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least, as healthy, and as long lived, as those of any other country.

Nothing like an epidemic has ever appeared in the colony -nor can we learn, that the calamity of a sweeping sickness ever yet existed in this part of the world. But the change from a temperate to a tropical climate, is a great one-too great not to effect the health, more or less-and in the case of old people, and quite young persons, it often causes death. In the first settlement of this colony, want of good houses, great fatigues, irregular mode of living, &c. on the part of the colonists, greatly helped the other causes of sickness, which prevailed so extensively, and caused such great mortality. But those days have gone by. Seldom, if ever does a person die, from the middle and southern states, from the change of climate.

Commerce and productions.-The commerce of Liberia, though in its infancy, is nevertheless respectable, and is annually increasing. A trading company has been formed at Monrovia, the metropolis of the colony. The port of Monrovia, is seldom clear of European and American vessels, loading and unloading. The imports consist of an assortment of the productions of Europe, the West Indies and America. The exports are rice, palm oil, ivory, tortoise shell, dye wood, gold, hides, wax, and coffee. Coffee and cotton grow spontaneously. Indigo and the sugar cane succeed, and will be cultivated to great advantage. The timber of Liberia is various and durable, and well adapted to building. Camwood, as it is called, is abundant, and mahogany grows at the cape, in great abundance.

In a word, in no respect scarcely, is Liberia surpassed by any country in the world. And there is not, I verily believe, another benevolent enterprize on earth, so well calculated to secure the favorable opinion and enlist the hearty good will of ALL MEN, as this is, when its objects and bearings are fully understood.

"From Greenland's icy mountains,

From India's coral strand,

Where Afric's sunny fountains,
Roll down their golden sand;
From many an ancient river,
From many a palmy plain,
They call us to deliver

Their land from errors' chain."

But the anti-slavery and abolition societies of the Northern and Eastern states, in their mad zeal to improve the condition of the slave population of this country, are like to injure,

seriously, the American Colonization Society. Also, the society was injured by, in 1833, appointing a Presbyterian A clergyman, governor of the colony. And although this parson was removed from office, at the request of the other denominations who had missionaries there, still, himself and his brethren, are desirous to have the whole management of the colony. With the Presbyterians it is, and always has been, bell-weather or no sheep. And if ever the benevolent scheme of this society is defeated, I will venture to predict that Presbyterianism will defeat it.

Certain clerical incendiaries, of the Presbyterian order, natives of New-England, falsely called philanthropists, are now busily engaged in lecturing upon the immediate emancipation of the Southern States.

I am not a slave holder, and I pray God I never may be. I lament the evils of slavery as much as any other man, but I deprecate most sincerely the idea of immediate or sudden emancipation, as I am well aware that it tends to the murder and robbery of thousands of the slave holders, and the absolute starvation of even a greater number of the emancipated slaves.

The reader will not regard me as denying the truth of the proposition which asserts that slavery is an evil, and a great evil at that, and an evil which, by the bye, is condemned by the law of God, and ought not to be sanctioned by any who regard the Bible as a true history of God. To prove slavery an evil, as it exists in the United States, is quite an easy task; but to tell how that evil can be remedied, without at the same time, injuring both the white and black population of our country, is a question, the satisfactory adjustment of which, I readily confess, will require a better head and heart than mine, or those possessed by these emancipating preachers, who are continually bawling out set your negroes free!

Unenviable as is the condition of the slave, however wretched and forlorn as are his prospects, feeble as is the thread by which he holds all earthly joys, his condition is infinitely better than that of the free man of color, in any state or territory in the Union. The most miserable class of beings in these United States, is that class usually called free negroes. See them wronged, abused, and driven, by unprincipled white folks, from pillow to post. Look at the many privations and sufferings which they are forced to endure, and how the cloud of cheerless gloom obscures from them the sun of prosperity; while, dispirited and faint, they creep into their huts of poverty, and share with their weep

ing babes, the cup of unmingled wretchedness! And this is what is called freedom! A perfect mock of every thing like freedom! That the free colored population in this country, therefore, labor under the most oppressive disadvantages, which their merely nominal freedom can by no means counterbalance, is too obvious to admit of doubt. I waive all enquiry whether this be right or wrong. I speak of things as they are-not as they might, or ought to be. They are cut off from the most remote chance of amalgamation with the white population, by feelings or prejudices, call them what you will. Their associations are, and must of necessity be, chiefly with slaves. Their right of suffrage gives them no political influence, and they are entirely excluded from any weight in our public councils. No merit, no services, no talents can ever elevate a man of color to a level with a white man, in this country.

I have neither time, or the disposition at present, to draw a comparison between the situation of the slaves of the Western states, and the laboring peasantry at the North, or in the manufacturing states, but I really believe that, if such a comparison were made, the situation of the slaves, in at least some of the western states, would be found in many respects preferable. Not only so, but the situation of many white people here among us, is far worse than that of the slaves owned by some men-by good masters. Let those, therefore, who have slaves, feed, clothe, and work them well, and teach them the fear of God; or if they choose, emancipate them and send them to the coast of Africa, where, I humbly trust, under the fostering care of heaven, the slaves of this country will all, one day, find a calm and welcome retreat from the cares and vicissitudes of bondage.

"Waft, waft, ye winds the story,

And you, ye waters roll,

'Till like a sea of glory,

It spreads from pole to pole;
'Till o'er our ransomed nature,
The Lamb for sinners slain,
Redeemer, King, Creator,
In bliss returns to reign."

PART II.

Being a particular notice, of the representations, publicly and officially given by the Presbyterian ministers, of the moral and religious state of particular sections of our country, and the character and worth which are attached to the ministers of other churches.

CHAPTER I.

WESTERN VIRGINIA A MORAL WASTE!

THE statements made from time to time in our country, by the Presbyterian clergy, respecting its destitution in regard to spiritual instruction, as I have frequently had occasion to remark, must have an injurious effect, and produce in time, a reaction, which the authors of those erroneous statements themselves will ultimately very much deprecate. It was in an unguarded moment, and at an evil hour when, with a view to awaken the attention of the community to the importance of religious enterprises, it was proclaimed by these men, in pamphlets and periodical publications, and from the pulpit, both at home and abroad, that two thirds of the American people were entirely destitute of religious instruction.

The Presbyterians, when making the statement, thereby annihilating all other denominations but their own, little thought of the use which was to be made of it abroad-that those false and slanderous representations would be quoted by our enemies on the other side of the Atlantic to prove the heathenish state of America. Such, however, is the fact, as appears from a series of letters addressed to the bishop of London, by the Rev. Calvin Colton, an American Presbyterian, now (1834) in England, and a correspondent of the New York Observer, written with a view to correct the misstatements of the Bishop and others on this very subject.And is it not as mortifying as it is true, to find that those British authors are borne out in their erroneous calculations of the religious condition of the United States by an appeal to the Presbyterian clergy residing therein? When we have said, and solemnly certified, under our own hand and seal, that "we are a nation of rogues and villains," we ought not,

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