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232 the larger advantages of it go to Europe and America, and help to swell the broad stream of their wealth, luxury, and refinement. And how deep and broad and mighty is that stream is shown by two facts: 1st, That England, France, and the United States expend annually more than a million and a half of dollars for the protection of trade on this coast. And 2d, That the coast swarms with white men, using all possible means and contrivances to open trade into the interior. To this one single end, an immense amount of capital is spent by great mercantile houses, in England, France, and America. One single house in Liverpool employs such a fleet of trading vessels that it is necessitated to keep a resident physician at the mouth of one of our great rivers for the benefit of their captains and sailors. "A single merchant now living, in the course of three or four years, has spent more than $100,000 in exploring the rivers and creeks of AVestern Africa, merely to ascertain the extent of her commercial relations." While I am writing these pages, I receive the information that one of the great Liverpool houses has just sent out a small steamer to the bights, to collect the oil for their trading vessels. Simultaneouslv with this intelligence, I am advised that a number of agents are employed by English capitalists to visit the towns from Lagos to Abbeokuta, and to leave with their chiefs small bags of cotton seed for the growth of cotton. And but a few months ago we