In July, King Mensah addressed a letter to the European merchants of Cape Coast Castle, complaining of the action of the king of Djuabin, that he was kidnapping Ashantis living on the Djuabin frontier, and closing the roads to trade. This letter was duly forwarded to the Government, but only elicited from the Governor the reply “that he would act with reference to the affairs of the interior as seemed to him advisable.”
There can be no doubt but that the head of the king of Djuabin was turned by his sudden accession to power; he sent insulting messages to Mensah, invited the tribes within the protectorate to come and share the spoils of Coomassie with him; and by the middle of August 1875 the excitement on each side had become so intense that no mere negotiation or mediation could have averted war, whatever it might have effected if it had been employed at an earlier period.
Matters were further complicated by the mission to Coomassie of a Monsieur Bonnat, who was desirous of opening trade with Salagha, a large and populous Mohammedan town, said to be eight days’ journey to the north-east of Coomassie. M. Bonnat visited the Ashanti capital in company with Prince Ansah, the uncle of the king, and appears to have mixed himself up a great deal with native politics. From Coomassie he went to Djuabin, where he very naturally was regarded with suspicion, on account of the circumstances under which he had visited Coomassie. M. Bonnat was accompanied by a number of Ashantis as carriers and servants, and some sixty of these were murdered by the Djuabins. In extenuation of this outrage King Asafu Agai afterwards said the murder was ordered by the Keratchi fetish, which is the great fetish of Djuabin and of several other tribes of the interior.
War was now inevitable, but Osai Mensah was so afraid that Great Britain would interpose that he still delayed. Towards the end of September a fresh _casus belli_ occurred. The inhabitants of five villages on the borders of Djuabin notified to King Mensah their desire to secede from the kingdom of Djuabin and to be incorporated with that of Ashanti. Mensah accordingly sent some of his officers to these villages, where they were attacked by the Djuabins. In the skirmish which ensued the Djuabins were forced to retire, and the inhabitants of the five villages migrated into Ashanti.