All our attempts to penetrate into Africa, to establish a friendly intercourse with the people, and to abolish the traffic in human life are repelled, and frequently rendered abortive, by the fatal influence of the climate, and the obstinate resistance of the natives to our projects of liberty, which they oppose because they derive a lucrative source of income from the slave-trade, while habit has made them insensible to its ignominies and miseries.  This opposition to our progress would be of no moment, if the barbarous notions of the people were not favoured by the repulsive nature of the climate, which is even more pernicious than we originally believed when we ventured to form a British settlement within its range.  It is so unpropitious to European life that the pestilential breath of death may be said to lurk in every calm, and to be wafted in every gale.

It has been supposed, and not without reason, that much of the insalubrity of the climate may be referred to local causes, and that if the soil could be completely cleared and drained, the operations of the air in the redeemed space would expel, or reduce, the baneful influences that at present produce such extensive mortality.  But this would be a labour demanding almost an incalculable and indefinite period of time, and which the difficulty of procuring sufficient manual power must always render nearly impossible, to any great extent.

Hitherto, the situation and prospects of the settlement of Fernando Po have been discouraging, in consequence of the disease having been more universal in its ravages than we had anticipated.  But it must not, therefore, be supposed that the place is more unhealthy than other parts on the coast, or even that the deaths which occurred, during the period to which I more particularly allude, were occasioned by the insalubrity of the situation.  When the crew of the Eden suffered so much from fever, it broke out on board of that vessel while she was at Sierra Leone, and several of the officers and men died before she returned to Fernando Po:  the mortality that ensued was in a great measure caused by the contagion which the infected sailors spread at the settlement.  Several vessels also arrived before I left the Colony with invalids on board, but the deaths that took place in their number, certainly ought not to be introduced into the argument against the insalubrity of the island.

That Fernando Po must always be liable to considerable atmospheric changes, and become, at particular seasons, very unhealthy, there cannot be a doubt:  but that is invariably the case in all low situations within the tropics, on the west coast of Africa, where the decomposition of animal and vegetable matter is so rapid in its progress.  But the insular situation of Fernando Po, with its many local advantages and peculiarities, may ultimately have the effect of diminishing the production of miasmata, or at least of correcting their deleterious qualities, and preventing such immense and dangerous accumulations, as have on the adjacent continent produced so great a loss of European life.