case and that they feared the influence Wallace-Johnson and the WAYL had over the populace. He finally decided to accept the proposal after the governor offered him £100. He feared that the government was going to set him up by arresting him for "fleeing justice" after his release. He told authorities to demonstrate their act of good faith by releasing his bail bondsman and providing him with a written statement that he had been freed. The government was reluctant to take such action until Azikiwe pointed out that the government had opened themselves to this dilemma with their initial deportation proposal to Wallace-Johnson. Shortly after, they agreed to £50 to Wallace-Johnson, with the promise that the rest would be paid once he arrived in England. However, the situation unfolded differently. Wallace-Johnson was told by the proprietor of the African Morning Post that the police commissioner needed to see him as soon as possible. Wallace-Johnson suspected that he was being trapped, so he refused to go. He decided that he would rather travel to Freetown before making his own plans to sail to England. However, this proposal was rejected by the government. Kojo Thompson then came to his house and informed him that the governor had withdrawn his deal and now wanted Wallace-Johnson to stand trial. The activist claimed that the "whole arrangement was a hoax and a dastardly conspiracy to round me up in a more serious charge" and suspected that Thompson was somehow involved in the plot. Wallace-Johnson was put on trial in front of the Assize Court in July and quickly convicted and fined £50. Not all was lost for Wallace-Johnson—the publicity received by the trial helped increase WAYL membership by more than 1,500. In an anticipation of a guilty verdict, Wallace-Johnson and the WAYL began preparing for his appeal to England's Privy Council and hoped to obtain an English barrister to handle the case. The league asked their members to contribute five shillings to the appeal, but even then, the cost was far too great for the league to finance. After learning that the cost of taking a case to the Privy Council was approximately 1,000 pounds, Wallace-Johnson immediately suspected that Gold Coast authorities had known that the cost of appeal would place the league in financial ruin. Appeal in London Wallace-Johnson left for London in February 1937 to appeal his case in front of the Privy