THE COMMONWEALTH OF LIBERIA--THOMAS H. BUCHANAN--VIEWS OF DIFFERENT PARTIES--DETACHED CONDITION OF THE COLONY--NECESSITY OF UNION--ESTABLISHMENT OF A COMMONWEALTH--USE OF THE AMERICAN FLAG IN THE SLAVE-TRADE--“EUPHRATES”--SLOOP “CAMPBELL”--SLAVERS AT BASSA--EXPEDITION AGAINST THEM--CONFLICT--GALLINAS. Thomas H. Buchanan, afterwards governor of Liberia when it became a commonwealth, had reached Africa, in 1836, as agent of the New York and Pennsylvania Societies, and had acquired great experience, in establishing and superintending, during two years, the settlement at the Bassa country. He had thus time to appreciate the condition of things around him, before he was called to the prominent station which he adorned as the first governor of the commonwealth. It needed a keen eye to see light, if any was to be got at all, through the wretched entanglement of interests, vices, associations, colonies, jurisdictions of natives and foreigners, which then existed. It needed great tact, and a strong hand, to bring any thing like order out of such confusion. The United States had at least three associations at work, besides that of Maryland, each with its own little colony, established in such spots as chance seems to have directed. These occupied three districts of a tolerably definite character. There was the original settlement at Cape Mesurado, with a wing stretching to the north, so as to rest on the expanded lagoon at Cape Mount, and another wing dipping into the Junk River at the south. This was in a measure “the empire state,” containing Monrovia, the capital, and several agricultural villages around it; but the Monrovians and their fellow-colonists were not, on the whole, much given to agricultural pursuits. They were shrewd at driving a trade, and liked better to compete for some gallons of palm oil, or sticks of camwood, than to be doing their duty to their fields and gardens. They had, besides, the politics and the military concerns of the nation to supervise, and were called upon to adjust claims with the neighboring settlements. The Bassa Cove villages, constituting the second district, were settling down and strengthening, after their visitation of violence and rapacity from the natives. Sinoe, the third district, with its fine river and rich lands, had received the settlement at Greenville, then flourishing. These two latter bore a very ill-defined relation to the older station at Monrovia, and to each other. There were in the territories claimed by all of them as having passed justly and by amicable means under their jurisdiction, various native tribes, with their kings and half kings; sometimes wise enough to see the advantages offered to them; sometimes pre-eminently wise in having stipulated, that in return for the territory they gave up, schools should be provided to teach them “sense,” “book;” sometimes sorely perplexed by the new state of things, and always sorely tempted