peared in this colony; nor can we learn from the natives, that the calamity of a sweeping sickness ever yet visited this part of the continent. But the change from a temperate to a tropical country is a great one — too great not to affect the health more or less, and in the cases of old people, and very young people, it often causes death. In the early years of the colony, want of good houses, the great fatigues and dangers of the settlers, their irregular mode of living, and the hardships and discouragements they met with, greatly helped the other causes of sickness, which prevailed to an alarming extent, and were attended with great mortality. But we look back to those times as a season of trial long past, and nearly forgotten. Our houses and circumstances are now comfortable; and for the last two or three years not one person in forty, from the middle and southern states, has died from the change of climate.
"A more fertile soil, and a more productive country, so fas as it is cultivated, there is not, we believe, on the face of the earth. Its hills and its plains are covered with a verdure which never fades; the productions of nature keep on in their growth through all seasons of the year. Even the natives of the country, almost without farming tools, without skill, and with very little labor, make more grain and vegetables than they can consume, and often more than they can sell.
"Add to all this, we have no dreary winter here, for one-half the year, to destroy the products of the other half. Nature is constantly renewing herself, and is also constantly pouring her treasures all the year round in the laps of the industrious. We could say on this subject more, but we are afraid of exciting too highly the hopes of the imprudent. Such persons, we think, will do well to keep their rented cellars, and earn their twenty-five cents a day at their wheelbarrow, in the commercial towns of America, and stay where they are. It is only the industrious and virtuous that we can point to independence, and plenty, and happiness in this country.
"Truly, we have a goodly heritage; and if there is any thing lacking in the character or condition of the people of this colony, it can never be charged to the account of the country; it must be the fruit of our own mismanagement, or slothfulness, or vices. But from all these evils we confide in Him to whom we are indebted for our blessings, to preserve us. It is the topic of our weekly and daily thanksgiving to Almighty God, both in public and private, and He knows with what sincerity we were conducted, by His providence, to this shore. Such great favors, in so short a time, and mixed with so few trials, are to be ascribed to nothing but His special blessing. This we acknowledge. We only want the gratitude which such signal favors call for. Nor are we willing to close this paper, without adding a heartfelt testimonial to the deep obligations we owe to our American patrons and best earthly benefactors, whose wisdom pointed us to this home of our nation, and whose active and persevering benevolence enabled us to reach it. Judge, then, of the feelings with which we hear the motives and doings of the Colonization Society traduced — and that, too, by men too ignorant to know what the society has already accomplished; too weak to look through its plans and intentions; or
