joint-stock colonization company be created, the liability of every subscriber to which shall be limited to the amount of his subscription, and that the president of such company, and one-fifth of the directors, shall be appointed by the President of the United States; that for every dollar subscribed and paid in, the government shall loan the company, at five per cent. per annum, an equal amount, the sum to be subscribed in the first place to be limited to $3,000,000, to be increased from time to time, according to the demands for colonization. This would give the company an active capital of $6,000,000. The contrabands, or manumitted slaves, should be then transferred to this company to be transported to Brazil, or such other place as may be agreed upon, and the company to have a claim for their services for three years from the time of their arrival. At the expiration of their apprenticeship the freed negroes to receive a certain amount of land, of which at least five acres shall have been cleared, have a hut on it, and shall be rendered suitable for immediate cultivation at the expense of the company; and the emancipated colonist also to have bestowed upon him certain agricultural implements and dollars in money.

Is this feasible? I have not a doubt of it; and if feasible, then, beyond all peradventure, it is a project well worthy the consideration of the philanthropist, the capitalist, and the governments of the United States and Brazil.

1st. Brazil should, and no doubt would, willingly set apart a tract of country in a healthy locality or localities on the shores of the Amazon or in that region, and convey in fee to the company at least one hundred acres of land for every colonist freed, and a proportionate number of acres for all children born to the colonists during their apprenticeship, who, of course, would be liberated with their parents.

2d. Only one-fifth or some specific portion of the land thus granted should be required to be conveyed to the liberated apprentice; the remainder to belong to the company as profits, to be sold by them to the colonists or whomsoever they please, under certain restrictions, to remunerate it for having cleared a portion of the land for the liberated apprentice, and erected him a hut, and furnished him with implements of industry, &c., &c., in addition to the expense of his transportation to the colony and caring for him during his apprenticeship.

3d. Beyond all question, the value of the labor of the colonist, during his three years of apprenticeship, would quadruple his cost to the company in transporting him to the colony; and thus the company would not only be in a condition to repay its loans from the government of the United States, but to return to the capitalists their entire investment, before the expiration of the manumitted slave's term of apprenticeship! and at the same time be in a condition to add largely to the quantity of land and other gratuities extended to the liberated apprentice.

4th. This project, if applicable and successful in relation to twenty or thirty thousand colonists, would be equally applicable and far more successful when applied to hundreds of thousands.

5th. It would take from our shores our negro population as rapidly as emancipated, without the cost of one dollar to our government, and by simply the loan of a sum which it would cost to transport them to any distant colony.

6th. It would insure to the liberated negro the probationary education so necessary to enable him to enjoy freedom and become a useful citizen of a great empire.

7th. It would be immensely remunerative to the philanthropists who would embark in and, under a certain control from the government, direct its operations. 8th. It would be an inappreciable blessing to the United States, by getting rid of the liberated slave without any future political questions connecting him with the country.

9th. It would be the greatest possible blessing that could be bestowed upon

the freed negro, and accomplish his redemption, and conversion into a freeman, in the shortest conceivable time.

10th. It would save to Brazil her northern provinces, and in the course of a very few years add a million of free, experienced, and orderly laborers to aid in developing her inexhaustible resources.

11th. It would, in process of time, furnish the markets of the world with a never-failing supply of cotton and sugar, the produce of free labor.

I submit to your better judgment this rough outline of a project, so little digested and so hastily thrown together, that while no one of its details would probably stand the test of a week's or even a day's careful consideration by myself, contains a general idea which good men will, I am sure, hasten to ponder upon, and in the end work out therefrom a great and noble project. And in order that you and others may have the subject under consideration, and not because I wish my crude ideas to be adopted, or even believe them proper to be adopted, I have ventured to bring the matter before you. Experience has taught me that, in all human affairs, it is better to have before you a plan for the mind to seize upon, although you know at starting that every fraction of such plan must succumb to investigation and consideration as the process of ratiocination progresses. And I repeat that, so far from having any idea that my plan is a good one, I do not doubt that upon reflection I should reject every detail, adhering only to the following general ideas:

1st. It is indispensable to the liberated negro that he should be transferred beyond the limits of the United States while in the transition state of an “apprentice," and previously to his being finally emancipated after a certain probationary term of labor in his new home.

2d. The United States could and should transport all her liberated slaves as apprentices" to an eligible country, where, by their own labor, they can remunerate those who confer upon them this blessing.

3d. The knowledge of this fact, demonstrated by discussion and experiment, would hasten the entire abolition of slavery in the United States.

4th. It is not only the interest of the United States, and absolutely necessary for her internal tranquillity, that she should get rid of the institution of slavery, but, in consequence of the prejudices of our people against the African race, it is indispensable that the liberated negro should be transported beyond our borders, because he can never, with us, enjoy social or political equality.

5th. Brazil is, of all others, the country to which he should be conveyed, because here no such prejudices exist; and here the constitution, the law, and public opinion, as well as practical experience, have paved the way for the ele vation of the negro to any position, social or political, for which his talents and education may have qualified him.

