The Express.
London, England, 1853-05-18 00:00:00

LONDON, WEDNESDAY, .1141" is.

ENGLAND is undoubtedly the great mercantile and
the great maritime nation of the world. We manu-
facture more and we carry more and expand to the
needs of a new position faster than any other
nation under the sun. A gazetteer of ten Years
date will name you a viiiage containing 300
tants, which had boasted of this same number of 600
at any period since the Conquest. Its field, shall
have had the identical boundaries which they
had centuries ago. Consult a census of the
resent day and you will find your 600 in-
habitants increased to 30,000. The grass-grown roads
will appear as well-paved streets. The ignorant
rustic population will be replaced by thousands of
intelligent citizens, intent upon developing their
own resources and the resources of the country in a
manner which had never before been dreamed of by
the quondam inhabitants of the place. Ask the rea-
son of this, and you will find that some practical
man has discovered a new mode of weaving or spin-
ning, or has brought to light some new com-
bination of mechanical power; or, in fact,
has brought out some process which appeals
extensively and irresistibly to the wants of the
millions Ile becomes the centre to which vast
masses of his countrymen turn their eyes to satisfy
certain wishes, and to enable him to respond to their
wishes he is obliged to press into his service an
army of labourers. The concurrence of multi-
tudes of human beings produces its usual re-
sults. Wealth is accumulated. Buildings spring
tip as if by magic. The communication of ideas
helps on civilisation. The antiquated village be-
oomes a great modern city. The whole result is due
to invention in the first instance, and

trade in the next. The productive resources
and consequently the real strength of the
nation have been increased by the inventor
and the tradesman. In a similar manner we may
see what commerce can do for a kingdom. Not so very
many years back a traveller might have noted in
his journal the existence of a small port on
the banks of the Mersey. He would have seen
nothing in it to mark a 'distinction between it and
.other small fishing ports. It would have appeared
thoroughly stationary. The few families, descend-
ants of ancestors who had vegetated in
this position centuries back, would be liv-
ing from hand to mouth. If he had gone to
sleep then, and woke up in the present day, he would
see his small fishing town changed into the greatest
port in the world. He wou!d remark that the insig-
nificant Liverpool, the subject of his previous obser-
vations, hu been metamorphosed into a port which,
in a maritime point of view, is more active even than
London itself.

Sensible men upon considering these wonderful
transformations due to the mechanical, mercantile,
and maritime spirit of the people, would needs-
sarily be induced to inquire into the nature of
the institutions which foster and educate this spirit.
Knowing that foreign governments have done some-
thing in this direction, it would be expected that
here there would be still more done. The result of
the inquiry would, however, be fruitless. Beyond
the establishment of a few schools, partially supported,
there has been nothing done by the nation for the
education of the classes whose labours supply it
with its very life-blood. The knowledge of this tact
has induced a number of persons, who have been
struck with its importance, to meet together for the
purpose of promoting the establishment of a merean- I
tile and maritime college, where the youth of the
nation might receive primary instruction in those
subjects which are connected with trade and com-
merce. The Earl of Hiaaowne, who took the chair
yesterday at the 'need° g in question, made some strong
allusions to the well-known fact that the great mer-
chant, Sir THOYAi 011ESUA31, had recognised the de-
ficiency under which the citizens of London laboured
in this respect, and had provided nobly for its re-
medy. The endowment of Gresham College, if it
had been carefully watched over by persons
animated with The spirit of its founder,
might at the present day have been a
mighty engine for the cultivation of that class
to which England owes its position amongst the
nations, and upon which the country will become
more and more dependent. Gresham College, how-
ever, having suffered losses in times past by the in-
capacity of its managers, is now, although still in
possession of great resources, utterly lost to the
citizens of London. It fulfils a few of the obliga-
tions of its charter in a manner ludicrously literal,
while the whole spirit of the institution
has evaporated. The magnificent foundation
of Sir THOMAS GRESHAM is frittered away
in the payment of some half-dozen professors, who
deliver a set of lectures in English and Latin to a few
persons drawn together more by curiosity than by any
other motive, and who are as a clue totally distinct
from the class which the founder intended to benefit.
The necessity of the application of funds of this
nature, and of still greater raised either by subscrip-
tion or from other sources, to the education of the
mercantile and maritime community, is becoming
daily more apparent. The Earl of HARROWBT
stated that he had the most perfect assurance
of the fact that an agent at Liverpool
having his choice of an American and a British ship,
would not think that he was doing his duty to his
employer if he did not select the American ship as
bang safer and better found. Whatever qualifica-
tion may be deemed necessary to this statement, it is
still too well known that there is mach foundation
for it. We an nbieet in the present time to a com-
petition which is day by day increasing in impor-
tance. America is the country which enters into this
competition with the greatest energy and skilL There
is no doubt theta branches of the American navy have
the benefit of an education far superior to that which
can be obtained by the corresponding class in Great
Britain. In reference to this it may be remarked
that papers have been supplied by the American Go-
vernment to the masters of great numbers of mer-
chant vessels, containing a system of directions with
respect to observations to be made during their re-
■pective voyages. Aided by these and the logs of
the vessel■, Lieutenant MAURY has been enabled to
obtain such a knowledge of the currents of
the ocean, and the trade winds, u to reduce
the length of certain voyages by almost
one-third. A discovery of this nature has
the effect of giving the Americans something very
like a monopoly of a particular trade for a certain
time. It is not too much to assert that the logs of
the greater number of English merchant vessels
would have been utterly useless in investigations of
this nature. The general education of masters of
English vessels is, no doubt, lamentably defective.
The feeling of the meeting yesterday was unani-
mous as to the necessity of providing by a sufficient
education for the remedy of evils of this kind. Oa
oar mernatile and maritime eminence depends our
position amongst the great powers of the world. We
have up to the present time been in the possession of
so many natural advantages, that the raco of com P-
etition has been for us comparatively easy. One by
one these advantages may be counterbalanud
We are menaced in our manufactures, in our trade,
and in our maritime supremacy. As a means of
rising superior to these dangers, none can be more
efficient than a sound practical education to the mer-
cantile and maritime classes of the community; and
if the meeting yesterday is able to render such an
education more practicable, it will merit the grati-
tude not of the City of London merely, but of the
nation at large.

