changed the sentiments of the Free State.
Federation, then, was impossible. On the other hand, the Transvaal was
in a state of political unrest and of danger from native aggression,
which gave a pretext for reversion to the long-abandoned policy of
annexation, and to that extreme Carnarvon promptly went in April, 1877.
He took this dangerous course without ascertaining the considered wishes
of the majority of the Boers, acting through his emissary, Sir T.
Shepstone, on the informal application of a minority of townsmen who
honestly wished to come under British rule.

Rash as the measure was, lasting good might have come of it had the
essential step been taken of preserving representative government. The
promise was given and broken. For three years the Assembly, or
Volksraad, was not summoned. Once more home statesmanship was blind, and
local administration blunderingly oppressive. Shepstone was the wrong
man for the post of Administrator. Sir Owen Lanyon, his successor, was
an arrogant martinet of the stamp familiar in Canada before 1840, and
painfully familiar in Ireland. The refusal of an Assembly naturally
strengthened the popular demand for a reversal of the annexation, and
this demand, twice pressed in London through a deputation headed by Paul
Kruger, obscured the whole issue, and raised a question of British
national pride, with all its inevitable consequences, where none need
have been raised. There was a moment of hope when Sir Bartle Frere, who
stands, perhaps, next to Sir George Grey on the roll of eminent High
Commissioners, endeavoured to pacify the Boer malcontents, and drafted
the scheme of a liberal Constitution for the Transvaal. But one of the
last acts of the Tory Government, at the end of 1879, was to recall
Frere for an alleged transgression of his powers in regard to the Zulu
War, and to pigeon-hole his scheme. Mr. Gladstone, who in opposition
had denounced the annexation with good enough justification, though in
terms which under the circumstances were immoderate, found himself
compelled to confirm it when he took office in April, 1880. But he, too,
allowed the liberal Constitution to sleep in its pigeon-hole. He was
assured by the officials on the spot that there was no danger, that the
majority were loyal, and only a minority of turbulent demagogues
disloyal; and in December, 1880, the rebellion duly broke out, and the
Transvaal Republic was proclaimed. What followed we know, war, Laing's
Nek,