had the benefit of a common-school education, and would not be recognized as differing in any respect from those whose parents were born in this country."

CHAPTER LXXIV.

FOREIGN RELATIONS IN 1862.

1. THE Foreign Relations of Liberia have been extended and multiplied during the year, and with one or two exceptions, have remained undisturbed. The purpose of demolishing the barricades among the chiefs near Cape Mount has been accomplished without any hostile demonstration, and the effect to commerce and order proved beneficial. Some of the interior chiefs appear dissatisfied, and difficulties among tribes of Fishmen near Cape Palmas, which were thought to be settled, have sprung up again. Several cruel acts of the superstitious trial by poison having been perpetrated, President Benson proceeded against them with one hundred men, in the Seth Grosvenor, joined by others, and compelled them to keep the peace and pay, the cost of the war. It is justly remarked by President Benson, touching the murderous practices to some extent prevailing among tribes under the protection of the Republic:

2. The time has come when such homicidal practices by natives living at least 'within the vicinity of our settlements should be promptly checked. If the Government has the right and power to stop them (which I presume no ɔne will deny), then it becomes a moral duty, and the neglect of such a duty involves moral delinquency and national guilt."

3. The honorable vindication of the character of Liberia by her government in the affair of the French vessel, the Regina Cali, induces the expectation that she will be able

to show the world how unjustifiable was the recent attack of a Spanish man-of-war steamer upon the single man-ofwar schooner in the harbor of Monrovia. This was not more an assault against Liberia than an affront to the majesty of England (since it was in retaliation upon the English man-of-war for destroying the Spanish slaver in the Gallinas), and we may look to the power of Great Britain to maintain her own policy against the slave trade, and her sense of the solemn treaty obligations of Spain. We can not think that the magnanimity of Spain will permit her to attempt to coerce the young and feeble Republic of Liberia (acknowledged as a free state by at least ten of the civilized powers of the world) to cast aside her responsibility to God, to herself, and humanity.

4. In his last message, President Benson observes that it is impossible for Liberian merchants to succeed in honest competition in ports of the United States under the great pressure of existing discriminating duties; and it has been deemed right and proper to impose on the vessels and cargoes of the United States in her ports, similar discriminating duties. This is mutually disadvantageous, but of far greater injury to our citizens than to hers. The acknowledgment of the independence of Liberia, recommended by the President to Congress, would naturally be followed by other measures that would place the commerce, mutually, of that Republic and the United States upon a just basis.

5. Benevolence, like business, must submit its plans to the unbending laws of nature, and learn from physical science how to direct its operations; but pure benevolence turns naturally toward the light, and, by a divine ingenuity, is apt to conform its labors to these physical laws.

6. The mixed motives which suggested the Liberian Colony merged on the fact that a great physical law had been violated in transferring the natives of tropical Africa to our wintry climate, and that the error was to be corrected by sending them back. At an early day they be

gan to be removed southward on this continent, but be nevolence and social justice required their return to the land of their fathers.

7. Working under this law, Benevolence adapted to this colonization the favoring incidents which have conspired to remove doubts, answer objections, and silence the clamors of those violators of nature who sought to absorb this tropical race by intermarriage with our own; the colonization of these people somewhere in tropical regions has become a national policy, while the most thoughtful and experienced find reasons of the highest order, reaching to the permanent welfare of all races of men, in favor of the Colony of Liberia.

8. While navigators crept along the shores of Europe, each nation found the supply of its wants and the means of its increase only within its neighborhood; but when the ships of Portugal returned from India, and the ships of Spain from the Mexican Gulf, loaded with the rich products of the tropics, the nations of Europe began a new career of civilization, and looked to the interchange of conveniences and luxuries over the whole face of the earth. This career was restrained by their limited means of navigation, and still more by the indolence of the people of the tropics, and their unwillingness to prepare large supplies of the products of their soils and mines for the European market; but ships were rapidly multiplied, and large - bodies of laborers and mechanics were carried to equatorial regions. But these colonists were subdued by the climate, and demoralized and swept away by the habits of the barbarians; and the adventurers came to the natural and fixed conclusion that tropical products must be obtained by the labor of the equatorial races.

9. Following this conclusion, the adventurers tried various motives to induce regular and effective industry among the natives, and, failing in this, they resorted to enforcement. The slender race of Asiatics, which had entered America on the western side sunk and perished

under the toil exacted by their masters; and the hopes of Europe concerning the wealth of the New World were checked a second time.

10. Observation has shown that men from the equator become hardy by removing a few degrees farther to the north. Acting on this idea, the people of Guinea were brought to the borders of the Gulf of Mexico. They were found equal to the labor, and more effective on the northern than on the southern border. Now, the abundance of the tropics is poured into Europe; what had been the delicacies of the few-the sugar and its products, the coffee and the rice, the tobacco and the cotton-became common to the whole people. The English colonies rose rapidly in the vicinity of this new labor. The Africans continued to be moved northward, and to enrich their masters; and in the newness of the country they were pushed so far into our winter climate that their labor soon became unprofitable.

11. The opening of the tropics and the mines, followed by the consequent inventions, has made the civilized world what it is in population and wealth. England employs on one tropical plant more, people than she contained in the days of Elizabeth. The natives of the tropics do all the work of their own climate; they will continue to do it. Can they do it of choice? Can they do it cheerfully and hopefully? Can they make an even bargain for the fruits of their labor? Can they civilize?

12. The presence of the Caucasian, among the equatorial races, has not profited either; but has degraded the one without elevating the other. Can tropical products be had in abundance without the controlling presence of our race? This is the great question for solution; and in view of this question I have framed the resolution, “that the colonization of tropical Africa, by Africans previously civilized in this country, opens a new and cheering prospect for the general welfare of the different races of men." 13. The prospect is new; it is new in several of its

features. It is a new fact that a body of tropical Afri cans, enjoying letters and arts, have established and administered a civil government, and maintained it by the fair and effectual administration of written laws and courts of record, during a course of years, unaided by men of

our race.

14. During thirty years past they have been steadily gaining civil strength and increasing in numbers, and during all that time they have required less and less of the directing care and control of this Society. They have made steady and hopeful progress in producing for the markets of the world such articles as we expect from tropical regions. They have scared away from six hundred miles of coast the malignant little gods who have always been the scourge of equatorial Africa. They have snatched from these gods many thousands of the natives, and brought them to the knowledge of the God of the universe, and led them to Christian worship. They have conquered a pestilent climate by clearing- and draining their lands. They have built goodly houses and dwelt in them. They offer a home and protection to the converts brought by white missionaries from the pagan tribes behind them. Their schools produce engineers competent to project internal improvements, and mechanics able to execute them. Their merchants are respected in the civilized world. In all these matters they are steadily advancing, while the interference of our race in their affairs is not felt.

15. Is not this a new state of things in equatorial Africa? It is so, because these people were previously civilized in this country, and prepared to do what they are continuing without the presence of our race. They are colonists, with the means and motives for sending to the markets of the world hereafter an unlimited quantity of tropical products. Will they do it?

16. There is a cheering prospect that they will accomplish a general welfare for their race and ours. The