"Measures have been taken to maintain that exclusion of the Slave Trade from this line of coast, which had been effected by General Turner; and which, it is hoped, that nothing will occur to impede. Similar cessions might have been obtained to the northward of the colony, had the policy of our Government permitted the local authorities to fall in with the desire of the natives to have the shield of British protection thrown over them. A large district, however, to the north-east of the colony, comprising the banks of Port Logo, a branch of the River Sierra Leone, has been incorporated with the British possessions; and a great step in advance has thus been made towards a more free communication with the countries bordering on the Niger. A considerable cession of territory has also been negotiated in the Gambia, at the mouth and on the north bank of that noble river, comprehending a great part of the kingdom of Barra."

"Proceedings

On the Formation of the New York State Colonization Society.”

This is a publication for which we have long and anxiously waited. Knowing the talent and interest that were manifest at the formation of that Society, we had no doubt that they were well calculated to give new light and impulse to the cause of Africa. In this we are not disappointed. The sketch of the proceedings, of Mr. Smith's address, and the address of the Managers to the public, show that they were worthy of the high character of the individuals concerned, and of the state that claims them as her citizens. Of these, however, there is only a sketch. The Address of Dr. Nott, President of Union College, is published entire; and to this we shall for the present chiefly direct our attention.

Dr. Nott waives entirely the motives which might have led to the formation of the National Colonization Society, and very justly rests its present claims to public patronage, only on its promise of future benefits. We are confident that the opinions of one so distinguished for his intelligence, learning, and piety, will receive general attention. The great questions, which he proposes for decision, are, "Is the plan practicable? and if practicable, expedient?"

"Is it then practicable? Here doubtless, experience is the wisest counsellor and the safest guide. What has been done, and done often, can

again be done. How stands the balance of probabilities, in the ascertained issues of kindred enterprises, as they are found recorded on the pages of authentic history?

But, not to insist on this; to say nothing of Greece civilized by colonies from Egypt; of Italy, by colonies from Greece; and of Europe, by colonies from Italy; the rising and the risen republics of America stand forth before our eyes, impressive monuments of what colonization can effect in climes more remote, and amid circumstances less auspicious, than even distant and tropical Africa now presents.

"Much must, doubtless, be done and suffered, before the colony at Montserado will have attained the same celebrity. Nor is it to be concealed that much has already been done and suffered, in creating and merely sustaining it in being. Its history is brief, and, till lately, it has been a history of woes. Houseless and unsheltered, the colonists have had to contend with heat and rain, and war and pestilence. And yet, from these combined causes, the amount of suffering and the waste of life, have been less at Montserado than at Plymouth, that sacred locality where the pilgrims landed, and to which the children of the pilgrims from their ten thousand places of joyous habitations, still look back with so many tender and grateful recollections. Ah! had those pioneers of civilization, in this new world, a moiety of whose numbers perished during the rigors of the first New-England winter, been disheartened; or, had those friends, whence succors were derived, been disheartened; how different had been the fame acquired for themselves-. how different the inheritance bequeathed to their children? Neither the climate nor the natives of Africa are so terrible to the Negro now, as the climate and the natives of New-England were to the Britain then.

"That the millions of Africa, especially that part of it with which this discussion is concerned, are ignorant, degraded, and wretched, needs no proof. And are they to continue thus for ever? Not surely, if revelation be true, and God merciful. But how is a change in their condition to be produced' We have heard of nations sinking into barbarism by their own inertia, but never of their having thus arisen therefrom. So far as history reaches, at least, barbarians have been civilized, and only civilized by the influence of those who were not barbarians. In effecting the elevation of a degraded nation, a nation already elevated supplies to the philanthropist what Archimedes wanted-a fulcrum on which to plant his lever, that he might raise the world.

"It is not by legal arguments, or penal statutes, or armed ships, that the slave trade can be prevented. Almost every power in Christendom has denounced it. It has been declared felony—it has been declared piracy; and the fleets of Britain and America have been commissioned to drive it

from the ocean. Still, in defiance of all this array of legislation and of armament, slave ships ride triumphant on the ocean; and in these floating caverns, less terrible only than the caverns which demons occupy, from six

ty to eighty thousand wretches,* received pinioned from the coast of Africa, are borne annually away to slavery or death. Of these wretches a frightful number are, with an audacity that amazes, landed and disposed of within the jurisdiction of this republic.

"It is not by the blockade of her ports, but by the circumvallation of her coasts, that Africa can be shielded against either the insinuation or the assault of that remorseless passion, the “sacra fames auri,” that has for centuries rendered her habitations insecure, and her fields desolate. To afford an adequate protection, a mighty barrier must every where be raised between the oppressor and the oppressed; a barrier neither of wood-work, nor of masonry, but of muscle and sinew: a muscle and sinew that is incompatible with slavery, and can neither be bought nor sold.

"This frightful scourge of Africa has ceased in the vicinity of Sierra Leone. It will soon have ceased at Montserado, as it will elsewhere, as other colonies are planted, and other watch-towers of freedom arise.

