That coast is, in consequence, much resorted to by foreign nations, so that if other arrangements be not, in a short time, adopted in the premises, it runs great risk of being wholly filched, or at least rendered unproductive for the Company. There is no other way to prevent this than to appropriate a certain cash capital and fund which ought to remain specially applied thereunto in the hands sufficient to carry on the trade,

of certain commissaries, or separate accounts kept of it, and all the profit of the trade divided among the Chambers, and the capital remain always undiminished. By this means the trade would be quickly reestablished and again attain vigor.

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HOLLAND DOCUMENTS: IlL 243

Respecting the separate trading posts at Argyn, Senegal, Cape Verde, Rio Gamliia and Sierra Leone, to wJTicli eacii Chamber now independentlyresorts with its own stores and ships, it has been, heretofore, sufficiently demonstrated to the XIX. that all those places had much better been combined and visited annually by a first class ship, in rotation, or otherwise, and at joint profit. By this means, a part of the unnecessary outfit can be dispensed with, and much jealousy obviated among the Chambers which do not participate in the separate trade. The Island of St. Thomas is indeed of a nature to derive more benefit from cultivation and raising of produce. Free access and unrestricted trade are considered suitable means to that end, although our people will not easily settle there on account of the insalubrity of the climate, and because the best and most productive spots are already sufficiently peopled and cultivated by Portuguese; so that nothing more remains than to take the sugars and other produce of these people and to supply them, in return, with all sorts of goods and necessaries, which do not yearly exceed one hundred thousand guilders.