aim of educating them on the Gold Coast and bringing them back to the Dahomey monarch. Freeman liberated all eight slaves. Some scholars have posited that Freeman's time in Dahomey may have influenced Gezo to alter the judicial process for executing criminals and human sacrifice. The provincial chiefs no longer had the power to sentence alleged perpetrators to death. They now had a chance of appeal to the King's court headed by Gezo himself. Nonetheless, human sacrifice and the slavery economy continued unabated. Earlier, while waiting at Ahgwey in Little Popo for the arrival for his ship for Cape Coast, he visited an English-educated native chief, George Lawson who promptly welcomed Freeman's offer to send a teacher there, the genesis of the mission work at Popo. Freeman never had the resources needed for a large-scale mission at Dahomey. The home mission in London were unwilling to underwrite his evangelism initiatives in Dahomey. This was because the missionary death toll on the Gold Coast was already high and the numerous Anglo-Ashanti wars hindered the Kumasi mission. Furthermore, the home committee in London were concerned with Freeman's reckless approach to financial management. In 1854, Freeman returned to Dahomey with his colleague missionary, Henry Wharton. When they reached Wydah, the witnessed the horrors of a slave shipment of 650 captives by Portuguese slave traders. In this episode, four slaves jumped to their deaths from the slave ships while a nursing mother was forcibly separated from her newly born baby. Thomas Freeman relayed what he had just observed to the English colonial government which led to increased patrolling of the high seas to prevent the slave trade that had long been abolished. At Wydah, Freeman and Wharton were hosted by the assistant-missionary, Dawson and his wife. The Dahomey king, Gezo received them warmly. Freeman also handed over to Gezo, the two girls, now baptised Grace and Charity, who had been taken to Cape Coast earlier for education. Freeman briefly stayed with the king before returning to Accra via Whydah, Ahgwey and Little Popo. Shortcomings Fante language Limited linguistically, Freeman resisted learning how to read, write or speak the Fante language, even though that would have aided his evangelisation efforts. Financial issues From 1843 to 1854, Thomas Birch Freeman attempted to expand the mission activities in both Nigeria and the Gold Coast. As a result, his travelling and administrative expenditure ballooned. He failed to conduct