Archibald Dalzel: Slave Trader and Historian of Dahomey

Author(s): I. A. Akinjogbin
Source: The Journal of African History, Vol. 7, No. 1, (1966), pp. 67-78
Published by: Cambridge University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/179460
Accessed: 13/04/2008 10:10

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless
you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you
may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use.

Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at
http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=cup.

Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed
page of such transmission.

JSTOR is a not-for-profit organization founded in 1995 to build trusted digital archives for scholarship. We enable the
scholarly community to preserve their work and the materials they rely upon, and to build a common research platform that
promotes the discovery and use of these resources. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

http://www.jstor.org
Journal of African History, VII, I (I966), pp. 67-78 67
Printed in Great Britain

ARCHIBALD DALZEL: SLAVE TRADER AND

HISTORIAN OF DAHOMEY1

BY I. A. AKINJOGBIN

ARCHIBALD DALZEL, by training a surgeon, spent most of his life in the

slave trade, and is best known today for his History of Dahomey, which,
since its publication in I793, has become accepted as the best single account
of Dahomey in the eighteenth century. Although it has recently been
pointed out that his book was less of a dispassionate history than a polemic
on behalf of the slave trade,2there is no doubt at all that Dalzel was equipped
with greater intellectual training than was usual with most of the eighteenth
century slave traders. Why then did he engage on the slave trade? What
was his attitude to the trade and on what was it based?
It is intended that this biographical sketch should answer these questions
on the evidence of Dalzel's surviving correspondence, especially with his
younger brother, Andrew, lecturer and then professor of classics in
Edinburgh University.3
Archibald Dalzel was born in Kirkliston, West Lothian, Scotland, on
23 October I740.4 He had three younger brothers, Andrew, William
(Willie), John (Jack), and a younger sister, Elizabeth (Bess). He was trained
as a medical doctor, a training which he seems to have completed during
the Seven Years War (I756-63). Around 1762 he himself took part in the
war, probably as an assistant surgeon, and was present at the taking of
Newfoundland.5 Discharged and paid off at the end of the war early in
I763, he was faced with the problem of finding employment.
This problem arose from two main factors. First, as he told his brother
Andrew in I77I: 'I am conscious, Andrew, I shall never make a good M.D.
Perhaps I never discovered to you that I never was fond of my business.
Sure I am, I shall never make a proficient (sic) in that way.'6 The second
factor, which aggravated the first, was that he felt, perhaps too consciously,
1 The substance of this article was first read as a paper at the Congress of the Nigerian
Historical Society in Lagos in December I964.
2
L. K. Waldman, 'An unnoticed aspect of Archibald Dalzel's The History of Dahomey',
J.A.H. vI (I965), 185-192.
3
This correspondence is to be found in Edinburgh University Library (E.U.L.) in
Dk.7.52. I am grateful to Professor J. D. Hargreaves, Burnett-Fletcher Professor of
History in the University of Aberdeen, for first drawing my attention to the existence of
these letters, and the Librarian of the University of Edinburgh for his kindness in letting
me see them.
4 Scottish Parochial
Registers, Register House Edinburgh 667/2; Register book of
Baptisms and marriages in the Parish of Kirkliston, 173 I-I8 9. For this information, and
reference, I am grateful to Mr Christopher Fyfe, Reader in History at the Centre of African
Studies, University of Edinburgh.
5 Archibald Dalziel, to Andrew Dalziel,
Spithead 6 January I763 (E.U.L.Dk.7.52).
6 Archibald Dalziel to Andrew Dalziel, London,
I3 April I77I (E.U.L. Dk.7.52).

