On a Sunday morning, 1794, as
the unfortunates were looking out for the Company's craft (the _Harpy_), a
French man-of-war sailed into the roadstead, pillaged the 'church and the
apothecary's shop,' and burnt boats as well as town. The assailant then
wasted Granville, sailed up to Bance Island, and finally captured two
vessels, besides the long-expected _Harpy_. Having thus left his mark, he
disappeared, after granting, at the Governor's urgent request, two or
three weeks' provision for the whites. Famine followed, with sickness in
its train, and the neighbouring slave-dealers added all they could to the
sufferings of the settlement.
In the same year Zachary Macaulay, father of Lord Macaulay, became
Governor for the first time. The Company also made its earliest effort to
open up trade with the interior by a mission, and two of their servants
penetrated 300 miles inland to Timbo, capital of that part of Pulo-land. A
deputation of chiefs presently visited the settlement to propose terms;
but the futility of the negro settler was a complete obstacle to the
development of the internal commerce, the main object for which the
Company was formed. Yet the colony prospered; in 1798 Freetown numbered,
besides public buildings, about 300 houses.
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