CHAPTER XII.
Cape Coast—The Panic—The Golden Axe—Preparations for Defence—Ansah—A divided Command—A second message from the King—Native Levies—Ordered to Anamaboe.
At 2 p.m. on February 2nd the “Cameroon” dropped anchor off Cape Coast Castle, and the whole reinforcement was landed in safety through the surf by 4 p.m.
The panic reigning on this portion of the Gold Coast would have been amusing had it not been so disgraceful. Seven thousand men had been asked for from England, though the last war had been brought to a successful termination with two West India regiments and two European battalions, for practically the 23rd Regiment took no part in the operations. The walls of Elmina Castle, a fortress impregnable at any time by savages, had been heightened with sand-bags, as though regular siege approaches were anticipated; and a few days before our arrival the advisability of abandoning that post, together with Fort St. Jago, and withdrawing the garrison of Houssa Constabulary to Cape Coast, had been seriously entertained. One hundred and fifteen Houssas were at Prahsu and forty at Mansu, but no attempt was to be made to arrest the advance of the enemy by occupying either of these places in force and raising field-works; and on February 3rd it was decided that the whole available force of the Colony should be employed in the defence of the forts of Anamaboe, Cape Coast, Elmina, and Axim. In other words, the Ashantis were to be allowed to ravage the whole country from the Prah to the sea, and the natives were to receive no protection whatever; while the garrisons were to be shut up in inglorious safety within stone walls. A high Colonial official said to me:—
“Oh! we’re so glad you fellows have come. There has been no safe place to go to at all, and hardly a man-of-war about to get on board of.”
People seemed to imagine that the Ashanti army had been supplied by some enterprising contractor with seven-leagued boots, and could move in one spring from the northern border of Adansi to the sea-board without our receiving any warning, or information concerning their progress, from the inhabitants of the country. The Lieutenant-Governor, with his principal officers, had taken refuge in the Castle, and, although the ambassadors with the axe had only left Cape Coast Castle on their return journey to Coomassie on January 26th, a scare had taken place on the night of February 1st, when everybody must have been aware that the messengers had not had time to reach their capital. Some intelligent negro alarmed the town in the dead of night by declaring that he had seen the advancing Ashantis on the Prah road, about three miles from the Castle. Upon this, the garrison was got under arms, a patrol sent out, and all the lights in the Castle extinguished. The object of this last strategic movement is difficult of discovery, unless it was done in the hope that the Ashantis might not see the Castle in the dark, and so pass on and go elsewhere.
Europeans professed to feel unsafe even in the forts, when they must have known from past events, such as the defence of Anamaboe Fort by a garrison of some thirty-nine men against an entire Ashanti army, that the Ashantis could never venture seriously to attack them. In fact the Ashanti is only dangerous in the bush, and when once he comes into the open, or ventures to attack fortified posts, he is of but little importance. Had an invasion really been taking place, thousands of people from the bush villages would have been flocking into Cape Coast for refuge; but that town remained in its usual stagnant condition, and the natives declared that no advance of the enemy was imminent.
What had really been said and done by the ambassadors was, moreover, not very clear. It appeared that on January 18th a refugee from Coomassie, who had arrived at Cape Coast a day or two previously, had presented himself at Elmina Castle to claim protection. He stated that he was an Ashanti prince, named Awoosoo, and that, having incurred King Mensah’s displeasure, he had sought safety in flight. On January 19th a messenger from the king, with the golden axe and accompanied by three court-criers, demanded an audience of the Lieutenant-Governor. This messenger was a son of the late Ashanti chief, Amanquah Roomah, and he brought with him to the audience Enguie and Busumburu, the two Ashanti messengers who had been sent to thank Governor Ussher for his presents, and who had since been living in Cape Coast collecting information. The former of these two had signed the Treaty of Fommanah with Sir Garnet Wolseley, and the latter was an Ashanti captain.