5-2
68 I. A. AKINJOGBIN

that the burden of saving his family from poverty and want was mainly his.7
This was because his father, whom he never once mentioned in any of his
extant letters, was certainly dead by I763. He still had a mother to care
for, and, of all his younger brothers and sister, only Andrew was in paid
employment, as a lecturer in Classics in the University of Edinburgh.
Willie, who turned out to be the greatest drain on Archibald's purse and
one of the main causes of his unhappiness, was, in 1763, probably still
learning to be a cabinet maker. Jack and Bess were staying with their
mother, probably still at school.
This need to save the family and himself from penury forms the constant
theme of his letters and must have been the main preoccupation of his life.
In October I77I, on the eve of one of his numerous but fruitless adven-
tures, he declared: '...the most powerful argument in favour of my scheme
is necessity. Without some expedient to retrieve our affairs there is nothing
but inevitable ruin staring us in the face. Our situation requires that
something must be risked...'.8 On the eve of another journey, he said:
'Our family shall not want even if I should be obliged to revisit the torrid
zone to provide for them.'9 In short, therefore, Dalzel was faced, from
about 1763 onwards, with the problem of providing for his large family but
did not have adequate professional or financial resources to cope with his
responsibilities.
This led him, after his discharge from the Navy in January I763, into
the slave trade with which he was to be connected for the rest of his life.
Not that the move was pre-planned or deliberate. Indeed, till the very
last moment of his discharge, he had no definite idea of what he would do
next, though he was already resigned to going abroad. On 6 January 1763,
on the eve of his discharge, he said: 'I scarce know how to dispose of
myself till I have made a tryal (sic) at London. I am determined not to go
home to live till I have got something to support me which I shall (work)
hard for if I go to the utmost corner of the globe.'10
When all the possibilities had been considered (including planting in the
West Indies, for which he lacked capital), the Guinea Coast in West Africa
appeared to be the only place where he had a chance of making a decent
income within a reasonably short time. 'Guinea is the only place that
I have a probability of raising myself in',1 he said in a passionate plea to
his brother in March I763. This prospect overrode all the fears and the
objections that he, his mother, or his brother Andrew, might have had
against his going to West Africa. Moreover, Archibald's fears about the
climate were greatly allayed by a Mr Gossell, who had been in West Africa
for the past five years and was preparing with gusto to go back. He told
7 Archibald Dalziel to Andrew Dalziel, 13 April, 14 May, 19 June, I2 July and I9
October 1771 (E.U.L. Dk.7.5I).
8 Archibald Dalziel to Andrew Dalziel, London, 19 October I771 (E.U.L. Dk.7.52).
9 Archibald Dalziel to Andrew Dalziel, London, 13 April 1771 (E.U.L. Dk. 7.52).
10 Archibald Dalziel to Andrew Dalziel, Spithead, 6 January 1763 (E.U.L. Dk.7.52).
11 Archibald Dalziel to Andrew Dalziel, London, 4 March 1763 (E.U.L. Dk. 7.52).
 ARCHIBALD DALZEL: SLAVE TRADER 69
Archibald that the sinister stories about the climate were greatly exaggera-
ted.12 Archibald himself saw that Gossel was physically none the worse for
his five years' stay in the tropics and that if anything was wrong with him it
arose from his irregular ways of living, his excessive love for women in
particular.13 All these considerations persuaded him to apply for a post
in the service of the African Committee. By 4 March 1763, within two
months of his discharge from the Navy, he had been offered a job and
was actively preparing to go to West Africa.14
From then on until his death, Dalzel's life can be conveniently divided
into four main phases, which were amazingly symmetrical. In the first
and the third phases, he had a steady job in West Africa. In the second and
fourth phases he was mainly in Britain and had no steady job. The first
phase ended in 1778, when he was first declared a bankrupt, after being
within an ace of achieving success.15 To judge from his earlier successes
in West Africa, the end of the first phase would be most unexpected, though
perhaps it was not untypical of the fate of many slave traders, Europeans
and Africans.
After a false start during which his ship ran aground before it had left
the English shores,16 Dalzel finally set sail on or about 7 May I763,17 the
day after the trial of John Wilks for his composition of 'North Briton'.
After a very tedious journey of about three months, he finally reached
Anomabu on the Gold Coast on 12 August. To his surprise, he discovered
that he liked the coast much better than he had expected.18 As Surgeon he
found that he had very little work to do, since every one in the forts was
healthy.19 He therefore toyed with the idea of writing a detailed descrip-
tion of his observation20 in imitation of Bosman, the famous Dutch slave
trader who published his work in I705,21 but he soon gave up that ambition.
Instead, he turned his attention to slave trading after overcoming his
initial qualms on the propriety of selling fellow human beings.
His feelings at this time are worth recording in view of his stout defence
of the trade in later years. On 26 May I764 he wrote: 'I have at last come
a little into the spirit of the slave trade and must own (perhaps it ought to
be to my shame) that I can now traffick in that way without remorse. I have
already gained a trifle by it and shall make all the haste I can to revisit my
native clime.' 22
12 Ibid. 13 Ibid. 14 Ibid.
15 Archibald Dalziel to Andrew Dalziel, London 5 September 1778 (E.U.L. Dk.
7.52).
16 Archibald Dalziel to Andrew Dalziel, London I April, I763 (E.U.L. Dk.
7.52).
17 Archibald Dalziel to Andrew Dalziel, London, 6 May 1763 (E.U.L. Dk.
7.52).
18 Archibald Dalziel to William
Dalziel, Anamaboe, I2 August 1763 (E.U.L. Dk. 7.52).
19 Archibald Dalziel to Robert Liston 26
May I764 (E.U.L. Dk. 7.52).
20 Archibald Dalziel to Robert
Liston, Anamaboe, 20 November 1763 (E.U.L. Dk.
7.52).
21
W. Bosman, A New and Accurate Description of the Coast of Guinea (London,
1705).
22 Archibald Dalziel to Robert Liston, 26 May I764 (E.U.L. Dk. 7.52).
70 I. A. AKINJOGBIN

