THE AFRICAN REPOSITORY, AND COLONIAL JOURNAL. Published semi-monthly, at $1 50 in advance, when sent by mail, or $200 if not paid till after the expiration of six months, or when delivered to subscribers in cities. VOL. XVIII.] WASHINGTON, SEPTEMBER 1, 1841. DESPATCHES FROM LIBERIA. GOVERNMENT HOUSE, [No. 17. MONROVIA, 10TH JUNE, 1841. } DEAR SIR,-I have this moment reached my home from Bassa Cove; and find two letters from you of the 24.h and 29th of March on my table, which were brought by Capt. LAWLIN, of the Atalanta. She arrived yesterday afternoon, after a passage of forty-one days, including the time of her visits to Goree and Sierra Leone. Capt. L. informs me that the "Virginia Trader," of Philadelphia, is in the neighborhood of Gallinas, and will be here in a day or two. I hope she has letters and papers for me, as my supply of both by the Atalanta is very limited. My visit to Bassa Cove was made in the United States' Schooner Grampus, (for which, with many other acts of kindness, I desire to express my gratitude to Capt. PAINE,) in consequence of reports having reached me that Capt. DRING had hoisted the British flag at Fish Town, and was exciting the natives to violate the conditions of their treaty with us. Before iny arrival there DRING had left, and I found the natives very well disposed to second my views and to fulfil their own obligations. He had, however, done what he could to arouse opposition to the Colony ainong then.. The insolence of these low and depraved traders is very annoying, while their influence upon our people is most demoralizing. I have but little to say of the general affairs of the Colony, except that they are in much the same state as at the date of my last letter by the Groning. Capt. PAINE visited Bexley with me, and has been a good deal around among the people, and can give you much valuable information concerning the Colony. I hope you will see him and other officers of the Grampus, all of whom are well pleased with our young Africo-American Republic. The presence of the Grampus in our neighborhood has been of material service to us, and I know not how to express properly my sense of Capt. PAINE's attention and kindness in aiding and promoting my wishes. He is a man of a clear and discriminating mind, and of great practical good sense, and I could wish most sincerely the Government would take counsel of him in regard to their operations on this coast, both as respects the slave trade and the protection of our commerce. The Atalanta brought the sad news of the death of our venerable President. To-morrow we shall fire minute guns, and have our colors dis The played at half mast, in commemoration of the melancholy event. Grampus will also fire minute guns, and the American and British vessels in the harbor will wear their flags at half mast. My health is pretty good, but I am very much fatigued, and must close by assuring you of my high respect and esteem. Yours truly, THOS. BUCHANAN. HON. SAML. WILKESON, General Agent A. C. S. So after He adds in a postscript of the 11th June:-"The English factory established at New Cesters has been abandoned, all my efforts to obtain. possession have failed, and last week, as I am credibly informed, a Spaniard landed goods there for the purchase of four hundred slaves. all our hopes of being rid of this curse, it is again to be inflicted upon us. You will have learned of the successful expedition of the Gabriella, of whose attack on the boats of the Saracen I have already informed you; she got off with five hundred slaves (!) after fighting and dodging the cruisers for several weeks." GOVERNMENT HOUSE, JUNE 22, 1841. MY DEAR SIR,-On the 10th instant, I had the pleasure of writing you by the United States' Schooner Grampus. The Trafalgar has just arrived here from the leeward on her homeward voyage, and affords me another opportunity of which I gladly avail myself, though I have but little to communicate. The heavy rains, which have now fairly set in, interrupt the most of our business operations, and confine us more or less to our houses. Every thing is quiet among us, and the general health of the Colony is as good as usual. The emigrants continue to do well, and are, I believe, perfectly contented. I have just received a letter from Judge HANSON, of Sinou, informing me that he has finished three of the twelve houses I had ordered, but can do nothing more without a supply of goods. There have been this season not less than twenty vessels engaged in the trade of the coast of Liberia proper,-I mean between Cape Mount and Cape Palmas. Of these nearly two-thirds are English. Below Cape Palmas the number has also increased greatly this year, though I have not been able to learn how many there are. The names of sixteen American vessels have been reported to me, which are engaged principally between the neighborhood of the Forts on the Gold Coast and the Bights. This is a much larger number than I have ever before known in that quarter. If the increase of trade on the other sections of the coast resorted to by American vessels, has been in proportion to what it is on these of which I have spoken, there ought to be not less than ninety or a hundred American traders between the northern rivers and the Cape of Good Hope. Many, indeed most of these, make two voyages a year, and the amount of their cargoes may be safely estimated at $30,000 per