A letter was received by the Secretary, apologizing for his non-attendance, from WILLIAM H. DILLINGHAM, Esq. appointed as a Delegate by the Chester County Society, Pennsylvania.

The Secretary, the Rev. R. R. GURLEY, then read the Report of the Board of Managers, detailing the progress of the Society within the last year, in improving and extending the settlements of Liberia, in the acquisition of new Territory by pur chase and negotiation, from the native Chiefs; the rapid advance that had been made in the obliteration of prejudices formerly entertained against the Society by citizens of various portions of the country; an important increase of funds, raised from the munificent contributions of philanthropic individuals; and the increased and increasing desire among those, for whose benefit the Society was organized, to embrace an opportunity of joining the Colony.

Mr. C. C. HARPER of Baltimore, then rose, and offered the following resolution:

Resolved, That the Report be printed, and that the thanks of the Society be presented to the Board of Managers.

At no former meeting of the Society, Mr. Harper said, had we so much reason, as the Report justly affirms, to be gratified with the result of our labours, or could look forward at so cheering a prospect for the future.Indeed, Mr. Chairman, through the zealous and able exertions of the Board of Managers, the practicability of founding, on the coast of Africa, Colonies that shall maintain a hold and flourish, has ceased to be a matter of discussion. It has been demonstrated. At least it has been demonstrated to our satisfaction: and we are justified in persevering. If any one still deny the possibility or likelihood of such an establishment, we must no longer reason with him on abstract principles or from ancient examples, but answer his theories with facts. In our career of success we have, indeed, outstript the most sanguine anticipations; we have disappointed the most confident predictions of evil. A prosperous, and, compared with the surrounding nations, a powerful community, created by the hands of this Society, does exist on the coast of Africa. I have seen several of its citizens: I have heard its voice across the Atlantic.

However difficult and doubtful the accomplishment of such an enterprise may have seemed to many, it was, to my apprehension, the most easy in our whole design. It was merely a physical exertion. But, Sir, what must have at first repressed your hopes and risen like an insuperable obstacle in your path, was the uncertainty whether you could prevail upon any coloured persons to be the objects of so novel and dangerous an experiment, and

whether the charity of the public would continue to supply you with the means of making it. Confiding in the dictates of your conscience and in the holiness of your cause, you boldly advanced to the attempt. Your pious reliance, like that of the Apostle of old, was rewarded: you walked upon the indurated waters, and mountains stooped before you into plains. Your designs have been understood and appreciated by those for whose benefit they are chiefly intended; and many hundreds more than you can or would now send, daily apply for emigration. Far from shuddering at the thought of leaving the comfortable fireside among us, for a distant and unknown shore yet covered by the wilderness, they have preferred real liberty there, to a mockery of freedom here, and have turned their eyes to Africa, as the only resting place and refuge of the coloured man, in the deluge of oppression that surrounds him.

At the same time, but much more rapidly, the number of our friends among the whites has immensely increased in every part of our country.The feeble gush of yet doubting charity, which enabled you to take the first steps in the experiment, has become a constant stream with a thousand growing tributaries. From the South, where we feel the evil; and from the North, where they only behold it; from the sea-board, where we are approaching the condition of older nations; and from the remote interior, where civilized man is yet warring with the primeval forest; every hour brings applause for your exertions and prayers for your success. Individuals, companies, states, swell the chorus of approving voices.

