CHAPTER XXI.
THE TWO EXPEDITIONS TO MALAGEAH, 1854 AND 1855.
The troops that had been despatched from Sierra Leone and the Gambia for the relief of Christiansborg, returned to Sierra Leone, in H.M.S. Prometheus, on the 25th of November, 1854, and in consequence of the hostile attitude assumed by the chiefs of the Mellicourie and Scarcies Rivers, and the outrages committed by natives on mercantile factories in those rivers, the Governor of Sierra Leone decided to detain the contingent which had been sent from the Gambia, in order to have a sufficient force to overawe the chief of Malageah, the principal offender, and compel him to sign a treaty of trade. With this view, accordingly, detachments of the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd West India Regiments, numbering in all 401 officers and men, under the command of Captain Rookes, 2nd West India Regiment, embarked in H.M.S. Prometheus and Dover, on the 2nd of December, and sailed for the Mellicourie River, on which the town of Malageah is situated. The officers of the 1st West India Regiment who accompanied the expedition were Captain R.D. Fletcher, Lieutenant Connell, Lieutenant Strachan, and Ensign Anderson.
On December 4th, the expedition arrived off Malageah, and the river-banks having been reconnoitred, Captain Heseltine, of H.M.S. Britomart, who had been appointed diplomatic agent with powers to negotiate, directed a landing to be made. The troops disembarked, and meeting with no opposition, advanced on the town, seizing and occupying the mosque and the king's house, while a second body took possession of all the approaches to the town. By these means, a party of some 200 chiefs and Marabouts, who filled the mosque, were surrounded.
In the meantime, the 1st Division, under Captain R. D'Oyley Fletcher, 1st West India Regiment, had proceeded to a creek to the eastward of the town, which they ascended in the boats of the Britomart, and then crossing by bye-paths through the swamp and bush to the back of the town, where they dispersed a body of 150 natives armed with rifles and muskets, they joined the main body before the mosque.
Negotiations were opened by the diplomatic agent, and continued for about half-an-hour; when, as it was noticed that the Marabouts were gradually leaving the mosque and all going in one direction, a reconnoitring party of ten men, under Lieutenant F.J. Connell, 1st West India Regiment, was sent to the northern side of the town. Lieutenant Connell, on reaching the town gate, found from 1800 to 2000 natives armed with fire-arms, spears, bows and arrows, formed in a semicircle, from eight to ten deep, facing the small picket that had been there posted. The whole of the main body, with the seamen and marines, was at once ordered up, and took up a position on the plateau to the north of the town, facing the natives, while a detached party occupied the walls and gates. At first there was a disposition on the part of the natives to resist this movement, but it was so rapidly executed that they were taken by surprise, and, losing cohesion, they soon after gradually dispersed.
The king, Bamba Mima Lahi, now signified his desire to come to terms, promised to comply with all demands, and to pay one thousand dollars as a fine for his offences. The force accordingly re-embarked, the object of the expedition having been effected without bloodshed, and returned to Sierra Leone on December 6th. The following letter may be of interest:
"H.M.S. Britomart,
"Sierra Leone, December 6th, 1854.