e one, and they saw farther ahead than the men who
worked the political machine at Cape Town. Froude was too sanguine
when he wrote, "A Confederate South African Dominion, embracing all
the States, both English and Dutch, under a common flag, may be expected
as likely to follow, and perhaps at no very distant period." But he
added that it would have to come by the deliberate action of the
South African communities themselves. That was not the only
discovery he had made in South Africa. He had found that the
Transavll, reputed then and long afterwards in England to be
worthless, was rich in minerals, including gold. He warned the
Colonial Office that Cetewayo, with forty thousand armed men, was a
serious danger to Natal. He saw clearly, and said plainly that
unless South Africa was to be despotically governed, it must be
administered with the consent and approval of the Dutch. He dwelt
strongly upon the danger of allowing and encouraging natives to
procure arms in Griqualand West as an enticement to work for the
diamond owners. The secret designs of Sir Theophilus Shepstone he
did not penetrate, and therefore he was unprepared for the next
development in the South African drama. The South African Conference
in London, which he attended during August, 1876, led to no useful
result because Molteno, though he had come to London, and was
discussing the affairs of Griqualand with Lord Carnarvon, refused to
attend it. This was the end of South African Confederation, and the
permissive Act of 1877, passed after the Transvaal had been annexed,
remained a dead letter on the Statute Book.

Although the immediate purpose of Froude's visits to South Africa
was not attained, it would be a mistake to infer that they had no
results at all. Early in 1877 the annexation of the Transvaal, to
which Froude was strongly opposed, changed the whole aspect of
affairs, and from that time the strongest opponents of Federalism
were the Dutch. But the credit of settling with the Orange Free
State a dispute which might have led to infinite mischief is as much
Froude's as Carnarvon's, and as a consequence of their wise conduct
President Brand became for the rest of his life a steady friend to
the British power in South Africa. Ninety thousand pounds was a
small price to pay for the double achievement of reconciling a model
State and wiping out a stain upon England's honour.

More than four years after his second return from South Africa, in
Januar