SLAVE TRADE.

[From the Connecticut Observer.]

Mr. Hooker. By a letter just received from Mr. Teage, editor of the Liberia Herald, I am happy to learn that there is a prospect that the Slave Factory of the notorious Peter Blancho, at the mouth of the Gallinas river, will soon be broken up. This man, who is a Spaniard and a native of Havanna, has enriched himself by a long course of traffic in human flesh, and has now the only establishment for supplying slaves, which there is between the British settlements on the western coast of Africa and those of our own colonists. Should the object referred to above be effected, the Slave trade will then have well nigh, if not entirely ceased from several hundred miles of sea coast, through the influence of African Colonization alone. The following is an extract from the letter of Mr. Teage.

"Intelligence has just been received that the British have planted their standard at Thebar. By reference to your map you will perceive that the Thebar is not more than fifty miles from the famous slave mart. the Gallinas. This, I regard as one bold step towards the destruction of that place. But a bolder is, in the revival on the part of the Government of Sierra Leone of a dormant claim to the very island on which Blancho's Barracoons are situated."

By giving these facts to the public, new strength and courage may be imparted to those, the object of whose efforts is to shield from oppression, and relieve the woes of that class of our fellow men, who have so long been subject to the bonds of slavery.

Yours sincerely,

CONTRIBUTIONS

CHARLES ROCKWELL.

To the American Col. Society, from March 25, to April 25, 1837.

Collections in Churches, &c.

Alexandria, in the Methodist Episcopal Church,

By the Rev. R. R. Gurley, on his Southern Journey. At Raleigh, in the Presbyterian Church,

Fayetteville, in

do

in Prot. Methodist do

Do

Do

Rev. Mr. Buxton,

Wilmington, in the Presbyterian Church, from the citizens generally,

Virginia Colonization Society,

Auxiliary Society.

Life Subscriber.

W. Hutton, Agent of the Western African Company, (on board the British brig St. George, from London, which called at Monrovia.)

Legacy.

Mrs. Dolly P. Madison, in payment of the legacy left to this Society by her late Husband, James Madison,

30

2000

$2,845 98 16

· 10

20

SINCE the publication of our last number, we have received a single Liberia Herald, for January, and several letters from the Colony. The Herald contains fewer articles of interest than are usually found in that paper. The purport of the letters, is in general, highly encouraging. The judicious measures of the Lieutenant Governor, who has administered the affairs of the Colony since the return of GOVERNOR SKINNER, have greatly promoted the policy of the Managers to excite and foster among the Colonists a fondness for farming pursuits. Que agreeable consequence is a striking diminution of the number of indigent persons. Dr. DAVID F. BACON, the intelligent and accomplished gentleman lately placed at the head of the Medical Department at Liberia, has already done much to realize the hopes of signal benefit to the Colony which led to his appointment. We regret, however, to learn that his advice and remonstrances failed to persuade the emigrants who accompanied him to avoid unnecessary physical exposure. Many of them wilfully tempted the hot sun by day and the nightly dew, some stayed on shore during the whole night, and others returned late in the evening, through the chilly air, passing by the mangrove Swamp. In former instances such culpable temerity had been the source of severe sickness to unacclimated settlers; and thus occasioned imputations on the climate, more properly due to the imprudence of newly arrived visiters and Colonists. Yet, with the too frequent reluctance of men to grow wiser by any experience but their own, the emigrants by the Rondout seem to have invited by their proceedings a similar result. That they have done so with impunity, is hardly to be expected. Should cases of disease. have occurred among them it is gratifying to feel assured that they have been carefully and skilfully treated.

We subjoin some portions of the letters received by the Rondout.

Extracts of a letter from ANTHONY D. WILLIAMS, Lieutenant Governor of Liberia, dated MONROVIA, February 13, 1837. "The Rondout's return affords me an opportunity to give you a brief statement of affairs here. I am happy in being able to say that at present the Colony is peaceful and tranquil. A growing attention still continues to be paid to agriculture; indeed, the whole community seems awaking to the subject. No former period of the Colony can boast of as great an extent of land under tilth as at present."

