As soon as the colonists found themselves in quiet possession of the town, Mr. Ashmun demanded from King West the delivery of all the slaves belonging to the factories. The king was told that if this was not complied with, not a vestige of Tradetown should be left. On the same day the Kroomen of King West brought in thirty or forty slaves, evidently the refuse of those which they held. The natives, notwithstanding, collected, and, in conjunction with the Spaniards, continued to rush out occasionally from the jungle and direct their fire upon the invaders. The surgeon of the San Jacinto was badly wounded, and several of the colonists slightly. A peaceable settlement was now impossible. On the 12th, after the recaptured slaves had been sent on board, the town was fired, and at three o’clock all were embarked. The explosion of two hundred kegs of powder consummated the destruction of Tradetown. The annihilation of Tradetown and of the slave-factories was a severe blow to the traffic, which was felt as far south as the Bight of Benin. It convinced the slave-traders that their commerce was insecure, inasmuch as a powerful enemy to their crimes had gained a permanent establishment on the coast. Here is developed an influence for the suppression of the most atrocious commerce which has ever existed. The writer, however, by no means concurs in opinion with the zealous friends of colonization, that the slave-trade can be suppressed on the entire coast of Africa by Liberia alone. Yet it is an established fact that within her jurisdiction of six hundred miles of sea-coast and thirty miles inland, it has been effectually extirpated. At this period many piratical vessels, well armed, were hovering about the coast. A brig from Portland, and a schooner from Baltimore, were robbed of a large amount of specie, by a vessel mounting twelve guns, manned principally by Spaniards. Scarcely an American merchant vessel had, for a year or more, been on the coast as low down as 6° North, without suffering either insult or plunder from these vessels. Mr. Ashmun then erected a battery for the protection of vessels at anchor, while he represented to the Secretary of the Navy the necessity of the constant presence of a man-of-war on the African coast for the protection of legal commerce. Five of the most important stations from Cape Mount to Tradetown, one hundred and fifty miles, now belonged to the colony by purchase or perpetual lease, and all Europeans were excluded, or attempted to be, from possessions within their limits. On the 18th of August, Dr. Peaco was compelled from ill health to return to the United States.