The Moors returned with confidence, when this infamous governor ordered them all to be massacred. Their bodies were cut in pieces and exposed in different parts, as an example to their countrymen of the treatment they were to expect. After this horrible execution, no accommodation with the irritated Moors could be hoped for; and the Dutch did not fail to keep up the resentment of those people towards the French. In the mean time, the Moors and pretended Prussians had retired to Portendick. Duval was superceded in his command; and the Moors having landed on the island in concert with the Dutch, they gained possession of the cisterns, and seized on M. Leriche and four other Frenchmen, who had been sent to them with a flag of truce; and after springing a mine, which injured the fortifications, they compelled the French to surrender the fortress on the 11th January, 1722, when the latter were obliged to solicit the protection of the Dutch, to prevent the Moors from cutting their throats. The captors acquired on this occasion an immense quantity of merchandise. Shortly before the surrender, a French vessel was stranded about five leagues from Arguin, and the crew, eight in number, having effected a landing, were seized by the Moorish chief Homar, and instantly put to death. Duval became the victim of his atrocity and imprudence; for Homar meeting with him off Cape Blanco, as he was returning home, boarded his vessel, cut off his head, and put to death the whole of the crew, sixteen in number, Duval not making the least resistance. This sanguinary warfare lasted for some time; the Moors revenged the outrages they had suffered; and the Dutch obtained a momentary triumph. It would be useless to trace the various operations which were incessantly carried on against these two possessions. M. de Salvert in 1724, re-acquired possession both of Portendick and Arguin; since which, the Dutch have not appeared as enemies in that quarter. The result of this statement is, that every nation which has endeavoured to establish itself at Arguin and Portendick, had no object but to share or monopolize the gum trade, which the French, who were firmly established in the Senegal, wished to concentrate amongst themselves. Indeed the gum trade with the Moors, was the most important of the operations which took place in those roads. The forests of gum trees are at no great distance from the shore; and the trade likewise consisted of gold, elephants’ teeth, oxen, sheep, raw hides, and ostrich feathers; besides which, it is asserted that ambergrease was formerly found in considerable quantities. But though I made and caused to be made the most vigorous researches, I could never obtain any. M. Pelletan, my successor, was more fortunate, nevertheless he mentions only a single instance in which he found it; and that was in a different part of the coast; which proves at least that this substance is very scarce.