In September the German inquiries of the Foreign Office assumed a more pertinent nature, and to the uncultured mind would carry an alarming significance.
The British Foreign Office was asked "quite unofficially" and for the private information of the German Government, whether Great Britain claimed suzerainty rights over Angra Pequena and the adjacent territory; and if so, to explain upon what grounds the claim was based.
This necessitated another reference to the Cape of Good Hope; but in the meantime a party of English traders, disgusted at the delay at home in annexing the south-west coast, resolved to take action on their own account, and set off for Angra Pequena with the fixed determination—of which they gave the Government due notice—of expelling the Germans.
Instructions were immediately sent out for a gunboat to proceed to the spot to prevent a collision between the British and Germans, as the whole question of jurisdiction was still the "subject of inquiry."
H.M.S. Boadicea proceeded on instructions to Angra Pequena, and her Commander was able to report, on her return to Simon's Bay on the Cape station, that no collision had taken place.
In November, 1883, the British Foreign Office intimated to the German Government that a report on South West Africa was in course of preparation, but that while British sovereignty had not been proclaimed excepting over Walfisch Bay and the islands, the Government considered that any claim to sovereignty or jurisdiction by a foreign Power between the Portuguese border and the frontier of the Cape Colony (the Orange River) would infringe Great Britain's legitimate rights.
Early in 1884 the German Government, in a dispatch to the British Foreign Office, pointed out that the fact that British sovereignty had not been proclaimed over South West Africa permitted of doubt as to the legal claim of the British Government, as well as to the practical application of the same; the German Government having clearly in mind the avowal of a fixed intention on the part of the British Government not to extend jurisdiction over the coast territory excepting in so far as Walfisch Bay and the islands were concerned.
The dispatch argued that events had shown that the British Government did not claim sovereignty in the territory, but as a matter of fact the Government had emphatically declined to assume that responsibility.
The German dispatch concluded by asking our Government for a statement of the title upon which any claim for sovereignty over the territory was based, and what provision existed for securing legal protection for German subjects in their commercial enterprises and property, in order that the German Government might be relieved of the duty of providing direct protection for its subjects in that territory.
Here, again, was a deprecation on the part of Germany of any other ambition than to secure protection for life and property of German subjects.