Three years after, in 1767, he was promoted director of the English fort
at Whydah, 23 in the kingdom of Dahomey, which was generally agreed by
the Europeans to be the most salubrious area of the West Coast of Africa
and one of the most profitable situations for any European slave trader
anxious to acquire quick wealth. The four years which Dalzel spent here
were undoubtedly the happiest in his life, as he himself confessed in the
most reassuring terms to his brother Andrew, about a year after his loca-
tion there: 'Let it therefore suffice for the present to acquaint you in brief
that I have an excellent constitution, am situated in the most pleasant
country on the coast of Guinea, have not only the conveniences but most
of the luxuries of life, tolerable good neighbours in the French and
Portuguese, live genteely and I am in a fair way of speedily acquiring a
decent subsistence for life.'24
Indeed he reckoned at that time that he was making a net profit of about
oo000per annum through his trade with the French and Portuguese.25
By I769, he was already sure that within another year he would leave the
coast and return to England with 'enough to enable me to spend the re-
mainder of life in ease if not in afluence which I do not aspire to.'26 In
this belief he left Whydah in I770 with as many of his slaves as he could
gather and went, via the West Indies, where he disposed of his slaves, to
England which he reached in about March 1771.27 He had been away for
nearly seven years. Back home, however, he discovered that he had only
realized about 22,ooo,28 that is, about half of what he had expected, but
he was still very optimistic that the future was assured. He was, he thought,
sufficiently wealthy to begin to live like a member of the upper class, and
he asked his brother to send him a servant from Scotland as he did not like
those in London.29
It soon became obvious that he was being optimistic too soon. Within
two months of his return, he discovered that he would be obliged to visit
the 'torrid zone' again,30though he did not realize how many times more
this would be. Between I771 and I778, he made two voyages and financed
two more.31 The first of these, on which he embarked in October I771,
was a joint venture between himself, Mr Shoolbred, 'a merchant in the
city, an underwriter or assurer, who transacts a vast deal of business and
is chiefly concerned in the African trade',32 and Mr Devaynes, formerly
a director of the English fort at Whydah, a member of the African com-
23
ArchibaldDalziel to African Committee, I August x767 (?) (T 70/3I).
24
Archibald Dalziel to Andrew Dalziel, 20 April I768 (E.U.L. Dk. 7.52).
25
Archibald Dalziel to Andrew Dalziel, London, I3 April I771 (E.U.L. Dk. 7.52).
26 Archibald Dalziel to Andrew
Dalziel, Whydah, i April I769 (E.U.L. Dk. 7.52).
27
ArchibaldDalziel to Andrew Dalziel, London, 28 March I77I (E.U.L. Dk. 7.52).
28 Ibid.
29 Archibald Dalziel to Andrew Dalziel, London, I3 April 1771 (E.U.L. Dk. 7.52).
30
Archibald Dalziel to Andrew Dalziel, London, 14 May 177I (E.U.L. Dk. 7.52).
31 Archibald Dalziel to Andrew Dalziel, Downs, I9 October I771, 2z October 1773,
7 October 1775 (E.U.L. Dk. 7.52).
32 Archibald Dalziel to Andrew Dalziel, London, 8 August I77I (E.U.L. Dk. 7.52).
 ARCHIBALD DALZEL: SLAVE TRADER 71

