happy to observe, have succeeded in effecting his liberation from this state. The Honourable William Wylly, the Attorney-General of the Bahama Islands, has been equally strenuous in forwarding the views of the Institution, and in advocating the cause of the oppressed; and it is one of the most gratifying circumstances which have attended the formation of the African Institution, that it seems to have called forth and embodied the best energies of the friends of the friendless in all parts of the world.

The following anecdote merits to be inserted at length.

"In the midst, however, of the evils with which a near view of the West Indies brings them acquainted, the Directors feel a pleasure in recording the following instance of

humane and liberal conduct.

" About fourteen years ago, Daniel Hill, Esq. of Antigua, purchased from a slave ship a negro slave of the name of Mohammed. Discovering him to have been above the common class in his own country, and to have acquired a considerable share of Arabic literature, he was led to treat him with particular indulgence. Mohammed manifested a strong attachment to the Mohammedan religion, and his master paid the utmost attention to the religious scruples of his slave. At length Mr. Hill resolved to grant him his liberty, and to procure for him the means of returning to his own country. Mohammed arrived at Liverpool, in the month of June last, recommended to the care of Mr. Shand of that place, under whose roof he remained during a stay of two or three months in England. An application having been made on behalf of this stranger to the Directors, they were induced to be at the expense of conveying him to Goree, which was the nearest point to the residence of his family; and

they furnished him with letters to Major Chisholm, the governor of that place, and a member of this Institution, on whose good offices in Mohammed's favour they confidently rely." pp. 14, 15.

This man arrived in safety at Goree, and was conveyed, through the kindness of Major Chisholm, to his native home.

It appears from the Report,that the indigo manufactured at Sierra Leone is found to be quite as good in its quality as that which was brought

from the East Indies when its culture there first commenced; and directions have been furnished by the Board, which are likely to improve its quality. The hemp produced from the leaves of the palm tree still proves,on a repetition of the former experiment, to be considerably stronger than the Russian hemp: and the sunn plant of Bengal, from which a valuable species of hemp is also obtained, is found to thrive in Africa.

The following account of Mr. Mungo Parke will only serve to sharpen the desire which is generally felt to be possessed of his promised Journal.

"The last accounts received from this dis

tinguished traveller, were dated from Sansanding, on the river Niger. He then transmitted to the Secretary of State the journal of his proceedings down to that period. This journal has been received; and the substance of it, which is highly interesting, the Directors have obtained leave from Government to publish.

"In a former Report, it was mentioned that Governor Maxwell, who then commanded at Senegal, had sent a native Mohammedan, of the name of Isaac (the same man who had accompanied Mr. Park, in order to procure some correct account of as guide, to Sansanding), into the interior, his fate. This man returned to Senegal after an absence of about twenty mouths, and made a written report of his proceedings to Governor Maxwell. A translation of this rewell to the Board, and it is intended to pub port has been forwarded by Governor Maxlish the substance of it, along with Mt. Park's journal. In the mean time, they have thought it right to lay before the meetgives an account of the fate of Mr. Park. ing an extract from that part of it which

"Isaac had accompanied Mr. Park, as his guide, as far as Sansanding, on the Niger. Ile then quitted him, after having procured another guide, of the name of AmadeeFatouma, who agreed to accompany Mr. Park to the confines of Haoussa.

"Isaac found this man at Sansanding, and from him he received a detailed account of Mr. Park's proceedings from the time of his embarking, at Sansanding, on board a large undertaken to navigate the Niger to its schooner-rigged canoe, in which he had mouth, until the period of his parting with him, which was a day or two after they had

reached the kingdom of Haoussa. The narrative of Amadee-Fatouma then proceeds as follows.

"Next day Mr. Park departed, and I slept in the village (Yaour). Next morning I went to the king, to pay my respects to him. On entering the house, I found two men, who came on horseback. They were sent by the chief of Yaour. They said to the king, "We are sent by the chief of Yaour to let you know, that the white men went away, without giving you or him (the chief) any thing. They have a great many things with them, and we have received nothing from them: and this Amadee-Fatouma, now before you, is a bad man, and has like wise made a fool of you both." The king immediately ordered me to be put in irons, which was accordingly done, and every thing I had taken from me. Some were for killing me, and some for preserving my life. The next morning, early, the king sent an army to a village called Boussa, near the river's side. There is before this village a rock across the whole breadth of the river. One part of the rock is very high: there is there a large opening in that rock, in the form of a door, which is the only passage for the

