ter state of defense; while the sufferings of the sick and wounded were alleviated by the kind attentions of a skillful surgeon. CHAPTER XXII. EMIGRATION TO LIBERIA.-Continued. 1. In 1823, Mr. Ashmun's health, which had been improving for several weeks, sunk again under excessive exertion, and he continued for some time in a state of hopeless debility. He was at length restored by an extraordinary prescription of a self-taught French doctor, who arrived in a transient vessel at the cape, so that by the middle of February he was able to resume his active duties. Previous to this time two of the captive children had been recovered, and a few weeks after the remaining five were gratuitously restored. So kindly and tenderly were they treated by the old women to whose care they had been committed, that they were unwilling to leave. them, and their foster-mothers were equally reluctant to give them up. 2. At this period the colonists were in a sad condition; their provisions were mostly consumed; their trade nearly exhausted; their lands untilled; their houses without roofs, except of thatch; the rainy season was approaching; and the people, as a natural consequence of their late irregular life, had, in many instances, become indolent and improvident, and finally were experiencing all that derangement in their affairs which is produced by a protracted war. In these desponding circumstances they were cheered by the arrival, on the 31st of March, of the United States ship Cyane, R. T. Spencer, Esq., commander. This gentleman proceeded to make the most active exertions for the benefit of the Colony. 3. He supplied their wants; repaired the agent's house; commenced and nearly completed the martello tower, before the 21st of April, when the rapid spread of the fever among his crew compelled him to sail for the United States. Dr. Dix, surgeon of the Cyane, had already died. This lamented man had watched with interest the progress of the Colony from its earliest existence, and had visited and administered relief to the emigrants when at Sherbro. The tears of a grateful people watered his grave. 4. The next victim was Richard Seaton, first clerk of the Cyane, an accomplished and promising young man, who voluntarily remained to assist the agent. The third was the lamented Dashiell, left in command of the schooner Augusta, which had been fitted up by Captain Spencer at Sierra Leone for the defense of the Colony. Of the crew of the Cyane, no less than forty died soon after their arrival in the United States. It is painful to record the death of so many whose generous devotion to the interests of the Colony claims for them our spontaneous gratitude. 5. The successful exertions of the officers and crew of the Cyane are the more remarkable from the fact that they were enfeebled by a cruise of several months in the West Indies. Captain Spencer especially was laboring under great debility. 6. The Board of Managers, aware of the weak state of the settlement, had, early in the preceding winter, determined to dispatch a reinforcement of emigrants, with stores, under the direction of Dr. Ayres, whose improved health now permitted him to resume his duties, as principal agent and physician in the Colony. This gentleman embarked at Baltimore, on board the brig Oswego, with sixty-one colored passengers, on the 16th of April, and arrived at Cape Montserado on the 24th of May. 7. On the arrival of Dr. Ayres, as principal agent, both of the Government and the Society, Mr. Ashmun was relieved from the weight of care and labor which had nearly worn him out. Dr. Ayres entered with zeal and vigor upon his official duties. The erection of houses, the surveying and distribution of land to the new settlers, and the general care of the government gave him unceasing employment. The system of government was improved, arrangements were made for the better disposition of supplies from the public stores; the site of the town was accurately surveyed and judiciously laid off; and the distribution was made of the lots and plantations. 8. Some of the early settlers, however, were dissatisfied with these arrangements. As the founders and defenders of the Colony they considered themselves entitled to peculiar privileges, and earnestly contended for their right to retain the ground upon which they had originally fixed their habitations. The health of Dr. Ayres soon began to fail under the combined effect of the climate and his incessant labors, and in a few months he was reduced to such a state that his recovery, in Africa, was considered hopeless; accordingly, in December, he took passage for the United States in the ship Fidelity of Baltimore, and the government was again thrown upon Mr. Ashmun. 9. He had been placed in a most painful and embarrassing position by the arrival of Dr. Ayres. He not only found himself superseded in the government, but had the additional mortification to learn that his drafts had been dishonored, and no provision made to remunerate him for past services, or provide for his present wants. No man possessed a nicer sense of honor than Ashmun. Finding his services undervalued, and even the confidence of the Society withheld, he was justly indignant; although his attachment to the cause remained steadfast. Seeing the principal agent leaving the Colony, the colonists in a state of insubordination, Ashmun, with true Christian magnanimity, forgetting his own wrongs, resolved to remain and save, if possible, from destruction a cause in which he had done and suffered so much. 10. The prudence of his measures and the firmness of his conduct prevented any immediate outbreak of violence; but causes of dissatisfaction existed, and the spirit of insubordination had acquired too much strength to be easily eradicated. Their stock of provisions was low, the native rice very scarce and dear on account of the supplies required by the slave vessels, which, at this time, were on the coast in great numbers. 11. Worse than all, several of the principal colonists avowed their determination to leave uncultivated the land assigned them, and to give up all further labor or attempts at improvements until their grievances were redressed by the Board in the United States, to which they had ap pealed. It was at that time one of the regulations of the Society, that every adult male emigrant should, while receiving rations from the public store, contribute the labor of two days in a week to some work of public utility. 12. About twelve of the colonists not only cast off the restraints of the Colony, but exerted themselves to seduce others from obedience. On the 13th of December, Mr. Ashmun published the following notice: "There are in the Colony more than a dozen healthy persons who will receive no more provisions out of the public store until they earn them." This notice proved inefficient, except as it gave occasion for the expression of more seditious sentiments and a bolder violation of the laws. 13. On the 19th, Mr. Ashmun directed the rations of the offending individuals to be stopped. The next morning they assembled in a riotous manner at the agency house, and endeavored by angry denunciations to drive the governor from his purpose; finding him inflexible, they proceeded to the store-house, where the commissary was at that moment issuing rations for the week, and seizing each a portion of the provisions, hastened to their respective houses. 14. The same day, Mr. Ashmun addressed a circular to all the colonists, in which he made so powerful an appeal to their patriotism and to their consciences, and so decidedly expressed his own determination to maintain author ity, that the disaffected returned to their duty. The leader of the sedition confessed his error, and by the rectitude of his after-life nobly redeemed his character. EMIGRATION TO LIBERIA.-Continued. 1. On the 13th of February, 1824, the ship Cyrus arrived with 105 emigrants, mostly from Petersburg, Virginia. The accession of this company was hailed by all as a joyful event, especially as it comprised an unusual amount of intelligence, industry, and morality. But the cordial greetings and kind interchanges of friendly offices, which made this a scene of happiness and hope, were soon succeeded by sadness and gloom. Within four weeks all the new emigrants were attacked by the fever. There was no regular physician in the Colony, the number of buildings bore no proportion to the number of emigrants, and by a strange neglect the provisions supplied for the expedition were wholly inadequate, while the dispensary contained little that was suitable for the sick. 2. Rev. Lot Cary, a colonist, who had before rendered important service to the Colony, undertook the care of the sick, and indebted solely for his medical skill to his good sense, observation, and what experience he had gained in the Colony, his success was remarkable. Only three died. 3. All these evils were light compared with those which the spirit of revolt and anarchy threatened to bring upon the Colony. Deficient in education and ill-informed on many of the important relations and duties of human society, dazzled and misled by false notions of freedom, disappointed in some of their expectations, and tried by affliction, a few individuals still continued utterly to disre |