In examining a period comprehending the last forty years, I find no less than six or seven instances of the emancipation of African slaves _in bodies_. The first of these cases occurred at the close of the first American war. A number of slaves had run away from their North American masters and joined the British army. When peace came, the British Government did not know what to do with them. Their services were no longer wanted. To leave them behind to fall again into the power of their masters would have been great cruelty as well as injustice; and as to taking them to England, what could have been done with them there? It was at length determined to give _them their liberty_, and to disband them in Nova Scotia, and to settle them there upon grants of land as _British subjects_ and as _free men_. The Nova Scotians on learning their destination were alarmed. They could not bear the thought of having such a number of black persons among them, and particularly as these understood the use of arms. The Government, however, persevering in its original intention, they were conveyed to Halifax, and distributed from thence into the country. Their number, comprehending men, women, and children, were two thousand and upwards. To gain their livelihood, some of them worked upon little portions of land of their own; others worked as carpenters; others became fishermen; and others worked for hire in other ways. In process of time they raised places of worship of their own, and had ministers of their own from their own body. They led a harmless life, and gained the character of an industrious and honest people from their white neighbours. A few years afterwards the land in Nova Scotia being found too poor to answer, and the climate too cold for their constitutions, a number of them, to the amount of between thirteen and fourteen hundred, volunteered to form a new colony, which was then first thought of, at Sierra Leone. Accordingly, having been conveyed there, they realized the object in view; and they are to be found there, they or their descendants, most of them in independent and some of them in affluent circumstances, at the present day.