If we scan with a philosophic eye the great subject of effacing the national stain of servitude, and of aiding the moral and social well being of the coloured man, we discern at once that the mists of passion and the prejudices of party,

colonize the negroes of the United States, in "that large extent of country, from the west side of the Alleghany mountains to the Mississippi, on a breadth of four or five hundred miles."

Elisha Tyson was for many years opposed to the scheme of colonizing the free blacks in Africa. Towards the latter part of his life, his views entirely changed upon the subject. His biographer observes, "It was not until the closing period of Mr. Tyson's life, that this (the Colonization) Society enjoyed his confidence." * * * "Universal emancipation, connected with Colonization, was the favourite theme of his declining age, and the last days of his existence were cheered by the hopes which seemed to beam on him through the dark vista of futurity, of the glorious realization of his wishes." Life of E. Tyson, p. 111 and 120.

William Wilberforce, it has been asserted, renounced Colonization just before he died. I can hardly think that recantation an act of free volition, which was made under circumstances, and at a time, when the energies of nature, it is said, were nearly extinct, and when a testamentary disposition could hardly have been binding. I prefer the conclusions of the mind, in a better condition of the body-we look for the mens sana in corpore sano. A letter of which the following is an extract, was written by William Wilberforce to Elliott Cresson, when his faculties, mental and physical, were sound. He refers to the American Colonization Society-" You have gladdened my heart by convincing me, that sanguine as had been my hopes of the happy effects to be produced by your Institution, all my anticipations are scanty and cold compared with the reality. This may truly be deemed a pledge of the Divine favour, and believe me, no Briton, I had almost said no American, can take a livelier interest than myself, in your true greatness and glory." &c. &c. Vide, Fifteenth Annual Report Am. Col. Soc. p. 15.

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Hannah Kilham, who was a member of the Society of Friends in England, and well known for her great benevolence and ardent piety, visited Liberia in 1832. She thus expresses herself in a letter written while in the colony. This colony altogether presents quite a new scene of combined African and American interest. I cannot but hope and trust, that it is the design of Infinite Goodness to prepare a home in this land for many who have been denied the full extent of privilege in the land of their birth; and that some, who are brought here but as a shelter and resource for themselves, may, through the visitation of Heavenly Goodness in their own minds, and the further leadings of Divine Love, become ministers of the glad tidings of the Gospel, to many who are now living in darkness, and the shadow of death."

Elliott Cresson whose zeal in the cause led him, as agent, to make a protracted visit to England, without compensation, found many benevolent spirits, and warm advocates of Colonization in that land. [See statement of the names of

are all that obstruct its happy termination.

If the Abolition Societies, as they were constituted before the announcement of anti-slavery principles, would unostentatiously prosecute their benevolent labours of educating the free negroes, and

contributors and the amount of his collections, in England, as published in the African Repository for April, 1834.] He was the means of forming there a society in aid of the enterprise, composed of men of the highest rank, of distinguished talents, and reputed piety. They consider the plan as admirably calculated to introduce Christianity and civilization among the natives of Africa, and to extirpate the slave-trade," which," say they, "the naval efforts of Great Britain and other powers, have been unable to suppress." The following are the officers of THE BRITISH AFRICAN COLONIZATION SOCIETY. They will be recognised as among the most illustrious characters in the Kingdom. Patron.-His Royal Highness the Duke of Sussex. President.-The Right Honourable Lord Bexley. Vice Presidents.-His Grace the Duke of Bedford, His Grace the Archbishop of Dublin, the most Noble the Marquis of Westminster, the Rt. Hon. Sir George Murray, Bart. K. C. B., T. Richardson, Esq. (of Stamford Hill), Lord Advocate Jeffrey, H. Wilson Esq., Rev. Lord Arthur Hervey, John Ivatt Briscoe, Esq. M. P., James Douglas, Esq. (of Cavers), B. Hawes, Esq. M. P.. Sir George Ouseley. Treasurer.-J. Biddulph, Esq. Hon. Secretary.-Captain J.J. Chapman.

