rial authorities, the obstructions and eventual
dismissal of the Molteno-Merriman Ministry--the first under
Responsible Government--Natal and Diamond-fields affairs, and, above
all, the Zulu War, all combined to prevent Sir Bartle Frere from
fulfilling his obligations to settle Transvaal matters.

In the meantime two deputations had been sent to England,
representing the Boers' case against annexation. The active party
among the Boers, _i.e._, the Voortrekker party, the most anti-British
and Republican, though small in itself, had now succeeded in
completely dominating the rest of the Boers, and galvanizing them
into something like national life and cohesion again--a result
achieved partly by earnest persuasion, but largely also by a kind of
terrorism.

Sir Bartle Frere, who managed at last to visit the Transvaal, in
April, 1879, had evidence of this on his journey up, and in a
despatch to Sir M. Hicks Beach from Standerton on the 6th of that
month he wrote:

I was particularly impressed by the replies of a very fine specimen
of a Boer of the old school. He had been six weeks in an English
prison, daily expecting execution as a rebel, and had been wounded by
all the enemies against whom his countrymen had fought--English,
Zulus, Basutos, Griquas, and Bushmen.

'But,' he said, 'that was in the days of my youth and inexperience.
Had I known then what I know now, I would never have fought against
the English, and I will never fight them again. Old as I am, I would
now gladly turn out against the Zulus, and take fifty friends of my
own, who would follow me anywhere; but I dare not leave my home till
assured it will not be destroyed and my property carried off in my
absence, by the men who call me "rebel" because I will not join them
against the Government. My wife, brought up like a civilized woman in
the Cape Colony, has had five times in her life to run from the house
and sleep in the veld when attacked by Zulus and Basutos. One of our
twelve sons was assegaied in sight of our house, within the last ten
it was surrounded by Basutos, my wife had to fly in the night by
herself, leading one child and carrying another on her back. She
walked nearly fifty miles through the Lion Veld, seeing three lions
on the way, before she reached a place of safety. It is not likely
that we should forget such things, nor wish them to recur; but how
can I leave her on my farm and go to Zululand, when the malcontent
leaders threaten me t