erection of mills. The fogs are less heavy than further down the coast, and the rainy season is a month shorter than at Cape Montserado. In 1793 it was taken possession of, by a company of English merchants; but the dissolute character of many of the settlers, and their want of common care of their health, produced a sickness which caused the ultimate abandonment of the Island. Since that time it has remained unoccupied, and unclaimed by any civilized power. The Rio Grande, in which it is situated, runs through the richest and most fertile part of Africa. The country visited and described by Park, lies upon its waters; the sources of the Senegal and the Gambia are within a few days' journey of its head; as are also the head waters of the St. Paul's, on which we already have a settlement. Besides this, the mysterious river of Africa, whose very existence was so long a matter of doubt, and whose mouth has hitherto defied search, and baffled curiosity, is known to flow not far distant from the sources of the Rio Grande, and would pour its own wealth, and that of its tributaries, through this last channel, if we possessed a settlement upon it. Vessels sailing from America always make the Cape de Verds, and from thence, Cape Roxo; then, gaining a sufficient offing, they bear up for Liberia. A settlement therefore at Bulama would materially lessen the length and difficulty of the voyage to our African colonies; and from the greater similarity of its climate to the climate of the United States, would be the best spot for those emigrants, who, coming from North of the Potomac, are less able to bear the heats and fogs of an African atmosphere, than their Southern brethren, Between Bulama and Liberia, is the colony of Sierra Leone, which the utter impossibility of sustaining, unless at a great expense of life, will ultimately cause the British to abandon—and which, even if it is not abandoned, must become a part of the Americo-African nation, as the increasing settlements of Liberia and Bulama enclose and embrace it. Once firmly fixed on the waters of the Rio Grande, we may deem ourselves in possession of those of the Senegal and the Gambia; having dependant on our trade the nations near the head of the Niger; and, if the supposition as to the course of the St. Paul's be correct, enjoying an easy inland water communication with the present capital of our possessions. From the Senegal to Cape Palmas will then be our own; and we have only to cast our eyes upon the map to see the admirable frontier, which will be thus formed for our possessions,—a frontier including the mouths of the rivers Gambia, Rio Grande, Nunes, and Pongos, Sierra Leone, Cape Mount, Liberia, and last and among the most important, the Kroo nation, the native seamen of Africa,-a frontier easy of access from this country, and affording in its rivers, roadsteds, and harbors, facilities for the most extensive commerce.

It may be said that a jealousy of the advantages at which we are grasping, and which, if we proceed, we will obtain, will cause the interference of other nations: and that the Senegal, the Gambia, the Rio Grande, and Cape Palmas, will be previously occupied, or wrested from our hands:

coast.

that other settlements than those of the free blacks of America, other flags than the stripes, and cross of the Colonization Society, will wave upon this Sir, where is the flag of Portugal, the flag of France, the flag of Holland? Sir, these flags, if they wave at all, wave over a few tottering ruins,―the mouldering tomb-stones of the soldiers, who landed and settled beneath these banners, and who found their graves ready yawning to receive them, in the first moments of their arrival. Where is even the flag of England? It waves still at Sierra Leone; but that Colony is one great Lazar-house for the Europeans who visit it. Yet Portugal, and France, and Holland, and England, started in the race with high hopes, and appeared determined on success. Nature, however, was opposed to them. Their population sunk before the climate of Africa; and the consequence was, that the settlements were soon abandoned, or weakly and unprofitably, and, I may say, cruelly, maintained. This can never be the case with our emigrants and our settlements. Had the climate of America been to the pilgrims, as that of Africa is to the French or Portuguese, or to the white man, no matter what his nation or country, America never would have been settled. We, Sir, are about to pour forth, from America to Africa, pilgrims, to whom the climate is as genial as was that of New England to our forefathers:-Pilgrims too, urged on their way by motives more strong, by far, than those, which brought our ancestors to America. Those who will be our settlers in Africa are returning to their fathers' homes; and believe me, Sir, the puny and sickly colonies, which the jealousy of any nation under the sun may establish in Africa, will never be able to compete with, or to stand before the healthy and vigorous population, which will be transplanted from our shores. The white man must become tired of filling the vacancy, which death makes among his fellows; and the deed of Colonizing Africa will fall, where Heaven has appointed it to fall, on the free coloured people of America. Talk not then of any European nations holding the mouths of the rivers emptying round the great Cape of Western Africa;~~~ give us but the possession of a communication with their head waters, by means of a settlement on the Rio Grande, and the elastic pressure of our coloured population will ultimately exclude all other people. This advantage, Sir, consisting in the physical constitution of our emigrants, is one, which will enable us to carry into effect any operation in Africa, which the Society may deem fit to commence.