mittee, and later a Member of Parliament.33 Despite the large capital out-
lay on this venture, which was f8,ooo,34 and despite the experience behind
it, it was only moderately successful, 'a saving rather than a good one'.35
On his return, Archibald quarrelled with Shoolbred, who was probably the
largest shareholder in the venture, and set up on his own.36
For the next three years, he seemed to be succeeding admirably. In
I773, he bought a ship entirely on his own, which he named Little Archie
and sent to West Africa under a captain whom he had engaged.37 While
the return of this ship was still being awaited, Dalzel went to America and
started a plantation somewhere in Florida.38 On his way back to England,
he bought two more ships, the Hannah and the Nancy.39 With these ships,
he expected to be able to run a series of shuttle slaving expeditions to West
Africa. In pursuance of this scheme, he sent the Nancy off to West Africa
on 20 September I775,40 and in the following November he himself followed
in the Hannah4l in the hope that by the time he got to the Coast the Nancy
would be ready to sail with its full cargo of slaves so that he could take her
to the West Indies, leaving the Hannah with the captain of the Nancy on
the coast to be freighted with slaves.
Like every other of Dalzel's plans, this was initially successful, so success-
ful in fact that by January i778 he thought he had amassed enough capital
to start thinking seriously of turning planter in Kingston, Jamaica.42 Un-
fortunately for him, however, as he was returning to England in August
1778, obviously with most of the proceeds of his venture, he was seized by
American privateers and deprived of everything he had. He returned to
London by a devious route, with all his hopes shattered and all his credit
gone.43 As his ships were probably bought mostly on credit or with
borrowed money, he was thus plunged heavily into debt. For some time,
he remained in hiding in fear of his creditors. When he finally picked up
the courage to show himself, he failed to convince his creditors that, if
given time, he would retrieve his fortune and pay everyone in full. He was
therefore forced to seek the safety of the bankruptcy laws to avoid being
imprisoned.44 Accordingly, he was declared a bankrupt in September
I778.45 Although he bore this calamity with courage, there is no doubt
33 Ibid. 34 Ibid.
35 Archibald Dalziel to Andrew Dalziel, London
27 January 1773 (E.U.L. Dk. 7.52).
36
Archibald Dalziel to Andrew Dalziel London 14 August 1773, I February 1774
(E.U.L. Dk. 7.52).
37 Archibald Dalziel to Andrew
Dalziel, London, 21 October 1773 (E.U.L. Dk. 7.52).
38 John Dalziel to Andrew
Dalziel, London 9 April 1774; Archibald Dalziel to Andrew
Dalziel, 24 July 1775; 24 September 1779 (E.U.L. Dk. 7.52).
39 Archibald Dalziel to Andrew Dalziel, London, 24 July, 7 October, 1775 (E.U.L.
Dk. 7.52). 40 Ibid. 41 Ibid.
42 Archibald Dalziel to
Bessy Dalziel, I4 January I778 (E.U.L. Dk. 7.52).
43 Archibald Dalziel to Andrew Dalziel, II
August I778 (E.U.L. Dk. 7.52). Bessy
Lindsay (nee Dalziel) to Andrew Dalziel, 27 August 1778; George Lindsay to Andrew
Dalziel, 29 August I778 (E.U.L. Dk. 7.52).
44 Archibald Dalziel to Andrew
Dalziel, 24 August, 5 September, II September I778
(E.U.L. Dk. 7.52). 45 Ibid.
72 I. A. AKINJOGBIN

