The operations already narrated of the year 1758 were of considerable scope, embracing as they did the advance of three separate armies in America, two raids on the French coast, and the despatch of British troops to Germany; but these by no means exhaust the tale. There were few quarters of the globe in which the British had not to complain of French encroachment, and to this insidious hostility Pitt had resolved to put a stop once for all. Five years before, the merchants of Africa had denounced the unfriendliness of the French on the Gambia, who were building forts and stirring up the natives against them. The Royal African Company also, with its monopoly of the slave-trade, was anxious for its line of fortified depôts on the West Coast, and prayed to be delivered from its troublesome neighbours at Senegal and in the island of Goree.[300] One of Pitt's first actions in 1758 was to order an expedition to be prepared against Senegal, a duty for which two hundred marines and twenty-five gunners were deemed a sufficient force. On the 23rd of April Captain Marsh of the Royal Navy sailed into the Senegal river, and by the 30th Fort Louis had surrendered and was flying the British flag. Two hundred men of Talbot's regiment[301] were at once sent to garrison the new possession, and then for some months there was a pause, while the troops for Germany and Cherbourg were embarking for their destinations. But no sooner was Bligh's expedition returned than a new enterprise was set on foot, and Captain Keppel of the Royal Navy received secret instructions to convoy Lieutenant-Colonel Worge with Forbes's regiment[302] and two companies of the Sixty-sixth to the West Coast.[303] Within three weeks the troops were embarked at Kinsale, and by the 28th of December Keppel's squadron was lying off Goree. On the following day the ships opened fire on the French batteries, and at nightfall the island surrendered, yielding up over three hundred prisoners and nearly an hundred guns. So with little trouble were gained the West African settlements of the French. [Sidenote: 1759.] [Sidenote: Jan. 13.] [Sidenote: Jan. 15.]