In 1709-1710, for example, forty-four of their vessels made voyages
as compared with but three ships of the company, and Royal African stock
sold as low as 2-1/8 on the L100. A reorganization in 1712 however added
largely to the company's funds, and the treaty of Utrecht brought it new
prosperity. In 1730 at length Parliament relieved the separate traders
of all dues, substituting a public grant of L10,000 a year toward the
maintenance of the company's forts. For twenty years more the company,
managed in the early thirties by James Oglethorpe, kept up the unequal
contest until 1751 when it was dissolved.
The company regime under the several flags was particularly dominant on the
coasts most esteemed in the seventeenth century; and in that century they
reached a comity of their own on the basis of live and let live. The French
were secured in the Senegal sphere of influence and the English on the
Gambia, while on the Gold Coast the Dutch and English divided the trade
between them. Here the two headquarters were in forts lying within sight
of each other: El Mina of the Dutch, and Cape Coast Castle of the English.
Each was commanded by a governor and garrisoned by a score or two of
soldiers; and each with its outlying factories had a staff of perhaps a
dozen factors, as many sub-factors, twice as many assistants, and a few
bookkeepers and auditors, as well as a corps of white artisans and an
abundance of native interpreters, boatmen, carriers and domestic servants.
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