country, from various sources, might afford them. They proceeded from England to the west coast of Africa, where they prosecuted their researches with such zeal, industry, and intelligence, as to have contributed essentially to the illustration of many important and interesting facts, connected with the geography, climate, soil, and products, of that part of the continent; and with the habits, manners, social institutions, and domestic economy of its inhabitants. From the information thus obtained, the present period would seem to be designated, by a combination of favourable circumstances, as the fortunate crisis for reducing to the test of practical experiment, these views and objects of the Society, which have already met so encouraging a notice from Congress; and upon the comprehensive utility and beneficence of which (abstracted from any doubts of their being susceptible of practical execution) no question seems to be entertained in any quarter.

"The present facilities for acquiring the requisite territory from the native tribes, in situations combining every advantage of salubrious and temperate climate, with fertile soil; the pacific and humanized temper of mind prevailing among these tribes; their existing prepossessions in favour of the expected colonists from America; the actual settlement in that part of Africa, of some prosperous, intelligent, and well disposed emigrants from among the free people of colour in this country; and the state of general peace, so favourable to enterprises of benevolence and utility, wholly unconnected with any political schemes of territorial or commercial aggrandizement; altogether form a conjuncture, which must prove decisive of the success of an immediate experiment. But upon any permanent con

tinuance of so favourable a state of things, no human wisdom or foresight can calculate, with any reasonable certainty, if the present opportunity be not adequately improved.

or

It is now reduced to the single question, whe ther the undertaking shall be adopted and patronized by the Government, so as to become essentially national in its means and its objects; whether its ultimate success is to depend upon the responsibility and exertions of individuals, whose zeal and perseverance, unsubdued and unabated by difficulty, by delay or disappointment, may be surely counted on; but whose unprotected exertions, and unaided resources, whether of power or of capital, must necessarily be contingent and precarious, if not in their ultimate effect, at least in the acceleration of the results.

"It is now conceived to be apparent, that, with the adequate aids and sanction from the Government, the present generation cannot pass away without permanent, practical, and important benefits from the experiment benefits which will be felt equally in our social and do mestic relations, as in the advancement of the great objects of political and international morality, connected with the suppression of the slavetrade: and this nation has ever stood foremost in the most decided and vigorous efforts to abolish that opprobrious traffic.

"From the journals kept by the agents of their proceedings and personal observations; with an abstract of collateral information of unquestionable authenticity, and great interest, collected by them from sources not frequently accessible to the general reader or inquirer; the Society has beeome possessed of many rare and valuable materials, not only for forming a more

accurate judgment of the utility of the scheme of colonization, but also for demonstrating how flagrantly and notoriously, and with what impunity, the prohibitory laws of the United States, and of other nations, in regard to the slave trade, are violated, by their respective citizens and subjects. Some important hints also may be derived from these documents, for making the penal sanctions of those laws more effectual: and there is good reason to conclude, that the establishment of such a colony as has been projected by our Society, may prove an important and efficient adjunct to the other preventive checks provided by law.

"The body of accurate and valuable information, thus collected, will be found among the documents; which we now beg, Sir, through your kind mediation, to present to Congress. "We have the honour to be,

"With great respect,

"Your obedient servants,

"E. B. CALDWELL,

"WALTER JONES,

"F. S. KEY,

Washington, Jan. 23d, 1818.

Committee.

Who can doubt, that the true interests of the United States, and especially of the slave-holding community, are most intimately connected with this exalted charity? If there was no other motive than pity for the free people of colour; a people who enjoy neither the immunities of freemen, nor suffer the incapacities of slaves: even this would be enough to induce us to say, God speed the noble cause! But when we venture to anticipate the intellectual, civil, and moral elevation of the whole African race; when we think of the long arrears due to that

ill-fated country from the American people; when we enquire for some security against the continuance of the most accursed of all traffics -a traffic in human blood; when from the lofty summit of our privileges, we survey the desolations of Africa, and then the prospects of the age, and the rising glories of our Immanuel's kingdom: do there not exist the most constraining obligations to restore an outcast people-a people "scattered and peeled, meted out and trodden under foot," to the land of their fathers, and in defiance of its darkness and misery, to render that extensive quarter of the globe the favoured seat of science, civilization, and christianity?

CHAPTER X.

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HIS LAST ILLNESS AND DEATH.

WHILE in Africa, Mr. Mills was exclusively devoted to the objects of his agency; diligent, unwearied, watchful, persevering " in season and out of season," almost to a fault. How obvious to the eye even of a careless observer, that a Divine superintendance not only raises up and qualifies his agents for their work, and affords them the opportunity of usefulness, and crowns their efforts with success-but that the same invisible and omnipotent energy also limits the

sphere of their labour! It is the economy of a wise Providence, if I may so speak, not to accomplish too much by the agency of any one

man.

"The Lord of Hosts hath purposed it, to stain the pride of all glory."

Mr. Mills' work was well nigh done. He often appeared much less fitted for earth than heaven. Few men were apparently more matured for "the glory to be revealed," than he. For several of the last weeks of his life, particularly, he enjoyed peculiar manifestations of the Divine glory and favour. Though away from his native shores, burnt by the sun, and drenched with the rains of an inhospitable clime, that Father of Mercies, who is every where present, "put gladness into his heart." After his return. from Sherbro to Sierra Leone, and while in waiting for a passage to England, it was his happiness to be the guest of the Rev. Samuel Brown, an English Missionary from the Methodist connexion, a man of an excellent spirit, and who "knew the heart of a stranger." Both Mr. Brown and Mr. Burgess were led to take notice of the spirituality of Mr. Mills during that period, and even to make it the subject of private remark. His frame of mind was unusually devout. At their stated seasons for prayer, these brethren expressed great delight when the duty devolved on him to lead in their devotions, and great satisfaction in his peculiar nearness to God, and his sweet and delightful views of another world. To adopt the sentiment of his colleague,"Notwithstanding my own apprehensions while in Africa, there was something in Mills, while we were at Sierra Leone, which left the impression on my mind, that he was ripe for heaven, and would go before me.

Having finished his inquiries in Africa, and

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