annum, which for one hundred vessels would make $3,000,000. This large sum might easily be doubled in less than five years, if our enterprising merchants would enter into the African trade as they do in some things, and especially if the Government would keep a small squadron on the coast to protect our flag from the insults of English cruisers on the one hand, and the protection of the slave on the other. The vexation and embarrassment arising to the legitimate trader from frequent search, detention and occasional seizure by British men-of-war, affords certainly a subject of just complaint against that Government-but it should be remembered that these annoyances are the natural consequen ces of the continued abuse of the flag of our country to the purposes of the slave trade. If our Government then would effectually vindicate the honor of her flag, she should by her own actions first rescue it from the hands of slavers and pirates, and then sternly forbid the aggressions of national hostility. In my last letter I mentioned the unpleasant fact of a cargo of slave goods having been landed at New Cesters. I have since learned from undoubted authority, that the cargo was landed from an American vessel, the "General Starke," Captain CURTIS, a brig belonging to Maine. She touched here, but though my suspicions were excited by the movements of her Captain, her papers were all clear, and Capt. PAINE could do nothing with her. The laws of the United States making it necessary to the condemnation of a vessel, that she be proved to be actually engaged in slavery. THOS. BUCHANAN. HEALTH OF THE COLONY. MONROVIA, JUNE 22, 1841. AN expedition arrived on the 16th March in the Rudolph Groning, with forty-one emigrants on board. You will have learned from time to time the circumstances of this immigration. I have deferred reporting until now, because I was unwilling to make any statement prematurely lest deaths might occur afterwards, and I be accused of an attempt to convey false impressions of the health of persons coming to reside in this country. They have now been here three months, and every one of them has had more or less of fever, so that we may now consider them as acclimated, and subsequent deaths, if they occur, may be honestly reckoned among those that are liable to occur among the colonists here, as well as among the citizens of your own country. To this date three deaths have occurred, one man and two children, one about two and the other seven years of age. Mr. WRIGHT exposed himself a great deal, was first taken ill, and died in a few days. The health of the Colony at present is good. Deaths occur, to be sure, but I think not a greater number, in proportion to the population, than in perhaps a thousand counties in America having the same number of inhabitants. The absence of roads and horse power, and the want of more rapid means of conveyance by water than the canoe and paddle, are causes of frequent complaints, and sometimes of death, from the necessary exposure to night dews and to the rains. But a reckless disregard for these dangers, amounting almost to infatuation, seems to possess not a few of the people. In this season when rains may be calculated almost with the certainty of an eclipse, they go out without even the slightest preparation against the threatened torrents. Such acts are suicidal, and when the statistics of the deaths come to be made up, most unfairly do the enemies of the cause of Colonization place the whole number to the account of "coast fever." The people died-it matters little to their purpose what their disease, or what the circumstances. Notwithstanding all the causes of sickness and death among us, no one who remembers what the Lake country of New York once was—what Ohio has been, and what Indiana and Missouri now are, and at the same time knows the statistics of Liberia, will for a moment believe the mortality as great in the latter, as in the former. And while our country is not so bad as these have been, some of which are now considered as delightfully healthy as any part of the known world. why may we not calculate on a similar salubrity in this the home of the colored man? When we shall have made progress in clearing land, cutting drains in some places, making roads, paths and farms, then may we look for health, prosperity, and a spirit of contented enjoyment of free institutions, not surpassed by any of the free States of the Union. From your most obedient servant, J. LAWRENCE DAY. To HoN. S. WILKESON, General Agent A. C. S. THE PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE. It affords us the highest gratification to present our readers with the following extracts from the message of the President of the United States, to Congress. The pleasure we feel in publishing these extracts is not lessened by knowing that it was from Liberia the facts were communicated which called them forth. The recommendation to pass a law forbidding American citizens to trade with slavers, it is to be hoped will be cheerfully responded to by the American Legislature. Such a law (if followed, as it would naturally be, by corresponding legislation on the part of England,) would more effectually embarrass the operation of the slave trade than all the efforts of the whole squadron of cruisers on this coast. It is the most glaring inconsistency for nations to declare the slave trade piracy