and balmy, while the sun shed his mild and benignant radiance amid the decay of nature.

"The aged oaks that grow around the sepulchre, touched by the mellowed lustre of autumn, seemed emblematical of the autumnal honors of Lafayette, while ever and anon a leaf, a sere and yellow leaf,' would fall to the ground, marking the progress of time, and the fall of man: for the hero, when his race of glory is run; the benefactor of mankind, when he has fulfilled the charities of his mission on earth, they too must decline into the sere and yellow leaf,' and fall to the ground, only to be renewed by the spring time of eternal life.

"A solemn silence reigned, save when broken by the deep and measured thunders of artillery, as they pealed from the neighboring fortress, awakening the echoes, and by the sweetly plaintive strains of music. wafted along the broad expanse of Potomac's glossy wave. And many were gathered around to behold the pious spectacle that belongs to history, but none approached; no, not one ventured to intrude upon the sacred privacy of the scene.

"The old man waved his hand, the doors were opened, and the last of the generals of the army of Independence descended to the cold and lonely precincts of the tomb. For a time he appeared to be wholly absorbed in the immensity of his reflections; and ah, sir, while bending over the remains of his hero, his friend, and a country's preserver, how inust the associations of the heroic time, the events of the days of trial, have crowded in quick succession on the retina of memory. At length, summoning his energies to their last great effort, he kneeled, and pressing his lips to the leaden sarcophagus, containing the ashes of the chief, the tomb of the Pater Patriæ received from the most venerable of its pilgrims its proudest homage, in the generous, the fervent, the filial tear of Lafayette."

After alluding briefly to the disinterested efforts of this veteran friend of Liberty, during the late revolution in France, Mr. Custis closed his tribute to this great and virtuous man in the following words:

"Lafayette, on finding that the times were out of joint,' resigned his command of the Garde Nationale, and retired to his chateau of La Grange; and France will require another Three Days, ere she enjoy the substance of Liberty, after the enormous sacrifices she hath made for its shadow.

"It was while a member of the popular branch of the National Legislature, an object of intense interest to the friends of freedom in the old world, and watching with eagle eye the course of events, that the days of Lafayette were numbered on earth. With the courage of a soldier, and the calmness of a sage, he met the dread summons that none may refuse; and full of years and honors, in peace with himself and with all mankind, the aged apostle of Liberty in two hemispheres closed his well spent life.

"And shall he rest in the land which, forgetful of his virtues, and abandoning his principles, is unworthy of his ashes? Surely, where Liberty dwells, there, there alone, should be the sepulchre of her apostles! Let the flag of the Brandywine again float on the breezes of la belle France, claiming for America the remains of the last of the generals of her army of Independence, and bearing them to the hallowed heights of Mount Vernon, there to repose by the side of the Chief, that, united as they were in life, so should they be in death-the master of Liberty and his great disciple.

My tale is told. Peace to the ashes of Lafayette; and may the peace that passeth all understanding' shed its divine influence upon the good and gallant soul now awaiting its reward in higher and better worlds. "And when America, in some long distant day, proud of the fame and memory of the patriots, warriors, and statesmen, who achieved her inde

pendence, and founded her empire, shall bid them live forever in marble memorials, to adorn the Legislative Palace, in lofty niche, in the Temple of National Gratitude, will appear the statue of the Gallic Hero, our country's early friend and benefactor; while on the brazen tablets, erected to perpetuate the lives and actions of our great and renowned. brightly will be inscribed the name, the virtues, and the services of LAFAYETTE."

The orator closed his address amnid general applause, and the resolutions were unanimously adopted.

The Hon. SAMUEL L. SOUTHARD, of New Jersey, offered the following resolutions :

Resolved, That this Society highly approve of the course adopted by the Board of Managers for the past year, for reducing the outstanding debts of this institution, and recommend a continuance of a like policy, until the whole be discharged.

Resolved, That, notwithstanding the subject has repeatedly been urged on the Agent by the Board of Managers, agricultural pursuits have hitherto been too little attended to in the Colony, and that no further time ought to be lost in introducing such working animals as are best suited to a tropical climate, in order to bring into use the plough, harrow, and cart, without which farming cannot be successfully carried on. And that women and children may, in future, be usefully employed, it is proper that wheels, cards, and looms, should also be sent to the Colony.

Resolved, That the exploration of the interior of Africa, contemplated by the Board of Managers, promises great advantages to the Colony of Liberia, as, from the late despatches from thence, it appears that Millsburg, its most easterly settlement, is found to be very salubrious, and it is believed that the interior portions of the country will, hereafter, be the most desirable situation for such emigrants as intend to devote themselves to the cultivation of the soil.

In support of the foregoing resolutions, Mr. SoUTHARD addressed the Society in a short, but highly eloquent speech. He commended the Board of Managers for resolving to pay off the debt which the too zealous efforts of the Society had heretofore incurred; and he had no doubt that, by sending to the Colony a less number of emigrants than heretofore, for a year or two, the Board would be enabled, not only to discharge the debt of the institution, but to make such improvements at Liberia as will make it a most desirable asylum for such of our free colored population as may, from time to time, desire to enjoy the blessings of freedom.

