THE FOUNDING OF THE CONGO INDEPENDENT STATE 27
companied by serious efforts to accustom the natives to the
idea of putting themselves under French protection.
With Great Britain, Portugal was more successful. For-
eigners were largely shut out from the French colonial
markets, and Great Britain did not wish these preserves
enlarged. It was hardly feasible to take the territory her-
self; but Portugal had claims to it, she professed conversion
to the most liberal principles of colonial administration,
and was weak enough to be easily held to them. In his
first despatch, in 1882, De Serpa wrote: ‘Portugal does not
wish to close Africa, but, on the contrary, to open it to the
civilization and commerce of the world, and to facilitate ac-
cess to it from the coasts which she occupies.” She would
suppress the slave trade there, define the boundaries in West
Africa, and cooperate with her neighbors in maintaining
order and security on the Congo. Lord Granville recognized
that conditions had changed since the Portuguese advances
of 1877 had been repelled, and on December 15 he proposed
as bases for a treaty: the recognition of the Portuguese
boundaries at lat. 5° 12’ S. and 18° S.; unrestricted commerce
on the Congo and the Zambesi; low tariffs in all the African
possessions of Portugal; the equality of British and Portu-
guese subjects in matters of land, leases, religion, and taxes;
and the cession of Portuguese claims between long. 5° W.
and 5° E., i.e., the fort of St. John the Baptist of Ajuda.
A lively correspondence, lasting till February, 1884, led to
the signing of a treaty along the lines suggested, but with
the rights of foreigners much more thoroughly safeguarded.
The equality of treatment was carefully defined, elaborated,
and extended to all foreigners; freedom of navigation on the
Congo was guaranteed; the duties levied in the Congo ter-
ritory might not for ten years exceed those of the Mozam-
bique tariff of 1877, and might then be revised only by con-
sent of Great Britain: and Portuguese sovereignty on the
