very near to the place where he was sent to carry on his work. Every white man is surrounded by hundreds or thousands of black men, and is in a position not only of great responsibility but of great personal danger and of great difficulty, and there may have been here and there a default on the part of now one and now another of the officers in the employ of the Congo Free State. It has not been the fault of that State, for from time to time orders have been issued to the officers of the Free State, by which it has been attempted to prevent any sort of misconduct, and there have been administrative orders by which severe punishments have been inflicted on the natives for cannibalism or for the mutilation of persons who have been killed in battle, and this amelioration of the condition of the people has been going on with great success. Captain Burrows, who wrote against Captain De Keyser these most atrocious libels, has been on two occasions in the employment of the Congo Free State. He was employed there from June, 1894, until September, 1897. He never had an opportunity of seeing or knowing the character of the work which Captain De Keyser did, for they were together only fourteen days in the year 1897. But from 1894 to 1897 Captain Burrows was out in the Congo Free State. He came back to Europe in 1897, and the first interesting circumstance about him is that he became at once the champion of the Congo Free State against allegations made by Captain Salusbury. In 1896 Captain Salusbury had made accusations against certain officers of the Congo Free State, and one of his allegations had been that there were mutilations—hand-cutting and the like. Captain Burrows made himself the defender of the Congo Free State and of its administration. He had had four years’ experience, and he sought an interview with the _Étoile Belge_, and had a conversation with the representative of that newspaper, which was published; and you will find in a letter from Captain Burrows that he takes to himself the credit for what he had done in getting rid of, or answering, the accusations of Captain Salusbury. I will read a line or two from this statement: “As for his accusations,”—that is, Captain Salusbury’s accusations against the Congo State and the Belgian officers who employ him,—“they fail from the outset. It is without any compulsion that the natives enlist in the public forces. The harvest of ivory and caoutchouc gives rise to no atrocity. I have witnessed none of the odious deeds related by Captain Salusbury, and they certainly would have come to my knowledge if they had been real. I say this for the simple reason that it is true.” Then at the end he says as to the action of the Government: “With such accounts one is silent instead of becoming an accuser. I do not pretend that all is perfect at Congo. It certainly commits errors