EMBASSY OF CRAWFORD AND FLANGE, 129 
Privately however, the ambassador was commissioned 
to effect our freedom, and, if necessary, to offer a ransom. 
The chief, Akjampong, was to be set free as soon as the 
king had actually sent us off. If he hesitated, the way 
over the Prah was to be again blockaded. 
The next day, July 2nd, was one of great rejoic- 
ing. Fifteen letters from our dear ones were handed 
to us in one packet ; the dates spread over two years. 
Oh ! how much they had suffered on our account, and 
how they had prayed for us in our distant home ! They 
had for some time concluded we were dead, and had 
worn mourning for us. The king allowed us to reply to 
these letters; whether he would despatch our answers 
was another question. That the message of the Dutch 
ambassador also concerned us we learnt from what 
passed at his introduction to court, and still more 
during a visit which he paid us. Mr. Plange was a 
young man of very pre-possessing manners. He had re- 
marked to the king how " green " we all looked, to 
which he replied, "he had feared the climate was in- 
juring our health ; but Adu Bofo," he added, " is com- 
ing soon." 
The hope of a ransom evidently influenced the king 
more than he chose to confess, and he would wish it, he 
said, to be paid in arms and ammunition, so that to the 
English it might look like a present, while his people 
would consider it as a ransom. 
Mr. Plange's chief business was to get an explanation 
from the king about Elmina. Twenty-four ounces of gold 
dust was the sum which his majesty had been accustomed 
to receive for himself from the Dutch, on account of the 
black men whom he sent them as recruits for Java. This 
sum the king had chosen to call " tribute," which greatly 
irritated the governor. Mr. Plange, the Dutch ambassador, 
was therefore to request him to withdraw the word ; in 
K 
