lliam Penn and his pacific followers furnish a case in point.

I avow it--the natural tendency of the colony at Liberia excites the
most melancholy apprehensions in my mind. Its birth was conceived in
blood, and its footsteps will be marked with blood down to old age--the
blood of the poor natives--unless a special interposition of Divine
Providence prevent such a calamity. The emigrants will be eager in the
acquisition of wealth, ease and power; and, having superior skill and
discernment in trade, they will outwit and defraud the natives as often
as occasion permits. This knavish treatment once detected,--as it surely
will be, for even an uncivilized people may soon learn that they have
been cheated,--will provoke retaliation, and stir up the worst passions
of the human breast. Bloody conflicts will ensue, in which the colonists
will be victorious. This success will serve to increase the enmity of
the natives, and to perpetuate the murderous struggle. The extirpation
of one generation may put the colonists in undisputed possession of the
land.

This is not a fancy sketch--it is not improbable: on the contrary, it is
the obvious and hitherto certain consequence of bringing hastily
together large bodies of civilized men with unlettered barbarians.

Jealousy will be another fruitful source of contention. The population
of Africa is divided into a vast number of tribes, governed by petty
kings,--sometimes indeed united by an amicable league, but commonly
distinct and independent. Some of these tribes will form alliances with
the colonists, either to obtain protection from their more formidable
rivals or from motives of fear, curiosity or selfishness. In this
manner, tribe will be arrayed against tribe throughout that vast
continent; the tide of commotion, gathering fresh impetuosity in its
headlong career, will rush from the mountains down to the ocean,
devastating all that is beautiful, and swiftly defacing that which will
require the labors of centuries to restore to its pristine excellence;
there will be wars and rumors of wars, succeeded by deceitful and
unstable treaties ratified only to be broken at a favorable moment; and
these collisions will not cease until the colonists obtain an undisputed
mastery over the natives.

Would to Heaven these fears might prove to be but the offspring of a
distracted mind! May the colonists be so just in their intercourse with
the Africans, as never to impeach their own integrity;