aws and manners."

"Lord Palmerston said: 'I venture to say that you will find on the West
Coast of Africa a most valuable supply of cotton, so essential to the
manufactures of this country. The cotton districts of Africa are more
extensive than those of India. The access to them is more easy than to
the Indian cotton district; and I venture to say that your commerce with
the Western Coast of Africa, in the article of cotton, will, in a few
years, prove to be far more valuable than that of any other portion of
the world, the United States alone excepted.'"

The _London Anti-Slavery Reporter_, as quoted by the _American
Missionary_ of March, 1859, says:

"A few days ago, Mr. Consul Campbell addressed us, saying: 'African
cotton is no myth. A vessel has just arrived from Lagos with 607 bales
on board, _on native account_. Several hundred bales more have been
previously shipped this year.'

"In order to afford our readers some idea of the extraordinary
development of this branch of native African industry and commerce, we
append a statement which will exhibit it at a single glance. We have
only to observe that we are indebted to Mr. Thomas Clegg, of Manchester,
for these interesting particulars, and that the quantities ordered have
been obtained from Abbeokuta alone. He is about to extend the field of
his operations. Four Europeans have gone out, expressly to trade in
native cotton; and several London houses, encouraged by the success
which has attended Mr. Clegg's experiment, are about to invest largely
in the same traffic. The quantity of raw cotton which has already been
imported into England, from Abbeokuta, since 1851, is 276,235 lbs., and
the trade has developed itself as follows:

1851-52 9 Bags or Bales lbs. 1810
1853 37 ditto 4617
1854 7 ditto 1588
1855 14 ditto 1651
1856 103 ditto 11,492
1857 283 ditto 35,419
1858 1819 ditto 220,099

"The last importation includes advices from Lagos up to the 1st of last
November. Since that time, the presses and other machinery sent out,
have been got into full work, and the quantity of the raw staple in
stock has rapidly accumulated, the bulk shipped being on 'native
account.' Each bag or bale weighs about 120 lbs. Let it be borne in