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gratuitously, if the concession in favor of that other State shall have been gratuitous, or in return for a compensation as nearly as possible of proportionate value and effect, to be adjusted by mutual agreement, if the concession shall have been conditional.

ARTICLE VII.

Each contracting party may appoint consuls for the protection of trade, to reside in the dominions of the other; but no such consul shall enter upon the exercise of his functions until he shall have been approved and admitted, in the usual form, by the Government of the country to which he is sent.

ARTICLE VIII.

The United States Government engages never to interfere, unless solicited by the Government of Liberia, in the affairs between the aboriginal inhabitants and the Government of the Republic of Liberia, in the jurisdiction and territories of the Republic. Should any United States citizens suffer loss, in person or property, from violence by the aboriginal inhabitants, and the Government of the Republic of Liberia should not be able to bring the aggressor to justice, the United States Government engages, a requisition having been first made therefor by the Liberian Government, to lend such aid as may be required. Citizens of the United States residing in the territories of the Republic of Liberia are desired to abstain from all such intercourse with the aboriginal inhabitants as will tend to the violation of law and a disturbance of the peace of the country.

ARTICLE IX.

The present treaty shall be ratified, and the ratifications exchanged at London, within the space of nine months from the date hereof. In testimony whereof, the Plenipotentiaries before mentioned have hereto subscribed their names and affixed their seals. Done at London the twenty-first day of October, in the year one thousand eight hundred and sixty-two.

CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS. [SEAL.]
STEPHEN ALLEN BENSON. [SEAL.]

And whereas the said treaty has been duly ratified on both parts, and the respective ratifications of the same were exchanged at London on the tenth ultimo, by Charles Francis Adams, Esq., Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary of the United States at the Court of St. James, and Gerard Ralston, Esq., Consul General and Commissioner for and on behalf of the Republic of Liberia, on the part of their respective Governments:

Now, therefore, be it known, that I, ABRAHAM LINCOLN, President of the United States of America, have caused the said treaty to be

made public, to the end that the same, and every clause and article thereof, may be observed and fulfilled, with good faith by the United States and the citizens thereof.

In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand, and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the city of Washington, this eighteenth day of March, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and [L. S.] sixty-three, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty-seventh.

By the President:

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State.

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AMERICAN GEOGRAPHICAL AND STATISTICAL SOCIETY.

Western Equatorial Africa.

A monthly meeting of the American Geographical and Statistical Society was recently held at Clinton Hall, New York. Rev. Albert Bushnell read a very interesting paper on Equatorial Western Africa, in which region he has resided as a missionary for the past twenty years. He gave a graphic sketch of the rivers, lakes, mountains, climate, resources, and general characteristics of the country and of the character of the natives. The region he described extends 150 miles inland, and about 400 miles north and south on either side of the equator, on the western coast. The principal rivers are the Gaboon, the Congo, and the Niger. North of the equator the seasons are two, the wet and the dry. During the wet season, the showers are so copious that the rain flows almost literally in streams. The hottest season is in December and January, and the extreme range of the thermometer is from seventy to ninety-eight degrees. South of the equator the rainy season is not so distinctly marked, and the principal peculiarity is the smoky season, when the air is so filled with fog that it is impossible to see but a short distance, and everything wears a gloomy appearance. The climate is malarious to foreigners, but is not prejudicial to the natives. Though the climate is insalubrious, yet after having the necessary appliances, there are generally no fatal results.

The use of quinine to prevent fevers and to cure them is found extremely beneficial. The elevated interior, not yet explored by foreigners, Mr. Bushnell thinks is very healthful. The forests of the high regions, away from the rivers, he described as extremely luxuriant and beautiful. The cassada plant, the staff of life to the natives, grows there in abundance. There might be grown also cotton, of medium quality. The agricultural products of the country are very valuable, and include nearly all grown in the tropics, but the natives have a contempt for agriculture, and are fond of trade. The speaker gave a graphic description of the blighting effects of

the slave trade upon that region. The bones and sinews, bodies and souls of men, women and children had been almost the only export, and tribe after tribe had been swallowed up in it. Of its horrors we could have, he said, but the faintest conception-eternity only would reveal the bloody picture. The vessels engaged in the trade had been mostly American, and there were eighteen American slave factories on the Congo river. Large quantities of palm oil were of late being exported, and its production could be increased almost indefinitely. Though immense numbers of elephants were yearly slaughtered for the ivory they furnished, there was no fear of the ivory being exhausted.