that he felt humiliated. For, soon after this, the family name, which had
hitherto been spelt Dalziel, was changed to Dalzel,46 and it is tempting
to suggest that the change was not unconnected with what might have
been regarded as a slur on the reputation of the family. After this bank-
ruptcy ordeal, Dalzel was never again to be so near success in his life as
before it.
That Archibald Dalzel not only failed to fulfil his ambition for himself
and his family but was also declared a bankrupt in 1778 was due neither
to lack of exertion nor to bad planning.47 His failure was due primarily to
the hazards inherent in the slave trade during the period that he was
engaged in it, and also partly to his family circumstances. In the eighteenth
century, West African currencies, be they cowries, gold dust or manillas,
were not easily convertible to sterling or any other European currency,
and the only means whereby a European could realize whatever fortune
he had amassed in West Africa was by investing such a fortune in slaves
who would be sold in the West Indies or the Americas.
This process was fraught with dangers. The African traders might not
be able to provide enough slaves at the required time. Even if they were
able, the slaves might die of the small pox, the flux or any other disease
before they had left the coast, or in the middle passage. But although
Dalzel recognized these dangers, events showed that he grossly under-
estimated them. Of about 2I0 slaves which he had expected to be able to
carry away with him from Whydah to the West Indies in I770, he secured
exactly I04, and promises of 60 more, which latter in fact he never obtained.
Where he actually miscalculated most was in realizing his money from the
sale of slaves in the West Indies. Generally, the slave traders were expec-
ted to give long credits to the West Indian planters and a large part of the
(2000, which Dalzel reckoned he had after the sale of his slaves in I770,
was in fact a promissory note. In the event, Cuthberts, the West Indian
planter to whom he sold most of his slaves, was too heavily indebted
to too many people to be able to pay Dalzel in full. Indeed, he was declared
a bankrupt in I77348 and it is not known how much Dalzel finally re-
covered of his money.
If Dalzel had not had to pay heavy family debts, incurred by his brother
William, he might still have been able to fulfil his ambitions. But William
seems to have been a young man who was incurably careless with money.
He was already in debt to the tune of ?600 in I77I when his brother re-
turned from his first adventure in Africa.49 To save the family from dis-
grace, Dalzel was forced to repay this debt. After doing this, he had very
little liquid capital left, and it was this which forced him to go slave-trading
46 Archibald Dalziel to Andrew Dalziel, 24 August, 5 September, ii September I778
(E.U.L. Dk. 7.52).
47 Archibald Dalziel to Andrew Dalziel, London, 13 April I778 (E.U.L. Dk. 7.52).
48 Archibald Dalziel to Andrew Dalziel, London, i6, 28 February, 4 March, 25 Decem-
ber I773 (E.U.L. Dk. 7.52).
49 ArchibaldDalziel to Andrew Dalziel, I9 June, 21 July 1771 (E.U.L. Dk. 7.52).
 ARCHIBALD DALZEL: SLAVE TRADER 73
again in October I77I.50 William, however, had not learnt his lesson, and,
by the time that Dalzel had returned again from West Africa in i773, he
was again in debt-this time to the tune of /I,400.51 What exactly he did
with the money is not specified, but once more Archibald paid, thus
spending almost all his capital.
The heaviest stroke of ill luck that really broke Dalzel's back and ren-
dered him bankrupt was the American War. Just when he was recovering
his fortune and acquiring enough capital to make him think of turning
planter, the American dispute with England, which had started soon after
1763, was reaching the crisis stage. War was declared in 1776 and the
Americans started pillaging all English ships. As we have seen, it was as
a victim of the American privateers that Dalzel lost almost everything he
possessed when he was returning from Jamaica to London in I778. For
him this was a particularly mortifying experience, as he secretly sympa-
thized with the Americans.52
Fate was unquestionably hard on him. For by 1778 the family for which
he had toiled so hard to no purpose was all, excepting Archibald himself,
in very easy circumstances, a fact that gave him not a little consolation in
his hour of distress. Andrew had been promoted Professor of Classics at
the University of Edinburgh and was taking good care of their mother.
William, who had been the cause of such great unhappiness, had migrated
to America and had not been heard of for a long time. When last reported,
he owned a little colony of negroes. John had migrated to Granada in
I773 and, although he was not a spectacular success, at least he was not in
want. Bess had married into a good family.53 Indeed only Archibald now
needed providing for, but he stoutly refused any assistance, confident that
he could still make a decent livelihood and declaring, in his usual optimism,
that in any case: 'I shall be able to rub through life while I have my breath.'54
That 'rubbing through life' would not be easy is shown by the second
phase of his career, which started after his bankruptcy ordeal and con-
tinued till 1792, when he was again offered the governorship of Cape Coast
Castle. During these thirteen years, he had no steady job which he could
call his own. He therefore tried his hand at any jobs that came his way,
some of them hardly believable. In I779 he unsuccessfully sought for a
civil service post (which in any case carried no regular pay),55 and for re-
employment by the African Committee.56 Then in 1780 he took to piracy,57
50 Archibald Dalziel to Andrew Dalziel, 8, 15 August, 19 October
I771 (E.U.L.
Dk. 7.52).
51 Archibald Dalziel to Andrew Dalziel, London, 27 January 1773 (E.U.L. Dk. 7.52).
52 Archibald Dalziel to Andrew Dalziel, London, 24 July I775 (E.U.L. Dk. 7.52).
53 Archibald Dalziel to Andrew Dalziel, London, 5 September I778 (E.U.L. Dk. 7.52).
54 Ibid.
55 Archibald Dalzel to Andrew Dalzel, Baker's, 6 July, 6, I3 August 1779 (E.U.L.
Dk. 7.52).
56 Archibald Dalzel to Andrew Dalzel, 9, 24 September, 7 October 1779 (E.U.L. Dk.
7.52).
57 Archibald Dalzel to Andrew Dalzel, 30 March 1780 (E.U.L. Dk. 7.52).
74 I. A. AKINJOGBIN

