We have before observed, ...
The Times, 1824-08-16T00:00:00

We have before observed, that the state of our settle- ments on the western coast of Africa has become so critical that a question may very reasonably be entertained, wlie- ther or not they are worth preserving at the price which such a policy must impose upon us, and with the uncertain| hope of accortplishing those benefits to the caiuse of ciriAR- -zation, humanity, and religion, or to the less generous one of oui commercial industry, which might be assumed- as a full equivalent for the loss of British life an d the dangert of a still extending territory. Much has been said in re- lation to the war with the Ashan!ees, and many topics have presented themselves for inquiry in connexion with that ulfortunate contest. It is known, that to immense numbers, the Ashantees join the mort intrepidl bravery, and a degree of skill in warlike discipline and movements wlhich would be formidable to the best organized military power. Against these advantages the success of the British arms has been such,asthe enemiesof England can look uponwithoutreluct- ance; but we confess t.,it a lhighly important considera- tion for Englishmen is, that the present war with Ashantee be one in whiclh they deserve to succeed. To our minds, the injustice of a quarrel would be more disgraceful than any other calamity attendfing it. We are therefore desir- otls to have it explained whether the Ashanitees have been really in this instance the aggressors. It behoves the Gc- vernment to inform the people generally, wlhether the Cole nial Authorities of England have been forced by the Negroes into a war of self-defence; or whetCher the latter have not been driven into hosdlities with us, first by the e2ntiniued selfishbness, duplicity, bad faith, and insolence, of the agents of the Commercial Company, and afterwardls by the rashnessof our military administrators on theAfrican coast, who, conceiving that justice was not a reciprocPl obligation, and next, that power, like justice, existed on oneside only, made a false estimate both of the (luties which they hadt to fulfil towards other States, and of the means possessed by those States for the redlress of tlhcir owi injuries. We have been led into these suggestions, as well by what lhas been verbally communicated to uts, by persons no less familiar with AfricaD politics, than solicitous for the honour andl welfare of Great Britain, as by a cursory perusal of a work placed before us within these few days, the production of' Mr. Dupuis, late British Consul ac- cre(lited to Coomassee by the British Government, wlichl we have looked into with lively, an(l sometimes painful in- terest. From the statemenis of this gentleman, itis not easy to rise without strong doubts of the case to be esta- blished,more especially by the civil and commercial officers of England on the coast of Africa, when the condition of our affairs on that Continent shall come to be strictly in- vestigated. it ix satisfactory to infer from Mr. DuPuIs's representa- tions, that whatever may have been the prudence or in- tegrity of Englishmen in their concerns withl Ashantee, the candid antI friendly proceedings ef the Dutch Autho- ritics towards us ought to be held Pbove all reasonable re- proach. But under the circumstances into which we have been dragged with the most form idable of the native P'owers of Africa, and after the little that we can show of actual or prospective good, from the waste of health and life, and the expenditure of mponey, which so many years oecupation of that hornbble region has cost us, it becomes, we repeat, a grave and anxious question, whether we ought not to withdraw from the fatal scene at once.