A letter to Mr. Hay, presenting a "few facts" connected with the costs of "those attempts which Great Britain is, and has long been making to introduce knowledge, civilization and industry into the western shores of Africa", notably the colony of Sierra Leone, noting the failure of those attempts and suggesting a new course of action.

This collection of essays throws vast new light on the most significant literary-political journal of the Romantic age. Its chapters analyse Blackwood's wide-ranging contributions on some of the most topical issues in Romantic studies, including celebrity, British versus Scottish nationalism, and the rise of terror and detective fiction.