PROCEEDINGS RELATIVE TO THE AFRICAN COMPANY.

As we have already given a detail of the trial of sir John Mordaunt, it will be unnecessary to recapitulate any circumstances of that affair, except such as relate to its connexion with the proceedings of parliament. In the beginning of this session, lord Barrington, as secretary at war, informed the house, by his majesty’s command, that lieutenant-general sir John Mordaunt, a member of that house, was in arrest for disobedience of his majesty’s orders, while employed on the late expedition to the coast of France. The commons immediately resolved, that an address should be presented to his majesty, returning him the thanks of this house for his gracious message of that day, in the communication he had been pleased to make of the reason for putting lieutenant-general sir, John Mordaunt in arrest.—Among the various objects of commerce that employed the attention of the house, one of the most considerable was the trade to the coast of Africa, for the protection of which an annual sum had been granted for some years, to be expended in the maintenance and repairs of castles and factories. While a committee was employed in perusing the accounts relating to the sum granted in the preceding session for this purpose, a petition from the committee of the African company, recommended in a message from his majesty, was presented to the house, soliciting further assistance for the ensuing year. In the meantime, a remonstrance was offered by certain planters and merchants, interested in trading to the British sugar colonies in America, alleging, that the price of negroes was greatly advanced since the forts and settlements on the coast of Africa had been under the direction of the committee of the company of merchants trading to that coast; a circumstance that greatly distressed and alarmed the petitioners, prevented the cultivation of the British colonies, and was a great detriment to the trade and navigation of the kingdom; that this misfortune, they believed, was in some measure owing to the ruinous state and condition of the forts and settlements; that, in their opinion, the most effectual method for maintaining the interest of that trade on a respectable footing, next to that of an incorporated joint-stock company, would be putting those forts and settlements under the sole direction of the commissioners for trade and plantations; that the preservation or ruin of the American sugar colonies went hand in hand with that of the slave trade to Africa; that, by an act passed in the year one thousand seven hundred and fifty, for extending and improving this trade, the British subjects were debarred from lodging their slaves and merchandise in the forts and settlements on the coast; they, therefore, prayed that this part of the act might be repealed; that all commanders of British and American vessels, free merchants, and all other his majesty’s subjects, who were settled, or might at any time thereafter settle in Africa, should have free liberty, from sunrise to sunset, to enter the forts and settlements, and to deposit their goods and merchandise in the warehouses thereunto belonging; to secure their slaves or other purchases without paying any consideration for the same; but the slaves to be victualled at the proper cost and charge of their respective owners. The house having taken this petition into consideration, inquired into the proceedings of the company, and revised the act for extending and improving the trade to Africa, resolved, that the committee of the African company had faithfully discharged the trust reposed in them, and granted ten thousand pounds for maintaining the British forts and settlements in that part of the world. The enemy were perfectly well acquainted with the weakness of the British castles on the coast of Africa; and had they known as well how to execute with spirit, as to plan with sagacity, the attempt which, in the course of the preceding year, they made upon the principal British fort in Guinea, would have succeeded, and all the other settlements would have fallen into their hands without opposition.*

* Robert Hunter Morris represented, in a petition to the
house, that as no salt was made in the British colonies in
America, they were obliged to depend upon a precarious
supply of that commodity from foreigners; he, therefore,
offered to undertake the making of marine salt at a moderate
price in one of those colonies, at his own risk and charge,
provided he could be secured in the enjoyment of the profits
which the work might produce, for such a term of years as
might seem to the house a proper and adequate compensation
for so great an undertaking. The petition was ordered to lie
upon the table; afterwards read and referred to a committee,
which, however, made no report. A circumstance not easily
accounted for, unless we suppose the house of commons were
of opinion, that such an enterprise might contribute towards
rendering our colonies too independent of their mother-
country.—Equally unaccountable was the miscarriage of
another bill, brought in for regulating the manner of
licensing alehouses, which was read for the first time; but
when a motion was made for a second reading, the question
was put, and it passed in the negative.