AFTER MACLEAN, Some Aspects of British Gold Coast Policy in The Midnineteenth Century

Historical Society of Ghana
AFTER MACLEAN: Some Aspects of British Gold Coast Policy in the midnineteenth
century
Author(s): G. E. Metcalfe
Source: Transactions of the Gold Coast & Togoland Historical Society, Vol. 1, No. 5 (1955),
pp. 178-192
Published by: Historical Society of Ghana
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41406591
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AFTER MACLEAN
Some Aspects of British Gold Coast Policy in the mid-
nineteenth century
by G. E. Metcalfe
British Gold Coast policy in the years immediately after Maclean's gov-
ernment has not received much attention in the standard histories. It is
admittedly a difficult and in some respects unrewarding subject; since for
most of the time the British were groping for an effective policy which they
did not find until much later. Partly, however, neglect is due simply to the
fact that most of the materials on which such a study must be based have
never been published. Having had to work through the Colonial Office
records in another connection, I want to use them here to fill in something of
the background of such familiar landmarks as the so-called Bond of 1844 and
the Poll Tax Ordinance and Legislative Assembly of 1852. I have called it
"After Maclean" because the central theme of most of what I have to say
consists in the attempt to translate into formal and enduring institutions the
authority Maclean acquired over the tribes by his personal influence. Essen-
tially the periocl, as I see it, consists of this attempt to continue Maclean's
achievement. For although, as will be seen, the British Government was
brought back to the Gold Coast in a manner very hostile to Maclean, its real
task was rather complementary to his work than antagonistic to it. And apart
altogether from the controversies of 1840 this essential problem would have
had to be faced sooner or later, when, from whatever reason, Maclean had to
hand over to others.
For most of the period of merchant rule, the Home Government paid little
attention to the affairs of the Gold Coast. It did exercise a remote control, for
example by reviewing each year the grant to be made by Parliament for the
upkeep of the forts. And it had two agencies through which to make its views
known on the coast. One was the Governor of Sierra Leone with a nominal
superintendence over all British West African interests. His solitary contribu-
tion, in 1840, was a rather ill-judgedj proclamation against slavery,1 actually
issued on his own initiative, though subsequently approved at home. The
other was the Committee of Merchants, the more regular channel of commu-
nication. How haphazard was the liaison between the Colonial Office and this
body may perhaps be judged from the fact that between them they failed to
AFTER MACLEAN 1 79
notify the authorities on

Official opinion in the Colo
have regretted the maintena
A change came quite abru

beginning of 1839 by Fowe
vigorous measures agains
regretting the existence
multiply. The timely discov
slave trade from the coast
their most trenchant critic
observing that "any one
rather to witness than to a
more than the whole exp
immediately afterwards ca
taking on provisions and t
with this, Maclean did not
Government at home (as t
practice) or the merchants b
if the culprit in the cause c
British law, there was not
manner.6 If true, this was
supplanter as an auxiliary
received opinion- a sort of
drive out bad. It also seem
the slave trade, it could not
merchants as Maclean, to
Russell, was "if possible to
make ourselves responsible
infractions of acts of Parli
to apply to Parliament (an
Whig majority), and that t
Government. . .may termin
forts.8
This was in May 1840. It was nearly four years later before a new Governor
appointed directly by the Crown arrived on the coast;* not unfortunately an
exceptional delay in the handling of Gold Coast affairs. The reasons for it
lay outside the Gold Coast, but they are perhaps worth mentioning as
February 13 th, 1844.
l8o AFTER MACLEAN
illustrations of the dive

management of its affai
from the Treasury. Russ
that if the Crown did take over the forts there would be no increase in the
grant for their upkeep.9 The Treasury agreed that there was a case for closer
supervision, but thought the best way of effecting this was to have a resident
officer on the coast, 1 0 to act, as Lord Milner described a similar appointment
much later, as "the eyes and ears of the British government" (or alternatively
to cut off the merchants' allowance altogether if they misbehaved again).
Russell thought nothing of this proposal, but as a compromise agreed to send
out a special investigator to report. 1 1 It was out of this parallelogram of
forces that the Madden mission emerged. And meantime came the discovery
that British subjects on the coast were themselves holding slaves, convincing
Stephen of the existence of "a systematic and concealed, if not corrupt
opposition to the unequivocal law of the land," which "disqualifies those who
have practised it for the further discharge of their duties."12
Although Madden's report, when it was finally published, gave the British
public its first, though garbled, knowledge of Maclean's protectorate, in
general it emitted far more heat than light.13 His strictures on British
merchant houses, even when they had been toned down for publication, were
so serious that they had to be referred to a Parliamentary committee, which
did not report until August 1842. Long before that, Russell and the Whigs
had gone out of office. Russell's successor, Lord Stanley, member of a gov-
ernment with a comfortable majority, was less open to humanitarian pressure.
And in any case the disastrous Niger expedition of 1841 had killed any
enthusiasm for taking on new commitments in Africa. Stephen himself
wished to wash his hands of the Gold Coast ; his indictment was comprehensive ;
he had literally no use for these settlements. . . "their utility as preventives of
the slave trade is enormously exaggerated . . . the trade of them all put together
is of less value to us, present or prospective, than the trade with the isle of
Skye . . . neither the Gambia nor the Gold Coast are worth retaining, or ... if
retained. . .should be placed exclusively in the hands of the mulattoes or
negroes from the West Indies, and left to maintain themselves like the
American settlement of Liberia. . .",4
In the circumstances, it was no small tribute to Maclean that the Select