"In order to afford some encouragement to the settlers at Junk, as well as to prevent their eating the bread of idleness at the expense of the Society, I have established a farm there, on which they will work a part of the time in return for articles with which the store there may provide them. The Emigrants by the Swift, have proved themselves an industrious, thrifty people. They have already raised two crops of culinary vegetables, and other produce. The farm established on Bushrod Island, is doing remarkably well; and will, I think, realize my former hopes respecting it.—All the paupers that require constant assistance are now on the farm, and those able to labour have their work regularly assigned them. You will be astonished, no doubt, when I inform you, that the former fearful number of mendicants has dwindled, since the commencement of this system, to 20—including those who are only occasional beneficiaries. The doctor requests that hospital stores, such as molasses, tea, &c. shall be kept regularly on hand. He is of opinion, that those terrific ulcers so prevalent in the Colony, are owing to the diet on which invalids have heretofore been fed. In order to extinguish old Mamma's claim to that part of Bushrod Island, for which an agreement was entered into by Mr. Ashmun, I have been obliged to make a purchase of goods from the Captain of the Rondout, the water casks he takes as part payment, at their cost in America; for the balance of $137 43 cents, I have given him a draft on the treasurer. I shall probably be under the necessity of drawing on the treasurer for Rice, but not for a large amount." "The Emigrants by this vessel are located at Millsburg, and already have their town lots assigned them, they will have their farms in a few days." The former name of the settlement called New-Georgia, was Careytown. We are anxious that the Society will suffer its old name to be resumed.

Your obedient servant,

A. D. WILLIAMS, Lieutenant Governor.

Extracts of a letter from Dr. BACON, dated

GOVERNMENT HOUSE, MONROVIA, February 15, 1837.

I am in Africa! After years of unsatisfied longings, sent towards the wide unknown of this dark continent, my feet at last touch this glowing soil; and my eyes are gladdened with the sight of the hallowed scenes of Colonization enterprise, which my imagination so vainly endeavoured to picture when my thoughts roamed hither from the studious retirement of my solitary home. The bare consciousness of having even a foothold on a corner of Africa, is such a realization of my wildest youthful hopes and fancies, that the pleasure naturally inspired by the attainment of the object of hope rises almost to rapture.

Yet there is little in the circumstances in which I am placed at this moment, that can remind me of any important change of scene. I find myself in a quiet comfortable room furnished with many of the identical articles which surrounded me in New Haven; and the only striking difference between my condition there and here, in this season, is that without the trouble of keeping fire the air maintains itself, night and day, very nearly at the temperature of 80 degrees,-a circumstance which you, at this moment, perhaps, seeking warmth from a hot fire, will hardly reckon the most unenviable. I have yet met with nothing in Liberia which gives me the impression that I have sacrificed a single physical comfort by this change of residence.

On the afternoon of December 31st, the Rondout left Cape Fear, and steering south with a fresh Northeaster, we soon had our last sight of America in the last daylight of 1836. This curious coincidence was perfectly undesigned, as nothing but the impossibility of obtaining a pilot had prevented our clearing the river a day sooner, and the joy with which we set our faces oceanward was greatly heightened by the tardy gratification of the "hope deferred, which maketh the heart sick." A westerly wind at evening bore us more directly on our course, and at night the warm air and warm water of the Gulph Stream gave hopeful token that we were passing away from the "rude winter of the west." Our emigrant company, thirtysix in number, were cases of nausea marina, a disease which I suffered to rage among them without intermission for the next fortnight, without feeling in any way called on for the exercise of my professional duties. As for myself, although so young a voyager, I remained throughout the whole passage perfectly and happily. exempt from the least symptom of this distressing complaint.

