362 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY situation. By this agreement, which gave to France the back country of the colony of Dahomey, and accepted a point near Ilo instead of Say as the point of separation between French and English spheres upon the Middle Niger, the western frontier of Nigeria was fixed at its present limits. These include, on the western bank of the Niger, the eastern half of Borgu, and carry the British frontier from the junction between Lagos and Dahomey to join the northern line at its terminus upon the Middle Niger.

The formation of a new military force at public expense, designed chiefly for local service in the interior, was not only an indication of the very remarkable change in public opinion, which, contemporaneously with the movements in Nigeria, operated to bring about a gradual enlargement and expansion towards the interior of the territories of the other West Coast colonies ; it also indicated approaching change in the government of the territories of the Niger Company.

During the whole of the period which elapsed between the grant of the charter of the Royal Niger Company and the formation of the West African Frontier Force, the Company had carried on the fight for British extension in the interior on the gallant but unequal terms of a private corporation contending with two foreign Governments. In the events which preceded the agreement of 1898, when officially organised French expeditions were directed against the territories secured by treaty to the Company, and a French gunboat did not scruple, in the excitement of local rivalry, to enter the waters of the river which were open by international agreement to merchant vessels alone, it became evident that a stage had been reached in which the adventurous energy of a trading company, however well directed, could no longer suffice for the efficient protection and necessary development of the territories which had been brought under British rule.

Obviously it was undesirable that territories, of which