as we have seen, the colony had also to reckon with British merchants in this section, the Declaration of Independence in 1847 being very largely a result of the defiance of Liberian revenue-laws by Englishmen.  While President Roberts was in England not long after his inauguration, Lord Ashley, moved by motives of philanthropy, undertook to raise L2000 with which he (Roberts) might purchase the Gallinhas territory; and by 1856 Roberts had secured the title and deeds to all of this territory from the Mafa River to Sherbro Island.  The whole transaction was thoroughly honorable, Roberts informed England of his acquisition, and his right to the territory was not then called in question.  Trouble, however, developed out of the attitude of John M. Harris, a British merchant, and in 1862, while President Benson was in England, he was officially informed that the right of Liberia was recognized only to the land “east of Turner’s Peninsula to the River San Pedro.”  Harris now worked up a native war against the Vais; the Liberians defended themselves; and in the end the British Government demanded L8878.9.3 as damages for losses sustained by Harris, and arbitrarily extended its territory from Sherbro Island to Cape Mount.  In the course of the discussion claims mounted up to L18,000.  Great Britain promised to submit this boundary question to the arbitration of the United States, but when the time arrived at the meeting of one of the commissions in Sierra Leone she firmly declined to do so.  After this, whenever she was ready to take more land she made a plausible pretext and was ready to back up her demands with force.  On March 20, 1882, four British men-of-war came to Monrovia and Sir A.E.  Havelock, Governor of Sierra Leone, came ashore; and President Gardiner was forced to submit to an agreement by which, in exchange for L4750 and the abandonment of all further claims, the Liberian Government gave up all right to the Gallinhas territory from Sherbro Island to the Mafa River.  This agreement was repudiated by the Liberian Senate, but when Havelock was so informed he replied, “Her Majesty’s Government can not in any case recognize any rights on the part of Liberia to any portions of the territories in dispute.”  Liberia now issued a protest to other great powers; but this was without avail, even the United States counseling acquiescence, though through the offices of America the agreement was slightly modified and the boundary fixed at the Mano River.  Trouble next arose on the east.  In 1846 the Maryland Colonization Society purchased the lands of the Ivory Coast east of Cape Palmas as far as the San Pedro River.  These lands were formally transferred to Liberia in 1857, and remained in the undisputed possession of the Republic for forty years.  France now, not to be outdone by England, on the pretext of title deeds obtained by French naval commanders who visited the coast in 1890, in 1891 put forth a claim not only to the Ivory Coast, but to land as far away as Grand