"The points thus defended along the coast, will be so many radiant points to the interior. And thus those humble and noiseless emigrants, who are now erecting their dwellings, and enclosing their fields, and who have already given to the little locality they occupy an air of cleanliness and comfort, as novel as delightful in that desert region, may be founding, imperceptibly, an empire destined to be the centre of an enduring and mighty influence: an influence that shall change the habitudes of man as well as the aspect of nature; and that shall one day be felt alike along the valleys of the Senegal and the Nile, and from the ridge of Lupata to the foot of Atlas. Who knows that the landing at the Cape of Montserado, will not be as pregnant of consequences as that at the rock of Plymouth? Or that Africa thus excited, will not, centuries hence, exhibit as busy an industry, send forth as rich a commerce, and raise as joyful and as holy a note of praise, as either America or Europe?

"But it is not Africa alone that is to be affected by the destiny of Africa. The empire of man is one; and all its provinces are related. By intercourse a reciprocity of benefits is conferred. Nor to either will the measure of national prosperity be full, till the resources of all have been developed. "But what does Africa contribute to the science, or the virtue, or even the wealth of nations?

"There are individual houses in London, the failure of which would affect the prosperity of millions, and produce a train of evils that would be felt on both the continents; but if the whole of Western and Southern Africa were sunk, the arts, the science, and the commerce of the world would remain untouched: nor would the space thus occupied, vast as it is, be missed, unless as a beacon, by the mariner as he crossed the ocean.

"This is not mere idle speculation. There has been exported from Sierra Leone alone, in a single year, a greater amount of value, since the ab*This estimate is doubtless far too small.

olition of the slave trade, than was exported in the same period, from the whole Western coast of Africa anterior to that event. What then might not be expected, if the change of condition that has taken place in this one locality, were to become universal? Were the slave trade every where abolished, and the African race for ever relieved from the paralyzing apprehension of treachery and violence; were Africa throughout regenerated, and arts and science, and religion introduced through all the terra incognita of her vast interior; were her soil cultivated, her mines worked, her water-power rendered productive, and the agency of wind and steam employed in her work-shops, and on her waters; were her gold and her ivory, her sandal-wood and her gums, her dies and her drugs, with all the rich and the varied produce of her now forsaken fields, and impenetrable forests, poured down along the many tributary streams into the Nile, the Niger, the Senegal and the Gambia, and thence sent forward in rich abundance to the mart of nations; what a vast accession would be made to the comfort and riches, and what an impulse given to the enterprise and commerce of the world! Could such a result be produced by the expenditure of millions, economy, as well as philanthropy, would sanction the expenditure.

"But if it would be policy in other nations to encourage colonization in Africa, how much more so in us? Many and great as were the blessings conferred by our national independence, there exists among us one class on whom that event has conferred no benefits. I allude to our citizens of colour. Citizens whom freedom has rendered only more wretched and debased.

"Hence, and notwithstanding all the immunities and privileges that legal enactments could confer, they remain among us an out-cast and isolated race; shunned at least, if not contemned and despised.... All the incentives to exertion and enterprise are removed from them; all the avenues to wealth and honor are barred against them. Degraded themselves, they degrade the very labor which they perform; and hence it is that temperance and honesty are well nigh banished from the vocation which they follow. And yet it is not inferiority of faculties, but the force of condition, that has produced this degradation.

"With us they have been degraded by slavery, and still further degraded by the mockery of nominal freedom. We have endeavored, but endeavored in vain, to restore them either to self-respect; or to the respect of others. It is not our fault that we have failed; it is not theirs. It has resulted from a cause over which neither they, nor we, can ever have control. Here, therefore, they must be forever debased: more than this, they must be for ever useless; more even than this, they must be for ever a nuisance, from which it were a blessing for society to be rid. And yet they, and they only, are qualified for colonizing Africa. Africa is their country. In color, in constitution, in habitude, they are suited to its climate. There they may be blessed, and be a blessing. Here they can be neither.

Benevolence, patriotism, self-interest, all pronounce alike on the expediency of their removing. Let us then in mercy to them, in mercy to ourselves, and in mercy to Africa, favor and facilitate their removal."

Dr. Nott, next alludes to the fact, that the whole people of this country were implicated in the guilt of the slave trade; and are therefore liable to be affected by its ultimate evils: that the difference between the south and north is owing to circumstances and not to virtue: that if the south received stolen men, the north was especially engaged in the still more odious practice of stealing them: that on Virginia at least they were forced contrary to her will, and against her remonstrance: that all history teaches us that absolute power over our fellow men will be abused: that they are in fact deprived of personal and civil rights: that the system is the source of continual apprehensions; adverse to virtue; a calamity to the state, especially by preventing the increase of freemen; dangerous in prospect, as at the present rate of increase the number will amount to 24,000,000 at the close of this century; inconsistent with the leading and self-evident principle of our independence; liable to be turned against us by the arts of foreign enemies: that the close of the system is indicated by the progress of society: that in all enlightened countries it is either terminated, or waning to extinction: that not only is it at variance with the spirit of our government, our religious principles, our moral feelings, our habits of thought and action, but in reality freedom in this country is making continual inroads upon it, while by the rise of kindred republics in Spanish America, it has, through vast and contiguous territories, suddenly ceased to exist: that this forward movement of society cannot be resisted: that the slave trade was sanctioned by ecclesiastical authority, unassailed and without an enemy, interwoven with the policy and intrenched in the prepossessions of every christian nation; and yet a few despised names in Britain set those means in motion which have already shaken the system to its base, changed the current of feeling throughout the world, caused the system to be denounced by almost every christian nation, and the slave, of whatever cast or colour, to be free, the moment he steps on the soil of Britain.

Dr. Nott observes, "our Brethren of the South, have the sympathies, the same moral sentiments, the same love of liberty as