Part 18

To cultivate an extensive commercial intercourse with Africa, I have already observed, that the best method, the simplest, and that which is, from contingent circumstances, the most likely to succeed, is the plan which I have pointed out in the following prospectus. I shall now offer several reasons why this plan is superior to any other hitherto suggested.

The riches of the Arabs of Sahara generally, as well as of that part which I have contemplated as a convenient spot for establishing a colony, and for opening a communication with Sudan, consists exclusively in camels. The independence of a man is there ascertained by the number of camels he possesses; it is not said, how many thousand dollars has he? or, what quantity of gold does he possess? or, what land has he? but, how many camels does he own? The master of these, aptly denominated, ships of the Desert, is 248 urged by interest to let on hire his camels, as the master of a ship of the ocean is urged by interest to seek freight for his ship. And it is observed, that the ferocious appearance among the Arabs, (which is too often assumed,) subsides in proportion to the intercourse they have with merchants, who negociate with them for the transport of their goods. Thus, at the _depots_ for camels between the cultivated country and the Desert, viz. at _Akka, Tatta, Ufran,_ and _Wedinoon_, the ferocity of the Arabs is greatly lost in the commercial spirit and endeavour to let their camels on hire to the merchants. The Mograffra, the Woled Abbusebah, and the Tejakant Arabs, therefore, who possess the Sahara, from the shores of the Atlantic to the confines of Timbuctoo, would act in concert with the colony, and would have a joint interest in promoting their commercial views. The Brabeesh Arabs who receive, occasionally, tribute from Timbuctoo, would also find it expedient to promote the commerce of Sudan, and the prosperity of Timbuctoo; both which would necessarily be united to their own interest, and would provide a demand for their camels.

If the profits of this commerce, when once established and secured to the British, were to be cent. per cent., the whole would remain a bonus to the colony. There would be no shereef of Fezzan, or bashaw of Tripoli, to take their share of the profits, in any shape, in exchange for the privilege of being suffered to pass 249 through their country. But, on the contrary, the Arabs of the Mograffra and other tribes would find it so evidently their interest and advantage to be friendly with us, that we might absolutely have the entire command of the Desert, from the shores of the Atlantic to the city of Timbuctoo, which would eventually throw such a weight of power into our hands, as to make even that city itself, in a manner, tributary to us.

A plan of this kind should be executed _upon a grand national scale_, and be pursued with discretion and perseverance.

An attempt to penetrate to Timbuctoo, through Ashantee, and establish a commerce through that country, might meet with temporary success; but I apprehend that we should labour under the same inconveniences, and be subject to the same arbitrary imposts and exactions, whether in the shape of duties, part of the profits, or otherwise, as we should, by opening a communication through Tripoli. There would be a present or douceur to the king of Ashantee; others to the princes of the adjoining territories; and, finally, (taking the character of this king to be as represented by the late traveller in that country, Mr. Bowdich), might we not reasonably anticipate that, on the first dispute respecting the division of the profits, the king of Ashantee would order all the English out of his country, and, to terminate the dispute, plunder them of their property? But, perhaps the establishment of a colony in Ashantee, _conjoined_ to one in Sahara, might not be 250 objectionable. We should then have two routs to the grand emporium of central Africa: if one failed, the other would remain open for our countrymen to recover their property and to return by; and thus, in establishing a commercial intercourse with the interior of Africa, through two routes, we should secure, at the same time, our retreat, by one of them, and not remain at the mercy of the barbarous king of Ashantee, or any other African potentate, who might be urged, from jealousy or avarice, to sacrifice our people, when once he had them in his power!

251

PROSPECTUS OF A PLAN FOR FORMING A NORTH AFRICAN OR SUDAN COMPANY,

To be instituted for the purpose of establishing an extensive Commerce with, and laying open to British Enterprise, all the Interior Regions of North Africa.

* * * * *

OBJECTS OF THE SOCIETY.

1_st_. To lay open the interior regions of North Africa to British enterprise--to supply those vast and unexplored countries with British manufactures, with East-India goods, and with colonial produce.

