So far is this scheme from being impracticable, that one resembling it in all respects was accomplished by a private society in England, more than thirty years ago. In despite of every representation to the contrary, the colony of Sierra Leone boasts, at this moment, a greater degree of prosperity than distinguished any one of the British Colonies, now the United States of America, at the same period after its first plantation. The population of Sierra Leone; its commerce and navigation; its churches, schools, and charitable institutions; its towns and hamlets; its edifices, public and private; surpass those of any one of these States at any time within twenty-five years, from its first settlement. In a few months, most certainly within the present year, the praticability of founding a similar colony, with much better and more abundant materials, will be tested by actual experiment. The free persons of color of New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Richmond, Petersburg, and Charleston, who are preparing to remove to Africa, will yield in moral character, to no population of the same complexion, which they may leave behind. Had the Society competent funds, there are similar materials already offered to the Managers for a much larger colony.

In this early success of the object of the Society, these is an unanswerable reply to the argument founded on the supposed unwillingness of the free people of color to quit America.

Some of the authors of this objection have first persuaded them not to emigrate, and then pronounced that they will not. Their prediction and their argument have both failed. And how could it be otherwise? Does not America every day present the spectacle of Europeans who have forever abandoned the natal soil of themselves and their progenitors? Such are their numbers, that humanity has interposed to prevent their crowding to fatal excess the ships which transport them. And can it be believed that the descendants of Africa will not return to the home of their fathers, when it shall have been prepared for their reception, and they are assured of its enjoyment in peace, freedom, and happiness? Do not the most intelligent of their friends recommend to them colonization some where, as essential to their moral and intellectual improvement? and, if any where, what country so fit as Africa? Is there on the habitable globe, a soil more fertile, productions either richer or more varied, a climate better adapted to the constitution of the black man, than that which God hath given him? The fierce sun, which scorches the complexion and withers the strength of the white. man, preserves to the children of Africa the inheritance of their fathers. That such is the current of their own opinions when their natural feelings have not been warped by misrepresentations of the climate, soil, and popula. tion, of that devoted country, let the following facts attest.

Of the whole number of free blacks in Nova Scotia amounting to very near twelve hundred, to whom the humane Clarkson addressed himself in 1792, but four or five individuals refused to embark with him for Sierra Leone. Almost all those in London yielded, about the same period, to this natural bias.

It is but a few years since Capt. Paul Cuffe carried thirty-eight from Boston to Sierra Leone, chiefly at his own expense; and in a letter, written after his voyage, he declares, that he could have obtained the consent of the greater part of the free people of color in that city and its vicinity to remove to Africa. And let it not be forgotten that, of those whom he actually carried, there was not one disposed to return with him to America. Nor should it cease to be remembered, that this generous and enlightened Afri

can, in the last moments, as through the last years of his useful and meritorious life, recommended colonization in Africa to his degraded countrymen here. To this authority should be added many others, but especially that of Kizell, the guide and friend of the missionaries Mills and Burgess, who, like Capt. Cuffe, knew America as well as, and Africa much better than, any of the opponents of the plan of colonization.

Some of the free blacks in America who have been consulted on this subject, have, it is true, not consented to the choice of country made for them by the Society; but in the various cities on the coast, they have agitated for many years some scheme of emigration. A few have removed to St. Domingo; and such was the desire of a number of those in the town of Providence, in Rhode Island, some years since, to change their abode, that they subscribed a sum of money, and deputed one of their own body to visit the coast of Africa, in search of a territory suited to their purpose. Their wishes were defeated by the dishonesty of their agent.

The free people of color on the banks of the Wabash, who have already encountered the hardships of settling and clearing a wilderness, have repeatedly expressed a similar desire.

And if this disposition to exchange America for Africa, exists in those States wherein there are very few, if any slaves, what should it be where emancipation is often a curse rather than a blessing; where the more reflecting among the people of color themselves, and the white inhabitants in their neighborhood, however afflicted by the spectacle of hereditary slavery, acknowledge that they are every day more and more convinced that it is impossible to advance the happiness of the slave by emancipation? How unhappy is that condition, which, midway between servitude and freedom, knows neither the restraints of vice, nor the incentives of virtue! And can those who regard themselves as the peculiar friends of the free people of color in America wish them to remain in this degraded, this abject state? No! even they begin to look out for a country in which this unfortunate race nay rise in the scale of existence to the level of the white man, and they think that they have found it in the late French colony of St. Domingo. Very far, indeed, are the Managers of this Society from dissuading any of the free people of color to accept the asylum generously offered to them by the Emperor of Hayti. But, independent of any reference whatever to the future conversion and civilization of Africa, is not the impediment of a foreign language, which the colonists must acquire before they can understand their new laws; of a religion to which they are strangers; of a government which savors, at least, of military despotism, sufficient to turn the scale in favor of Africa, to which the colonists would, in time, impart their own manners, religion, laws, and language? However disposed to cherish good will and respect for all other nations, an American, whether bond or free, would probably prefer an American to a French foundation, for his civil and political institutions.

