Although British traders in gold and in slaves came to the Gold Coast in the wake of the Portuguese in the 16th century, they established no form of administration there until 1672, when Charles II gave a charter to the Royal African Company and the monopoly of trade between Morocco and Cape Colony. The Royal African Company built forts at various places on the Gold Coast, and at Whyda[113] on the coast of Dahomé. It was succeeded in 1750 by the African Company of merchants, a company subsidized by the Government, which continued to exist until 1821, at which date the British forts on the Gold Coast were placed under the Sierra Leone government of the West African settlements, and the fort at Whyda was abandoned. In 1807, the powerful Ashanti tribe thrust itself anew on the attention of European nations (already acquainted with it as a great provider of slaves and a diligent worker of the alluvial gold deposits) by forcing its way to the coast, and attacking and destroying the British fort of Anamabu and the Dutch fort of Kormantyn. They even besieged Cape Coast Castle. In 1817 a mission, eventually under the charge of Thomas Edward Bowdich, was sent to Ashanti to bring about more friendly relations with the King of Kumasi. It succeeded, but the terms of the treaty then made were not carried into effect by the British Government, out of pity for the harassed Fanti coast tribe; consequently the relations between Cape Coast Castle (then the head-quarters of British administration in the Gold Coast) and Ashanti once more became strained[114]. In 1824, while on a tour of inspection, the Governor of Sierra Leone, Sir Charles Macarthy, landed at Cape Coast Castle, and unfortunately embarked on a war with the Ashanti without properly organized forces. He was defeated and killed. The Imperial Government carried on the war for three years, finally inflicting a defeat on the Ashanti near Accra, which led three years later to a peace. But this lengthy campaign had disgusted the Imperial Government with rule on the Gold Coast, and as soon as peace was concluded with the Ashanti they handed over these settlements to a committee of London merchants. This committee selected and sent out an excellent man as Governor—Mr Charles Maclean. This administrator contrived with a yearly subsidy of £4000 and a force of 100 police to extend British influence over an area nearly coincident with the present Gold Coast Colony. But in 1843 the rule of the merchants was replaced once more by that of the Crown, though Maclean was taken into the service of the new Imperial administration.