Liberia ^ 



Dr. Hall returned again to Monrovia in 1833 with twenty- 

 eight fresh colonists and several Methodist and Presbyterian 

 missionaries. He was instructed to pick up at Monrovia the 

 thirty-one colonists whom he had deposited there two years 

 previously, and to take all his party beyond Liberian limits, 

 there to found another state to be called Maryland. He 

 directed his expedition to Cape Palmas. Here he found the 

 Grebo chiefs very ill-disposed to receive the colonists or to 

 give them any rights over the land, chiefly because of the 

 temperance or total abstinence principles which were inculcated. 

 The chiefs were furious at the idea of giving up brandy, which 

 had become quite a vice along the Grain Coast. They did, 

 however, in return for small presents, sign deeds which conveyed 

 the usual large areas of territory on the part of the non-under- 

 standing native. But when the colonists had settled down and 

 began to make themselves at home, the Grebo chiefs brought 

 pressure to bear upon them by withholding food supplies — 

 chiefly rice — in the hope that from fear of starvation the 

 colonists would trade in brandy or rum, A violent altercation 

 ensued between Dr. Hall and the Grebos, the former threaten- 

 ing if driven to desperation to attack and burn the Grebo 

 villages. At last the chiefs gave way and the Marylanders 

 settled down to their independent effort of colonisation. 



In 1833 S'lother philanthropic society at a town called 

 Edinburgh in the United States ^ sent a batch of coloured 

 emigrants to Liberia, and for these was purchased from the 

 chief Bob Gray a piece of land on the south bank of the St. 

 John's River (Grand Basa). This settlement was therefore 

 named Edina, and exists to this day. In 1834 Mechlin returned 

 to America, breakdown in health being the cause of his depar- 



1 Either Edinburgh in Pennsylvania, or Edinburgh in Mississippi : probably 

 the latter. 