Committee thought his proctectorate worth preserving and extending, and to
that end recommended that the Crown should assume direct responsibility for
the settlements on which it was based. They felt that it was desirable to free
the local government from all connection with commerce (Maclean's commer-
AFTER MACLEAN l8l
ciai
connections are a su
confidencein its charac
some more generous fi
which Maclean had had
from the start, and all
restricted in their finances. There were no recommendations as to what form
of government was thought most appropriate to the local needs; and this
became the ground of a long rearguard action by the merchants connected
with the coast.
While a section of the merchants who appeared before the Select Committee
had been almost as extravagent in defence of their tenure of power on the
Gold Coast as Madden was extravagent in denouncing it, not all of them were
unwilling to see the Crown resume responsibility. Much would depend on
the sort of governor sent out; more on the place found for merchants in the
new set-up. In particular they insisted that an elective council should share
control with the Governor. This was claimed to have been the essential
innovation in 1828; the secret of Maclean's success was that he could always
find ready to hand local expert advisers.16 As a matter of history it is very
questionable how much Maclean owed to his Council; and it is certain that
he came to regret the fact that it was elected locally.17 But in all their contests
with the Colonial Office the merchants now used Maclean's success as the
strongest argument for having a council on which the traders were strongly
represented. Less tactfully they referred to the "blighting effects" of the
"peculiar" policy of the Colonial Office" on the other colonies in general before
going on to say that its "formula of reference and reports" was "utterly
unsuited to [a] country. . .where promptitude and decision are above all
things necessary to establish and maintain our moral influence with the
natives. 18. But it was essential that the advice tendered to the Governor
should be that of men who knew and had a stake in the country; not of
officials as ignorant of the coast as himself, and allegedly without any interest
in its affairs, "looking upon their residence there merely as a stepping stone
to a better appointment somewhere else, and longing for the day when
they shall finally quit the shores of Africa."
Arguments of this sort were put forward at different times over most of
the period down to 1865. The first Governor, who was received with deep
suspicion and credited with "more rampant ideas and resolutions than even
Madden"19 (he was a naval officer and as such probably had little enough
liking for traders), was led within six months of his arrival on the coast to
1 82 AFTER MACLEAN
recommend handing the f

interest in the advance o
their judicial duties."20 T
Earl Grey who decided ag
Council set up that year.
remained dissatisfied and
gave rise on the coast, see
primarily for the benefit
commission of inquiry in
trying to square the circl
by admitting merchant m
would give the Governor
For the crux of the mat

representation, but cont
they wanted was an elect
measures to which they
court of appeal). Grey re
for the people of the pr
merchants controlling th
their part to interfere wit
both anomalous in princip
said Grey, to place power
or. . .what they conceive
population as a whole."24
the first that the normal
some for such petty sett
Colony government, for
parts of the world, as th
and non-European subjec
not strictly speaking wit
difficult, if not impossib
This looks like a triumph
to hand. Grey himself h
giving the Governor a p
restricted, but he did no
from Sierra Leone, and
room for two merchan
officials to set against th
* James Bannerman an
AFTER MACLEAN I 83
traders, encouraging the format

local views, and instructing that
for local opinion on it to be kno
was not enough. The merchant
cooperation could not always be
open and often suspected; and
unfairly blamed for some of the d
such as it was, weakened govern
robbing it of the natural link w
years, that of the semi-European
to be called.28*
We have just seen that Grey in

