That consideration which has uniformly distinguished your Lordships for the safe-guardianship of our commerce, and the property engaged in it, stimulates me to approach your Lordships with some few observations on the present state of the African trade, and its dependencies. My object is, to submit to your Lordships a statement of the British capital involved in that commerce, as exemplified by the present amount of export, diligently ascertained from the most authentic sources of intelligence, and to offer some brief remarks on its importance to the United Kingdom, and the necessity of a more adequate naval protection. In the first place, permit me to solicit your Lordships' attention to the estimate of annual export from the Windward Coast of Africa. (Vide page 54.) Your Lordships will perceive, that the amount of export _only_ is here under review; and I submit to your consideration the capital vested in the necessary shipping, also the property of British factors, resident on the Coast, and factories belonging to merchants at home, which forms another article of great importance. During the present war, from the Rio Noonez to the river Sierra Leone, 660 slaves, and more than the value of 100 slaves in craft, have fallen into the hands of the enemy; which were forcibly seized upon the premises of factories, the property of British subjects, to the amount of 35,000_l_. at the computation of 50 each, valuing them upon an equitable average: moreover, about one hundred resident free people have been involved in this violence, of incalculable importance, and ground of indefinite claims from the natives. When your Lordships contemplate these facts, and the annual emolument derived from this commerce by the government, and a numerous body of merchants, it may be presumed that its magnitude is of sufficient consequence to justify the expense of _adequate naval protection_. British subjects connected with, and resident on, the Coast, are consequently become deeply interested, and are earnestly solicitous for an extension of your Lordships' paternal care towards their possessions. The principal amount, as before shewn, necessarily in the progress of business, passes into currency through their hands, which, with the surplus property they have in their stores, their buildings, and people, creates a momentous risque, which is exposed to the predatory ravages of piccaroon privateers, and to the hostile squadrons and depredations of the enemy.