2_dly_, To encourage our manufactories, by opening a new market calculated to improve the revenue of the country, to provide employment for the labouring poor, and to enrich the mercantile community; _the genial influence of which sources of prosperity will necessarily diffuse itself through all classes_.

3_dly_, To facilitate, through the medium of commerce (_the only medium by which it can possibly be effected_), the exploration of the interior regions of Africa, (_which have remained to this day a sealed book, notwithstanding the many adventurous expeditions that 252 have been undertaken_,) by opening a communication with the natives of that vast and little-known continent, and BY CALLING TO OUR AID THE CO-OPERATION OF THE NATIVE CHIEFS, BY HOLDING OUT TO THEM THE BENEFITS WHICH THEY WILL DERIVE FROM COMMERCIAL INTERCOURSE AS A REWARD FOR THEIR ASSISTANCE AND EXERTIONS IN PROMOTING THIS DESIRABLE OBJECT.

For these purposes it is proposed--

That the funds to be raised be one hundred thousand pounds, in shares of one hundred pounds each. Ten shares to constitute a director.

The spot proposed to be fixed on as the point of communication, and commercial depot, between Great Britain and the interior of Africa is SAFE AND HEALTHY: it will afford a _direct communication with Timbuctoo and the interior regions of Sudan_, without being subject to the uncertainty of securing the favour and protection of the various sultans and sheiks of the respective territories of the interior, through which the merchants and traders may pass--a measure which would have been indispensable in every plan that has hitherto been suggested for the discovery of those interesting regions.

The plan now to be adopted, on the contrary, will be subject to none of those impediments and uncertainties; but the merchants and travellers will pass through territories where they need fear no hostility, but will be received with hospitality and attention by the natives, who will give them every assistance and accommodation 253 in their progress through their country.

Connected with this plan, a school for instructing the British youth in African Arabic, so as to initiate them in the rudiments of that language previously to their departure for Africa, might be established, under the direction of JAMES GREY JACKSON, professor of African Arabic, &c.

The present scheme has been many years in contemplation, but no favourable opportunity of making it thus public having hitherto occurred, it is now offered to the public, in consequence of the energies lately manifested by France and by America for African colonisation, and also by Holland.

The projectors, for the honour of their own country, are anxious that Great Britain may not, through supineness, suffer this important discovery to be wrested from her by any foreign power, but that she should _at least share the glory_ due to this important achievement, the completion of which would _immortalize the prince who should cherish it to its maturity_.

Capitalists, and gentlemen resident in Great Britain, desirous of further information on this subject, may address themselves to JAMES GREY JACKSON, whose residence, at any time, may be known at Messrs. Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, London.

TO THE BRITISH PUBLIC.

London, 31st March, 1819.

The above plan is ingenuously, liberally, and disinterestedly 254 submitted to the consideration of British capitalists and merchants of respectability. The advantages to be derived from such an establishment as is here contemplated, if not evident to Great Britain, is clearly visible to Holland, to France, and to America.

The projector, therefore, without mentioning the offers that have been made to him by a foreign maritime power, and _without courting_ the suffrages of British merchants in support of this plan, has it in contemplation, (_provided no attention is paid to it in England_,) to lay this eligible scheme open to a foreign power. If, therefore, the projector should accept employment in this undertaking from a foreign power, it will be in the conviction, that _it is more to the interest of mankind in general, and to Europe in particular_, that this plan for opening an _extensive, lucrative, and beneficial commerce with Africa_, (which would necessarily lead to its civilisation,) should be known to, and adopted by, _a foreign power_, than that this vast and little-known continent should, (to the indelible disgrace of civilised Europe,) _still continue to remain_ an useless and an undiscovered country to the present generation!

JAMES GREY JACKSON.

_Appendix to the foregoing Prospectus, being an Epitome of the Trade carried on by Great Britain and the European States in the Mediterranean, indirectly with Timbuctoo, the Commercial Depot of North Africa, and with other States of Sudan_.

