h an attack from the Zulus as an argument
for advancing the Annexation." Under such an imputation the Government
could no longer keep silence, and accordingly Sir Owen Lanyon, who was
then Administrator of the Transvaal, caused the matter to be officially
investigated, with these results, which are summed up by him in a letter
to Mr. Pretorius, dated 1st May 1879:--

1. The records of the Republican Executive Council contained no allusion
to any such statement.

2. Two members of that Council filed statements in which they
unreservedly denied that Sir T. Shepstone used the words or threats
imputed to him.

3. Two officers of Sir T. Shepstone's staff, who were always present
with him at interviews with the Executive Council, filed statements to
the same effect.

"I have no doubt," adds Sir Owen Lanyon, "that the report has been
originated and circulated by some evil-disposed persons."

In addition to this evidence we have a letter written to the Colonial
Office by Sir T. Shepstone, dated London, August 12, 1879, in which
he points out that Mr. Pretorius was not even present at any of the
interviews with the Executive Council on which occasion he accuses him
of having made use of the threats. He further shows that the use of such
a threat on his part would have been the depth of folly, and "knowingly
to court the instant and ignominious failure of my mission," because
the Boers were so persuaded of their own prowess that they could not be
convinced that they stood in any danger from native sources, and also
because "such play with such keen-edged tools as the excited passions of
savages are, and especially such savages as I knew the Zulus to be, is
not what an experience of forty-two years in managing them inclined me
to." And yet, in the face of all this accumulated evidence, this report
continues to be believed, that is, by those who wished to believe it.

Such are the accusations that have been brought against the manner
of the Annexation and the Officer who carried it out, and never were
accusations more groundless. Indeed both for party purposes, and from
personal animus, every means, fair or foul, has been used to discredit
it and all connected with it. To take a single instance, one author
(Miss Colenso, p. 134, "History of the Zulu War") actually goes the
length of putting a portion of a speech made by President Burgers into
the mouth of Sir T. Shepstone, and then abusing him for his incredible
profanity. S