s kind, men of limited
genius, of no experience in business, and incapable of acting with
unanimity, have been too frequently employed; who are governed more by
caprice than principle, and are consequently seldom able to reduce their
ideas into practice, and allow their passions to predominate over the
maxims of duty. Delicacy in managing the humours and interests of men is
the art requisite to successful operation.

May it be remembered, that if civilization and our ascendency prevail in
Africa, and if the first essays we make to extend our relations with that
country are successful, we attach to the civilized world one-fourth of the
habitable globe, and its infinite resources. It therefore becomes a subject
of great magnitude, to commence and form a system of operation, to collect
the means of this immense extent, and the propriety of subjecting the whole
to a similarity of views, and co-operation under one controlling
administration.

The precipitate abolition of the slave trade will reduce our affairs in
Africa, to a contracted and unproductive compass, in its present condition;
therefore if we attach any consequence to this quarter of the globe, it
will be expedient to endeavour to discover new scources [**Note: sources]
of commercial wealth and industry.

Coffee, cotton, the sugar cane, cacao, indigo, rice, tobacco, aromatic
plants and trees, &c. first offer themselves to, our attention in wild
exuberance. And these, in my humble opinion, are the only rational means to
bring Africa into a state of civilization, and to abolish slavery.

I recommend one administration under the patronage of Government, in the
Sierra Leone river, to guard against a want of unity in the number of petty
establishments that may otherwise exist on the coast, which from jealousies
and interests varying in different directions, produce operations of a
contradictory nature, and the first necessary step, is to be well
acquainted with the character and dispositions, of the natives, and the
localities of the maritime situations; for without combined enterprises, I
venture to predict we are now excluded from the commerce of Africa.

I trust that my system will be examined in all its points, with
dispassionate impartiality before it is rejected; and if others more
competent to the task, devise more eligible means to promote the views of
humanity and commerce, I shall feel happy to have agitated the subject, and
rejoice at every means, to res