Marseilles, Genoa, Leghorn, and other commercial ports of France 255 and Italy, as well as of Spain, send to Algiers, Tunis, Tripoli, and Egypt, _for the markets of Sudan_, manufactured silks, damask, brocade, velvets, raw silk, combs of box and ivory, gold-thread, paper, manufactured sugar, cochineal, and various other merchandise.

Great Britain sends to the Barbary ports in the Mediterranean, and to Mogodor on the Atlantic Ocean (which are afterwards conveyed to Timbuctoo), for distribution at the several markets of Sudan--

_East India Goods, viz._--Gum benjamin, cassia, cinnamon, mace, nutmegs, cloves, ginger, black pepper, Bengal silk, China silks, nankeens, blue linens, long cloths, and muslins (mulls).

_West India Produce_.--Pimento, tobacco, coffee, cocoa, and manufactured sugar.

_Linens_.--Dimities, plattilias, creas, rouans, Britannias, cambrics, and Irish linens.

_Hardware_.--Iron nails, copper ditto, brass ditto, sword blades, dagger ditto, guns, gunpowder, knives, &c. &c.

_Cloths_.--Superfine, of plain brilliant colours, not mixtures, and cassimeres. And various other articles of merchandise.

Immense quantities of salt are also sent to Timbuctoo, which is for the most part collected at the mines of Tishet and Shangareen, (see the map of northern and central Africa, in the New Supplement to the Encyclopaedia Britannica,) through which the caravan would pass to Timbuctoo. 256 The following are the articles purchased by the Moors and Arab traders, and are the returns brought back to Barbary from Sudan; viz.

Gold dust, and trinkets of pure Wangara gold, of various fashions, of the manufacture of Housa and Jinnie.--_B'Kore Sudan_ (fumigation of Sudan), a kind of frankincense highly esteemed by the Africans. Ostrich feathers (the finest in the world). Elephants' Teeth. _Korkidan_, so called by the Arabs, being the horns of the rhinoceros: these are a very costly article, and are in high estimation among the muselmen, for sword-hilts and dagger-handles. _Guza Sarawie_ (Grains of Paradise). Gum Copal Assafoetida, and a great variety of drugs for manufacturing uses, and various roots for dyeing. Ebony. Camwood. Sandal wood. Indigo, equal to that of Guatimala: to which may be added, the command of the gum trade of Senegal.

All the foregoing merchandise being first landed at Alexandria, Tripoli, Tunis, Algiers, and Tetuan, and other Barbary ports in the Mediterranean, _as well as at Mogodor on the western coast of Africa_, are afterwards sold to the Muhamedan merchants, who sell them with a very good profit to other Moors. These goods frequently go through three, four, and five hands, before they reach the consumer in Sudan, subject to a profit gained by each holder of from twenty to thirty per cent.; the last purchaser, who conveys 257 them through the Desert, however, expects, and generally obtains, from fifty to sixty per cent. profit on them, to which he considers himself entitled, from the fatigue and privations of his passage through the Desert, during a journey through a country, for the most part barren, of above fifteen hundred miles in length; through various kingdoms and principalities, subject to a charge for (_statta_) convoy at the exit and entrance of each respective state or district on each side of the Sahara, as well as in the Sahara itself.

But, according to the plan here suggested to the commercial community, all these various articles, instead of passing through five several hands, would now pass through only two hands, viz. through those of the shippers in England, and those of their agents established on _the western coast of Africa_, who would sell them directly to the Timbuctoo trader, which latter, instead of having several principalities and kingdoms to pass through (at the exit from each of which, as well as at the entrance of them, he would have a charge for protection or convoy, called _statta_, levied on the goods), would have no convoy-charge, or statta, to pay; he would have but ten hundred, instead of fifteen or sixteen hundred miles to go, being about two-thirds of the distance of the road from Tunis or Tripoli, through Fezzan, to Timbuctoo.

N.B. There is an immense bank near the contemplated depot, or port 258 (abounding in fish, which now supplies the _wahs_, or cultivated spots in the desert, as well as the territories on the southern confines thereof), which produces fish sufficient to supply the whole of the interior of Africa, as well as the shores of the Mediterranean, &c. &c.

_Letter from Vasco de Gama, in elucidation of this Plan_.

