4. "The emigrants by the Swift have proved themselves an industrious, thrifty people. They have already raised two crops of culinary vegetables and other produce. The farm established on Bushrod Island is doing remarkably well, and will, I think, realize my former hope respecting it. All the paupers that require constant assistance are now on the farm, and those able to labor have their work regularly assigned to them. You will be astonished, no doubt, when I inform you that the former fearful number of mendicants has dwindled, since the commencement of this system, to twenty, including those who are only occasionally beneficiaries.

5. "The emigrants by the Rondout are located at Millsburg, and already have their town lots assigned them; they will have their farms in a few days." In May an agricultural society was formed. One of the conditions of membership was a subscription of $500 to a joint stock fund to be paid in quarterly payments. The object of this society was the cultivation of the sugar-cane, and the manufacture of sugar. Stock was taken by the most wealthy and enterprising inhabitants, and the investment promised to be advantageous both to the stockholders and the Colony.

6. In June there were twenty acres of the public farm under successful cultivation, six acres of which were in sugar-cane. The crops on the public farm at Junk were also promising. With a view to encourage agriculture and the raising of stock, twenty acres, instead of five, were allotted to those who had not before drawn farms, on condition that deeds should not be given until five acres were under good cultivation. There were 450 acres of land under excellent cultivation in the Colony, exclusive of the settlements of Edina and Bassa Cove; at both of which places they were applying themselves successfully to agriculture. At Bassa Cove there were ten acres of rice in one field.

7. Owing to the wars, which for the last two years had

raged with little intermission along the coast, the natives were nearly in a state of starvation, and the Caldwell and New Georgia people had for some months supplied them with cassada, which was almost the only article of provision that could be obtained. Rice was very scarce. The Mississippi Society fitted out a company of emigrants for their new settlement on the Sinoe, which sailed in the Oriental from New Orleans in April, under the care of J. F. C. Finley. They arrived unexpectedly at Monrovia, where they were obliged to remain some time before proceeding to their place of destination.

8. In the summer the brig Baltimore brought fifty-five emigrants to the Maryland Colony. A majority of these were emancipated by the will of Richard Tubman, Esq., of Georgia, on condition of their emigrating to Liberia, and $10,000 bequeathed to the Colonization Society for the expenses of their emigration and settlement. They were of good character and experienced cotton planters. Many of them were acquainted with some trade. The Charlotte Harper arrived on the 4th of August, at Bassa Cove, with supplies for the Colony to the amount of $10,000. The passengers in this vessel were the Rev. John J. Matthias, who had been appointed Governor of the Colony, and his wife, Dr. Wesley Johnson, assistant physician to the Colony, David Thomas, millwright, Misses Annesley, Beers, and Wilkins, teachers, and Dr. S. M. E. Goheen, physician to the Methodist Mission at Monrovia, and four colored emigrants.

9. The thriving settlement of Edina, separated by the St. John's River from that of Bassa Cove, was this year, by an arrangement entered into between the American Colonization Society and the Pennsylvania and New York Society, transferred to the latter Society, the people of Edina consenting thereto. This was a favorable arrangement for both settlements, as it united their strength and identified their interest, while it lessened the expense of their government. Mrs. Matthias and Miss Annesley both

died in a few months after their arrival in Africa, and within two or three days of each other. These pious missionaries were intimately attached to each other in America. Together they consecrated themselves to the cause of Africa, and together were called from the field which they had barely been permitted to enter and survey.

mer.

10. Governor Matthias wrote from Bassa Cove, December 18, 1837: "There is not a finer climate for the colored man in the world, nor a soil more fertile. It is now sumThe thermometer for a month past has ranged from 79° to 84°, and the season will continue until May, during which period the thermometer will not rise above 86°. Although the Watchman has been pleased to ridicule our organization as a republic, nevertheless we are a State with all its machinery. The editor would be induced to change his views were he to see our well-dressed and disciplined troops and their management of arms. I should venture nothing in comparing them with the militia anywhere at home.

