These professions of esteem and affection were not sufficient to quiet the minds and appease the resentment of the Dutch merchants; and the French party, which was both numerous and powerful, employed all their art and influence to exasperate their passions, and widen the breach between the two nations. The court of Versailles did not fail to seize this opportunity of insinuation: while, on one hand, their ministers and emissaries in Holland exaggerated the indignities and injuries which the states had sustained from the insolence and rapacity of the English; they, on the other hand, flattered and cajoled them with little advantages in trade, and formal professions of respect.—Such was the memorial delivered by the count d’Affry, intimating that the empress-queen being under an absolute necessity of employing all her forces to defend her hereditary dominions in Germany, she had been obliged to withdraw her troops from Ostend and Nieuport, and applied to the French king, as her ally nearest at hand, to garrison these two places; which, however, should be restored at the peace, or sooner, should her imperial majesty think proper. The spirit of the Dutch merchants, at this juncture, and their sentiments with respect to England, appeared with very high colouring in a memorial to the states-general, subscribed by two hundred and sixty-nine traders, composed and presented with equal secrecy and circumspection. In this famous remonstrance they complained, that the violences and unjust depredations committed by the English ships of war and privateers, on the vessels and effects of them and their fellow-subjects, were not only continued, but daily multiplied; and cruelty and excess carried to such a pitch of wanton barbarity, that the petitioners were forced to implore the assistance of their high mightinesses to protect, in the most efficacious manner, the commerce and navigation, which were the two sinews of the republic. For this necessary purpose they offered to contribute each his contingent, and to arm at their own charge; and other propositions were made for an immediate augmentation of the marine. While this party industriously exerted all their power and credit to effect a rupture with England, the princess-gouvernante employed all her interest and address to divert them from this object, and alarm them with respect to the power and designs of France; against which she earnestly exhorted them to augment their military forces by land, that they might be prepared to defend themselves against all invasion. At the same time she spared no pains to adjust the differences between her husband’s country and her father’s kingdom; and without doubt, her healing councils were of great efficacy in preventing matters from coming to a very dangerous extremity.
CHAPTER XV.
Expedition against Senegal..... Fort Louis and Senegal taken..... Unsuccessful attempt upon Goree..... Expedition to Cape Breton..... Louisbourg taken..... and St. John’s..... Unsuccessful attempt upon Ticonderoga..... Fort Frontenac taken and destroyed by the English..... Brigadier Forbes takes Fort du Quesne..... Goree taken..... Shipwreck of Captain Barton..... Gallant Exploit of Captain Tyrrell..... Transactions in the East Indies..... Admiral Pococke engages the French Fleet..... Fort St. David’s taken by the French..... Second Engagement between Admiral Pococke and M. d’Apehé..... Progress of M. Lally..... Transactions on the Continent of Europe..... King of Prussia raises Contributions in Saxony and the Dominions of the Duke of Wirtemberg..... State of the Armies on the Continent..... The French King changes the Administration of Hanover..... Plan of a Treaty between the French King and the Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel..... Treaty between the French King and the Duke of Brunswick..... Decree of the Aulic Council against the Elector of Hanover and others..... Bremen taken by the Duke de Broglio, and retaken by Prince Ferdinand..... Duke de Richelieu recalled..... Generous Conduct of the Duke de Randan..... The French abandon Hanover..... Prince of Brunswick reduces Hoya and Minden..... Prince Ferdinand defeats the French at Creveldt, and takes Dusseldorp..... Prince of Ysembourg defeated by the Duke de Broglio..... General Imhoff defeats M. de Chevert..... General Oberg defeated by the French at Landwernhagen..... Death of the Duke of Marlborough..... Operations of the King of Prussia at the beginning of the Campaign..... He enters Moravia, and invests Olmutz..... He is obliged to raise the Siege, and retires into Bohemia, where he takes Koningsgratz..... Progress of the Russians..... King of Prussia defeats the Russians at Zorndorf..... and is defeated by the Austrians at Hoch-kirchin..... He retires to Silesia..... Suburbs of Dresden burned by the Prussian Governor..... The King of Prussia raises the Siege of Neiss, and relieves Dresden..... Inhabitants of Saxony grievously oppressed..... Progress of the Swedes in Pomerania..... Prince Charles of Saxony elected Duke of Courland..... The King of England’s Memorial to the Diet of the Empire..... Death of Pope Benedict..... The King of Portugal assassinated..... Proceedings of the French Ministry..... Conduct of the King of Denmark..... Answers to the Charges brought by the Dutch against the English Cruisers..... Conferences between the British Ambassador and the States-general..... Further Proceedings
EXPEDITION AGAINST SENEGAL.