The new year opened on the first morning of the voyage with the usual stormy weather of the margin of the Gulph Stream, and for the whole week it blew a constant gale. After five days of very uncomfortable weather, it increased to a most furious tempest which forced us to scud for two whole days and nights under double reefed fore-topsail alone, with the yard lowered to the cap so that it was equivalent to a close-reefed sail. Our able and faithful commander, Captain Howland, who has been a seaman for twenty-four years, assured me that in all his life he had never known but one gale that could equal it for violence and severity. For the first few days I had been half-jokingly begging for a sight of" waves mountains high," as a scene which I had longed to compare with the appalling descriptions which I had so often read and heard; and according to my request, I was at the moment of rising on Friday morning, invited on deck by the officer of the watch, to see mountain waves worthy of the name. I must say, that my first impression was one of disappointment at the moderate elevation of the sea; but few moments survey of the black valley of waters which almost constantly enclosed and almost overwhelmed our brigantine, soon inspired me, if not with a sensation of sensibility, at least with a strong feeling of that terror which is philosophically supposed to form an important part of it. However, our stout vessel, though an uncommonly wet and rolling one, and no way suited to the comfort of the passengers, under able management, rode the gale as safe as a stormy petrel, till at last Sunday brought its contemplative peace, proving to me, at least, "a day of rest" indeed. From that day we had no more storms. Every day brought us into a warmer and smoother region, and nothing occurred to disturb but a few squalls in the beginning of the week, in one of which we unfortunately lost one of the crew, a poor boy about 16 or 17 years old, a native of Turk's Island. He fell from the jib boom

while he and two others were taking in the sail in the beginning of a violent squall. The night was dark as pitch, a heavy sea rolling, the vessel going between nine and ten miles an hour, a blinding rain falling, and every thing lashed fast in storm trim. Everything was such as to prevent the possibility of any assistánce, and we were driven by the wind, leaving him alone in the dark waters to perish, with his cries ringing over the waves for two or three minutes till they died in the distance. The dreadful shock of this horrible accident made a painful impression on my mind, from which I did not soon recover and which embittered the enjoyment of the pleasanter days which followed.

We were becalmed a few days in the "dill dalls," as the calm latitudes are called between the parallels of 28 and 23 degrees, but the trade winds soon took us along to the Islands of Cape Verd, which we passed leaving them four miles to the east of us. A week more brought us into the deep haze of the African coast, and after another week of almost calm weather, we came with the current so far to the coast as to see the long low shore of Sherbro, marked by its high trees, and the next morning, with a joy, which you who have felt it know, hailed the blue towering peak of Cape Mount. We were drifted through the day by a strong current southwards; and at a quarter past three, high land having been seen ahead by some sharp eyes on deck, I went out on the jib boom and dimly descried the cloudy outline of Cape Montserado. At six we took on board two naked Kroomen as pilots, who came off in a canoe, and at about eight, anchored in Monrovia roads, about three miles from the town, after a voyage of thirty-four days from Cape Fear.

At about 10 o'clock in the forenoon of the next day (February 4th) I landed and presented my despatches and commission to Mr. Williams, the Acting Governor. I found the Colony in a peaceful, prosperous, and healthy condition. The public prosperity and general comfort have been greatly promoted under the faithful and active government of Mr. Williams, whose business-like management has effected a reform in affairs that has given me a satisfaction which I know the Board and all the friends of the Colony will share, on perceiving the results as reported by him officially. In my own department, have found much that required active attention; for although there is not a single case of the common fever in the Colony (unless at Edina, from which I have not yet heard,) there are in all this section, besides a few light cases of croup, about fifteen or twenty cases of chronic disorders resulting from debility, mostly in old broken down constitutions, which have been long suffering for want of the aid of a regular Physician,-the Colony having been left entirely to the Medical Assistants ever since the departure of Dr. Skinner in September,-as Dr. McDowall, some months since, left the service of the American Colonization Society, for that of the Bassa Cove Colony. A day or two after my arrival there was a death among these cases, the only one within some weeks. There are only two cases in all this section (from the Cape to Millsburg, present limit of my visits) that I consider really dangerous. One is a little orphan boy at Caldwell, attacked by a stroke of the sun a few days ago, and the other a Congo man at Carey (the village of the recaptured on Stockton Creek) who for want of medical assistance had been suffered to sink down into a low stage of typhus. I have hopes that even these may be brought up by the active medicines which I shall send them in the morning, for I have only this night returned from Millsburg, having first found these cases on the way.

The whole number of cases that I have been able to find or hear of on careful per