxes of tobacco, appears to confirm that statement. More recently still, in a special visit of search, in which the Creeks of that River were examined by the Boats of His Majesty's Ship Pheasant, conducted by Lieutenant Stokes, of His Majesty's Brig Snapper, under particular instructions from Captain Clavering, it was ascertained that no Slave Trading Vessel had been in any part of the River during the last three months. This period would comprehend the whole interval from the time of the capture of the Rosalia in the early part of the month of January. Communications received in the Colony, from nearly the whole of the Chiefs, concur in expressing a desire to be secured in the enjoyment of the property which they have already realized; and to be permitted to carry on peaceful and legitimate commerce under British protection. The best assurance of the sincerity of these professions is to be found in the knowledge of the state of constant disquiet in which the Factories of the River are placed, by the visits of the Cruizers in search of Slave Ships. A definitive arrangement is now considered likely to be effected within the present year. In the interval the Chiefs seem disposed to recommend themselves to favourable opinion, by a conduct suited to the relation in which they desire to place themselves with respect to this Colony. The Rio Nunez, which for some years prior to the present time, had not been visited by any British armed Vessel, was, in the course of the Pheasant's Cruize, specially examined by the Boats of that Vessel. |