It appears that slaves on the Gold Coast, like slaves
in India, prefer to be free. Consequently when told by Governor Strahan, with the consent of the native Chiefs, that they were free to go, a good many of them went. The Chiefs thought this very incon- venient, and have accordingly in a petition to the Queen, obviously manufactured by Europeans, requested that slaves shall be free only when cruelty can be proved against their masters. They say that consent to Governor Stmhan's plan was wrung from them, that their plantations are being deserted, and that the slaves will all turn highwaymen. In fact, the regular slaveowner's arguments are all reproduced, and we only wonder that the Chiefs did not add that the negro race is visibly, and by the law of Nature, unfitted for freedom, and offer to go into slavery themselves. It is quite impossible, of course, for the Government to recede in any way whatever from a policy whose success proves how necessary it was, and how false wasthe old argu- ment that slaves on the Gold Coast cordially approved the institution. The chiefs must put up with freedom, and congratu- late themselves that they are not carrying Ashantee litters, as but for the British Government would have been the case. As to disturbances arising from emancipation, they are most impro- bable, but if they occur Governor Strahan has only to make emancipation absolute, on condition of each freed man doing soldiers' service for fiix months if called upon.
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