Liberia 



«•-■ 



on during the next seventy years in the Portuguese settlements 

 of Asia, Africa, and America. The Portuguese were enraged 

 and disgusted at their " captivity " (as the Spanish rule was 

 called), and worked with less heart at their defence of a 

 magnificent empire no longer their own. But England, being 

 intermittently at war with Spain, and in her hatred of Spain 

 allowing piracy on the part of British subjects when ostensibly 

 at peace with the cold Flemish Philip, seized with avidity an 

 excuse for ousting Portugal from her gains. France followed 

 precisely the same course, and the bitterest foe of the Portu- 

 guese was Holland. The Dutch, affecting to consider all that 

 was Portuguese as belonging to Spain (against whom they were 

 in revolt), made descents on the Guianas and Brazil, ousted the 

 Portuguese from the Gold Coast in West Africa and from 

 Angola, replaced their fugitive settlements in South Africa by 

 a Dutch colony, and took from them Mozambique in East 

 Africa, the islands of Ceylon, Java, Sumatra, Flores, and Celebes. 

 The French also attempted to secure a foothold in Brazil, of 

 which French Guiana is the only vestige at the present day. 



But so far as the purpose of this book is concerned, it 

 is more to the point to notice that at the beginning of the seven- 

 teenth century the French replaced the Portuguese (as a ruling 

 power) on the Senegal River and at Cape Verde, and as traders 

 on the Liberian coast and elsewhere. The English under 

 Elizabeth now deemed the time opportune for gaining a foot- 

 hold in West Africa. Forts were built at the mouth of the 

 River Gambia in 1588, and towards the close of the sixteenth 

 century English trading-settlements were erected at or near 

 Sierra Leone, and during the seventeenth century Great Britain 

 became one of the leading Powers on the Gold Goast. At the 

 beginning of the seventeenth century travellers record that the 

 natives along the Liberian Coast were becoming tri-lingual ; 



48 



