he, as Governor, took away two large kettledrums which had been captured by a West India Regiment, and, after a short interval, returned them to the regiment, embellished with two silver plates, which set forth that he, during his administration of the government, had presented these drums to it for gallantry in the field; and then sent in a bill for the plates.
He is not the only peculiar governor with which the Gambia has been afflicted; one in particular I can remember who was notorious for his parsimony throughout West Africa. I had known this potentate when he revolved in a more humble sphere, and during one of my visits to Bathurst (I shall not say in what year) I allowed myself the honour of calling on him. At about 1 p.m. I presented myself at the door of Government House and knocked; not a soul was to be seen anywhere, and the place might have been deserted. I kept on knocking louder and louder for some minutes, and then as nobody answered and the door was wide open I walked in. I traversed one room, and, turning round the corner of a screen, discovered a person attired in very seedy garments employed in cutting mouthfuls off a slab of mahogany-coloured meat which lay in a plate on a chair. This was the governor, but I should never have recognised him in that position had it not been for the suit of
