48 
MISSION TO ASHANTEE. 
arguments which, with a considerate zeal, might at least have 
tended to ameliorate the unjust impression of the King, if not to 
have eradicated it. Mr. James said, " the Governor of Cape Coast 
had done it, that he knew nothing about it, that he was sent only 
to make the compliments to the King, that if the King liked to send 
a messenger with him, he was going hack and would tell the Governor 
all that the King said.'' This Avas all that was advanced. Was this 
enough for such a Mission to effect ? the King repeated, " that he 
had expected wx had come to settle all palavers, and to stay and 
make friends with him; but we came to make a fool of him."' Th^ 
King asked him to tell him how much had been paid on these notes 
since his demand — that he knew white men had large books which 
told this. Mr. James said he had seen, but he could not recollect. 
Nothing could exceed the King's indignation. " White men,"' he 
exclaimed, " know how many months pass, how many years they 
Jive, and they know this, but they wont tell me ; could not the 
other white men .tell nae.'' Mr. James said, we never looked in 
the books.^' 
We were not so indiscreet as to expect or wish Mr. James to 
■commit himself by promising the satisfaction of the King's wishes ; 
but d welling on the expense and importance of the Mission, on 
the expectations it had excited, and feeling the reason of the King's 
argument, that its object should be to settle all palavers if we 
wished to be good friends, we conceived we but anticipated the 
feeling of the Council and of the Committee, in our anxiety for Mr. 
James to offer to communicate with the Governor by letter, and to 
wait his reply, with a confidence that his good feeling towards the 
King, his instructions from England, and his own disposition, would 
lead him to do every thing that was right to please him. 
Mr. James's embarrassment had not only hurried him to extri- 
cate himself as an individual at the expense of his own dignity 
