. She has numerous good
harbours, many navigable rivers, a most fruitful soil, valuable
productions of every kind, known in every other quarter of the Tropical
world, besides some peculiarly her own; and a climate and a country,
take it all in all, equal, if not superior, to any other Tropical
quarter of the world in point of salubrity. Her population are indeed
ignorant and debased; but generally speaking, and especially over large
portions of her surface, they are even more active, and intelligent, and
industrious, than the Indians of America, or the people in some parts of
Asia are, or than the population of Europe was, before the arms of Rome
coerced and civilized them. Why, then, is Africa overlooked and
neglected?

Let us attend to the following facts. They are, both in a political and
commercial point of view, of great importance, as showing the progress
of the opinions and efforts of foreign nations as directed towards
Africa.

The great energies of France are, it is well known, at present strongly
directed to the more important points of Tropical Africa, for the
purpose of extending colonization, cultivation, and commerce therein, in
order that she may thereby obtain supplies of colonial produce from the
application of her own capital, and at the same time, and by this
measure, to raise up a more extensive commercial marine, and
consequently a more powerful and commanding navy.

Under such circumstances, the real question to be solved is--Shall Great
Britain secure and keep, as she may do, the superiority in Tropical
cultivation, commerce, and influence? or, Shall foreign countries be
suffered to acquire this supremacy, not only as regards themselves
specifically, but even to the extent of supplying British markets with
the produce of their fields, their labour, and their capital, to the
abandonment and destruction of her own?

This is the true state of the case; and the result is a vital question
as regards the future power and resources of Great Britain.

France is already securely placed at the mouth of the Senegal, and at
Goree, extending her influence eastward and north-eastward from both
places. She has a settlement at Albreda, on the Gambia, a short distance
above St Mary's, and which commands that river. She has just formed a
settlement close by Cape Palmas, and another at the mouth of the Gaboon,
and a third by this time near the chief mouth of the Niger, in the Bight
of Benin. She has fixed hers