improving this trade, the British subjects were debarred from lodging
their slaves and merchandise in the forts and settlements on the coast;
they, therefore, prayed that this part of the act might be repealed;
that all commanders of British and American vessels, free merchants, and
all other his majesty's subjects, who were settled, or might at any time
thereafter settle in Africa, should have free liberty, from sunrise to
sunset, to enter the forts and settlements, and to deposit their goods
and merchandise in the warehouses thereunto belonging; to secure their
slaves or other purchases without paying any consideration for the same;
but the slaves to be victualled at the proper cost and charge of
their respective owners. The house having taken this petition into
consideration, inquired into the proceedings of the company, and revised
the act for extending and improving the trade to Africa, resolved, that
the committee of the African company had faithfully discharged the trust
reposed in them, and granted ten thousand pounds for maintaining the
British forts and settlements in that part of the world. The enemy were
perfectly well acquainted with the weakness of the British castles on
the coast of Africa; and had they known as well how to execute with
spirit, as to plan with sagacity, the attempt which, in the course of
the preceding year, they made upon the principal British fort in Guinea,
would have succeeded, and all the other settlements would have fallen
into their hands without opposition.*

* Robert Hunter Morris represented, in a petition to the
house, that as no salt was made in the British colonies in
America, they were obliged to depend upon a precarious
supply of that commodity from foreigners; he, therefore,
offered to undertake the making of marine salt at a moderate
price in one of those colonies, at his own risk and charge,
provided he could be secured in the enjoyment of the profits
which the work might produce, for such a term of years as
might seem to the house a proper and adequate compensation
for so great an undertaking. The petition was ordered to lie
upon the table; afterwards read and referred to a committee,
which, however, made no report. A circumstance not easily
accounted for, unless we suppose the house of commons were
of opinion, that such an enterprise might contribute towards
rendering our colonies too independe