States, and there published, for the information of the Coloured People of that country:

(CIRCULAR.)

As much speculation and uncertainty continues to prevail among the People of Colour in the United States, respecting our situation and prospects in Africa: and many misrepresentations have been put in circulation there, of a nature slanderous to us, and, in their effects, injurious to them; we felt it our duty, by a true statement of our circumstances, to endeavour to correct them.

The first consideration which caused our voluntary removal to this country, and the object which we still regard with the deepest concern, is liberty-liberty, in the sober, simple, but complete sense of the word: not a licentious liberty, nor a liberty without government, or which should place us without the restraint of salutary laws-but that liberty of speech, action, and conscience, which distinguishes the free enfranchised citizens of a free State. We did not enjoy that freedom in our native country; and, from causes which, as respects ourselves, we shall soon forget forever, we were certain it was not there attainable for ourselves or our children. This, then, being the first object of our pursuit in coming to Africa, is probably the first object on which you will ask for information. And we must truly declare to you, that our expectations and hopes, in this respect, have been realized. Our Constitution secures to us, so far as our condition allows, "all the rights and privileges enjoyed by the citizens of the United States;" and these rights and privileges are ours. We are proprietors of the soil we live on, and possess the rights of freeholders. Our suffrages, and, what is of more importance, our sentiments and our opinions have their due weight in the Government we live under. Our laws are altogether our own: they grow out of our circumstances; are framed for our exclusive benefit, and administered either by officers of our own appointment, or such as possess our confidence. We have a judiciary, chosen from among ourselves; we serve as jurors in the trial of others; and are liable to be tried only by juries of our fellow-citizens, ourselves. We have all that is meant by Liberty of conscience. The time and mode of worshipping God, as prescribed to us in his word, and dictated by

our conscience, we are not only free to follow, but are protected in following.

Forming a community of our own, in the land of our forefathers; having the commerce, and soil, and resources, of the country at our disposal; we know nothing of that debasing inferiority with which our very colour stamped us in America: there is nothing here to create the feeling on our part-nothing to cherish the feeling of superiority in the minds of foreigners who visit us. It is this moral emancipation-this liberation of the mind from worse than iron fetters-that repays us ten thousand times over, for all that it has cost us, and makes us grateful to God and our American patrons for the happy change which has taken place in our situation. We are not so self-complacent as to rest satisfied with our improvement, either as regards our minds or our circumstances. We do not expect to remain stationary. Far from it. But we certainly feel ourselves, for the first time, in a state to improve either to any purpose. The burthen is gone from our shoulders: we now breathe and move freely; and know not (in surveying your present state) for which to pity you most-the empty.name of liberty, which you endeavour to content yourselves with, in a country that is not yours, or the delusion which makes you hope for ampler privileges in that country hereafter. Tell us, which is the white man, who, with a prudent regard to his own character, can associate with one of you, on terms of equality? Ask us, which is the white man who would decline such association with one of our number, whose intellectual and moral qualities are not an objection? To both these questions we unhesitatingly make the same answer:-There is no such white man.

We solicit none of you to emigrate to this country: for we know not who among you prefers rational independence, and the honest respect of his fellow-men, to that mental sloth and careless poverty which you already possess, and your children will inherit after you, in America. But if your views and aspirations rise a degree higher-if your minds are not as servile as your present condition-we can decide the question at once; and with confidence say, that you will bless the day, and your children after you, when you determined to become citizens of Liberia. But we do not hold this language on the blessings of liberty for

the purpose of consoling ourselves for the sacrifice of health, or the suffering of want, in consequence of our removal to Africa. We enjoy health after a few month's residence in the country, as uniformly, and in as perfect a degree, as we possessed that blessing in our native country. And a distressing scarcity of provisions or any of the comforts of life, has for the last two years been entirely unknown, even to the poorest persons in this community. On these points there are, and have been, much misconception and some malicious misrepresentations in the U. States. We have nearly all suffered from sickness, and, of the earliest emigrants, a large proportion fell in the arduous attempt to lay the foundation of the Colony. But are they the only persons whose lives have been lost in the cause of human liberty, or sacrificed to the welfare of their fellow-men? Several out of every ship's company have, within the last four years, been carried off by sickness, caused by the change of climate. And death occasionally takes a victim from our number, without any regard at all to the time of his residence in this country. But we never hoped, by leaving America, to escape the common lot of mortals-the necessity of death, to which the just appointment of Heaven consigns us. But we do expect to live as long, and pass this life with as little sickness as yourselves.