After the usual compliments the messenger stated that the king had sent him to tell the Governor that a man named Awoosoo, a son of a prince of Ashanti, whoso ancestors were from Gaman, had been persuaded by an Assin trader, named Amankrah, to run away from Coomassie to the Protectorate; and the king had sent him to ask the Governor to send back Awoosoo. Further the envoy demanded that Amankrah should be given up, because, although he had been regarded by the king as a friend, and had been for many years a resident in Coomassie, it had been reported to the king that he had lately gone to Gaman and obtained money from the king of that country upon a promise that he would use his best endeavours to persuade Awoosoo to go to Gaman.
To this the Lieutenant-Governor replied that as Awoosoo had not committed any crime, and was now under British protection, it was not in his power to give him up to the king. Enguie then asked if the Lieutenant-Governor would prevent Awoosoo from going to Gaman; and was told in reply that he was free to go from British protection or remain under it, as he pleased, no one having any right to control his movements.
So far all who were present at the audience were agreed as to what had occurred, but as to what followed there was a serious difference of opinion. Some said that Enguie then stated that the Assins were people who always caused palavers between Ashanti and the Protectorate, and that the king said if the Lieutenant-Governor would not give up Awoosoo he would invade Assin. Those who held to this version further stated that Busumburu at once got up and confirmed this statement, and that the Lieutenant-Governor thereupon called Enguie’s attention to the treaty of Fommanah, and pointed out to him that an invasion of Assin meant war with England.
Other officers who were present at the audience positively declared that nothing of the sort had occurred, and that Enguie had at the audience made no threat of invasion; but that, as it had been reported that he had said to the interpreter, informally, and in the course of conversation at the interpreter’s house, that if Awoosoo were not given up the king would take Assin, the treaty of 1874 was shown to him. For my part I am inclined to believe that this latter account is the correct one; but it is a question which can never be satisfactorily settled, as the evidence is so conflicting.
With regard to the golden axe, people spoke of it as being a declaration of war, and said that it had been sent down in 1873, which was not a fact. In reality the golden axe alone is neither a declaration of war nor a menace. It simply means that the embassy which bears it is no ordinary one, and that the matter on which the envoys have come is one in which, as the senders think, great interests are at stake. In this case, however, the axe was accompanied by an additional emblem which did threaten hostilities. This was a fac-simile in gold of a portion of the earthen-nest of a mason-wasp, which escaped the notice of all Colonial officials, with but one exception, or was considered by them unworthy of notice. This emblem denoted that if the affair on which the golden axe was sent were not settled to the satisfaction of the Ashantis they would use their stings, or, in other words, endeavour to attain their ends by force. So little was this symbol understood in Colonial circles that no explanation of its presence or meaning was ever at any time demanded from the Ashantis, not even when, later, they were protesting that they had never threatened or wished for war.
With reference to the report that Amankrah had induced Awoosoo to escape from Coomassie, it seems evident that there was no truth in it. The former stated that he met Awoosoo at Quissah near Fommanah, and that he, Awoosoo, begged to be conducted to the Governor. Awoosoo corroborated this, and neither of them could have any motive for concealing the truth, if the flight had been arranged in Coomassie.
The story that Amankrah had received a sum of money from King Ajiman of Gaman on a promise to do his best to induce Awoosoo to go to Gaman was a plausible one. Awoosoo was the real heir of the Gaman throne, and, if he appeared as a claimant for it, the rival factions of Ajiman and Korkobo would bury their differences, and the Gamanites would become a united people. Naturally, under these circumstances, the Ashantis were very anxious to prevent him from going to Gaman. Awoosoo’s grandmother was a princess of Gaman, and it was through her that he derived his right to the throne, the female branches taking precedence of the male in conferring birthright both in Gaman and Ashanti. She married in Coomassie, and bore a daughter who married Prince Osai Cudjo of Ashanti. Awoosoo was the offspring of this union, and was thus a prince of Ashanti in right of his father and a prince of Gaman in right of his mother; but, in consequence of the native rule of precedence, he was considered to be a Gaman, and was always spoken of as a native of that country.
