"armed force which is acting in the name and under the authority of the Transvaal Government,”—and which was undoubtedly the Transvaal army fighting for the just or unjust claims of the country, but when that armed force had run away after an ineffective effort to drive the enemy from his stronghold!

Whether Mr. Burgers ever received that message I do not know. It was not written till a day or two after the arrival of Sir Theophilus Shepstone at Pretoria,—to which place he had then gone up as British Commissioner, and could hardly have been handed to the President much before the final overthrow of his authority. Under these circumstances we may hope that he was spared the annoyance of reading it. But other annoyances, some from the same source, must surely have been enough to crush any man, even one so sanguine as Mr. Burgers. During all the latter period of his office he was subjected to a continued hail-storm of reproaches as to slavery from British authorities and British newspapers. These reached him generally from the Cape Colony, and Mr. Burgers, who had come from the Cape, must have known his own old Colony well enough himself to have been sure that if not refuted they would certainly lead to disaster. I do not believe that Mr. Burgers had any leaning towards slavery. He was by no means a Boer among Boers, but has come rather of a younger class of men and from a newer school. But he could only exist in the Transvaal by means of the Boers, and in his existing condition could not exert himself for the fulfilment of the clause of the treaty which forbad slavery.

Then he had against him a tribe of natives whom he could not conquer, and at the same time the British Government and British feeling. And he had not a shilling in the Treasury. Nominal taxes there were;— South Africa. II.

but no one would pay them. As they were all direct taxes, it was open to the people to pay them or to decline to do so. And they declined. As no one had any confidence in anything, why should any one pay five or ten pounds to a tax gatherer who had no constable at his back to enforce payment? No one did do so, and there was not a shilling in the Treasury. This was the condition of the South African Republic when Sir Theophilus Shepstone arrived at Pretoria on January 22nd, 1877, with six or seven other gentlemen from Natal and a guard of 25 mounted policemen.

CHAPTER III.

The Transvaal.-Annexation.

I HAVE endeavoured in the last chapter to tell very shortly the story of the South African Republic and to describe its condition at the moment when our Secretary of State at home took the unusual step of sending a British Commissioner, - not with orders to take possession of the land but with orders which have been held to justify the act when done. I doubt whether there is a precedent for so high-handed a deed in British history. It is as though the rulers of Germany were to say that in their opinion the existence of a Switzerland in Europe was deleterious and dangerous, and that therefore they would abolish Switzerland as a Republic, and annex its territory. It will be said that the case would be different because Switzerland is well governed and prosperous. But the Germans in such a case would say that they thought otherwise, which is what we say here,—and that they therefore took it. It was we who found fault with the management of that other Republic and we who have taken possession of the land. It is well that the

whole truth as to the matter should be understood. If we had done this act in compliance with the expressed wish of the inhabitants generally, that would be a justification. But it cannot fairly be said that such was the case here. A nation with a popular parliament can only be held to express its opinion to another nation by the voice of its parliament;-and the Volksraad of the Transvaal was altogether opposed to the interference of Great Britain. I will touch upon this matter again presently when alluding to the words of the Commission given to the British Commissioner by the Secretary of State at home; but I think it must be acknowledged that no other expression of opinion, unless it be a general rising of a people, can be taken as national. In nine cases out of ten petitions ought to be held to mean nothing. They cannot be verified. They show the energy of the instigators of the petition and not of the petitioners. They can be signed by those who have and by those who have not an interest in the matter. The signatures to them can be readily forged. At home in England the right of petitioning is so dear to us from tradition that we still cling to it as one of the bulwarks of our freedom; but there cannot be a statesman, hardly a Member of Parliament among us, who does not feel that pen and ink and agitating management have become so common that petitions are seldom now entitled to much respect.

nature.

It may perhaps be said that we have repeatedly done the same thing in India. But a little thinking will show that our Indian annexations have been quite of a different There we have gone on annexing in opposition to the barbarism and weakness of native rule against which our presence in India has, from the first, been a protest. Each annexation has been the result of previous

conquest and has been caused by non-compliance with the demands of the conquerors. In the Transvaal we have annexed a dominion which was established by ourselves in express obedience to our own requisitions, which was in the possession of European rulers, which was altogether independent, and as to the expediency of annexing which we have had nothing to guide us but our own judgment and our own will. It is as though a strong boy should say to a weak one, "It is better that I should have that cricket bat than you," and should therefore take it.

The case will seem to be still stronger if it shall appear, as I think it will, that Sir Theophilus Shepstone, the Commissioner appointed to this work, did what he did do without complete authority. It is evident that there was doubt in the Colonial Office at home. The condition of the Transvaal was very bad. Slavery was rampant. The Natives were being encouraged to rebellion. The President was impotent. The Volksraad was stiff-necked and ignorant. There was no revenue, no order, no obedience. The Dutch seemed to have forgotten even the way to fight. What were we to do with such neighbours,—for whose inefficiency we were in a measure responsible, having ourselves established the Republic? That we must interfere for our own protection in regard to the Natives seemed to be necessary. As has been said so often, there was a house on fire next door to us, in the flames of which we might ourselves be enveloped. Remonstrances had been frequent and had been altogether ineffectual. The Republic was drifting, -nay, had drifted into Chaos. If any other people could have assisted us in putting out the fire, French, Germans, or Italians,—so that we might not seem to tyrannise,—it Iwould have been so comfortable! But in South Africa

we had none to help us. And then though this Republic was more than half Dutch it was also only less than half English.

Something must be done; and therefore an order was sent out directing Sir Theophilus Shepstone to go to Pretoria and see what he could do. Sir Theophilus was and for many years had been Minister for Native Affairs in the Colony of Natal, and was credited,—no doubt correctly, with knowing more about the Natives than any other European in South Africa. He was a man held in special respect by the King of the Zulus, and the King of the Zulus was in truth the great power whom both Dutch and English would dread should the natives be encouraged to rebel. When men have talked of our South African house being in danger of fire, Cetywayo the King of the Zulus has been the fire to whom they have alluded. So Sir Theophilus started on his journey taking his Commission in his pocket. He took a small body of policemen with him as an escort, but advisedly not a body that might seem by its number to intimidate even so weak a Government as that of the South African Republic.

The writing of the Commission must have been a work of labour, requiring much thought, and a great weighing of words. It had to be imperative and yet hemmed in by all precautions; giving clear instruction, and yet leaving very much to the Commissioner on the spot who would have his work to do in a distant country not connected with the world by telegraph wires. The Commission is long and I will not quote it all; but it goes on to say that "if the emergency should seem to you to be such as to render it necessary, in order to secure the peace and safety of Our said Colonies and of Our subjects elsewhere that the said territories, or any portion