V 
248 MISSION TO ASHANTEE. 
a narrative. He excels in courtesy, is wisely inquisitive, and 
candid in his comparisons : war, legislature, and mechanism, were 
his favourite topics in our private conversations. The great, but 
natural fault of the King is his ambition; I do not think it has 
ever proved superior to the pledge of his honour, but it certainly 
has, and that frequently, to his sense of justice, which is repressed 
rather than impaired by it. This sketch of his character being 
narrowed to my own knowledge, will be assisted by the following 
history of Agay, the second linguist. 
Agay, when a boy, carried salt from Aquoomo to Coomassie for 
sale ; he was afterwards taken into the service of Aquootoo, cabo- 
ceer of that place, against whom the government had instituted a 
palaver, but wrongfully. Agay accompanied the caboceer when 
he was sent for to Coomassie for judgment. After the King^s 
messengers had spoken, misrepresenting the case in preference to 
confessing the King to be in the wrong, and the caboceer was con- 
fused, this boy suddenly rose, and said, to use the words of the 
narrators, " King, you have people to wash you, to feed you, to 
serve you, but 3^ou have no people to speak the truth to you, and 
tell you when God does not like your palaver.'^ The assembly 
cried out unanimously, that the boy might be hurried away and 
his head taken off ; but the King said, " No! let him finish;'' and 
Agay is said to have spoken three hours, and to have disclosed 
and argued the palaver to the King's conviction, and his master's 
acquittal. He was retained to attend the King, but treated with 
no particular distinction. A serious palaver occurring between 
two principal men, it w^as debated before the council, who were at 
a loss to decide, but inclined to the man whom the King doubted; 
judgment was suspended. In the interim the King sent Agay, 
privately, to the house of each, to hear their palavers in turn, t6te- 
a-tete ; he did so, and when the King asked him who he thought 
