It is to be hoped that the British forts will be put upon such an establishment, that the officers commanding them will be sufficiently empowered to hinder the Dutch officers from exercising that arbitrary power they have done, and continued to do, over the _Portugueze_ upon the _Gold Coast_ of _Africa_, to prevent their trading at the British settlements, in open violation of a treaty concluded between the English and Dutch principal officers in Africa, and ratified by both _companies_ in _Europe_[21]. If the African committee has not represented that affair in a true light to the government, we are surprized they have neglected it, as it is a very valuable commerce now wholly engrossed by the Dutch; who will not suffer the master or supercargo of any _Portugueze_ vessel to trade at the English _forts_, or with the _British_ subjects, notwithstanding the beforementioned treaty, which, perhaps, might be deemed obsolete, since the dissolution of the late company. If that should be the case, then, in our humble opinion, it ought to be renewed, as well as many other regulations made between the English and Dutch in Africa. If the British officers should once again obtain that influence and power so essentially necessary for them to have, in order to open the trading roads to the most distant inland countries of Africa, so long stopped, which would be of immense advantage to this country, and, at the same time, to prevent the subjects of France hereafter carrying to their colonies the most valuable Negroes, as we have observed they did before the war, and which will in a great measure be proved, by the extracts of the following letters from the captains Strange and Wyndham, commanders of two of his majesty’s ships war, dated Africa, 20th Sept. 1740, and 30th Aug. 1742. Capt. Strange writes to the following purport: “The French, by the advantages of their goods, especially Brandies, occasions a great price they give for their slaves, which has brought the English and Dutch trade to the lowest ebb.” Capt. Wyndham writes as follows: “This concludes the present state of the royal African factories; and as to the Dutch factories, they, as far as I can learn, make no great hand of their trade any more than the English; the French, who has ten ships on the coast to our one, seem to flourish and carry all before them.” We think it necessary here to observe, that notwithstanding almost all the trade had been for some years before, and at that time, carried on by the French on that part of the coast where the most valuable Negroes were to be got; the separate British traders made no application to the legislative power to prevent such pernicious commerce, though several remonstrances were made for that purpose by the late royal African company to the government; who also did lay before the public, in several letters inserted in the daily papers, as well as by pamphlets, the danger of the French incroachments.