[19] The High Commissioner writes: "Government has done its best to avoid war by every means consistent with honour, and now feels bound to use the power with which it has been entrusted to secure the future peace and safety alike of her Majesty's dominions in South Africa, and of the Zulus and all other neighbouring tribes and people."—Memorandum of his Excellency the High Commissioner, 13th January, 1879.
With reference to the disputed Transvaal land awarded to Cetywayo, it has been argued that the territory in question should have been handed over to this savage potentate without any reference to the rights of private proprietors who had settled down and acquired domiciles. The Chief Justice of the Cape Colony, Sir J. H. De Villiers (Blue Book, July, 1879), gives a very lengthy and interesting opinion upon this subject. His Honour holds that if negotiations had been entered into between the British Government and Cetywayo for the purpose of a convention defining the mutual rights of the parties, the equitable view would have been entitled to as much weight as the legal view. The arguments used by Sir Bartle Frere are so weighty, that if they had been addressed to a potentate who is capable of understanding them, and at the same time is open to reason, they would certainly have induced him to relinquish his private rights to the land, retaining only his sovereign rights.
[20] Despatch of the Lieutenant-General commanding-in-chief to the Secretary of State, 14th January, 1879.
[21] Extract from semi-official letter to the High Commissioner, dated 12th January, 1879.
[22] Lieutenant-Colonel Crealock—Statement to Court-Martial.
[23] Major Clery, chief of the staff, third column—Evidence before Court-Martial.
[24] See Statement by Natives, and Statement by W. Drummond, Headquarters Staff.—Blue Books.
[25] See Statement of Lieutenant-Colonel Crealock, Acting Military Secretary.
[26] This excludes the sick, who were thirty-five in number.
[27] See report from Colonel Schermbrucker to Colonel Evelyn Wood.—Parliamentary Blue Book.