tent to every observer," writes Sir T. Shepstone, "that
the Government (of the Transvaal) was powerless to control either
its white citizens or its native subjects; that it was incapable of
enforcing its laws or of collecting its taxes; that the Treasury was
empty; that the salaries of officials had been and are months in
arrear; that sums payable for the ordinary and necessary expenditure
of government cannot be had, and that such services as postal
contracts were long and hopelessly overdue; that the white
inhabitants had become split into factions; that the large native
populations within the boundaries of the State ignore its authority
and laws; and that the powerful Zulu king, Cetchwayo, is anxious to
seize upon the first opportunity of attacking a country the conduct
of whose warriors has convinced him that it can be easily conquered
by his clamouring regiments." He again writes: "I think it necessary
to explain, more at length than I was able to do in my last
despatch, the circumstances which seem to me to forbid all hope that
the Transvaal Republic is capable of maintaining the show even of
independent existence any longer, which induced me to consider it my
duty to assume this position in my communications with the President
and Executive Council, and which have convinced me that, if I were
to leave the country in its present condition, I should but expose
the inhabitants to anarchy among themselves, and to attack from the
natives, that would prove not only fatal to the Republic, but in the
highest degree dangerous to her Majesty's possessions and subjects
in South Africa."

The proclamation of the annexation of the Transvaal was issued on
the 12th of April 1876, and on the previous day Sir T. Shepstone
wrote: "There will be a protest against my act of annexation issued
by the Government, but they will at the same time call upon the
people to submit quietly, pending the issue. You need not be
disquieted by such action, because it is taken merely to save
appearances, and the members of the Government from the violence of
a faction that seems for years to have held Pretoria in terror when
any act of the Government displeased it. You will better understand
this when I tell you privately that the President has from the first
fully acquiesced in the necessity for the change, and that most of
the members of the Government have expressed themselves anxious for
it--but none of them have had the courage openly to expre