To HENRY THORNTON, Esq. M.P. and Chairman of the Court of

Directors of the Sierra Leone Company, &c. &c.

BRISTOL, April 4, 1794.

SIR,

Being earnestly solicited, by several friends, to publish the History of my Two Voyages to Africa, and having, with some reluctance, consented, I feel it incumbent on me to address this letter to you (which is hereafter intended for publication), by way of acquitting a tribute truth and candour demands, in support of what I have, necessarily, mentioned regarding the Directors’ behaviour to me.

It is needless, Sir, to take a more distant retrospect of the subject matter, than to the time of our arrival from Sierra Leone, in 1791.

If you will turn over to that period, and search into your personal behaviour, as well as the Court of Directors, to Mr Falconbridge, I am persuaded you will find it marked with repeated testimonies of approbation and applause for the services you were pleased to say he had rendered the common interest and original views of the Company.

For what purpose did the Directors vote us a compensation for our losses? Or for what purpose did they remove Mr Falconbridge out of his particular province as a medical man, and make him their Commercial Agent?

Were these not tokens of satisfaction, and rewards for his extraordinary exertions to serve the Company; or were they mere tricks of chicane and deception, to inveigle him to return to Africa, and answer the desirable end of securing a footing for the Emigrants then expected from America? Let your own heart, Sir, decide upon these questions.

I understand the Directors persist to say, Mr Falconbridge had not settled the accounts of his first voyage before he left England the second time; and that they impeach his memory, by saying he has not accounted for the cargo of the Amy, consigned to him as Commercial Agent. Is it so, Sir? Are these paltry subterfuges made use of for withholding the poor pittance I am entitled to? – If they are, I shall charitably suppose, for a moment, they proceed from error, and endeavour once more to set you to right – though, believe me, not with the smallest expectation of profiting thereby.