After the departure of the messengers with the golden axe the Colonial Government was suddenly seized with a violent craving for information concerning the tribes of the interior, their relations with Ashanti, and the position, in a military sense, of Ashanti itself. This was, of course, a most praiseworthy desire, but all such information ought to have been collected years before; and the eleventh hour, when all the officials were more or less in a state of panic, was hardly the time at which reliable data could be obtained or a temperate judgment formed. The merest hearsay reports were listened with avidity, and jotted down as most valuable evidence. Inquiries were made of Quabina Annuoah, the linguist of King Chiboo of Yancoomassie-Fanti, who, according to his own statement, had not been to Coomassie for sixteen years, as to the condition of the Snider rifles which were in the possession of the Ashantis, and which they had only obtained during the last three or four years. Quabina promptly replied that Mensah had about three hundred Sniders, with not many cartridges; that sometimes the rifles were not cleaned for a week or two, and were now nearly all useless. To show how utterly unreliable this was I may add that a few weeks later a man named Amoo Quacoo, a blacksmith and a native of Accra, was brought to me, and in the course of conversation stated that he had lately returned from Coomassie, where he had been employed by the king in looking after three hundred Snider rifles stored in the king’s house. He said that the rifles were all in good condition, that the Ashantis took great care of them, cleaning and oiling them daily; and that there were about four boxes of ammunition to each rifle. Awoosoo had also seen these three hundred rifles, and the Government at once jumped to the conclusion that these were all the Ashantis possessed, until the illusion was rudely dispelled by two Germans, Messrs. Buck and Huppenbauer, who saw the king in Coomassie on February 5th, and counted one thousand men armed with Sniders.
The statements of Awoosoo and Quabina Annuoah, to the effect that there were now no good captains or generals in Ashanti, were gravely written down; when the Government must, or at all events ought to have been, aware that both Awooah, chief of Bantama, the conqueror of Djuabin, and Opokoo, chief of Becquai, who had opposed such a vigorous resistance to Sir Garnet Wolseley in 1874, were still in the land of the living. The latter made his statement still more ridiculous by saying that they could not get any men of his size (about 5 feet 7 inches). These two men were also questioned as to the number of men King Mensah could put into the field. The former is stated in the official documents to have said 20,000 and the latter 30,000. I should like to know how these figures were arrived at, for in the Tche language there are no words which can specifically express any such numbers.
On January 30th Prince Ansah returned from Axim, where he had been on some secret errand, probably superintending the transmission of the three tons of powder, which were smuggled at Apollonia, to Coomassie; on the next day, and on February 3rd, he had interviews with the Lieutenant-Governor. He protested that the Ashantis had no intention of making war, and that the Government was making a great mistake. He further added that the golden axe did not denote hostile action, and that both Enguie and Busumburu denied altogether having said that if Awoosoo were not given up the king would invade Assin. He seemed much impressed at the rapidity with which the reinforcement had arrived from Sierra Leone. The Lieutenant-Governor, adopting a high tone, told Ansah that he would demand 5,000 ounces of gold as compensation for the expense to which the Colony had been put, and said that if the king refused to pay it he would seize some of his territory. As Ansah was not an accredited ambassador, but merely an agent, the Lieutenant-Governor committed himself to nothing by this statement; and probably the former knew quite well that the Imperial Government would never allow us to take the initiative in any hostile measures.
The advent of the two companies from Sierra Leone had raised the total strength of regular troops on the Gold Coast to 400 men. Houssas had also been brought up to Accra, so that there were 295 men of the Gold Coast Constabulary available, and thus stationed:—At Elmina, 140; at Prahsu, 115; and at Mansu, 40. H.M.S. “Flirt” had arrived at Elmina, and fifty of her men were held in readiness to land. These sensible additions to the local defences had somewhat quieted apprehensions, but there was still a good deal of excitement. The officials of the colony had plucked up courage, and some positively bristled with warlike ardour; the ordinary duties and peaceful habits of life were discarded, the proverbial phrase “Cedant arma togæ” was cast to the dogs, and high legal functionaries busied themselves in the proposed raising of a local volunteer corps of native clerks and shopmen.