The general sentiment, then, of the free people of color in the United States, will probably settle down in favor of Africa, as the seat of their contemplated colony, The American Society have made this choice for them after much inquiry and reflection; and it is not probable that any objection. will hereafter be made to this selection, if the colony about to be planted shall thrive in its infancy. On this subject, however, expectations too sanguine should not be indulged, nor temporary delays and disappointments produce despair. The beginnings of all nations not lost in fable have been

inconsiderable, and their first progress tardy and laborious. The success of that which the American Society hope to found will be secured from misfortune and accident as far as human precaution can provide. Its prosperity will rest, at last, on that overruling Providence which guides the destiny of man.

It has been urged that this objection seems to comprise the very pith and marrow of all the arguments against the colonization of Africa on the principles of the American Society, that the colony will not be able to receive and subsist, nor the Society to transport thither, all the free people of color of the United States.

The authors of this objection have not denied that a flourishing colony may be established on the African coast; and some of them have asserted that the present population of the United States have sprung from a comparatively very small number of emigrants. And if an empire resembling in extent and prosperity, these United States, can be founded on the Western coast of Africa, with means so inconsiderable, and therefore so attainable, who would have the inhumanity to refuse his co-operation in a work. so glorious?

It must be perceived, therefore, that this objection applies to the earnest hopes, rather than to the express purpose of the American Society. But, as it is believed that the objection itself is susceptible of complete refutation, it is proper to examine the basis on which it rests.

It will be readily conceded that no colony, nor any number of colonies, can afford to receive, in any one year, a greater number of emigrants than the annual surplus product of their soil, aided by importation, will sustain; and, consequently, that, unless a number of free people of color, exceeding in amount the annual increase of that description of persons in America, can be annually provided for in Africa, the whole of that population cannot be there accommodated.

The same principle ard deduction apply with the same force to any plan of colonizing all the people of color, bond and free. Their application shall be considered in both respects. For, although it is believed, and is indeed too obvious to require proof, that the colonization of the free people of color alone would not only tend to civilize Africa, to abolish the slave trade, and greatly to advance their own happiness, but to promote that, also, of the other classes of society, the proprietors and their slaves, yet the hope of the gradual and utter abolition of slavery, in a manner consistent with the rights, interests, and happiness of society, ought never to be abandoned.

The calculations upon this subject have proceeded on an estimate of the annual increase of the free people of color of the United States, at five thousand souls, and of the slaves at little more thar thirty-five thousand; making a total of forty thousand.

Now, so far as this estimate relates to the free people of color, it must afford an ample refutation of the conclusion deduced from it, to refer to the fact that there has been scarcely a State admitted into the American Union, the population of which has not been annually augmented for several years prior to its admission, and has not subsequently continued to be augmented, annually, by a greater emigration than of five thousand persons.

The State of Ohio, which boasts, at present, a militia more numerous than that of the ancient and populous State of Massachusetts, and probably contains, therefore, a population lite, if at all, short of six hundred thousand souls, comprehended, in the year 1790, along with the whole North

and Southwestern Territories of the United States, less than 37,000; ten years afterwards, when its census was blended with that of Michigan and Illinois, little more than 45,000; and by the enumeration of 1810, 230,760. Allowing the Territories of Illinois and Michigan, which contained, in 1810, 17,000, to have doubled their population in the ten years next preceding, Ohio possessed, in 1800, 36,500 souls; and supposing that number to have been doubled, by their natural increase alone, in the last twenty years, and the population of that State to be now 600,000, as computed above, she has then been indebted, in twenty years, to emigration and its natural increase, for 527,000 of her present numbers; so that the annual augmentation of the population of Ohio for that period, exclusive of the natural increase of her original stock in 1800, has not fallen short of twenty-six thousand; all of whom have been sustained by the annual surplus produce of the 1-bor of that State, assisted but little, if at all, by importation from the neighboring States and Territories, and reduced considerably of late years by exportation.*

Two such colonics, therefore, planted on a soil and beneath a climate resembling that of Ohio, would provide not only for the natural augmentation of their first stock, after it had reached twenty-three thousand souls, but for an annual addition of 53,000 to their number; thus exceeding in the aggregate more than twelve thousand persons the total annual increase of the co lored population of the United States.

