discussing the whole subject with officers and others best qualified to judge on the matter, I not only satisfied my own mind that there is no reasonable cause for such a suspicion, but further, that this establishment merits all the support we can give it, for it is only through their means that we can hope to improve the African race.’  Subsequently, in 1849, the same officer gave his testimony before the House of Lords, in the following language:  ’There is no necessity for the squadron watching the coast between Sierra Leone and Cape Palmas, as the liberian territory intervenes, and there the slave-trade has been extinguished.’"[113]

The government was firmly and wisely administered, and its friends everywhere found occasion for great pleasure in its marked success.  While the government had more than a quarter of a million of natives under its care, the greatest caution was exercised in dealing with them legally.  The system was not so complicated as our Indian system, but the duties of the officers in dealing with the uncivilized tribes were as delicate as those of an Indian agent in the United States.

“The history of a single case will illustrate the manner in which Liberia exerts her influence in preventing the native tribes from warring upon each other.  The territory of Little Cape Mount, Grand Cape Mount, and Gallinas was purchased, three or four years since, and added to the Republic.  The chiefs, by the term of sale, transferred the rights of sovereignty and of soil to Liberia, and bound themselves to obey her laws.  The government of Great Britain had granted to Messrs. Hyde, Hodge, & Co., of London, a contract for the supply of laborers from the coast of Africa to the planters of her West India colonies.  This grant was made under the rule for the substitution of apprentices, to supply the lack of labor produced by the emancipation of the slaves.  The agents of Messrs. Hyde, Hodge, & Co. visited Grand Cape Mount, and made an offer of ten dollars per head to the chiefs for each person they could supply as emigrants for this object.  The offer excited the cupidity of some of the chiefs; and to procure the emigrants and secure the bounty one of them, named Boombo, of Little Cape Mount, resorted to war upon several of the surrounding tribes.  He laid waste the country, burned the towns and villages, captured and murdered many of the inhabitants, carried off hundreds of others, and robbed several factories in that legion belonging to merchants in Liberia.  On the 26th of February, 1853, President Roberts issued his proclamation enjoining a strict observance of the law regulating passports, and forbidding the sailing of any vessel with emigrants without first visiting the port of Monrovia, where each passenger should be examined as to his wishes.  On the 1st of March the president, with two hundred men, sailed for Little Cape Mount, arrested Boombo and fifty of his followers, summoned a council