It may be said, that the present motion is premature, and that the time has not yet arrived for making settlements at the places which I have mentioned. But that the purchase of territory, the erection of buildings, and the gradual increase of the population, are things which have retarded the settlement of Monrovia for the last six years, during which time its population has only reached twelve hundred. Although our experience may enable us to make the settlements proposed in a shorter time, and in a safer manner, by taking the first settlers from among the already acclimated co

Tonists; yet many years must elapse, before they can attain the size of Monrovia. Had we three such settlements as this last, we might send to them in the course of the present year, fifteen hundred emigrants. But, as it is, had we millions, it would be the height of madness, to send a number sufficient even to double the population of our only settlement. The number of emigrants must depend upon the capacity to receive; and this again is dependent upon the quantity of vacant land in the neighbourhood of, and the means of employment within the Colony. It is the true policy of the Society to increase its settlements slowly. The number of property holders, and those interested in the preservation of order, should always exceed the number of new emigrants, who being usually destitute of proper. ty, or means of support, may be easily persuaded, or forced, into any measures, which may supply their present wants, or gratify their momentary excitement. Several years must elapse, before Monrovia can receive more than one thousand emigrants annually.-Perhaps if emigration were entirely suspended for a year, it would be the better for the Colony. Many years must elapse before the new settlements, if made, will be able to receive and support as many as we now send to Monrovia. It is not our policy to press Colonization. If we load our settlements, we will remove more free blacks for the moment, to Africa; but we will create discontent, and may materially retard, if not prevent subsequent emigration. The more numerous then are our settlements, the greater will be the number of emigrants that can be removed,—the greater will be the capacity to receive them in Africa; and, more markets for intercourse with fertile districts being opened, the greater will be the commerce with the country, and consequently the greater the facilities of transportation. The communication now established between the Colony, and its dependencies at St. John's, Bassa and Sesters, is maintained altogether by water, and so it may be with the proposed settlements: therefore the difficulty of communication, or the remoteness of the points cannot well be urged as an objection.

So far from the present time being premature for negotiations with the natives, for the purchase of territory on which to establish Colonies, it would seem that none could be more propitious. The British government has nearly succeeded in destroying the slave trade between the Gambia and Cape Mount, and between Cape Palmas and the line. The natives therefore, feel the loss of the market which they have heretofore had for their slaves; being now compelled to carry them across the desert to Tripoli, or Southward as far as Congo; thus increasing the horrors of that, which has ever been so dreadful. The slave trade, therefore, is fast becoming unprofitable: when it is quite so, it must cease; and this time, when its gains are so doubtful, appears most fit to establish Colonies, where the natives of the coast where it has been hitherto carried on, may obtain the products of civi lized communities, in return for the lawful articles of commerce, the produce of their soil.