which was an indication of his desperate situation. But even that was not
successful, despite the high optimism that he entertained when he em-
barked on it. He made two voyages; during the first of these his ship was
nearly wrecked,58 and after the second he gave up the attempt. It is
doubtful whether he gained much from these adventures. Then he tried
book-selling, which never got off the ground,59 after which he went to
Spain where he tried his hand in the wine and tea trade. By 1783 that,
too, had flopped.60 The failures of these ventures had forced him to
swallow a large part of his pride, so that during the whole of these years of
adventure he was being virtually maintained by his brother Andrew.61
Even the plantation which he had at Florida he lost when the place was
conquered by the Spanish allies of the Americans in I780.62 What is some-
what surprising is that, during the whole of these hard years, Dalzel
never once thought of practising the profession in which he had been
trained.
For the next nine years after 1783 it is not known what was happening
to Dalzel or what he was doing for his livelihood. These were, however,
the years when the abolition issue was prominent in British politics, and
Dalzel no doubt played an active part in it. At least once in 1788 we are
given an indication of his activities when he was engaged on the side of the
anti-abolitionists. In April of that year he told his brother Andrew that
he had been twice to the 'Lords of the Privy Council for Trade' and noted
that Lord Hawkesbury was 'taking infinite pains to gain ample information
on the subject'.63
Then at the end of i791 he was appointed Governor of Cape Coast
Castle, the Headquarters of the British settlements on the West Coast of
Africa, where he arrived on 31 March I792.64 Except for a short break
between the end of 1798 and the beginning of i800, when he went to
England for health and business reasons,65 he remained at his post for
the next ten years.
The most salient feature of this period of sojourn at the Cape Coast
Castle was his struggle for territorial possession and sphere of influence,
in which he not only engaged privately but which he actually tried to force
58 Benge to Andrew Dalzel, 13 November I780, Archibald Dalzel to Andrew Dalzel,
i6 December 1780 (E.U.L. Dk. 7.52).
59 Archibald Dalzel to Andrew Dalzel, London, 4 January, 5 February 1781 (E.U.L. Dk.
7.52).
60 Archibald Dalzel to Andrew Dalzel, London, 24 February, 26 May, 24 November
1781, 24 March, 12 December 1782 (E.U.L. Dk. 7.52).
61 Archibald Dalzel to Andrew Dalzel, 24 February, 8 May I781, 9 September 1782, IO
January 1783 (E.U.L Dk. 7.52).
62 Archibald Dalzel to Andrew Dalzel, 22 January I780 (E.U.L. Dk. 7.52).
63 Archibald Dalzel to Andrew Dalzel, London, 9 April I788 (E.U.L. Dk. 7.52).
64 Archibald Dalzel to African Committee, 2 April 1792 (P.R.O.-T70/I564 (II)).
65 A. Dalzel to African Committee, 5 March I799 (P.R.O. T70/1576), 3 April 1799
(T7o/906); A. Dalzel to J. Shoolbred, 29 July 1799 (T70/1576); A. Dalzel to
African Committee, London, 12 December 1799 (T70/1576), 6 February 800o
(T70/I577).
 ARCHIBALD DALZEL: SLAVE TRADER 75
the British government to embrace.66While this showed his farsightedness
the result also demonstrated his ineffectiveness. On his arrival at Cape
