Both ventures were promoted by the anti-slavery activist Granville Sharp, who published a prospectus for the proposed company in 1790 entitled Free English Territory in AFRICA.
The prospectus made clear its abolitionist view and stated that several respectable gentlemen who had already subscribed had done so "not with a view of any present profit to themselves, but merely, through benevolence and public spirit, to promote a charitable measure, which may hereafter prove of great national importance to the Manufactories, and other Trading Interests of this Kingdom".
Among the early subscribers were many friends of Sharp involved in the Clapham Sect: Henry Thornton, William Wilberforce, Rev.
Initial attempts to gain a royal charter for the company proved fruitless following opposition from the attorney general, Archibald Macdonald.
Further opposition was organised by the Standing Committee of West India Planters and Merchants, who arranged for two meetings with William Pitt, the Prime Minister.
[3] Nevertheless, Henry Thornton was able to successfully guide the Sierra Leone settlement bill through parliament, despite the efforts of the Liverpool MP Bamber Gascoyne and other anti-abolitionists.
[8] During these years the colony's acting governor, Zachary Macaulay, and his council agreed to accept American blacks as settlers with a gift of free Sierra Leone land if they met four criteria: they must have letters of recommendation of their upright character from their clergy, they must agree to become British subjects and abide by British law, they must secure their own passage to the colony, and they must clear at least one third of the land given to them for agriculture within two years of arrival.