and to have a ready communication
with Europeans, and especially with the English. In other portions of
Africa important movements are also going on, most gratifying to the
friends of humanity and religion.

The United States of America, as a nation, is about to incorporate with
her dominions the whole coast of Africa on Cape Palmas to the borders of
the Gallinas--a fertile and healthy part of that continent, and wherein
several settlements have of late years been made by the free people of
colour from those states. This effected, there will hardly remain a spot
of any consequence in Tropical Africa worth looking after for Great
Britain to plant her foot, either for the purpose of obtaining labourers
for her West Indian colonies, or to extend agriculture and commerce with
Africa. The present British Tropical African possessions have been, and
are, very badly selected for any one of the purposes alluded to, or for
extending political power and influence in Africa. Still much more may
be made of them than has ever hitherto been done.

But there is a still higher and more important consideration as regards
Africa alone--the eternal salvation of her people. This consideration is
addressed to the rulers of a Christian nation. The appeal cannot fall on
deaf ears. The debt which Great Britain owes to Africa, it is
undeniable, is incalculably great. The sooner it is put in course of
liquidation the better. To spread Christianity throughout Africa can
only atone for the past. Our duty as Christians, and our interests as
men, call on us to undertake the work. It is the cause, the safety, the
improvement, and the salvation of a large portion of the human race; it
is the cause of our country, the cause of our colonies, the cause of
truth, the cause of justice, the cause of Christianity, the cause and
the pleading of a Christian nation--and a cause like this cannot plead
in vain.

To secure these important objects no great or immediate expenditure is
necessary; nay, if properly gone about, a saving in the present African
expenditure may be effected.

JAMES MACQUEEN.
LONDON, _3d May 1844_.

FOOTNOTES:

{A} This bend is represented in a map constructed in Paris, and said to
be from information obtained in a second voyage; but no such bend is
indicated in the journal of the original voyage by Captain Selim.

{B} Under date Yaush, September 21, 1842, Dr Beke states the curious and
important fact, that the people of Enarea