speculation disturbs his quiet slumbers; no revolutions in foreign lands, damming up the channels of trade, cloud the calm serenity of his brow. Oh! if there be a spot on earth, where true happiness is to be found, here is that spot.

"But we take a higher and a more extended view of this subject, and regard it in its bearing on political economy. And my first remark is, that no nation can be independent which subsists wholly by commerce. And here let it be observed, once for all, that I use the word independent in a sense altogether distinct from sovereignty. I admit that there may be a temporary prosperity; that so long as peace prevails amongst nations connected by commercial and diplomatic relations,—so long as each acts in perfect faith, and maintains in all their entireness and in all their integrity his treaty stipulations, there may not be felt a want of the necessaries or even of the luxuries of life. There may, perhaps, be a large influx of the precious metals. Nothing, however, could be more fallacious, than to regard this activity as an indication of independence or permanent prosperity. For I remark, in the second place, that so uncertain are the operations of trade—so suddenly are its channels and outlets closed by misunderstandings and ruptures between rival nations—so liable is it to paralysing shocks from intriguing cabinets and wily politicians, the operations of one year scarcely afford any ground for conjecture in regard to the operations of the next. Let us illustrate our position by an humble supposition.

"Suppose the surrounding country should suddenly relent, throw wide its doors, and shake its teeming wealth of gold and ivory and wood and gums into our lap; and the native African, patient of labour and of travel, should supply us at the most accommodating rates with all the coarser food for our consumption;—suppose vessels should flock (as, under such circumstances, vessels would most assuredly flock) to our shores, offering us in exchange for the produce thus liberally poured in upon us, the conveniences, elegances, and luxuries of foreign countries. Suppose every man desert his farm, and betake himself to trading as the more easy and the more speedy road to wealth,—there would certainly be great activity and great prosperity. But should we be independent? One more supposition, and the important and interesting problem is solved. Suppose the paths to the interior are suddenly blocked up by feuds among the tribes; all ingress cut off and trade suspended. Where, then, are our supplies? Should we be able to return to our farms, and draw thence articles of exchange with foreign nations? By no means. In the mania for trade our farms have been deserted, and, like the land on which a curse rests, have long laid fallow. Think you, fellow-citizens, that our trade once gone, we should again behold the French, the Bremen, the American, and the English flag floating to the breeze in our harbour. From that hour you might bid a long adieu to every white face but that of a missionary. Fellow-Citizens! our prosperity and independence are to be drawn from the soil. That is the highway to honour, to wealth, to private and national prosperity.

"Liberians! do not disdain the humble occupation! It commends itself to our attention, ennobled and sanctified by the example of our Creator. 'And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food.... And the Lord God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden, to dress it and to keep it.'[3] Never, never, until this degenerate age, has this simple, primitive, patriarchal occupation been despised.

"Thus sings the author of the Seasons, one of Britain's sweetest bards.

"The last remark time will allow me to make under this head, is, that 'Righteousness exalteth a nation; but sin is a reproach to any people.'[4] All attempts to correct the depravity of man, to stay the head-long propensity to vice—to abate the madness of ambition, will be found deplorably inefficient, unless we apply the restrictions and the tremendous sanctions of religion. A profound regard and deference for religion, a constant recognition of our dependence upon God, and of our obligation and accountability to Him; an ever-present, ever-pressing sense of His universal and all-controlling providence, this, and only this, can give energy to the arm of law, cool the raging fever of the passions, and abate the lofty pretensions of mad ambition. In prosperity, let us bring out our thank-offering, and present it with cheerful hearts in orderly, virtuous, and religious conduct. In adversity, let us consider, confess our sins, and abase ourselves before the throne of God. In danger, let us go to Him, whose prerogative it is to deliver; let us go to Him, with the humility and confidence which a deep conviction that the battle is not to the strong nor the race to the swift, is calculated to inspire.

"Fellow-Citizens! we stand now on ground never occupied by a people before. However insignificant we may regard ourselves, the eyes of Europe and America are upon us, as a germ, destined to burst from its enclosure in the earth, unfold its petals to the genial air, rise to the height and swell to the dimensions of the full-grown tree, or (inglorious fate!) to shrivel, to die, and to be buried in oblivion. Rise, fellow-citizens, rise to a clear and full perception of your tremendous responsibilities!! Upon you, rely upon it, depends in a measure you can hardly conceive, the future destiny of your race. You, you are to give the answer, whether the African race is doomed to interminable degradation,—a hideous blot on the fair face of Creation, a libel upon the dignity of human nature,—or whether they are incapable to take an honourable rank amongst the great family of nations! The friends of the colony are trembling; the enemies of the Coloured man are hoping. Say, fellow-citizens, will you palsy the hands of your friends and sicken their hearts, and gladden the souls of your enemies, by a base refusal to enter upon the career of glory which is now opening so propitiously before you? The genius of universal emancipation, bending from her lofty seat, invites you to accept the wreath of national independence. The voice of your friends, swelling upon the breeze, cries to you from afar—Raise your standard! assert your independence!! throw out your banners to the wind!! And will the descendants of the mighty Pharaohs, that awed the world—will the sons of him who drove back the serried legions of Rome and laid siege to the 'eternal city'—will they, the achievements of whose fathers are yet the wonder and admiration of the world—will they refuse the proffered boon, and basely cling to the chains of Slavery and dependence? Never! never!! never!!! Shades of the mighty dead!—spirits of departed great ones! inspire us, animate us to the task—nerve us for the battle! Pour into our bosom a portion of that ardour and patriotism which bore you on to battle, to victory, and to conquest.

