relations to human comfort. There is in all his writings a simplicity, a regard for sterling truth and honesty, a love of the beautiful in nature and an earnest desire to promote the welfare of his fellow men, which entitle him to the regard of all, and make him a valuable counsellor. The book which he has now given us, the professional builders will of course possess. It is also set forth with such beauty of paper, type, and illustrations, as make it a proper ornament of the parlor table, and fit it to claim a place on any book-shelf. We would suggest whether a cheaper edition would not get into the hands of a larger class of readers than the present one is likely to reach, and that class who most need and would be most benefited by its instructions. Meanwhile, we will conclude by expressing the hope that when Mr. Downing returns from his visit to Europe, enriched as he will be by the observation of its architectural beauty, he will give us a volume upon the proper structure of school houses and churches, a class of buildings in which we are more defective if possible than in our dwellings.

ART. VII.-STEAMSHIPS TO LIBERIA.-AFRICAN COLONIZATION.

Report of the Naval Committee to the House of Representatives, August, 1850, in favor of the establishment of a line of Mail Steamships to the western coast of Africa, and thence via the Mediterranean to London; designed to promote the emigration of free persons of color from the United States to Liberia : also to increase the Steam Navy, and to extend the Commerce of the United States. With an Appendix added by the American Colonization Society. Washington: printed by Gideon & Co., 1850.

Letter of Hon. T. Butler King to Hon. F. P. Stanton, in relation to the proposed line of Steamers to the Coast of Africa.

THIS report originated in a memorial by Joseph Bryan, of Alabama, for himself and his associates, George Nicholas Sanders and others, praying for aid from the government of the United States in establishing and maintaining a line of steamships from this country to the coast of Africa, with the design to promote the colonization of free persons of color, to suppress the African slave trade, to carry the mails, and to extend our commerce. That memorial was referred by the House of Representatives to the committee on naval affairs, consisting of Hon. Messrs. Fred. P. Stanton, of Tenn., Thomas S. Bocock, of Va.,

Robert C. Schenck, of Ohio, Emile La Sère, of La., Hugh White, of New York, Elbridge Gerry, of Maine, E. Carrington Cabell, of Florida, John McQueen, of South Carolina., and Lewis C. Levin, of Pa. The report which they presented, and the bill founded thereon which they proposed, evince the wisdom and benevolence of enlightened and philanthropic statesmen.

port recommends the acceptance of the proposal of the memorialists or contractors, though with some important modifications, to which they assented. The committee propose that the contractors shall build three steamships of the largest class (each of not less burden than 4,000 tons, and at an expense of not more than $900,000) in accordance with plans to be submitted to and approved by the Secretary of the Navy, and under the superintendence of an officer appointed by him, and in such a manner that they can be converted at the least possible expense into the best of war steamers; and moreover that they shall make such alterations, additions and repairs in them, as in the judgment of the Secretary of the Navy will render them adequate to all the exigencies of the stipulated service the government advancing two-thirds the cost of construction as it proceeds, in the form of five per cent. stocks payable at the end of thirty years, and repayable by the contractors in equal annual installments, beginning and ending with the service. The ships are to be commanded by officers of the Navy, who will each have four midshipmen to serve as watch officers; they are to be under such control of the Secretary of the Navy as may not be inconsistent with the terms of the contract; who will have the right, at all times, to place on board each two guns of heavy calibre, and the men necessary to serve them, to be accommodated and provided for at the expense of the contractors, and the right also, in case of war, to take any or all of them for the exclusive use and service of the United States, on paying such a price, not exceeding the cost, as shall be determined by appraisers mutually chosen by the Secretary and the contractors. The plan of ordinary service for the ships-two of which are to be built within two and a half years, and the third within three years, after the execution of the contract-is this. One will leave New York every three months, touching at Savannah for freight and mails; one will leave Baltimore every three months, touching at Norfolk and Charleston for passengers, freight and mails; and the third will leave New Orleans every three months, with liberty to touch at any of the West India islands. They will proceed directly to Liberia, with liberty to touch at any of the islands or ports of the coast of Africa; thence to Gibraltar, carrying the Mediterranean mails; thence to Cadiz, or some other port of Spain, to be designated by the government; thence to Lisbon; thence to Brest or such other port of France as the government may designate; and thence to London-bringing mails

from all these points to the United States. The contractors stipulate, on their part, to carry on each and every voyage as many free colored emigrants as the American Colonization Society may send not exceeding however two thousand five hundred, at the price, to be paid by that Society in advance, of $10 for each emigrant over twelve years of age, and of $5 for each one under that age this price securing not only passage for each person, but the transportation of his baggage, and a daily supply of sailor's rations. And, on its part, the government is to pay $40,000 for each voyage, taking a lien on the ships for the repayment of sums advanced for their construction, and also ample security for the faithful fulfillment of the contract, which is to continue fifteen years after the completion of all the ships.

To afford the means of judging as to the fairness of the compensation offered, the committee present an estimate of the expenses and profits of reducing this plan to practice. We can not enter into its details but present it summarily. Interest at 6 per cent. on the $2,700,000, the cost of three steamships at $900,000 each; depreciation and repairs at 10 per cent.; insurance at 7 per cent.; and the cost of running the ships twelve voyages in a year at $50,000 per voyage; make an annual expense amounting to $1,221,000. On the other hand estimating the number of passengers at 1500 for each of the twelve voyages, the whole number during a year will be 18,000; which, at the rate of $10 for adults and $5 for children, may average a profit of $3 each, making $54,000. This, added to the $40,000 of government pay for each of the twelve voyages, makes an aggregate of $534,000 of annual profits; which subtracted from the preceding aggregate of estimated annual expenses, leaves a balance of $687,000, that must be made by commerce and passengers, over and above the government pay and the profit from emigrants sent by the Colonization Society, in order to save the contractors from loss. This, and enough more to remunerate them in the enterprize, they expect to realize. And this expectation, in the judgment of the committee, is well founded.

