It was during this state of affairs on the African coast that the Company of Royal Adventurers was organized in England. It received its charter December 18, 1660. In the same month, Captain Robert Holmes sailed from England in command of the five royal ships which composed the first expedition. In March, 1661, he arrived at Cape Verde where he at once informed the Dutch commander that he had orders from Charles II to warn all persons of whatsoever nation that the right of trade and navigation from Cape Verde to the Cape of Good Hope belonged exclusively to the king of England. Holmes ordered the Dutch to vacate their forts and to abandon the coast within six or seven months[8]. Thereupon he seized the island of Boa Vista, one of the Cape Verde group claimed by the Dutch since 1621. Later he sent a frigate into the mouth of the Gambia. Otto Steele, the Courland commander of Fort St. Andre, unable to discern whether friend or foe was approaching, fired upon the frigate. Holmes considered this an insult[9], and two days later sent a note to Steele requiring him to surrender the island to the English within ten days. At first Steele refused to obey, maintaining that the fort was the rightful possession of the duke of Courland. Thereupon Holmes threatened to level the fort to the ground. Steele realized that with so few men and supplies resistance was useless, and therefore he complied with Holmes' demands.[10] The English assumed possession of the island, but after a fire had destroyed nearly all the fort and its magazine,[11] they chose to abandon it, and to settle on two other islands which they named Charles Island and James Island respectively in honor of their royal patrons. In this way the English gained their first possessions in the Gambia River.