"While we exceedingly lament the want of greater intelligence and more experience to fit us for the proper, or more perfect management of our public affairs,--we flatter ourselves that the adverse circumstances under which we so long laboured in the land of our birth,[1] and the integrity of our motives, will plead excuse for our want of abilities; and that in the candour and charity of an impartial world, our well-meant, however feeble efforts, will find an apology. I am also persuaded, that no magnanimous nation will seek to abridge our rights, or withhold from the Republic those civilities, and 'that comity which marks the friendly intercourse between civilised and independent communities'--in consequence of our weakness and present poverty." The enlightened Negro legislator, after entering into a consideration and refutation of the charge made against the Colonists, of having acted prematurely in proclaiming their independence, continues:-- "The time has been, I admit, when men--without being chargeable with timidity, or with a disposition to undervalue the capacities of the African race, might have doubted the feasibility of establishing an independent Christian state on this coast, composed of, and conducted wholly by Coloured men,--but, fellow-citizens, that time has passed, and I believe in my soul, that the permanency of the government of the Republic of Liberia is now fixed upon as firm a basis as human wisdom is capable of devising. Nor is there any reason to apprehend that the Divine Disposer of human events, after having separated us from the house of bondage, and led us safely through so many dangers, towards the land of liberty and promise, will leave the work of our political redemption, and consequent happiness, unfinished; and either permit us to perish in a wilderness of difficulties, or suffer us to be carried back in chains to that country of prejudices, from whose oppression He has mercifully delivered us with his out-stretched arm.