Such is the plan. It reflects honor upon the committee who proposed it. We wish we could add that the House of Representatives have honored themselves by passing the bill which embodied it. The bill if we remember rightly was not brought to a direct vote, but was either laid on the table or postponed to the next session. We hope it will soon be resumed or offered anew, and be made the law of the land.

The letter of the Hon. T. Butler King, which we have also prefixed to this article, was written to Mr. Stanton, in reply to a letter from that gentleman requesting Mr. King, as his predecessor in the position as chairman of the naval committee in the House of Representatives, to give his view of the policy of the

measures proposed in the bill of the committee; and to make such "suggestions as should occur to his mind, either favorable or unfavorable to the bill." This letter of Mr. King expresses warm approbation of the project, and communicates valuable information relating to the whole subject, of which we have freely availed ourselves.

The reasons which commend this enterprise consist in its relation to our commerce; to our naval armament; and to the settlement by colonization of the African coast, and the prevention thereby of the slave trade.

It is a very beneficent idea, which was first advanced in England about the year 1839, of uniting the military and commercial marine of a nation-of making the vast expenditures, required in naval armaments, subservient to the purposes of commerce in time of peace. This idea is destined to revolutionize the navies of the world-to turn the very expensive, and for the greater part of the time idle, or no better than idle, instrumentalities of naval warfare into beneficent agencies of peaceful industry. It employs for useful objects vast forces of capital, skill and labor, which for the most part are unemployed, or employed to little purpose. It will change the officers and privates of the navy, who for the great portion of the time are idlers, or employed in doing nothing that they may be kept busy, into industrious agents of productive business. It will ere long cause the inquiry, why huge and expensive vessels should lie under huge and expensive houses, in navy yards; or should lie rotting at the docks or in harbors; when the same or less expense would build steam vessels, capable of constant and useful employment, in time of peace in the duties and protection of commerce, and in time of war for its dread purposes. And it will cause the inquiry, also, why the men and officers of navies, maintained at great national expense in the many years of peace, should not be engaged in the war which it opens-in promoting national prosperity by the transportation of products and persons; while at the same time they guard the nation's commerce, and are ready at the first call for the sterner duties of war. Indeed, by the extension of maritime business, and the multiplication and interweaving of commercial relations over the world, it will go far toward preventing war. The substitution of steam navies capable of commercial business for the ordinary vessels of war, accomplishes on the sea, what it would be on the land, to turn swords into plough shares and spears into pruning hooks.

It may not suit at once the chivalrous notions of our naval officers to be employed in anything so useful as commercial business. It may seem to their martial tastes quite inglorious to be occupied in promoting freedom of intercourse and the exchange of products between nations. But, under the tuition of the pop

ular common sense, and the popular sense of what is right, they will soon come to understand that production is far more honorable than destruction; that it is more honorable to transport men to other lands, or transport for them the products of other lands, than it is to send them suddenly and violently into eternity; and that it is far more dignified to be useful workers than to be fruitless consumers.

But in order to realize in any considerable degree this idea of the union of the military and mercantile marine, the ships must be steamships. It has been found by experiment that ocean steamers are not capable of resisting safely and successfully the efforts of a heavy sea driven by a head wind, unless they are built strong enough to carry guns, and to withstand the discharge of a heavy battery. It has also been found that they are far superior to sailing vessels in the certainty and celerity with which they convey freight and passengers. On the other hand, it is well known that sailing vessels can not answer the purposes both of a mercantile and military marine. If they are built so strong as to render them safe and suitable for service in war, they are so loaded with timber as to make it impossible for them to compete in the carrying trade with sailing vessels of the ordinary construction, and still less with steam vessels.

The opinion of the English government respecting the wisdom of creating a steam navy, to be employed in time of peace for the purposes of commerce and the transmission of mails, is fercibly expressed by what that government has done. On this point we quote, from the report before us, a statement of facts, for which the committee acknowledge themselves indebted to a speech made in the House of Representatives by Hon. Thomas Butler King of Georgia-the author of the letter to which we have referred, a gentleman who has evinced great intelligence and wisdom respecting commercial and naval affairs. Soon after the idea was conceived in 1839 of uniting the commercial and military marine by steamships;

"A contract was entered into with Mr. Cunard and his associates, for the conveyance of the mails from Liverpool, via Halifax, to Boston, in five steamers of the first class, for £85,000, or about $425,000 per annum. It was stipulated that they should be built under the supervision of the Admiralty, should be inspected on being received into the service, and certified to be capable in all respects of being converted into ships of war, and of carrying ordnance of the heaviest description. Various stipulations were entered into in this and other contracts of a similar character, which placed these ships under the control of the government; thus, in fact, making them, to all intents and purposes, at the same time a part of the mercantile and military marine of the country.

"In 1846, the government enlarged the contract with Mr. Cunard and his associates, by adding four ships to run from Liverpool to New York, and increased the compensation to £145,000, or about $725,000 per annum.

"In the year 1840, a contract was made by the Admiralty with the Royal Mail Steamship Company, at £240,000 sterling, or $1,200,000 per annum, for