After this all became quiet and the volunteers returned to Kimberley. The whole of the affair was much exaggerated, two men could just as satisfactorily have arranged the dispute between the Koranna and the Dutchman as two hundred.
Hermanus Lynx, the unfortunate captain of the Korannas, was confined for months a prisoner in the Kimberley jail, and Major Maxwell, the inspector of prisons, was compelled to state, when as vice-president of the legislative council I called for the papers in the case, “I have no warrant for his detention nor papers of any kind.” In a written statement which Hermanus Lynx afterward made, he imploringly said: “I want to know what I have done to merit my having been kept in prison for the past eight months. I have not committed theft nor killed any person.... I am not afraid.” As I have before mentioned I brought this poor fellow’s case before the council by asking the simple question: “For what crime and under what warrant is Hermanus Lynx confined a prisoner in the Kimberley jail?”
The illegality, the cruelty, with which this unfortunate chief had been treated would not bear exposure, consequently before the day came round on which my question must have been answered by the government Hermanus Lynx was a free man. This act of simple justice came too late to repair the injury done him. The government on his liberation supplied him with a tent, wagon and rations, but within a week he died on the banks of the Vaal River, ruined and heart-broken, having covered only twenty-five miles of his homeward journey.
Since the events chronicled in this chapter there has been no further disturbance among the natives in the country districts of Griqualand, for the possibly very excellent reason that there are no independent natives left.
About this time my colleague, Mr. George Bottomley, introduced an act into the legislative council amending the liquor laws of the province, which was much needed,[[64]] and I fathered a private bill authorizing the supply of Kimberley with water from the Vaal River; but with the exception of continued progressive diamond legislation (which has been elsewhere fully detailed) nothing further of particular moment came before the council that session.
CHAPTER XXII.
COLONEL WARREN AND MR. JUSTICE DE WET PUT THEIR HANDS TO THE PLOUGH.—VISIT OF MESSRS. SPRIGG AND UPINGTON. PIE-CRUST PROMISES.—MY PROTEST IN THE LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL AGAINST ANNEXATION.—DEPARTURE OF MR. ROSE INNES, C. M. G., LAST ACTING ADMINISTRATOR.—ELECTION FOR CAPE HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY.
When Colonel Lanyon was sent by the imperial government to the Transvaal, Colonel (now Sir Charles) Warren was appointed acting administrator in Feb. 1879. His short “acting” career was characterized by procedures, which, if not strictly illegal, yet exhibited a great amount of impulsive self-will, which many times carried him a little too far. This was especially marked in his treatment of Mr. Advocate Lord, Q. C., the attorney general, which created for that gentleman, at the time, an immense amount of sympathy; Sir Bartle Frere, after he had fully studied both sides of the question, absolutely canceling the order suspending Mr. Lord from office, which he had made at the suggestion of the acting administrator. Such actions, however, caused less surprise when it was reported that Colonel Warren was also suffering from the effects of an accident, met with I believe, in the Perie Bush; but of this the public was not long kept in suspense, as a climax was reached in October of the same year, when the acting administrator had suddenly to leave the province, in the care of the government surgeon.
Griqualand West was then blessed (or cursed) with another acting administrator in the person of Mr. Justice de Wet (now Sir Jacobus), who administered the government until the arrival of his successor, Mr. Rose Innes, C. M. G., who in reality came like an assignee’s agent to wind up an estate, or in other words to prepare the territory for annexation.
To return to the visit of Messrs. Sprigg and Upington. As these gentlemen occupied the positions of premier and attorney general of the Cape Colony respectively, great importance was attached to their visit, as the conjecture was generally entertained that they had come to “spy out the land.” At a public dinner given them, these gentlemen gave forth what the inhabitants of the diamond fields thought no uncertain sound.