4 - Forging an Evangelical Empire: Sierra Leone and the Wider British World

Summary

In 1815 William Wilberforce exchanged letters with the Secretary of State for War and the Colonies, Earl Bathurst (1762–1834), on the subject of Ceylon. He was concerned that the Governor, Sir Robert Brownrigg (1759–1833), seemed to be obstructing Methodist missionaries. Had Brownrigg perhaps taken advice from ‘some person who is indisposed to Xtianity’? Bathurst was anxious to placate his correspondent, forwarding a letter from Brownrigg which spoke highly of the missionaries in Ceylon and the Church of England chaplain there. Even so, Wilberforce came close to taking matters into his own hands. ‘If Genl Brownrigg were not a man of very high connections,’ he told the Wesleyan MP Joseph Butterworth, ‘I should be tempted to endeavour to get him removed.’ Such episodes were fairly frequent in the post-war years, as governors obliged by treaty to protect the religious rights of new subjects in Malta, the Ionian Islands and Ceylon found themselves squeezed between proselytizing Evangelicals, local sensitivities and a Westminster government bent on retrenchment. Bathurst was himself a staunch churchman and a convinced opponent of slavery, but was constantly pestered by Evangelicals who thought that he was not doing enough to help them. The most prominent was Wilberforce, who spoke for a number of campaigning groups. His position at the head of the increasingly powerful religious public described in the previous chapter meant that his word carried weight, most obviously in 1814–15, when a deluge of petitions forced the government to prioritize international abolition in the peace negotiations. Defying the Saints, Liverpool told Castlereagh and Wellington, would cause a storm ‘very difficult to weather’.

Yet to view Evangelicals as amateurs or outsiders is misleading. Between the late 1780s and the 1820s imperial expansion in West Africa, New South Wales, New Zealand, Cape Colony and India allowed them to expand their reach abroad, giving them influence over not just appointments but policy too. That Wilberforce could consider cold-bloodedly wrecking Brownrigg's career underlines the strength of their position. ‘It is the fashion to speak of Wilberforce as a gentle, yielding character,’ grumbled one Colonial Office official years later, ‘but I can only say that he is the most obstinate, impracticable fellow with whom I ever had to do.’