In addition to these there are many private individuals in Great Britain and Ireland who have generously contributed considerable sums of money to this noble charity, and whose pens have been enlisted in the cause. Among these I give the following:

Dr. Hodgkin, a distinguished and benevolent physician of London. He has published at his own expense three valuable pamphlets in defence of the Society and its colony.

John Bevans, the Editor of the Herald of Peace-the author of the Vindication of Liberia and other able articles.

Rev. Henry Duncan, D.D. Dumfries, the founder of the first Savings Banka warm and zealous advocate of African Colonization.

James Simpson, Esq. of Edinburg, has vindicated the cause in the Phrenological Journal with great ability.

Rev. Edward Higginson, of Hull, the author of "Liberia philanthropically and economically considered."

Thomas Greer Jacob, a Friend, of Belfast, in a series of letters exposed the sophistry and disingenuousness of the anti-colonizationists, and the duty of supporting the Society in its benevolent labours. Several distinguished Friends contributed largely to its funds; among them, R. D. Alexander, of Ipswich, raised for the Society £600 sterling. His friend, the immortal Thomas Clarkson, whose labours in the cause of African freedom have been greater than those of any man living, is strongly attached to the Society, and duly appreciates its important results. "This venerable man," says the 15th Report of the American Colonization Society, "now sinking under a weight of years, and almost blind, listened to the details of the Society's operations with an enthusiastic delight, such, as a

assisting those who are illegally retained in bondage, the work of Colonization would go prosperously onward and the fabric of slavery would crumble into ruins. Having renounced their partial alliance with treasonable doctrines and transatlantic emissaries; having sacrificed upon the altar of patriotism and union the new fangled notion of immediate and total abolition ;* and pursuing those legitimate and

.*

friend remarked, he had not manifested for twenty years; and in a letter to Mr. Cresson observes, 'for myself, I am free to say, that of all things that have been going on in our favour since 1787, when the abolition of the slave trade was seriously proposed, that which is going on in the United States is the most important. It surpasses every thing that has yet occurred. No sooner had your colony been established on Cape Montserado, than there appeared a disposition among the owners of slaves to give them freedom voluntarily and without compensation, and to allow them to be sent to the land of their fathers, so that you have many thousands redeemed, without any cost for their redemption. To me this is truly astonishing. Can this have taken place without the intervention of the spirit of God?' Report, pages 14, et seq.

Douglas, of Cavers, contributed £200 to its funds, and the eloquent appeals of Jeffrey, Murray, Solicitor General Cockburn and Lord Moncrieff will long be remembered by the brilliant assemblages drawn around them at Edinburg. Mrs. Miles Fletcher, so justly beloved by our countrymen who have visited the northern Athens, has given to the cause the aid of her powerful influence. Rev. Josiah Pratt has furnished valuable articles in the Missionary Herald throughout the whole period of the colonial history of Liberia,

* The example of the effects produced in England by the denunciations of the press, and the exhibitions of popular feeling, against slavery, by leading to an act of Parliament, abolishing slavery in Jamaica, has been thought to justify similar attempts at agitation in the Northern sections of the United States. In England, this clamour was raised among a people that had control over Slavery in Jamaica. The English Parliament had a right to legislate upon the subject. But it does not seem to be known or understood, that the legislatures of the nonslave-holding states, and the Congress of the United States have nothing to do with the existence of slavery at the South. They have no jurisdiction over the territory. Each state, with regard to its own internal concerns, is an independent sovereignty, and in relation to these concerns, it can no more be governed by the legislation of the others or Congress, than by an act of the British Parliament or a bull of the Pope of Rome. If Englishmen, who declaim at the North against Southern slavery, could be taught that they are preaching to impotent hearers, they might save themselves much unnecessary trouble and the cause much disservice. But enough is said in a former note to show, that the doctrine of these individuals, and of the Anti-slavery Societies, with respect to immediate abolition, is opposed to the sentiments of unquestioned philanthropists.

