It is enjoined on the Executive to cause all negroes, mulattoes, or persons of color who may be taken under the act to be removed to Africa.  It is the obvious import of the law that none of the persons thus taken should remain within the United States, and no place other than the coast of Africa being designated, their removal or delivery, whether carried from the United States or landed immediately from the vessels in which they were taken, was supposed to be confined to that coast.  No settlement or station being specified, the whole coast was thought to be left open for the selection of a proper place at which the persons thus taken should be delivered.  The Executive is authorized to appoint one or more agents residing there to receive such persons, and $100,000 are appropriated for the general purposes of the law.

On due consideration of the several sections of the act, and of its humane policy, it was supposed to be the intention of Congress that all the persons above described who might be taken under it and landed in Africa should be aided in their return to their former homes, or in their establishment at or near the place where landed.  Some shelter and food would be necessary for them there as soon as landed, let their subsequent disposition be what it might.  Should they be landed without such provision having been previously made, they might perish.

It was supposed, by the authority given to the Executive to appoint agents residing on that coast, that they should provide such shelter and food, and perform the other beneficent and charitable offices contemplated by the act.  The coast of Africa having been little explored, and no persons residing there who possessed the requisite qualifications to entitle them to the trust being known to the Executive, to none such could it be committed.  It was believed that citizens only who would go hence well instructed in the views of their Government and zealous to give them effect would be competent to these duties, and that it was not the intention of the law to preclude their appointment.  It was obvious that the longer these persons should be detained in the United States in the hands of the marshals the greater would be the expense, and that for the same term would the main purpose of the law be suspended.  It seemed, therefore, to be incumbent on me to make the necessary arrangements for carrying this act into effect in Africa in time to meet the delivery of any persons who might be taken by the public vessels and landed there under it.

On this view of the policy and sanctions of the law it has been decided to send a public ship to the coast of Africa with two such agents, who will take with them tools and other implements necessary for the purposes above mentioned.  To each of these agents a small salary has been allowed—­$1,500 to the principal and $1,200 to the other.