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

to keep on hand an assortment of goods to exchange for the articles wanted from the natives for the use of his family.

4. It was at first proposed to send small silver coin to the Colony, but the Board became satisfied, by the infor mation they received, that it would be impossible to keep useful a sufficient quantity of silver there to answer any purpose, as it would soon be brought off by trading ves sels stopping at the cape. They prepared and forwarded certificates for five, ten, twenty-five, fifty, and one hundred cents, receivable in payment for goods at the public store. To make these intelligible to the natives, there were represented on them objects to which they attached the value represented by the certificates; for instance, on the five .cent certificate a head of tobacco; on the ten cent, a chicken; on the twenty-five cent, a duck; on the fifty cent, two ducks; and on the dollar certificate, a goat.

5. The report of the Liberia Mission of the Methodist Episcopal Church represented this as a year of unparalleled prosperity. "The fervent and united prayers," said the report, "with which we commenced 1837, have not been in vain. The thousands of pious hearts among the Christians of America, which have been supplicating a throne of Divine Grace for Africa, have not been pleading for naught." Seasons of revival had been extensively experienced in the Colony, and more than twenty of the natives had been converted. Some of these were living in the families of the colonists, and had been trained to the knowledge of the Christian's God, while others were “right out of the bush."

6. At Millsburg, the Methodist Church had increased, this year, from eleven to sixty-three. The White Plain manual labor school, near this settlement, had shared in the blessings of converting grace. One of the native boys at this school received a visit from his father, and on being inquired for at a certain hour of the day to go to work with the other boys, was missing. The missionary found

him in one of the upper rooms of the school-house, pleading with his father to "look for the American's God," and get his soul converted to Christ.

7. The number of church members within the bounds of this mission, embracing all the settlements except Marshall, was 578. The number of children in the schools, under its care, 221 attending day schools, and 303 the Sabbath-schools. One of the colored teachers at Monrovia (Mrs. Moore, formerly Eunice Sharp) wrote to a lady in New York: "I have a goodly number of pupils, from twenty years old to three, but not advanced in learning as they are in years. I have some very interesting little girls; I have watched them from the alphabet to more interesting things; I have seen them trying to point out the different countries on the map; I have heard them tell me the nature of a noun, conjugate a verb, and tell how many times one number is contained in another; but all this was not half so entertaining to me as when I saw them crowding to the altar of God. Give God the glory, O my soul! that mine eyes have seen the salvation of God upon my own people.

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8. I have heard the wild natives of Africa testify that God hath power on earth to forgive sin. Rejoice, then, ye daughters of benevolence! The Judge of all the earth is answering your prayers in behalf of poor benighted Africa. Yes, though they have laid long upon the altar, he has smelled a sweet savor, and it appears to me that the day is beginning to dawn, and the day star is rising on this dark division of the earth. The way is opening for the poor native, who is now worshiping devils, to become acquainted with the worship of the true and living God." The Rev. S. Chase, who came to Liberia in 1836 with a heart most zealously devoted to the cause of missions, and who promised to be extensively useful in spreading the Gospel among the natives, was obliged, in consequence of protracted ill-health, to return to the United States in the summer of this year.

CHAPTER XLVIII.

A LARGE PLANTER-THE DEY PEOPLE.

1. ARRIVED on the 12th of February, 1838, ship Emperor, with ninety-six emigrants from Virginia, of which sixty were emancipated by John Smith, Sr., Esq., of Sussex County. These people have all been bred to farming, and we hope they will prove an important accession to the agricultural interests of the Colony. The physicians of the Colony being united and unequivocal in their verdict in favor of the superior healthfulness of the inland settlements over that of Monrovia, these emigrants have all been placed at Caldwell and Millsburg, an event which will put this opinion to the test. Our opinion is that either place is healthful.

2. There is no earthly occasion that colored people should die in establishing themselves in Africa. Let them only avoid the actual and obvious causes of disease (which is neither more difficult nor more necessary to be done here than in all other countries), and they may live their threescore years and ten, and if they should have on their arrival good cheer and plenty, they may even attain their four-score years. There came passengers in this ship, Rev. Mr. and Mrs. Clark, to join the Baptist Mission at Edina, Rev. Mr. and Mrs. Barton and mother, of the Mission of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and Dr. Skinner and daughter. This latter gentleman has the medical charge of the Colony.

3. It was a great disappointment to the Governor not to receive a sugar-mill, which he expected by this vessel, as he had then six acres of promising thrifty cane, and was anxious to prove the practicability of cultivating and manufacturing the article, and thereby give an impulse to the

business; but the cane was lost for want of the means of grinding. In the early part of this year the Bassa Cove settlement received an accession of seventy-two emigrants, who came in the barque Marine, from Wilmington, N. C.

4. One of these emigrants was Mr. Lewis Sheriden, a distinguished colored man from North Carolina. On visiting Governor Matthias, and examining the laws for the government of the Colony, he expressed much dissatisfaction, and refused to take the oath required of those who became citizens, alleging that he had left the United States on account of oppression, and that he should not subject himself to arbitrary government in Africa, and such he deemed that of the Colony. However, after spending a few weeks in examining the country, and failing in an ef fort to induce the colonists to petition the Board for an amendment of the constitution, he resolved on locating at Bexley, six miles from Bassa Cove. As he was a man of wealth, and had been extensively and successfully engaged in business in Carolina, the rules observed in the allotment of lands to emigrants were dispensed with in his case. He took a long lease of 600 acres, and soon had in his employ a hundred men. Many of them were natives, who proved to be excellent laborers.

5. The inland and elevated situation of Bexley, and its rich soil, well adapted to the growth of sugar-cane and the coffee-tree, with such a man as Sheriden to excite to industry those around him, by his own example, may soon make it one of the most important agricultural settlements in Liberia. Some of the Dey people, residing on the Little Bassa, had forcibly taken colonial property from those to whom its transportation to Edina had been intrusted. On satisfaction being demanded for this outrage, the Deys readily agreed to pay for the property taken, also to pay a debt due by them, to the colonial agent, and to secure the payment in four months, pledged a portion of their lands, embracing the mouth of the Little Bassa.

6. The time of payment having expired, a commissioner