I can bestow no panegyric adequate to the sense I entertain of that active goodness which prompted the Directors of the Sierra Leone Company to the undertaking I have alluded to; but with all due deference I conceive that they have mistaken the practicable grounds, upon which the seeds of civilization, and the principles of Christianity, can be effectively displayed to the African.  The Directors had to contend with a peculiar co-mixture of passions, licentious habits, and hereditary vice; to eradicate these, and to rescue the natives from their natural state, alluring and progressive measures were necessary, founded upon an accurate investigation of their characters and policy, and not by the fulminations of intemperate zealots, and theoretical speculators.  The beneficent views of the Sierra Leone Company have been unaccountably perverted, and have been the distorted instruments in prolonging, rather than extirpating, the barbarism of the African:  it is therefore a subject of great regret to the benevolent supporters of this establishment, that an unprofitable expenditure of their property is the only existing perpetuity of their humane interference.  Will it be found that the Company’s agents have introduced the arts of civilization among any tribe or nation in Africa, that they have made any progress in agriculture, although possessing a very extensive tract of fertile lands, or that they have converted them into any of the regular features of cultivation?  Have they explored or brought into action any of the attainable and lucrative branches of natural commerce, abounding in the region they inhabit, or do they employ a single ship in a regular trade with the mother country?  Will it be found that they have unfolded the doctrines of Christianity, in their native purity and simplicity, to the unenlightened African, or converted, by their preaching and example, any tribe or nation among them?—­The spacious waste is destitute of the appearance of domestic industry, or respectable character; it exhibits only a tissue of indolence, hypocritical grimace, petulant and assuming manners, and all the consequences of idleness and corrupted morals.  To succeed in this beneficent undertaking, and to expunge the inveterate nature of the African, his prejudices, and inherent customs, progressive approaches upon his present condition are indispensibly requisite, under the attractive influence of agriculture, manufactures, commerce, and navigation.

Accidental events, concurring with political causes, frequently render the best concerted measures abortive, and retard their progress, but unquestionably the above-mentioned are the means by which the African may be manumitted, and his condition improved.  The wisest laws operate but slowly upon a rude and fierce people, therefore the measures of reformation are not to be successfully performed by a coup-de-main, nor are the hereditary customs of Africa to be erased by the inflammatory declamations of enthusiasm, but