Sir,

The Society of Encouragement for National Industry in France, has granted prizes for various discoveries in the arts and sciences; but I wish government, or some society of our own country, would offer a liberal prize for the best mode of colonising Africa, and for meliorating the condition of the inhabitants of that vast and little known continent. A well-digested plan for the discovery of this continent might be followed by the most desirable events. The efforts of the African Association have, to say the least, been lamentably disastrous; little good can be anticipated from the efforts of solitary or scientific travellers in a country where science is not cultivated, and where the travellers know little or 259 nothing of the[173] general language of Africa, or of the manners and dispositions of the natives.

[Footnote 173: The general language of North Africa is the Western Arabic, with a knowledge of which language, a traveller may make himself intelligible wherever he may go; either in the negro countries of Sudan, in Egypt, Abyssinia, Sahara, or Barbary.]

A knowledge therefore of the _African Arabic_ appears indispensable to this great undertaking; and it should seem that a commercial adventurer is much more likely to obtain his object than a scientific traveller, for this plain reason,--because it is much easier to persuade the Africans that we travel into their country for the purposes of commerce and its result--_profit_, than to persuade them that we are so anxious to ascertain the course of their rivers!

Accordingly, it was aptly observed by the Negroes of Congo, when they learned that Captain Tuckey came not to trade nor to make war; _"What then come for? only to take walk and make book?"_

I do not mean now to lay down a plan for the colonisation of Africa, or for opening an extensive commerce with that vast continent, but I would suggest the propriety of the method by which the East India Company govern their immense territories. _I would wish to see an African Company formed on an extensive scale, with a large capital_. I am convinced that such a company would be of more service to the commerce of this country than the present India trade, where the natives, _without being in want_ of our manufactures, surpass us in ingenuity. But the Africans, on the contrary, _are in want_ of our manufactured goods, and give immense 260 sums for them. According to a late author, who has given us the fullest description[174] of Timbuctoo[175] and its vicinity, a _Plattilia_ is there worth fifty Mexico dollars, or twenty _meezens of gold_, each meezen being worth two and a half Mexico dollars; _a piece of Irish linen_ of ordinary quality, and measuring twenty-five yards, is worth seventy-five Mexico dollars; and a quintal of _loaf sugar_ is worth one hundred Mexico dollars. Now if we investigate the parsimonious mode of traversing the Desert, we shall find that a journey of 1500 English miles is performed from Fas to Timbuctoo at the rate of forty shillings sterling per quintal, so that loaf sugar (a weighty and bulky article) can be rendered from London at Timbuctoo through Tetuan and Fas, including the expense of a land-carriage of 1500 miles at about 6L. per quintal, thus:

Refined sugar on board in London for _s. d._ per cwt. 70 0

Duty on importation in any part of Marocco, ten per cent. 7 0

Freight, &c. five per cent. 3 6

Land carriage across the Desert on camels to Timbuctoo 40 0 ----- s. 120 6 -----

[Footnote 174: See new Supplement to the Encyclopedia Britannica, article Africa, page 98.]

[Footnote 175: See the account of Timbuctoo appended to Jackson's account of Marocco, published by Cadell and Davies, London, Chap, 18.] 261 So that if 100 lb. of loaf sugar rendered, at Timbuctoo cost 120_s_. 6_d_ and sells there for 100 Mexico dollars at 4_s_. 6_d_. each, or for 22L. 5_s_. there will result a profit of 270 per cent.

The profit in fine goods, such as the linens before mentioned, is still more considerable, not being subject to so heavy a charge for carriage. The immense quantity of[176] gold dust and gold bars that would be brought from Timbuctoo, Wangara, Gana, and other countries, in exchange for this merchandise, would be incalculable, and has, perhaps, never yet been contemplated by Europeans!!--In the same work, above quoted, 3d edition, page 289, will be found a list of the various merchandise exportable from Great Britain, which suit the market of the interior of Africa or Sudan: and also a list of the articles which we should receive in return for those goods.

