1. "On motion of the Rev. J. Revey,
"Resolved, That this meeting entertain the warmest gratitude for what the Colonization Society have done for the people of colour, and for us particularly, and that we regard the scheme as entitled to the highest confidence of every man of colour.
2. "On motion of S. Benedict, Esq.,
"Resolved, That we return our grateful acknowledgments to * * * *, * * * *, Esqrs., and other early and devoted friends of colonization; names for which we shall ever cherish the highest esteem; that we hear with regret, from misrepresentation or want of accurate information, they have abandoned the noble scheme; and that we hope the day is not far distant in which they will again reunite their energies to advance the high and benevolent object.
3. "On motion of Mr. H. Teage,
"Resolved, That this meeting regard the colonizing institution as one of the highest, holiest, and most benevolent enterprises of the present day; that as a plan for the amelioration of the coloured race it takes the precedence of all that have been presented to the attention of the modern world: that in its operations it is peaceful and safe; in its tendencies, beneficial and advantageous; that it is entitled to the highest veneration and unbounded confidence of every man of colour; that what it has already accomplished demands our devout thanks and gratitude to those noble and disinterested philanthropists that compose it, as being, under God, the greatest earthly benefactors of a despised and depressed portion of the human family.
"The hour being late, on motion of Rev. B. R. Wilson,
"Resolved, That the meeting adjourn until to-morrow, 10 o'clock, A. M., to the First Baptist Meeting-house.
"Thursday, 10th.—Met according to adjournment.
4. "On motion of James Brown, Esq.—Resolved, That the thanks of this meeting be presented to those ladies of the United States, particularly to those of New-York, Philadelphia, and Richmond, for their disinterested efforts to educate the children of this colony; and that they be assured that, in no department of the colony, do the effects of colonization shine more conspicuously than in the schools supported by their benevolence.
5. "On motion of Doctor J. W. Prout,—Resolved, That this meeting entertain grateful remembrance of General Robert G. Harper of Baltimore, an early and devoted friend of colonization; also of the name of the late Daniel Murray, Esq. of Baltimore, and that we regard the Colonization Society and its friends as powerfully efficient in elevating the man of colour.
"Whereas it has been widely and maliciously circulated, in the United States of America, that the inhabitants of this colony are unhappy in their situation, and anxious to return:
6. "On motion of Rev. B. R. Wilson,—Resolved, That the report is false and malicious, and originated only in a design to injure the colony, by calling off the support and sympathy of its friends: that, so far from a desire to return, we would regard such an event as the greatest calamity that could befall us.
7. "On motion of Rev. G. R. McGill,—Resolved, That the name of Rev. R. R. Gurley never be forgotten.
8. "On motion of S. Benedict, Esq.,—Resolved, That we entertain lively feelings of gratitude towards H. R. Sheldon, Esq. for his munificent donation towards the erection of a high school in this colony.
9. "On motion of Mr. Uriah Tyner,—Resolved, That the thanks of this meeting are due to the members of the Colonization Society, for their unwearied zeal to promote the interest of this community.
10. "On motion of Mr. Lewis Ciples,—Resolved, That this meeting entertain the highest respect for the memory of the late Thomas S. Grimkey, of South Carolina, for his persevering efforts in behalf of the Colonization Society.
11. "On motion of Rev. Amos Herring,—Resolved, That this meeting entertain the deepest gratitude for the members of the Colonization Society, for the organization and continuation of an enterprise, so noble and praiseworthy as that of restoring to the blessings of liberty, hundreds and thousands of the sore oppressed and long neglected sons of Africa; that we believe it the only institution that can, under existing circumstances, succeed in elevating the coloured population; and that advancement in agriculture, mechanism, and science, will enable us speedily to aspire to a rank with other nations of the earth.
12. "On motion of Mr. H. B. Matthews,—Success to the wheels of colonization; may they roll over every opposer, and roll on, until all the oppressed sons of Africa shall be rolled home!
13. "On motion of Mr. David Moore,—Resolved, That we recollect, with peculiar satisfaction, the active part which the benevolent, in the state of Mississippi, have taken in the welfare of this colony.
14. "On motion of Major L. R. Johnson,—Resolved, That this meeting cherish the most grateful remembrance of the name of the late Rev. R. Finley, of New Jersey, the founder and indefatigable patron of this colony.
15. "On motion of J. J. Roberts, Esq.,—Resolved, That the thanks of this meeting be presented to the friends of this colony in England.
"On motion of Mr. Dixon B. Brown,—Resolved, That the resolutions of this meeting be published in the Liberia Herald."
