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Ysidro, 74 guns, and not the Santa Domingo, that is captured. The Santissima Trinidada is reported to be off here by one of our frigates. The enemy, however, passed Lagos Bay, leaving the prizes unmolested. Victory, Lagos Bay, 16th February 1797.
A new mode of life, as the Portuguese said, had been found out; and "the greater part of the kingdom was moved with a sudden desire to follow this way to Guinea." In 1444 a company was formed at Lagos, who received permission from the Prince to undertake discovery along the coast of Africa, paying him a certain portion of any gains which they might make.
The expedition was joined by the ex-king Akitoye, and upwards of 600 men, who were landed in some canoes captured by Lieutenant Saumarez. Lagos was strongly fortified; the people also had long been trained to arms, and possessed at least 5000 muskets and 60 pieces of cannon, so that the work undertaken was of no contemptible character.
Two days later he was back in Lagos Bay, landing a thousand men for an attempt upon the town, but in the evening, after vainly endeavoring to induce the bodies of cavalry which hovered on their line of march to come within reach, the troops reëmbarked, reporting the place too strong to be taken by assault. Such reports were not to Drake's liking.
The first expedition against Lagos having failed solely from want of sufficient force to keep possession of the town, Commodore Bruce sent one of ample strength, and thoroughly organised, to drive the slave-dealing chief Kosoko from his stronghold. The squadron appeared off Lagos by the 24th December.
I had an opportunity of sending you, by a cutter for Lagos, a short letter, with the above pleasing accounts, which I am persuaded will yield no less happiness to you than it has to me."
"The King of Dahomey looked with an evil eye on the growing power of Abeokuta, and led his army to destroy it; but he and his forces were, however, most signally defeated. On this he instigated the King of Lagos to attack Abeokuta. That chief has got a hundred war canoes, fully five thousand men all armed with muskets, and sixty guns. "Happily the old King of Lagos lately died.
First comes ancient Guinea, then, modern Sierra Leone and Liberia; then follow the various "coasts" of ancient traffic the grain, ivory, gold, and slave coasts with the adjoining territories of Ashanti, Dahomey, Lagos, and Benin, and farther back such tribal and territorial names as those of the Mandingoes, Yorubas, the Mossi, Nupe, Borgu, and others.
Finally, the Sá Leonite is the horror of Europeans on the West Coast. He has been formally expelled by his neighbours, the Liberians. At Lagos and Abeokuta he lost no time in returning to his original fetishism, which the 'recaptive' apparently can never throw off.
Clapperton, therefore, thought it desirable to attach him to the expedition as far as Katunga, the capital of Yariba. The expedition disembarked at Badagry, on the 29th November, 1825, ascended an arm of the Lagos, and then, for a distance of two miles, the Gazie creek, which traverses part of Dahomey.
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