Captain Bouet-Willaumez, already alluded
to, signed in 1839, on behalf of the French
Government, a treaty with King Denis of
Gaboon. In 1872 sovereignty was assumed
by France over the islands in the estuary
and the affluents of the Gaboon River, and
in 1848 the city of Libreville was founded



POLITICAL ESTABLISHMENT OF FRENCH 21

at the mouth of the estuary, with a colony of
freed slaves rescued from a slaver captured
by the French fleet. Libreville, the French
Freetown, has remained ever since the capital
of a colony destined to grow to enormous
proportions, and to be associated with two great
names in the history of science, pacific explora-
tion, and statesmanship in Equatorial Africa —
Savorgnan de Brazza, and Paul du Chaillu.
In the previous chapter, a slight sketch of
the introduction of European trade into this
region was attempted. That trade, which the
Portuguese, followed by the Dutch and other
nationalities, had started, was maintained and
enlarged by Englishmen, Danes, and French-
men. The importance of British trade would
appear to have steadily increased all down
the coast throughout the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries. In 1788, for instance,
we have the Dane, Isert, calling attention to
the trade in dye-woods undertaken by the
British in the Gaboon. Up to the early part
of the nineteenth century, the legitimate com-



22 THE BRITISH CASE IN FRENCH CONGO

merce of the Gaboon, so far as the British
were concerned, was carried on principally by
Bristol and London ships. In 1851 Messrs.
Hatton and Cookson entered the Gaboon
River and established factories on shore, being
the first Liverpool firm to do so.
