qualities should have ended as he did. He was a man who, properly handled could have been made of much use in the opening up of his country. Unfortunately, the late Consul Hewett was prejudiced against Ja Ja from his first interview with him, finding in this nigger king a man of superior natural abilities to his own.
Had the late Mr. Consul Hewett had the fiftieth part of the ability in dealing with the natives his sub and successor, Mr. H. H. Johnston, showed, there would never have been any necessity to deport Ja Ja. Unfortunately, between Ja Ja's stubbornness and the late Consul Hewett's bungling, matters had come to such a pass that some decisive measures were actually necessary to uphold the dignity of the Consular Office.
When Mr. H. H. Johnston succeeded the late Mr. Consul Hewett, the Opobo palaver was in about as muddled a state as it was possible for it to have got into. Matters had been in an unsatisfactory state for some years between King Ja Ja and the late Consul. Ja Ja had over-stepped the bounds of propriety in more ways than one. He tried the same tactics with Mr. Johnston, who to look at, is the mildest-looking little man you can imagine, and therefore did not fill the native's eye as a ruler of men; but Mr. Johnston very soon let Ja Ja and the natives generally see he was made of different stuff to his predecessor, and the first attempts on Ja Ja's part not to act up to the lines he laid down for him settled his fate. Mr. Johnston offered him the choice of delivering himself up quietly as a prisoner or being treated as an enemy of the Queen, his town destroyed and himself eventually captured and exiled for ever. He elected to give himself up, was taken to Accra and there tried and