Touching the fearful experiment which has been made in Jamaica, it is sincerely hoped that the event will justify the predictions of the advocates of the measure, and disappoint the confident expectations of those who were opposed

praiseworthy objects which had more recently called forth their energies; they might prepare their subjects for more extensive liberty and a larger sphere of action in another hemisphere. Humanity and religion will rejoice at the spectacle of two societies, a little variant at one stage of their history, uniting and co-operating in the design of extirpating what each must regard as the greatest of social and political

to it. But we already find that the apprentices, so called, do not perform half their accustomed labours; that the crops will not be quarter the usual size; and that much insubordination, disturbance and panic have been excited. These consequences have resulted notwithstanding the guard of a strict, vigilant and exacting police, and the terrors of a formidable naval force. It has, indeed, been argued that nothing worse can happen, and that things will grow better when the novelty of freedom shall have worn away. However desirable this be, is such a presumption justified by existing facts? The apprentices have yet only heard the sound of abolition, without experiencing its enjoyments. Each set are confined to their appropriate estate as formerly, and though the disposition may be imparted, the power to do mischief, has been prudently withheld. Union, concert, in a word, the ability to conspire, are wanting. But, will not the case be changed, when these apprenticeships shall have expired? The slaves must then be free and unshackled, enjoying the influence, as well as hearing the name of liberty. They will be their own masters, (and happy will it be, if they do not prove the masters of all around them,) having the right of locomo tion, of which they are now deprived. Can it be doubted, that if they want only this power at present, for the commission of fell barbarities, the inclination will not be wanting a few years hence?

In England, certain benevolent spirits seem to be so well satisfied that the work of freedom is accomplished at home, that they have formed a 'British and Foreign Society for the universal abolition of negro slavery,' with a view to aid the cause of emancipation throughout the world. No exception can be taken to the most expansive philanthrophy, provided it does not interfere with the exercise of that charity which begins at home. In the case before us, it is appre hended, much remains for enlightened benevolence to undertake. What has the Act of Parliament done? Has it effected that mental preparation which is necessary for the ultimate freedom of these apprentices? Has it placed the negro child at school, or given to him a spelling book or Bible? If the act has not done this, should not a society, whose sympathies-bounded only by the confines of this terraqueous globe-are felt across the Atlantic in the various forms of frothy missives and mad-cap missionaries, attend to so vital a concern? The disenthralling of the soul is quite as important as that of the body, and must necessarily precede it. Ireland is thought by some to be in an enslaved condition. What would Britain say to a society formed in this country for the establishment of universal liberty, and which, in furtherance of that design, should send out emissaries for the purpose of aiding that mild and amiable abolitionist, Daniel O'Connell, in his patriotic efforts at 'agitation' there?

evils. With such concert of effort we may expect to realize those dazzling visions of the future, which open upon the imagination. We may promise ourselves the ability to explore and know that immense and interesting region which so many travellers have attempted in vain to survey and examine. We may picture to ourselves, though in distant perspective, the certain but complete civilization of a barbarous country; its majestic forests converted into beautiful and luxuriant fields; its mighty rivers rendered the great tributaries of wealth, and the highways of enterprise. We may indulge the hope that the Nile and the Niger may bear upon their swelling waters the power conferred upon navigation by the genius of Fulton, and that those other arts of America which minister to convenience and luxury here, may, in Africa, find a genial and a welcome home. We may hope that the institutions of America, save those which legalize oppression, may be transplanted into the African soil, there to flourish, blossom, and fructify. With such foundations we may expect the elegancies of literature to animate a people whom antiquity knew as illustrious-that English literature, the common inheritance of Britons and Americans, may be studied, admired and imitated. For of Africa we may emphatically

say,

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-unto us she hath a spell beyond Her name in story, and her long array Of mighty shadows-"

We may picture her superstitions dissipated by the sun of science, and her idolatry converted into worship by the inspired eloquence of her Origens, Tertullians, Cyprians, and Augustines.* It is thus we shall witness the realization of prophetic truth, that 'Ethiopia shall soon stretch forth her hands unto God;' it is thus we shall witness the Christian temple rearing its heaven-directed spire in the heart of Africa, and illuminating with its divine effulgence the remotest parts of a dreary and benighted land.

* These great teachers of Christianity in their day, were Africans. In the fifth century, it is estimated that there were four hundred Catholic Bishops in Africa.