and at the same time permit their flags to cover all the most important branches of that trade, except the mere transport of slaves. The opposition of the American Government having been less active than that of the English, her inconsistency has struck us less forcibly. But we have often doubted the sincerity of the English Government in this business, when we have seen her cruisers and merchantmen side by side, the one furnishing the slaver with means to carry on his trade, and the other training a long 32 pounder upon hapless Spaniard or Portuguese, who would fain participate in the profitable traffic. What solemn mockery it is, to proclaim to the world her abhorrence of the slave trade, and to affix severest penalties to a particular branch of it, in which her own subjects are not engaged, while she holds legitimate, and affords an armed protection to, all the other operations most essential to the existance of the trade. It was not until recently that the humiliating fact of American partici pation in the slave trade, became known to the President; and his prompt and decisive efforts to prevent it are in the highest degree creditable to him as the Executive of the nation. Could our feeble voice be made to reach the Halls of Congress, we would call upon the assembled wisdom of the country by every consideration of national honor, and the dearest interests of humanity, to second those efforts, as they may most effectually do, by carrying out the suggestions of the Message.-Liberia Herald. [Here follow the extracts from President VAN BUREN's Message, heretofore published in the Repository.] AMBROSIAL ATMOSPHERE. Know'st thou the land, where the citron blows, FOR Several days past, the atmosphere of Monrovia has been the most delightfully fragrant, that we ever experienced in this or any other country. The sweet and agreeable gales of aroma which were wafted from the newly opened coffee flowers, and swept across the village upon every rising breeze, or gently gliding zephyr, was to us the sweetest breath that had ever visited our olfactories. Morning, noon and night, the milliferous perfume, filled every chamber and accessible aperture with such a sweet scent, as nature only can prepare, which art may not imitate, nor prose describe. This had scarcely passed away, before a new source, another full gushing fountain was opened; and the ambrosial breezes came again more sweetly than before. The latter are from the fresh blown blossoms of the orange, lemon, (or citron,) lime, and several kinds of aromatic gums. The fragrant odors are such as to make us more than realize all that we have read of " India's spicy groves," or the "scented bowers in undis covered seas.' In truth, while we are penning this article, the atmosphere is so surcharged with odoriferous particles, as almost to overcome us; and we have heard several persons complaining of the same etherial distilment, at the same time evincing considerable "aromatic pain." Surely, at present, CAPTURE OF A SLAVER WITH 375 NEGROES ON BOARD.-Latest accounts from Berbic, in the West Indies, state that great sensation had been experienced at the port, by the arrival of a slaver, a Portuguese built brig, called the Ocuas Fevereira, captured off the Brazilian coast, on the 16th February last, by her Majesty's brig Fawn, after a chase of eight hours. The details from the log book of the Fawn, as published in the Berbic Gazette, present a picture of horrible suffering almost without a parallel. On the 19th of February, 1841, lat. 22 30, long. 40, west, Cacupos, on the coast of Brazil about 18 miles, observed a large brig standing in for the land, altered our course so as to cut her off if possible. On approaching she appeared not to have the least idea of our being a man-of-warallowed her to close within range of our 32 pounder-fired a gun over her, and another as quick as possible ahead-she then up with her helm, attempted to run, but appeared in great confusion. We continued to throw the shot over, ahead, and astern of her, without intention of striking, as we were positive of slaves being on board; after a short time she was increasing her distance; Lieut. FoOTE then determined to put a shot into the hull, but with great regret on account of the unfortunate beings on board. Shots were then thrown close under her stern twice-a third was about to be fired, when we observed her round to. In about twenty minutes we came up and boarded her. The slaves were all below with the hatches on; on turning them up a scene presented itself, enough to sicken the heart even of a Portuguese. The living, the dying, and the dead, huddled together in one mass. Some unfortunates in the most disgusting state of small pox, in the confluent state, covered from head to foot, distressingly ill with ophthalmia, a few perfectly blind, others living skeletons, with difficulty crawled from below, unable to bear the weight of their miserable hodies. Mothers with young infants hanging at their breasts unable to give them a drop of nourishment. How they had brought them thus far appeared astonishing: all were perfectly naked. Their limbs were excoriated from Iving on the hard plank for so long a period. On going below the stench was insupportable. How beings could breathe such an atmosphere, and live, appeared incredible. Several were under the plank, which was called the deck, dyingone dead. |