JUDGMENT APPROACHES. 
25a 
supposed. The Ashantees had really pressed on to 
Dunkwa, within six miles of Cape Coast, and had burned 
every village. This was incomprehensible, and very dis- 
honourable to the Fantees. After the Ashantees had taken 
the residence of the Denkjera prince, Kwakje Fram, they 
marched against Elmina. Half the town took the side 
of the British, but the upper town, where the prince lived, 
not only refused to fight the Ashantees, but supplied 
them with provisions and ammunition. It was there- 
fore bombarded and burnt down. 
In the villages around were Fantees, who would be 
delivered up to the Ashantees without mercy, and who 
would be the only prisoners made by them. When Tsch- 
ama was bombarded, many of the inhabitants were ready 
to emigrate to Coomassie. Deceived in their expectations 
of the willingness of the Elminas to join them, the 
Ashantees retreated to a camp which was by degrees 
surrounded, so that the army was almost destroyed by 
privations. Two bananas or a handful of palm nuts, cost 
three pence, and numbers were starved to death. In this 
dilemma they corresponded with the governor, who 
humanely advised Amankwa to hasten back, but not by 
way of Abakrampa, unless he wished to deliver up his 
army to slaughter. 
The prince of Mampong and most of the commanders 
followed this advice, but Amankwa took a route round 
Cape Coast, which brought him face to face with the 
enemy in Fusuwei, and caused heavy losses of both men 
and baggage, together with five hundred prisoners, wha 
had been brought thus far. Mampong, on the contrary, 
crossed the Prah unhurt. The Ashantees had agreed 
that Amankwa caused their defeat, and that the gover- 
nor's advice had saved those who accepted it. The king 
had not recalled the army, but the army, contrary to his 
orders, gave up the unsatisfactory campaign. 
