Lord Stanley. Viscount Sandon. Lord John Russell. Sir Robert Harry Inglis. Mr. E. Denison. Mr. Forster. Sir Thomas Acland. Mr. Milnes. Mr. Charles Buller. Mr. Hutt. Captain Fitzroy. Earl of March. Viscount Ebrington. Viscount Courtenay. Mr. George William Wood. _Ordered_, THAT the Committee have power to send for Persons, Papers, and Records. _Ordered_, THAT Five be the Quorum of the Committee. _Mercurii, 11º die Maii, 1842._ _Ordered_, THAT Mr. Stuart Wortley, Mr. Evans, Mr. Wilson Patten, Mr. Aldam, Mr. William Hamilton, and Mr. Metcalfe, be added to the Committee. REPORT. THE SELECT COMMITTEE appointed to Inquire into the State of the BRITISH POSSESSIONS on the WEST COAST OF AFRICA, more especially with reference to their present Relations with the neighbouring Native Tribes, and who were empowered to Report their Observations, together with the MINUTES OF EVIDENCE taken before them, to The House;----HAVE considered the Matters to them referred, and have agreed to the following REPORT: YOUR COMMITTEE, previous to reporting the result of their Inquiries into the subject which has been submitted to them by Your Honourable House, think it desirable to state the circumstances which led to their appointment. In the course of the Year 1839 information was communicated to the Marquis of Normanby, then Secretary of State for the Colonies, that a Spanish Slaver, the Dos Amigos, had, a short time previous to seizure, been allowed to trade freely at Cape Coast, a British Settlement on the Gold Coast, and had been supplied there by a British Merchant, a Magistrate, with some of the Goods, not Equipments, requisite for carrying on her unlawful Traffic. This information led to further inquiry, in the course of which it appeared that such practices were not unusual, and that Captain Maclean, the Governor, appointed by the Committee of Merchants in London, on whom the charge of the Settlements of the Gold Coast had been devolved by Parliament, in the Year 1828, did not consider himself entitled to interfere with the Traffic of any Vessel of a friendly Nation, whatever her purpose, coming to purchase Goods, in themselves lawful, within the waters of a British Settlement. In consequence of this information, Lord John Russell, then Secretary of State for the Colonies, concurring with his predecessor, gave strong Instructions for the discontinuance of this practice, and for the punishment of it as illegal, expressed his opinion that it was desirable the Government of these Settlements should be resumed by the Crown, and instructed Dr. Madden, a gentleman who had formerly been employed as a Stipendiary Magistrate in the West Indies, and subsequently in the Mixed Commission at Havana, to proceed as Commissioner to the Gold Coast, and the other British Settlements on the West Coast of Africa,