But on the soil and under the sun of Africa, which bring to maturity two crops of corn or rice in the same year, where no Winter devours the autumnal harvest, but genial warmth and perpetual verdure gladden the whole year, the same labor would yield a double product, and more than a triple surplus.

It is, too, for the first year only, that this surplus would be required by the new mouths. The new hands would, in every succeeding season, not only provide for themselves, but swell the annual surplus destined for other colonists, or for exportation.

And if, for the first year, there were no surplus, the mere food for five or for forty thousand people would be-what? Less than the surplus produce of a neighboring county of Maryland or Virginia.

Bread, it is true, although sufficient for human sustenance, does not comprise, in itself, a supply of all human wants. For the rest, however, for clothes and shelter, no comparison can be made between their necessary cost in a climate in which the thermometer ever ranges within twenty-five degrees below the greatest Summer heat of America, and one wherein, for many months of the year, it rarely rises so high above the freezing point, and for half that period it is generally sunk below it.

Tropical Africa is known, at present, chiefly from its Western coast, depopulated and wasted by the slave trade. The imperfect accounts of its interior promise to the civilization which shall hereafter explore it, a milder climate and increased fertility.

It remains to be determined whether the Colonization Society can provide for such a number, or they can provide for themselves, the means of transportation.

And here, as on that branch of the inquiry which has been just disposed of, it should ever be borne in mind, as an antidote to every effort to impair

It is certain, also, that, for the last three years, Ohio has furnished many emigrants to Indiana, Illinois, Mienigan, and Missouri.

the hopes of the philanthropist, that, short of complete success, there is much substantial good to be attained.

He cannot stand acquitted at the bar of his own conscience who pleads, as an excuse for total inaction, that he could have accomplished but a part of what he desired.

If the seeds of civilization shall be strewed along the coast of Africa, and protected from the blighting influence of the slave trade; if the chief impediment to gradual emancipation in America shall be removed; if, where slavery may continue to exist, the fidelity of the slave, and the affection of the master, shall be both augmented; if the free people of color shall be permitted to enter on the career of moral and intellectual improvement in the land of their fathers, under the guarantee of political independence; if all, or any considerable part of these blessings can be attained by opening the door of Africa to the return of her liberated children, it will be no reproach to the Colonization Society that they have not civilized an entire continent, or disenthralled a nation.

It is, indeed, most probable, that the American Society, unassisted by the resources of the individual States, or of the Union, may be incapable of rendering such aid to the emigration of the people of color as would provide for colonizing their annual increase. Bnt that the resources of the United States would prove incompetent to that purpose, is utterly denied, and can be most easily disproved. For what would be the expense of transporting 5,000 persons, the supposed annual increase of the free people of color alone, or 40,000, the estimated increase of both BOND and FREE? Computing the present population of the United States at ten millions, and allowing fifty dollars for the transportation of each colonist, there would be required for the latter a poll tax of but two and a half cents, and for both, one of twenty-five cents, on all the people of these States.

The amount of duties collected on foreign distilled spirits, during each of the first six years of Mr. Jefferson's administration, would defray the sum total of this expense, and furnish half a million of dollars, annually, to extinguish the principal, the entire stock of the heaviest calamity that oppresses this nation. A renewal of the internal taxes of 1815 would not only provide the means of exporting the annual increase of the whole colored population of the United States, but leave an equal sum to purchase that part of this number, to the exportation of which, the consent of the proprietor could not be obtained. And were the same duties charged in the United States as in Great Britain on the consumption of this fatal poison of human happiness, their nett proceeds would, in less than a century, purchase and colonize in Africa every person of color within the United States,

This period is, indeed, remote; but eternity admits not of distribution into time. In the existence of nations, a century is but a day.

The preceding calculations are founded on the improbable supposition, that no colonist would contribute any thing whatever to defray the expense of his own removal. Let those who indulge the most unfavorable anticipations of the expense of colonizing in Africa the free people of color of the United States, behold the condition and number of those emigrants who are daily poured upon the American continent from every part of Europe; whom poverty and wretchedness drive from the home of their fathers; and whom no friendly counsel cheers, no friendly hand assists, at their port of embarkation, in their uncomfortable voyage across the Atlantic, or their