GOVERNOR m'LEAN’s POLICY. 133 
and the slow progress of those which remain, may be traced 
to the Ashanti wars, which, while they depopulated the 
Fanti country, broke up the commercial interchanges, 
which before those unfortunate occurrences, were be- 
ginning to expand. It would be foreign to the purpose 
of this narrative, either to trace the history of our pos- 
sessions on that coast, or to enter on the “ casus belli” 
which have impoverished them. Mr. Becham’s excellent 
work on Ashanti, pourtrays too clearly our mismanage- 
ment and its consequences. Under the able governance 
of Captain M'Lean, it is generally admitted that much 
had been done towards amelioration — trade had im- 
proved, though slowly, and the attention of the natives 
had been turned to agriculture ; while he endeavoured to 
introduce future elements for raising the social and moral 
condition of the people under his care, by instituting 
schools, a printing-press, aU of which, though now pro- 
ducing so little finiit, wiU eventually, it is to be hoped, 
yield a good harvest. Above aU, he established a rigid 
system of justice, and such was the influence he gained 
over them by moral force, that even distant chiefs came 
at his summons, to await his decision in cases of dissen- 
sions, which would otherwise have led to wars. The 
great drawback to the furtherance of any useful object 
among these people, is, in the first place, their evident 
inferiority to many other African races, in their mental 
and physical characters ; strongly marked by their 
indisposition to any continuous employment or useful 
application of means conducive to their own improvement. 
Indolent as we, alas, know the African too often to be, 
