Sharp maintained that the land would yield crops with ‘very little labour’. Even in the wake of so much bad news and evidence to the contrary he remained dedicated to the fanciful (and in the circumstances self-indulgent) belief that if the settlers would only commit to following his regulations ‘they would become the freest and the happiest people on earth’.56 The puritanical, fanatical aspects of Sharp’s nature that had made him such an effective and belligerent campaigner against slavery in England in the 1760s and 1770s now blinded him to the deadly calamity that was being played out three
...more
