This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text, images, or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1904. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER XLIII The Ashantee War of 1873-4 THE story of my campaign against Ashantee in 1873-4, is, for many reasons, full of interest for me, and perhaps my readers may find some pleasure in the following brief description of it. I shall make no attempt to relate the history of our early relations with Ashantee. It would be of little interest, and would certainly neither redound to the credit of our arms nor to the intelligence of our home Ministers. It is not easy to define the immediate cause of every war we have waged on the West Coast of Africa. We may, however, truthfully assert that most of them grew out of our abolition of the Slave Trade. As the King of Ashantee's revenue, which had been considerable, was chiefly derived from the sale of slaves captured in his frequent wars, he was naturally furious with us for having thus deprived him of his market for them. This had made him in the years immediately preceding our war all the more anxious to secure Elmina or some other place on the sea where he could in safety sell his prisoners to slave-owning states. The history of all our dealings with the Ashantees tells us that whenever our Governor of the Gold Coast made any move that showed signs of weakness, trouble with Koomassee invariably followed. The cowardly policy we Vol. H. 257 s pursued in 1807 led to the Ashantee invasion of 1811: the Ashantee inroad in 1823 was the result of our buying off that enemy in 1817, and the fact that we did not attempt to avenge Sir Charles MacCarthy's defeat in 1824, had brought the enemy to the very walls of our coast forts. As we made no attempt to take vengeance for this overwhelming defeat, the Koomassee Sovereign and his warlike people naturally assumed we were afraid of them. Was not the possession of our gene...