The whole strength of Great Britain, during this campaign, was not exhausted in petty descents upon the coast of France. The continent of America was the great theatre on which her chief vigour was displayed; nor did she fail to exert herself in successful efforts against the French settlements on the coast of Africa. The whole gum trade, from Cape Blanco to the river Gambia, an extent of five hundred miles, had been engrossed by the French, who built Fort Louis within the mouth of the Senegal, extending their factories near three hundred leagues up that river, and on the same coast had fortified the island of Goree, in which they maintained a considerable garrison. The gum senega, of which a great quantity is used by the manufacturers of England, being wholly in the hands of the enemy, the English dealers were obliged to buy it at second-hand from the Dutch, who purchased it of the French, and exacted an exorbitant price for that commodity. This consideration forwarded the plan for annexing the country to the possession of Great Britain. The project was first conceived by Mr. Thomas Gumming, a sensible quaker, who, as a private merchant, had made a voyage to Portenderrick, an adjoining part of the coast, and contracted a personal acquaintance with Amir, the moorish king of Legibelli.*
* The name the natives give to that part of South Barbary, known to merchants and navigators by that of the Gum Coast, and called in maps, the Sandy Desert of Sara, and sometimes Zaia.
He found this African prince extremely well disposed towards the subjects of Great Britain, whom he publicly preferred to all other Europeans, and so exasperated against the French, that he declared he should never be easy till they were exterminated from the river Senegal. At that very time he had commenced hostilities against them, and earnestly desired that the king of England would send out an armament to reduce Fort Louis and Goree, with some ships of force to protect the traders. In that case, he promised to join his Britannic majesty’s forces, and grant an exclusive trade to his subjects. Mr. Gumming not only perceived the advantages that would result from such an exclusive privilege with regard to the gum, but foresaw many other important consequences of an extensive trade in a country, which, over and above the gum senega, contains many valuable articles, such as gold dust, elephants’ teeth, hides, cotton, bees’ wax, slaves, ostrich feathers, indigo, ambergris, and civet. Elevated with a prospect of an acquisition so valuable to his country, this honest quaker was equally minute and indefatigable in his inquiries touching the commerce of the coast, as well as the strength and situation of the French settlements on the river Senegal; and, at his return to England, actually formed the plan of an expedition for the conquest of Fort Louis. This was presented to the board of trade, by whom it was approved, after a severe examination; but it required the patriotic zeal, and invincible perseverance of Cumming, to surmount a variety of obstacles before it was adopted by the ministry; and even then it was not executed in its full extent. He was abridged of one large ship, and in lieu of six hundred land-forces, to be drafted from different regiments, which he in vain demanded, first from the duke of Cumberland, and afterwards from lord Ligonier, the lords of the admiralty allotted two hundred marines only for this service. After repeated solicitation, he, in the year one thousand seven hundred and fifty-seven, obtained an order, that the two annual ships bound to the coast of Guinea should be joined by a sloop and two busses, and make an attempt upon the French settlement in the river Senegal. These ships, however, were detained by contrary winds until the season was too far advanced to admit a probability of success, and therefore the design was postponed. In the beginning of the present year, Mr. Cumming being reinforced with the interest of a considerable merchant in the city, to whom he had communicated the plan, renewed his application to the ministry, and they resolved to hazard the enterprise. A small squadron was equipped for this expedition, under the command of captain Marsh, having on board a body of marines, commanded by major Mason, with a detachment of artillery, ten pieces of cannon, eight mortars, and a considerable quantity of warlike stores and ammunition. Captain Walker was appointed engineer; and Mr. Cumming was concerned as a principal director and promoter of the expedition.*
* On this occasion Mr. Cumming may seem to have acted directly-contrary to the tenets of his religious profession; hut he ever declared to the ministry, that he was fully persuaded his schemes might be accomplished without the effusion of human blood; and that if he thought otherwise, he would by no means have concerned himself about them. He also desired, let the consequence be what it might, his brethren should not be chargeable with what was his own single act. If it was the first military scheme of any quaker, let it be remembered it was also the first successful expedition of this war, and one of the first that ever was carried on according to the pacific system of the quakers, without the loss of a drop of blood on either side.