water to pass through: the tide current is here very strong. The aring went and took possession of the top of this opening. Mr. Park came there after the army had posted itselt: he, nevertheless, attempted to pass. The people began to attack him, throwing lances, pikes, arrows, and stones. Mr. Park defended himself for a long time; two of his slaves, at the stern of the canoes, were

killed. They threw every thing they had in the canoe into the river, and kept firing; but being overpowered by numbers and fatigue, and unable to keep up the canoe against the current, and no probability of escaping, Mr. Park took hold of one of the white men, and jumped into the water. Martin did the same; and they were drowned in the stream in attempting to escape. The only slave remaining in the boat, seeing the natives persist in throwing weapons at the canoe, stood up and said to them, "Stop throwing, now you see nothing in the canoe, and nobody but myself; therefore cease. Take me and the canoe, but don't kill me." They took possession of the canoe and the man, and carried them to the king.

"I was kept in irous three months. The king then released me, and gave me a female slave. I immediately went to the slave taken in the canoe, who told me in what manner Mr. Park and all of them had died, and what I have related above.'

CHRIST. OBSERV. No. 131.

"The Directors do not take upon them to fix the degree of credit which is due to the statements contained in this journal. On that point they must leave every one to form his own judgment." pp. 21-24.

The Directors have given a short account of Captain Paul Cuffee, with whom during his stay in this country they had opportunities of personal communication, as proving the capacity of the African to fill the same place with the European in civil society but as in the Appendix to our last volume we have inserted a life of this individual, it will be unnecessary to detain our readers with any extracts from this part of the Report. We omit likewise many other particulars in the Report, which, had we had room, we should willingly have noticed; and proceed to the Appendix, which contains a large mass of curious and interesting information. The first of the Agent," an American vessel : extract we shall give is the "Case it is intended to exemplify the nature of those contrivances by which British or American property, embarked in the Slave Trade, is disguised as Spanish or Portuguese. What follows is taken from the instructions given by the American merchant to the master and part owner, a native of Scotland, dated Charleston, 17th May, 1810.

"The voyage on which we have jointly embarked, and which is now left to your discretion, is of a very delicate nature, and requires the greatest prudence and discretion. In order to qualify the Agent to bring a cargo from the coast, it will be necessary to put her under Portuguese colours: this, with the assistance of Messrs. Sealy, Roach, and Toole, of Bahia, for whom I enclose you a letter of introduction, you will easily be able to effect. They will procure for you some honest Portuguese merchant, who, for a small sum, shall undertake all that is necessary for owners to do. A captain of colour, one officer, and part of the crew, in compliance with the laws, must be Portuguese; but the Portuguese captain, at the same time that he must be instructed by the pretended owner, to appear for him on all occasions in protecting the ship and property,

5 B

must also be instructed not to interfere with the navigation of the ship, except at your request; and he must be put entirely under your orders. As you shall have to grant a bill of sale for the brig, when she is apparently sold, you must be very cautious to take a counter bill of sale; and again, as collateral security, a bottomry bond on the vessel for 10,000 dollars, with a power of attorney from the sham owner to you, to sell and dispose of her in any manner you shall think proper. I would wish you, besides, to take a very strong declaration in writing, witnessed by Sealy, Roach, and Toole, that the sale made by you is merely fictitious; that the cargo and her earnings are bona fide your property; which declaration must be couched so as to be a perfect quit claim from

him and his heirs for ever."

"It is very essential that none of your people, except those who are to stay with you, should have the least suspicion of your future plan: I would recommend, therefore, that before you enter on any of your transactions, you would see these people out of the country, that they cannot come and talk here of what you have done. I would rather Jose some little time, nor would I mind some

little expense, to get rid of them cleverly, The ship's log-book should afterwards be kept in Portuguese: no English writing, touching the voyage, should be on board: the fewer entries in the log-book the better, to be done under your eyes. She should have no colours but Portuguese on board; your present flag thrown away when the brig is sold, and all the papers sent back (under cover) to me: your register, however, you had better bring back yourself." pp.36,37.

This vessel sailed from Cabenda on the 1st of January 1811, with 275 slaves on board; and had been at sea twentydays, when the slaves rose,and, after a severe struggle, in which 30 of them were killed, took possession of the vessel, forcing the captain and crew into a boat, into which, however, with an unexampled degree of forbearance and generosity, they put some provisions and water. What became of the boat has not transpired. It was four months before the vessel regained the coast of Africa, the course of the trade winds being adverse to her return thither; and the provisions on board falling -short, the greater part of the Africans perished from hunger. Only eightyfive remained alive when the vessel

was brought to Sierra Leone. What a mass of wretchedness has this one slave adventure produced!

