It is due to the gentleman who has acted as editor up to the present period, that the publisher should, in parting with him, express that deep feeling of gratitude which his disinterested friendship could not fail to inspire. At the commencement of the Messenger, when the prospect of its success was doubtful, and when many judicious friends augured unfavorably of the enterprise, the late editor volunteered his aid to pilot the frail bark if possible into safe anchorage--nor did he desert it until all doubt of success had ceased. The efforts of that gentleman are the more prized, because they were made at a considerable sacrifice of ease and leisure, in the midst too of avocations sufficiently arduous to occupy the entire attention of most men,--and because they were rendered without hope or expectation of reward. And the publisher embraces this occasion, to declare that the success of the Messenger has been greatly owing to the judicious management of the editorial department by that gentleman. For services of so much value, rendered with no other object than a desire to promote the establishment of a literary periodical in Virginia, the publisher is deeply indebted to him--and the readers of the work will, we doubt not, long remember his efforts in their behalf. To him belongs the merit of having given his disinterested aid in the season of its early feebleness. His successor has but to follow in the path which has thus been marked out by a hardy and skilful literary pioneer. T. W. WHITE, _Publisher and Proprietor_. For the Southern Literary Messenger. SKETCHES OF THE HISTORY And Present Condition of Tripoli, with some accounts of the other Barbary States. No. VI. In the last number of these sketches, it was stated that Hamet "went to Derne in 1809, where he passed the remainder of his life in quiet, as Bey of the two Eastern Provinces." This has been since discovered to be incorrect; within two years afterwards, he was again expelled by the Pasha, for some cause or pretence, and obliged to fly with his family to Egypt, where he died. In October, 1832, a man appeared at the American Consulate in Alexandria, who declared himself to be Mahommed Bey, eldest son of Hamet Caramalli; he stated that his father's family were living in great indigence at Cairo, and his object was to ascertain whether any relief could be expected for them from the United States.