50 
MISSION TO ASHANTEE. 
Gentlemen ! imagine this awful moment, think what a fatal 
wound menaced the British interests ; the most memorable exertion 
of the Committee, the pledge to the Government of their energie;^, 
of the zeal and capabilities of their officers, this important and 
expensive Mission falling to the ground, the sacrifice to supineness ; 
the Settlements endangered instead of benefited, ourselves disgraced 
as officers and men, our key to the Interior shivered in the lock, 
and the territories of a great and comparatively tractable prince 
shut against us for ever. Could we be expected to look with in- 
difference on these sacrifices, to risk nothing to avert them ; to be 
auxiliar}^ to the triumph of the intrigues and duplicity of our rival, 
which you know to have been exerted even to our destruction ? 
Not a moment was to be lost ; Mr. Bowdich stood before the King, 
and begged to be heard ; his attention was arrested, the clamours 
of the council gradually abated : there was no interpreter but the 
one Mr. James brought from his own fort, and no alternative but 
to charge him promptly in the Governor's name, before reflection 
could associate the wishes of his master, to speak truly. Mr. Bow^ 
dich continued standing before the King, and declared, " that the 
Governor wished to gain his friendship more than he could think 
that we were sent, not only to compliment him, but to write what 
he had to say to the Governor, and to wait to tell his answer to the 
King, and to do all he ordered ; to settle all palavers, and to make 
Ashantees and English as one before we went back. That the 
G ovcrnor of Accra was sick, and in pain, and naturally wished to 
go back soon, but that himself, and the other two officers would 
stay with the King, until they made him sure that the Governor 
was a. good friend to him. That we would rather get anger, and 
lose every thing ourselves, than let the King think the Governor 
sent us to put shame on him ; that we would trust our lives to the 
King, until we had received the Governor's letter, to make him 
