The commerce of the Colony, in 1831, greatly exceeded that of any former year; within that period, forty-six vessels visited the port of Monrovia, and the exports were nearly $90,000. But from the last Report we learn that, while fifty-nine vessels had visited the port during the year preceding last May, the exports during the same period, (consisting chiefly of camwood, ivory, palm-oil, tortoise-shell and gold,) amounted to $125,549 16--of imports, to $80,000--and the merchandise and produce on hand on the 1st of January, 1832, to $47,000. New avenues have been recently opened with the interior tribes. Caravans from a considerable distance have visited the country. The Dey people, who number from six to eight thousand, occupying the coast immediately north of Monrovia, have in treaty agreed to allow a free passage to the Colony through their territories. There is now a commercial connexion extending from our settlement even to the borders of Foota Jallo.
It perhaps sufficiently indicates the moral condition of the Colony, that three churches have been erected during the past year; and that there are now six day schools for children, and one evening school for adults, comprising in all two hundred and twenty-six pupils. Two female schools, taught by well-qualified teachers, whose salaries are paid by ladies of Philadelphia, are attended by ninety-nine pupils. Among the re-captured Africans, also, a school is about to commence, under the patronage of the same ladies; and a Sunday school already exists. Towards the foundation of a high school, $2,000 have been recently given by Mr. Sheldon, of New York, and $400 by the Hon. C. F. Mercer, of Virginia. The Massachusetts State Society, at its last annual meeting, voted to appropriate $400 per annum, for the salary of a competent male instructer at Liberia, and half that sum for a female. This is well. It is more important to establish thoroughly the moral and intellectual character of the Colony, and especially of the rising generation, than even to extend the settlements themselves. The managers have taken a view of this subject, which merits the warmest sanction of all the friends of education, the friends of republicanism, the friends of freedom and truth. Whatever be the _number_ of the emigrants, let their _character_ be such, or let it be made such, as may serve fitly for the foundation-stone whereon, in after times, shall rest the firmest liberties of that continent, and the noblest glory of this. Slow though the building of the edifice may be,--and so has been the growth of every empire under heaven,--let it be sure, and let it be strong. No man will inquire, a century hence, how many colonists were carried out in any given twelve-mouth. Let it be built for the use of posterity, and for the praise of history. Let it be raised as the pyramids were raised, and it shall stand as the pyramids have stood. The light of orient civilization shall shine again, like the sunrise, upon its sides; and the last rays of freedom’s western orb, many an age hence, when our own republic may live but in name, shall still “linger and play on its summits.”