Agemmum, February 7, 1874.

SIR,
    On the 5th instant I had the honour to address you from Coomassie, and to inform you that if the King refused to come in, I should destroy his capital. I now regret to have to report that all my efforts to induce him to come himself, or send a prince of the royal blood to treat with me, failed; and that the King only continued that policy of falsehood and deception which have marked all his dealings with me. Messengers who arrived throughout the 5th were abusing the liberty which I allowed them, by carrying off arms and ammunition from the town ; and on the evening of that day I decided upon withdrawing my troops, and destroying Coomassie.
    My decision to withdraw immediately was strengthened by the fact that tornados appeared to have set in, and that the passage of the rivers
In my rear might be rendered more difficult by delay., I had in the morning sent off all the wounded who were unable to march under escort of Wood's and Russell's Regiment, and a Company of the Rifle Brigade, and I now issued orders for an advance, on the morning of the 6th, of all the remaining troops beyond Coomassie, the dispositions being such, that on the facing about of the column, all would be in order for the homeward march. Prize agents were appointed, and the most valuable articles left in the Palace packed up,. the King having evidently, removed or concealed his treasure. A party of the Royal Engineers was engaged during the night mining the Palace.
    Early on the 6th our homeward movements commenced, headed by the Naval Brigade, and covered by a rear guard of the 42nd Highlanders, which did not retire till the town had been set on fire in every quarter, and the mines in the palace fired. A tornado had raged during the previous day and night, but the destruction of the town by fire was complete.
     In the despatch which I addressed to you on the 13th October last, asking for English troops to be sent out to enable me to accomplish my mission, I stated that that mission—to ensure a lasting peace with the Ashanti kingdom—could only be fulfilled in one Way, by defeating the Ashanti army, by pursuing it, if necessary, to the capital of the Ashanti kingdom, and by so showing to the King and all those Chiefs who urged him on to war, that the arm of Her Majesty is powerful to punish her enemies even in the very heart of their own country.
    That mission I conceive I have now fulfilled by the aid of the troops which Her Majesty's Government confided to me for its accomplishment.
Yet I can truly state that no means were left untried by me to bring about a peaceable solution of the campaign. Up to the last hour I left the King's palace untouched, in hopes that he would return. The troops refrained with the most admirable self-control from spoliation or plunder; and they left the capital of this kingdom, so famed for its gold, without carrying away as plunder one article of value.
   All the troops have now reached or passed this point. The return, march was not made without difficulty. The streams and rivers, had become so swollen from the effect of the. tornados of the last few days, that the shallow swamps had become waist deep, and the water in the River Ordah had yesterday submerged the bridge constructed on the night of the 3rd instant, and was still rising when the troops passed the river. But the convoys were all taken over in safety, and the men-of the Rifle Brigade and 42nd Regiment, before whose arrival the bridge had commenced, to give way, undressed, passed their clothes over the heads of natives, and themselves forded the stream, in one part fully five feet deep.
I shall continue my homeward march to-morrow by as rapid stages as the nature of the country will allow and with every military precaution.
 

I have, &c., (Signed) " G. J. WOLSELEY, Major-General

The Right Honourable The Secretary of State for War War Office.