The committee’s servants having such advantages, can it be supposed any private trader can stand any chance in trade with them, as said trader must settle in a negroe town, in a mud house covered with thatch, there being no other sort of dwelling to be got, without carrying tradesmen of all sorts from Europe to build it, which would be attended with too great an expence and risk for any private adventure to undertake? Therefore, on account of the frequent fires that happen in negroe towns, persons well acquainted with them, would not insure any property lodged therein for twenty-five _per cent._ annually. That alone is sufficient to deter any one from settling, except some of the old or new companies discarded servants, whose narrow circumstances discourage them from returning to Europe, not knowing what else to do with themselves; for there has not one of the young men from Bristol or Liverpool, _&c._ that were to have been intrusted with cargoes by their relations and friends, to go and settle under the protection of the British forts in Africa, has yet made a single attempt to do it, though that was made use of as an argument, and enforced with great energy by gentlemen, to obtain a dissolution of the late royal African company (and in which they succeeded). But no such boasted consequence has taken place, because the people of those places were not to be lulled on to adventure their property, under the notion of a free trade. They very well knew what hardships must attend those who were necessitated to settle in a negroe town, from a knowledge, as soon as they did, they must become subservient in a manner, and brother citizens with the negroes. It is a joke to think they can make use of the forts to lodge and defend their properties in; for the very persons who (we should imagine) by the spirit and intention of the act of parliament, ought to be their defenders, will take every measure, in proportion as they rival them, and curtail their trade, to exercise their power over the natives, to prevent the private trader succeeding with them, which will create disputes between the officers commanding the forts and the towns people under them, in which every private trader must bear a part; for no man can settle in a negroe town without paying his _freedom_, and entering into a league to become a _native_, and partake of that _township’s misfortunes_, _advantages and customs_. Is there any difference then between a European trader and an African? None! one is a native black Negroe, and the other is become a white one: so that whenever a dispute happens between _the natives_ and the officers aforesaid, the indenizened European will be under the compulsive necessity of joining his black fellow _townsmen_ against his _countrymen_ and _fortress_, which the _British_ nation intended for his _preservation_ in time of _danger_, and last _resort_.