In the Report of the Commissioners of African Inquiry, a great part of which is inserted in the Appendix, we meet with much important information. We were particularly struck with that part of it in which, speaking of the great number of Africans that had been brought to Sierra Leone for adjudication, and there released from slavery, they state as follows:

"A considerable number of the nearest and

dearest kindred, husbands and wives, parents and children, brothers and sisters, who had been kiduapped or stolen at various times, and put on board different vessels, have been thus unexpectedly restored to each other at Sierra Leone; and whenever any of them have desired to return to their own country, and such return has been deemed practicable, they have been allowed to do so; being first provided with a paper under the hand and seal of the governor, certifying that they are to be considered as his people and under his protection, which is looked upon, according to the customs and law of Africa, to be a sufficient security against further molestation.

"All the people thus returning home, must naturally be more than ever the enemies of slavery, as they cannot fail, in the last few eventful months of suffering and liberation, to have acquired some new ideas of freedom, which will of course be gradually diffused amongst their friends; and seeing that all white men are not their enemies, but that one European nation considers the Slave Trade as unlawful, and is determined, if possible, to put an end to it, the natives may by degrees feel some encouragement to liberate themselves from this horrible thraldom." p. 69.

Some valuable African memoranda, by the late Governor Ludlam, a name justly dear to every friend of Africa, follow the Report of the Commissioners. The following extract from an account given by that gentleman of a tribe of Africans called Kroomen, residing near Cape Palmas, will afford some idea of the entertainment which is provided for them in this part of the Appendix.

"The indifference of Kroomen to European arts and European comforts, made me once

think them a very dull race of men, to say the least. I was struck when I first came to Africa with the different manner in which a Krooman and a Mandingo man (a Molammedan) viewed an English clock. It was a new thing to both of them. The Krooman eyed it attentively for about a minute, but with an unmoved countenance, and then walked away to look at something else, with out saying a word. The Mandingo man could not sufficiently admire the equal and constant motion of the pendulum; his attention was repeatedly drawn to it; he made all possible inquiries as to the cause of its motion; he renewed the subject next morning, and could hardly be persuaded that the

pendulum had continued to “walk," as he

called it, all night. In general, I think, the case is nearly the same. They have little or no curiosity about things which are of no use in their own country; they are careless about our comforts and luxuries; none of them have been rendered necessary by habit, and they would often be inconsistent with the principal objects of their pursuit. But Kroomen are sufficiently acute and observant where the occasion calls their minds into action; but it is rather from a gene ral view of their character and conduct that I say this, than from particular specimens of ingenuity. They have not the use of letters, and will not permit their children to learn; they talk miserably bad English: living by daily labour, which is paid for in European goods, they have no occasion for manufactures of their own. They have but few opportunities, therefore, of displaying peculiar talents. They make their own canoes, several of their implements of agriculture, and some trifling musical instruments: I know not of any thing else worthy of notice. I ought not to omit, however, that they sometimes plead in their own defence with inuch art. The evidence against one of the very last I examined on a charge of theft was so strong, that few men would have had the boldness to deny the charge. The culprit, however, began a long speech with expressing his sorrow that I was not born a Krooman, and proceeded to enlarge on the superior ability I should in that case have possessed to distinguish between truth and falsehood, in all cases wherein Kroomen were concerned; not forgetting the security against deception which I might possibly have obtained by means of those fetishes of which white men knew not the value nor

the use. Had I possessed but these advan tages, I should have known, he argued, how much more safely I might rely on his

veracity than on all the evidence produced. against him; although it was backed by the unfortunate circumstance of the stolen goods being found in his possession. The substance of his defence was, that he had fairly purchased the goods, not knowing them to be stolen ; and that Kroomen, whom he named, were witnesses of the transaction, though for private reasons they would not speak. His guilt was clear: but, had he possessed a tolerable character, he would have had some chance of escaping with a timid jury. He had been tried once or twice before, and acquitted." pp. 99-101.

A considerable portion of the Appendix is occupied by the CorresPondence of a Mr. John Kizell with the Governor of Sierra Leone, detailing his negotiations with the chiefs in the river Sherbro, to whom the Governor had sent him, in the hope of inducing them to concur in measures for effectually abolishing the Slave Trade in that district. Kizell is one of the negro colonists of Sierra Leone. He was originally the son of a chief in this very river Sherbro. He was carried, when about twelve years of age, as a slave, to North America; but obtained his freedom by joining the British standard during the American war. At Nova Scotia he acquired so much knowledge of letters as to be able to read and write; and since he has resided at Sierra Leone he is stated to have uniformly maintained an excellent character. We give the following extract from the communications of this African envoy, as a rare specimen of diplomatic simplicity.