STEAM navigation is bringing another and most
interesting part of the world under the closer and
MOM regular observation of public opinion. We
refer to the Western Coast of Africa, with which
we have now monthly inter-communica:i.4 ; and
although the European settlements on th-tt coast
have not yet journals to send home accounts of :heir
progress and politics, nor English newcppLr cor-
respondent& of their own to narrate tht perplexiaes

and the difficulties of negro courts and sable poten-
tater, nevertheless. so quick a:.,1 .le•:ve Is the circu-
lation of intelligence, when provided with free trill
regular channels, in these days, that the African
Steam Navigation Company may be said to have
brought the affairs of that coast fairly within the
ken and purview of English interest and coneidera- I
Lion. Henceforward we shall be able to know with
tolerable certainty end accuracy what is going on at
our own settlements in the River Garubls, at
Sierra Leone and the Gold Coast, in the French
factories up the Senegal, and the Congo, in
the old Portuguese "kingdom" of Angola, the
Dutch forts in Guinea—to bring the policy pursued
at those independent ports which are becoming so
valuable for their trade to the test of reason and ex-
perience, and to follow the oscillations of the Slave
Trade witk still greater attention and interest. Of
this new source of information the list mail brings
indeed a contribution of which (as accouirs inaccu-
rate and distorted have appeared in a contemporary)
it is important to give a better-informed version.
By far the most advanced, as well as the most
ancient, of our settlements on the Western Coast of
Africa are our forts on the Gold Coast. They
alone of European possessions have as yet acquired
any influence in the interior of the country; they
only have brought the surrounding tribes under the
subjection of habits of order, justice, and right,
directed by superior and systematic intelligence.
Territorially and legally we are only owners
of the soil on which stand the forts of the old Afri-
can Company; our predominance and authority,
however, are recognised and submitted to by a cluster
of semi-independent chiefs and their subjects inhabit-
ing a coast several hundred miles in length and pene-
trating at least one hundred and twenty miles inland.
Amongst these protected and allied chiefs, we pre-
serve peace and prohibit war; to the arbitration of
the Governor of Cape Coast Castle they readily
submit their disputes and differences. From all parts
of even their most distant territories the natives
bring their contentions and litigations for the decision
of the English authorities; over the most serious
crimes justice is administered by a jury of Headmen,
presided over and directed by the English Judicial
Assessor; and throughout this extensive and
populous country native customs are being gradually
tempered and humanised by the more general prin-
ciples of English law. The chiefs and tribes thus
protected and benefited are, in their turn, bound to
assist and support us in the event of hostilities ; and
the manner in which they have lately evinced their
hearty good will towards the British Supremacy is
what we are shortly going to call attention to.
The importance of this nascent civilisation seems to
have struck Earl GREY very forcibly whilst Colonial
Minister; and it is not less than bare justice to say
that he treated the Gold Coast with both skill and
success. The expenses of a Government in this posi-
tion, and with this task before it, began necessarily
to increase, and how to provide for them without ap-
plication to Parliament became the problem. With-
out the concurrence of the Dutch, who also have forts
on the coast, it was not possible to raise a revenue by
import duties, and that concurrence was not to be
obtained. So, Lord GREY resolved, in a primitive
state of society, to resort to a very primitive financial
operation—a Poll Tax. But here at once arose a
great difficulty ; the people whose heads were to be
taxed were not British subjects. Nothing could,
therefore, be done without the co-operation of their
own chiefs. That co-operation was, however, boldly
and frankly sought ; the chiefs were assembled by
Governor HILL, in what Lord GREY has ap-
propriately called a " rude negro parliament ;
the proposition of a poll tax was sub-
mitted to them, the objects of its intended expendi-
ture—vii., increase of the judicial strength of the
country, clads, other public works, and military
organisation—were fully explained and understood ;
and, after grave deliberation and ample palaver, the
tax was granted by these Negro Barons; who, how-
ever, reserved to themselves the right of seeing that
its proceeds were well spent, and put the Governor
under terms to assemble this sable Wittenagemote
"as often as need be."

