There are only forty British officers’ and soldiers in all the line of forts, with one hundred of the West India regiment, and about fifty native militia-men. The annual expense of the establishments is about twenty thousand dollars; although, as the government has lately purchased, for fifty thousand dollars, the Danish forts, the expense will be materially increased.
The interior is improving. Captain Winniet visited Ashantee in October, 1849. He found on the route large thriving additional villages, as far as English protection extended. He was received at Kumassi with the usual display of African music, musketry, and marching. He was led for a mile and a half through a lane at heads and shoulders, clustered thick on both sides. There were here and there diverging branches of a like character, as thick with heads and shoulders; and at the end of each, a chief sitting in his chair of state. To and by each chief, a hand was waved as a salutation, until the monarch himself was reached. He rose, came forward, and, with heavy lumps of gold dangling at his wrists, exhibited his agility in dancing. When this act of state ceremony had been properly done up, he offered his hand to shake, and thus completed the etiquette of a reception at court. The houses, with piazzas projecting to shelter them from the sun—public-rooms in front, and dwelling-rooms behind, nicely plastered and colored—were greatly admired.
The pleading about the slave-trade was the main business and the main difficulty; but the nature of such negotiations appears, in its most impressive aspect, in the case of Dahomey.
This chief professes great devotedness to England. In consequence of some difficulty, he gave notice to European foreigners, “that he was not much accustomed to cut off white heads, but if any interfered with an agent of the English government, he would cut off their heads as readily as those of his black people.” By murderous incursions against his neighbors, he seized about nine thousand victims annually. He sold about three thousand of these directly on his own account, gave the rest chiefly away to his troops, who sold them: a duty of five dollars being paid on each slave exported, afforded him altogether a revenue of about three hundred thousand dollars.
This was a serious matter to argue against. He stated the case strongly: “The form of my government cannot be suddenly changed without causing such a revolution as would deprive me of my throne, and precipitate the kingdom into anarchy.... I am very desirous to acquire the friendship of England. I and my army are ready, at all times, to fight the queen’s enemies, and do any thing the English government may ask of me, except to give up the slave-trade. No other trade is known to my people. Palm-oil, it is true, is engaging the attention of some of them, but it is a slow method of making money, and brings only a very small amount of duties into my coffers. The planting of cotton and coffee has been suggested, but that is slower still. The trees have to grow, and I shall probably be in my grave before I reap any benefit from them; and what am I to do in the mean time? Who will pay my troops in the mean time? Who will buy arms and clothes for them? Who will buy dresses for my wives? Who will give me supplies of cowries, rum, gunpowder and cloth, for my annual ‘customs?’ I hold my power by the observance of the time-honored customs of my forefathers. I should forfeit it, and entail on myself a life full of shame, and a death full of misery, by neglecting them. The slave-trade has been the ruling principle of my people. It is the source of their glory and wealth. Their songs celebrate their victories, and the mother lulls the child to sleep with notes of triumph over an enemy reduced to slavery. Can I, by signing such a treaty, change the sentiments of a whole people? It cannot be!”
The case was a puzzling one for this intelligent, open-hearted, and ambitious barbarian. He had trained an army of savage heroes, and as savage heroines, thirsting for distinction and for plunder. This army cowers at his feet as long as he satiates its appetite for excitement, rapine and blood. But woe to him if it turn in disappointed fury upon him! Such is military despotism; perilous to restrain, and perilous to let loose. Blessed is that people which is clear of it!
There is this strange incident in the affair, that the English power, which sent an ambassador to plead the case with him in this peaceful mode, was at the same time covering the sea with cruisers, and lining the shore with factories, and combining every native influence to extinguish the sole source from which flowed the security and splendor of his rule. He knew this, and could offer no moral objection to it, although complaining of the extent to which it reduced his authority, and crippled his resources.
The urgency to which the King of Dahomey was subjected, ended, in 1852, in his yielding. England had proposed to pay him some annual sum for a time, as a partial compensation for the loss of his revenue: it may therefore be presumed that he is a stipendiary of the British government; and as the practices given up by him can scarcely, in any circumstances, be suddenly revived, his interest will retain him faithful to the engagement. It is a strange, bold, and perilous undertaking, that he should direct his disciplined army, his hero and his heroine battalions, to the arts of peace! But to these he and they must henceforward look as the source of their wealth, security, and greatness.
Queen Victoria, it is said, has lately sent the King of Dahomey two thousand ornamental caps for the Amazon soldiers.