had his eye on the Protectorat
was the real centre of interest.
over the tribes was the one po
anxious to establish on a more
In this they differed radically f
not entirely ignore some of his
they went. By English standa
the Governor of a British settlement should have unlimited discretion in
judicial matters, even to powers of life and death; if indeed he ought to be
concerned with the administration of justice at all. Maclean himself had
pointed to the gravest weakness, that he possessed no magisterial powers at
all outside the forts, and was only cognisant of petty offences within them.29
The Committee sought to meet this difficulty by making it possible in English
law for a British official to exercise jurisdiction outside British territory,
provided the local ruler agreed. This was effected the following year by the
passing of the Foreign Jurisdiction Act, and by a subsequent Order in Council
applying it to the Gold Coast. Generally this act dealt with the administration
of British law to British subjects outside British territory: but both the
Select Committee and Lord Stanley intended it also to regularise the position
of any British official continuing Maclean's superintendence of native law
in the protected districts of the Gold Coast.30 While no one questioned that
Maclean had exercised this supervision with the full consent of the chiefs, f
*This is a general inference but the native agents did not necessarily take their
cue from the Europeans. They preferred the Council set up by Grey to that
demanded by the merchants. See memorial of Gold Coast native traders in
Winniett to Grey 25/8/50. C.O. 96/19.
fNot even Madden questioned this.
184 AFTER MACLEAN
and that this peculiar jurisdict

deemed advisable under the act
be obtained. This was the ori
Bond of 1844. These treaties in
new; what they sought to do w
the vicissitudes of an individua
entirely on confidence in a pe
stiron the coast. They were sig
the Lieutenant-Governor takin
from the neighbourhood of C
Even the wording seems to ha
the moment, though it follo
Committee's report.31 It was
signature, and thereafter subm
The executive and judicial fu

now largely separated. A new
wisely given to Maclean himsel
this separation may have been
Africans; and it meant that ne
the influence that Maclean h
his position keenly. There is e
used as part of the merchant p
war scare in 1846. "Three year
and influence which I then w
days. . .As things stand now,
Governor being in his 'seasonin
I have taken such steps as will
fidence: but I cannot now, as I
of excitions"32, and if Macle
how much more his successors.
One should not make too much of the opinions of a disappointed man,
and this particular case was, of course, a political question: but on the judicial
side too, the separation of function had its perils. After Maclean's death in
1847 the natural, though not invariable tendency was for his post to be
recruited from the legal profession, and lawyers inclined increasingly towards
the law they knew rather than the local customary law which was usually
strange to them. This however only became serious in the 1860s when the
Chief Justice and the Judicial Assessor were often one and the same person.
AFTER MACLEAN 1 85
There were criticisms of the Ju

all of them can fairly be attribu
Select Committee talked not mere
jurisdiction. It was certain that t
resentment and possible resistance
probed further into the economy
came to find themselves treated
subjects. "The murmurs... of t
extinction of their privileges",
1850, are "an invariable result o
Coast was concerned "an incontes
the condition of the native pop
been less murmuring in Maclean'
had not gone so far. Finally, thos
croaching power of the Judicial
made no distinction in this res
Aggrey, (or his amanuensis) descr
"a white face and a red jacket spr
Most of these difficulties were st

Office in 1846. The third Earl G
greatest of all holders of that off
amiable nonentities like Derby or
on the street plan of Accra, that
first statesman to envisage the f
government on the European
concentrated on the judicial aspect
came to be with what we nowaday
While he wanted to see more m
hospitals and roads. The limitin
going to Parliament for funds - i
would not grant them - and righ
expect the British tax-payer to pr
time were only to a limited ext
did not favour spoon-feeding; th
swallowed substantial sums in its
money ought to be raised locally;
Coast settlements it could not be
taxation. Grey was readier to ac
great believer in self-help; peo
1 86 AFTER MACLEAN
appreciate benefits they h

so much the better; regul
this doctrine of salvation
empire, wherever the cli
Crown Colonies it was suf
where Britain did not rul
local authorities were no
resist or find themselves
escape into the bush. But
spent in the districts wh
results in the shape of r
closely associated with th
such a scheme be accepta
In other colonies, nota

Grey's mind with the b
of the proceeds of the ro
tees in which officials sa
To Grey these committee
for the first time the Br
Singhalese society; and
some national system of
where the Government
whom it professed not
were already in the air.
They were put forward

by those merchants who
Council. When Grey reje
not speak for the tribes,
well be the formation of
apart from, and possibly
did not take this threat
Bannerman and Cruicks
quoted, argued that the
with the policy of the
to feel that their status w
measures for the commo
administration which mo
as "the instrument of th
AFTER MACLEAN 1 87
Only through the willing co-oper

people be controlled or made to u
while the government for its par
would have no means of knowing
solution at which they arrived
constituted, deliberative assem
Chiefs' be appointed to meet at C
purpose of framing, with the ass
magistrates, such laws as shall, wh
nor, become generally binding up
The function of this assembly a

