able to accomplish thus much
from what experience they gained while in this country. These people
arrived at Liberia naked; they have clothed themselves from the avails
of their labour, and, what is rather singular, they have gone into the
town to seek out for themselves wives, esteeming themselves too far
advanced in civilization and refinement to form connexions among the
natives, although they might obtain from among them much more comely
persons than they are enabled to find among the very meanest of the
colonists, from whom they are obliged to select. This fact alone
shows, that but a small degree of civilization infused into this
people, tends to the elevation of their character.

"The colonists of Monrovia are said to be much more inclined to trade
than to cultivate the earth. The English and the French vessels which
come there, have engrossed almost the whole trade of the colony, the
Americans not being able to compete with them. Many of the natives
come into the town, and are employed as labourers by the colonists.
The colonists also receive some of the children of the natives into
their families, and send them to school. At different times the
natives have made three or four attacks on the settlements, but have
always been repelled with spirit; for the last year the natives have
been very quiet and friendly. The colonists can bring into the field,
if necessary, about 500 troops, which are considered a match for ten
times the number of natives. Many tribes of these natives hold slaves,
which are treated with much cruelty, and it is doubtful if even their
masters are so well off or so happy as the slaves in our southern
states. They are much less civilized and more ignorant.

"The people there called Kroomen, reside in the country. They come
down to the sea-shore and pitch their tents, and launch their canoes,
and, sailing all along the coast, they become pilots to the traders;
and these are the men with whom the Spaniards trade for slaves. These
Kroomen keep no slaves themselves, neither do they allow any of their
own tribe to be sold as slaves; and they become of so much importance
to the slave-dealers on the coast, acting as a sort of brokers,
negotiating among the tribes for slaves, that they themselves, knowing
their own consequence, do not hesitate to board a slave-vessel, and
there is no instance of their ever being kidnapped."

The