The speaker said that instead of a region of pestilence, as was generally represented, it was a goodly land, with great agricultural and commercial resources. When the slave trade shall have been entirely suppressed under the benign and stimulating influence of Christianity; when civilization will develope her present resources they will be immensely valuable. Though it was not his purpose, the speaker said, to treat of the ethnology of that region, he would state that he found some of the finest specimens of the African there, and that the inhabitants would be found as susceptible of intellectual and moral improvement, and as high a state of civilization, as perhaps any other people within the tropics. The territory in the interior had never been explored farther than eight hundred miles from the coast, and of the region beyond we have no certain knowledge. From all that he had seen and had been enabled to learn, he confidently believed that there will be found an elevated, healthful, and densely populated region, the fairest part of the continent. Ten different languages of tribes had been reduced to writing by the missionaries. In the course of his remarks, Mr. Bushnell intimated that Du Chaillu had been no farther in the interior than the missionaries, and said that the first specimen of the gorilla brought from that region was sent to this country twenty years ago by himself, and was now in the keeping of a scientific society in Philadelphia.

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[From the American Messenger.]

THE WALDENSES-GEN. BECKWITH.

General Beckwith's loss of a leg on the battle-field of Waterloo was, under God, the saving of his soul; for it led him to the Bible and to the Saviour. While awaiting an interview with the Duke of Wellington in Apsley-house, Gilly's work on the Waldensian valleys met his eye, and its subsequent perusal fired him with the one idea to which his energies and resources were thenceforward for a third of a century concecrated the uplifting of a martyr-people.

A few hours after his arrival at La Tour, in 1827, Colonel Beckwith began bis investigation of the condition of the Vaudois schools, till then held only in dilapidated structure open to wind and rain, or in stables. He instantly

ordered the repairing and remodling of the first school-house at his own expense, making it a model for all the others, and wisely stimulating the rivalry and liberality of the several parishes by supplementing their exertions with adequate personal gifts.

The rapid advance in everything good among the Waldenses dates from that period. In a few years, comfortable shool-houses and competent teachers were to be found along all those valleys, and on all the peopled hill sides, where this secluded and oppressed people dwell. His liberal pension was so used as to evoke from poverty itself its benefactions; for he was wise enough to perceive that privileges are prized when they cost something. We have not space for the details of General Beckwith's educational and religious efforts. They may be summed up thus: One hundred and fortyfour school-houses repaired or built; teachers instructed in the normalschools of Switzerland; fifteen communal school-houses rebuilt; a college for young men, and a boarding school for young women, established and endowed; six houses for professors erected and paid for; the beautiful church at Turin built for the Waldensian Mission; and a half dozen Vaudois students educated at his expense in Tuscany to prepare for Italian evangelization, when the hour of emancipation should enable the martyr-people to become a missionary people.

The general lived to witness the fruits of his self-sacrificing labors in the advancing intelligence, in the love and gratitude, the freedom and piety of the Waldensian people. We recall his portrait on the wall of every cottage or public-house in the valleys; the wooden leg, the gun and dog, and the benevolent face on which none could look without a benediction. In a land where every habitation has its " Madonna," General Beckwith's picture is styled, half playfully, "The Madonna of the Valleys." As long as Vaudois Christianity shall live, and widely as it may spread, General Beckwith will be held in grateful remembrance; and throughout the Christian world his wise and earnest devotion to the highest welfare of an oppressed people, of another language and another sect than his own, will justly be regarded as one of the brightest examples of Christian philanthropy in human annals.

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Meeting of the New Jersey Colonization Society.

The 31st Annual Meeting of the New Jersey Colonization Society was held pursuant to notice, on Wednesday, the 11th inst., at the Managers' Room, 253 Broad street, Newark, the President, Richard T. Haines, Esq., in the Chair. The Managers' Report, after alluding to the death of six of the officers of the Society, ardent friends of the Colonization cause, viz: Messrs. Frelinghuysen, Miller, Chetwood, Condit, Green and Jackson, proclaims the unabated interest of the Board in the objects of the Institution, and their belief that it is the best means of meliorating the condition of the colored race, and at the same time diffusing christianity and civilization in Africa.