The second statement which I have made respecting what the Colonization Society has done towards checking the slave-trade, cannot better be substantiated than by the following paragraph taken from the Colonization Herald of Sept. 5th, 1835.
"The success of the Colonization Society, may indeed be said to be little short of miraculous—for in the brief space of thirteen years, with funds whose aggregate amount scarcely equals the individual outlay of Sir Walter Raleigh in Virginia, they have banished the slaver from nearly 200 miles of coast, and rescued hundreds of his hapless victims—they have settled nearly 4000 emigrants (one half of them emancipated for the purpose,)—they have established schools, churches, temperance societies, and a newspaper:—agriculture, the mechanic arts, and a legitimate commerce, employing nearly twenty sail of coasting vessels, have sprung up, while the activity of their foreign commerce is attested by our own marine lists.
"That the despised Colonizationists have effected all this, is beyond the reach of cavil—it is now a part of the history of our enterprising country. And while our opponents have been gravely debating the possibility of establishing one colony, a little constellation has risen—star by star—and shed its light along the dreary coast, giving promise of new 'United States' in due season. May not these benevolent founders of Liberia be well satisfied with their experiment? Need I blush to acknowledge that these results have dispelled all my doubts? And may not the statesman safely assume that if a feeble society, assailed from its very formation with ridicule and reproach, has been able to found and sustain a young state, the patriotism, the philanthropy, and the piety of this great nation can accomplish the noble work of justice to them, and mercy to both? Nor is it among the least cheering of the results achieved by this noiseless and unpretending system of practical benevolence to the black man, that it has won its way to the love, and confidence, and gratitude of benevolent proprietors—so that the society has, from its very commencement, been distressed by offers of emancipation—distressed, because its funds have not enabled it to relieve a tithe of the cases presented. There are at this moment, between one and two thousand applicants for the privilege of Colonization, and thousands more are in a state of training for the same purpose. Each year's developement of the ample resources of the colonies for securing the welfare of the colonists, and of their importance to the commerce and manufactures of this country, will increase the tide of emigration, until, with due aid from the national treasury, the stream shall exceed the annual increase, and then a rapid decrease in the existing total of coloured population will ensue. This I know will be denied—but I appeal to facts as the best data for my conclusions. Let us then remember that by official returns, the emigration from the United Kingdom was 76,000 last year. And have not our poor blacks quite as many reasons for seeking an asylum in that growing realm—so emphatically their own—from the increasing severity of Southern laws, and the horrors of Northern mobs? Will not this be the more extensively felt, as these African States open up new channels to profitable industry, until the emigration shall reach 56,000 per annum—which was the average yearly increase of the whole coloured population during the ten years from 1820 to 1830? And when we recollect that they would, under our system, be wafted thither free of expense to themselves, there is every reason to believe their numbers would soon equal the British emigration, which is in most cases at the proper cost of the parties themselves. If only that point was reached, an access of 20,000 per annum would accrue beyond the present natural increase, and thus create an actual diminution in our coloured population—augmented too, by the circumstance that the emigrants would generally be of the young, the active, and the procreating class—while the relative disproportion of the races would be rapidly felt through the great increase of the whites.
"I am well aware that it has been most gratuitously and absurdly asserted, 'that our whole marine is insufficient to convey to Africa this annual increase!' And yet 42,000 tons of shipping, only making two trips each year, and allowing each emigrant six times the space allowed on board the slavers—or one ton and a half each—would accommodate the whole! What then shall we say to those who assert that the annual wealth of this great nation, with a surplus of ten millions annually, is unable to carry to Africa, one-third as many of the offspring of oppression, as a band of pirates and outlaws each year drag away in chains from her shores! A late writer in Blackwood's Magazine, asserts that no less than 200,000 slaves were shipped in 1831—Walsh that 50,000 were landed at Rio Janeiro alone, in 1828. We may, then, without difficulty, colonize 100,000 annually—a number that would in thirty years transfer our whole coloured population to Africa, by an outlay of three millions of dollars yearly,—a sum which the weekly contribution of three cents by one-seventh of our people, would supply; or, if voted as a measure of justice for the many wrongs received at our hands by poor Africa and her children, would afford a safe mode of depleting our overburdened treasury."
To the above may be added the testimony of Mr. J. F. C. Finlay, who, writing from Millsburg, in the colony of Liberia, to the Rev. Dr. Wilson, of Cincinnati, under date of 6th December, 1834, says,—
"The colony of Liberia has done at least five times as much towards abolishing the slave-trade on this coast, as the whole of the United States."
