ENGLAND AND FRANCE 353 mercial war which ensued, Mr. Goldie, afterwards Sir George, became the acknowledged leader on the British side of a movement which, under his guidance, rapidlyassumed an overtly political character.

It was essential to the existence of British trade that French competition should be driven from the native markets on the banks of the river ; but the immediate French reply to the amalgamation of the British companies was the formation on the river of another and more powerful French company, which was known to have the support and encouragement of the French Foreign Office. For two or three years the National African Company sustained the brunt of an international duel, of which the end was clearly seen to be the withdrawal of one or other of the combatants from the scene. The French company yielded. They were finally bought out by the National African Company in 1884, and the British representative at the conference opened in Berlin in that year was able to announce that no other Power but Great Britain owned any trading establishments on the Lower Niger. The result was that the conference adjudged to Great Britain the duty of watching over the application of regulations laid down for the navigation of the Niger, and in the same year Great Britain notified to the Powers her assumption of a Protectorate, under the name of the Oil Rivers, over that portion of the African coast which lay between the British colony of Lagos and the territory now known as the German Cameroons.

The first round was won, but the conflict, which had hitherto been waged upon the coast, was now carried into the interior. Throughout the period of its existence the National African Company had found it necessary to secure its commercial position by the negotiation of treaties with native chiefs. Upon the lower river, where the political organisation of the natives was of a primitive character, the number of petty independent chiefs was very great, and the treaties negotiated by the Company were counted by hundreds. It was known that z