Page:The land of fetish.pdf/277

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stores, which had been collected at Mansu by the Colonial Government, were beginning to be moved on to Prahsu. The king, conceiving that the Government was fully determined on war, thought that the next move would be from Prahsu to the Adansi territory, perhaps to the Adansi hills; and, concluding that it would be useless to make any further overtures for peace, he stopped the embassy, so as to spare his dignity as much as possible, and prepared to exhaust all the resources of the kingdom in a struggle which he foresaw would be for very existence.

So far this was the result of the Governor's bush expedition, and it was a result which had been very generally expected. Captain Hope in a letter to the Admiralty, dated Elmina, April 3rd, said:—"The expedition of the Governor is, in the opinion of some people, calculated to arouse their suspicion of us, as, although of course strictly within our territory, it is on the road to Coomassie, and might be looked on as an advanced guard. . . . Active precautionary measures have by no means ceased, in fact a general feeling of uneasiness is springing up, probably due to the protracted negociations going on." The Home Government too were not quite easy in their minds as to what the consequences of their agent's action might be, for in a despatch from Lord Kimberley, dated