In reference to the second resolution which Mr. S. proposed, every farmer in the country would see the propriety of adopting it. All know that little progress can be made in cultivating the earth without suitable working animals, ploughs, harrows, and other implements of husbandry; yet, strange to say, it appears that the emigrants have hitherto been so intent on traffic, in order to raise a little ready gain, that nothing deserv ing the name of agriculture has been attended to, having extended their views no further to this great object than by raising small crops of vegetables by means of the hoe and spade. Should this resolution be adopted, and fully carried into effect, we shall no longer hear of the ruinous policy of spending thousands of dollars here in the purchase of provisions to support the emigrants at Liberia. With well directed industry, no doubt can be entertained that the inhabitants will not only raise sufficient food hereafter for their own support, but a surplus for sale to others.

This, said Mr. S., will more especially be the case, should the plan of exploring the interior country, contemplated in the last resolution, be successfully carried into effect. It is well known that the seaboard of all our Southern States is more or less low, swampy, and insalubrious; and the seacoast of Africa is still more so. But, as the western portions of our Southern country are remarkably healthy, so, it is said, is the interior of Africa; and, like our Southern States, well adapted to agricultural pursuits. It will, in future, therefore, no doubt, be found good

policy to place such emigrants as are fittest to cultivate the soil (certainly the best employment for most of them) in the interior country, where, enjoying good health, they will soon convert the unprofitable forests into fruitful and well cultivated farms, sufficient to supply not only their own wants, but all the wants of the Colony, and, ere long, have a spare surplus for exportation.

Mr. S. then adverted to the incipient stages of the Colony, when it had been necessary to condense its population in order to defend it from attacks, as well from the natives of the country as from pirates engaged in the slave trade; and to the trials through which the Society had passed in bringing the Colony to the present point in its progress. But instead of viewing these as causes of regret, he rather rejoiced at the review; considering them as the salutary discipline of Providence, acting under that general law, by which those things that were to be great and useful seemed destined first to pass through struggles and difficulty. The fostering care of Government, he said, never had caused any colonies to prosper. They had advanced by their own energies, called up in combating the obstacles around them; as an illustration of which, he adverted to the barrenness of New England, and the history of the Puritan emigrants. The Society, having trampled over difficulties abroad, was now assailed by a new difficulty at home, in the opposition of many misguided men; but he viewed this too without regret, believing that, like the others, it would only conduce to elicit the energies, and combine the efforts of the friends of the colonization cause. He spoke in strong terms of the good intentions and determined purpose of the great body of the people at the North, in relation to slavery. They condemned the system, he said, but would pay a sacred regard to the vested rights of the citizens, and would preserve the constitution from violation in the protection it extended to the possessions and the domestic peace of the people of the South; and he had no sooner uttered the sentiment than he was interrupted by a long burst of spontaneous applause. Towards the close of his remarks, Mr. S. referred, in a strain of deep feeling and impassioned eloquence, to the character of the late Mr. Finley, who was his neighbor and friend, the friend of Africa, and the originator of the Society, to whose devoted zeal he paid a beautiful and merited eulogium; and adverted to the examination, which, as Secretary of the Navy, it had been his duty to give to the plan and purposes of this Society; and bore his most unequivocal testimony in favor of its claims upon the Government for co-operation in the establishment of an agency on the African coast; and concluded by pressing the necessity of cherishing the interests of agriculture in the Colony, and spreading its settlements abroad, as the only means of effectually defeating the designs of those nefarious men who haunted the coast for human prey.

Mr. SOUTHARD's resolutions were unanimously adopted.

B. B. THATCHER, Esq., of Boston, offered the following resolution, which was unanimously adopted:

Resolved, That the difficulties which have thus far attended the proceedings of this institution furnish no reasonable ground of distrust, or discouragement, in regard either to the soundness of its principles, or the final and total success of its scheme.

Mr. THATCHER remarked, that some of the suggestions he had intended to offer in reference to this resolution had been anticipated by the gentleman from New Jersey, [Mr. Southard,] but in such a manner (he need not say) as to leave neither necessity of repetition_nor occasion of regret. The spirit of that gentleman's comment on the difficulties of the Society, however, he should gladly assume, as far as he was able, for he deemed it worthy of all admiration. Such difficulties were no new thing in the history of any institution. Our own was, and

