Sierra Leone and Botany Bay

It had been known since the sixteenth century that the best time to trade in West Africa was in the months between December and March. Mortality caused by the ‘fevers’ of the West African coast (above all, malaria) was always highest during the rainy season, which begins in Sierra Leone in May and may last into November. If the new settlement was to have a chance of establishing itself before the onset of rain and disease it was therefore essential that the expedition should leave in the autumn. This consideration may well have governed the Committee's original, highly optimistic choice of an embarkation date – 20 October. There was another reason for getting the expedition under way quickly – the simple matter of cost. We have already noted that the Treasury's funds were limited, and when passing over the handling of practical arrangements to the Navy Commissioners it had asked them to be as economical as possible. But as news of the plan spread, so the numbers of the Black Poor who joined it, and who presented themselves at the handing out of the Government allowance, increased (testifying to the presence of a network of communication among London's blacks). The cost to the Treasury had therefore escalated dramatically over the summer.