[Footnote 176: The Kings, David and Solomon, extracted from Africa to enrich the temple of Jerusalem upwards of 800,000,000L. sterling, a sum sufficient to discharge the national debt; see Commercial Magazine for May 1819, page 6.; which is eight times as much gold as the mines of Brazil have produced since their discovery in 1756. See Commercial Magazine for the same month, page 44.]

Plans to penetrate to the mart of Timbuctoo (which would supply Housa, Wangara, Gana, and other districts of Sudan with European merchandize) have been formed; but if a treaty of commerce were made with any of the Negro kings, these plans would be subject to various impediments. 262 The goods, in passing through hostile territories, (these sovereigns living in a state of continual warfare with each other,) would be subject to innumerable imposts; _it would therefore be expedient to form a plan whereby the goods should reach Timbuctoo through an eligible part of the Desert_: but some persons who have been in the habit of trading for gum to _Portandik_, have declared the inhabitants of Sahara to be a wild and savage race, untractable and not to be civilised by commerce, or by any other means. This I must beg leave to contradict: the Arabs of Sahara, from their wandering habits, are certainly wild, and _they are hostile to all who do not understand their language_; but if two or three Europeans capable of holding colloquial intercourse with them, were to go and establish a factory on their coast, and then suggest to them the benefit _they would derive_, being the _carriers_ of such a trade as is here contemplated, their ferocity would be transferred forthwith into that virtue in the practice of which they so eminently excel all other nations, _hospitality_; and the most inviolable alliance might be formed with such a people. I speak not from the experience of books, but from an actual intercourse, and from having passed many years of my youth among them. 263 An advantageous spot might be fixed upon on the western coast, in an independent district, where our alliance would be courted, from which the Kafila[177] or Akkaba would have to pass through only one tribe with perfect safety, and subject to no impost whatever; neither would they be subject to any duty on entering the town of Timbuctoo, as they would enter at the _Beb Sahara_, or gate of the Desert, which _exempts them_ from duty or impost.

[Footnote 177: Caravan.]

That civilisation would be the result of commerce, and that the trade in slaves would decrease with the increase of our commerce with these people, there can be little doubt; and, independent of the advantages of an extensive commerce, the consolation would be great to the Christian and to the Philosopher, of having converted millions of brethren made in the perfection of God's image, and endowed with reason, from barbarism to civilisation, if not to Christianity!!!

Let us hope, then, that some of the intelligent readers of your luminous and interesting pages will direct their attention to this great national object, and produce ah eligible and well-digested plan for the cultivation of a mutual intercourse _through the medium qf commerce with Africa_, and for the civilisation of that hitherto neglected continent.

VASCO DE GAMA.

_Eton, 28th May, 1819_. 264

_On Commercial Intercourse with Africa_.

(TO THE EDITOR OF THE MONTHLY MAGAZINE.)

Sir,

The plan of your correspondent, for opening a commercial intercourse with the interior of Africa, appears to me so direct and simple, that I am only surprised it has not been thought of before. The Moors are the merchants of Africa; the chain of communication that runs from the states of Barbary to the negro kingdoms, and from the shores of the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea. To judge of the humanity of these people from the accounts of shipwrecked sailors, whom they have dragged into slavery, and then liberated for money, would be not less fallacious than to estimate the character of the English nation from the plunderers of the wrecks on their coast. From such accounts, the name of Moor has inspired us with horror; and Park's detention at the camp of Ali, one of their chiefs, has contributed to confirm it. Park, however, so far from endeavouring to conciliate his captors, endeavoured, by his own confession, to appear as contemptible as possible in their eyes; and yet, with this disadvantage, the greater part of the miseries he endured proceeded from the climate and the irritation of his own mind.

The Arabs of Sahara are the carriers of merchandize throughout North Africa, and the Moors are in the constant habit of selling 265 gum to the French on the Senegal. The French say they are perfidious; but they give no proof of it that I have seen. I have met with a French traveller, who owns that his countrymen deceive them either in the weight or measure of the gum they purchase.

Bruce found a friend in every Moorish merchant, and integrity and intelligence in all. And where should these qualities be found in a country like the interior of Africa, in which learning has no place but among merchants?