New Bremer, O., July 4.

Friend Douglass:—I promised Mr. Delany, when I subscribed for the North Star at Cincinnati, that on my arrival home, I would write you occasionally concerning our progress. As the rain has prevented our going into the harvest field to-day, I thought it would not be amiss to sit down and talk with those afar off who are laboring for the redemption of the downtrodden and oppressed.

The colored people here are giving the lie daily to the old, ought-to-be worn out dogma, "The niggers can't take care of themselves."

You are probably aware that the Mercer County Settlement in Ohio was settled under circumstances most unfavorable. When my father moved here about ten years ago, it was an almost unbroken forest for several miles around. We had to go about thirty miles for provisions, and then pay an uncommonly high price for them. I mention these facts to show we are an enterprising people, for none other (hunters excepted) will undertake the inevitable hardships in the settlement of a new country.

In 1839, there were only nine families residing here, and most of them came that year. The united number of colored people was no more than forty. The land cleared was not more than forty acres; and most of this cleared by "squatters," who came here to hunt, &c.

We boast now of sixty or seventy families of us, industrious and intelligent individuals as the surrounding country can afford. Out of this number of actual settlers, there are not more than half a dozen heads of families but what own from forty acres of land to five or six times this amount. I will not dwell upon this point, as we have from time to time published these facts.

I now say, without fear of authentic contradiction, that in point of intelligence and mental improvement, the colored people of Mercer county are far in advance of the surrounding whites. In agriculture and mechanism, the whites are not ahead, though they have had every advantage. We have the best total abstinence society in the country, and the best library of books in North-western Ohio. The library was obtained from Mr. Charles Whipple, of Newburyport, Mass.—He gave it as a present to the settlement. The circumstances concerning this present, and why it was given, I may give you some other time.

The Randolph excitement has not deterred us from our onward and upward march to useful improvements. We are earnest and uncompromising in the cause of suffering humanity. The panting fugitive is always a welcome visitor here, and a cheering onward to repose under the "mane of the British Lion," ever attends him. God speed the day when, through the indefatigable labors of those sincerely engaged, the chains and fetters fall off—when life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness shall be extended to all mankind.
Yours for the redemption of the downtrodden and oppressed,

M. P. H. JONES.