Mesurado as a suitable location, on December 12, 1822.
When an attempt to get the land by treaties with the natives was made the chiefs foresaw that the colony would interfere with their profitable slave-trade, but Stockton’s diplomacy prevailed, and a tract, including Cape Mesurado, that lay between the Mesurado and Junk rivers, "thirty-six miles along the sea-shore with a breadth of two miles" was secured,
To this site Dr. Ayres carried the remaining colonists who had gone to Sierra Leone, landing them on a small island "amidst the menaces of the natives." Then, by an arrangement with a neighboring chief, they crossed the river to the north and "erected a number of comparatively comfortable buildings.”
Meantime many colonists had been attacked with the unavoidable fever, and while this was spreading they had a fight with the natives. An English crew on a captured slaver let her drive ashore. The natives came to loot her and the colonists helped the English, with loss of life on both sides. They saved the vessel but incurred the hatred of the natives. The truth is the scheme would have failed then and there but for the courage and fortitude of Elijah Johnson, one of the colored men.
When Dr. Ayres, the white agent, and a number of the emigrants returned to Sierra Leone, "almost in despair" (as the society’s records say, but wholly in despair, probably), Johnson said:
“I have been two years searching for a home and I have found it, and I shall stay.” And he did stay. Neither the Pilgrim fathers nor the followers of Lord Baltimore nor the French Huguenots had worse troub-