So it must ever be, Sir, with this undertaking. It is in harmony with the best and noblest feelings of the human heart; and the mind itself expands and glows in the contemplation of its great and various merits. You must alter our nature, before you can make us indifferent to African Colonization. Before you can arrest its course, you must stifle the press and lay an interdict on the liberty of speech. Already the cool and calculating statesman finds himself labouring by the side of the enthusiastic devotee; and the secluded man of science attains by argument the same conclusion, to which feeling impels the multitude. It is thus we have united in our ranks men of all capacities, all places, all denominations. We have gone to the meetings of the learned and astute; and they have favoured us. We have gone to the primary assemblies of the people; and they have favoured us. The people, Sir, are the source alike of revenue and law.— To them have we gone. We have called upon their philanthropy, their patriotism, their religion: they have offered us their hearts and purses.— Our agents have penetrated every district of the country, to explain our views, to embody those who approve, to convince or persuade those that are opposed, and to convert the irregular and precarious donations upon which we have hitherto subsisted, into a concerted system of regular and steady contribution. The most superficial observer may perceive, that African Colonization has become an object of more earnest attention and

more lively interest with the people.

Let us continue to apply for aid to that sure and inexhaustable source. In a few short years, the public mind will be thoroughly imbued with our project. Then, nothing that we may elsewhere reasonably ask can be refused.

The objects of the Society and the means by which they are to be effected, I shall not now enumerate nor defend. They are, or ought to be, sufficiently understood, after the many eloquent explanations that have resounded within these walls and reverberated throughout our vast country. Objection after objection has bowed and yielded to the extension of opinions in our favour. For the feasibility of our designs, I may refer the incredulous to Liberia, and to the sentiments that are manifestly beginning to actuate so many thousands of our fellow-citizens; for their reasonableness and honesty, I appeal to the illustrious names that adorn our list of officers and members.

Such, Sir, was the origin, such are the conditions and prospects of your benevolent scheme. Such may they ever be! Thus far we have succeeded. We are the guardians of a nation in the bud,—a miniature of this Republic,-a coloured America on the shores of Africa. To whose exertions do we owe the past, and to whose exertions must we look for the further prosperous advancement of our cause? To the Board of Managers. To the Board of Managers, then, I move, Sir, that the thanks of the Society be presented; and that their Report be printed.

Which was agreed to unanimously.

Mr. LATROBE then addressed the Society.

MR. CHAIRMAN:-After the able and eloquent Report of the Board of Managers, which we have just heard read, and after the remarks of my fellow representative from the Society in Maryland; it would be only trespassing upon your time to dwell upon either the present condition, or the past history of our Society's existence. The past has been fraught with difficulty, and the present is replete with glorious promise: Both make us acquainted with our power, but admonish us, that we have, as yet, taken only the first steps in the great work, which we propose to accomplish. The establishment of one colony has been happily effected.-The doubtful experiment has equalled the most sanguine expectations; but the one channel thus opened, will never be alone sufficient to receive that population, thirty thousand of which must be annually removed before any impression can be made upon the increase.* Other tracts of territory must be obtained,

The annual increase of the coloured population of the United States, slave and free, is estimated by Mr. Clay at 52,000, (see his address at the 10th annual meeting of the American Colonization Society) from which, substracting those who never attain the age of puberty, and those over fifty, as not adding to the increase, 30,000 may be said to be the number necessary to be removed annually, to diminish the coloured population. The annual increase of the free blacks is only 6,000, and the removal of

other colonies must be established. I therefore, Sir, offer the following res solution.

Resolved, that the Board of Managers be directed to ascertain in the course of the ensuing year, if possible, the practicability of obtaining territory, for colonial settlements at Cape Palmas, and the Island of Bulama, on the S. W. Coast of Africa.

