"The committee do not propose that the emigrants should be landed in Liberia and then left to their own resources. Liberia is at present incapable of receiving and providing shelter, subsistence, and emyloyment for any great number of emigrants who may land there in a state of destitution. It has been the practice, heretofore, for the Colonization Society to provide for the colonists, whom they have sent out, for six months after their arrival, and the cost of such provision has averaged $30 per head, in addition to the cost of transportation.

"A large amount of money will be required to settle the colonists in the first instance comfortably in their new homes. But there is no doubt, that if the government establish the proposed line of steamships, the people of the different states, and the state legislatures, will at once turn their attention to the subject of colonization, and that large appropriations will be voted, and liberal collections made, in aid of that object. The State of Maryland has already appropriated and laid out $200,000 in this work, and the Legislature of Virginia has lately appropriated $40,000 per year for the same purpose. But these sums are insignificant in comparison to what may be expected, if the government shall give its high sanction to the colonization of Africa, and provide the means of transportation by a line of steamships. In that event, the whole mass of the people, north and south, who for the most part do not appreciate the rapid progress, and the high capabilities of Liberia, will quickly discover the vast importance of colonization, and will urge their representatives to adopt measures adequate to the exigency of the case and the magnitude of the enterprise.

"There is good reason to anticipate, that important assistance will be rendered to the emigrants, not only by the missionary societies of Europe, but also by those governments which have taken an interest in the suppression of the slave trade, and which are desirous of opening channels for their commerce, and marts for their manufactures, on the western coast of Africa."—pp. 9-17.

These statements we believe to be in the main correct. We would add many other facts of interest, did we not fear to weary our readers by statements with which many of them are familiar. We will confine ourselves within narrow limits. The emigrant population of Liberia, and of the Maryland colony, according to the recent report of Mr. Gurley, is estimated at 6,900, and the native population at 240,000. During the past year, the government of the Republic has purchased many miles of additional coast, embracing the Gallinas-one of the most active and extensive slave marts on the whole African shore-for the express purpose of suppressing the slave trade. This purchase makes the colonized coast seven hundred miles in length, along the whole of which the slave trade was formerly carried on with great activity.* Louisiana is about to found a colony of her own in the

We subjoin the letter of President Roberts giving an account of this purchase. Monrovia, (Liberia,) May 17, 1850.

DEAR SIR: I have just returned from the windward coast, and find here the U. S. brig Bainbridge, on the eve of sailing for the United States, via Porto Praya. Capt. Slaughter has been kind enough to allow me an hour to send a letter or two by him. I therefore avail myself of the opportunity to send you a hasty note, to say that we have at length succeeded in securing the famed

Sinou country, where are now the people of the late Mr. McDonogh, who, after having worked out the price of their freedom, went thither some years since. Kentucky has made a purchase of forty miles square on the St. Paul's river, with a sea-coast of forty miles; whither an expedition will sail in a few weeks. During the last year, New Jersey has moved with great energy in the founding of a settlement, to bear the name of that state. Commissioners have been sent out to select a location, who will explore the interior; expecting that it will offer much better advantages than the coast as to health, soil, comfort, and trade. Massachusetts has chartered the "Trustees of Donations for Education in Liberia," and her citizens are endowing liberally a seminary of a high order in that Republic. The legislatures of many states are taking favorable action on the subject; and some of them have instructed their senators, and requested their representatives, to use their influence to induce the national government to acknowledge the independence of Liberia, and to engage in the enterprise of colonization. During the last year, moreover, private benevolence in support of this enterprise has greatly exceeded that of any previous year. One man, McDonogh, has given by will $25,000 a year, for forty years—an amount of $1,000,000. The statement of the committee that Virginia has appropriated $40,000 a year for colonization is not quite accurate. The legislature of that state appropriated for this purpose from its treasury $30,000 a year, for a period of five years; and in addition to this laid a special tax for this purpose of one dollar a year on every free colored man in the state, between the ages of twenty-one and fifty-five; which, it is thought, will amount to $10,000 annually. This fact we state with deep mortification. This laying a tax exclusively on the poorest and most depressed portion of her citizens is an unjust and oppressive transaction.

territory of Gallinas to this government, including all the territories between Cape Mount and Shebar, excepting a small slip of about five miles of coast in the Kellou country, which will also soon fall into our hands.

For these tracts we have incurred a large debt, and we confidently look to you to aid us in meeting these liabilities at maturity. Had I not deemed it absolutely important to secure the Gallinas, to prevent the revival of the slave trade there, I would not have paid the price demanded. The purchase of Gallinas and the neighboring tracts will cost us about $9,500.

The chiefs were aware of the object of the purchase, and urged strenuously the sacrifice, as they consider it, they must make in abandoning forever the slave trade, and demanded a large sum as an equivalent. In addition to the amount stated above, we have obligated ourselves to appoint commissioners immediately to settle the wars in the country, and open the trade in camwood, ivory, and palm oil with the interior tribes; and also settle among them, as soon as convenient, persons capable of instructing them in the arts of husbandry. This will also cost us a considerable sum, which will no doubt be returned in the end by the advantages the trade will give. Still the present outlay will be, I fear, more than equal to our ability.

The argument in favor of the proposed line of steamers to Africa, embodied in this extract from the committee's report, and in the facts which we have stated, must, we think, be convincing and moving to all whose minds are not preoccupied with opinions, judgments, or feelings, adverse to African colonization.

