August 1792, he was then chosen to join John Clarkson in Sierra Leone, a colony founded as a home for Black Loyalists, African-Americans who had been promised their freedom if the served for the Britain in the American War of Independence. Clarkson was serving as governor there. His first term as governor wasn't without problems. He upset many colonists when he insisted, on orders from England, that the colonists abandon the lots they currently occupied and move to new lots allocated to them by Dawes. This was only one of several of Clarkson's actions that he was forced to countermand. According to an account by one colonist, Anna Maria Falconbridge, Dawes became frustrated by the colonists' refusal to follow his orders and declared that he would return to England. The colonists responded by shouting "Go! Go! Go!". The colonists blamed him for the decisions made by his employers. One of the Methodist ministers, Henry Beverhout, referred to Dawes as "Pharaoh", invoking the story of Moses to encourage the people of Sierra Leone to resist his governance. At one point the colonists actually staged a false raid in an effort to obtain guns that Dawes believed they intended to use against members of the colonial government. Dawes was motivated by the desire to help the people of Sierra Leone, but his religious zeal, his opposition to the local Methodist ministers, and what they considered his overbearing nature alienated him from many of the colonists and even from other colonial officials such as Thomas Clarkson. His health suffering from both stress and the intolerable climate, he returned to England in March 1794. Within a few months of returning he wed Judith Rutter at Portsea, Hampshire, on 29 May 1794. They had three children, a daughter and two sons, before Judith's death. In spite of his earlier difficulties with the colonists, Dawes was sent back to serve a second term as governor of Sierra Leone in January 1795, remaining until March 1796. In January 1799, he obtained a position as an instructor of mathematics at Christ's Hospital school, a position he retained until November 1800. Whilst serving in this position, he gave evidence before a committee of the House of Lords in June 1799, who were then considering a bill to regulate the slave trade. In the early months of 1801, he returned to serve his third and final term as governor of