They represent the Republic of Liberia as being in a very prosperous con

dition, and state that 25 valuable emigrants from this State have gone there under the auspices of the Society since its last meeting, who are happy in their new condition. A number more have expressed a wish to go in May, who will be duly assisted.

The Treasurer's Report shows that there was $342 44 in the Treasury Jan. 1, 1862, and $336 59 received during the year from the following churches and individuals, viz:

2d Reformed Dutch Church, Newark, $10 81; a friend, $3 00; J. W. Lum, $3 00; 1st Presbyterian Church, Newark, $45 00; 3d Presbyterian Church, Newark, $83 12; 1st Reformed Dutch Church, New Brunswick, $20 00; 1st Presbyterian Church, Elizabeth, $37 20; South Park Church, Newark, $33 00; Reformed Dutch Church, 6 Mile Run, $16 88; refunded by Mr. Orcutt, $7 00; 2d Reformed Dutch Church, Somerville, $12 55; 2d Presbyterian Church, Orange, $26 46; 2d Presbyterian Church, Newark, $38 57. Paid out for the transportation of emigrants, expenses of the Society, and to the American Colonization Society, $620 84, leaving balance $58 19, to which is to be added a collection of $22 25 from the 1st Presbyterian Church, Princeton.

A Committee appointed to nominate officers for the ensuing year, reported the names of the following gentlemen, who were unanimously elected, after which the Society adjourned:

OFFICERS.

PRESIDENT Richard T. Haines, Esq.

VICE PRESIDENTS-Hon. Jos. C. Hornblower, Hon. Richard S. Field, Hon. B. Williamson, Hon. G. F. Fort, Hon. P. D. Vroom, Abm. Browning, Esq., Hon. Jos. Porter, Edward Battle, Esq., Hon. Wm. P. Robeson, Wm. Rankin, Esq., Hon. Martin Ryerson, Rt. Rev. Bishop Odenheimer, Hon. Wm. A. Newall, Hon. Daniel Haines, Hon. L. Q. C. Elmer, Rev. J. M. MacDonald, D. D., Hon. Charles S. Olden, Hon. Edward W. Whelpley, Joseph P. Bradley, Esq., Rev. Samuel B. How, D. D., Hon. Dudley S. Gregory, Hon. G. T. Cobb.

MANAGERS Rev. John McLean, D. D., Rev. David Magie, D. D., John R. Davison, Esq., Rev. Dr. Hall, Rev. James P. Wilson, D. D., Rev. Elijah R. Craven, D. D., Rev. Jonathan F. Stearns, Rev. Gustavus Abeel, D. D., Rev. J. Few Smith, D. D., Rev. John Crowell, N. N. Halsted, Esq., Rev. Hugh P. Wilson, D. D., Rev. S. Beach Jones, Rev. Samuel A. Clarke, Rev. Edward P. Terhune, Rev. Wm. H. Hornblower, D D., Rev. Wm. H. Steele, Rev. J. M. Tuttle, Rev. R. K. Rogers, D. D., Rev. Jacob C. Sears, Rev. Alfred Stubbs, Dr. Wm. G. Lord, Rev. Dr. Eccleston, Fred. T. Frelinghuysen, Esq., Rev. Edward Kempshall, Rev. J. T. Crane, D. D., Rev. M. E. Ellison, Rev. Dr. Mesick, Rev. Dr. Nichols, Rev. Paul Van Cleef, Rev. R. L. Dashiell.

CORRESPONDING AND RECORDING SECRETARY-L. A. Smith, M. D.
TREASURER-M. W. Day, Esq., Cashier Mechanics' Bank, Newark.

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LIBERIAN CORRESPONDENCE.

REV. JOHN SEYS.

I am here safely deposited on terra firma, and in the midst of a dear people who have given me as cordial and as hearty a welcome now as I received twenty-eight years ago, when I first landed on their shores. We arrived on Christmas day, and I came on shore at 44 P. M. Our passage was a short and pleasant one, of thirty-five days from Cape Henry, and would have been less, but the ship, the noble and commodious M. C. Stevens, the Colonization Society's packet, had to call at the Cape de Verde Islands, which occasioned a delay of two days. No one met me and greeted me more cordially and

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