FREE TOWN, SIERRA LEONE, 28th Dec. 1792

My dear Friend,

Within ten or twelve days after the date of my last, arrived the two ships that were expected. One is the York, a large vessel of a thousand tons (belonging to the Company), that is intended to end her days here in the character of a storeship, for which purpose she is admirably adapted; the other is the Samuel and Jane, likewise a vessel of great burden, chartered to remain here six months if wanted. This vessel arrived some days before the York; in her came a Mr Wallis, to supersede Falconbridge, the Directors having thought proper to annul his appointment as Commercial Agent.

That they had a right to do so, I will not question; but methinks it develops treachery; and I now suspect their whole conduct to us in England, was only a complication of hypocritical snares, to answer selfish purposes, which having attained, they cared not any longer to wear the mask.

In their dismission they accuse Falconbridge of not extending their commercial views, and wanting commercial knowledge. The latter charge may be in some measure well founded, for Mr Falconbridge was bred to physic, and men of perspicuity would have known how unfit such a person must be for a merchant, indeed he was aware of it himself, but it being a place of much expected profit (a temptation not to be withstood), he was in hopes by application, soon to have improved the little knowledge he had, so as to benefit both his employers and himself; but in this they disappointed him, and were actually the cause of choking the attempts he might have made.

They should recollect the deep deception played upon him. He left England with independent and unlimited powers, which were restrained immediately on our arrival here. Thus bridled, with the reins in possession of men who considered commerce only as a secondary view of the Company, and who negatived every proposition of the kind Falconbridge made, till a very short time before his appointment was annulled – What was he to do?