As to the objections which have been raised against the climate of Liberia, and the ill-health which the settlers first suffered, I am only astonished how any one in America could allow such futile arguments to influence them! It is an undeniable fact that the first inhabitants of all new countries suffer much from ill-health, and that just in proportion to the fertility of the soil; which is evidently attributable to the impregnation of the air and water with the gases arising from the quantity of decomposing vegetable matter with which the ground is covered, and which renders the land, after due cultivation, most productive. Do Americans forget the fact in respect to the now flourishing
State of Louisiana? The colony of Iberville was begun to be settled in 1699, and in the ensuing thirteen years, 2500 colonists were landed there, out of whom only 400 whites and 20 negroes remained at the end of that time. On the Island of Orleans, where a settlement was begun in 1717, the early settlers died by hundreds; and both settlements were given up once or twice, by those who began them, and commenced anew by other hands.
It was so with Jamestown: it was so with Plymouth, although in a northern climate. They were both desolated by sickness, and the mortality was far greater than it has ever been in Liberia. Five hundred emigrants at one time landed in Jamestown, in Virginia, and in less than five months their numbers were reduced to sixty. Disaster and defeat seemed to embitter all the struggles of the Pilgrim fathers at Plymouth. More than half their number died the first winter.
The following testimonies of several highly respectable gentlemen, Physicians and others, as published in the "Plea for Africa," (p. 233,) are so satisfactory that to say one word more in refutation of the Abolition misstatements, would be an insult to an enlightened community.
1st. "Dr. Shane, of Cincinnati, went with a company of emigrants to Liberia in 1832, sailing from New-Orleans; and, among other things, writes, 'I see not in Liberia as fine and splendid mansions as in the United States; nor as extensive and richly stocked farms as the well-tilled lands of Ohio; but I see a fine and very fertile country, inviting its poor and oppressed sons to thrust in their sickles and gather up its fullness. I here see many who left the United States in straitened circumstances, living with all the comforts of life around them; enjoying a respectable and useful station in society, and wondering that their brethren in the United States, who have it in their power, do not flee to this asylum of happiness and liberty, where they can enjoy all the unalienable rights of man. * * I do not think an unprejudiced person can visit here without becoming an ardent and sincere friend of colonization. I can attribute the apathy and indifference on which it is looked by many, as arising from ignorance on the subject alone, and would that every free coloured man in the United States could get a glimpse of his brethren, their situation and prospects. * * * Let but the coloured man come and see for himself, and the tear of gratitude will beam in his eye, as he looks forward to the not far distant day, when Liberia shall take her stand among the nations of the world, and proclaim abroad an empire founded by benevolence, offering a home to the poor, oppressed, and weary. Nothing but a want of knowledge of Liberia, prevents thousands of honest, industrious free blacks from rushing to this heaven-blessed land, where liberty and religion, with all their blessings, are enjoyed.'
2d. "Captain Kennedy, who visited Liberia in 1831, says, 'with impressions unfavourable to the scheme of the Colonization Society, I commenced my inquiries.' The colonists 'considered that they had started into a new existence. * * They felt themselves proud in their attitude.' He further says, 'many of the settlers appear to be rapidly acquiring property; and I have no doubt they are doing better for themselves and for their children, in Liberia, than they could do in any other part of the world.'
3d. "Captain Nicholson of the United States' Navy, gave as favourable a report. Captain Abels says, 'My expectations were more than realized. I saw no intemperance, nor did I hear a profane word uttered by any one. I know of no place where the Sabbath seems to be more respected than in Monrovia.'
4th. "A distinguished British naval officer, who passed three years on the African coast, published a favourable notice of the colony, in the Amulet for 1832, in which he bears this testimony:—'The complete success of this colony is a proof that the Negroes are, by proper care and attention, as susceptible of the habits of industry, and the improvements of social life, as any other race of human beings; and that the amelioration of the condition of the black people on the coast of Africa, by means of such colonies, is not chimerical. Wherever the influence of the colony extends, the slave-trade has been abandoned by the natives, and the peaceable pursuits of legitimate commerce established in its place. They not only live on terms of harmony and good will together, but the colonists are looked upon with a certain degree of respect by those of their own colour; and the force of their example is likely to have a strong effect in inducing the people about them to adopt it. A few colonies of this kind, scattered along the coast, would be of infinite value in improving the natives.' Governor Mechlin has said, 'As to the morals of the colonists, I consider them much better than those of the people of the United States; i. e. you may take an equal number of the inhabitants from any section of the Union, and you will find more drunkenness, more profane swearers and Sabbath-breakers, than in Liberia. You rarely hear an oath, and as to riots and breaches of the peace, I recollect but one instance, and that of a trifling nature, that has come under my notice since I assumed the government of the colony.' Captain Sherman has said, 'There is a greater proportion of moral and religious characters in Monrovia than in the city of Philadelphia.'"