I was in the Netherlands between November 1, 1966 and May 15, 1967, investigating the manuscripts concerned with the Dutch presence on the Gold Coast. My work involved research into the political and social influences of the Dutch at Elmina during the first half of the eighteenth century. Patricia Carson's book, Materials for West African History in the Archives of Belgium and Holland, served as an initial basis for my research; this article is primarily intended to supplement her citations.

Miss Carson's guide has provided students of West African history with an initial indication of the vast amount of manuscript material existing in the Netherlands. I would, therefore, like first to pay tribute to Miss Carson for the magnitude of her effort and the strength of her trailblazing work. Her guide to the manuscript materials in the Netherlands is accurate and displays a great amount of painstaking effort on her part. The fact that I am able to supplement her book, I believe, is based on my growing knowledge of the Archives of the Second West India Company and the Archives of the Netherlands Settlements on the Guinea Coast. I also had the good fortune in that the staff of the Algemeen Rijksarchief was most helpful in suggesting inventories of which Miss Carson may not have been aware or which she might have missed. In addition, I was able to check other manuscript repositories, one or two of which yielded useful citations.