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240 the hands of the free colored population of the American States.

2d. I turn now to another of their facilities for engaging in African commerce. I refer to Navigation. And here I might rest the case upon the fact that money will purchase vessels, and command seamen and navigators. But you already have both. Turn for a moment to New Bedford, Mass. It is now some twenty years since I visited that important seaport. Though but a boy, I kept my eyes open, especially upon the condition of our race there; and I retain still a vivid remembrance of the signs of industry and thrift among them, of the evidences of their unusual wealth, and of their large interest in shipping. I had the names of several parties mentioned to me who were owners of whale craft, and I made the acquaintance of some of them. Among these I remember well some youjhful descendants of Paul Cuffee. The same state of things I apprehend exists, though perhaps in a much less degree, in some places in Connecticut; on the Hudson, that is, at Albany and Newburgh, in the State of New York; on the Potomac; at St. Louis, on the Mississippi; and on the Red River. There are scores, if not hundreds of colored men who own schooners and other small craft in these localities; pilots and engineers, captains and seamen, who, if once moved with a generous impulse to redeem the land of their fathers, could, in a brief time, form a vast commercial marine, equal to all the necessities of such a glorious project.

Let me dwell for a moment upon one suggestion, that is, the facilities for securing seamen, and the