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which he has gone to the front indicates this, even if nothing else did. It is very much like his first visit to Elmina, at which he prepared for the Essaman business. The enemy are still this side of the Prah, and within reach of Faisoo, now occupied by us.

"The mails of this station are wildly erratic. Till four days ago we had not even received answers to our letters from Sierra Leone, and not a word in answer to anything from hence.* Now we find in the newspapers just received a fresh cause of doubt as to the extent to which we can trust to communication with England by the mail steamers. Three steamers left on the 9th and 10th of September, succeeding one on the 5th, just after we had arrived here. We were assured that one boat in particular-the Soudan '-was quicker than any of the others, and would be at home days before them. Lo and behold, one correspondent, who had been in the depths of despair at missing the 'Soudan,' finds his letter has appeared on the 3rd, whilst those that went by that much-trusted boat appeared on the 4th. Correspondence hence is slightly irregular.

* Again I wish to draw attention to the date of this letter, December 4th. I shall have a word to say by and by as to these dates.

CHAPTER VII.

ENGLISH LAW OR NOT-THE SLAVERY QUESTION—A GROWL ABOUT OUR LETTERS-UNIVERSAL SENSE OF NEGLECT

-SORENESS AT SUPPOSED ELECTIONEERING TACTICS

THE STATUS QUO-CAPTAIN FREMANTLE AS A FEVER

DOCTOR.

THE following letters, with the exception of the few notes I have added here and there, and with some suppression of matter which has now lost its interest, will, I think, be more interesting as they stand than if they were now rewritten. With the exception of the first part about the slavery question, they are, in hardly any case, a statement specially of the writer's own views, but almost only, even where they express strong feeling, descriptive of what was at the time felt by all on the spot, with very little. difference of opinion. The rest chiefly relates to local facts, better given as they were seen at the time.

"I observe in all that comes from England a curious puzzle as to certain facts connected with our position in relation to this Coast. I propose, therefore, as no very exciting events are at this moment in progress, to mention briefly how they look close at hand. In the first

place, Cape Coast is not under English law. We have, no doubt, an English magistrate, and a superior judge. Certain cases, chiefly relating to English residents and to their dealings with natives, are brought before the latter and tried by jury, native or English, as the case may be, according to English law and custom. "But the judge, in addition to this function, exercises that of ‘judicial assessor,' as it is called. He has, that is to say, a court in which he meets the native chiefs and kings, and, giving them his advice, obtains from them their opinion as to the true construction of native law and custom. In this court all cases involving native

usage are tried.

"We do not pretend to have annexed and to govern as by English law that vague territory the Protectorate; but, by treaty with the chiefs, we confer on them the advantage of our English sense of justice and orderly administration. The advantage of this to them they cordially recognise; but the cession of jurisdiction having been voluntary on their part, we are obliged to conform to some extent, if we accept it, to native usage. At what point this conformity of ours ought to stop is a nice question. We have certainly carried it pretty far. Among the many anomalies of the Gold Coast, a case which recently came on here is certainly one of the strangest. An English judge sitting in the judicial assessor's court had to try a case in which property was involved. The whole question turned upon whether the claimant to this estate was or was not a slave, because if he were a slave, then, according to the law necessarily

administered by the English judge, he could hold no

property.

"The subject, however, is not one for hysterical shrieking. The facts must be calmly investigated, however revolting the whole subject may be to our English ideas. Now those who instituted, and those who have continued, the present state of things, have a good deal to say for themselves, even from the point of those who, like myself, look upon slavery as a thing so utterly accursed, that no quarter can, under any conditions, be given to it. Suppose you had to abolish slavery in a country like this, you have this initial difficulty to begin with, that the entire social fabric is so founded upon itthe idea of slavery is so engrained in the minds of the whole people, that the slaves themselves have no occupation to fall back upon, and nothing.to live upon if it were abolished.

"Of course that has been said of slave states before. But here you have not two alien races, one holding the other down, but a race living simply on what, under our rule, may not unfairly be said to be, in a modified degree, patriarchal principles. We found a slavery

like that which exists now in Ashantee. That is to say, the chief use for which slaves were kept was to be killed at fetish sacrifices, and to be employed as the chief method of barter. We have reduced it by one simple law to a condition in which, theoretically, the slave can select for himself slavery or freedom. Whenever a slave comes into a judge's court and proves that he has been beaten or illtreated, he is set free. All evidence is

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of course received from the slaves as much as from free

persons.

"There can therefore, I think, be no question that our action in the past has been very beneficial. We could not abolish slavery throughout the Protectorate because we had not the means to enforce our order. We have to all intents and purposes given every slave who appeals to our protection, freedom. Slavery without any power of coercion is little more than a name. It could not practically exist. Unfortunately there are still some respects in which, as one views the case near at hand, the practical abolition of the wrong does not seem complete. I am quite ready to agree with those who think that if you want to abolish slavery you must do it by such means as will change the belief of the people on the subject-especially of the slaves themselves. But then that does not quite cover a case which some of those have since our arrival actually seen a master with three or four strong men carrying back to his house a girl who had run away from him.

"The difficulty usually is, of course, as to the evidence. The sentiment of the slaves, as much as that of the masters, is against running away. Hence the power of the masters, though kept within certain limits, is much greater practically than it is by law. I should be sorry to assert positively that coercion of a pretty vigorous kind is not carried on within some of these big, straggling, isolated, silent houses, which may well hush cries from all outside of them.

"One need hardly say that the masters declare that

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