lative and judicial; it was to frame
the chiefs more closely. It had no
advised against any attempt to le
how seriously he took his own
taken aback when Grey jumped
had been long in close consultatio
more delays, and when his succes
it was Bannerman who spoke ag
difficulties, not to say dangers o
retinues in the seat of governmen
moved, Grey had left office for g
Grey's projects, over whose execu

then, of direct taxation to furth
system of local councils for the a
some sort of central assembly to
What Governor Hill actually ac
ad hoc arrangement; a very cur
distorted. Advised against collect
put the question of taxation befor
the coast.40 Then in April he s
chiefs at Cape Coast, and got them
Grey) but to a poll tax of a shilli
in the protectorate. To give ad
Hill tells us, to wean the chiefs fro
the gathering with the name o
itself was called an ordinance. T
protected tribes, most of whom h
1 88 AFTER MACLEAN
himself held subsequen

the agreement of some o
meetings, as far as it app
might have been with equ
original idea of local agre
councils contemplated b
Legislative Assembly, Hill
gatherings.43 It was gr
"converted a number of
the name of a governmen
and saw in "this rude N
of his Gold Coast policy,
government on the Eur
again.
Grey was no doubt too sanguine or too bold, and events made a mockery
of this particular dream (at least for a very long time). But it is well to remem-
ber that it was a travesty of his plan that was put into operation. The tax
itself was too onerous. The chiefs were not allowed to collect it for fear
they might oppress their subjects. But the government had no reliable
agents of its own to do the job. There was still extortion, and it was hopeless
for the government with its puny resources to try to collect the tax regularly
independently of the chiefs. Nor were these consulted about spending the
tax. Over a third of the proceeds were taken by the cost of collecting it. Most
of what was left went in salaries. There was no doubt a case for increasing
the pay of magistrates, but this benefit was least obvious to the people who
paid. Until Pine in 1857 tried to put the tax on a sound regional basis by
reviving district councils to raise and spend the money locally, most of what
was spent on 'improvements' was spent in and around Cape Coast.45 As
for the idea of a national representative assembly, that was completely lost
sight of. None of Grey's successors shared his faith in the development of a
central parliament, or made any move to foster assemblies of the chiefs.
What real promise there was in his programme at that time must remain
matter for conjecture.
But in a more fundamental sense, Grey shared the failing of all who had
to deal with Gold Coast affairs in the mid- 19th century. Injustice, and now in
taxation, they had assumed two of the basic funtions of government; in both
AFTER MACLEAN 1 89
spheres they had passed beyond th

not prepared to rule, or to accept f
police and defence, without whi
impossible after 1852. Apart from
overseas commitments, there was
to becoming responsbile for slav
national assembly on the Gold Coa
Ceylon, was too remote to be con
thought the Gold Coasters mor
because, for better or worse, Brita
of Ceylon and had no intention of
A national parliament on the coast
the tribes and so preserving peace
thening them against their Ashan
that closer union of the tribes wo
would be to relieve Great Britain
frankly accepted, but from which
faith and the cynicism of the com
the same thing in the long run.
Though Grey was bolder than an

the
colonial responsibilities inherit
as any to adding to them. The a
Danish forts in 1850, ironically eno
policy. Christiansborg Castle, in
today, if he had allowed it.48 But t
acquire territory, but to eliminate
tribes which had often troubled M
istic of his general attitude, and o
protectorate experiment, was his
ion against Nzima in 1847, which
responsibility for "the maintenanc
of the West Coast of Africa.,,5 Gr
outside the protectorate, because it
to the Government at Cape Coast. T
protectorate just as long as and as f
In the late fifties a similar line of r
*In 1858 Pine used this as an argum

he subsequently changed his mind,
I go AFTER MACLEAN
protectorate from the trib

a tribe like the Krobos, wh
pudiated it the next. ?51 An
or Cape Coast rejected it? In
at times gives the paradoxic
as its scope of action narro
mark of all, the challenge of
By the sixties the British
half-way house; it had attem
logical alternatives were to
One Ashanti invasion brough
it needed another to bring th
AFTER MACLEAN 191
REFERENCES
i. Accounts and Papers, 1842 (xii) p. 137.

