les to face than he, nor did any one of them all show a manlier front.
Not to follow all the distressful details of the founding of the colony, it may be said that the inevitable fever was their chief enemy, even though at one time they had to fight so many natives that the balls from their nine-pounder cannon literally passed through so many bodies as to spend their entire force in that fashion.
Until 1824, the colonists were, on the whole, acting in self-defence. In 1824, no less than fifteen slavers were loading, under the guns, almost, of the colony, and there was a contract between one slave-trader and a native chief by which eight hundred slaves were to be delivered within four months. Thereat the colonists assumed the offensive, attacked the chief who had made this contract, destroyed the slave-pen, released the slaves, and compelled the chief to sign an agreement to abandon the trade.
Following this a slaver settlement called Tradetown, where there were three slave factories and two armed slave-ships, was attacked. The fighting lasted from April 10th to April 12th, inclusive (1824), the settlement was captured, and “the explosion of two hundred kegs of powder consummated the destruction of Tradetown.”
“The annihilation of Tradetown and of the slave factories was a severe blow to the traffic, which was felt as far south as the Bight of Benin,” says Commodore Foote.
This much was done by free colored men. In view of that fact the reader will find the following extracts from publications of the Colonization Society remark-
