Mensah sent his third message to the Lieutenant-Governor, explicitly stating that he had no hostile design. This message was, as we have seen, delivered on February 18th; thus, twenty-five days after the declaration of war, it was known to the government of the Gold Coast that Mensah desired peace, and that there was no prospect of an embroilment; but by that time the first alarming telegram had already reached England. After the decision of the Lieutenant-Governor to do nothing till the arrival of his superior, the Colony was disturbed by several groundless alarms. One of these was to the effect that the king was calling out his army, and had posted a strong force at Ordahsu; while, according to another, which was current on March 2nd, the Ashantis had crossed the Prah in force, and had reached Dunquah. The author of these false reports was never discovered, though suspicion fell upon a trader, who, having a large supply of goods on hand, wished to keep others from importing. This man was also suspected of sending that telegram from St. Vincent which surprised England with the intelligence that the Ashanti army was within three days’ march of Cape Coast. But, although there was little or nothing to be feared from the tribes beyond the boundary of the Colony, there was a great deal of dissatisfaction amongst the protected tribes. The chiefs of Accra, on being called together to state what quota of men they would be prepared to furnish in case of war, flatly refused to raise any men for the defence of the protectorate until their king, Tacki, was released from imprisonment at Elmina. This refusal was committed to writing and the document signed by forty-eight of the most influential chiefs of the district. I have already referred to the critical state of affairs in the western extremity of the Colony, and to the east the Awoonahs began to make preparations; so energetically, too, that the chiefs of Addah, who had promised to raise some 4,000 men, now said that they could not leave their own country, as, were they to do so, the Awoonahs would pillage their towns and carry off the women and children. These facts were rude shocks to the Government. Theoretical Governors had fondly nursed the belief, until it had grown into an article of faith, that the years of peace which had succeeded the events of 1874 had induced the various tribes in the protectorate,--distinct though these were by language, traditions, and customs,--to bury their several grievances and become a homogeneous people, and now it was only too evident that the mere rumour of possible hostilities with Ashanti had alone been sufficient to bring again into prominence all their inter-tribal enmities, and make each nation suspicious and jealous of its neighbours. The world can now judge how far any proposed combination of the protected tribes against Ashanti would be likely to be successful.