The British Government was incensed at this procedure, and all the more so as plans were then on foot for consolidating British influence in the Cameroons.  On that river there were six British, and two German firms, and the natives had petitioned for the protection of England; but H.M.S. Flint, on steaming into that river on July 20, found that the German flag had been hoisted by the officers of the German warship Moewe.  Nachtigall had signed a treaty with “King Bell” on July 12, whereby native habits were to remain unchanged and no customs dues levied, but the whole district was placed under German suzerainty[449].  The same had happened at neighbouring districts.  Thereupon Consul Hewitt, in accordance with instructions from London, established British supremacy at the Oil Rivers, Old and New Calabar, and several other points adjoining the Niger delta as far west as Lagos.

[Footnote 449:  Ibid. p. 24.]

For some time there was much friction between London and Berlin on these questions, but on May 7, 1885, an agreement was finally arrived at, a line drawn between the Rio del Rey and the Old Calabar River being fixed on as the boundary of the spheres of influence of the two Powers, while Germany further recognised the sovereignty of Britain over St. Lucia Bay in Zululand, and promised not to annex any land between Natal and Delagoa Bay[450].  Many censures were lavished on this agreement, which certainly sacrificed important British interests in the Cameroons in consideration of the abandonment of German claims on the Zulu coast which were legally untenable.  Thus, by pressing on various points formerly regarded as under British influence, Bismarck secured at least one considerable district—­one moreover that is the healthiest on the West African coast.  Subsequent expansion made of the Cameroons a colony containing some 140,000 square miles with more than 1,100,000 inhabitants.

[Footnote 450:  Parl.  Papers, Africa, No. 6 (1885), p. 2.]

It is an open secret that Germany was working hard in 1884-85 to get a foothold on the Lower Niger and its great affluent, the Benue.  Two important colonial societies combined to send out Herr Flegel in the spring of 1885 to secure possession of districts on those rivers where British interests had hitherto been paramount.  Fortunately for the cause of Free Trade (which Germany had definitely abandoned in 1880) private individuals had had enough foresight and determination to step in with effect, and to repair the harm which otherwise must have come from the absorption of Mr. Gladstone and his colleagues in home affairs.

In the present case, British merchants were able to save the situation, because in the year 1879 the firms having important business dealings with the River Niger combined to form the National African Company in order to withstand the threatening pressure of the French advance soon to be described.  In 1882 the Company’s powers were extended, largely owing to Sir George Taubman Goldie, and it took the name of the National African Company.  Extending its operations up the River Niger, it gradually cut the ground from under the French companies which had been formed for the exploitation and ultimate acquisition of those districts, so that after a time the French shareholders agreed to merge themselves in the British enterprise.