"I took this opportunity of talking to the chiefs on the Slave Trade. I told them that the blood of their people cried against them, and that God had heard it. They had killed the poor of the land; the people that should work the land; and had sold them to fill their bellies. All their people were gone or going to other countries. They allowed the Slave Trade to stop their ears, and blind their eyes: for a little rum and tobacco they allowed their people to be carried off, and said nothing. I then told them of their bad ways towards their wives, whom they had when they were young, by whom also they had children: but whom, when they get a little old, they will accuse of being

witches, so as to get rid of them to make room for young women; of these, some chiefs had thirty, some twenty, some fifteen, some ten, some more or less. Then they called themselves great men. And if any of the young men were caught with their wives, he must be sold; and if any of his family complained, all of them were likely to be sold too. They all knew this to be the truth. They had also a bad way of poisoning people with red water * : so, in one way or another, they made away with their people. I told them to look at Tasso: all the young people of that place had been sold: the town was now broken up, and had none but old people in it. As I spoke, they all hung down their heads. They said, All you say is the truth; we can say nothing against it.' Then I said they must leave off these practices. They said, They knew that the Kings of England and Sherbro were friends in the old time; the old people had told them so but the King of England had thrown them away, and has sent his ships to buy them, although the agreement was, that they were not to be sold, as they were his people.'

"The next day I went to take a walk with one of my boys, and was surprised to see so many coffee trees near the town. Some places were entirely covered by them. I pulled up three plants, and carried them to the town: I asked what it was? They said it was all over their country. I then told them it was coffee. They said, They did not know it: they can get plenty of it in the season. 1 told them if they would get a house full of it, I would buy it of them. Four days after, some people came from the upper country (the interior) to see me. I began to talk about the coffee. They said, I must go and shew it to them. When I had done this, they said, They thought it was nothing vaJuable; it was in their country also, and they used it to fence their plantations: it was all over the country: at some places nothing else was to be seen.

"I was glad to find that there was another trade which might be put in the room of the Slave Trade, and which might not lie in the hands of the white traders and the chiefs. The coffee trade is fit for women and boys, so that the poor women and the young people may get money as well as the chiefs; for at present they and the white slave traders

The common ordeal in Africa, for the trial of crimes, is an infusion of the bark of a certain tree called Red Water. This is drunk by such accused persons as deny their guilt, and according to the effect produced by it they are declared guilty or not guilty."

keep the country under, because they can get goods, and the rest cannot. I have heard them (the traders) say, that the natives are their money. I was concerned to think that there was no man to be found among them who had the welfare of this country and people at heart, to observe what is in it, and what it will produce, instead of taking the natives and carrying them to the European islands to raise coffee, which is the natura} plant of Africa. Her people are carried off to raise coffee to supply the markets of Eorope, when they might as well get it from Africa, if the people were but directed what to do. But I thank Almighty God for his over-ruling power; he does all things in their season; and this is the time he has appointed in which to rouse the great men of England, and to put it in their hearts to consider the human race. May the Almighty God incline them to persevere; for these men of sin would wish to keep the black people in slavery, and their minds in darkness, so that they should enjoy neither the good of this world, nor the happiness of the world to come." pp. 121, 122.

The Appendix closes with the judgment of Sir William Scott in the case of a vessel called the Donna Mariana, which was heard by him on an appeal from the Vice-Admiralty Court of Sierra Leone. This ship had belonged to Samuel Macdowal and Co. of Liverpool, whe sent her, under the command of one Vauralst, to Pernambuco, whence, after the form of a sale to a Portuguese merchant, she went, under the command of the same Vauralst, with a carge on board assorted for the Slave Trade, to the coast of Africa. Here she was taken, just as she was proceeding to commence her traffic. Sir W. Scott confirmed the sentence of condemnation which had been pronounced by the ViceAdmiralty Court, observing, that he had little doubt that this was in fact a British owned vessel, and that the asserted transfer was only colourable; the Portuguese disguise having been assumed for the mere purpose of protecting the property of British merchants in a traffic in which it was not lawful for them to engage.

We have been under the necessity of omitting much, which we are persuaded would interest our read