Du Bois arrived in Europe only to find that the doom of Gross-Friedrichsburg was already irrevocably sealed. The parsimonious Frederick William I., the father of Frederick the Great, had ascended the Prussian throne, and his careful mind, completely absorbed by plans of immediate economy, was incapable of taking such flights into the distance and the future as were necessary for the appreciation of the value of colonial policy. The African settlements had been doing badly and had become unremunerative, and his only thought was to dispose of them as speedily as possible for hard cash, which could be either hoarded or spent on his solitary extravagance--seven-foot grenadiers. Immediately after his accession, he instructed his representative in London that he was prepared to "transfer his forts on the coast of Guinea to anyone else upon easy conditions." He was not long in finding a purchaser in that very Dutch West India Company which had from the outset been a thorn in the side of the Great Elector's colonial enterprise. On November 22nd, 1717, Gross-Friedrichsburg and its dependent territory passed from Hohenzollern rule for the sum of 6,000 ducats and twelve negro boys, of whom it was stipulated that six should be adorned with golden chains. The signing of the contract and its execution were, however, two very different things. The redoubtable Jan Cuny had not been reckoned with, and when two Dutch vessels arrived to take over the fort they found him in possession and flying the Prussian flag. The order for the transfer of the fort was shown to his emissaries, who, after a good deal of delay, were sent on board the ships, but this he flatly refused to recognise, declaring that he would yield up his trust only to a vessel belonging to the King of Prussia. The commander of the Dutch expedition, Captain van der Hoeven, thought he would make short work of this insolent chieftain, and landed a body of fifty men to take the fort by storm. But Cuny once again showed the generalship which had raised him to the eminence of a Prussian deputy-governor. A force of 1,800 natives fusilladed the landing party from an ambuscade and killed nearly every one of them. Hoeven was only able to save himself by swimming back to his ship, with three bullets in his body, and retired to the nearest Dutch settlement to excogitate a fresh plan of campaign. Cuny, however, was flushed by his success, and not at all inclined to give up the prestige which he derived from a fortress bristling with guns and well furnished with small arms and ammunition. For seven long years he held out, repulsing the repeated attacks of the Dutch, and it was only when his supplies were exhausted and an overwhelming force had been put into the field against him, that he withdrew from his defences and vanished into the jungle from which he had come.