ne
reared its ghastly head, and threatened them with new terrors. In
circumstances so dispiriting, where despair seemed about to crash the
weakened energies of the labourers, and where nothing but activity could
preserve them from the loss of life; it was perhaps more honourable to
Dr. Ayres' benevolence than to his policy, that he proposed to convey
the settlers back to Sierra Leone. It is, however, a fact worthy of
record, as well as of admiration, that only a small part of the
emigrants embraced this proposal. The rest, consisting of twenty-six
persons capable of bearing arms, with a few women and children, together
with Mr. Wiltberger, the Society's assistant agent, remained to combat
the difficulties of their situation; thus nobly affording a pledge to
find for themselves and their brethren a present home, and for the
oppressed African, or the captured slave, a safe asylum on this once
hostile coast.

The settled rains of the season now set in with unusual violence, and
the struggles and hardships endured by this little band cannot be easily
imagined. However, so great was their persevering industry, that before
the first of May several dwelling-houses had been rendered habitable,
with a small frame-house for the Agent; and a storehouse sufficient for
their purposes had been constructed of servicable materials.

In the beginning of July the colonists completed their removal from the
island, each took possession of the humble dwelling that was henceforth
to constitute his home. The Agents had meanwhile both sailed for the
United States, leaving the settlement under the management of one of the
emigrants (Elijah Johnson of New York), who acquitted himself so much to
the satisfaction of the settlers that he now enjoys one of the most
respectable situations in the municipal government, conferred upon him
by the people.

Still the most economical division of their rapidly diminishing store of
provisions, could not enable them to exist through more than half of the
rainy season, and as no present produce could be derived from the soil,
their prospects continued dark and dispiriting, circumstances which
derived no inconsiderable addition from the fact that their stores had
been reported to the managers in the United States as sufficient for a
twelvemonth's consumption. But, as though fortune, at length won to
admiration of their heroic fortitude, had determined to recompense their
sufferings, a vessel arrived, unexpect