"Shall Liberia live? Yes; in the generous emotions now swelling in your bosoms—in the high and noble purpose now fixing itself in your mind, and ripening into the unyieldingness of indomitable principle, we hear the inspiring response—Liberia shall live before God, and before the nations of the Earth.

"The night is passing away—the dusky shades are fleeing, and even now

With all their advantages of education and opulence, I challenge the abettors of Negro Slavery, who justify their oppressive conduct towards their fellow-creatures on the ground of their inferiority, to exhibit half the talent and ability evinced in the eloquent addresses of these Coloured legislators. Yet these are the men who are described as a deterioration of our species, who, through vulgar prejudice and popular insult, combined with political and legislative enactments, hove been degraded to a level with the brute.

As further evidence of their capabilities, I present the reader with a few extracts from a Discourse by Henry H. Garnett, (a fugitive Slave), On the Past and Present Condition, and Destiny of the Coloured Race.

"By an almost common consent, the modern world seems determined to pilfer Africa of her glory. It is not enough that her children have been scattered over the globe, clothed in the garments of shame, humiliated and oppressed; but our enemies weary themselves in plundering the tombs of our renowned sires, and in obliterating their worthy deeds, which were inscribed by fame upon the pages of ancient history.

"The three grand divisions of the earth that were known to the ancients, were colonised by the three sons of Noah. Shem was the father of the Asiatics—the Africans descended from Ham—and Japheth was the progenitor of the Europeans. These men, being the children of one common father, they were originally of the same complexion—for we cannot, through the medium of any law of nature or reason, come to the conclusion that one was black, another was copper-coloured, and the other was white. Adam was a red man; and by what law of nature his descendants became dissimilar to him, is a problem which is yet to be clearly solved. The fact, that the universal Father has varied the complexions of his children, does not detract from his mercy, or give us reason to question his wisdom.

"Moses is the patriarch of sacred history. The same eminent station is occupied by Herodotus in profane history. To the chronicles of these two great men we are indebted for all the information we have in relation to the early condition of man. If they are incorrect, to what higher authority shall we appeal; and if they are true, then we acquaint ourselves with the history of our race from that period

'When yonder spheres sublime

Pealed their first notes to sound the march of time.'

"Ham was the first African. Egypt was settled from an immediate descendant of Ham,—who, in sacred history, is called Mizraim, and in uninspired history he is known by the name of Menes. Yet, in the face of this historical evidence, there are those who affirm, that the ancient Egyptians were not of the pure African stock. The gigantic statue of the Sphynx has the peculiar features of the children of Ham; one of the most celebrated queens of Egypt was Nitocris, an Ethiopian woman; yet these intellectual resurrectionists dig through a mountain of such evidence, and declare that these people were not Negroes.

"We learn from Herodotus, that the ancient Egyptians were black, and had woolly hair. These people astonished the world with their arts and sciences, in which they revelled with unbounded prodigality. They became the masters of the East, and the lords of the Hebrews. No arm less powerful than Jehovah's, could pluck the children of Abraham from their hands. The plagues were marshalled against them, and the pillars of cloud and of fire, and at last the resistless sea. 'Then the horse and his rider sank like lead in the mighty waters.'[5] But the kingdom of the Pharaohs was still great. The most exalted mortal eulogium that could be spoken of Moses, was, 'that he was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians.'[6] It was from them that he gathered the materials with which he reared that grand superstructure, partaking of law, poetry, and history, which has filled the world with wonder and praise. Mournful reverses of fortune have passed over that illustrious people. The star that rose in such matchless splendour above the eastern horizon has had its setting. But Egypt, Africa's dark-browed queen, still lives. Her pyramid tombs—her sculptured columns, dug from the sands to adorn modern architecture—the remnants of her once impregnable walls—the remains of her hundred-gated city, rising over the wide-spread ruins, as if to guard the fame of the race that gave them existence,—all proclaim what she once was.

"Whatever may be the extent of prejudice against colour, as it is falsely called and is so generally practised in this country, Solomon, the most renowned of kings, possessed none of it. Among the seven hundred wives and the three hundred concubines who filled his houses, the most favoured queen was the beautiful Sable daughter of one of the Pharaohs of Egypt.... When he had secured her, he bowed his great intellect before her, that he might do her that homage which he paid to no other woman. Solomon was a poet, and pure love awakened the sweetest melody in his soul. To her honour and praise he composed that beautiful poem called the Canticles, or Solomon's Song. For her he wove that gorgeous wreath which is unsurpassed in its kind, and with his own royal hand placed it upon her dark brow.

"The interior of Ethiopia has not been explored by modern adventurers. The antiquarian has made his way into almost every dominion where relics of former greatness have promised to reward him for his toil. But this country, as though she had concealed some precious treasure, meets the traveller on the outskirts of her dominions, with pestilence and death. Yet, in the Highlands that have been traversed, many unequivocal traces of former civilization have been discovered. Very lately, British enterprise has made some important researches in that region of country, all of which go to prove, that Homer did not misplace his regard for them, when he associated them with the gods.

"Numerous other instances might be mentioned that would indicate the ancient fame of our ancestors:—a fame, which arose from every virtue and talent that render mortals pre-eminently great,—from the conquests of love and beauty, from the prowess of their arms, and their architecture, poetry, mathematics, generosity, and piety. I will barely allude to the beautiful Cleopatra, who swayed and captivated the heart of Antony;—to Hannibal, the sworn enemy and scourge of Rome—the mighty General who crossed the Alps to meet his foes—the Alps which had never before been crossed by an army, nor ever since, if we except Napoleon, the ambitious Corsican;—to Terence, Euclid, Cyprian, Origen, and Augustine.

"In 1620, the very same year in which the Pilgrims