Earthworks were commenced at Java Hill and in the Government Garden at Elmina, where, in June 1873, a handful of the Second West India regiment had repulsed the main Ashanti attack with great slaughter. This work, when completed, was to be garrisoned by the seamen and marines from the men-of-war now lying off Elmina; but the senior naval officer refused to land his men unless he was allowed to take charge of the military operations. As there is a paragraph in the Queen’s Regulations expressly stating that naval officers shall not command troops on shore, this rather created a difficulty, which, however, the Lieutenant-Governor met by placing, much to the disgust of the military, the Houssa Constabulary under the orders of the naval officer. The seamen and marines, to the number of some fifty, were then landed, and remained in Elmina Castle for three days, at great peril to their health, as they were not provided with helmets.
During his short reign the senior naval officer withdrew all the Houssas from Prahsu and Mansu, on the grounds that if they were left there they would be defeated and cut off. He did not seem to be aware that it was the duty of outposts to delay the advance of an enemy without compromising their own retreat, and to fall back slowly, sending full information to the main body. When the Houssas were withdrawn several thousand rounds of Snider ammunition were left at Prahsu, which the Ashantis could have taken had they so pleased; and had the enemy advanced we should have had to depend upon the ignorant and panic-stricken natives for intelligence, and should have had no reliable information as to the number, line of march, and armament of the foe. In fact, it would be difficult to imagine a more inexpedient step than this withdrawal of our frontier post, for, in addition to weakening our military position, it naturally disheartened the protected tribes, and encouraged the Ashantis.
Before, however, this division in the command was made, the Ashanti messengers, both men of low origin, which in itself, considering the serious state of affairs, was a slight to the Government, arrived at Cape Coast, and had an audience with the Lieutenant-Governor on February 8th. These messengers were Quabina Ewah, a court-crier, and Quabina Oyentaki, a sword-bearer. They were accompanied by Enguie and Busumburu.
These envoys had left Coomassie before the ambassadors with the golden axe had returned, having in fact met them one day’s journey from the capital, and brought the following message:—
“The king has heard that Houssas and officers are at Prahsu, building a bridge. As all that is past is gone and done with, he wishes to know what this means, and why the Governor is going to fight?”
The messengers complained that the Adansis had illtreated them on their way through Adansi territory, and that they had seen them seize two Ashanti traders from the Kokofuah district, and plunder them of their goods and gunpowder. They further stated that the messengers with the golden axe had told them that at an Adansi village, named Ansah, a trader who had joined the retinue had been ill-treated and robbed of his gun. They applied to the Lieutenant-Governor for redress, and were evidently fully under the impression that Adansi was either included in the British protectorate or that we were bound by treaty to protect them from the Ashantis, and were consequently under the obligation of seeing that no Ashantis were maltreated by them.
In fact the Adansis appear to have laboured under the delusion that we were bound to support them, and so behaved in this manner. A renegade is always more bitter than a foe who has not changed sides, and the Adansis, having ratted from the Ashanti kingdom when they conceived it to be falling to pieces, were now displaying their animosity by the—in this part of the world—unheard-of insult of molesting a person in the retinue of an ambassador. As they are numerically an insignificant tribe, they would not have dared to do this had they not believed that Great Britain was bound to save them from the vengeance of Ashanti; and, now that King Mensah fully understands that they are not a protected people, and provided that our non-intervention policy is still persevered in, their day of reckoning is not far distant.
One of the messengers, Quabina Eunah, having remarked that the Adansis were clearing the roads, the Lieutenant-Governor said that they were bound to do so by the treaty of Fommanah, and expressed a hope that the king of Ashanti was also fulfilling his treaty obligations by keeping the main road to his capital clear of bush, which expression elicited nothing from the messengers but a laugh. Now whether he was annoyed at this, or whether it was simply through ignorance of native customs (he being quite new to the country and people), the Lieutenant-Governor at once questioned the authenticity of the message, and asked the messengers how he was to know that they came from the king. They pointed to the gold plates on their breasts as being their insignia of office, and the Lieutenant-Governor then said that the king ought to have sent him something which he had seen before, and could therefore recognise. Upon this Enguie sarcastically observed that hitherto the Governor had seen nothing from the king but the golden axe, and as they had left Coomassie before that state weapon had been returned to the capital it was impossible that they could have brought it down; adding, “even if his Excellency would like to see it again, which I doubt.” Everybody felt that the Lieutenant-Governor had not got the best of this little exchange of words, which had arisen through his groundless suspicion.