6th. Brazil is perishing for want of labor. The slave trade has terminated, never to be revived; so that all supply from that source has ceased. Bad colonization laws and prejudices which it will take years to conquer keep away the European laborer, and before these difficulties can be overcome the disease will have reached a climax; and at this juncture the government of the United States, acting under the control of a higher power, having resolved to get rid of its greatest curse, can offer to Brazil that which she most desires, and at the same time free from bondage hundreds of thousands of our fellow men who have been born in slavery, to elevate them to the condition of freemen in a land where free labor is a necessity; and where free labor only, and the attachment of the laborer to the soil, can prevent the country relapsing into the barbarism which preceded its discovery by the European.

7th. To accomplish all this, God has made it alike the interest of the United States and Brazil to act in concert. The fruit is ripe and only awaits the plucking. The President and the United States and the Secretary of State have but to say the word, and the initiative of a great work will be taken, which, in its

results, cannot fail to confer incalculable benefits upon the United States, Brazil, and millions of the African race.

In conclusion, I would remark that my reasons for suggesting a chartered company for this great work are

1st. That it is desirable, as far as possible, to separate the government from all duties not legitimately or necessarily within its sphere, and to get rid of the jobbing and patronage which would grow out of this enormous undertaking.

2d. To enlist the enterprise, talent, good feeling, and capital of the world in the greatest work ever undertaken by man, being no less than the liberation of millions of slaves, transplanting them to a new home, watching over and caring for them during a term of pupilage, fitting them for freedom, and finally bestowing upon them that great boon when in a condition to appreciate and enjoy it. 3d. Because the government of Brazil might much prefer to deal with a company to giving to any foreign government the rights and privileges which it would be absolutely necessary to possess, and which, if conferred upon a company, could, and necessarily should, be regulated and guaranteed by treaty between the United States and Brazil.

But these are only crude notions. If wiser men should, upon reflection, deem it better, or more politic, or more expedient, that the government of the United States should keep the matter exclusively in its own hands, so be it. Only let it be understood from the start that the matter can be so arranged that the liberated slave shall, by a wise direction of his energies, be made to pay for transportation to his new home and his education for the discharge of the duties of a freeman. The whole subject is one of the greatest magnitude that ever occupied the thoughts, or called forth the energies of man, and wisely cared for, under the providence of God, cannot fail of success. It is quite impossible that in a case where the giver, the receiver, and the party or thing bestowed, are all to be palpably and immensely benefitedwhere injury cannot possibly result to either, and where there can be no rivalry or jealousy, and where good only, and the greatest good, must accrue to all-it is impossible, I say, that where such are to be the fruits of a project, to look upon its failure as within the scope of probabilities, or even of possibilities. And such is the project of negro colonization from the United States in Brazil, his education there at his own expense, and his becoming a free citizen of a great empire. The United States will be blessed by his absence, and the riddance of a curse which has wellnigh destroyed her; Brazil will receive precisely the species of laborers and citizens best calculated to develop her resources and make her one of the great powers of the earth; and the miserable, ignorant, and down-trodden slave, who is now a mere chattel, with body and soul alike uncared for, will have his shackles knocked off, be liberated, educated for freedom, and have bestowed upon him the great boon of personal liberty.

All which is hastily and crudely submitted, with most profound respect, to the better judgments and more deliberate consideration of those in authority, by their obedient servant,

Hon. WILLIAM H. SEWARD,

J. WATSON WEBB.

Secretary of State.

On the necessity of supplying Brazil with labor, and the policy of procuring free black labor from the United States.

The great want of Brazil at this day is labor. From the character of her climate and soil black labor is preferable to white; and because free labor is more stationary, and cannot be removed from the regions to which it has accom

modated itself, free black labor, in a national point of view, is preferable to slave labor.

The demand for labor upon the coffee plantations and in the southern provinces of Brazil, generally, is gradually depopulating the northern provinces, because the labor there, being slave labor, the owner of it may transfer and sell it whenever he pleases; and according to the well-established principles of political economy, labor, like every other merchantable commodity, will neces sarily flow where it commands the highest price. Hence, according to the laws of demand and supply, the labor of the northern provinces being slave labor, and transportable at the will of the owner, it follows, as an irresistible conclusion, that just as the demand for labor increases in the southern provinces, and the price of the slave advances, that demand will be supplied by transferring the slave of the northern provinces to the regions where the greater demand and consequent higher prices exist. The consequences are inevitable, and to Brazil most disastrous, being no less than the depopulation of the northern provinces, and their relapsing into the state of barbarism from which they were rescued by African slave labor.

