Chapter 2 - THE SIERRA LEONE PROPOSAL

Summary

The Committee for the Relief of the Black Poor

In early 1786, public concern about the plight of the lascars in London at last crystallized into a plan for practical relief. On 5 January, The Public Advertiser recommended its readers ‘to consider their [the lascars’] hard Fate, and to provide for their Relief, and went on to report that:

A Gentleman, commiserating these unhappy People has made a Beginning to this Charitable Work by authorising Mr. Brown, Baker, in Wigmore Street, Cavendish-square, to give a Quartern Loaf to every Black in Distress, who will apply on Saturday next between the Hours of Twelve and Two. Subscriptions for this Purpose are taken in at Mr. Faulder's, Bookseller, in Bond-street.

The paper encouraged the subscription by printing several items about the lascars over the next few days, and on 10 January advertised that a ‘Committee of Gentlemen’ was to meet at twelve o'clock that day at Mr. Faulder's, ‘when the Attendance of any Gentleman will be esteemed a Favour’. In this meeting lay the origin of the Committee for the Relief of the Black Poor. Although the Committee was formed specifically to aid the lascars, it soon discovered that these were outnumbered by the ‘distressed Blacks’ from America and the West Indies. A report of 16 January mentioned ‘a considerable Number of African and West India Blacks, and also Blacks from the East Indies’ who were in dire need.