THE ASHANTEE WAR.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume IX, Issue 141, 15 June 1874, Page 2

THE ASHANTEE WAR.

The following is an American view of, the laat days of the Ashantee war. It is that of Mr J. M. Stanley, the well-known correspondent of the New York Herald — who accompanied General Napier in the Abyssinia war, the'flndef of Livingstone, and the New York. Herald's correspondent on the Gold Crast — and was published in that journal in the course of April last : — THY KINGDOM IS PASSED AWAY., I " The Ashantee Kingdom has collapsed like-the bladder to which it was aptly compared. There were six great tributary kings, who were the main props of .Ashantee proper. One has died, and his people ere scattered. The Kings of Jwabin and Adansi have expressed . their willingness to surrender, and have abjured their nllegiance to Ashantee. The supreme King is a fugitive horryiDg towards some point in the North ; Coomassie is a mere smoking ruin, and Ashantee is henceforth but a name. These are great indisputable facts, which go far to amend Sir Garnet Wolseley's faults and failings as a General. Since nil has ended well, promising a still better end, it is hardly worth while to criticise one who I have no doubt in England will be henceforth lauded most handsomely, and wbo as a soldier has distinguished himself worthily. WOLSELEY AS A COMMANDER. I know I shall run counter to the majority in my opinion of Sir Garnet, but my duly does not lie in following the views of the mßjority, but in expressing what I think of Sir Garnet's conduct in this campaign, and my reasons for this view of him. I make the following charges against him': — 1st — He did not pay attention to the control department of his expedition euflicient to save it from the constant series of failutes which must be attributed to it, which on a compaign so peculiar as this ought to have had bis continual and unceasing care and attention. 2nd — He was too vacillatiug in his demands upon the King, and entertained too serious a regard for what Exeter Hall might say, to the detriment of the mission imposed on him. 3rd — He frittered away his time when the King's treachery was evident, in seeking to recall and win him to friendly alliance by treaty with him, when he should have directed a watchful eye upon the eflemy's capital, whjch Jay, to use his own word?, at his mercy. 4th — -He did not adopt the usual precautions of guarding the capital from night attack, fire or plunder, until the city had been fired and almost wholly plundered by the retreating enemy. sth-r~He gave ho orders prohibiting plunder by his own troops until one was already caught in the act; and most cruelly strangled as an example, when it might have been prevented by a timely proclamation, and adopting proper precaution. 6tb. — Owing to the failure of his transport he was obliged to retreat from Coomassie before his full duty was'acco,mplished. No one is positively sure that Coomassie was entirely burned (except Captain Bartorius, who, came in five days afterwards), as we could not wait to witness the effect of the conflagration or the mines. 7t}?. — The most ; important place of all, vis., the Bantamm&b, or the sacred .-oUynmlhe., Mecca of Ashantee, distant a mile or so from Coomassie — was not even visited, nor was Aminecha, the . King's country residence, "touched, though it was so near. Bth. — The most serious nektjto the seventh mistake Sir Garnet commftted, was the permission ho gave the Ashan tees to leave Ccoroassie with arms in their hands before he had come to any terms whatever with them. :;, GENERAL CONCLUSIONS. But all these, errors and omissions, which are only enumerated in order that you. may. be able to judge Sir Garnet accurately, are made to appear small by the series of things which have happened since Sir Garnet's hasty retreat from Coomaßsie, over which Sir Garnet personally had no control, but were the happy results of the perpetual defeats the Ashantees had Buffered at the hands of British troops in the battles preceding the fall of Coomassie. These happy accidents, all tending to crown a successful campaign ,with glory, may, therefore, in , a great measure atone for the faults and failings of the General commanding. The desired end has been attained — The Ashantee power has been crushed, I thoroughly believe, irrevocably, and this was the object of the British expedition to Coomassie. But supposing, as each of us had. a right to suppose, judging from what an astute and stubborn enemy might have done, that the Aebantee spies had dogged the footsteps of the rapidly retreating British army, and the King had set to work to surround and destroy Glover with the guns' which Sir Gamett permitted the Ashantees to bear away from Coomaesie, what would the world, have said of a General who had cruelly and needlessly abandoned such a gallant fellow as Captain Glover to his fate? Supposing that the Ashantses had, upon the retreat of the British army, . immediately taken it into their heads to rebuild Coomassie, which they could easily do within a week, and had begun to inaugurate a new era of conquest on the X intees and their neighbors, and, were congratulating themselves' that, though defeated, they were not: .crushed j that,

though Coomassie had been destroyed, the sacred city had not been touched, what would the world have said of a general who, entrusted with such a costly expedition, did not make his work thorough while ho bad them ot his mercy? But why need we go further? The Ashnniee expedition is at an end. By a series of accidents it has ended happily, and Sr Garnet Wolseley and the Government of Great Britain may congratulate themselves henriily and with good reason, that "All's well that ends well.*'