4 
MISSION TO ASHANTEE. 
when in Mesurata, was informed that Assentai was the capital of 
the powerful kingdom of Tonouwah. In Mr. Murray^s enlarged 
edition of Dr. Leyden's discoveries in Africa, we find," the northern 
border of Akim extends to Tonouwah, denominated also Inta, 
Assiente, or Assentai, from its capital city of that name, which 
stands about eighteen days journey from the Gold Coast." 
In 1807 an Ashantee army reached the Coast for the first time. 
I would refer the reader to the extract in the Appendix, from Mr. 
Meredith's account of the Gold Coast, as the particulars are intro- 
ductory as well as interesting ; and also serve to correct the mis- 
statement in the work last quoted, that in 1808 the King of 
Ashantee destroyed the English fort of Annamaboe ; originating, 
probably, from the storm of the Dutch fort at Cormantine, at that 
time. 
The Ashantees invaded Fantee again in 1811, and the third time 
in 1816. These invasions inflicted the greatest miseries on the 
Fantees. Few w^ere slain in battle, for they rarely dared to 
encounter the invaders ; but the butcheries in cold blood were 
incredible, and thousands were dragged into the interior to be 
sacrificed to the superstitions of the conquerors. Famines, unmi- 
tigated by labour, succeeded the wide waste of the Fantee territory, 
the wretched remnant of the population abandoning itself to 
despair; and the prolonged blockade of Cape Coast Castle in the 
last invasion, engendered so much distress and hazard, that the 
Government having averted imminent danger by advancing a large 
sum of gold on account of the Fantees, earnestly desired the Com- 
mittee to authorise and enable them to venture an Embassy, to 
deprecate these repeated calamities, to conciliate so powerful a 
monarch, and to propitiate an extension of commerce. By the 
storle ship which arrived in 1817, the African Committee forwarded 
liberal and suitable presents, and associated scientific with the 
Dsr 
