THE AMERICAN NAVY AND LIBERIA. AN ADDRESS BEFORE THE AMERICAN COLONIZATION SOCIETY, JANUARY 18, 1876, BY COMMODORE R. W. SHUFELDT, U. S. N. WASHINGTON CITY: COLONIZATION BUILDING, 450 PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE. 1876. ADDRESS. GENTLEMEN: It is not inappropriate to this occasion that an officer of the navy should address your honorable Society, and although your committee might easily have chosen a more worthy representative of that branch of the public service, they could have found none more sincerely interested in your cause or more deeply impressed with its importance. From the first disastrous effort, in 1819, to colonize the negroes from the United States at Sherbro, up to the present time, the Navy has contributed with sword and pen to advance the interests and protect the rights of the Americo-Africans. In that year, 1819, the U. S. Ship “Cyane” convoyed to Africa the “Elizabeth,” the first emigrant ship, the “Mayflower” of these new pilgrims, and Lieutenant Townsend lost his life in the duty incidental to landing them. The inexorable march of time, however, has placed upon the roll of the distinguished dead most of those whose words and deeds contributed so much to the founding of the Republic of Liberia. First among these, and almost the first in the hearts and memories of his naval brethren, stands the name of Stockton. In 1821 Lieut. Stockton took command of the “Alligator,” a vessel sent out by the U. S. Government at the earnest solicitation of Justice Bushrod Washington, President of the Society, and Francis S. Key, one of its managers, for the express purpose of selecting a site on the Western Coast of Africa, better adapted to the purposes of colonization than Sherbro, a place notoriously unhealthy and in many respects undesirable. The first order issued by Lieut. Commanding Stockton to the crew of his little craft, while yet in sight of the shores of America, was to throw overboard the cat, (the lash was then a legal mode of punishment on board of our vessels of war,) informing them that he intended to exact their obedience by some other means. He was wiser than, perhaps, he knew, for, bound on this mission of humanity, there would have been a strange inconsistency in his conduct had he carried with him into Africa that vile relic of barbarism. Yet this act indicates the character of the man who in that day, and in the face of current opinion, dared to vindicate by word and deed the right of man, black or white, to exemption from a barbarous thraldom whether upon land or sea. December 11th, 1821, Lieut. Stockton placed his foot on African soil at Cape Mesurado, and, at the risk of his life, wrested from savagery that spot whereon now stands the