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Chapter XXII.
Sketch of Previous South African History.

The Duke of Newcastle was sincerely desirous for the welfare of the colonies. The condition of the Cape of Good Hope had been growing steadily more and more perplexing. Native wars involving military expenditure both in men and in money, seemed a part of the normal history of South Africa. The crisis, which culminated in the "boycotting" of the Government on account of the convict ships in 1849, was accompanied and followed by serious disturbances upon the frontier and a prolonged Kafir war. The numerous bodies of Dutch colonists who at various times, especially after 1833, when slavery was abolished, "trekked" to the northward caused great uneasiness, and led to the abandonment of the Orange River sovereignty and the treaty with the Boers of the Transvaal Republic.

The Cape had shared in the general advantages arising from the granting of local self-government to the colonies, and the first page 170representative Parliament was to meet in 1854. The increased powers given to the colonists at the Cape did not seem likely to render any more easy the task of governing the heterogeneous mass of diverse races and interests existing under British rule in South Africa, and closely bordering upon British territory.

The presence of the Governor of New Zealand, fresh from his successful tasks in the far South, seemed to provide the man wanted by the Colonial Office in its extremity. The Duke, therefore, approached Sir George Grey and requested his assistance at the Cape. As, nine years before, Lord Stanley had placed before him the offer of New Zealand, and urged as strong inducements in themselves the peril, the toil, and the arduous nature of the duties thus proposed, so now the Duke of Newcastle pointed out the dangers which surrounded the Government of South Africa, and the difficulty of obtaining the necessary aid, as reasons why Sir George Grey should accede to the request of Her Majesty's ministers in this respect.

Deeply attached as he was to New Zealand and its people of both races, anxious almost beyond measure to witness and guide the working of those liberal institutions which he had done so much to frame, Sir George decided to act in the manner dictated by duty. Without hesitation he accepted the Governorship of the Cape.

When Bartholomew Diaz and Vasco di Gama doubled the Cape in 1486 and 1497, a marble cross was erected on the shore as a token of the annexation of that land to the Portuguese Kingdom, as well as a monument of gratitude to God for His mercies. The country never was absolutely possessed by Portugal. When they were supplanted by the Dutch, the latter also merely took nominal possession.

It was not until the middle of the seventeenth century that any act of colonisation was attempted. In 1652 Jan Anthony Van Riebeck, a surgeon in the employment of the Dutch East India Company, was duly commissioned to occupy the "Cabo de Bon Esperanza." Accompanied by about one hundred people, he arrived and encamped under Table Mountain on the 5th of April of the same year. He first formally purchased the territory in 1671. Under Simon Van der Stell, the ablest of Riebeck's successors, a number of French refugee Huguenots, of high rank and noble page 171character, who with their wives and families were driven from France by the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, joined the parties of Dutch emigrants, beginning in 1687. In 1688 and 1689 other shiploads followed.

After a century of rough history, in 1795, Admiral Elphinstone and General Craig, with a British fleet and forces, took possession. The Dutch resisted, although the English brought a letter from the Prince of Orange; but at length the place was given up to England on the 12th November, 1795.

The Cape was promised to Holland at the Peace of Amiens, 1802, and restored to her in 1803, when General Janssens took office. With the aid of the Commissary-General, De Mist, Janssens governed wisely for a little time, but war soon recommenced. General Baird was sent to the Cape, and, after a smart action, Janssens, who had done all that a brave man could, accepted the very honourable terms offered by Sir David Baird, and the Cape became finally a British colony on the 19th of January, 1806. A final convention was made in 1814, in which the Cape was ceded to the British Crown by the Netherlands.

The history of the Cape during the next forty years was a record of ever-increasing trouble and perplexity. Misunderstandings arose between the Dutch and English colonists, and the Dutch settlers and the English Governor, leading to defiance on the part of the Boers and savage punishment being inflicted on them by the Government of the time. Collisions occuired between the Imperial authorities and the colony, of so grave a nature as almost to threaten the continuance of the Cape as a British possession. Long-continued wars with the natives, always entailing heavy expense and loss; an expenditure of Imperial funds, irksome to the Home authorities and distasteful to Parliament—all contributed to make South Africa a source of annoyance and apprehension to the Ministers of the Crown. Governor after governor, general after general, retired from South Africa baffled and exasperated. As General Cathcart at length put it to the Ministry in London, it required a great statesman to deal with the complex questions raised in South Africa, and a great soldier to direct its military affairs.

The leading events of the five years which preceded the arrival of Sir George Grey were well calculated to perplex the mind of page 172the Secretary of State in whose department lay the care of this dependency. In 1849, the experiment tried by Earl Grey of sending cheap labour in the shape of convicts to the Cape of Good Hope, threw the whole colony into a state of frenzy. In the three years 1850, 1851, and 1852, under Sir Harry Smith and General Cathcart, fierce wars were waged with the native tribes. So overweighted was the English Government by anxiety on account of the Transvaal Boers and the settlers in the Orange River Sovereignty that the Transvaal was declared an Independent Republic and the Orange River Sovereignty a Free State.

