The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser. — 1833-08-16 (Liverpool, Merseyside, England)

DIXON, THE AFRICAN TRAVELLER.  Extract of a letter dated Cape Coast Castle, 28th April, 1833: " I fear I have been guilty of great neglect in not sooner communicating to you the result of my inquiries respecting the fate of Dr. Dixon. , These particulars I shall, however, now briefly recapitulate to you, that you may be able to answer any inquiries on the subject: on their correctness I believe you may perfectly rely. " His Majesty's ship Brazen, having Captain Clapperton and the expedition on board, on her voyage down the coast to Badagry (from whence it was intended the expedition should start,) touched at Whydah, a small town on the Dahomey coast. Here the gentlemen of the expedition landed, and were hospitably entertained by a Senhor de Souza, the most notorious and extensive slave dealer on the coast of Africa. While here, Dr. Dixon expressed a strong desire to penetrate into the interior through Dahomey, so as to rejoin Captain Clapperton and his companions at Katunga, or, as it is called on the coast. Eyeo. M. de Souza readily offered his services, and actually accompanied the Doctor to the court of Dahomey, at an immense expense to himself, being obliged, when visiting the King, to make him very large and valuable presents. Dr. D. was well received by the King, who swore not only to protect him while passing through his own dominions, but to use his power and influence to procure for 1 i n similar favour and protection from those chiefs through whose dominions he must needs pass. The Doctor, accordingly, left Dahomey, well escorted, and the king, or chief, into whose country he was about to enter having also sworn to afford him every protection and assistance, he had every .prospect of being able to reach Katunga long before Captain Clapperton. "There it was, however, that his ignorance of the customs of the country, and impatience or irritability of temper, cost him his life. When approaching the principal town, the King, attended by his sons and chiefs, came out, as is customary, to meet him ; and the King desired his eldest son to swear fidelity to the stranger, after the fashion of the country. You will, perhaps, recollect that this is done in this part of Africa by the party drawing a sword, or kind of sabre, (more like a bill-hook than anything else,) and making a long harangue, using all the gestures, while the most violent and angry-like and pushing the point of the sword almost down the throat of the party in whose favour the oath is taken ; in fact, they show their dexterity by' cutting close to the face without actually touching it. Doctor Dixon unfortunately misunderstood the meaning and nature of the whole ceremony, and conceiving, from the gestures and appearance of the King's son, that he meant to kill him, drew his sword and plunged it into his body. Instantly all was uproar, and the Doctor would, of course, have been sacrificed on the spot, had not the King interfered, and ordered him to be guarded into the town, declaring that he could not break his oath, even although his own son had been stabbed ; it was, besides, against the fetish' of that country to shed blood in the King's presence. Dr. D. was ordered to leave the country the next morning, and, with an escort from the King, proceeded on his journey accordingly. The instant, however, that he had passed the boundaries of the King's dominions, (when, according to their ideas, the King's oath was no longer binding,) his escort fell upon him and murdered him. This, I have reason to know, is a true and correct account of Dr. Dixon's lamentable fate."  Doctor Lawrence was promoted to the Archbishopric of Cashel in the year 1822, since which period he has promoted twenty-one Clergymen, whom he found in his diocese at the time of entering upon its superintendence, totally unconnected with his Grace, and unknown to him previously to his taking charge of the See.