Our policy at this time should clearly have been to play off Djuabin against Ashanti, to use the one to keep the other in check, just as might be required; if necessary, to support the one or the other by force of arms, so that the balance of power, which had happily taken place, should not be disturbed. Nothing could have been easier than to do this. If Ashanti should make war upon the Colony we could employ Djuabin to threaten Coomassie; and if the latter should menace our possessions we could let loose the Ashantis upon the Djuabin capital. As for preserving peace between the two rivals, our position on the sea-board within easy striking distance of each was admirable, and the two nations were so nearly equal in power and resources that an intimation from the Colonial Government to either of them which might seem disposed to provoke hostilities, that any act of aggression would be considered a declaration of war against England, would effectually have prevented any outbreak. This grand opportunity was unfortunately neglected, and the consequences have still to be suffered. After Captain Lees’s mission to Coomassie and Djuabin the subtle Ashantis remained quiet until about July 1875, satisfying themselves with storing up supplies of salt, powder, and lead, and re-organizing their army, to the chief command of which Awooah, the brother of the late general, Amanquatia, succeeded. King Mensah also placed on record how keenly he felt the injustice of the British in not calling upon the king of Djuabin to pay a fair proportion of the war indemnity which had been inflicted on the entire kingdom by Sir Garnet Wolseley, the whole of which Ashanti, though reduced to half her former area, had now to pay. In July, King Mensah addressed a letter to the European merchants of Cape Coast Castle, complaining of the action of the king of Djuabin, that he was kidnapping Ashantis living on the Djuabin frontier, and closing the roads to trade. This letter was duly forwarded to the Government, but only elicited from the Governor the reply “that he would act with reference to the affairs of the interior as seemed to him advisable.” There can be no doubt but that the head of the king of Djuabin was turned by his sudden accession to power; he sent insulting messages to Mensah, invited the tribes within the protectorate to come and share the spoils of Coomassie with him; and by the middle of August 1875 the excitement on each side had become so intense that no mere negotiation or mediation could have averted war, whatever it might have effected if it had been employed at an earlier period.