There are now several European Timber Establishments, on dif ferent Islands up the river, between twenty and thirty miles distance from Freetown. Most of these Establishments employ a considerable number of Black Persons, Natives of the river, and Kroomen, (Africans whose Country is situated on the Western Coast about the fifth degree of latitude,) in the different labours attendant on the trade, such as squaring the timber and putting it in a shape proper to be shipped, rafting the timber to the timber-ships, and working in boats and canoes. On board of the timber-ships, employment is also found for many Natives and Kroomen, but Kroomen are mostly employed to assist the Sailors in the labour of taking in the timber.

The Timber Establishments hire their labourers at the rate of from four to five dollars per month. This rate of pay is sufficient to diffuse comfort and happiness amongst the labourers and their families; and happiness, according to their own manners, appears to be diffused amongst them.

The Natives generally unite in parties to fell the timber, to prepare it and to raft it down for sale to the different Establishments. Sometimes a dozen Natives will unite themselves for these purposes. At other times a Chief, or Headman, will direct as many dependants and domestic Slaves as he may have to fell timber. Of the timber felled in this manner, a part is reserved for the Dependants and Slaves, and sold for their benefit; the most considerable part, of course, is reserved for the Chief. Single families, residing near the water-side, will employ themselves in felling timber. Often Natives who reside at some distance from the river come to the river-side; obtain permission of its Chiefs, for which permission they pay a trifling sum, and engage in large parties in the business of cutting timber.

The innumerable Creeks of the River afford great facilities for this trade. The trouble of transporting the timber from the place where it is felled to the main stream of the River, is comparatively but little.

When timber is in demand, many Villages are to be seen on the main stream of the Port Logo River, and it is said that many of the Creeks, which, but for the trade, would be left to their native solitude, have habitations of industrious wood-cutters scattered on their banks.

The timber-trade is the only trade which can at present give sufficient employment to the Natives of the upper part of the River; it is of the utmost consequence, therefore, that every possible encouragement should be given to the trade that, by the pursuit of it, the Natives may have effaced from their minds every remembrance of the Slave Trade.

In the last Report of the Commissioners it was respectfully stated that the best means of encouraging the trade, would be by employing the timber, or a certain quantity of it, in the construction of Ships, in His Majesty's Dock-yards, for which service it was particularly adapted:

and that it was naturally supposed that if the timber should once be known to be employed and approved in that service, it would grow into general estimation, and be introduced into general use.

We may be permitted to add to this, that the timber is admirably fit, from its durable qualities, to be employed in the construction of Public Edifices.

The Timber-merchants are very desirous to be secured from a return of vexatious interruptions in their trade, on the part of the Natives, and to be secured in the possession of the lands on which their Establishments are founded. These lands are held by them from the Natives, at a yearly rent. Considerable sums of money have been laid out on the Timber Establishments, such sums as have made them valuable and worthy of being placed beyond the caprice of the Natives. The Merchants would wish that the Colonial Government should, by Treaty, obtain the sovereignty of the lands which they occupy, and establish a Station at Port Logo, which should serve to protect the interests of their trade.

On the other branch of the Sierra Leone River, the Rokelle branch, as it is called, very little timber is cut. Some cam-wood and ivory is brought from the interior down this branch of the river to Sierra Leone.

It was reported some time since that a path had been opened from Rokon, a Native Town on the Rokelle, to the Gallinas River, for the passage of Slaves from the adjacent Country to the Gallinas. We do not disbelieve this report, but we would be inclined to hope that by the revival of the timber trade, and the encouragement that has been given to the gold and other trade of the interior, fewer inducements are now held out to the Natives about this river to engage in the traffic in Slaves with the Gallinas Slave-dealers.