The true character of the African climate is not well understood in other countries. Its inhabitants are as robust, as healthy, as long lived, to say the least, as those of any other country. Nothing like an epidemic has ever appeared in this Colony; nor can we learn from the natives, that the calamity of a sweeping sickness ever yet visited this part of the continent. But the change from a temperate to a tropical country is a great one-too great not to affect the health, more or less—and, in the cases of old people, and very young children, it often causes death. In the early years of the Colony, want of good houses, the great fatigues and dangers of the settlers, their irregular mode of living, and the hardships and discouragements they met with, greatly helped the other causes of sickness, which prevailed to an alarming extent, and were attended with great mortality. But we look back to those times as to a season of trial long past, and nearly forgotten. Our houses and circumstances are now comfortable; and, for the last two or three years, not one person in

forty, from the Middle and Southern States, has died from the change of climate. The disastrous fate of the company of settlers who came out from Boston in the brig Vine, eighteen months ago, is an exception to the common lot of emigrants; and the causes of it ought to be explained. Those people left a cold region in the coldest part of Winter, and arrived here in the hottest season of our year. Many of them were too old to have survived long in any country. They most imprudently neglected the prescriptions of our very successful physician, the Rev. Lot Carey, who has great experience and great skill in the fevers of the country, and depended on medicines brought with them, which could not fail to prove injurious. And, in consequence of all those unfortunate circumstances, their sufferings were severe, and many died. But we are not apprehensive that a similar calamity will befall any future emigrants, except under similar disadvantages.

People now arriving, have comfortable houses to receive them; will enjoy the regular attendance of a physician in the slight sickness that may await them; will be surrounded and attended by healthy and happy people, who have borne the effects of the climate, who will encourage and fortify them against that despondency which, alone, has carried off several in the first years of the Colony.

But you may say, that even health and freedom, as good as they are, are still dearly paid for, when they cost you the common comforts of life, and expose your wives and children to famine, and all the evils of want and poverty. We do not dispute the soundness of this conclusion either: but we utterly deny that it has any application to the people of Liberia.

Away with all the false notions that are circulating about the barrenness of this country: they are the observations of such ignorant or designing men, as would injure both it and you. A more fertile soil, and a more productive country, so far as it is cultivated, there is not, we believe, on the face of the earth. Its hills and its plains are covered with a verdure which never fades; the productions of nature keep on in their growth through all the seasons of the year. Even the natives of the country, almost without farming tools, without skill, and with very little labor,

make more grain and vegetables than they can consume, and often more than they can sell.

Cattle, swine, fowls, ducks, goats, and sheep, thrive without feeding, and require no other care than to keep them from straying. Cotton, coffee, indigo, and the sugar cane, are all the spontaneous growth of our forests; and may be cultivated, at pleasure, to any extent, by such as are disposed. The same may be said of rice, Indian corn, guinea corn, millet, and too many species of fruits and vegetables to be enumerated. Add to all this, we have no dreary Winter here, for one half of the year to consume the productions of the other half. Nature is constantly renewing herself, and constantly pouring her treasures, all the year round, into the laps of the industrious. We could say, on this subject, more; but we are afraid of exciting, too highly, the hopes of the imprudent. Such persons, we think, will do well to keep their rented cellars, and earn their twenty-five cents. a day at the wheelbarrow, in the commercial towns of America, and stay where they are. It is only the industrious and virtuous that we can point to independence, and plenty, and happiness, in this country. Such people are nearly sure to attain, in a very few years, to a style of comfortable living, which they may in vain hope for in the United States; and, however short we come of this character ourselves, it is only a due acknowledgment of the bounty of Divine Providence to say, that we generally enjoy the good things of this life to our entire satisfaction.

Our trade is chiefly confined to the coast, to the interior parts of the continent, and to foreign vessels. It is already valuable, and fast increasing. It is carried on in the productions of the country, consisting of rice, palm oil, ivory, tortoise shell, dye woods, gold, hides, wax, and a small amount of coffee: and it brings us, in return, the products and manufactures of the four quarters of the world.-Seldom, indeed, is our harbour clear of European and American shipping; and the bustle and thronging of our streets, show something, already, of the activity of the smaller seaports of the United States.

Mechanics, of nearly every trade, are carrying on their various occupations; their wages are high; and a large number would be sure of constant and profitable employment.