"I Cannot Close This Letter, Without Apprising You Of A Fact, Which Will Appear Incredible To You.

Can you believe me when I assert, on the most unquestionable authority, that there are merchants here (the letter

Was dated from Liverpool) so heartless and inhuman as to instruct the masters of their vessels who trade to the African coast to refuse any assistance to the expedition of which it may stand in need; to reject all letters that may be sent from the parties connected with it, and, in fine, to hold no communication whatever with the steamers or the brig, does it not startle you, that jealousy and selfishness can go so far? Believe me, I blush at the reflection of a crime so hideous and un-English like as this?" In a postscript, John Lander says, "The fact of the merchants' instructions to the masters of their vessels may be safely depended on. Nothing can be more true. They have gone even farther than I have ventured to hint. They have taken measures to prejudice the minds of the natives against the expedition."

Thus is human life, thus are the interests of science sacrificed on the shrine of a sordid love of gain and pelf. It is true that the merit of the fitting out of the expedition belongs to the enterprising spirit and the liberality of a few Liverpool merchants, but greatly indeed is that merit eclipsed, in a general point of view, when it is considered, that in the same town could be found a set of individuals, who, for the purpose of enabling them to carry on an illegal and infamous traffic, could be the instruments of circumventing the life of an individual, who was nobly employed in the extension of geographical science, and who was perhaps actually laying the foundation of the civilization of the countries through which he might pass, and extending the commercial relations of his country. An indelible stain will it be upon the merchants of Liverpool, who could so far forget that they were Englishmen, as to make a horde of barbarous savages their instruments for the destruction of an expedition by which the general interests of the human race might be promoted, our commercial relations extended, and ultimately, the blessings of Christianity diffused over the dark and unenlightened children of Africa.

As a palliative to the statement of John Lander, and as some relief to the dark picture which we have just exhibited, it must be confessed, that when the circumstances are taken into consideration, which have already been detailed, when Lander first visited the Eboe country, his conduct was not exactly regulated by prudence or policy, in proceeding towards a country, not in the simple guise and unostentatious manner of the solitary traveller, but attended by a force sufficient to excite the fears and jealousy of the native chiefs, and to instil into their suspicious minds the belief, that the travellers, whom they had formerly seen in their country, had returned, equipped with the means of subjugating the country, and reducing the chiefs themselves, perhaps to a state of slavery.

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