The Gallinas River is the only notorious haunt of Slave-ships betwixt Sierra Leone and Cape Coast. It will be in vain to expect that this haunt shall be destroyed so long as a French character shall protect a Slave-Ship from molestation. We have been constantly given to understand that French vessels, or vessels well protected by a French mask, are almost the only vessels which frequent this place. It is said that two or three vessels under the French Flag are constantly to be seen at the Gallinas. The British Cruizers do, when passing by the Gallinas, visit vessels which shew a French Flag, but the papers which are produced by the People of such Vessels are generally of a kind to induce the Cruizers not to molest them.

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We understand that a French Frigate named the cently been cruising off the Gallinas, and that she has made prize of one or two Slave Vessels. It is said that the Commander of the French Frigate remonstrated with the Commander of His Majesty's Ship Driver, that lately visited the Gallinas, upon his having searched some Vessels under the French Flag

Some months since, a Slave Schooner, under the Spanish Flag, was accidentally blown up, near the Gallinas, while a party of Native Slave Traders was in the act of negotiating on board with the European Slave Dealers, for the goods for which Slaves were to be exchanged. The Slave Traders, Native and Foreign, were destroyed with the Vessel.

A few days ago, a Schooner named the Saint George, John Minshull Griffith, Master, belonging to a British Subject, arrived hither from Leeward with a cargo of rice. The Master has given us some information of Slave Ships seen or heard of by himself in the course of recent trading voyages, betwixt the Gallinas and Cape Palmas. He said that on the 8th of February last, he saw one Brig and four Schooners at anchor off the Gallinas, and two Schooners under weigh, all bearing the French Flag. On the night of the 8th of February, being off Cape Mount, he was desired to heave to, by a Schooner, or his vessel would be fired into: Mr. Griffith accordingly hove too, but was not further molested. On the 12th of March, he was informed by some of the Natives, that two Schooners under the French Flag, in quest of Slaves, stood off the Coast, on perceiving the Saint George. On the 20th of March, Mr. Griffith observed a Schooner standing off and on, which he considered to be a Slave Trader. On the 2nd of April, he saw a Schooner which he was informed was trafficking in Slaves, and had a few Slaves on board, taken at Piccaniny Sesters; on the same day, also, Mr. Griffith was - informed by the Natives of Grand Sesters, that a Brig and a Schooner under the Spanish Flag, had been three or four days at anchor, off Piccaniny Sesters, purchasing rice for their Slaves.

The Master of the Saint George also related to us the particulars of his meeting with a French Brig of War on the 17th of February last; he said that he was proceeding in the Schooner, with a number of Black Persons on board, some of them forming part of his Crew, others being labourers to assist the Crew, to a place a little to the Eastward of Cape Palmas to fulfil some object of a trading voyage. Being off Garraway, Latitude 4° 40" North, he saw a Brig at a distance. The Schooner pursued her course; the Brig made sail after her, and when near, the Brig hoisted French Colours; the Saint George upon this hoisted the English Flag, but still kept on her course, the Master being anxious to arrive at the place of his destination before it grew dark, it being then late in the day, and the navigation about Cape Palmas, which the vessels were approaching, being dangerous. The Brig finding that the Schooner still made sail from her, and being come within distance, fired a shot at the Saint George, although she had her English colours displayed. The Saint George, notwithstanding, continued to keep on her course, until her Master perceiving that the Brig was about to fire another shot at his vessel, stopped her

way, and waited until the Brig came up. The Master informed us, that he was hailed from the Brig, and asked what the Schooner was, and whence she came, that he was ordered to lower his boat, and come on board of the Brig; but this the Master told them that he could not do, as he had no boat to convey him thither, they then told him to come in a Canoe which the Schooner possessed; but the Master informed them that he could not trust himself in it, as squally weather seemed to be coming on; with this reply, the French seemed to be satisfied. They did not choose to go on board of the Schooner and visit her, but they asked her Master many questions from their own deck. Observing the number of Black Persons that were on the deck of the Schooner, they said that the Schooner was going to carry off from the Coast a Cargo of Slaves; they desired the Master to count the number of Black Persons that were on board of the Schooner; the Master did so, but they did not seem to be satisfied with his reckoning; he was told he must certainly have more people in the hold, which the Master says was not the case; they were very particular in obtaining the name of the Master; they even required him to spell his name several times, until they were perfectly satisfied they could write it properly. The Master understood this Brig to be the French Brig of war the Dragon, and he supposed that she was cruizing on the Coast.

