A DISCOURSE BEFORE THE YOUNG MEN'S COLONIZATION SOCIETY OF PENNSYLVANIA, DELIVERED OCTOBER 24, 1834, IN ST. PAUL'S CHURCH, PHILADELPHIA. BY J. R. TYSON. WITH A NOTICE OF THE PROCEEDINGS OF THE SOCIETY, AND OF E448 LIST OF OFFICERS Foreign Correspondence-ELLIOTT CRESSON. Domestic Correspondence-Rev. W. A. M'DOWELL, D.D. AT A MEETING OF THE BOARD OF MANAGERS of the Young Men's Colonization Society of Pennsylvania, held November 11th, 1834, the following Resolution, offered by Dr. JOHN BELL, was unanimously and cordially approved, viz: Resolved, That the BOARD OF MANAGERS, in the name of the SOCIETY, return their grateful acknowledgments to JoB R. TYSON, Esq. for his appropriate and excellent DISCOURSE, delivered before the Young Men's Colonization Society of Pennsylvania, on the 24th of October, 1834, and that a copy of the same, be requested of the Author for publication. Extract from the Minutes. TOPLIFF JOHNSON, Secretary of the Board of Managers. Philadelphia, Dec. 5, 1834. PREFATORY REMARKS. The Author of the following Discourse will regret if it should give pain to any person or party. He himself belongs to no party whatever. The call which was made upon him, imposed the duty of expressing his opinions fully and fearlessly, and he trusts that he has discharged the obligation in a spirit of temperance and candour. As it is of little moment to others what opinions he may choose to entertain or express, his chief solicitude has been lest the cause might be injured by his lame exposition and imperfect defence. The writer does not intend to become a gladiator in this arena. He hopes, therefore, to be pardoned for saying, that the limits prescribed to an oration, precluded that full array of fact and argument which the topic requires. From this cause, he has left untouched several considerations which he would gladly have introduced, and been prevented from pursuing others which are barely started. Some of these are concisely hinted at in the form of notes. Owing to the necessity of compression on the one hand, and the want of skill on the other, he has, no doubt, been guilty of the fault noticed, after Horace, by Boileau: "J évite d'être long, et je deviens obscur." DISCOURSE. On this day has sailed from the port of Norfolk, the good ship Ninus, laden with one hundred and twenty-six of the enfranchised sons and daughters of Africa. Like the worthy and persecuted associates of William Penn, these voyagers seek shelter from oppression in a foreign clime. Delivered from the fetters of bondage by the active philanthropy of this association, they seek, in the establishment of a new colony, the enjoyment of freedom. They embark, the first emigrants to the Pennsylvan Colony, on the one hundred. and fifty-second anniversary of the arrival of Penn, with the first English settlers, on the shores of the Delaware! With a coincidence so remarkable, an omen so auspicious, may the vessel spread her canvass to benignant winds! Bearing with her the elements of an independent empire, may Heaven penetrate the hearts of her passengers with the magnitude of their enterprise, and illumine their minds to direct it with wisdom! What friend of humanity will refuse his gratitude and joy, at the rescue of one hundred and twenty-six human beings from the jaws of slavery? Who will not sympathise with those pleasurable and intense emotions, which the event is calculated to excite in the hearts of its fortunate instruments? The reflections which the departure of this band of adventurers must awaken, are peculiar and cheering. In the possession of present comfort, and joyous with anticipations of unqualified freedom and future plenty, how unlike the condition of their unhappy ancestors, borne from the cherished |