This Infamous Trade Was First Entered Upon By The English In The Year 1562.
Mr. John Hawkins, With Several Other Merchants, Having Learnt That Negroes
Were A Good Commodity In Hispaniola, Fitted Out Three Ships, The Largest
120, The Smallest Forty Tons, For The Coast Of Guinea.
Here they bought
slaves, which they sold in Hispaniola for hides, sugar, ginger, and pearls.
The other branches of the African trade continued to flourish.
In 1577,
English merchants were settled in Morocco; Spanish, Portuguese, and French
merchants had been settled there before. In this year, Elizabeth, always
attentive to whatever would benefit commerce, sent an ambassador to the
Emperor of Morocco, who obtained some commercial privileges for the
English. In 1588, the first voyage to Benin was made from London, by a ship
and a pinnace: in 1590, a second voyage was made from the same port with
the same vessels. Their exports were linen, woollen cloths, iron
manufactures, bracelets of copper, glass beads, coral, hawks' bells,
horses' tails, hats, &c. They imported Guinea pepper, elephants' teeth,
palm oil, cotton cloth, and cloth made of the bark of trees.
An African Company had been formed in Elizabeth's reign; but neither this,
nor two others succeeded; their ruin was occasioned by war, misconduct, and
the interference of what were called interlopers. In 1672, a fourth company
was established, whose efforts at first seem to have been great and
successful. They bought the forts the former companies had erected on the
west coast: instead of making up their assortments of goods for export in
Holland, as the former companies had been obliged to do, they introduced
into England the making of sundry kinds of woollen goods not previously
manufactured.
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