TRADE. 
335 
all desirous of hoarding; even those less covetous than is generally 
their nature, that they may be prepared for the purchase of guns 
and powder to a large extent, on any sudden war, and thus ingra- 
tiate themselves with the king and the government. Were the 
Ashantees a commercial people, they might be the brokers be- 
tween the interior and Europeans, or, purchasing supplies more 
adequate to the demands of their neighbours for European com - 
modities, which would be bought with avidity, realize large pro- 
perties. But they have no idea of buying more of the various 
articles than will supply themselves ; and leave a small residue to 
barter for the cloth, silk, and tobacco in the Inta and Dagwumba 
markets, They are as little commercial as the Romans were in 
their infancy, and their government would repress rather than 
countenance the incKnation, (believing no state can be aggrandized 
but by conquest,) lest their genius for war might be enervated by 
it, and lest, either from the merchants increasing to a body too 
formidable for their wishes to be resisted, or too artful from their 
experience to be detected, they might sacrifice the national honour 
and ambition to their avarice, and furnishing Inta, Dagwumba, or 
any of their more powerful neighbours (who have yielded to cir- 
cumstances rather than force) with guns and powder (which are 
never allowed to be exported from Ashantee,*) break the spell of 
their conquests, and undermine their power. The chiefs are fed 
bountifully by the labours of their slaves, and sharing large sums 
of the revenue, (the fines their oppression has imposed on other 
* Fire arms are unknown to such of the nations on the south of the Niger as the 
Shereef has visited ; and the reason which he assigns for it is, that the kings in the neighr- 
bourhood of the coast, persuaded that if these powerful instruments of war should reach 
the possession of the populous inland states, their own independence would be lost, have 
strictly prohibited, and by the wisdom of their measures have effectually prevented this 
dangerous merchandize from passing beyond the limits of their dominions." Lucas 
