In answer to the argument against exclusive privilege, he shows that this exclusive privilege is for a trade yet to be formed, and that the commercial conditions of a civilised and an uncivilised country are totally different. In the latter “everything is to do. Regular commerce is to be created. Society is almost altogether to be formed. Security and civilisation, law, order, and religion are each and all yet to be introduced. Unity of action and design, therefore, become absolutely necessary to accomplish all these desirable objects--conflicting interests amidst such a disjointed population must and will indefinitely retard it. A charter is clearly and indispensably necessary in order to conduct mercantile affairs to a prosperous issue--in order to regulate the supply, to explore the country and find out the proper markets, to negotiate as an irresistible and stable power with the native princes, to purchase lands, to protect trade, to punish aggression, to rear up gradually an empire in Africa such as had been done in India, against which no native power shall be able to raise its head. Then and not till then the trade may be thrown open.... Without such regulations for a time there is too good reason to dread that our connection with Africa will never be more than the transient visitations of insulated merchants,” &c. &c. In these and other remarkable words M‘Queen graphically sketches the history of the sixty years of British intercourse with the Niger subsequent to the time at which he wrote. Only after such a lapse of time, and through a long series of mistakes and the rude buffeting of facts, were our eyes opened to the necessity of taking his advice. Even then, however, the National African Company might have petitioned the Government in vain to make the Niger secure from foreign aggression, or to put them on the only possible footing to exploit and develop a savage country lying under the blight of a deadly climate, but for the sudden awaking of Europe to the supposed-to-be vast latent possibilities of the African continent. A magnificent bubble was puffed up into view, dazzling all eyes with its iridescent hues, and inflaming all minds with its promise of wealth and power. European commerce was to be regenerated--the pressure on the population was to be relieved--nations were to rise in power and importance. El Dorado and Second India were terms too weak to express the possibilities of the future when Africa was under discussion.