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 to Coomassie, where he was treated with but scant courtesy and could effect nothing. Next by his behaviour, and the threatening attitude of his people to the officer sent to Coomassie for the instalment of the war indemnity then due, he, as I have related in Chapter III., so intimidated the Colonial Government that the question of the payment of that indemnity was allowed to drop, and has never since been revived. Thus in less than two years from the burning of Coomassie the Ashanti diplomacy had met with such success that Mensah had recovered the whole of the Djuabin territory, repudiated the payment of the war indemnity, re-established the prestige and power of the Ashanti name, and outwitted the Colonial Government upon every point.

In 1876 and 1877 the Ashantis occupied themselves with the internal administration of their newly-acquired territory, and in the purchase of breech-loading rifles, which they obtained principally through Assinee, though a considerable number were smuggled, viâ Danoe, the Quittah lagoon, and the Volta river, into Djuabin.

In 1878 the Colonial Government at last grasped the fact that the interdiction on the importation of arms and gunpowder only crippled the revenue of the Colony and the power of the protected tribes, without