Coast Castle, he found Biorn, the Danish local agent, engaged in territorial
expansion east of the Volta, apparently without any authority, at the
expense of the African population.67 Dalzel reckoned that the Danish
success would result in the expulsion of the British traders in the area and
he therefore protested very strongly against Biorn's action, stoutly affirm-
ing the right of the British traders and actively organizing the Dutch agents
against the Danish designs.68 Biorn, however, was recalled soon afterwards
and the Danish expansion was halted, at least temporarily.69
The same consideration for British trade soon brought Dalzel into con-
flict with the Dutch, his erstwhile allies against the Danes. The Dutch
claimed that according to a series of treaties dating from I621 between
themselves and the Portuguese any Portuguese traders carrying European
goods to West Africa were obliged to pay ten per cent of their total cargo
as tax to the Dutch in West Africa.70 This claim the Portuguese were
reluctant to admit, but the Dutch nevertheless efficiently collected these
tolls. Moreover, they often used the right to monopolize the Portuguese
trade, and not infrequently they assumed the right to dictate where a
Portuguese captain could conduct his trade. As these Portuguese captains,
particularly those from Brazil, brought the most vendible article, tobacco,
this Dutch practice was greatly disadvantageous to the British and other
European traders. Dalzel therefore decided, soon after his arrival at Cape
Coast Castle in 1792, to put an end to the Dutch monopoly and to force
British participation in the tobacco trade, which, he claimed, would com-
mand ready gold.71 By I794 he had won some concession from the Dutch
local agents. He then asked the British government to negotiate with the
Dutch and the Portuguese governments to place this concession on a more
permanent basis, through a treaty,72 but the British government did not
seem to have followed up his request. The French Revolution, which
apparently helped Dalzel in making the Dutch local agents relax their grip
on the Portuguese trade in West Africa, engaged the attention of the Euro-
66
Archibald Dalzel to African Committee, Cape Coast Castle, I2 October I792
(T70/I565 (II)); 23 October I794 (T70/1568).
67 William Roberts to Governor and
Council, Cape Coast Castle, James Port, Accra,
29 March 1792; A. R. Biorn to William Roberts, Christiansbourg Castle, io April 1792
(T70/I565 (II)); Biorn to Dalzel, 6, I2 May 1792 (T70/I565 (2)).
68 A. Dalzel to A. R. Biorn, Cape Coast Castle, 2 May
1792; Reports of the conference
between the English and the Dutch Governors, 3 May 1792 (T70/1565 (II)).
69
A. Dalzel to African Committee, Cape Coast Castle, 12 October 1792 (T7o0/656 (2I).
70
Viceroy of Brazil to King of Portugal, Bahia, 9 May I726, enclosing a letter from the
Dutch General of Elmina Castle to the Viceroy of Brazil (Archivo Publico Bahiano,
Ordens Regiais 2I. I32); A. F. C. Ryder, 'The re-establishment of the Portuguese
factories on the Costa da Mina to the mid-i8th century', in J.H.S.N. I, no. 3 (December
1960), i60.
71 Archibald Dalzel to African Committee, Cape Coast Castle, 12 October I792 (T70/
1565 (2I)).
72 Archibald Dalzel to African Committee, Cape Coast Castle, 23 October I794
(T70/I 508).
76 I. A. AKINJOGBIN

