l point of
view, when it is considered, that in the same town could be found a
set of individuals, who, for the purpose of enabling them to carry on
an illegal and infamous traffic, could be the instruments of
circumventing the life of an individual, who was nobly employed in
the extension of geographical science, and who was perhaps actually
laying the foundation of the civilization of the countries through
which he might pass, and extending the commercial relations of his
country. An indelible stain will it be upon the merchants of
Liverpool, who could so far forget that they were Englishmen, as to
make a horde of barbarous savages their instruments for the
destruction of an expedition by which the general interests of the
human race might be promoted, our commercial relations extended, and
ultimately, the blessings of Christianity diffused over the dark and
unenlightened children of Africa.

As a palliative to the statement of John Lander, and as some relief
to the dark picture which we have just exhibited, it must be
confessed, that when the circumstances are taken into consideration,
which have already been detailed, when Lander first visited the Eboe
country, his conduct was not exactly regulated by prudence or policy,
in proceeding towards a country, not in the simple guise and
unostentatious manner of the solitary traveller, but attended by a
force sufficient to excite the fears and jealousy of the native
chiefs, and to instil into their suspicious minds the belief, that
the travellers, whom they had formerly seen in their country, had
returned, equipped with the means of subjugating the country, and
reducing the chiefs themselves, perhaps to a state of slavery. The
very vessels in which they presented themselves, were sufficient to
strike terror and alarm into the minds of the superstitious natives.
They knew not by what character to describe them; to their ignorant
and untutored understandings, they appeared to be impelled by some
power of witchcraft, for which they could not in the least account;
to behold a large vessel impelled even against the stream with no
inconsiderable velocity, and no power manifested by which that speed
could be obtained, set their minds a wondering, and obtained for
Lander the character of the devil. As the devil, therefore, had
arrived in their country, it became an act of the most imperious duty
to force him to abandon it, by any means which could suggest
themselves, and no one