Were it the more temperate and genial southern provinces of the empire which are threatened with this depopulation, time would remedy the evil; because in process of time the government and people of Brazil will come to perceive the absolute necessity of passing such wise and liberal colonization laws as will insure emigration and a supply of white free labor from the too densely populated regions of Europe. But, unfortunately, not so in regard to those northern provinces of this vast empire, lying under and in the regions of the tropics, whose undeveloped resources could afford employment to all the unemployed labor of the world, and in time render Brazil the richest and the greatest among the kingdoms of the earth. They cannot be redeemed and cultivated by white labor. Suffer them once to become depopulated, and how is the evil to be remedied and its consequences to be averted? The African slave trade can never again supply the negro labor alone suited to the region; and white labor is quite out of the question. Free negro labor, then, is the only possible mode of averting from Brazil the great evil with which she is threatened, and the gradual but certain approach of which does not appear to have awakened generally the anxiety and alarm it is so well calculated to excite. And the great author of all good appears to have placed within the grasp of Brazil the remedy which of all others is alone calculated to avert from her the threatened evil.

God has built up in the hearts of the people of the United States of America, whose soil and climate is uncongenial to slave labor, a horror of the institution of slavery, which has resulted in the greatest civil war the world has ever witnessed, and which can never be brought to a close without the emancipation of at least a million of slaves within the next five years, and of the whole four millions within a reasonable period. Time and circumstances, not necessary to be considered in this memorial, have produced prejudices between the white and black races in the United States, which, to the honor of Brazil, do not exist here, and which render it absolutely impossible that the two races should live together on terms of social and political equality. When manumitted, therefore, there exists an absolute necessity that the freed negro should be transported beyond the jurisdiction of the United States, where he can never enjoy political or social equality. The negro thus to be manumitted has been trained to labor, is docile and tractable, but sighs for freedom. And God, in his infinite wisdom and mercy, has rendered it the policy and the interest of the United States and Brazil to secure to him that freedom. Brazil is absolutely suffering for labor. Four millions of negroes educated to labor, each one of whom is worth three native Africans, are sighing for freedom, and ready to purchase it on the genial soil and under the liberal laws and institutions of Brazil.

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The United States stand ready to throw on the instant from ten to fifty thousand of her experienced and educated laborers upon the soil of Brazil without cost and without price, if Brazil will but open wide her arms to receive them and provide for their future comfort.

Most assuredly the finger of providence is manifest in this extraordinary combination of causes, which gives at one and the same moment, and almost without cost to the United States or Brazil—

1st. The riddance by the United States of a population which she is ready to free from bondage by the expenditure of hundreds of millions of dollars. 2d. A genial home for the emancipated negro, where, by a short apprenticeship, he can secure to himself freedom, political and social equality, and pecuniary prosperity.

3d. To Brazil a supply of necessary and experienced labor at a moment when that necessity is pressing most severely upon her industry and prosperity. The first great object of Brazil should be to secure to herself this proffered labor; and the modus operandi of doing so it is the purpose of this paper to indicate. Having accomplished this object, which, in her wisdom, I think Brazil cannot omit to do, her next object should be to arrest the process of depopulation now going on from the northern provinces, by directing the first importations of partly emancipated negroes or "apprentices" from the United States to the supplying of the demand for labor in the southern provinces of the empire. And to do this, she has only to give freely of her wild lands, now utterly valueless to her, and forever to remain so, unless she places upon them the laborer for their cultivation. And if that laborer is to become a freeproper man and a citizen of the empire, so much the better for her future prosperity and greatness.

Brazil, at this time, with a foresight and liberality unprecedented, has devised and is constructing a system of internal improvements which commands the admiration of the world. The government loans its credit to do what individual enterprise could not accomplish, and freely guarantees satisfactory results to the capitalists of Europe who build her railroads. But it is not unknown to the statesman of Brazil that the far-seeing and shrewd capitalist has already halted in his desire to invest in the stock of her railroads, because, as he alleges with too much apparent truth, that after they are completed and have opened to commerce the finest coffee, sugar, and cotton regions in the world, the absence of laborers to cultivate and produce these great staples will leave her railroads without employment for a tithe of their capacity, and thus render them almost valueless, instead of largely remunerative. It is all-important, then, to the credit as well as the prosperity of Brazil, that a very large laboring population should immediately be thrown into the rich agricultural regions whence her railroads are directed, and from which, when they are completed, there will be but little or no traffic for them, because there will be but little agricultural product to transport. To draw the labor for agriculture, in this quarter, from the more northern provinces would be a fatal error; and, therefore, to prevent or arrest the drain from thence already existing is a matter of primary importance, which can only be accomplished by the immediate introduction of free white or black labor.

Of the general and almost universal progress of evil growing out of the existing demand for labor it is unncessary to speak. Every wise man in Brazil well knows that since the suppression of the slave trade and the cessation of a supply of labor through that channel the value of a slave has nearly quadrupled, and the actual value of labor has increased at least two hundred per cent. As an inevitable result, and in strict accordance with the principles of political economy, all the necessaries of life have advanced in nearly the same ratio. The consequence is, that the masses are daily becoming poorer, and in time this state of things must brood discontent with the government, whether it be or be