We are aware that many excellent men have been, and are, strongly opposed to the enterprise of colonization. There has been a long and bitter conflict between those who advocate the colonization of free people of color, and those who advocate the abolition of slavery; or more accurately, between portions of these classes. On the one hand, the colonizationists have been charged with being moved in their enterprise by hatred to the negroes, when the great body of them have been moved by true benevolence; and a society, which originated in the pure and heroic goodness of Samuel J. Mills, and was long warmly supported by the anti-slavery philanthropy of the country, and especially of New England, has been visited with reproach and opposition, on account of the manifold indiscretions and unphilanthropic heresies of some of its advocates, for whom it was in no wise responsible. And, on the other hand, it has been thought good support of the colonization society to pour contempt upon Anti-Slavery societies; and to heap abuse on those who imitate their divine Lord and exemplar, in preaching deliverance to the captives and the opening of the prison doors to them that are bound. This conflict, in our judgment, is wholly unnecessary, unwise and unnatural. There is no reason why the friends of the abolition of slavery, and the friends of the colonization of free colored people, should not harmonize. Their objects, we are sure, are harmonious. Both may be aided by the friends of the African race, with entire consistency; and we may add that duty binds them to aid both. This conflict we regard as one of the most deplorable instances of that waste of strength and feeling, by reformers and philanthropists, in needless contention with one another, of which we spoke in our last number. We are heartily in favor of the abolition of slavery. And we are as heartily in favor of African colonization-of course with the full and unforced consent of those who are colonized. We believe that it will give a demonstration of the true and equal manhood of our colored brethren-of their capabilities of intelligence, enterprise, self-government, and social and religious prosperity. We believe it offers the best means of carrying civilization and Christianity through the darkest continent of the globe. We believe that it affords the best asylum for our colored brethren from those inferiorities in privilege, those prejudices and antipathies against them, which, however unjust and inhuman, and however sure ultimately to disappear under the advancing power of philanthropy and Christianity, do now widely exist, and will exist, we

fear, for a long time yet to come. We believe that it offers a sure, and, so far as we can now see, the only sure, or even promising, method of suppressing, and forever ending the inhuman slave trade. The history of Liberia has proved this fully; so that they who have hitherto doubted and even denied, must now admit it. The half a million which our government now expends annually in sustaining her African squadron for the prevention of the slave trade; and the great sums which the British government expends for the same purpose; would do vastly more for the accomplishment of the object, if they were expended in building up on all the slave coast, civilized, enterprising and Christian communities, endowed with all needful institutions of education and religion. Such communities, established on all the slave coast (as they may be) must annihilate that accursed traffic in Africa; and leave those who pursue it in this land, which vaunts the inalienable right of all men to be free, alone in their infamy. Indeed, we think that it will do much toward the removal of slavery itself-more than we have been accustomed to believe or hope. The events of the few past years, and those which promise to be in a few years to come, give us courage. We would not call it the only remedy for slavery. We would not discourage, we would encourage, all righteous and wise measures and movements for the abolition of that wicked and inhuman institution. But we do feel authorized to hold up African colonization, as at least a partial remedy for slavery-an auxiliary in the good work of its removal. If a demonstration is made in Liberia, in free, enlightened and Christian communities there, which will convince colored men that the native home of their race is the place for their happiness and honor; if the government of the United States, the governments of the several states, and the governments of other Christian nations, combine their wisdom and treasures with the wisdom and treasures of individual philanthropists and Chistians, and will use, and multiply that, they may use, for this purpose, the channels and vehicles of a mighty commerce between the two continentswho can say that the result will not be the entire removal of slavery, sooner, not than it might otherwise be if men were what they should be, but sooner than it ever will otherwise be, men being what they are?

Such being our view of the beneficent tendency of colonization itself, we would not reject pecuniary aid given to it from whatever quarter, from advocates however unwise, or even from unjust and even inhuman motives-provided we do nothing to invite or encourage such evil motives, or the folly of such advocates. If men accompany their pecuniary aid with such remarks, as the Hon. R. J. Walker, of Mississippi, makes in a letter published (not wisely) by the Colonization Society, in the Ap

pendix to this report, "I have ever regarded colonization and abolition as antagonistic measures, and that the success of the first would overthrow the latter;" while we should regret the remark, as evil itself and fitted to do evil to the cause, we would take his money, and with it send men to Africa. If individuals or legislatures emancipate slaves, on the condition that they shall go to the African colonies; while we should regret the unjust condition, the unrighteous limitation on their free choice, we would prefer such an emancipation to their continuance in slavery. Though we should think it impolitic, as well as unjust, for southern legislatures to insist that slaves shall be colonized, if they are emancipated; deeming it more wise to employ them as free laborers, in a climate where white men can not safely work, and that it is an impoverishing process to send so much labor out of the country; we should yet rejoice in their emancipation, preferring it, with that impolitic condition annexed, to unrighteous bondage. And even if men should aid colonization from a desire to perpetuate slavery, or from hatred to negroes, confident that their act would have no tendency to fulfill that desire, or to attain the ends of that hatred, we would accept the aid; believing that it would help a good object, and that it is better to have a good act with an evil motive, than to have both the motive and the act evil. Meanwhile, we ought to insist, and call on others to insist also, that colored men have a right -as good a right as any men-to stay in this land of their birth, if they choose; and that all men are bound to treat them, while here, or if they choose to remain here, as men and brethren, even to the full meaning of our language in the Declaration of Independence, and to the full meaning of the law of humanity and of Christ.

J. D. Moolsey.

ART. VIII. CAUCASUS.

Circassia; or a Tour to the Caucasus. By G. L. DITSON. New York and London. 1850.

Klemm. Cultur-geschichte der Menschheit. Vol. 4. Leipzig. 1845. Die Gegenwart, Numbers 5 and 43. 1848-50.

MR. DITSON has the credit, we believe, of giving to the world. the first American tour in the Caucasus. We can not, however, assign him much credit, beyond that of being the pioneer among his countrymen, in visiting, or at least in describing this remarkable country. He gives his book a double title, but the fact is