north of the Vaal river, but in which we declared that we had no "wish or intention" to enter into such treaties. No doubt that clause was intended to imply only that we had at that time no hidden notion of interference with the doings of the proposed Republic by arrangements with its native neighbours,—no notion of which it was to be kept in the dark. To think the contrary would be to suppose that the occupants of the Colonial Office at home were ignorant of language and destitute of honesty. But there soon came troubles from the clause which must have caused many regrets in the bosoms of Secretaries and Under Secretaries. Now at any rate we are all sure that Downing Street must repent her liberality, and wish,—ah, so fruitlessly,—that Sir George Clerk had never been sent upon that expedition. With a Permissive South Africa Confederation Bill carried after infinite trouble, and an independent State in the middle of South Africa very little inclined to Confederation, the present holder of the Colonial seals[1] cannot admire much the peculiar virtue which in 1854 induced his predecessor to surrender the Orange territory to the Dutch in opposition to the wish of all the then inhabitants of the country.
For the surrender was not made to please the people of the country. Down in Natal the Dutch had wanted a Republic. Up in the Sovereignty, as it was then called, they also had wanted a Republic when old Pretorius was at their head. But since that time there had come troubles with the Basutos,—troubles which were by no means ended,—and the Dutch were now willing enough to put up
- ↑ Lord Carnarvon was Colonial Secretary when this was written.
