In the latter half of the eighteenth century, as a result of the British Government's anti-slavery legislation, negroes began to arrive in England in increasing numbers. Although there is no evidence of the operation of an anti-negro colour bar in England in those days it soon appeared desirable to repatriate them. Since it was not possible to return each ex-slave to his own original home, or that of his ancestors, the British Government negotiated with local chiefs the purchase of twenty square miles of coastland in the Sierra Leone peninsula, and in 1787 landed there the first batch of 400 freed slaves accompanied by 9 officials and (according to the records) a number of English prostitutes. Not many of this first group survived, owing to climatic conditions, but a second group of 1,131 Negroes arrived from Nova Scotia in 1792.