This company was greatly encouraged during the reigns of James I. and Charles I. but the Dutch taking several forts on the coast of Africa from the Portuguese, committed great depredations on the English, upon which Charles II. the better to enable his subjects to carry on that trade, incorporated a body of merchants, in the year 1662, by the title of _The Company of Royal Adventurers of England to Africa_: but the subscriptions for carrying on this precarious commerce not answering the expectation of the incorporated merchants, they were soon involved in debt, and reduced to such difficulties as rendered them unable to continue their trade to advantage; wherefore they agreed for a certain sum, to surrender their charter to the crown, and to assign all their estates and effects both at home and abroad to certain merchants, who intended to erect a new company, for the more effectual carrying on a trade to Africa: these merchants the King incorporated in the year 1672, and these were the Royal African company, who had a power to trade from the port of Sallee, to the Cape of Good Hope, exclusive of all the King’s other subjects, during the term of a thousand years. By virtue of this royal grant, the company made a considerable progress in erecting forts, and settling factors: but their trade being laid open by parliament in the year 1697, they were rendered unable to support their forts, it was therefore enacted, that all private traders to Africa should pay ten _per cent._ to the company for that purpose.