11. Our courts of justice, of sessions, and the supreme court, the clerks and sheriffs, with the prosecuting attor ney, with great readiness perform their respective duties. To see members of council gravely deliberating on matters of interest to the commonwealth and good government, together with merchants transacting their business with as much skill and propriety almost as at Middletown, is truly astonishing, considering the short period since our organization. Our chief clerk, for example, one of the children taken by the enemy in Ashmun's war, and restored after a detention of some months, besides writing a beautiful hand, can, in a twinkling, cast up any account, and make his calculations, without pen or pencil, in the sale of articles, with as much accuracy as any of your merchants. I am preparing, if well, to go up the St. John's, to hold a palaver with six or eight head men and kings for the purchase of their country. A great change has taken place among them; they seem desirous of being allied to

us, for the protection of themselves against each other's aggression.

12. "December 25. We have now as fine a court-house as there is in Liberia. Benson has finished quite an elegant house, and others are laboring not only to stay here, but to live. The government-house is nearly finished. We have laid out the yard into walks and grass plots; on the margin of the walks we have planted the cotton-tree and papaw. I have just returned from partaking of an agricultural dinner, not given by us of the government, but by the farmers. We had mutton, fish, and fowl, and a superfluity of vegetables. The table was set under some palm-trees in Atlantic Street; there were, I should judge, about fifty persons present. You need be under no apprehensions but that farming will go on. We mean to plant the coffee-tree throughout our farm.

13. "We have bought, as you have been apprised, of Yellow Will, a large tract of beautiful upland. There are four native towns on it. King Yellow Will is, therefore, considered as allied to us by the neighboring head men and kings, who appear to be jealous of the honor, and determined to share it. They have sent me word that they would sell their lands."

CHAPTER XLVII.

PROGRESS OF MISSIONARY LABORS.

1. THE native kings, in carrying on their wars in the vicinity of the settlements, always regard the territory of the Colony as neutral ground, to which the vanquished flee without fear of pursuit. Even slave traders have surrendered those who have been stolen from the territory of the Colony, on the demand of the colonial authorities

hence the desire of the natives to sell their country to the colonists. They give up the jurisdiction of the country sold, and the right to buy and sell slaves, or engage in any way in the slave trade, or make war upon their neighbors. In return, the right to occupy their towns and farms, and have them enlarged at pleasure, the same as if they were colonists, is secured to them; they are no long exposed to be sold as slaves, or to be punished for witchcraft and other imaginary crimes. Thus, in Liberia, colonization, instead of destroying, gives protection to the natives, increases their comforts, abolishes the barbarous rites of devil-worship, by which multitudes have been yearly sacrificed, and is found to be a sure and effectual means of civilizing those brought under its influence.

2. The ninth expedition to Maryland in Liberia sailed from Baltimore, on the 28th of November, with eighty-six emigrants, in the Niobe. In the same vessel the Protestant Episcopal Church sent out three missionaries, the Rev. Mr. Payne and wife, and the Rev. Mr. Minor, to join Mr. Savage, who was at the head of their establishment at Cape Palmas. The emigrants by the Niobe were all from Maryland, and nearly all of them persons of good character, who had been accustomed to labor, and left America under the conviction that their happiness and prosperity in Africa were only to be secured by persevering industry, and not expecting exemption from the toils incident to early settlers in a new country.

3. It had been the wise policy of the Maryland Society's Board to send out industrious men, and by keeping general native trade in the hands of the Society, to make agriculture the main, and, indeed, except in the case of mechanics, the sole occupation of the colonists. The system of barter, which had been the chief means of inducing and cherishing the spirit of trade, so detrimental to the Monrovia settlement, and which was necessarily resorted to in the Maryland Colony, threatened to defeat the wishes of the Board in regard to native trade, by obliging each colonist