An inspection of the maps of Africa, will satisfy you, Mr. Chairman, of the importance of these two points, with reference to the future operations of the Society: and their commercial advantages being great, an early attempt to secure them, may perhaps prevent their falling into other hands, and enable the Society to use them, when the time shall have arrived, at which they may be used with advantage. That we are advancing prosperously at present, should not satisfy us. The spot on which we have founded our Colony was admirably selected; and so long as emigration con. tinued in its present limited state, that spot would be sufficient for all our wants. The time however will arrive, when the five hundred emigrants, who sailed for Liberia, in the course of the last year, will have increased to thrice as many thousand; and more places than one must be provided, at which their landing may be effected, at which that sickness must be undergone, which is the lot of all strangers, of all colours, in Africa. The great cities of our sea-board would, and do, without inconvenience, receive an annual emigration of many thousand each; because, in a few days, every emigrant obtains employment, and from the moment that he sets his foot upon our shore, is able to support himself and family. But in Africa, the eraigrants to its cities must remain, sometimes for weeks, in the hospital, and months must elapse before they can perform the labour to which they have been previously accustomed. This, therefore, makes a very serious difference between our seaports and those of Africa, with regard to the number of emigrants, which they would respectively be able to receive and support, and it is not a fair argument to say, that because Boston or Baltimore might receive twenty thousand emigrants, without inconvenience, that Monrovia, with an equal population, could do the same. Looking forward, therefore, to the time, which is most confidently anticipated by us all, when the annual emigration from this country shall amount to twenty-five or thirty thousand, and anxious to provide for its reception in Africa, I have moved the resolution which has been read.

this number annually may be soon accomplished. But experience has shown, that the number of emancipated slaves will bear a large proportion to the free persons who are removed; and this fact leads us to look forward to the time, when the gradual emancipation of the slaves will make them as much the objects of the Society's labours as are the free people at pre'sent: and regarding the Society, therefore, as the instrument for removing, with the consent of all parties, ultimately, the whole coloured population of the United States, the increase of the whole, and not of a part, has been assumed.

Cape Palmas is that part of Africa where the coast, after pursuing e course due East and West from the Bight of Biafra, bends off in nearly a North-West direction, and passing by Liberia, continues in an almost uninterrupted line to Cape Roxo. The Island of Bulama, in the mouth of the Rio Grande, is near the other extremity of the South-West Coast, within a short run from the Cape de Verds, and one of the points of the coast most easily made by vessels sailing from this country.

By possessing Cape Palmas, we would hold the commercial key of all the South Coast of Africa, and the countries immediately in the interior, down as far East as the Bight of Biafra; and a Colony there, would in a few years become a great depot for all the articles of foreign produce and manufacture, which would be required by inhabitants of the nations Eastward of the settlement. This will be the effect of a physical cause, which is certain and unchanging in its operations. The trade winds, pursuing the general outline of the African coast, render a return Northward from beyond Cape Palmas, along the coast, extremely difficult at all seasons of the year, and more particularly so in the rainy season, when the difficulty of taking observations and the numerous and varying currents prevent vessels from knowing their exact situation, and expose them to the constant danger of shipwreck. From Cape Palmas, or any point to the Northward, it is comparatively easy to return to the Cape de Verds, and so home, at all times: but Cape Palmas once passed, the danger and difficulty commenced, and a disastrous shipwreck or a shattered and ruined vessel is too often the consequence of a return voyage from a point beyond it. Were a settlement made at Cape Palmas, it would, like Monrovia, soon become the resort of the surrounding nations; and merchants would prefer leaving their goods at such a market, than running the risks of proceeding further Eastward, even with the hopes of enhanced profits. Paths would first be made, highways would take their place, until the uncivilized nations of the Ivory Coast and Gold Coast, passing by the feeble settlements of Cape Coast and d'Elmina, would resort to meet civilization at the nearest point of safe approach, the Americo-African City at Cape Palmas. A great and prosperous trade would be the consequence; and the facilities of gain would soon fill the new settlement with industrious inhabitants. Besides the commercial advantages of Cape Palmas, its road and anchorage are said to be the best between Montserado and the Voltu; and the surrounding country is rolling and fertile, intersected with numerous small streams, fit for the erection of mills. Being the Southern extremity of the South-West Coast, it will form also a natural boundary to that Empire, which we all hope will one day arise in Africa.

The other position is the Island of Bulama. This Island is seventeen miles long and nine wide, rising gently from the shore to a considerable elevation in the centre. The harbour is one of the best on the whole line of African coast, and the great rise of the tide offers every facility for the