The legislatures of some states, the reports of some auxiliary colonization societies, the speeches of some distinguished senators and representatives in congress, the addresses of some colonization agents, have represented the great sacrifice of life and treasure in “unsuccessful efforts,” by the African squadron, for the extermination of the slave-trade, and proposed to withdraw it. Whereas, it has been shown that the African squadrons, instead of being useless, have rendered _essential service_. For much as colonization has accomplished, and effectual as Liberia is in suppressing the slave-traffic within her own jurisdiction, these means and these results have been established and secured by the presence and protection of the naval squadrons of Great Britain, France and the United States. And had no such assistance been rendered, the entire coast, where we now see legal trade and advancing civilization, would have been at this day, in spite of any efforts to colonize, or to establish legal commerce, the scene of unchecked, lawless slave-trade piracy. Strange and frightful maladies have been engendered by the cruelties perpetrated within the hold of a slaver. If any disease affecting the human constitution were brought there, we may be sure that it would be nursed into mortal vigor in these receptacles of filth, corruption and despair. Crews have been known to die by the fruit of their own crime, and leave ships almost helpless. They have carried the scourge with them. The coast fever of Africa, bad enough where it has its birth, came in these vessels, and has assumed perhaps a permanent abode in the western regions of the world. No fairer sky or healthier climate were there on earth, than in the beautiful bay, and amid the grand and picturesque scenery of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil. But it became a haunt of slavers, and the dead of Africa floated on the glittering waters, and were tumbled upon the sands of its harbor. The shipping found, in the hot summer of 1849, that death had come with the slavers. Thirty or forty vessels were lying idly at their anchors, for their crews had mostly perished. The pestilence swept along the coast of that empire with fearful malignity. Cuba for the same crime met the same retribution. Cargoes of slaves were landed to die, and brought the source of their mortality ashore, vigorous and deadly. The fever settled there in the beginning of 1853, and came to our country, as summer approached, in merchant vessels from the West Indies. At New Orleans, Mobile, and other places it spread desolation, over which the country mourned. Let it be remembered that it is never even safe to disregard crime.