er,
the Sierra Leone boundary. Buchanan sent an agent to England to
represent him in an inquiry into the matter; but in the midst of his
vigorous work he died in 1841. He was the last white man formally under
any auspices at the head of Liberian affairs. Happily his period of
service had given opportunity and training to an efficient helper, upon
whom now the burden fell and of whom it is hardly too much to say that
he is the foremost figure in Liberian history.

Joseph Jenkin Roberts was a mulatto born in Virginia in 1809. At the
age of twenty, with his widowed mother and younger brothers, he went to
Liberia and engaged in trade. In course of time he proved to be a man of
unusual tact and graciousness of manner, moving with ease among people
of widely different rank. His abilities soon demanded recognition, and
he was at the head of the force that defeated Gatumba. As governor he
realized the need of cultivating more far-reaching diplomacy than the
Commonwealth had yet known. He had the cooeperation of the Maryland
governor, Russwurm, in such a matter as that of uniform customs duties;
and he visited the United States, where he made a very good impression.
He soon understood that he had to reckon primarily with the English and
the French. England had indeed assumed an attitude of opposition to
the slave-trade; but her traders did not scruple to sell rum to slave
dealers, and especially were they interested in the palm oil of Liberia.
When the Commonwealth sought to impose customs duties, England took the
position that as Liberia was not an independent government, she had no
right to do so; and the English attitude had some show of strength
from the fact that the American Colonization Society, an outside
organization, had a veto power over whatever Liberia might do. When in
1845 the Liberian Government seized the _Little Ben_, an English trading
vessel whose captain acted in defiance of the revenue laws, the British
in turn seized the _John Seyes_, belonging to a Liberian named Benson,
and sold the vessel for L8000. Liberia appealed to the United States;
but the Oregon boundary question as well as slavery had given the
American Government problems enough at home; and the Secretary of State,
Edward Everett, finally replied to Lord Aberdeen (1845) that America
was not "presuming to settle differences arising between Liberian and
British subjects, the Liberians being responsible for their own acts."
The Colonization Societ