The ignorance of the country and mode of thought of the natives displayed by the Lieutenant-Governor’s advisers militated very much against the taking of vigorous measures. A combination of native tribes against Ashanti was talked of, and men who ought to have known better did not hesitate to include the Gamans in this confederation. The truth was, that the fact that a Gaman embassy had visited the coast in 1879, and had stated that the whole nation was actuated by a bitter hostility to Ashanti, was remembered; while all the information gained by Mr. Smith in his mission to Buntuku, which tended to show that no such feeling of ill-will existed, was forgotten. No doubt that gentleman’s report had long since been lost sight of in one of the pigeon-holes in the Private Secretary’s office. Native report concerning Gaman asserted that King Ajiman had contrived to retain possession of the throne, but that Prince Korkobo was, in all but name, the actual ruler, and had been nominated Ajiman’s successor.
The only tribes in the British protectorate who could be relied upon to furnish a certain quota of men are those of Denkera, Assin, Western Akim, and Fanti. Wassaw, Ahanta, and Eastern Akim would not move in 1873, and do not seem to have any feeling of enmity to Ashanti; while to utilize the men of King Blay of Apollonia away from their own country would only be to tempt the disaffected natives surrounding his territory to take up arms.
That the tribes in the neighbourhood of Axim and Apollonia were disaffected was evident from the reports of the District Commissioner there, Mr. Firminger, a young officer who had taken the trouble to study what is too frequently neglected by the Colonial officers on the Gold Coast, namely, the political relations of the tribes with which he was brought in contact. He reported that the Awooins were on the most intimate terms with the Ashantis, and that their disregard for English law was owing to advice from Coomassie. The king of Bayin was also on friendly terms with King Mensah, and in January 1881 had sent one of his cane-bearers to Coomassie to reside there, and had received in return an Ashanti agent to reside at Bayin. Mr. Firminger says:—“Should any trouble occur with Ashanti I am assured that the people from Bayin to the frontier would join them.”[3]
Under the general name of Fanti are included the petty kingdoms of Cape Coast, Elmina, Effutu, Abrali, Dunquah, Dominassi, Anamaboe, Mankessim, Ajimacong, and Mumford; and, generally speaking, the men of these sub-divisions are worthless as soldiers, while Elmina and Effutu are more than half friendly to the Ashantis. The number of men which each chief could put into the field is enormously exaggerated; thus the Anamaboe contingent is estimated at from 2,500 to 3,000, whereas it would be exceedingly difficult, if not impossible, to raise more than 500 men from that district. By using strong measures 4,000 men might be got together from the Fanti tribes collectively, but they would all rather carry than fight, and it would be better so to employ them.
On February 8th I received orders to proceed next day to Anamaboe with 100 men and two 4-2/5-inch howitzers, and occupy the fort there, which had hurriedly been put into a state of preparation, after having been without a garrison for some fifty years. With some difficulty I obtained permission to march to my destination instead of going by sea, as fears were entertained as to the liability of my being cut off; but I pointed out that as no enemy had yet crossed the Prah, and as that frontier was seventy-four miles distant, there could be no danger in a march which would only occupy a few hours. At that time war was considered inevitable: the axe, accompanied by the wasp’s nest, was a clear declaration of war; and Ansah’s declarations, and the second message from the king, viewed by the light of similar protestations in 1873, were not considered of much account.
Under such circumstances, to garrison Anamaboe with 100 men was, from a military point of view, a grievous mistake. In the first place it reduced the already sufficiently small force at Cape Coast; in the second place the Ashantis had never been near Anamaboe since 1807, and were not likely to go there in 1881, since they had considered it too insignificant in 1814, 1824, 1863, and 1873; and in the third place, should the presence there of troops attract them, the force, being so small, could only act on the defensive. Held with a force sufficiently large to permit of offensive measures being adopted, Anamaboe would be an excellent position, as it is some miles nearer to Dunquah, and consequently to the Prah, than Cape Coast, and the flank of an army threatening the latter town might most effectually be harassed from it.