Remarks on the topography and diseases of the Gold Coast / by R. Clarke.

  • Clarke, R.
Date:
[1860]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Remarks on the topography and diseases of the Gold Coast / by R. Clarke. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    6/60 (page 4)
    and alike acknowledged by the subjects of botli countries. Therefore a militia force of hundred well-disciplined and armed men, clothed in a uniform made of the cheap fabric called “blue baft/' commanded and drilled by two military officers, assisted as circumstances may require by the gentle¬ men of the civil department, is found by the Dutch sufficient to support their authority, and to repress revolt. The British forts are garrisoned by 300 men of the Gold Coast Artillery Corps,* commanded by seventeen European offi¬ cers. The soldiers are chiefly composed of runaway slaves, but discipline and their elevation from serfs to freemen soon enable them to appreciate their improved condition. When claimed by their owners (a circumstance which is constantly occurring), an arrangement is made to indemnify them and redeem the slave by the payment of £8 sterling, that sum being deducted by instalments from the man's pay. The troops are clothed in a modification of the Zouave uniform, and are armed with the short Enfield carbine. The officers have the privilege of holding civil appointments, which they were led to expect when the corps was formed. Moreover, promotion is so rapid (not so much from death vacancies as from officers retiring or being transferred to other regiments of the line) that the rank of captain is attained after a period of three years full service dating from the time a lieutenancy is obtained. Three and a half-years is the average period of service upon the Gold Coast before attaining the rank of captain, when, if they choose to retire, they become entitled to a pension of £150 per annum. Commissariat officers serve two years in the colonies of West Africa, and their pay while stationed there has been lately augmented, and additional leave of absence is granted them when they return to Europe to recruit their health. The officers of the medical staff serve one year in West Africa, and that period is reckoned as two. The only civil force which the Government at present possess consists of about twenty-five militia men. These men are employed as messengers, but their number is altogether inadequate as a police force for the vast extent of the Pro¬ tectorate. To each court of justice a paid constable is attached, the other members of this force depending upon fees, paid them for serving summonses, &c. These men while thus employed frequently commit acts of extortion, or take bribes from the more unsophisticated inhabitants of the rural dis¬ tricts, and so largely increase their emoluments by playing * The regiment is farther increased by a hand, and supernumeraries of about fifty men.