So far so good. But the teat of the experiment
was—how would it work? Would the Chiefs go
home and repent of what they had done ?—would
taxation produce discontent and disaffection?—would
the tax-gatherers of the Gold Coast meet with the
resistance of black WAT TTLERS ?—or would the
value of their proceedings be understood and recog-
nised? A very remarkable and unexpected test, of
great severity, has been applied; and with the hap-
piest success. Here is the story :
Behind the Gold Coast now lies the kingdom of
Ashanti; the most powerful and best organised state
of Western Africa. Like Dahotni (the only other
West African kingdom of any importance), time was
when the boundary of Ashanti came down to the
sea, and included all the Gold Coast; the Fantecs, or
Waterside tribes, were its subjects, and the fore-
fathers of our allies its Chiefs. As in India, so on the
Gold Coast, our first forts were erected by permission
of its Kings ; and for long we paid to the Court of
Coomassie a rent for them. Gradually the Ashanti
monarchs lost their hold of the country; not, how-
ever, without a desperate struggle. We became in-
volved in the hostilities, suffered for a while severe
reverses—losing both a general and an army—but
at last the Ashanti armies retired; and under Presi-
dent WLEAN the basis of the present coast alliance
and confederation was laid. In short, under him, we
became the predominant power. Captain M‘LeaN
supported his authority with not only a strong hand
but a cool judicious head, and in his day Ashanti
made no further attempts to recover what it had lost.
The effect of a suacesaion of feeble successors was,
however, soon felt at Coomassie; old pretensions
were cautiously revived, sly intrigues were set afoot,
and these have lately induced important results.
At the close of the last Ashanti war, two Ashanti
chiefs retired across the Pra, a river which separates
the allied states from Ashanti, and joined the British
system. These chiefs the King of ANL...NiI has
lately become very desirous should return to his
country and to their old allegiance. They resisted,
and he pressed ; they professed to have pecuniary
liabilities in their new country, which it was neces-
sary to discharge before leaving it, and he advanced
money for their discharge. At this period a know-
ledge of what was going on burst on the people of
these Chiefs ; they roes against the thought of re-
turning to Ashanti, seised their Chiefs, and sent them
down prisoners to Governor HILL at Cape Coast Castle.
Thus defrauded of his money and deprived of his
subjects, the King of Asitaxrt,some two months since,
pushed an army 10,000 strong across the boundary,
and was advancing on Cape Coast Castle when be
was met by an English officer, Lieut. BaowsmLL,
commanding 150 men of the local corps and 4,000
levies. Very indiscreetly that officer visited the
Ashanti camp to discuss the cause of this invasion,
and was there taken prisoner. Governor HILL at
once summoned his native allies to assistance ; 8,000
joined him instantly, the whole country rose at his
call, and a message was sent to the Ashanti camp
that, if Lieut. IlltowNutLL was not liberated within
24 hours and the Pra recroesed, war would ensue.
Discretion happily proved the better part of
valour : Lieut. IlaowsaLL was released, and the ter-
ritory under British protection evacuated. But per-
haps the most important pert of the affair was the
universal response of the Fantees to Governor }DLL's
call. On former occasions they have fled before
Ashanti armies ; on the presant upwards of 30,000
armed natives turned out to resist the progress of the
Ashanti King, to defend their country, and to act
under British command. By their promptitude an
Ashanti war was, in all probability, averted.
At the same time, however, that Governor HILL
made this demonstration, and summoned also to his
support three QUEEN'S ships, he intimated his
willingness to attend to any complaint against the
two negro Chiefs which the King of AstraNr
might choose to make to him ; and there the affair
at premnt rests.

RTE ELECTION.—The writ for the election of a
member for Rye was received at Rye on &May, and was
duly proclaimed in the usual form on Monday. The no-
mination is find for Friday next, and the polling will
take place on the following day. The town is all on the
alert, and preparations are making on both sides for a se-
vere contest. Owing to recent events very strong feelings
prevail. There is no question hat that Mr. Mackinnon
(father of the late member for Rye), who comes forward
iu the liberal interest, is the cropuiar candidate. The eir-
cumstanccs which have transpired ai to the disgraceful
means by which information was furnished co the late in-
! (laity, and the extraordMary port taken by the tories in
seeking to blacken and disfranchise the borough, have na-
turally created a powerful feeling against that party, and
will no ilsubt prcduce a marked effect upon the canvass of
Mr. Fomliet, who is said to be the tory candidate.—Nustes
Adoerti.f.