It was, perhaps, fortunate that the arrangement for the civil management of the Mission was in a state of chaos at this time. So far as the Directors of a Foreign Mission are personally concerned, it is a comparatively safe thing for them to send abroad instructions of the above kind, for if complications should arise, they will be the judges of their own conduct, and will, in any case, escape all the suffering that may ultimately be caused. While, at the same time, they are conscious that they are doing their very best to establish order in a lawless land. Most certainly they are actuated by the purest motives. But by such commands they would place a zealous lay superintendent in great difficulty. He knows that he can easily raise the country against an offending chief, and he reasons, “These are the instructions of my superiors. I am aware that they cannot be carried out without the loss perhaps of thirty lives. But the Mission Directors are honourable men, they will stand by me.” Suppose then that the man goes forth and fulfils his instructions with the loss say of only twenty lives. He may now think that he deserves the praise of his superiors for carrying out their orders at a smaller cost than he could have anticipated! But when he sends home his report, he finds that scarcely has he received the congratulations of the Convener, when other members of the Mission Committee protest that they “had not attended the meetings, and did not know that the Mission was a colony at all!” The lay superintendent may then see a piece of chess-playing more like what he might have expected among the heathen than among the church leaders whom he has honoured and trusted; while the weapon of misrepresentation would be wielded with great success. If the victorious army of the colony really killed twenty, it would get credit for having slain its “tens of thousands”. Had we been desirous to figure as civil magistrates or as African chiefs we might have soon gained an influence like what was once wielded by Papal Rome. Even persons that lived at great distances insisted on coming to tell us of their grievances, and to ask for advice, while our own neighbours were constantly appealing to us. In Scotland there was a time when it was considered a reproach to allow a funeral to pass without drunkenness: here it seems to be a reproach to have a beer-drinking without a fight. In the more serious cases the combatants fire at each other (usually missing), and then endeavour to strike their companions with the butt-end of their muskets. If their skulls were not very strong, there would be many fatalities. In such cases, however, although requested to interfere, we were content with merely supplying the sticking-plaster!