FROM looking over the map of that part of Africa whose outline is traced in the beginning of Chapter VIII, and from what is there said, it will appear that on the western coast of Africa there is a fertile country, inhabited by various tribes, or nations; bounded by high mountains, two large navigable rivers, and the sea; intersected with many small rivers, with more than 500 miles of navigable coasts for ships of burthen, and many more than a thousand navigable for boats; having on its southern side, one vast, continued, safe and commodious harbour, of more than 100 miles in length from Jatt's island to the mouth of the Rio Grande.

In this great extent of fertile and navigable country, comprized between the rivers Gambia and Grande, there is only one European factory, and that indeed not upon the continent, but upon the island of Bissao, and no attempt has hitherto been made, except our fruitless one, by any European power, to settle any of these countries, for the purposes of cultivation; and no European power has certainly any claim to the soil, which belongs to its present possessors, the native Africans, except only so much as we have already purchased from them.

Admirably adapted as this country is to facilitate its own internal commerce, by means of its large rivers, and the numerous small ones, which, in a very great portion of it, admit the approach of small vessels to carry off its produce by water; yet it is not less eligibly situated for external commerce, its distance from this country being scarcely more than half that to the West Indies; and communication with it, at all seasons, practicable, and easy; without the dread of tiphoons and hurricanes; or being cramped, and retarded, by trade winds and monsoons.

This country then I should propose to colonize. I am well aware that this proposition will be opposed by a very respectable, and weighty, body of men, the West India planters; as well as by all those concerned in carrying out the slave trade: but even though it might be hostile to their interests, which I by no means concede, yet if it will be beneficial to the country at large, it is a measure that ought to be adopted.