MESSAGE

OF THE

PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF LIBERIA

To the Legislature, at the commencement of their session, December, 1862. To the honorable the Senate and the

House of Representatives of the Republic of Liberia:

GENTLEMEN: Nearly nine months absence from the Republic this year, and having returned only a few days previously to the opening of your session, have rendered me almost entirely dependent on my constitutional substitute, for data, on the home affairs of our common country, which I have not had sufficient time to consider, and put in that shape, by amplification, as we have mutually desired. I shall, therefore, make communication to you from time to time during the session, on such matters as I shall deem promotive of the interests of the country.

I have first to invite the attention of the Legislature to the manifold disturbances and outrages committed by the Little Sess Fishermen. The peace and quietude of our leeward coast have been sadly disturbed by them during the past year. They have been accused of not only having made war upon, and killed several of the Niffaw people, without reasonable cause, as was ascertained by the Secretary of the Treasury during his visit of investigation to the leeward this year, but have also monopolized all the portering business along the coast, such as the shipping and unshipping of goods, and the usual services performed by Kroomen on board of trading ships. Fishermen connected with other tribes are compelled to forego the benefits which they would derive from such employment, through fear of the treachery, jealousy, and ill will of the Little Sess Fishermen, who are very numerous, and live on nearly every part of our coast as adventurers. I indulge the hope that the Legislature will, during the present session, devise some plan by which the turbulence of this tribe may be restrained, so that order and peace may again be restored along the coast.

On the 19th of April, the Government schooner Quail arrived from the leeward counties, bringing with her the Commissioners appointed under the act passed at your last session, authorizing the appointment of Commissioners to select a site in the interior for the seat of Government.

Notwithstanding the dry season was far advanced, they were nevertheless commissioned, and sent on their mission. After an absence of seventeen days, they returned to this city, having in their tour selected two sites in the vicinity of Bees' Mountain, in the rear of the Junk Country, either one of which will, they think, meet the object contemplated.

Intelligence was received on the 17th of April of the return to the

Gallinas, in another vessel, of the captain of the Spanish slave schooner Bueneventura Cubana, which was seized in that river by the Quail, June, 1861, and which was subsequently wrested from her by H. B. M. S. Torch. The object of the return of the Spanish captain to the Gallinas, was to procure the slaves purchased with the cargo brought out in the Bueneventura Cubana. The advice boat, steamer Seth Grosvernor, was immediately dispatched to the Gallinas, with the Secretary of the Treasury in her, with instructions to arrest, seize, and bring to this city for adjudication and trial, all vessels and persons that he might find there engaged in the slave trade. His visit resulted in an interview with Prince Manna, the native Chief of Gallinas, who was warned that he would be severely punished if he permitted the slaver to take off a single slave from the Gallinas. As the steamer passed out of the Gallinas river, a glimpse of the Spanish vessel was descried wide in the offing. I am happy to be able to inform the Legislature that the two voyages of the Spanish captain to our coast for a cargo of slaves, were entirely frustrated through the vigilance of this Government, and that every exertion will be used to prevent the native chiefs living within our jurisdiction from holding out inducements to the slave dealer to approach our coast.

The educational interest has had and will continue to have special attention. The common day schools authorized at the last session to be increased and put into operation in each county, were established as early as the several School Committees could engage teachers and procure books. They number in the aggregate sixteen schools, to be increased by the number to be established in Grand Bassa county. Books are very much needed.

Notwithstanding the long and almost unprecedented dry season this year, occasioning the loss of a large number of early crops of grain, and the resowing of others, succeeded suddenly by a heavy and incessant rainy season, causing great damage to the maturing plantations of various products, especially to those of cotton, scores of acres of which were destroyed; yet the agricultural interest is of an encouraging character, admitting of a fair comparison with that of last year. The sugar cane crops increased on the St. Paul's, and the quantity augmented by that grown in the leeward counties. It affords me much pleasure to be able to say that the people of Liberia are paying more attention than ever to the cultivation of the soil, and to the rich products which so readily find a market in foreign countries.

The Government has, during the year, imported six sugar mills, which have been judiciously distributed among the several counties; and it is the intention to import others for the convenience of our farmers, so soon as it shall be practicable.

The actual revenue of the country is insufficient to meet the demands of Government since so many public enterprises have been put on foot. The report of the Secretary of the Treasury will clearly demonstrate this, I invite the special attention of the

Legislature to this subject; and I shall be happy to meet their wishes in any reasonable measures they may adopt for increasing the revenue of the country.

