“It was difficult to say,” writes Dr. Stewart, “whether he or the unhappy ladies, on whom the blow fell with the most personal weight, were most to be pitied.  He felt the responsibility, and saw the wide-spread dismay which the news would occasion when it reached England, and at the very time when the Mission most needed support.  ’This will hurt us all,’ he said, as he sat resting his head on his hand, on the table of the dimly-lighted little cabin of the ‘Pioneer,’ His esteem for Bishop Mackenzie was afterward expressed in this way:  ’For unselfish goodness of heart and earnest devotion to the work he had undertaken, it can safely be said that none of the commendations of his friends can exceed the reality,’ He did what he could, I believe, to comfort those who were so unexpectedly bereaved; but the night he spent must have been an uneasy one.”

Livingstone says in his book that the unfavorable judgment which he had formed of the Bishop’s conduct in fighting with the Ajawa was somewhat modified by a natural instinct, when he saw how keenly the Bishop was run down for it in England, and reflected more on the circumstances, and thought how excellent a man he was.  Sometimes he even said that, had he been there, he would probably have done what the Bishop did[63].  Why, then, it may be asked, was Livingstone so ill-pleased when it was said that all that the Bishop had done was done by his advice?  No one will ask this question who reads the terms of a letter by Mr. Rowley, one of the Mission party, first published in the Cape papers, and copied into the Times in November, 1862.  It was said there that “from the moment when Livingstone commenced the release of slaves, his course was one of aggression.  He hunted for slaving parties in every direction, and when he heard of the Ajawa making slaves in order to sell to the slavers, he went designedly in search of them, and intended to take their captives from them by force if needful.  It is true that when he came upon them he found them to be a more powerful body than he expected, and had they not fired first, he might have withdrawn....  His parting words to the chiefs just before he left ... were to this effect:  ’You have hitherto seen us only as fighting men but it is not in such a character we wish you to know us[64].’” How could Livingstone be otherwise than indignant to be spoken of as if the use of force had been his habit, while the whole tenor of his life had gone most wonderfully to show the efficacy of gentle and brotherly treatment?  How could he but be vexed at having the odium of the whole proceedings thrown on him, when his last advice to the missionaries had been disregarded by them?  Or how could he fail to be concerned at the discredit which the course ascribed to him must bring upon the Expedition under his command, which was entirely separate from the Mission?  It was the unhandsome treatment of himself and reckless periling of the character and interests of his Expedition in order to shield