On the 18th of January, 1852, the Sand River Convention, for the settling and adjusting of the affairs of the eastern and northeastern boundaries of the Colony of the Cape of Good Hope, was made between Major Hogge and C. M. Owen, Esq., Her Majesty's Assistant Commissioners, and a deputation of Boers, sixteen in number, headed by A. W. J. Pretorius, Commandant-General. Its principal clause runs thus:

"The Assistant Commissioners guarantee in the fullest manner on the part of the British Government to the emigrant farmers beyond the Vaal River the right to manage their own affairs, and to govern themselves according to their own laws without any interference on the part of the British Government, and that no encroachment shall be made by the said Government on the territory beyond the north of the Vaal River, with the further assurance that the warmest wish of the British Government is to promote peace, free trade, and friendly intercourse with the emigrant farmers now inhabiting or who may hereafter inhabit that country; it being understood that this system of non-interference is binding upon both parties."^*

On October 21st, 1851, Earl Grey had written to Sir Harry Smith that "The ultimate abandonment of the Orange River Sovereignty should be a settled point in the Imperial policy." In December, 1852, General Cathcart had attacked the great Basuto chief Moshesh on the Berea, near to the isolated heights of Thaba Bosigo. Alarmed at the prospect of another great native war, the General had, after suffering considerable loss, accepted the formal submission page 173of the cunning Basuto, proclaimed peace, and marched his troops back across the Orange River. He then represented to the English Government the necessity which existed for a final decision. Either they must support a force of two thousand men to uphold the authority of the Crown and resist at the same time Panda and his tribe, Moshesh and the Basutos, and the disaffected burghers and Transvaal emigrants, or they must abandon the sovereignty at once and for ever. Whichever course they adopted, the General requested that some able and experienced statesman might be sent from Great Britain, at any expense, to relieve him of political duties for which his military training did not fit him.

Two years afterwards the gallant soldier, having been recalled, met a warrior's death on the heights of Inkermann.

The despatches of General Cathcart precipitated a crisis in the colonial policy of the Empire. Already in the Sand River Convention the English Government had deliberately cast off large numbers of British subjects. Now a more decisive step was to be taken. Not only were subjects of the Crown to be told that they no longer owed allegiance to the Queen of England, but territories belonging to the Empire, over which its laws ran, and to the soil of which the title of the Crown had been given, were to be deliberately abandoned. After grave consideration, it was decided by Her Majesty's Ministers to relinquish the Orange River Sovereignty.

On the 6th of April, 1853, a commission was issued to Sir George Russell Clark, a distinguished Indian official, who had formerly been Governor of Bombay, appointing him Assistant Commissioner under the High Commissioner, and authorising him to carry the abandonment into effect. The announcement of this astounding decision was received in South Africa with dismay.

The severance was only to be completed if the people publicly desired it. A public meeting was called, at which it was made known that a sum of five thousand pounds would be given by the British Government, in case the abandonment were agreed to, for the purpose of placing the temporary Government in funds. The meeting was not truly representative. A majority, tempted more by the prospect of obtaining control of this sum of money than by any political feeling, carried a resolution agreeing to the terms offered and the severance of the territory from the Empire.

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On the 11th March, 1854, the English flag was hoisted for the last time on the Queen's fort, and saluted. When it was lowered, the flag of the new Republic took its place. Delegates were sent to England to protest against this desertion of British territory and British subjects. On the 16th of March the delegates, Messrs. Fraser and Murray, having arrived in England, waited upon the Duke of Newcastle and laid their case before him. The Duke told them, in reply, that it was too late to discuss the question. The authority of the Queen had been already too far extended. England could not supply troops to maintain constantly-advancing outposts. So far as South Africa was concerned, continued the Duke, this reasoning was unanswerable, as Cape Town and the harbour of Table Bay were all that Great Britain really required there.

The delegates left the Colonial Office sad and dispirited. They opened communications with Mr. C. B. Adderley, afterwards Lord Norton, who had befriended the Cape in the dispute which had arisen five years before upon the question of the transportation of convicts, and whose name had been given to one of the principal streets in Cape Town. Mr. Adderley agreed to bring the matter before the House of Commons. On the 9th of May he moved an address to Her Majesty, praying her to reconsider the order-in-council renouncing sovereignty over the Orange River Territory. His speech dealt mainly with the legal aspect of the question. He doubted the constitutional right of the Crown to alienate British territory and absolve British subjects from their allegiance without the consent of Parliament. The advantages offered by the country as a field for colonisation were but slightly touched upon.

The Attorney-General and a few other members spoke in support of the action of the Government. The belief was unanimously expressed that the step taken by the Ministers was in accordance with law, as well as expedient. Sir John Pakington, formerly Secretary for the Colonies, and Sir Frederick Thesiger concurred in the opinion that it would have been advisable to consult Parliament, but thought the abandonment a wise and judicious step. The debate was lifeless and one-sided. Mr. Adderley, finding that he had not a single supporter, withdrew his motion.

Messrs. Fraser and Murray left the House of Commons with heavy hearts, and sorrowfully returned to South Africa.