The African Association had decided in May…
June 1795 CE
They had authorized their committee to make "whatever application to Government they may think advisable for rendering the late discoveries of Major Houghton effectually serviceable to the Commercial Interests of the Empire."
A British presence on the Gambia would "strengthen the bonds of trade", so they have proposed to install James Willis as consul in Senegambia.
He is to develop good relations with the king of Bambouk by a gift of muskets, thereby opening up communication between the Niger and the Gambia and make inroads for trade with all the "gold-rich lands of the interior which undoubtedly lined the Niger’s banks".
Mungo Park, a Scottish country doctor, was to travel with Willis to Senegambia, but when Willis’ departure was held up by bureaucratic and logistical problems, Park had left England on the trade ship Endeavour, a vessel trading to the Gambia for beeswax and ivory and arrives on the Africa coast on June 4, 1795.
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