For these reasons, we should discountenance schemes like those proposed not long ago in England, and sanctioned by the British government, for the encouragement of spontaneous emigration from Africa under the charge of _contractors_. The plan was viewed with fear by the colonial authorities, and President Roberts at once issued a proclamation to guard the natives. No one, I think, will read this book without a conviction that the idea of _voluntary expatriation_ has not dawned on the African mind, and, consequently, what might begin in laudable philanthropy would be likely to end in practical servitude. Intercourse, trade, and colonization, in slow but steadfast growth, are the providences intrusted to us for the noble task of civilization. They who are practically acquainted with the colored race of our country, have long believed that gradual colonization was the only remedy for Africa as well as America. The repugnance of the free blacks to _emigration from our shores_ has produced a tardy movement, and thus the African population has been thrown back grain by grain, and not wave by wave. Every one conversant with the state of our colonies, knows how beneficial this languid accretion has been. It moved many of the most enterprising, thrifty, and independent. It established a social nucleus from the best classes of American colored people. Like human growth, it allowed the frame to mature in muscular solidity. It gave immigrants time to test the climate; to learn the habit of government in states as well as in families; to acquire the bearing of freemen; to abandon their imitation of the whites among whom they had lived; and thus, by degrees, to consolidate a social and political system which may expand into independent and lasting nationality. Instead, therefore, of lamenting the slowness with which the colonies have reached their vigorous promise, we should consider it a blessing that the vicious did not rush forth in turbulent crowds with the worthy, and impede the movements of better folks, who were still unused to the task of self-reliance. Men are often too much in a hurry to do good, and mar by excessive zeal what patience would complete. "Deus quies quia aeternus," saith St. Augustine. The cypress is a thousand years in growth, yet its limbs touch not the clouds, save on a mountain top. Shall the regeneration of a continent be quicker than its ripening? That would be miracle--not progress. Accept this offering, my dear Willis, as a token of that sincere regard, which, during an intimacy of a quarter of a century, has never wavered in its friendly trust. Faithfully, yours, BRANTZ MAYER. BALTIMORE, _1st July, 1854_. FOOTNOTE: [1] MORETUM,--Carm. Virg. Wagner's ed. vol. 4, p. 301. CONTENTS.