WEST COAST OF AFRICA.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 149, 8 May 1862, Page 3

WEST COAST OF AFRICA.

We extract the following from the West African Hnarld of the Bth ult. :— In our issue (if the 24th of October we animadverted with some severity on the condition of Peppe), King of Bonny, who had recently returned to that island in' a, brig called the Beulah, from England, accompanied by some English ladies and gentlemen whom he had. engaged as. secretaries, ladies of honor, &c. AH these persons have been under the necessity of' finding their way back to England in the best manner they could. There were nine of them altogether, two ladies and seven gentlemen. The secretary to His Majesty, Mr. Halcombe, was to have £1,000 per annum, and apartments in the palace. The others were to receive remuneration for their services in proportion. .These unhappy persons, after arriving at !3onny, remained on board the Beulah, in the river, till the master of the vessel, Captain Le Marquand, declared that he could, not afford to feod them any longer. They then applied to King Peppel for some of tlieir pay, when His Majesty offered them two yams each, saying that was all he could do for them. As it became plain the whole thing was a delusion these persons proceeded to shift for themselves the best way they could. One gentleman with his wife found a home with Dr. Ward, agent of Messrs. Percival Brothers. They lived three months with this gentleman, and then left for England iathe Star of the Seas. Another lady and gentleman went home per Golden Age in November.' The medical officer, Ok. Munro vent to Farnando Po in search of occupation. The rest of the suit, after passing some weeks in the river, subsisting on charity, have now returned to England per mail steamer Athenian. A sericus disturbance has lately taken place in. Western Wassa, in the course of which 13 men have been killed. The commandant Captain Hewott, went up with a view to Testore order, but did not succe»d in so doing. Quacoo Mensah, King of Western Wassa, has treated the local Government with gross disrespect, and his Excellency the Governor has notified to him that he is no longer to consider himself as being under "British protection. It is said that Quacoo Mensali, on being called upon by the Governor's orders to deliver un the British flag and message cane, which he held as signs of his acknowledging the British supremacy, gave up these articles in a grossly contemptuous manner, and then ordered Captain Hewett to go out of his territory. A barque, called the Manuel Orthez, arrived in these roads on the Bth of December from. New York. She was under'British'colors. In consequence of information received, his Excellency the Governor caused her to be seized as' a slaver; and an officer and 16 privates of the Gold Coast Artillery Corps havo i been put on board of her. She has been sent down, Iwe learn, to Whydah with these troops on board. . The object of sending tliis vessel there is, as we have ' understood, to serve the suspected owner or "consignee i with a citation calling on him to show cause why the Manuel Orthez should not be condemned as a slaver. She left on the first inst. The captain and crew are still on board. ' ' The slave trade' is being carried on with renewed vigour along that part of the west coast from Quittab. to the Congo. The withdrawal of the American squadron.—the only American squadron that ever did its duty in slave-trade repression—has led immediately to this result. Every slaver now hoists the United States flag, and thus defies the British ships. The impunity this affords to the slave traders at sea, • will " necessarily lead to an increased slave trade activity on land. Tbe brutal force of-Dahomey is sterling— every petty royal miscreant on the coast will, be on the alert, and news will go from Dahomey into the interior tjiat will cause large coffles of .wretched captives to be passed down through Rabba." . are, anticipated with the Crobbscs, who still owe the British Government nearly 200,000 gallons of palm oil,' the balance of a jfine inflicted on. them in. 1808, and,wlueh,tliey,now refuse to pay.