Spare princes need something to do. King Charles put the Duke of York in charge of the Navy. Five years earlier, English forces had captured Jamaica, which became the country’s portal to the Caribbean and its emerging American colonies. The Duke of York liked bold ideas. His cousin, Prince Rupert of the Rhine, had heard of “a firm rock of gold of a great bigness” while exploring the Gambia River, on the coast of West Africa, a decade earlier. In December, 1660, James launched the first expedition of the Company of Royal Adventurers of England Trading into Africa, to search for gold mines. The Duke also instructed his men to trade for “Negroes, hides and other goods” with Spanish and Portuguese outposts along the way.journey-inline-newsletterinline-newsletter