and all exposed to a gun of great power,
raised on a platform, at only thirty to sixty yards distance!
_Every shot literally spent its force in a solid mass of living
human flesh!_ Their fire suddenly terminated. A savage yell was
raised, which filled the dismal forest with a momentary horror.
It gradually died away; and the whole host disappeared. At 8
o'clock, the well known signal of their dispersion and return to
their homes was sounded, and many small parties seen at a
distance, directly afterwards, moving off in different
directions. One large canoe, employed in reconveying a party
across the mouth of the Montserado, venturing within the range
of the long gun, was struck by a shot, and several men
killed.'[F]

The above (which cannot be perused without a thrill of horror) is one of
the legitimate fruits of foreign colonization. Subsequent to this bloody
affair, another battle took place, which resulted in the defeat of the
natives and the loss of many lives. It is true, the colony since that
period has received little molestation, and has succeeded, moreover, in
making some amicable treaties with the natives; but in proportion to its
means of defence and numerical force will be its liability to encroach
upon the rights of the Africans, and thus to provoke hostilities. If
this prophecy should not be fulfilled, history will have spoken in
vain, and human nature experienced a total regeneration.

No man of refined sensibility can contemplate the fate of the aborigines
of this country, without shuddering at the consequences of colonization;
and if _they_ melted away at the presence of the pilgrims and their
descendants, like frost before the meridian blaze of the sun,--if _they_
fell to the earth, like the leaves of the forest before the autumnal
blast, by the settlement of men reputedly humane, wise and pious, in
their vicinage,--what can be our hope for the preservation of the
Africans, associated with a population degraded by slavery, and, to a
lamentable extent, destitute of religious and secular knowledge? The
argument, that the difference of complexion between our forefathers and
the aborigines (which is not a distinctive feature between the settlers
at Liberia and the natives) was the real cause of this deadly enmity, is
more specious than solid. _Conduct_, not _color_, secures friendship or
excites antipathy, as it happens to be just or unjust. The venerated
Wi