[Footnote 27: Ibid., pp. 486-489.]

[Footnote 28: W.B. Weeden, _Economic and Social History of New England_
(Boston [1890]), II, 465.]

[Footnote 29: G.H. Moore, _Notes on the History of Slavery in
Massachusetts_ (New York, 1866), pp. 66, 67, citing J.O. Felt, _Annals of
Salem_, 2d ed., II, 289, 290.]

Ships were frequently delayed for many months on the pestilent coast, for
after buying their licenses in one kingdom and finding trade slack there
they could ill afford to sail for another on the uncertain chance of a more
speedy supply. Sometimes when weary of higgling the market, they tried
persuasion by force of arms; but in some instances as at Bonny, in
1757,[30] this resulted in the victory of the natives and the destruction
of the ships. In general the captains and their owners appreciated the
necessity of patience, expensive and even deadly as that might prove to be.

[Footnote 30: Gomer Williams, pp. 481, 482.]

The chiefs were eager to foster trade and cultivate good will, for it
brought them pompous trappings as well as useful goods. "Grandy King
George" of Old Calabar, for example, asked of his friend Captain Lace
a mirror six feet square, an arm chair "for my salf to sat in," a gold
mounted cane, a red and a blue coat with gold lace, a case of razors,
pewter plates, brass flagons, knives and forks, bullet and cannon-ball
molds, and sailcloth for his canoes, along with many other things for use
in trade.[31]