present Board of Managers of the American Colonization Society), the Society has been ably vindicated from the aspersions which men, regardless alike of honor, of justice, and truth, have cast upon it. We refer not to MR. BIRNEY, who has doubtless permitted his imagination to dim the light of his reason, and from abstract speculations concerning human rights, to deduce the practical duties of life. We refer to men who, under the white flag of Peace, and the starry banner of Freedom, consider themselves privileged to vend wholesale slander and falsehood, and claim therefor the crown of martyrdom. The readers of the African Repository are aware, from the publication of the last Annual Report, and two additional reports which appeared in the March and August numbers of this work, that the Society has been for some time laboring under pecuniary embarrassments, owing principally to its having sent out too large a number of emigrants to the Colony for the two or three years past. At the last annual meeting of the Society, it had an outstanding debt of $45,645. To meet this difficulty, the Board of Managers passed an order, authorizing a loan of $50,000, to bear an interest of six per cent. to be paid off in twelve years, providing a Sinking Fund of $6000 a year from their receipts for the regular payment of the annual instalments and interest. Upwards of $20,000 of this Stock has been taken by our creditors and friends; the former receiving it in part or in full for their claims; the latter advancing its amount in money. More than one-half of our outstanding debt has been discharged during the present year, and the balance is owing to persons who will either take stock for it, or wait our convenience for payment. It is true, the stock is still considered as a debt, but it will be paid off so gradually, as scarcely to be felt by the Society. To effect this great object, and to supply the necessary wants of the Colony, the Society had to refrain from sending out any additional emigrants during the present year, except fourteen liberated by Mrs. Ann Page, of Frederick county, Virginia, who were sent out in the same vessel which carried out the colored people of the late Dr. Aylet Hawes, of that State, dispatched by our Auxiliary, the Young Men's Society of Pennsylvania, who are settling a new place at Bassa Cove, a territory mentioned in our last Annual Report as having been lately added to Liberia. In the mean time, it is expected that our Agent, Mr. Pinney, will have made such regulations and improvements in the Colony, as will greatly conduce to its future prosperity, and such as will enable the inhabitants, by well-applied industry, to raise sufficient sustenance in the Colony to supply, not only all the wants of the present settlers, but also sufficient to feed such as may hereafter be sent there, independently of the Parent Society. The principles of the Colonization Society are not to be shaken. They are gathering strength from opposition, and will outlive all the fury of the storm which has been excited against them. Made prevalent, they must preserve the integrity of our Union, exalt our national character, and open the way to the freedom, the elevation and happiness of the whole African race. CONTRIBUTIONS To the American Colonization Society in the month of November, 1834. Gerrit Smith's First Plan of Subscription. Mathew Carey, Philadelphia, John T. Norton, Albany, Collections from Churches. Bethany church, Allegany co. Pa. by Rev. William Jefferey, Bellevieu, do Presbyterian church, by Rev. J. Byers, $100 Watkins, y Seth Terry, Treasurer, 30 650 100 150 143 56 8 50 100 50 25 20 20 ΤΟ 10 10 5 3 4 200 300 200 100 100 100 50 40 40 40 25 25 20 10 10 10 60 15 20 480 10 25 10 10 |