be made to arrest the advance of the enemy by occupying either of these places in force and raising field-*works; and on February 3rd it was decided that the whole available force of the Colony should be employed in the defence of the forts of Anamaboe, Cape Coast, Elmina, and Axim. In other words, the Ashantis were to be allowed to ravage the whole country from the Prah to the sea, and the natives were to receive no protection whatever; while the garrisons were to be shut up in inglorious safety within stone walls. A high Colonial official said to me:—
"Oh! we're so glad you fellows have come. There has been no safe place to go to at all, and hardly a man-of-war about to get on board of."
People seemed to imagine that the Ashanti army had been supplied by some enterprising contractor with seven-leagued boots, and could move in one spring from the northern border of Adansi to the sea-board without our receiving any warning, or information concerning their progress, from the inhabitants of the country. The Lieutenant-Governor, with his principal officers, had taken refuge in the Castle, and, although the ambassadors with the axe had only left Cape Coast Castle on their return journey to Coomassie on January 26th, a scare had taken place on the night of February 1st, when everybody must have been aware
