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The Founding of Liberia 



his sombre diary, modifying the deep religious gloom which 

 earlier and later made his outlook one of great melancholy. 



On July 4th, 1825, the Monrovian volunteers gave a 

 dinner to celebrate United States Independence Day and also 

 to entertain certain American and British guests, among whom 

 was a Captain Ferbin, apparently the master of a trading vessel 

 on the West Coast (who afterwards got into some trouble by 

 his alleged participation in the slave trade). 



The dinner began at 3 p.m., and the repast consisted 

 chiefly of the products of the country — (a fact recorded by 

 Ashmun with justifiable pride in his diary). ^ 



It is mentioned somewhat grimly that two cases of drunken- 

 ness occurred among the fifty diners, " of which the Justices 

 took cognisance the next morning." 



After the terrible fashion then prevailing in Anglo-Saxon 

 America and Britain, the toast list was portentously long, a 

 condition which it is to be hoped caused the justices to temper 

 with mercy their sentences on the inebriate volunteers. 



It was as follows : 



" I. The present President of the United States : the 

 Champion of the People's rights, he deserves the people's 

 honour. 



"2. The Day we commemorate. 



'*3. The Colony of Liberia : may the history of the nation 

 which has founded it become its own. 



" 4. Africa : may it outstrip its oppressors in the race for 

 liberty, intelligence, and piety. 



" 5. The Heroes and Statesmen of American Independence. 



^ Under Ashmun's vigorous management the little settlement had in three 

 years developed a very good local food supply. Ashmun records in his diary the 

 industrious horticulture of a certain Sarah Draper, an American Negress, '• the 

 first woman for whom land deeds were issued in Monrovia." Sarah Draper pro- 

 vided vegetables from her garden all the year round, "generally three kinds." 

 VOL. I 145 10 



