are exposed. He is a bitter and unscrupulous enemy[1] of all who attempt to dispute his trade monopolies, and the five British firms whose trade he has almost ruined during the past two years."
A complaint often made against the Government by merchants established on the West Coast of Africa is want of official protection and assistance; in many cases in the past this has been the case; but they certainly could not make this complaint during the few months that Mr. Consul Johnston was at the head of the Consular service in the Oil Rivers. I will here give a summary of what exertions were made by the Government to assist the merchants in their praiseworthy attempts to get behind the middlemen in this one river, where Ja Ja was always given the credit of being the head and front of the obstruction, nothing ever being said about the king and chiefs of Bonny, who were equally interested with Ja Ja in keeping the white men out of the markets, their principal markets being on the River Opobo.
Owing to the energetic representations of Mr. Consul H. H. Johnston, the British Government placed at his disposal for the settlement of the market question and the Ja Ja palaver the following Government vessels, viz., the Watchful, the Goshawk, the Alecto, the Acorn, the Royalist, and the Raleigh, the latter bringing Admiral Sir Hunt Grubbe up from the Cape of Good Hope for the trial of King Ja Ja.
Result: Within a very short time after the deportation of Ja Ja, all the firms who had been so anxious to establish
- ↑ Monopolies, have led Europeans on the West Coast of Africa to be equally as unscrupulous and bitter enemies of any one, white or black, who have attempted to dispute their trade monopolies.
