receive any
more provisions out of the public store till they earned them. Six
days later the Agent ordered the rations of the offending persons to
be stopped. Next morning a few[93] of the colonists assembled at the
Agency House and vociferously demanded the Agent to rescind his
order. Ashmun was immovable. The colonists straightway hastened to the
storehouse where rations for the week were then being issued and each
seized a store of provisions and went home.[94] Lott Cary had no small
influence and share in this seditious proceeding.[95] Toward evening,
the Agent addressed a circular "to all the colonists" declaring that
the impropriety of the morning's act would be communicated to the
board. He further exhorted all to go to work and not to commit such an
offence again for their sakes in this world or in the one to come.
Lott Cary was not to perform any of his ministerial functions "till
time and circumstances shall have evidenced the deepness and sincerity
of his repentance."[96] Gurley states that the leaders of the
sedition, led by Lott Cary, almost "immediately confessed and
deplored" their error.[97]

It seemed in 1824 that the affair of the previous year would be
repeated when, on March 17, the rations were reduced one half. The act
was viewed by the colonists as oppression and they openly reproached
Ashmun. Through all of this period, the spirit of disorganization was
working so that the colonists furnished little support towards
developing the government.[98]

In communicating the account of the disturbances to the board, Ashmun
wrote, March 15, that "the services rendered by Lott Cary in the
Colony, who has with very few (and those recent exceptions), done
honor to the selection of the Baptist Missionary Society, under whose
auspices he was sent out to Africa, entitle his agency in this affair,
to the most indulgent construction which it will bear. The hand which
records the lawless transaction, would long since have been cold in
the grave, had it not been for the unwearied and painful attentions of
this individual rendered at all hours--of every description--and
continued several months."[99]

The General Missionary Convention was influenced very little, if any,
by the report, if, indeed, they had received it officially. At the
annual meeting of the Board of Managers, April, 1824, the committee on
the African mission had "no hesitation in recommending a careful
regard to this mission, which though it m