2. A. & P. 1842 (xi) pp. 230, 231, evidence of J. G. Nichols.
3. Minutes by Smith and Stephen, April 1838. C.O. 267/150.
4. See the article by J. Gallagher, "Fowell Buxton and the new Afric
Policy 1838 - 42." In Camb. Hist. Journal xi 1950.
5. Minute by Stephen, 20 June, 1838. C.O. 267/150
6. Maclean to Russell 17 June, 1839; minutes of council 12th Novemb
1839; Maclean to Russell, 27 Jan. 1840.
7. Minute by Russell, 3 April, 1840, C.O. 267/162.
8. Minutes in C.O. 267/162.
9. Minute by Russell, 4 April, 1840, C.O. 267/162.
10. Treasury to Colonial Office 10 June, 1840, A & P. (1842) xii.
10. Treasury to Colonial Office 10th June, 1840, A. & P. (1842) xii. 135.
il. C.O. to Treasury 17th June, 1840. ibid.
12. Minute by Stephen, June, 1841, C.O, 267/168.
13. Madden' s report is printed in full in A. & P. (1842) xii. For the origin
drafts see C.O. 267/170.
14. Minute by Stephen, 3rd Dec. 1842 C.O. 96/2.
15. Report of the Select Committee, H.C. 551 (A & P. 1842 xi.)
16. A. & P. 1842 (xii) pp. 1228 - 30; 1 30 1. Bannerman, Cruickshank a
Clouston to Forster, 12/2/47; Forster to Grey 22/3/47, C.O. 96/12.
17. Maclean to Committee of Merchants, 30/11/36, in C.O. 267/136.
18. H. Smith & F. Swanzy to Grey, 16/8/50, C.O. 96/21.
19. Maclean to Bannerman, 21/10/43. Bannerman Papers, Archives, Accra.
20. Hill to Stanley, 5/8/44. C.O. 96/4.
21. Minute by Molesworth, 31/7/55. C.O. 96/33.
22. Pine to Labouchre, 12/6/57, C.O. 96/41, and minute by Merivale thereo
23. Minute by Merivale 14/ 11/50. C.O. 96/19.
24. Minute by Grey 5/9/50. C.O. 96/19.
25. Minute by G. W. Hope 30/1/44, C.O. 96/2; minute by Grey 11/1/
C.O. 96/21.
26. Grey, loc. cit.
27. Minute by Grey 16/11/50. C.O. 96/19.
1 92 AFTER MACLEAN
28. See for C.O.'s view of

minute by Merivale, 5/1
29. Maclean to Committee
30. Stanley to Hill 16/12/

31. Hill to Stanley 6/3/4
32. Maclean to Cruicksha
33. Bannerman and Cruick
34. Enc. in Pine to Cardw
35. Grey, Colonial Policy o
sections on West Indies a
as appendix F. For his di
Grey to Winniett 20/1/4
6/8/49. All in C.O. 96/19
36. Grey, Colonial Policy
37. Smith & Swanzy to Gr
37.b. Bannerman and Crui
38. Bannerman to Grey 3
39. Hill to Grey confident
40. ibid.
41. Hill to Grey confidential 23/4/52. C.O. 96/25.
42. Hill to Grey, 2/8/52. C.O. 96/25.
43. See 41. above.
44. Grey, Co/. Policy ii, 285 - 6.
45. Pine to Labouchere, 30/4/57. C.O. 96/41.
46. ibid, and C.O. 96/41 passim.
47. Smith and Swanzy above.
48. Crooks, p. 323. Records of the Gold Coast settlements,
49. Minute by Merivale 3/3/48 and 9/1/49. C.O. 96/11.
50. Grey to Winniett, 3/7/48 C.O. 96/13/, printed in part in Crooks, p. 312.
51. Andrews to Newcastle, 29/5/60 and 4/7/60. C.O. 96/50.
52. Minute by Newcastle, 31/8/59.

AFTER MACLEAN, Some Aspects of British Gold Coast Policy in The Midnineteenth Century

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AFTER MACLEAN, Some Aspects of British Gold Coast Policy in The Midnineteenth Century

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Historical Society of Ghana

notify the authorities on

A change came quite abru

February 13 th, 1844.

illustrations of the dive

In the circumstances, it was no small tribute to Maclean that the Select

recommend handing the f

For the crux of the mat

traders, encouraging the format

We have just seen that Grey in

fNot even Madden questioned this.

and that this peculiar jurisdict

The executive and judicial fu

There were criticisms of the Ju

Most of these difficulties were st

appreciate benefits they h

In other colonies, nota

They were put forward

Only through the willing co-oper

The function of this assembly a

Grey's projects, over whose execu

himself held subsequen

spheres they had passed beyond th

Though Grey was bolder than an

*In 1858 Pine used this as an argum

protectorate from the trib

i. Accounts and Papers, 1842 (xii) p. 137.

28. See for C.O.'s view of

30. Stanley to Hill 16/12/

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