European traders and missionaries saw the new monarch as, in the words of Baptist missionary Thomas Comber, "a quiet, well-meaning, young man" and dubbed him young King William. Despite his agreeable nature, young William inherited a state in tatters. His difficult accession was a symptom of the many inter-Isubu conflicts that characterised the coast. Wealth had become just as important as heredity in determining social status, which had allowed several rivals to William's primacy to emerge. Sometime between 1878 and 1879, Thomas Comber asked William to prevent a Bimbian man from being hanged for witchcraft. William expressed his agreement that something should be done but stated that he was too afraid to call the chiefs to a palaver in Williamstown, his capital. The king explained that Comber would have to get several other powerful Bimbian chiefs to agree to take action, since they had just as much power as William did.