African Company of Merchants

The constitution stipulated that the committee should be elected annually from the general body of traders from these cities, who paid 40 shillings to be admitted to the company.

However, in 1772 a series of pamphlets were published claiming that the Committee members were not acting properly.

[3] The company was funded by an annual grant approved by Parliament, which covered the costs of the London office and the forts.

[3] The imperial government prohibited the African slave trade after 1807, although the company continued to operate for some years afterwards.

In keeping with the ethos of liberal reform, administrative authority over the African Company's territory was transferred to Governor Charles MacCarthy of Sierra Leone, Sierra Leone having been founded as a refuge colony for freed formerly enslaved peoples.