pean governments much more vitally than a few bunches of dried tobacco
leaves.
Perhaps the most interesting of Dalzel's activities during these ten years
was his attempt to convert the British West African trading stations into
colonial territories. His attitude was not isolated for, as we have noticed,
Biorn, the Danish agent at Accra, was attempting precisely the same thing.
He continued to refer to the people of Keta and of Anlo (in modern Togo)
as 'our subjects'. Dalzel, however, went slightly further than making empty
claims. With the concurrence of the council of Cape Coast Castle, he asked
that the West African stations be put on the same basis as the West Indian
colonies and that the Governor there be granted the court of Admiralty
powers.73 Although this demand came to nothing, it shows the farsighted-
ness of Dalzel and is significant of what might have been expected if the
Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars had not intervened to divert Europe's
attention from West Africa.
Just as all his imperial and expansionist exertions during these ten years
resulted in nothing, so his administration was not a spectacular success.
He had been sent out to effect certain reforms. The accounts had been
more than seven years in arrears, and the officers in the Castle had become
riotous and uncontrollable. At the end of his tenure of office, these con-
ditions were as bad as he had found them. When he resigned and went back
to England in I802, the company's account was still six years behind
despite, as he claimed, his 'hours of painful application'.74 Nor was he
able to obtain the co-operation of his fellow workers. Some of them thought
he was 'haughty and supercilious', others took advantage of his indulgence,
and the whole establishment remained divided into factions, notwith-
standing some unspecified stern measures which he took.75
Nor was Dalzel particularly successful in his financial affairs. Although
during the period of his governorship at the Cape Coast Castle his financial
position was better than it had been immediately before, yet when he
resigned in I802 he did not seem to have amassed any savings, let alone
acquired a fortune. In applying for a loan from his employers, he declared
pathetically: 'the same unpropitious stars which have attended me from
my first entrance into your service nearly forty years ago still preclude me
from those comforts, the possession of which I had looked up to in the
decline of life'.76
At this point in Dalzel's life, an obscure side of him comes out briefly.
In one of his light moments he had confessed to his brother Andrew that
he had three women friends,77 but at no time did he say that he was
seriously considering getting married. Once in 794 he referred to 'Mrs D.
73 A. Dalzel and Council to African Committee, I7 December 1793 (T70/I566).
74 A. Dalzel to African Committee, 26 September I8oi (T70/34).
75 A. Dalzel to Chiefs of Windward Ports and officers in the African Company's service
not in Council, Cape Coast Castle, 2 September I8oi (T70/I577).
76 A. Dalzel to African Committee, London, 4 May I803 (T70/34).
77 Archibald Dalzel to Andrew Dalzel, London, 4 August I775 (E.U.L. Dk. 7.52).
 ARCHIBALD DALZEL: SLAVE TRADER 77
and child' being in a 'favourable' way.78 Whether 'D.' meant himself or
someone else is not clear. But in I799 he solicited the African Committee
for his son, Edward Dalzel, to be employed as a writer at Cape Coast
Castle. The boy was accordingly employed, though still at school, and was
sent out with his father early in 8oo00.79After that, no more reference to
him has been discovered in any of Dalzel's letters, or anywhere else. It is
completely unknown whether he was a pure British or a mulatto, whether
he was legitimate or natural or whether he lived the rest of his life on the
Gold Coast or later returned to England.
Similarly, Dalzel's activities in the last phase of his life, which was the
period between his resignation in I802 and his death (which probably
occurred at an advanced age around 181), are completely obscure. What-
ever they were, they do not seem to have improved his financial position,
for he died a bankrupt.80
In this story of disappointment and failure, three things stand to the
credit of Archibald Dalzel. The first is his deep sense of responsibility and
concern for the fortune of his family. Even when he had been ruined by
this concern and had become the millstone around the neck of the family
rather than its lever, he never resented his plight. Rather, the knowledge
that the members of the family were in easy circumstances gave him not an
inconsiderable relief. To someone brought up in the African family
tradition of sharing one's joys, sorrows, successes, or failures with the
members of one's extended family, this is really touching. The second was
his inexhaustible optimism. To the very last he always saw the rosy side of
any new venture. His successive failures, while they made him less sure
of the eventual outcome of later ventures, never entirely succeeded in
making him pessimistic. His optimism gave him a resilience which en-
abled him to turn to a new venture with undiminished vigour immediately
after the failure of the previous one. One may not approve of the lack
of scruples which led him to turn to piracy, but the untiring energy which
he always threw into a new venture is admirable.
The third, and undoubtedly the greatest, success of his life, and the one
which has preserved his name for posterity, is his book on the kingdom of
Dahomey. No one who has ever read the book can fail to be impressed by
its eloquence and power. To compare some passages in the book with the
political speeches of Edmund Burke, his famous contemporary, would un-
doubtedly be exaggerating Dalzel's ability. But there is no doubt that
certain passages in it compare favourably with the best literary traditions
of the eighteenth century. That the work has been very highly regarded
since the eighteenth century, even by critical historians, is a measure of
the brilliance with which it was written.
78
A. Dalzel to Thomas Miles, Cape Coast Castle, 31 August 1794 (T70/I569).
79 A. Dalzel to
J. Shoolbred, 29 July I799; Edward Dalzel to African Committee,
London, 26 November 1799 (T70/I576); A. Dalzel to African Committee, 29 January
i8oo (T70/I577).
80
Benjamin A. Vond to African Committee, London, 2 March i8 i.
78 I. A. AKINJOGBIN

SUMMARY
Archibald Dalzel, the author of The History of Dahomey, was born in Scotland in
I740. Unable to practise the medical profession in which he had been trained, he
entered the service of the Committee of Merchants Trading to Africa (African
Committee) in 1763 as Surgeon, and was posted to Cape Coast in West Africa.
There he started slave trading, which remained his only stable employment until
his death in I8II. Despite the apparent ease with which profit could be gained
from the slave trade during that period, and despite the energy and optimism
which he put into his ventures, Dalzel was never a success. He was twice
declared a bankrupt and died a disappointed man. The only monument which he
left behind and by which he is still remembered is his brilliant compilation on the
History of Dahomey.