One thing, Sir, is certain, that in order to attain the great end of this Society's labours, the emigration under its auspicies, must amount annually to thirty thousand, and upwards. This time is perhaps far distant, and the children of our sons' children, may perhaps only live long enough to witness it. But the remoteness of the period should not stay us in the preparation which may hasten its arrival. That preparation is the founding of settlements upon the coast of Africa; settlements, with such advantages in a commercial point of view, as shall make it the interest of the free coloured people to remove to them and support them. The number of emigrants were during the last year, more than treble the number sent the year before, and the same ratio of increase will soon bring us to the time, when our present Colony will not be able to receive those, whom our increased means and their own inclinations will enable us to transport. For this time I would provide. Congress may refuse its aid; the States may refuse theirs; but the seed is already sown, and the refusal of the National or State Legis. latures to afford pecuniary assistance, cannot retard the harvest. The simple facts of the independent existence of a civilized nation of coloured people, on the coast of Africa, enjoying the fulness of virtuous liberty, governed by their own laws, administered by their own kind; and the abject state, in which the same race continues in this country, will cause the present stream of emigration to swell into a mighty and resistless torrent, sweeping on across the Atlantic; and the facilities of transportation afforded by the immense commerce, which must one day exist between the countries, will almost unaided bring about the great end of our labours. The Northern negro will find a home at Bulama; he from the Middle States will settle on the St. Pauls'; and the Southern slave, enfranchised by the liberal philanthropy of his master, will regain his father's home in the neighbourhood of Cape Palmas.-Then, Sir, shall we have accomplished our scheme, and with the blessing of the Almighty, have rendered unto Africa, that which is Africa's.

Agreed to.

Mr. HARRISON, from the Society of Lynchburg, Virginia, then rose and said:

I beg the ear of the Society for a few moments, while I presume to add to the rich fund of zeal and confidence which the Report of the Board has opened to us, the contribution of the Auxiliary Society which I represent. I am instructed to assure this meeting of resolute co-operation and cause of increasing hope, from a quarter not among the least interesting to the friends of African Colonization, I mean the central part of Virginia.— Equally removed as Virginia is from that hardy disregard of the opinions and prejudices of others, which from some parts of the North has alarmed the temperate every where, and from that susceptibility of nervous alarm which disquiets our more Southern neighbours, they who know her best

ness.

already predict that from her borders shall come out the most useful assistance; and the most enduring encouragement to the plan, whose yet infant years we are this day watching over:-For I take it for granted that that aid which is to be most efficient, will have to arise in the slave-holding states themselves, I trust that within any compartment of this temple of American patriotism, the voice of praise to Virginia will be thought no alien sound. Let me then speak of her as she is: proud and self-balanced, yet she boasts not that independence of the moral sense of the world, which is among the examples of this age; and they who boast this independence, delude themselves much when they imagine the general feeling of Virginia to be similar to their own: she is above fear, because she is without reproach. Ambitious the world calls her, yet when in power careful only for others; irritable the world knows her to be, but hers is not the sensitiveness of selfishWithout that enterprise and never-flagging industry, which is the every temper of New England, always ready for useful schemes and always onward; Virginia waits for sudden impulse within, or contagion from without, to induce her to profitable zeal and activity: but she is always readyarmed where patriotism and humanity call. Come but to her with proposals of philanthropic enterprise; let no disguise excite distrust-let her but be sure that the cause originates in holy honour, and moves towards ends which will "make ambition virtue"; and nothing shall make me doubt that she lends her heart to it as sincerely, as when she wore the sceptre and the laurel, and was first in all things. Meanwhile it is not matter of wonder that there have been some scruples in her mind about embarking in a scheme touching a source of contingent danger to her, until that scheme could be well understood, and its tendencies shown by experiment. Virginia and the South had a right to demand of us explicit avowals on several heads; and I am happy to believe that the votes often passed by the Society with reference to misrepresentations of its views, are the candid sentiments of every individual of the Society. The Society has reiterated the declaration that it has no ulterior views diverse from the object avowed in the constitution; and having declared that it is in nowise allied to any abolition Society in America or elsewhere, is ready whenever there is need to pass a censure upon such Societies in America. Perhaps, however, the most cogent appeal to Virginia, is to be made by showing her, that the Society was instituted in furtherance of a feeling excited by her Legislature, and that the plan of this Association is exactly that originated by herself, in its object, in its scope, in its adjuncts, in its inevitable tendencies, and in its liability to possible collateral dangers. Nor was this plan rashly originated by herself; the projet had been shown through the state from March 'til December, and was finally adopted, with hardly a dissenting voice, in the General Assembly. But I forbear the farther use of this topic; I feel the incongruity of pressing on the sense of consistency of any body of men, by forcing on them the authorship of a noble plan, which receives the auspices