Page:A memoir of Granville Sharp.djvu/77

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GRANVILLE SHARP.
73

as well as to any of my own more recent tracts, which may fall in their way, especially to "Prejudice Vincible, by better means than slavery and exile."

3d. A fair comparison between Sierra Leone and Liberia.

Sierra Leone was provided as a place of refuge, not for Englishmen, but for poor strangers most of whom were Africans. Liberia was provided for people, almost all of whom were born and bred in the United States, and are therefore as truly Americans as any other natives of that country.

The settlers of Sierra Leone, were distressed in England, by the distant colonial wickedness (of which the United States largely partook, slavery in the United States being coadjutor in it with West Indian slavery) which made them exiles, and with the exuberant native English population, which left little or no demand for their labor. The settlers of Liberia were distressed at home, by the inflated and iniquitious heart of their country, refusing them honest employments, despising them as "underlings" and goading them to exile, as the only means of honor and of happiness. The founders of Sierra Leone, were the servants in love of the settlers. The founders of Liberia (with two or three exceptions) were the slanderers and despisers of the settlers, till they could get them to a sufficient distance.

The founders of Sierra Leone, contemplated removing those only who were really in distress in England from providential circumstances, or who, being Africans, were anxious to return to their native country: holding those who chose to remain, as honored and as welcome in England as any of the rest of its inhabitants. The founders of Liberia contemplated removing, a whole people, as they may be called (the free colored people of the United States) some of whom were wealthy—some of whom were highly cultivated—some of whom were amongst the most precious jewels in their country, of the Lord of hosts—many of whom were in independant circumstances, and all of whom taking them as a body, might have been most happy and useful at home—and why then remove them? Why, to