The papers on the origin of the Ashantee war have
been pub- lished, and reveal three rather remarkable facts. First, that Mr. Rickard Pine, Governor of Cape Coast Castle, really proposed a war of aggression, asking permission to invade and conquer Ashantee, a territory say about the size of England, with 2,000 British troops and 50,000 auxiliaries ; that the Duke of Newcastle rejected this proposal ; and that a conditional assent to it was sub- saquentlf given by Mr. Frederick Rogers, Permanent Under-Secre- tary, avowedly" in the absence and with the sanction of the Secre- tary of State." Was the "sanction" a particular or only a general one, for the practice of ordering wars of aggression with 50,000 savages for troops through an irresponsible officer is a novel one, and not, we think, an improvement on the British constitution. The war, admits the Marquis of Hartington, very soon cost us thirteen officers and 600 men, and it is believed that the total loss killed and invalided, without ever seeing an enemy, is about three times that number. All this while the army of Quacco Duah, the much dreaded potentate, was, says Mr. Pine, not approaching our frontier.
