men who have ever gone from Europe to Africa—namely, Sieur Brüe.
The name of this company of Sieur d'Apougny was d'Afrique; and the usual thing happened to it in 1709, when, for 250,000 livres, it made over its rights to a set of Rouen merchants, reserving, however, to itself the right of carrying on certain branches of the trade for which it held Government contracts; failing to carry these out they were taken from it and handed over to the company of Rouen merchants, who succumbed to their liabilities in 1717. Their rights were then bought up, for 1,600,000 livres, by the already established Mississippi Company of Paris a company which survived until 1758.
In 1758 the English again captured St. Louis, the French main post in Senegal. In 1779 the French recaptured it, and it was ceded to them by England officially in the treaty of 1783. This was merely the usual kind of international amenity prevalent on the West Coast in those days. Dutch, French, English, Danes, Portuguese, and Courlanders would gallantly seize each other's property out there, while their respective Governments at home, if the matter were brought before their notice, and it was apparently worth their while, disowned all knowledge of their representatives' villainies and returned the booty to the prior owner on paper. The aggrieved Power then engaged in the difficult undertaking of regaining possession; the said original villain knowing little and caring less about the arrangements made on the point by his home Government. But just at this period England dealt French trade a frightful blow. The whole of her iniquity took the form of one John Law, a native of Edinburgh,[1] who raised himself to the dignity of comp-
- ↑ John Law was the eldest son of an Edinburgh goldsmith, born about 1681. "Bred to no business, but possessed of great abilities,
