11,470.
PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
गय
Reference :-
CO. 885
12 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH—NOT TO
1
i
SIR,
No. 207.
(SIERRA LEONE.)
LAW OFFICERS to COLONIAL OFFICE.
We were favoured with Mr. Bramston's letter of the 15th May last, referring
Temple, 16th July 1879. to our Report of the 14th of March last on the subject of a proposal which had been made for counteracting the injury caused to the revenue of Sierra Leone by the introduction into the rivers adjacent to British Sherbro of goods which had not paid Customs duties. Mr. Bramston was directed to lay before us the following statement, and to request to be favoured with our opinion thereon.
2. That on the 24th September 1825 Major-General Sir Charles Turner, Governor of Sierra Leone, concluded a Treaty (a copy of which was enclosed) with certain native S. Leone Or- chiefs in the neighbourhood of Sherbro', by which they ceded to the British Crown dinances, certain territories therein specified, and the Governor accepted that cession on behalf of His Majesty.
Voli II.,
p. 293.
3. That when the Treaty, however, was sent home His Majesty's Government were not prepared to ratify it, and Earl Bathurst, Secretary of State for the Colonies, addressed to Sir C. Turner two despatches (copies enclosed) in which he was in- African, structed to inform the Chiefs that the King could not accept the cession they had No. 159,
made.
4. That it appeared, however, from a perusal of the records of the date in question, that Sir C. Turner remonstrated against those instructions; and although they were repeated to him and to his successor in the government, Sir Neil Campbell, no trace could be discovered either at home or in the Colony of their having ever been carried into effect. That the explanation of that omission was probably to be found in the fact that Sir C. Turner died not long after the Treaty was made, and that Sir N. Campbell, who seemed also to have protested against the repudiation of the Treaty, likewise died, after a very short tenure of office, in 1827.
P. 55.
S. Leone
5. That so far as the Home Government of the day was concerned, it was therefore clear that they did not intend the Treaty to stand; but, on the other hand, its accep- Ordinances, tance was publicly proclaimed on 3rd October 1825 by Sir C. Turner as the King's Vol. II., representative, and two proclamations (of which copies were annexed) were issued, p. 296. one by him, and the other by Sir Neil Campbell as late as January 1827, in which the March 16 territory ceded by the Treaty was described as part of the Colony of Sierra Leone; and, nano, Vol. II. as above stated, so far as could be discovered no repudiation of the Treaty was ever is January 1887. announced in Africa.
6. That since 1827 no formal action of any kind had been taken under the Treaty, and no occupation of the territories ceded by it had ever been elected, although the present Governor of Sierra Leone had stated that a certain amount of authority and influence, hardly perhaps extending to the putting in force of sovereign rights, had from time to time been exercised within those districts.
7. That the territory of the Chief W. Tucker, which embraced the greater portion of "Turner's Peninsula," over the seaboard of which, as we were informed in the letters from the Colonial Office of 3rd March, it was now desirable to acquire control, formed a portion of the territories which were ceded by the Treaty now under consideration.
8. That the Governor of Sierra Leone had reported that the natives were well acquainted with the existence of the Treaty of 1825, and that there were many still living who remembered its execution and the nature of its contents.
9. That the Queen's Advocate of the Colony had, in reply to a request from the Governor, given it as his opinion that the Treaty might still be held to be operative, no formal repudiation of it having taken place; that a copy of the case stated by the Governor and of Mr. Streeten's Report was annexed.
10. That in these circumstances, Mr. Bramston was to request that we would take the matter into our consideration, and inform you whether in our opinion the Treaty could still be held to have any force, and whether it was competent to Her Majesty now to revive and exercise the rights conferred by it.
▲ 19916.-197. 25.-19/84.
8. Leone Ordi.
p. 297.
B. Leon Ordi- nances, Vol. II., J. 25.