Simultaneously with Gross-Friedrichsburg, there was transferred from the Prussian King to the Dutch Company yet another African colony, of which mention has yet to be made. This was the island of Arguin, which lies off the coast of what is now French territory to the south of Cape Blanco, and in some maps is given the ominous name of Agadir. The islet, which was one of the principal centres of the gum trade, had been first occupied by the Portuguese in 1441, but had passed by conquest to Holland, and from the latter to France. After the peace of Nymegen, in 1678, however, the French Senegal Company found itself unable to maintain a garrison in Arguin, and obtained permission from Louis XIV. to blow up the fort which had been erected there. The island then fell into the hands of the native ruler of Arguin, on the mainland, and remained subject to him till two ships of the Great Elector appeared off its coasts in October, 1685. On the strength of a treaty concluded by the commander of the expedition with the King of Arguin, Frederick William seems to have claimed jurisdiction right along the coast of Africa from the Canary Isles to the Senegal River. These pretensions were not allowed to pass undisputed, and, towards the end of 1687, a couple of French vessels appeared off the fort and demanded its evacuation by the Germans. As this was refused they made an attempt to seize it by force, but, meeting with a stubborn resistance, abandoned the attack, and, after an unsuccessful endeavour to assert their rights during the peace negotiations at Ryswick, the French seemed to reconcile themselves to the new situation, for they even proposed commercial co-operation with the occupants of the Arguin fort. After the death of the Great Elector, Arguin suffered, like Gross-Friedrichsburg, through the indifference of his successor, and the difficulty of communication arising from the War of the Spanish Succession. When a relief ship arrived in 1714, it found that the Governor had been captured by the natives, with whom he had quarrelled; and the remnant of the Arguin garrison was in so deplorable a condition, that "in a few days they must have perished of hunger."