The custom of sentencing soldiers to serve in the Royal African Corps, must naturally be attended with bad consequences, not only to the soldiers themselves, but to the natives.  If we desire to enlighten a savage race, we could scarcely devise a worse plan than that of sending amongst them the refuse of a civilized country, who carry into the new community, the worst vices and crimes of an old country.  These soldiers consider themselves to be exiled for life from their native land, and as they entertain no hope whatever, under such forlorn circumstances, of redeeming their character, they abandon themselves to debauchery, and give a free vent to the most debasing tendencies of their nature.  The influence of this injurious example, which is a thousand fold more powerful than all the precepts of the preachers, upon the minds of the Africans, must be obvious.  It weakens the effect, even if it does not altogether obliterate the impressions of that morality which we so studiously labour to inculcate.  The African says, “The white man tells us not to do those things which are wicked in the sight of God; yet, in the same breath, he commits the very guilt against which he warns us.  The white man tells us that drunkenness is a crime in the eyes of God, yet he drinks until his senses become stupified; he tells us not to curse and blaspheme; yet the most terrible oaths are on his lips.  Which are we to follow? the white man’s words or his actions?” If we wish to command respect, and to impress upon the savage the real advantages of civilization, we should send out only such persons as would be likely to secure a complete influence and ascendancy over the uninstructed people, and so demonstrate to them, by the force of actions, the purity and stability of the Christian faith, the importance of education, and the practical benefits of social organization.  If it be necessary, as no doubt it is, to send out Europeans to serve in the African Corps, they should be sent in the capacity of officers, or non-commissioned officers:  privates of good character might be selected, who would volunteer to go out on certain conditions, perhaps on some such terms as these:  to serve as corporal for a limited period, after which time, if their conduct had been unimpeachable, to be advanced to the rank of serjeant, when, having served in that rank for a prescribed period, they might be permitted to return home on a pension.  Two years might be assigned as the first period of service, and three as the second, making altogether a service of five years in Africa, which, considering the opinion that is popularly entertained respecting the climate, might be deemed of sufficient duration.  I am aware that this suggestion is liable to one objection arising from the prejudice that is generally entertained against the climate, namely, the difficulty that would arise, in the first instance, in obtaining volunteers; nor am I entirely prepared to say, that the objection is without force.  But the plan might be tried,