ay seem to slumber for a
moment, in their opinion promises great and extensive usefulness." The
board recommended

That a constant correspondence be kept up with the brethren there
by which their minds will be encouraged, and their hands
strengthened and through which information may be received of the
state of the Colony, the progress of the cause, and of the
earliest opportunities which may offer for introducing the Gospel
more extensively into the heart of Africa.[100]

There is no further account of this misunderstanding other than that
from the pen of Ashmun. Mr. Taylor,[101] the biographer of Lott Cary,
remarks: "He (Cary) was compelled, to some extent, to act the part of
a mediator between the rebellious colonists, who considered themselves
injured, and Mr. Ashmun, the Governor. While for a moment he might
seem to act injudiciously, he possessed too much noble and generous
feeling to be guilty of a dishonorable act." The Rev. G. Winfred
Hervey[102] thinks that "in any controversy between mules and
muledrivers, the latter have several advantages among which one of the
most important is that they have the exclusive use of vocal attack and
defence. Cary was too prudent a man to publish an apology for
constructive sedition; and as he has not left us his own explanation
of any of the facts in the case, we have not all the materials on
which to base an impartial judgment."

The agitation at length had its effect. It was directly responsible
for the establishment, in 1824, of a new form of government which was
approved by Cary and his fellow-citizens and in which the colonists
had a full expression.[103] Gurley[104] and Ashmun both testified that
Cary readily entered into the spirit of the new government.[105] Only
eight days, from August 14 to 22, were needed to organize a government
that should be energetic and feasible.[106] "Beneath the thatched roof
of the first rude house for divine worship ever erected in the Colony
stood the little company of one hundred colored emigrants, who had
ventured all things to gain for themselves and children a home and
inheritance of liberty and before God pledged themselves to maintain
the Constitution of their choice, and prove faithful to the great
trust committed to their hands."[107] Despite the seeming repetition
of the chagrin of past irregularities in September, 1824, however, the
board of the American Colonization Society passed a motion, Apri