The receips from all sources, including recaptive Afri

can funds, during the fiscal year ending 30th September, 1862, were.....

Total amount of disbursements for the same time

was...

$138,016 42

138,499 29

I will add in this connection, that it is my firm purpose during the remaining year of my incumbency to employ every effort to liquidate all demands now against, and such as may be incurred up to the close of the fiscal year by Government, in order that my successor may, on his induction, be relieved of unpleasant pecuniary embarrassments. To effect this, retrenchment will be indispensable; and as a consequence, several public enterprises must cease, until that object shall have been secured.

And I have to earnestly request that you will cause your appropriation for the fiscal year to harmonize with this policy.

Under the appropriation made at your last session, with a view to develop the iron resources in the vicinity of Careysburg, advances have been made from the Treasury to Charles Deputie, Esq., of Careysburg, who has succeeded, it is said, in demonstrating that the iron ore near that settlement is of superior quality. Samples of the iron smelted from the ore has been submitted to the Government. No formal report, however, has as yet been received from him to enable the Government to determine upon the propriety of making further advances for that object.

Specimens of ore found on the little Cape Mount river by Mr. J. G. J. Barbour, and by him forwarded to the United States to be tested, were, on examination, said to be a rich quality of coal. See Liberia Herald, August 6, 1862.

A revision of some of the judiciary acts is very necessary, in order to define more clearly the jurisdiction of the courts. The Attorney General will readily designate to you those conflicting laws, which, as long as they remain, will keep up a conflict between the superior and inferior courts.

Abraham Hanson, Esq., was received September 2, 1862, and acknowledged as the United States Commercial agent for Monrovia.

By virtue of a resolution adopted by the Legislature of Liberia at their last session, granting the President of Liberia leave of absence from the Republic during the year 1862, or longer, should he deem it necessary for the restoration of his health, and vesting him with special authority, during his absence, to enter into any arrangements, and to transact any business he might deem promotive of the interest of Liberia, I embarked from this place on the 11th of March, for Europe via Harper, and arrived in Liverpool on the 11th of April.

Before leaving Liberia, I had determined that I would extend

my visit to the United States within a few weeks after my arrival in England, provided my progress in the dispatch of the more important public business in Europe, and letters I might receive in England from the United States should justify it. The many difficulties, and at times sore humiliations we had long been subject to in the enforcement of our commercial, revenue, and navigation laws, and in our attempts to suppress the nefarious foreign traffic in human flesh and blood with the aborigines within our jurisdiction, rendered the definite and permanent adjustment with H. M. Government of our territorial claims and boundaries, of paramount importance. Consequently, though I received several letters in Europe from the United States, urging me to extend my visit to that country, and I felt as certain then as I do now, that I would have had a cordial reception by numerous friends and acquaintances there, and that becoming courtesy would have been accorded by the officials of that Republic, yet, I could not see that much good would have resulted from my visit in the present unhappy state of affairs there. I therefore felt unwilling to defer the adjustment of the more important business in England, in order to make a visit of doubtful utility to the United States, especially as my business there could be transacted equally as well by correspondence from England.

In less than a fortnight after my arrival in England, I pesented in person to H. M. Minister of Foreign Affairs, and respectfully pressed the same by argument, a memorandum of the several matters I wished to adjust, and have a clear understanding between the two Governments, before my departure from England.

The first subject was the full recognition of our territorial claims, and fixing the boundaries, especially of that part of our territory lying conterminiously with territory claimed by H. M. Government. I shall transmit to you on the 8th instant copies of the correspondence, with explanatory remarks on the action I had with H. M. Government on that subject during my absence, by which it will appear that H. M. Government having magnanimously acknowledged the just claims of the Government of Liberia to the territory comprehended between the San Pedro river on the southeast, to the river Shebar on the northwest, with the understanding, however, that the northwest boundary cannot be definitively described and laid down, until a survey of the river Jong, and ascertainment shall have been thereby made, whether its course and extent interiorward are sufficient to give us a northwestern boundary of some sixty miles interiorward, otherwise a line as you will see delineated on the map which accompanied the despatch of July 5th, from the foreign office, is to run due north from its head to complete the sixty miles.

A report of the survey fixing this definite northwestern boundary was expected from the Governor of Sierra Leone, in October; and I had hoped, and signified the same to H. M. Government, that it would have arrived timely to have had it accurately laid down by