Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay, vol 1 | Page 8

presume to follow
him."]
Mr. Macaulay was admirably adapted for the arduous and uninviting
task of planting a negro colony. His very deficiencies stood him in
good stead; for, in presence of the elements with which he had to deal,
it was well for him that nature had denied him any sense of the
ridiculous. Unconscious of what was absurd around him, and incapable
of being flurried, frightened, or fatigued, he stood as a centre of order
and authority amidst the seething chaos of inexperience and
insubordination. The staff was miserably insufficient, and every officer
of the Company had to do duty for three in a climate such that a man is
fortunate if he can find health for the work of one during a continuous
twelvemonth. The Governor had to be in the counting-house, the
law-court, the school, and even the chapel. He was his own secretary,
his own paymaster, his own envoy. He posted ledgers, he decided
causes, he conducted correspondence with the Directors at home, and
visited neighbouring potentates on diplomatic missions which made up
in danger what they lacked in dignity. In the absence of properly
qualified clergymen, with whom he would have been the last to put
himself in competition, he preached sermons and performed
marriages;--a function which must have given honest satisfaction to
one who had been so close a witness of the enforced and systematised
immorality of a slave-nursery. Before long, something fairly
resembling order was established, and the settlement began to enjoy a
reasonable measure of prosperity. The town was built, the fields were
planted, and the schools filled. The Governor made a point of allotting
the lightest work to the negroes who could read and write; and such
was the stimulating effect of this system upon education that he
confidently looked forward "to the time when there would be few in the
colony unable to read the Bible." A printing-press was in constant
operation, and in the use of a copying-machine the little community

was three-quarters of a century ahead of the London public offices.
But a severe ordeal was in store for the nascent civilisation of Sierra
Leone. On a Sunday morning in September 1794, eight French sail
appeared off the coast. The town was about as defensible as Brighton;
and it is not difficult to imagine the feelings which the sansculottes
inspired among Evangelical colonists whose last advices from Europe
dated from the very height of the Reign of Terror. There was a party in
favour of escaping into the forest with as much property as could be
removed at so short a notice; but the Governor insisted that there would
be no chance of saving the Company's buildings unless the Company's
servants could make up their minds to remain at their posts, and face it
out. The squadron moored within musket-shot of the quay, and swept
the streets for two hours with grape and bullets; a most gratuitous piece
of cruelty that killed a negress and a child, and gave one unlucky
English gentleman a fright which ultimately brought him to his grave.
The invaders then proceeded to land, and Mr. Macaulay had an
opportunity of learning something about the condition of the French
marine during the heroic period of the Republic.
A personal enemy of his own, the captain of a Yankee slaver, brought a
party of sailors straight to the Governor's house. What followed had
best be told in Mr. Macaulay's own words. "Newell, who was attended
by half-a-dozen sans-culottes, almost foaming with rage, presented a
pistol to me, and with many oaths demanded instant satisfaction for the
slaves who had run away from him to my protection. I made very little
reply, but told him he must now take such satisfaction as he judged
equivalent to his claims, as I was no longer master of my actions. He
became so very outrageous that, after bearing with him a little while, I
thought it most prudent to repair myself to the French officer, and
request his safe-conduct on board the Commodore's ship. As I passed
along the wharf the scene was curious enough. The Frenchmen, who
had come ashore in filth and rags, were now many of them dressed out
with women's shifts, gowns, and petticoats. Others had quantities of
cloth wrapped about their bodies, or perhaps six or seven suits of
clothes upon them at a time. The scene which presented itself on my
getting on board the flag-ship was still more singular. The quarter-deck

was crowded by a set of ragamuffins whose appearance beggared every
previous description, and among whom I sought in vain for some one
who looked like a gentleman. The stench and filth exceeded anything I
had ever witnessed in any ship, and the noise and confusion gave me
some idea of their