1908 Arthur Barclay, president; four years term. January. Major Mackay Cadell appears in Liberia. January 14. Consul-general Braithwaite Wallis issues reform demand. British offer to exchange Behlu district for Kanre-Lahun. May. Liberian Commission bring appeal to the United States. July. Ex-President W. D. Coleman died at Clay-Ashland. War-vessel _Lark_ purchased for £40,000; British Government presents gun armament worth £1,600. 1909 February 11. Mackay Cadell’s frontier force in mutiny. May 8. United States commission of inquiry arrived at Monrovia. Trouble at River Cess and Grand Bassa. 1910 March 21. German cable line opened. New Cess trouble; Grebo uprising. 1911 January. Behlu and Kanre-Lahun exchange consummated; delimitation ordered. May. French demand customs control of both sides of Cavalla River. September 26. American loan arrangement presented. November 1. Free navigation of the Mano R. admitted. 1912 January 1-2. Daniel Edward Howard, president; inauguration. January 1. Loan went into operation. February 7. Edward Wilmot Blyden died. Arrival of American military helpers--Major Ballard and Captains Brown and Newton. September. Lomax and Cooper trials; acquittals. DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE IN CONVENTION Town of Monrovia; June and July 1847 We, the representatives of the people of the Commonwealth of Liberia, in Convention assembled, invested with authority for forming a new government, relying upon the aid and protection of the Great Arbiter of human events, do hereby, in the name and on behalf of the people of this Commonwealth, publish and declare the said Commonwealth a FREE, SOVEREIGN and INDEPENDENT STATE, by the name and style of the REPUBLIC OF LIBERIA. While announcing to the nations of the world the new position which the people of this Republic have felt themselves called upon to assume, courtesy to their opinion seems to demand a brief accompanying statement of the causes which induced them, first to expatriate themselves from the land of their nativity and to form settlements on this barbarous coast, and now to organize their government by the assumption of a sovereign and independent character. Therefore we respectfully ask their attention to the following facts: