460 
MISSION TO ASHANTEE, 
insult, or contempt of the British legislation for the abolition of the 
slave trade, &c. The Negroes captured in the iUicit Spanish and 
Portuguese slave ships, of whom there must be a number unem- 
ployed at Sierra Leone, would form the most desirable military 
force, even preferable to European, which has recently been 
adopted by the Dutch. These rescued Negroes would possess no 
attachment, beyond that which the considerate kindness and good 
conduct of their officers might induce ; the climate would be 
natural to them ; and they would prove valuable companions, if 
not intelligent guides, in future missions to the interior. There 
should at least be two hundred and fifty of these soldiers at head 
quarters, (one company being trained as artillery by European 
Serjeants) and fifty at each other settlement, if but two. 
The three missions, to Dagwumba,Wauwaw, and Ogooawai, would 
not cost above a thousand pounds, judiciously expended iii Eng- 
land ; which is not so much as the annual expense of either of the 
six paltry out-forts (exclusive of the head quarters, and the vice 
presidency, which is but 9 miles from Cape Coast, and, since the 
abolition of the slave trade, an useless and absurd position ;) the 
mere existence of whieh^ although it may excite astonishment, and 
reflect credit on the mercantile ingenuity and economy of the 
African Committee, is notoriously a disgraceful caricature on the 
British name. 
Three respectable establishments, one at Cape Coast Castle, one 
at Accra, (a rich and open country,) and one at Succondee, (if we 
could not purchase Axim, which commands the navigation of the 
Ancobra,) with an allowance of a thousand a year for a progress in 
the interior, (beneficial to commerce, science, and humanity,) would 
be productive of fame and honour, and probably of wealth, *o eur 
nation. - r ' ^ 
