the resolution of 1816; and that it disclosed, as the whole tenor of his public administration has since done, a deep interest in the successful execution of the policy which dictated all those resolutions. In the absence of any public information which could lead to an opposite inference, your memorialists cannot doubt the continued and steady favour of both governments, towards an enterprise, which, if it fail of effecting all that it proposes to accomplish, must nevertheless be regarded as praiseworthy; and if successful, as your memorialists humbly trust and believe it will ultimately prove, must yield the greatest blessings, social, political and moral, both to Africa and America. Although not insensible to the wrongs of a much injured and afflicted continent, embracing more than one-fourth of the habitable globe, your memorialists acknowledge that the most forcible appeal addressed to them by the parent Society, is in behalf of the United States; and more especially of this, their native State. The last census disclosed the melancholy truth, that three years ago, Maryland and Virginia together, contained more than 76,000 free people of colour.* To their actual condition and rapid increase, your memorialists beg leave, earnestly to call the attention of the General Assembly. Nearly one moiety of the whole number are inhabitants of this Commonwealth; and their condition is perhaps sufficiently illustrated by the fact, that in Virginia, the most agricultural State in the Union, although not debarred from holding lands, not two hundred out of 37,000, are proprietors of land. Of their actual occupations in this city and elsewhere, your memorialists for bear to speak. They sum up all that they would say in

• The number of persons of this description in the United States was 233,443.

a few words, borrowed from one of the annual reports of the parent Society: "that, placed midway between freedom and slavery, they know neither the incentives of the one, nor the restraints of the other; but are alike injúrious by their conduct and example, to all other classes of society."

Rapid as has been the growth of this class of our population, their relative increase exceeds their actual multiplication. Between the years 1800 and 1810, their numbers monted up from 20,507 to 30,570. During this period, the white population of the Commonwealth received an accession of 32,860, and the slave population of 45,550 only. Between the years 1810 and 1820, the laws annexing the condition of banishment to emancipation, having checked their increase, they grew from 30,570 to 36,889, acquiring an accession of 20 2-3 per cent.; while upon a capital of 551,534, the white population was increased 64,688, or only 11 72-100 per centum; and the slave population upon a stock of 392,518, increased 32,135, or 8 18-100 per cent. only. The progress of the same class, in the adjoining State of Maryland, has been yet more rapid.

The

Nor need these results occasion any surprise. spirit of emigration carries the master to distant regions. for the advancement of his fortune; and with it, his condition in life. His slaves accompany him, or are sent before as articles of traffick. Not so with the free negro; who, almost every where corrupted and debased, suspected, and, therefore, often persecuted; what can he gain by a change of abode? He succeeds to forsaken and decaying dwellings, and to the barren heritage of worn out fields; or seeks shelter in the adjacent thickets of pine and cedar.

To provide for him a better country, is alike the dictate of humanity towards him, and of policy towards ourselves. While he remains here, no white labourer will seek employment near him: hence it is, that in some of the richest counties east of the Blue Ridge, the white population is stationary, and in many others it is retrograde. Virginia, once the first State in numbers, as she is still in territory, has become the third, and will soon have to descend to the fourth rank. The valuation of the lands of New York, exceeds the estimate of all the lands and slaves of the most ancient State in the Union.

To provide a country suited to the condition and wants of this class of our free population, was the object of the resolution of a former Legislature. It has been the pur pose of all the labours of our parent Society in Washington; which comprehends amongst its members, many of the most distinguished and patriotic citizens, not only of this Commonwealth, but of her sister States. The object which they sought, has been obtained, and a colony of coloured people, some of whom were once inhabitants of the city of Richmond, is now planted and growing at Liberia, on the coast of Africa. Since the meeting of the last General Assembly, a ship has sailed from James River, conveying more than 100 free persons of colour, natives of Virginia, who have gone to seek a home in our young colony, and in a few days another vessel will proceed on the same destination. Feeble, at present, through your memorialists the colony implores the Legislature of Virginia, who contributed to its birth, to nourish its infancy and to rear it to maturity. In return, it promises an asylum to all that intermediate class of population which the laws drive from the bosom of the Commonwealth, without providing for them another home. They offer to reconcile your humanity to your policy, on terms alike just and expedient. They ask the aid of the Com

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monwealth, simply in defraying the expense of their re moval to the country which has been provided for them; the expense of their faithful compliance with the legal conditions, on which alone their emancipation is now permitted. Even the criminals of Great Britain, when required by the sentence of a judge to leave the kingdom, are transported at public expense, a distance of 10,000 miles, to New Holland.

All that was predicted by the lukewarm friends, or open enemies of the Virginia resolution, has been contradicted by experience, that infallible test of truth. A country salubrious to the coloured man, is provided in Africa, the land of his forefathers, for his reception. Its coast, though laid waste by the slave trade, and forsaken by its native inhabitants, is not a "sandy barren;" but fruitful in whatever can nourish the body and delight the eye of man. Two harvests crown the labour of the year; and no protracted winter devours their fruits.

The voyage to Liberia is not as long as to Brazil. Its cost to the emigrant passenger does not exceed twen ty dollars. This sum to the free negro, is the price of political liberty, of social happiness, of moral and religious improvement. Contrasted with the condition of the first settlers at Jamestown, the African emigrant has superior advantages. Sierra Leone illustrates them all; and in its growth has outstripped all other British

colonies.

The establishment of the American colony, will be another means of protecting an injured continent against the horrors of the slave trade; as well by its moral, as its physical influence, by substituting for that ferocious traffick, a legitimate commerce in the peaceful products of African labour; by repelling and punishing, when it shall have acquired strength, all piratical descents upon its own, or the adjacent shores. Nor is it the least of the

recommendations in its favour, that the colony will extend to Africa a knowledge of our language, our laws, our systems of free government, and the blessings of the Christian religion.

It has already repaid the United States for the aid af forded by the general government to its first settlement, by providing a place of reception for captured Africans; and thus reconciled the long neglected duty of that gov ernment to repress the African slave trade, with the obvious policy of the southern States, which forbids a further augmentation of their coloured population. It has thus wiped from the statute book, the odious and unjust, as well as extraordinary authority, so long vested by Congress in the several States, to enslave those very captives whom the laws of the United States were designed, and professed to liberate. It offers to this Commonwealth a similar advantage to facilitate partial emancipation, by receiving its subjects. And, while it reconciles the dictates of humanity to the suggestions of policy, it widely enlarges the sphere of both.

Your memorialists will add but one other view of this subject. In reply to the unfounded charge, that the efforts of the Society are prompted by inconsiderate enthusiasm, and their resources inadequate to their object, they assert, that the parent Society never contemplated, by their unassisted and limited means, to do more than remove the first objections, which ignorance or indifference threw in their way. It is the peculiar boast of the United States, as it is the characteristic feature of all their institutions of civil policy, that they have their origin in public. opinion, and derive their stability and strength from the public will. Hence a free press, aided by social intercourse and correspondence, are the great instruments of political effect in America. It is on these, and these only, that the American Society have founded all. their