The internal Government, both Civil and Military, of the various
Kingdoms and Nations; together with an Account of the
DISCOVERY OF EXTENSIVE GOLD MINES,

TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH, BY
W. MUDFORD, ESQ,

Author of "A Critical Inquiry into the Writings of Dr. Johnson,”
&c. &c. &c.

Embellished with MAPS, PLANS, and ENGRAVINGS,
illustrative of the Country.

VOL. I.

THE SECOND EDITION,

LONDON:

PRINTED FOR JONES AND BUMFORD,

NO. 5, NEWGATE-STREET.

1808.

Drink m

THE AUTHOR'S PREFACE.

THE English took from us the Senegal during the war of seven years, and were confirmed in the possession of it by the unhappy peace of 1763.

In 1779, Messieurs de Vaudreuil and de Lausun tore this conquest from Great Britain; and possessing greater firmness at the peace of 1783, than we did in 1763, we were once more acknowledged as the masters of this ancient possession of France.

The government of the Senegal was then reestablished, but not indeed as it ought to have been; it should certainly have been extended from Cape Blanco, on the coast of Barbary, to Cape Palmas; and it is the more to be regretted, that our right to traffic freely the whole of this extent, was not then more forcibly maintained, and more clearly stipulated, inasmuch as our commercial concerns, on the coasts of Africa, will be found so intimately connected with the in

B

terests of our fine colonies in America, and the establishment of that grand and fertile country, known by the appellation of French Guayana.

Every one who directed their attention towards political economy, our enlightened merchants, and our learned men, were then principally intevested with regard to Africa; the one in relation co the enlargement of our commerce, and the increase of our wealth; the others, and indeed all those who felt an interest in the progress of human knowledge, because they had long been impatient to attain some information respecting a part of the globe, which, though very near us, though as it were under the eyes and hand of Europe, though inhabited in all its extent, yet had, for more than thirty centuries, been in a state of obscurity and insignificance.

At the moment when the peace of 1783 reestablished us in the exclusive possession of the Senegal, a cloud of darkness yet hung over all the interior countries of this continent.

I was one of those who thought that the free and independent possession of one of the greatest rivers in Africa, gave to France additional facility to penetrate into the central regions; and that, from our situation in the Senegal, to us, peculiarly belonged the honour, of dispersing that cloud, and of teaching Europe the secrets of Africa.