326 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY influence over the nations ''more by wine and strong liquors than by force of arms," and even here, on the West Coast of Africa, we get the echo of the reHgious controversies which were raging so furiously in the countries at that time engaged in the Thirty Years' War. The Portuguese had consistently sent many Catholic missionaries among the natives of the coast, and then, as now, commerce and conversion went hand in hand. But the blacks, we are told by Portuguese writers, *' being a barbarous people, readily enough swallowed Calvin's poison spread among them, intermixed with merchandise." It was not long before this attitude of mutual detestation broke out into open v/ar, and on August 29, 1637, the Dutch possessed themselves of the fort of Elmina.

From this period the Portuguese were gradually driven from the trade. The Dutch took Axim from them in 1642, and by the end of the century there was only one Portuguese fort left upon the coast. In 1664, on the outbreak of the Dutch war, the English took from the Dutch the fort known now as Cape Coast Castle, with many others. But during the continuation of hostilities, the Dutch under De Ruyter fully revenged themselves, and took all the principal English stations upon the coast, besides recovering their own, with the single exception of Cape Coast Castle. The peace which shortly followed left the Dutch in a very strong position on the coast, where they erected a chain of forts, and, as was the uniform outcome of all operations, ''used the natives with great severity." The influence of every European war was, of course, felt upon the coast. As the successes of the Dutch under De Ruyter threatened in 1665 to destroy the English settlements, so in 1677 the French were for a time predominant, and captured all the more important Dutch settlements. Under the Treaty of Nimeguen in 1678 these were, however, given back to Holland. Denmark and the Electorate of Brandenburgh, two small but also Protestant powers, had their share in the