y asserted almost to the day of his death, 'no colony man.'
But the time was at hand when he was to be forced out of this attitude.
For already the riches of tropical Africa were beginning to attract the
attention of Europe.

The most active and energetic of the powers in tropical Africa was
France. From her ancient foothold at Senegal she was already, in the
late 'seventies, pushing inland towards the upper waters of the Niger;
while further south her vigorous explorer de Brazza was penetrating the
hinterland behind the French coastal settlements north of the Congo
mouth. Meanwhile the explorations of Livingstone and Stanley had given
the world some conception of the wealth of the vast exterior. In 1876
Leopold, King of the Belgians, summoned a conference at Brussels to
consider the possibility of setting the exploration and settlement of
Africa upon an international basis. Its result was the formation of an
International African Association, with branches in all the principal
countries. But from the first the branches dropped all serious pretence
of international action. They became (so far as they exercised any
influence) purely national organisations for the purpose of acquiring
the maximum amount of territory for their own states. And the central
body, after attempting a few unsuccessful exploring expeditions,
practically resolved itself into the organ of King Leopold himself, and
aimed at creating a neutral state in Central Africa under his
protection. In 1878 H. M. Stanley returned from the exploration of the
Congo. He was at once invited by King Leopold to undertake the
organisation of the Congo basin for his Association, and set out again
for that purpose in 1879. But he soon found himself in conflict with
the active French agents under de Brazza, who had made their way into
the Congo valley from the north-west. And at the same time Portugal,
reviving ancient and dormant claims, asserted that the Congo belonged
to her. It was primarily to find a solution for these disputes that the
Berlin Conference was summoned in December 1884. Meanwhile the rush for
territory was going on furiously in other regions of Africa. Not only
on the Congo, but on the Guinea Coast and its hinterland, France was
showing an immense activity, and was threatening to reduce to small
coastal enclaves the old British settlements on this coast. Only the
energy shown by a group of British merchants, who formed themselves
into a National Afric