We have only detailed these facts, as they were related to us by the Master of the Saint George, to shew that the mere hoisting of a Flag, is not in all cases sufficient to satisfy a French Officer of the character of a vessel; were it otherwise, the Schooner would not have been fired at, and obliged to conform to the pleasure of those of the Brig.

Some intercourse is kept up betwixt Sierra Leone, by means of its small craft, and the neighbourhood of the Gallinas, but the People about the latter Place, are so much engaged with the Traffic in Slaves, that this intercourse is not so great nor so, advantageous as it would be, if that Traffic were discontinued.

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The American Settlement at Cape Mesurado, to the Southward of the Gallinas, is, we understand, in rather a languishing state; but it is to be hoped that it will yet prosper and be, what Sierra Leone now is, a noble monument of the beneficence of the People by whom it was founded.

Some miles to the Southward of the American Settlement, is the small Establishmeut of Captain Spence, the enterprising individual mentioned in the Report of the 29th of April, 1823. Captain Spence is the Owner of the Schooner Saint George, of which we have made mention; we have reason to believe that his Establishment prospers, and that it operates beneficially upon the Natives with whom it is immediately in connexion. We have been informed that the quantity of ivory and of palm oil obtained at the Settlement, in traffic with the

Natives was much increased in the year 1823. Captain Spence expects this year a greater increase of these articles.

We have only occasionally, since the last Report of the Commissioners, received some slight information of the state of the Slave Trade betwixt Cape Coast and the Equator: we have been given to understand that during the greater part of the last year very little Slave Trade was carried on at the usual Slave haunts in the Bights of Benin and Biafra.

From the date of the Report of the 29th of April, 1823, to the present period, only seven Slave Vessels have been taken in those Bights. But we are disposed to infer that the Slave Trade would have been carried on to a greater extent than it is said to have been, if the disturbances in the Brazils, but more particularly at Bahia, had not prevented the Brazilians from actively engaging in it. After the surrender of Bahia to the Brazilian Forces, and the restoration of tranquillity there, it would appear, from information that we have received, that Slave Ships again made their appearance in the Bight of Benin. In the Bight of Biafra, we have not heard that any Slave Ship has lately been seen. None were seen, as we have been informed, by His Majesty's Ship, Bann, which lately visited that Bight.

The state of affairs on the Gold Coast has, within this last year, taken up much of the attention of the Cruizers, and has not left them much time to search for Slave Ships. This fact, as well as that of the disturbances in the Brazils, may account in some degree, for the circumstance of so few Slave Ships being taken, since the date of the last Report of the Commissioners.

His Majesty's Ship Owen Glendower, on leaving Sierra Leone, at the end of the month of March 1823, proceeded to Cape Coast, and afterwards made a cruize down the Coast as far as Molembo, which is situated to the South of the Equator. She did not take any Slave Vessel in that cruise. If we were rightly informed, she did not see any Slave Vessel until she came to Molembo; where she found a Portuguese trader, engaged in the legal traffic in Slaves, and a Spanish Schooner that was just leaving the Coast laden with Slaves and ivory. To this Schooner the boats of the Owen Glendower, which had been despatched from her, gave chase, but the Schooner escaped from them. The Owen Glendower afterwards returned to Cape Coast, and remained there a considerable time; she took, by means of her boats, the Spanish Schooner " Maria la Luz," in the New Calabar River; the "Conchita" in the Old Calabar River; and the "Fabiana" in the Bonny River. The Owen Glendower came to Sierra Leone in the month of December last, and returned to the Gold Coast soon after.

His Majesty's Ship "Driver" left Sierra Leone about the same time as the Owen Glendower in 1823; she proceeded to the Island of Ascension, and afterwards to Cape Coast, where she remained for the