for immediate employment till they get ready to settle permanently in their homes.  If you take colonists where there is no good landing, there is a bad show; and so where there is nothing to cultivate and of which to make a farm.  But if something is started so that you can get your daily bread as soon as reach you there, it is a great advantage.  Coal land is the best thing I know of with which to commence an enterprise.  To return—­you have been talked to upon this subject, and told that a speculation is intended by gentlemen who have an interest in the country, including the coal-mines.  We have been mistaken all our lives if we do not know whites, as well as blacks, look to their self-interest.  Unless among those deficient of intellect, everybody you trade with makes something.  You meet with these things here and everywhere.  If such persons have what will be an advantage to them, the question is whether it cannot be made of advantage to you.  You are intelligent, and know that success does not so much depend on external help as on self-reliance.  Much, therefore, depends upon yourselves.  As to the coal-mines, I think I see the means available for your self-reliance.  I shall, if I get a sufficient number of you engaged, have provision made that you shall not be wronged.  If you will engage in the enterprise, I will spend some of the money intrusted to me.  I am not sure you will succeed.  The government may lose the money; but we cannot succeed unless we try, and we think with care we can succeed.  The political affairs in Central America are not in quite as satisfactory a condition as I wish.  There are contending factions in that quarter, but it is true all the factions are agreed alike on the subject of colonization, and want it, and are more generous than we are here.

To your colored race they have no objection I would endeavor to have you made the equals, and have the best assurance that you should be the equals, of the best.

The practical thing I want to ascertain is whether I can get a number of able-bodied men, with their wives and children, who are willing to go when I present evidence of encouragement and protection.  Could I get a hundred tolerably intelligent men, with their wives and children, and able to “cut their own fodder,” so to speak?  Can I have fifty?  If I could find twenty-five able-bodied men, with a mixture of women and children—­good things in the family relation, I think,—­I could make a successful commencement.  I want you to let me know whether this can be done or not.  This is the practical part of my wish to see you.  These are subjects of very great importance, worthy of a month’s study, instead of a speech delivered in an hour.  I ask you, then, to consider seriously, not pertaining to yourselves merely, nor for your race and ours for the present time, but as one of the things, if successfully managed, the good of mankind—­not confined to the present generation, but as

  “From age to age descends the lay
   To millions yet to be,
   Till far its echoes roll away
   Into eternity.”