Many of the chiefs are annoyed and vexed with King Bell for signing the treaty with the Germans. The feeling against King Bell grew so strong that he and all his people were obliged to leave Bell Town. About 14th December King Bell's people caught a Hickory Town man and put him to death. This so angered the Hickory Town people that on 16th of December they came and burned down King Bell's house and town. It had been deserted some weeks previously. On the 19th December two German men-of-war arrived at the mouth of the river. On the 20th, about 10 a.m., I saw two small steamers, the Fan and the Dualla, towing up about a dozen boats filled with German soldiers. Without the slightest warning or notice they steamed straight to Hickory Town, firing upon and destroying two small fishing canoes on the way. The Hickory people saw the Germans coming up the river. The men took their guns and ran into the bush behind the town. The women and the children belonging to the Mission-house took refuge in our Mission-house. As soon as I saw what was going on, I went immediately in the Mission boat up to Hickory, and stayed there all day. Soon after the German soldiers landed, King Bell's people arrived and seized the goods, furniture, and everything valuable, and even carried off the goats and fowls; then set fire to the whole of the town. When I arrived at Hickory Town I told the Mission people to bring everything they could carry into the Mission-house and sit down quietly. I then shut the doors, and with the aid of a German soldier (granted me by the commander) I managed to keep the Bell Town people outside the Mission-house. I am glad to say we managed to save the property and lives of about fifty of our Mission people.

When they began to burn the houses round the Mission buildings I went to the German commander and King Bell, and pointed out that if these houses were fired nothing could save the Mission property. They both promised me most deliberately that the houses should not be fired, but in a few minutes they had them set on fire. Mr. Fuller's beautiful little chapel soon took fire, then the school-house, then the kitchen and outbuildings of the Mission. The only thing that saved to some extent the Mission house was its iron roof. It did take fire in two places, but we managed to put it out. There is now nothing but the bare brick walls of the chapel and school standing, and no house but the Mission-house for miles on either side.

Togo, Cameroon, Africa, Mabia. Meyers, 1895.

After the German soldiers left I got the loan of a large surf-boat, and brought about fifty Hickory Mission people, women and children, with their goods, to Bethel station. We lodged them in the Mission-house and schoolroom that night. December 21st, being Sunday, we held a prayer meeting instead of our usual morning service, and held Sunday school as usual. About one o'clock the Germans surrounded the Bethel Mission buildings with about 200 soldiers. They roughly searched the whole of the Mission premises, and threatened us with loaded pistols and rifles at our heads. They only found one man, although we had nearly 100 women and children in the houses. This man, "Robert," a member of the Hickory Church, was not one of the men brought from Hickory. He came to Acqua Town on business long before the fight commenced on Saturday. The Germans took him prisoner, but I do not think anything can possibly be proved against him. In the afternoon they sent us a proclamation, which said that if we aided directly or indirectly the rebellious natives they would consider us enemies, and banish us immediately from Cameroons. Not only is Mortonville Mission station destroyed, but there is not a single house standing for miles on that side of the river."

Mr. Lewis gives a similar account of the burning of Joss Town, from which the Germans were at first beaten back, and had to obtain reinforcements. After an hour and half's fighting Joss Town was stormed, and burnt to the ground. Before the attack the Joss Town chief, River, went to the German factory of Messrs. Wormann and Co., about half a mile distant from their own town, and on the beach, and there seized the subagent, Mr. Pontanies, threatening that if any of the Joss Town people were killed they would immediately retaliate by taking his life.

In the encounter one of the Joss Town chiefs named Calabar Joss was killed, and immediately on his death the natives brought out Wormann's sub-agent, and at once carried out their threat, cutting off his head, putting it on a pole, and carrying it through the town. They then made for the bush, and the Germans, after setting fire to the town, retired for the day. In the evening the German authorities searched all the shipping in the river, ostensibly for the purpose of capturing the two chiefs, Lock Preese and Green Joss, but these chiefs were not to be found, and up to the 25th of December they had not been captured. In searching the hulks of the English merchants, the German officers were accompanied by the clerks and agents of the German trading firms established in the Cameroons. It is stated that the cession of territory to the German authorities was made by King Bell, the chief of Bell Town, who not only ceded his own territory but Joss Town and Hickory, both these towns being under another headman named Joss Chief, who was absent from the river at the time of the transaction. On his return he discovered that King Bell had not only ceded territory which did not belong to him, but that he retained for himself the whole of the large sum of money which he received from the German authorities for the purchase of his sovereign rights. The chief of Joss Town therefore resolved not to recognise the transaction. The committee of the Baptist Missionary Society have respectfully requested Lord Granville to take immediate steps for the protection of their missionaries and other British subjects resident at Cameroons, and to obtain from the German Government full compensation to the society for the destruction of Mission premises and property valued at from 1,500 to 2,000 sterling.