[Drop-Head Title:] African Company. Copies Of All Letters Addressed By The African Company Of London To The Treasury Board, Respecting The Surrender Of The African Forts To Government, With All Lists Of The Servants Of The Said Company Sent Therewith; And Slo, A Copy Of The Treasury Minute Made In Consequence Thereof [Parliament]

14pp, [2]. Docket title to verso of terminal leaf. Disbound. Later resewn. Three old horizontal folds. A rare survival of copies of correspondence relating to act to divest the African Company of Merchants of the charge and management of forts and settlements on the Gold Coast of Africa, and transfer their control to the Crown. The act that abolished the company was passed in May 1821, and the transfer ownership of eight forts, including the notorious Cape Coast Castle, was affected on 3rd July, the day after these letters were ordered by Commons to be printed. They contain listings of the Company's employees and respective salaries and abstract of annual stipends paid to local Kings and Cabboceers. From the recently dispersed library (without any indication of such) of British scholar and senior civil servant William St Clair (1937-2021), and presumably used by him in his research for his acclaimed book The Grand Slave Emporium: Cape Coast Castle and the British Slave Trade (2006). OCLC records copies at just two locations (Florida and NLW); COPAC adds no further. Size: Folio