Liberia ^ 



scheme of the loan. He was accompanied on his journey to 

 England by his Secretary of State, Hilary R. W. Johnson 

 (afterwards President). Johnson disagreed with Roye on some 

 point connected with the frontier, and returned to Monrovia 

 before the President. 



Although President Roye had not taken any direct part 

 in the negotiation of the loan, on his return to Monrovia he 

 intimated his approval of the scheme before the matter could 

 be submitted to the Legislature. From this and other indica- 

 tions it had been thought for some months that Roye was 

 aiming at a coup d'etat which would get rid of the trammels 

 of the Constitution and enable him, at any rate for a time, to 

 govern Liberia despotically. A story went abroad, for which 

 no actual proof could afterwards be found, that Roye had 

 himself received a portion of the money raised for this loan, 

 or else a very heavy commission for according it his approval. 

 Roye knew that according to the terms of the Constitution 

 his Presidency would come to an end on January ist, 1872. 

 Therefore, soon after his return from England, at the be- 

 ginning of October, 1871, he issued a proclamation to the effect 

 that he had on his own authority extended his tenure of the 

 Presidency for another two years. Popular discontent soon 

 made itself manifest at Grand Basa and Monrovia, and in most 

 of the Americo-Liberian settlements. The President attempted 

 to arm those of his party who had promised to stand by him 

 in this unconstitutional manner of provoking a constitutional 

 change which in itself had often been advocated by Liberian 

 statesmen — namely, the extension of the President's term of 

 office from two years to four. To this principle the people 

 were not by any means ill-disposed, although it has not yet 

 been brought about. But it was felt that Roye was aiming at 

 something more extended than this — that he intended to act 



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