The Elector's hopes were disappointed by the Treaty of St. Germain, under which he was compelled to restore this precious booty to the intrusive Scandinavians, but in the meantime his naval plans had taken a wider scope in fresh contracts with the resourceful Dutchman. In the first of these, Raule undertook, for a monthly subsidy of 5,000 thalers,[5] to maintain a fleet of eight frigates and a fire-ship, mounting altogether 182 guns. Shortly afterwards the terms of the agreement were extended, and at the commencement of the year 1680, twenty-eight ships of war, with a total of 502 guns, were flying the red eagle of Brandenburg.
Though robbed by the peace of the coast-line and seaports on which he had counted as the base of his maritime power and the recruiting ground for his fleet, the Elector did not allow himself to be discouraged, and he very soon found fresh work for his little flotilla to do. The greatest master of German mercenaries at that date, he had, a few years previously, hired a portion of his army to Spain for use against the French. As repeated applications for the price of this support had proved unavailing, he now determined to collect the debt, which amounted to 1,800,000 thalers, by forcible distraint.
Accordingly six ships, which were followed at an interval of some months by three others, were sent out to attempt to intercept the silver fleet on its way to the Spanish Netherlands. The vessels were almost without exception commanded by Dutchmen, but were mainly manned by Germans, though the crews included many English, Dutch, Danish and Norwegian sailors. Naturally the soldiers carried on board were drawn from the Brandenburg army; and orders were given that they should be trained in ship's work "because we are disposed to use the same permanently for the navy."
Though the flotilla did not fulfil either its immediate or its ultimate purpose, the expedition was notable for two reasons. In the first place, a large Spanish warship, the Carolus Secundus, with a valuable cargo of lace on board, was captured, and so became the first war vessel that was actually the property of a Hohenzollern State. In the second place, the quest of the Spanish silver resulted in a sea-fight, which, in respect both of the force engaged and the losses sustained, still heads the record of naval warfare under a Hohenzollern flag.
A detachment of four ships, cruising in the neighbourhood of Cape St. Vincent, sighted a fleet of a dozen Spanish frigates, which had put out for the special purpose of chasing the Germans from the sea. The Brandenburg commander, thinking that this was the anxiously-expected silver flotilla, bore down upon it, and did not realise his mistake till it was too late to avoid something of a conflict. Before he could succeed in man[oe]uvring his ships out of range of his overwhelmingly superior enemy, he had lost ten men killed and thirty wounded; and since that day Germany had fought no more terrible battle on the sea until the war broke out in 1914.
Another section of the Elector's fleet cruised for several months in West Indian waters without achieving much result, while the retaliatory measures adopted by the Spaniards secured a safe passage for the silver ships and rendered it prudent for Frederick William to abandon his daring and risky enterprise.
Meanwhile the Elector had allotted his infant navy a task of a different character. Soon after entering the service of Brandenburg, Raule had drawn up plans of colonization, and in the same year in which the fruitless search for the silver convoy began, he obtained permission to try his luck on the Gold Coast, and got together a syndicate to finance the undertaking. The Elector was wary, and declined to risk pecuniary participation, but he ordered that "twenty good healthy musketeers, together with two non-commissioned officers," should be placed under Raule's command. One of the principal objects of the expedition was to secure a share in the profitable trade in slaves which was then carried on between the West Coast of Africa and North America, but modern German historians for the most part ignore this feature of the enterprise.
The two vessels despatched on this errand reached the Gold Coast in safety, but aroused the resentment of the Dutch already settled there, who confiscated one of them, and compelled the other to quit African waters. However, the leader of the expedition had by that time managed to conclude what served the purposes of a treaty with certain native chiefs, who thereby placed themselves under the suzerainty of the Elector, and consented to the erection of a fort in the district under their control.
On the strength of this questionable document, an "African Company" for the "improvement of shipping and commerce wherein the best prosperity of a country consists," was called into existence in the year 1682. In the charter of incorporation, the Elector promised to protect the Company against "all and everyone who may undertake to trouble, incommode, or to any extent injure the same in its actions in free places on the coasts of Guinea and Angola"; but both the naval and the military commanders were charged to keep at a respectful distance from "all Dutch Company fortresses, as well as those of other potentates, such as England, France, Denmark, etc." The capital of the Company was the modest sum of 50,000 thalers. Of this Frederick William contributed only 8,000, and the Electoral Prince 2,000 thalers, while almost half of the total was supplied by Raule, who had by now become "Director-General of the Brandenburg Navy."