CHAPTER XI
FRENCH DISCOVERY OF WEST AFRICA
We will now turn our attention to the other pioneers of our present West African trade, and commence with the French, for we cannot disassociate our own endeavours in this region from those of France, Portugal, Holland, and the Branden-burgers; nor are we the earliest discoverers here. When we English heard the West African Coast was a region worth trading with, those great brick-makers for the architects of England's majesty, the traders, went for it and traded, and have made that trading pay as no other nation has been able to do. However, from the first we got called hard names—pirates, ruffians, interlopers, and such like—in fact, every bad name the other nations could spare from the war of abuse they chronically waged against each other.
The French claim to have traded with West Africa prior to the discoveries made there by the emissaries of Prince Henry the Navigator.[1] When on my last voyage out I was
- ↑ See the first edition of Henry the Navigator, by R. H. Major, who, with the enormous wealth of his knowledge, vigorously defends the claim to Portuguese priority; although I do not quite agree with