is, in its very nature, liable to them in a peculiar degree, and liable to many which must be peculiar to itself. The Colony, the principal seat of the Society's operations, is at a great distance from the Society itself. The materials of which it consisted, the mode of its management, the country, the climate, every thing relating to its location and thrift, was wholly experimental. The whole scheme was an experiment. It had no precedent; it has no parallel. Its managers, who, of. course, were only men, could only avail themselves, like other men, and other managers, of the results of experience, and of the wisdom which experience alone could give; and this experience must be their own. It could not be borrowed from analogous institutions, for none such existed. The light of other days was no light for them, for their enterprise was substantially the first the world had seen of the series. Not, indeed, that colonization was a new thing. Every body knows better than that. Every body knows that colonies have been the purveyors and the conveyors of the arts, sciences, and religion of nations; that they have communicated it from clime to clime, and transmitted it from age to age; that the history of colonization, in a word, has been, from first to last, the history of civilization; that we are the children of colonists; that this vast and flourishing empire, stretching itself, as it does, from shore to shore, till it promises to cover the continent as the waters cover the sea-this was but the result of the last great exemplification of the same great scheme. No! not the last. The last was our own. It was the renewal on the African shore, in 1820, of the splendid drama acted on the "stern and rock-bound coast" two centuries before. Still, however, it remains true, that, to all personal, practical, economical purposes, the managers of this institution could be guided only by their own experience in the strictest sense. The old principle of colonization itself, its practicability, its applicability to all sorts of circumstances heretofore, were the only data they could start with. The circumstances themselves of the new application, and the practicability, and the whole policy of that application, constituted an experiment which trial and time alone could determine. Mr. T. here made some remarks on the extent of the operations of this Society, the necessary extent, as an intrinsic occasion of some embarrassment to which few others were exposed. They included an organization at home and abroad, each sufficient for one Society; they included the selection and qualification of emigrants, as well as their removal and establishment on the other side; the maintenance of a system of the means of transportation; the care of all the institutions of the Colony, and the constant provision of new ones; the supervision of its government; the erection of public buildings; the opening of roads into the interior; the purchase of new territory; the commerce of the coast; the care of the recaptured Africans; and the whole routine of negotiation with the natives.

That there had been faults, however, in the management of affairs, Mr. T. said he should not pretend to deny; it was only admitting, after all, that the institution was conducted by the instrumentality of men. The chief fault was one, he thought, which even their enemies, keen as they were, had not pointed out; nay, it was the reverse of what had been charged against them. They had been accused at the North of "doing too little. He would not stay to examine the grace with which this objection is advanced by those who do nothing themselves, at the best, to help us, and perhaps exert every nerve, on the other hand, to defeat our schemes, and destroy the confidence of the public. These people seem to fancy that the Society has an inherent inexhaustibility, like the water of a beleagured city, within the walls; rendering it independent (as he could wish it were) of the patronage or the praise of a certain part of the community. But whatever the consistency between the argument and the action of our foes, the allegation is not true. The reverse is so. Our

great fault has been the doing and attempting too much. It was, to be sure, a natural error. The evils of a forced growth of the Colony, and what was, in fact, a forced growth, could only be learned by experience; it depended, in some degree, on the character of the materials, and the potential competency of the management, both which must be tried. It was almost a laudable error. It arose from an anxiety to extend the very ends of the institution, all that was good in it, by gratifying as many as possible of the applicants for its charity, whether bond or free, and as fast as possible, of course. Still, it was an error which would bear better to be excused than to be repeated. Fortunately, it had been discovered in due time, and corrected; and the excellent conduct of affairs for the last year is an earnest that nothing further need be feared upon this score. It was now understood, it could not be understood too well, it should never be forgotten, that the true policy of the Society consists not in the increase, but in the prosperity of its settlements; not in the transportation of emigrants to the Colony, but in the preparation of the Colony for emigrants; not in how much is done, or how fast it is done, but in how it is done; not in the haste or the height of the edifice, but in its strength. There must be, above all things, comfort in the condition, and capacity in the character, of those who went there. There must be agriculture, order, education, morality, religion; there must be hospitals, roads, schools, colleges, churches; establish these, and the rest "shall be added unto you." There will be. men enough, you may be sure; intelligent men will always go where their interest leads. And these things will make them and keep them men indeed, freemen, citizens, Christians. These are the elements of success and of greatness in a uation; it is not the size of your colony, nor its growth; it never was the size or growth of any colony, or of any country. No sir! It is not these which "constitute a State." It is not its numbers, nor the extent of its territory; it is not the amount of its exports and imports; it is not its mines, nor the might of its armies, nor its navies, that sweep the seas; it is not its physical resources of any kind, but its men

-"High minded men,

That know their rights, and knowing, dare maintain:

These constitute a State."

How much, said Mr. T., it may have been (in this view of the matter) for the best interests of the Society and the Colony, that a strong opposition to both-he might say, perhaps, a rancorous prejudice-had been fostered in some parts of the country, he need not undertake to show. He believed, however, the conviction would one day be established, that the same overruling Providence which had heretofore so signally crowned our operations with its favor, had, in this respect, and especially as regards the colored people of the North, protected us from what, under other circumstances, might have been a fatal source of disaster. If those people, without reference to the domestic diversity between their circumstances and those of their brethren farther South, had been as eager as the latter have been for colonization, and crowded into it in the same proportion, it might well be doubted if the settlements would now have been in existence. The multitude of the invasion would have utterly borne them down-the mere multitude-independently of any difference of character, and independently of the fact that the difference of climate is alone a sufficient reason, in the present stage of the business, why no colored man from New England should be suffered to go out, were he ever so anxious to go. The first result of such emigration, to any considerable extent, would have been inevitably to ruin the reputation of the Colony; and the second, to ruin the Colony itself. He did not know how many other of what have been called the difficulties of the Society would turn out to be the very means of its preservation. This, certainly, would seem to be one.