It is proposed that a proper and well selected detachment of these troops should form the basis of the intended expedition; and that, besides the person having the immediate command, one or two other leading persons should be appointed, each properly qualified to assist in the direction and management of the principal concerns, and (in case of emergency) to undertake the sole charge of the expedition. The number of the troops employed would of course be regulated by a due regard to the probable means of subsistence; but it is proposed that they should be sufficiently numerous to enable the leaders, in cases where it might be expedient, to separate with small detachments, taking distinct lines of march as local circumstances and other occasions might require. [Footnote: The writer is well aware that, in some of the opinions which he has expressed with regard to the black troops of Sierra Leone, he can hardly expect the concurrence of several excellent individuals, among the best friends of the African cause, who are known to be averse to the employment of Negroes in the military service; and he is ready to admit that the practice which has prevailed of enlisting captured Africans is liable to some abuse. Let such abuses be anxiously guarded against by all the means which legislative wisdom can devise; let every charge of misconduct in this respect be rigorously investigated; and if it should appear to be well founded, let it be pursued with the utmost strictness and severity. But let not occasional abuses be urged as valid arguments against the practice itself, if it should be ascertained to be, on the whole, beneficial to the Africans. It has been stated by enlightened and benevolent persons, who have witnessed the state of slavery in the West Indies (and the assertion has every appearance of probability) that the embodying and employment of black troops has had the happiest effect in elevating and improving the Negro character, and in giving a greater degree of importance to that oppressed race. In the instance of Sierra Leone, to which these observations more immediately relate, compare the situation of a captured Negro, when rescued from the horrors of a slave vessel with that of the same man a short time afterwards, when serving as a British soldier! The ordinary condition of human life has nothing similar to this change; it is a transition from the most abject misery to ease, comfort, and comparative dignity.--Add to this, the extreme difficulty (which every unprejudiced enquirer must admit) attending the management and disposal of great numbers of these captured Negroes in a small colony like Sierra Leone; and the utter impossibility, considering their savage ignorance and total want of habits of industry, of providing all of them, or even any tolerable number, with agricultural establishments.]